The Lunar Guardsman

by Crimmar

Rating: mature
Tags: Adventure, Violence, Princess Celestia, Human, Main 6, Princess Luna, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Original Character
Length: 699600

Twilight and Spike lived their childhood in Canterlot Castle under the benevolent eye of Princess Celestia and violent protection of her resident, so called, monster. A monster she returns to to find peace with but also unexpected danger and threats.

A strange and unique being has been making its home at Celestia's Castle for some years now. Despite its violent nature and mysterious origins it has been given the Princess' friendship and trust. Princess Celestia even assigned the cryptic creature as her young student's guard, giving Twilight and Spike a resolute guardian, friend and more.
Years later, an older Twilight has been living in Ponyville for a year, when she reveals to her friends the creature's influence during her childhood and a schism between her and it of her own creation that distanced them even before she left Canterlot.
Now, Twilight returns to Canterlot, accompanied with her friends, to mend a relationship she left broken for too long. But during her stay she will find out that many things had never been as they seemed, more have changed and monsters reside in everyone's soul, clawing for a chance to come out.

There is now a TV Tropes page.

Story edited by :
Mr-Dr-Prof Sweetness
SirReal
Past editor:
Requiem17

Published 2015-10-11 13:50:02 UTC
Last updated 2022-02-22 17:27:23 UTC

Ch.03 - Be still my heart

There are many ponies who claim that the citizens of Canterlot are obnoxious bastards. Always looking down on every other city, town and village around Equestria. They are the sort that walk on the clean, most prestigious and classy streets of Manehattan wearing the same expression on their face that they would if they were standing on a landfill instead. They are offensive, loud-mouthed, irritable and nasty. Not all of them of course, but enough to paint the condescending stereotype over all ponies who make their home in the Capital.

But when the critics of these ponies make the trip to Canterlot and walk its perfectly paved streets they stop to admire the arching architecture. They feast at the expensive but absolutely outstanding restaurants and cafes that serve the best that all of Equestria has to offer, weep and laugh at the multitude of extraordinary plays and art exhibitions, revel in the impeccable weather that surrounds the mighty city and gaze outwards into the majestic green view of the whole country that is offered by their standing place, high atop mount Canterlot. And at the end of the day, well, there is only one conclusion those ponies can reach.

Those obnoxious bastards might be on to something here.

You could spend your whole life living here with an unlimited budget and a completely responsibility-free schedule, something which many residents with zero self-insight would deny having, and never taste as much as half the rich bounty Canterlot has to offer in its golden lunch trolley. There is a paradise and it costs a thousand bits per day. Minus residential expenses.

Let's just ignore those little things. There's no need to distress ourselves so soon.

Undoubtedly, even in this mecca of style, class, finesse and lots of not-so-hidden secret pleasure dens, there is one temple that is the absolute pinnacle of perfection. To visit it is to know awe and astonishment. It is the deep-ingrained belief that will settle in your bones that you stood on the threshold of heaven. It is the realization that everything that's claimed about Canterlot would be a load of musky horseapples that overstayed their welcome in the sun, without this particular ode to the caretakers of the heavens.

"Girls, welcome to Canterlot Castle."

"Uh, thanks Twilight, but we kinda have been here before, you know?" Rainbow Dash countered Twilight's warm welcome to her former abode with the level of grace usually only possessed by rocks. Big, hard ones.

"I, I know, I just meant..." Twilight stammered.

"Like, more times than one."

Rarity decided to take mercy on both of her friends and nip this at the bud. "Rainbow dear, Twilight was just trying to be courteous." Truly, for a mare so dedicated to distancing herself from any semblance of literacy, among other things, Rainbow would grip occasionaly herself on technicalities in casual conversation with a pathos usually reserved for the most fastidious grammar professors.

She accepted Twilight's thankful grin with a smiling nod and endured Rainbow's groan with silence.

They were moving down the main entrance hall. Large, lavish staircases, barred by rigid Royal Guards, led to the upper floors. High above them, Rarity noticed, that the design depicting Princess Celestia's Cutie Mark, bordered by the dawn and sunset, had been replaced with a fresh mural of a stylized Celestia and Luna rotating each other, both of them bathed by the light of their respective charge. Light, both natural and that of the extravagant chandeliers, was blocked by a rim around the mural so it could shine with the magic that was imbued in it. Rarity's inner designer felt a burning desire to confirm her suspicion that come moonrise the art would glow with a completely different radiance.

"Day and Night together again," she thought. Appropriate, she considered, as Princess Luna should someday soon be put back at the forefront of ruling Equestria next to her sister, that Canterlot Castle slowly changed to accommodate both their graces in equal measure. She wondered how much more would change with the Lunar Diarch's rule apart from the decor.

A question left for a lesser day! Today, they had a meeting with the Princess Celestia to attend. No matter how many times she would meet her ruler, Rarity always felt a thrill. The impeccable manners, the savoir faire, the luminous presence. True Royalty was defined by her words and actions alone. Oh, she could just start giggling with anticipation like a schoolfilly.

"Remember yourself, Rarity," she warned herself. She casually straightened her shoulders, in case somepony was watching, and discreetly inspected her friends.

She was in the head of their little procession, intermittently side by side with Pinkie Pie as the pink earth pony hopped to admire her reflection on every polished surface and ask everypony they passed for their names, randomly returning at her place to share her experiences with the group, some of them involving ponies and places they clearly never met or had been. Rarity paid enough attention to nod at the proper places and keep only the last sentence said in her memory. Her usual stratagem in dealing with Pinkie when she was like this was to simply nod and smile. In fact, most of her interactions with Pinkie Pie involved nodding along and smiling -something she suspected the candy crazed mare had figured out, considering the large number of occasions she found herself agreeing too late into assisting with party decorating and alligator gum brushing.

Behind them followed Applejack and Rainbow Dash. It had been a long struggle, with many eardrums threatening to commit honorable suicide to escape the nagging and complaining that followed each other in an unending cycle, but she finally managed to get them both to at least brush their manes and tails. Applejack was pretty compliant after only a bit of grumbling, mostly to keep up appearances as Rarity believed, and after a thorough brushing, along with some underhoofed spraying of conditioner, her mane was sparkling like a golden field of mature wheat in the sun.

Then came Rainbow Dash's turn and, by all that is left holy in this world, Rarity was ready to kill herself after thirty seconds, come back to life as a zombie, plunge Equestria into an Age of Darkness and drag the instrument of her torture back to Tartarus where she belonged. She knew about screeching, raised fur and clawing, she had a cat and a little sister after all, but this was supposed to be a grown pony, not an amalgamation of high-pitched screams and thrashing. Every movement of the comb was torture, both to her magic field that toiled to undo the myriad of wind-made hair knots, and her poor, desolate sanity. Rainbow claimed she was horribly hurt by "the psycho-mare" but what did she know about pain? Try making your living working with hundreds of small, pointy needles, in a shop where real "psycho-mares" rush in a daily basis spreading the tiny harbingers of pain across every seemingly innocent surface and then you can talk about pain.

At the very least, all she had to do later on to stop Rainbow from tousling her mane, taking flight or appraising any open window was to pull out the hairbrush and show it to her, followed with a hiss from Rarity's clenched teeth.

Right between the two mares she had smartened up, huddled poor Twilight. Ever since they laid their hooves in Canterlot, Twilight's disposition swapped constantly between that of a young filly eager to show her friends the bedroom her parents had allowed her to paint wholly pink -current anecdote not taken by her personal life, please disregard anything Sweetie Bell says she has heard- and that of an even younger filly that was marching into the living room to let her parents know she burned down everything they ever loved -again, disregard anything you might hear.

Her precious, widdle-little Spikey was the exact opposite. He was riding on top of Twilight's back, his head spinning from one side to another only to swiftly pivot towards any sudden motion he caught in the edge of his eyes. Spike was obviously as anxious as Twilight was but where she seemed to drag her body forward, he was almost trembling in agitation, urging Twilight to walk faster. Rarity prayed with all her heart that the Princess' trust in her friends' surrogate father was not misplaced. She would not be able to bear watching Spike's heart shatter, otherwise.

Fluttershy was the last to follow in their group, as she always was. Where Applejack and Rainbow formed a barrier for Twilight to hide behind for a feeling of safety, Fluttershy resolutely followed Twilight step by step, quietly encouraging her when needed or keeping her mind occupied with various questions she made up on the spot.

Well, everypony seemed to be in as much of an order as they could manage at this point. They approached the massive, gold plated doors that led to the fabled Sun Court that were situated at the end of the hall. She counted six of the renowned Solar Guards keeping watch in front, their platinum colored armor, detailed with golden, stylized sun rays, announcing to all their hallowed position in the hierarchy. Rarity couldn't help but spot the various blades they kept at their sides. Unlike the Royal Guard, the Solars were always equipped with -and had license to use- more weapons than a single, classic spear.

As they came near enough, a Solar unicorn's horn briefly lit in the casting of a short spell. Two of the guards moved to the sides of their group, the other four retaining their position. Rarity tried to catch Twilight's eye for a hint in what they were supposed to do now but the worried mare was keeping her head down, eyes occasionally flicking to her left and right.

The seconds were ticking so Rarity decided to take the initiative. She delicately cleared her throat and with eyes calculatingly half-lidded to entice every stalion or mare in sight she addressed the unicorn stallion standing close to her. "Good morning to you, fine gentlecolts. I am Rarity, owner of Carousel Boutique and bearer of the Element of Generosity. I and my fellow bearers of the Elements of Harmony have been cordially invi-"

"Please wait in your place, Ma'am. My superior has been notified of your presence and will be here shortly."

Ma'am?

It was crystal clear that she was a Miss! Oh, that old buck decided to cross horns with the wrong unicorn. She was just about to let loose a formal statement of her indignation, right in the earhole that stallion idiotically presented to her in his stillness, when one of the great doors opened enough to let another Solar stallion out.

Rarity felt her eyes swim in stars and wished she had decided to wear one of her new ensembles after all. The unicorn that came out to meet them was large, easily the equal of Applejack's handsome brother, and solid muscle quivered under his white coat with every move. His long horn -oh, my- rose majestically out of his coppery mane. His armor was the same as that of his fellow Solars but unlike them, a bronze replica of Celestia's Mark was sculpted in front of his chest and a long, white, gold-trimmed cape covered his back, tied on his neck with golden braids. His austere, gold eyes passed over them and Rarity felt them connect with hers for a heart-shuddering moment.

"I welcome you to Canterlot Castle. I am Princess Celestia's Commander of the Solar Guard, Steadfast Ray," he said and smiled widely, his eyes beaming.

Oh, was this destiny? Was it finally happening?

"Our divine Princess let me know you would arrive today. It is good to see you again, Miss Sparkle," Steadfast said, absently knocking Rarity aside as he made his way in front of Twilight.

As Rarity was climbing up on her legs again, not aided by the unhelpful guards around her, she saw Twilight lock back into a serene look and return the Commander's smile. "It is good to see you too, Commander Steadfast. Princess Celestia invited us to your Tournament," she told him.

"Ah, yes, her Grace has mentioned this," he chuckled, "we were actually just conferring about the candidates. You wouldn't believe the amount of work that is needed in the background of such an occasion. Martial prowess is only an aspect of what is needed in the Solar Guard and we need to make sure that only those truly worth it take on the mantle of this most holy of services to the Crown." He turned around and led them through a smaller side door, down a procession of twisting corridors, slowly making their way upwards. Patrolling Royal Guards saluted the Solar Commander as he passed and maids and other personnel bowed their head before him.

Steadfast Ray coaxed Twilight to follow next to him. At the very least, him talking was keeping Twilight calm. "It is disappointing to see that your brother has once again failed to apply for a position in our prestigious order. Soldiers of his caliber and talents are exactly what we are looking for in our members."

The girls all looked at each other, the same question burning on their lips. What brother? It seemed to Rarity that Twilight kept her family members a close secret - on second thought, she corrected herself, she probably hadn't figured out yet that this was the kind of thing friends shared among them. Her inner gossip tried to voice her questions but was expediently beaten and left tied in a corner by an alliance of her inner propriety, sense of timing, sensitivity and eavesdropper.

"Uh," Twilight threw a short apologetic look to her friends behind her, "Shining always seemed to be happy enough with his current rank. He isn't doing bad for himself, considering."

The eye-dropping stallion nodded. "Canterlot's Captain of the Royal Guard is nothing to sneer at, I give him that. But Raegdan has done Shining Armor a great disservice by stopping him from reaching his full potential." Steadfast smirked at Twilight's panicked 'eep'. "I am the Solar Commander, Miss Twilight. If I want to know something then I will find out easy enough. This is far from Raegdan's greatest sin but I am nothing if not persevering. Shining Armor will see the light one day and we will be waiting for him." Twilight nodded absently, seeming awkward at the direction the conversation had taken. Spike also looked unhappy, frowning at the Commander that had yet to acknowledge his presence.

Canterlot Captain of the Royal Guard is certainly nothing to sneer at, Rarity knew this much at least. Equestria was split into six "districts" as far as guard forces went, each of them under the shared jurisdiction of three captains per territory. Twilight's brother's position as Canterlot Captain was the most illustrious a pony of his rank could get. The only ones to outrank him would be the various district Commanders.

Steadfast Ray seemed to honestly believe that Twilight's brother should give that up for a spot in the Solar Guard as their newest recruit.

Having left a small distance between them and the Solar Commander, Applejack started whispering to Rainbow Dash. "Is every Solar Guard like that?"

"What do you mean?" Rainbow asked.

"What ah mean is," Applejack specified, "is that this guy hasn't even bothered with saying a simple "hey" or glance towards us. And the way he mentions Princess Celestia gives me the creeps."

"Their job is to be badflanks, not nice. And trust me, he keeps his eyes on us. I've heard of this guy, he is the reason the Solar Guard had to double their recruiting Tournaments in recent years. The moment one of them shows the slightest hint of inattention or not being completely devoted, "Rainbow made a sweeping gesture at her throat, "he knocks them off their ranks, just like that." They followed the Commander in silence after that, absently listening to him singing praises for either his Guard or Celestia with every other sentence.

Rarity had to ask. "Why the creeps, Applejack? He has been less than courteous with the rest of us," she gnashed her teeth just an itty bit, "but apart from that..."

"Listen to him," Applejack said nodding towards Steadfast, "hear how he talks about the Princess and stuff?" Applejack lowered her voice even more, forcing Rarity and Rainbow to bend their heads closer together. "Granny told me some stories once or twice, 'bout some ponies who claimed the Princess was a bona fide Goddess. Now, there are a lot of ponies who believe that in some part at least, kind of hard not to with the whole moving the sun and whatnot, but some of those ponies she told me about were all mad about it."

"There were a few in th' old days, she said to me, that would gather up and pray together before sunrise for Celestia to bless'em. Many of 'em were just plain weird about it, doing those little rituals and stuff, maybe that's how they learned it from their folk, but ah few of 'em, oh, a few of them, alright!"

"Some would take any casual mention of Celestia's name as a sin and turn violent to y'all sometimes. Other's forced their kids to crazy stuff trying to make them get a Cutie Mark that had to do with the day or sun so they'd be "holy". Others... others would take the ritual stuff too far. They'd include ponies that weren't there so they'd pray with 'em if you get mah drift," she finished darkly.

Rarity had known about ponies holding those beliefs. She even knew a few of them. But, to go to such lengths... she felt a chill run up her spine. What was the world coming to?

Fluttershy offered her own two bits in the conversation. "I, I once heard about a mare that looked straight at the sun until she got blind. She said she wanted to burn out her sins."

Applejack nodded. "Yeah, well, that's the reason those characters never sat well with me. Too easy to get stringed along to bad choices, granny says, if y'all go believing a pony that claims to hear Celestia's voice coming from the sun."

They stopped in front of what would be an unassuming door if it wasn't for the two Solar Guards standing in front. Commander Steadfast accepted the sharp salute with an imperceptible nod. "I will leave you here. I need to inspect the arena for tomorrow's fights. Her Radiance waits for you inside," he said and retreated in a dignified trot. Rarity noticed Applejack watching him go with relief.

They walked through the door the guards opened for them and saw a spartan but elegant parlor, a large balcony with doors open at one side letting a refreshing breeze in. From her place, sitting on a large, soft-looking cushion, showered in rays of sunshine -Rarity thought that the sun would be too high up by now to let its light straight in this room- Princess Celestia floated down her cup on the small table in front of her and smiled. "Twilight, Spike, girls! Would you like to have some tea with me?" she said as if they were all old friends who joined together daily.

Rarity was a mare of dignity so she only squealed internally.

Rarity did not like what she was hearing so far. She expected Princess Celestia of all ponies to have more sense than that. Admittedly, she didn't know anything about Raegdan's character, his nuances and quirks, but the savage picture that Twilight and Spike had painted made her think that this day had a good chance of ending in disaster.

Twilight also hadn't taken the news that Celestia had not so much as hinted to Twilight's former bodyguard about their arrival. She was trying to control her shivers and ease her nerves with massive consumption of Celestia's excellent tea, having drained a teapot on her own so far -Rarity admired her bladder control at least.

Princess Celestia had glued herself to her student's side, one of her large, pristine wings caressing Twilight's back. Rarity held Spike close to her, the baby dragon also doubting the outcome of the incoming meeting, his little claws clicking against each other, producing a small spark on random intervals.

Celestia spoke softly, taking care to keep Twilight calm with her tone, at least. "I have very valid reasons to withhold notifying him, Twilight."

"If you don't mind telling us, Princess," said Applejack, eyes locked on Twilight's shaking cup, "what would those reasons be? Seems a foolish thing to do, considerin' who we talk about." Rarity noticed that Applejack wisely didn't specify if she referred to Raegdan or Twilight.

The white Alicorn took Applejack's admonition in stride. "It is a little complicated. For one, if I did let him know you are coming, he would have ran off to hide."

Twilight head bobbed up with a gasp. "But... but your letter! You wrote that he wants us back!" Twilight looked betrayed by this revelation.

The white wing tightened around Twilight. "I did. But there is a big difference between what he wants and what he thinks you two need."

Celestia had completely lost her usual serene look and had an expression of complete exasperation. "I wrote to you what he really wants, the two of you back in his life. What he thinks however, is that you are better off without him upsetting your personal lives, especially since he learnt how well you were adjusting to life in Ponyville, and yes, Twilight, he has been reading the reports you have sent me," she smiled, "he is very sneaky but he got too certain of himself one night and I caught him in the act of creeping in my chambers at night to read them. The Solar Guard is pretty much after his head for that, especially since they still have no idea how he does it."

"This alone should tell you how much he is starving for even the slightest way to reconnect with you, my dear student. That bonehead is too much of a," Celestia uttered a sharp, harsh word that Rarity failed to understand," to admit it."

Spike snorted with mirth at Rarity's side. "That's one of his words. The bad ones."

"I know," Celestia grinned, "he explained what it means to me once, and it fits him to a t."

Twilight choked a laugh, put her cup down and turned her head upwards to Celestia's face. "This, I can see him doing this." She hesitated for a bit before continuing. "What other reasons are there?"

Celestia sighed. "Raegdan's been... unhappy with some of my choices lately. His trust in me has waned a bit, and I didn't want to give him more reasons to distance himself."

Rarity liked the direction this day was heading towards to less and less.

The Princess rose up on her long legs. "I think we should delay this no more," she said, giving Twilight an appraising look, "and settle it right now. I believe we should treat this like a band-aid, Twilight. Better to rip it off at once than let it pull out our hairs one by one."

"Ok, I can... I can do this," Twilight said, shakes making a comeback on her voice and legs. "Where is he?"

"Mmmm, I gotta say Princess, this ain't my turf so ah might be wrong, but this doesn't seem to be leading to what i'd think is Raegdan's pad. This looks more like..." Applejack trailed off, hoof waving towards the doors in front of them.

They had been led towards one of the Castle's towers and made their way up, almost to the very top. The last staircase left them standing in front of this pair of intimidating doors. Rarity was surprised by the lack of guards and ponies. The closer they got to their destination, the less ponies seemed to wander around with almost complete absence of life in and around the tower.

The doors were made of an ebony material, thick and so dark it seemed to suck the light around it. A full moon, split in half by the seam of the doors, was placed high up, made of cloudy silver. Piercing, silver stars were placed around the door, in a seeming random pattern, holed in deep grooves. Streaks of deep dark purple and dark blue seemed to wave in and out of the portrayed night sky. Unless this was the extravagant entrance to Equestria's most sinister observatory, there was only one pony that could be making her home in the chambers beyond.

Considering that this was the first impression they had of Princess Luna after her short stay at Ponyville, they really couldn't be blamed if the title "Nightmare Moon" was expressing itself in their heads with loud screams, could they? Poor Fluttershy was staring at the moon high above, her jaw wide open. Rarity noticed Rainbow Dash circumspectly put a hoof under it and close her mouth.

"Raegdan has been spending the majority of his time with Luna," Celestia informed them. "He has been paying back Twilight's kind help in learning Equestrian by aiding Luna in updating her vocabulary. He has also been assisting her in her studies to familiarize herself with modern culture," she pouted a bit, "and although I am uncertain of the wisdom of that particular choice they have both been very scholastic in studying a variety of surprising subjects."

She stepped forwards, her long horn lit as it opened the massive doors. "He also seems to have recruited my sister for some of his projects," she smiled knowingly at Twilight, "speaking of which, the first magic Deep Microscope is being constructed at Canterlot University, right now. We expect to have the first detailed image of a cell by next month."

Whatever a cell was, it was the most proper thing to say to Twilight at that moment. It allowed her to make it through the door, lost in a trance, daydreaming about Celestia's words, eyes filled with wonder and lips locked in an adorable "o" position.

The foyer they came in was a surprise. Rarity would have expected dark color, casting the room in simulated darkness. What she saw instead was pleasant, earthly colors, punctuated by a streak of dark blue or, rarely, purple. The furniture was robust, thick and rich, unlike the dainty creations that she had seen in the rest of the Castle, making the setting appear strangely homely. The light was dim, thick dark curtains drawn over the windows, but this only intensified the warm closeness. A thick, dark blue carpet dominated the floor. At the end of the room, a double staircase made of dark wood led to the floor above. Among the twin stairwells was a wide balcony, its doors left wide open.

Celestia approached one door at the end of the room, eyeing it critically before pressing her ear against it and chuckling at what she heard. "If past experiences are any guide, I believe we will find our quarry in here. Twilight, are you coming?"

Twilight had stopped in the middle of the foyer, one hoof rubbing the other, as she answered. "Actually, Princess, I was thinking I should wait here till you let him know why we came. I... I need some more time to prepare myself," she said, convulsively swallowing.

Spike was fidgeting next to her, Twilight's tail wound around one of his little claws. "I'm gonna wait here too, Princess. Giving dad a warning first might be for the best."

Celestia's mouth was set in a straight line. "If you believe you need some more time, then I won't rush you, Twilight." Celestia looked at the rest of the group around her. "You girls better come along. He will be more patient with you next to me, though one of you might want to stay back with Twilight?" she hinted.

Fluttershy offered at once, eager to both refrain from a social activity but mostly because that's who the sweet dear was. She trotted daintily to Twilight's side and put one of her soft wings around her, making her smile in gratitude. Applejack opted to stay behind too, dedicated to being the pillar of strength that Twilight relied on.

"Right," Celestia said, forcing back the serene smile, "in we go!" She opened the door and they all walked into the dark room.

Rarity, Rainbow Dash and a skipping Pinkie Pie followed right on her tail. When Rarity got in she saw that the room was not completely unlit. A small, covered lamp was providing a weak source of light, casting the room in a deep semi-darkness. Rarity's eyes adjusted quick enough and recognized the room as a study. Bookshelves covered the wall on the left of the door. Examining the opposite side explained why there was no light allowed inside. The wall and windows had been covered with large panels made of cork, very much like the smaller ones Rarity herself liked to use in her design room. A multitude of papers had been tacked on, brimming with words and hurried sketches of uncomprehending design. There were two desks in the room. One of them, the largest by far, was located near the end of the room, in front of a very large mirror with a glinting gold frame. She saw the shape of another, smaller one, in the corner, where the light did not reach.

There was no biped being waiting for them here. Rarity re-examined the room. Twilight's general description made her certain that he would be impossible to pass unnoticed. Someone as tall as Celestia would certainly-

Rarity saw Princess Celestia staring at the dark corner where the small desk was. Rarity scrutinized it further and as her night vision sharpened she saw a strange silhouette had been slumping over it. She realized that she had been hearing a constant noise ever since they entered, which she could now identify as a drowned snoring.

Princess Celestia's magic encompassed the small lantern, removing its cover and increasing its light much further than a light-source of that size could offer.

Rarity felt her chest seizing at the sight. The sharp intakes of breath next to her let her know that her friends had the same reaction. Only Princess Celestia was unaffected by what she saw.

The notorious Raegdan was across them, sitting on a stool and fallen across the desk, sleeping on top of his arms. He was wearing only a pair of dark blue trousers, leaving his upper body naked, exposing them to the horrifying view on his back.

An countless amount of criss-crossed lines were making their way over each other. The skin was coarse, raising angrily in places only to look painfully dug in at others. There was no part of his back uncovered of the blackened ridges, apart from near his sides, and they flowed all the way down with no stop to them until they were covered by the fabric of his clothing.

Rarity forced herself to breathe. Next to her, Rainbow Dash spoke up, her exclamation deafening in the silence that reigned in Rarity's ears.

"Oh... my... gosh!"

The snoring stopped. The mangled spine straightened up and a head covered with a short black mane rose up. There was a delay of a couple of seconds as the figure in them recognized the changes in its environment and in a sudden movement it was on its feet, turned towards them.

There was a Nightmare Night when Rarity was a little filly that stuck in her memory, haunting her childhood dreams. She had begged and begged her parents to let her walk through a haunted house attraction with her classmates. Her mother denied her but her father gave in to her filly tears and convinced her mother to give her permission too.

By the time she reached the exit, Rarity fervently wished he hadn't. In the haunted house she faced the expected jump scares that she loved to scree-loudly yell at. Spiders, snakes, red colored water running from the walls, ghosts jumping from the corner.

But near the exit they saw the Nightmare attraction. Instead of the customary Nightmare Moon actor jumping and snarling at the guests, the owners had fielded a view of one of Nightmare Moon's prisoners. A stallion was thrashing on a table, covered with bloody lines, hooks and chains positioned around him. The sight of somepony in such pain with promises of worse to come had marked her young self. She had nightmares of what happened to that stallion as they left him behind for weeks, that what they saw wasn't an actor but a pony who really was put there for Nightmare Moon's amusement.

When she saw Raegdan in full light, his mane unkempt and wild from his sleep, Rarity thought for the first time in her life that her imagination had probably been too small. His back had been a horror. She couldn't think of something worse to happen to somepony. But Twilight's former guard offered an answer to that.

His torso and arms were a canvas where torment and pain had been given free reign with their tools of art. Straight and jagged scar lines of various sizes were spread all over, physical memories of deep, brutal lacerations. Pock marks of various sizes clouded any free space among them. Rarity was no doctor, but with her eyes sharpened by a life of attention to details, she saw the small white marks that trailed along a number of the scars, stitching marks, some expertly made with equal distance between each, most crude, repeating themselves next to each other in awkward lines. Others she thought must have originated by claws and teeth, their symmetry and positioning betraying them. With bile coming up her throat, she figured that at some point he had been bitten almost in half by something extremely large.

His left forearm shined in the light, discolored against the rest of him. Other random areas also glistened alike, proof of burns that had covered him at various points in his life.

At his chest she noticed two circular scars, one larger than the other, that were more recent, covering the older ones below them. From Twilight's story she recognized one of them as the place where that foalnapper managed to stab him. The thought of somepony gored like that made her sick.

Not even his face was left unmarred. Something had clawed him at the jaw, reaching down to his throat. Another stab scar was on his left cheek. Tiny, white scars where spread around, but went virtually unnoticed to the casual look by the multitude of much worse.

His kind must be bastions of fortitude. Rarity doubted any pony could withstand half of those wounds in its lifetime and survive.

Apart from the walking horror he presented, he was like Twilight described. Raegdan's body resembled a minotaur but his structure was far more aesthetically pleasing to Rarity. Under his naked skin, the shape of his muscles were easy enough to see. He seemed built for strength far more than speed, his muscles thicker than ropes, in the rough shape of a result gained from hardship and not the definition of carefully built result of following an exercise regime. He was way less top heavy, his arms and legs proportioned much better. His balance was obviously much better, exemplified from the easy way he stood straight, unlike the minotaurs who had to carefully measure every hoofstep unless they wanted to end up flat on their noses because of the small contact surface allowed to them by their hooves.

She broke her gaze away from the ghastly scars. Raegdan had only flickered his eyes at Rarity and her friends in the room for an instant before glaring at Celestia.

His lips opened and through his gritted teeth -Rarity noticed how perfectly capable for cutting they were- he addressed the Princess with contempt dripping on every syllable.

"What the fucking hell are you doing here, Celestia?"

Rarity wondered to herself if she mentioned to anyone yet how much she didn't like the day's direction.

She wasn't so hot on how she kept being ignored either.

The Princess started to say, "Raegdan, I would like to introduce to you-"

"I don't fucking care who they are, get them out of here before I do!" he interrupted.

The Princess continued as if he didn't interrupt her, "-Rarity, bearer of the element of Generosity, Rainbow Dash, bearer of the element of Loyalty and Pinkie Pie, bearer of the element of Laughter." Pinkie Pie waved wildly with a toothy smile.

Raegdan frowned and took his time scrutinizing them. When he turned his attention to her, something in Rarity, some old buried instinct whispered urgently, "predator, do not move, do not breathe, get ready to run, predator, don't move, predator, don't breathe, predator, predator, predator..."

He turned back to Celestia and the moment of hide or flight passed.

"I see."

Princess Celestia sighed. "Raegdan, this is not what you think. We are here to-"

Raegdan interrupted her again, hissing. "These are her friends. These are the mares you send with her. You expect to change my mind by having them speak for you?"

"Raegdan, if you calm down and listen-"

"NO!" he roared. "This time you fucking listen to me. Discord was the final straw, this will not happen again, I will not let it happen again. You sent them against a dragon and then a damned god! Your first response was to throw my girl right at their jaws! Is this what you brought them to Canterlot for? To get them equipped again and send them off? Well, this isn't happening this time, if it means shattering your precious elements with my own hands then I will do -GET THE HELL AWAY FROM THERE!"

Rarity watched in terror as Raegdan charged forward. Pinkie Pie, in her usual manner, had been prodding and examining every part of the room. When she got near the extremely large mirror, Raegdan exploded in action, pulling Pinkie up by her mane and then holding her by the throat against the wall.

Celestia was yelling to put her down but Rainbow Dash, in her usual manner, took action instead. She launched to the air and with a single beat of her cyan wings she reached Raegdan and kicked at his head. Raegdan's head launched back, blood spurting in a wave from his nose but before Rainbow Dash could taunt him -again, her usual manner, Rarity was familiar enough with her MO- Raegdan's other hand launched forward, his fingers snaked around Rainbow's throat and before she could react he thrust her against the wall, next to Pinkie Pie.

Rainbow tried to force him to let her go by hitting as much of his arm as she could reach with her front hooves. Raegdan ignored her attempts to hurt him, glaring and growling her to submission.

Rarity saw Celestia's muscles flexing, ready to charge forward herself, when Pinkie Pie's innocent laughter echoed in the room.

"You are so much faster than you look, mr. Twilight's dad. I was just standing there when suddenly, whoosh! It felt like my little stomach had to rush after me." She lost a bit of her wide smile and got an apologetic, but smiling look. "I'm sorry for touching your stuff. I was just looking at the pretty mirror, I wouldn't break it, honest!"

Raegdan looked at her slack-jawed. Well, Rarity thought, par for the course. Pinkie Pie gets nailed on a wall by one of the most terrifying figures they ever saw -one they knew has killed ponies before, mind you- and what does she do? Smile at it, apologize and breaks its brain.

"Do you understand that I can really hurt you?" he asked like directing the question at a very young filly.

"Nah," Pinkie said, dismissing the idea with her hoof as if it was impossible, "you wouldn't do that to Twilight's friends. I mean, Dashie kicked you really hard, you are bleeding by the way, I think I got a band-aid, it has giraffes on it, and you are holding her carefully up so she doesn't choke."

Rainbow stopped struggling and looked downwards at her throat. She spread her hooves and stopped moving her wings, testing Pinkie's claim. Rarity had to admit, she seemed to be breathing just fine and be in no pain at all. Huh!

"Can you let us go now, pretty please? Or hold me upside down, its fun when the blood rushes to my head and then I see the colors all weird and everything starts moving too fast, its like if you have been to sea, have you ridden on a ship before, I haven't but I rowed a boat once gently down a stream and I started singing, I don't remember the song but I saw a little lamb, it was soooo adorable..."

Raegdan set them both down gently. Rainbow briefly checked herself and pulled the still bumbling Pinkie with her, back to Celestia's side. Raegdan was immobile, staring at the wall.

Celestia nudged Rarity with her wing and when she got her attention she nodded her towards the motionless figure. Rarity understood her meaning. If Princess Celestia spoke to him she might set him off again. But there was a good chance he might listen to Rarity.

With courage she didn't know she had -and wondered who was responsible for it, she really didn't want to do this- she walked to Raegdan's side. The huge person that had once killed a pony with his teeth and had her friends pinned just seconds ago. What- what a great idea!

"Mr. Raegdan," she bid his attention, "my name is Rarity. I am one of Twilight's friends."

"I know who you are." He seemed to be dazed or lost in thought. Rarity wondered if this was his way of regretting his actions. "I have read her letters to Celestia. You are... you are a good friend to her and Spike."

She blushed. "Thank you. Sir, we are not here-"

He interrupted her with a motion of his hand. "Not sir or mr. Just, just Raegdan, please. Always Raegdan..."

"Raegdan then." Rarity was feeling a bit sorry for him. She saw what Twilight and Spike meant when they said he was cruel but kind too. His whole demeanor had changed. His voice had softened and his movements were slower and calm. "We are not here for Elements business of any kind. We are just escorting Twilight and Spike, as good friends are want to do."

He straightened up, visibly nervous. "Escorting Twilight and Spike? They came here with you?" Rarity nodded. "Where, where are they? Why are they here?"

Twilight spoke up from the door. "We are right here. I wanted to say I'm sorry, dad. Forgive me, please?"

It was as if all of them, but Raegdan, had turned to statues, able to watch but not intervene. He looked straight at Twilight and Spike, the little dragon standing timidly next to the unicorn. Rarity saw, as in slow motion with every movement enunciated, Raegdan's throat convulsing violently. At his sides, his hands were turned to fists, shaking. His eyes were wide and his face had blanched.

Twilight... Twilight was at least as bad. Her mane had lost its lovely cohesion as it always did in moments when she was greatly stressed. She had sat on the floor, judging from the tremors spreading through her she didn't trust her ability to stand. Her stance was pleading, begging for an answer to her request.

Seconds passed with no word uttered. Rarity felt cracks spreading across her heart and tears welling in her eyes. This was going to end horribly. She knew, knew, that Raegdan would keep his silence. Twilight and Spike would feel completely rejected and run off. They would run after them, finding them hours later, holed in a deserted room, crying their eyes out. And for the rest of their lives, a small part of them would remain shattered, never able to be fixed again, no matter how much Rarity and the rest of the girls tried.

"I'm... this was a mistake, I don't know what I was thinking... I'll, I'll leave, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..." she sobbed and turned to leave with Spike, Raegdan still motionless at Rarity's side.

"Oh darling, don't go, keep trying, don't give up, he obviously still cares, just try again," Rarity begged in her mind, too absorbed in the tragedy of the moment to speak, to attempt to make a difference to the cruel destiny that was shaping in front of her.

Pinkie Pie, may all the stars shine on her for the rest of her life, did not believe in inaction when one of her friends was sad. Without anyone's notice she had moved behind Raegdan, rose up on her hindlegs and with all her earth pony strength she pushed him forward, yelling.

"Go and give them a hug now, you silly billy!"

Pinkie's laughing voice broke the inertia that had claimed them. More importantly, it broke Raegdan from his passivity. With huge strides he ran by Celestia that was standing between him and his target. Twilight and Spike had spun back at Pinkie's shout and were in perfect position for Raegdan to pull them in his embrace as he fell down on his knees.

"My little ones," he whispered fervently, cradling them in his arms, "I missed you, I missed you so much..."

Well, there it goes. Rarity's heart finally gave up and she ceased wrestling control of her tearducts. Twilight and Spike, side by side, hugged him back with all their strength, Spike's little, sharp claws leaving small scratches and thin lines of blood as they pierced Raegdan's unprotected skin. They were crying too, but unlike what she feared before, those were caused by happiness. Both sides were whispering to each other, as if afraid a louder voice would burst and ruin the reunion, trading declarations of love and assurances with each other.

Everypony had wet trails running down their faces. Celestia, Pinkie, even Rainbow Dash. Rarity gave a fledging thought to her mascara's state before dismissing it outright. She could replace it in seconds, afterwards. This was a moment of joy for her friend that she was going to treasure forever and she wasn't going to taint it with shallow notions.

"Eeh, what are you doing, Small Pink?" Raegdan butchered Pinkie's name as he stared incredulously at the earth pony that had fastened herself to their side, spreading her hooves as much as she could to hold onto all of them.

"I want to hug too, I love group hugs!" Pinkie answered him, nuzzling at his shoulder.

Raegdan's barking laughter filled the room and he pulled Pinkie into the space of his wide arms.

A new voice, touched with anger, broke in. "My chambers seem to be popular today. May I ask what is going on here?"

Luna was apprehensive at best when they first explained the reason for their presence in her rooms. It was only when it was made clear to her that her two-legged companion was thrilled with the outcome that she stopped looming threateningly over them. Seeing Raegdan's face covered with blood, from Rainbow's unfortunate rush to violence, would have ended with them receiving similar treatment of the same caliber at least, if it wasn't for Celestia beseeching her sister to calm down.

The night princess was radically different from the pony they saw last. Her coat was darker and her mane and tail were flowing in gentle waves, stars swimming among the strands. Rarity had to concede that Luna's mane was magnitudes of order more divine even that Celestia's. She had grown much taller too, standing over Rarity's height by more than a head but still not as tall as Celestia or Raegdan. Rarity wondered if she would one day come to be more like her Nightmare Moon form again. She desperately hoped not.

Luna was currently sharing a couch with Raegdan and his "playmates", though she was sitting apart a bit, displaying some wariness in approaching somepony too close.

Raegdan sat on the other end of the couch, his head rotated upwards with Spike attending his bleeding, using his small hands to pinch the nose on one point and wiping off the blood from his father's face with a wet cloth, Fluttershy directing him as she hovered above. Band-aids, decorated with giraffes, had been layered on his nose and the small scratches Spike accidentally gave him, courtesy of Pinkie Pie. At his side Twilight was snuggling against him, one of his hands gently scratching her, moving from her ears to her back. Years of experience had apparently taught him all the right spots to treat because Twilight hadn't stopped purring since he started, to Rainbow Dash's chagrin.

His other hand was busy holding Pinkie Pie upside down from her leg. Pinkie coo'ed with wonder, her head getting redder by the minute, as he gently swung her back and forth.

After the confrontation with an angry Luna that had been raised from her bed by the yelling, interactions went surprisingly smooth with one large exception.

When spirits calmed down, Celestia decided to repeat introductions, forcing a new start. Raegdan was very courteous with Rarity, asking about her line of work and mentioning how he would like to have something made by her, since apparently he normally completely covered most of his body with clothes, current showing non withstanding. Rarity's muse went ablaze and she made a mental note to take his measurements before leaving. He also, inconspicuously, bent near her and, unheard from the others, thanked her for her gentleness and generosity with Spike. Applejack asked what the blush was about but Rarity brushed her off with a "later."

Rainbow Dash was next in line. She tried to sheepishly apologize for hurting him but she was cutoff by Raegdan's exclamation of admiration for a solid hit. "Next time though, you want to follow up. Either keep going or back off," he advised her in good nature. Rainbow puffed with pride at the intimidating stallion's words. Rainbow assured him that this was the least she could do for her friends and Twilight, gaining a wide grin for Raegdan. It was Twilight's turn to blush next to him.

On her turn, Pinkie Pie launched herself with a jump at him, yelling loudly, "Hi! I'm Pinkie Pie!" He caught her mid-air and proceeded to throw her up, almost all the way to the ceiling, again and again, Pinkie cheering loudly as he laughed.

When he put her down, to Pinkie's expressed disappointment, he knelt in front of Fluttershy. Fluttershy, unlike what Rarity expected, did not appeared to be frightened of him. Instead, she looked at him with an expression of concern and pity. When Raegdan got low enough she surprised all of them by hugging him. Rarity was close enough to make out her whisper, "thank you for saving my friend when she was little." Raegdan patted her back and they stood apart, saying nothing more to each other, just smiling in shared understanding.

And then Applejack stepped forward, crying out "Howdy!" to him, in her patented greeting. And Tartarus broke loose.

As soon as Applejack stepped clearly into his view, Raegdan -there is no other word to describe it, really- screamed. He tried to step away from the perplexed Applejack, only to trip and fall on his back. He didn't stop trying to move away from her, frantically kicking at the floor and dragging himself in a panic. He twisted around and rushed for the door when Celestia fell on him.

Raegdan tried to force her off but Celestia was stepping on the middle of his back and couldn't get a decent grip. He kept kicking at her legs blindly but the Princess easily avoided the aimless strikes. She bent her neck and spoke to him, in a calm, even tone.

"Raegdan, this is Applejack, from Ponyville. She runs Sweet Apples Acres near the Everfree Forest. She is just a little older than Twilight and one of her friends. Raegdan, calm down and think!"

For some reason, this seemed to work. He stopped moving and Celestia moved away from him, letting him regain his breath before standing up.

Now that was curious. What would he find so terrifying on Applejack of all ponies to make him act like that? She looked at Applejack. She looked like she always did. Her old hat covered her head, her mane was in her usual ponytail and her coat was unblemished. She had a pair of small saddlebags on her but Rarity doubted that was what set Raegdan off. She had a similar set on her, though one stitched by yours truly.

With feigned calmness he walked back to Applejack and traded pleasantries with her. He systematically refused to answer why he reacted like that, both to Applejack and Twilight. When Twilight silently directed her question to the Sun Princess, Celestia shook her head in the negative, her mouth forming a stern straight line.

The introductions to Princess Luna were uneventful, at least. The Princess of the night accepted their bowing with good grace, thanked for cleansing her from her corruption and asked them, really asked them, to call her Luna in private.

The only detail that spoiled it for Rarity was the way Raegdan was looking at Luna when she referred to her time as Nightmare Moon. She wondered if he was harboring some disgruntlement for attacking Twilight at the time, but he seemed to be leaning towards worry rather than anger.

"Are you going to stay for a while, little ones?" Raegdan asked as he was now rubbing and scratching a content dragon and a half-asleep Twilight. Behind the couch, a dazed Pinkie Pie was stumbling back and forth, looking all around her with wonder.

"Yeah, "Twilight mumbled. "Princess Celestia invited us to watch the Royal Guard Tournament. Are you going to come with us?"

He chuckled. "Luna and I have made plans to be there. This might turn out more fun than I expected."

"What do you mean, dad?" asked Spike.

"Never mind that, little flame. You will see tomorrow. It's gonna be a surprise."

Twilight's mouth was pouting. "I don't like surprises. Can't you tell us now?"

He gently patted her cheek with his fingers. "No. Be patient."

"I don't want to be patient, I'm gonna be up all night wond-" Twilight opened her eyes and froze mid-sentence. "Raegdan! Your-your hand! Your finger!"

Rarity shifted her attention to Raegdan's fingers. She had missed it somehow, but where his right hand had five fingers, the left one was missing the smaller one. It seemed to have been chopped off, unevenly and badly cut.

"Oh, this old thing?" he said nonchalantly. "It's not really that important. I got spares. Don't worry about it, little one."

"Don't worry about it?" Twilight was furious at the casualness he exhibited. "It's your finger! What happened to it?"

"I traded it."

"Traded it?" she cried out. "Traded it for what?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he leaned his head back on the couch and closed his eyes, hands still working on his charges. Twilight turned to Celestia, "Princess? What happened?"

Celestia sighed. It seemed to have become a common trend for her where Raegdan was involved. "I do not know Twilight. One day it was just gone. He refuses to say how."

Pinkie Pie took his hand in her hooves and carefully examined it. "Did a nasty mosquito bite you and you scratched it so hard it fell off?"

"A perfectly good explanation," he encouraged Pinkie, "I'll go with that one."

Twilight evidently gave up on him giving an honest answer and settled back to being scratched again.

Rarity decided to try and draw their current hostess in a conversation. "So, Princess Luna- excuse me, I meant Luna, your sister let slip that you and Raegdan are working together on some kind of project?"

"More than one actually," Luna answered excited, "I do not wish to spoil the surprise either, but we are working on wonderful ideas that will change our world forever."

"Does this have to do with the knowledge Raegdan has, like Twilight informed us?" she inquired.

"Almost exclusively," Luna nodded, "we have been taking detailed notes of everything he can remember of his kind's technology and scientific progress and slowly figuring out their magical equivalents. It is a slow progress as we are working with bits and pieces, some terms we simply have no translation for and have no idea what Raegdan remembers correctly or is just wrong about but-"

"Wait," Twilight interrupted, standing ramrod straight. "You have been taking notes of everything? All that Raegdan knows?"

"Well, yes," Luna answered her, "we are trying to be organized about it-"

"That room dad was sleeping in... All those papers on the wall and the desks- were those them?"

Rarity had a vision of the future. It involved a unicorn leaving the room in a mad dash for knowledge.

"Twilight, darling-" she started.

She didn't manage to finish before Luna answered Twilight. "Yes, most of them-"

Raegdan saw what was coming too late but still attempted to make a grab for Twilight. Twilight however seemed to be more worked up than they thought. Instead of running off to the study she was simply gone in the magic explosion of a teleportation.

Raegdan lost no time and ran out, shouting, "Twilight, come back here!"

The next few minutes proved to be very entertaining to those who decided to stay behind, which meant everypony else. Raegdan's and Twilight's voices were easily carried to them as they shouted to each other.

"Twilight, you are not allowed to mess with these-"

"These are all written in gibberish, I can't read these!" she yelled in anguish.

"I am not an idiot to write it down in Equestrian. These are all written in my language, now drop them."

"No, If i have to translate them to read them then I will! I am the smartest unicorn around, this won't stop me!"

"Twilight, I know three different languages of my kind, you won't make a dent in these no matter how you try."

"Wait, your people are a multilingual race? How does that work? Is it a geographical reason or did you segregate your language based on social standards or-"

"Put those papers down and Ι will tell you all about it, how about that?"

"NO! Those are mine now. I deserve them, you never told me anything, I need to know!"

"Don't make me be violent, Twilight. Either drop it all or I will punish you."

"Ha," Twilight scoffed loudly, "you never laid a finger on me on your life, you are not gonna start now."

"I swear, I will torch every single one of them-"

"NOOOOOOOooooooo!" Twilight screamed in pure terror, "don't hurt my babies!"

"Just let them go before they rip, I have reasons I don't want you to-"

"Buck you, you old," Twilight said the same harsh alien word that Celestia had used before.

Rainbow Dash shook her head. "Oi, Twilight, you never, ever, call your parents that. You are bucked now."

Twilight obviously agreed if her loud "eep" was any indication.

Raegdan's voice rose to new heights, sounding as if he was standing right next to their ear. "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY, YOUNG LADY?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry-"

"CELESTIA! GET THE SINK FULL AND FIND ME A BAR OF SOAP, NOW!"

"Nooooooooooooo, I'll be good, I'll be good, stop, stop, stop!"

"Get down from my back and face your punishment like a grown mare, Twilight, before I-"

There was silence after he stopped. Everypony held their breath. Rarity wondered if he finally killed Twilight by accident. He sounded angry enough for that.

"Little one," they heard him say, his voice strangely passive.

"Did you just pee on me?"

Everypony started snickering.

"I, I had a lot of tea and you squeezed too hard..."

Never before had Rarity thought she would see two Princesses rolling on the floor, trying to stop their laughter long enough to gulp down some precious air. She would have appreciated the sight more if she wasn't in the same state, along with everypony else.

Luna was the first to manage to regain enough self-control to get up. "I'll go fill the bathtub," she said, causing everypony to suffer through more laughing seizures.

Outside the room, Twilight and Raegdan were dripping and waiting for them to calm down so they could go and wash up.

Ch.4 - Starting the day sweet...

“Alright! Now, that’s what I call breakfast!”

Rainbow jumped on her seat at the table and admired the magnificent choices spread before her for all of two seconds before piling up rows of sugary treats on her plate.

Rarity, of course, had to be all over her case and try to be a complete spoilsport. Didn’t that pony make her go through enough already?

“Rainbow, dear,” she said in her oh so snooty accent, “do you really think it's a good choice to be so… overzealous in your choice of pastries?”

“Hey, I’m an athlete,” Rainbow defended herself, “I need the calories so I can perform my awesome routines. You don’t want me to run out of fuel mid-flight, do you? It would be a shame if my blood splattered all over your coat when I crash down because I didn’t eat properly.”

“First, you don’t have to be so ghastly. I had quite enough of that yesterday, thank you,” Rarity said as she scrutinized the selection of fruits, “second, you are not doing any flying routines today, we are supposed to be at the Tournament later, remember? And third, you can have a perfectly balanced breakfast without bloating yourself with sugar.”

“Oooh, ooh, I can fix that, here!” yelled Pinkie Pie excitedly. She leaned from her seat next to Rainbow and in one swift motion, too quick even for Rainbow Dash, had taken all of the delectable treats into her mouth, chewing happily.

To Rainbow, she looked like an overgrown chipmunk filling its cheeks with its stolen booty.

“Really, Pinkie Pie? You live in a bakery! You eat that stuff all the time, would it kill you if I had the same for once?” she said with disappointment.

“I difdn’t wvanf to mesf vith mby dietf!” Great, now Rainbow had the chewed up remains of her former feast on her face. With extra saliva. Whooo!

Applejack had gathered a small varied selection of everything, dominated by a large plate of sliced apples. Rainbow groaned just seeing that. Seriously? She grew apples, she had to have them even now?

And now even Rainbow had to make do with fruit and toast herself again. Damnit, Pinkie Pie…

“Does somepony know if Twilight and Spike are back yet?” asked Applejack, aggressively buttering a piece of toast, eager to bury it under layers of the stuff.

Rarity put down her fork and answered. “I am sure if they were back by now, they would have chosen to join us. Perhaps her parents asked them to break their fast with them at their home. Goodness knows, they see them far too infrequently.”

“I think it was very sweet of Raegdan to think of her parents like that. If- if I had this kind of relationship with somepony and hadn’t seen them in so long, I don’t think I could be so caring.” Fluttershy joined in as she finished her current, long, careful chewing of her bite.

“Yeah, sure Flutters,” said Rainbow, “you of all ponies would be so selfish and uhhh, what’s the word,” she teased, her hoof stroking her chin in thought. “Help me out here, it’s like, the opposite of the Element you got. I got it just on the edge of my tongue…”

“Har, de har har, Rainbow. Har, har,” Applejack deadpanned. Applejack spent a few moments popping apple slices one after another in her mouth before continuing. “Ya know, since Twilight and Spike ain’t here yet this is the best moment to ask y’all, what are ya thinking of Raegdan so far?”

“Isn’t it a bit uncouth to speak about our friends’ stepfather behind their back?” frowned Rarity.

“Ok, Rarity? Applejack just wants to talk about the guy, we are not gonna start harping on him.” Rainbow was a bit surprised she had to say this for Rarity; for a gossipy mare of her caliber she was really hard to kickoff into talking.

“Well…,” Rarity said uncertainly. Rainbow wasn’t buying that for a single second. This right here, that was her trying to sell them her propriety thingy. “I find myself wondering, how much would our meeting change if Princess Celestia hadn’t mentioned who we are right off the bat.” Called it!

Rainbow had to agree with what Rarity was thinking. “You think she did that on purpose? Let him know we are with Twilight and Spike before she even had time to tell him why we were there?” That would be an amazing act of foresight, Rainbow thought. That or planning…

“I did think that things went too hairy in there when ah saw the fella pop out with all that blood on him. You thinkin’ it could have been worse, Rainbow?” Applejack seemed worried with the prospect.

Unfortunately, Rainbow didn’t think this was going to ease her worries. “Let’s just say that if he didn’t know I was his kid’s pal I would be sporting some pretty nasty bruises,” Rainbow shrugged, “or a broken neck. That guy isn’t that fast but he’s got some mean reflexes…” Mean didn’t half-cover it, if Rainbow wanted to be honest with herself. She could have dodged him, he was nowhere as fast as her, but that arm shot out the instant she kicked at him. Maybe even before, just as he saw her coming, she thought more carefully. Which meant that his instinct wasn’t to dodge or defend but… Ok, she was creeping herself out at this point. Timeout. Good thoughts.

“I gotta say though,” Rainbow added, “totally worth it to see him soaping the egghead.” Rainbow’s grinning smile threatened to rip her lips apart.

“You’ve gotta be kidding, you are not actually gonna… Princess, helpaarghblarghasdfaghah!”

“I’ve told you, little one. No swearing! Now, stop biting and I might consider letting you take a page with you.”

“I’m sorry, my student. You knew the rules.”

“Farglahsijsutfstahppleasdfeenougharghbargh!”

Pinkie Pie stopped collecting the little crumbs of frosting that were on her plate with her tongue. “That was not very fair. He was swearing like Mr. Cake does when he hits his shin on the counter every morning, before Twilight arrived.”

“Hmm, yes. He really changed his tune when he realized Twilight was there, didn’t he?” Rarity asked with growing intrigue.

“Maybe it was Princess Celestia who was the problem, I reckon,” Applejack said suspiciously.

“What could you possibly be implying, Applejack?” Rarity asked.

“Well, ah’m not saying anything about Princess Celestia, mind you,” Applejack declared, “just drawing attention to how Raegdan and Princess Luna shifted their ways when her sister was gone.”

“Oh, yeah, those two seemed to be getting really chummy after the Princess left.” Rainbow added with false innuendo. At least she intended it to be false but… well, Luna was polite but pretty distant while Princess Celestia was in the room. And like Applejack said, she seemed to be less, well, comfortable, Rainbow guessed. She acted more like Twilight, afterwards. She was either glued to Raegdan’s side or she had one of his arms on her.

Rarity seemed to be contemplating what was said, if Rainbow judged those hums correctly.

Rainbow decided to draw their attention to something else she noticed. “Did any of you watch Raegdan when we were talking to Princess Luna and stuff?”

“Hmmm?” Rarity’s attention got diverted back to the real world.

Before Rainbow could clarify she was cut off by Fluttershy’s interjection. “He- he kept, uhm, staring. When we talked to Luna, I mean. Or when we got near her. I think he wasn’t looking very happy when we did that. He looked like one of my animals when they feel threatened. Maybe, like a bear…”

Applejack finished off the last of her toast and apple slices. “He is a real enigma, ah’ll give ya that. What ah really wanna know is what happened between him and Twily.”

“Applejack,” Rarity admonished, “please tell me you are not seriously considering upsetting them by bringing this up! It’s too soon.”

“Well, nah, but at some point-”

“What I want is more stories about his scars! That one yesterday was awesome!” Oh, Rainbow couldn’t wait to see if she could drag a couple more out of him. Some of those scars looked downright brutal. She wasn’t going to ask about the back thingy however. She had a couple ideas about how somepony got something like that and she didn’t want to have any vivid descriptions about the process clutter in her head when she slept.

“Let’s see,” said Raegdan, examining his own ravaged skin, “which one can I tell you about… Ah, see this one?” He presented his left forearm, pointing a series of teeth marks, forming the shape of a huge bite. “I had been walking around for, I am not sure, maybe four or five days. I had nothing to eat, there was plenty of water, but the last of my food was long gone. I dropped it accidentally down a ravine if you can believe that. I had my stuff wrapped in a cloth around my shoulder and I couldn’t make a decent knot to hold it so down it all went. Lost more than my food actually. Tools, clothes, little knick knacks, almost everything.”

“Anyway, I’m walking around, tired and hungry and there is nothing to eat. Everything seemed to be either dead or gone. Almost everything. Turns out there was something else there still alive and it was as hungry as I was.” Rainbow’s ears had never been more focused.

“It’s kind of hard to stalk someone when you are in a desolate, dead place. Or maybe the beast didn’t much care to prolong things. What I knew is that I kept hearing it’s hungry growls all around me. I think it was trying to scare me, make me run, tire me out and finish me off easier. That’s what it might have been thinking.”

“What I thought was, finally, something I can eat. I had ran out of options anyway. Either it killed me or I slowly starved to death. So, I tried to save my strength and waited for it to come to me. I didn’t have any weapons, only a knife, traps were out of the question, there was no time and it was probably watching. Too tired anyway. I would have built a fire but I hadn’t seen a tree for hours.”

“It didn’t try to set an ambush or blindside me from the shadows. It just… walked up to me. It was big, longer than I am tall, its head reaching up to my chest. It looked like some kind of big cat. It was obviously starving, I could see the skin tightening over its ribs. And it was sick. Big open sores were all over. It had lost its fur in patches and there were… growths.”

“We both were each other’s last chance to eat.”

“We spent minutes just looking at each other. It attacked first. Just pounced all the way over to me, lunging for my throat. Weak and sick, sure, but it could still kick my tired a- self easily. It must have gotten slower though, so,” he showed them his forearm again, pressed against his neck’s side, “I managed to block it. If it didn’t break my arm I don’t think I would have made it. As it was, the only reason I managed to not fall under it and get eaten was the pain and adrenaline that hit me when the bone broke. I got my knife through its eye and tried to work it up its brain and… Ok, we are stopping here, Fluttershy doesn’t seem to want to hear more.”

“Oh come on,” cried out Rainbow, “you can’t leave us hanging! What happened next?”

He shrugged. “As I said, it was sick. I had no choice but either… you know, or keep starving and then it got me sick too. I kept myself walking until I managed to…” he paused, looking at Fluttershy, “find something healthier to eat. Then it was all rest... and surviving the weather and sickness.”

“Boring stuff, just days huddled under some rocks trying not to die, I’ll spare you that.”

His eyes went empty, probably thinking about those so called “boring days”. Rainbow felt a chill up her spine. She tried to imagine having to fight to the death for your survival against claws and teeth. And then she imagined herself, alone, hunkering for cover and warmth in some hole, days and nights spent in sickness, alone, and wondering if this was the time she would die in her sleep. Facing the teeth seemed much easier in contrast.

Rainbow believed she might have a new idol.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me stories about your life when I asked you?” whined Twilight.

Raegdan’s smile returned. “You wanted bedtime stories, little one, not ‘how I survived horrible death’ stories.”

“Where did this happen? Was it the Badlands or-”

“Oops, look at that, storytime is over!”

“Uhm, it would be nice if he told us where he is from,” Fluttershy said.

“Welp, we tried, sugarcube,” said Applejack, “but no luck. No word about where he is from, how he came here, if there are more of him-”

“He said there were billions,” Rainbow corrected her.

“And that,” Applejack said harshly, “was an obvious fib. At least he had the decency to say a transparent lie about something rather than the half-truths and denials he spurted the rest of the time.”

“Wow, AJ. You are really taking the Honesty thing seriously, don’t you?” Rainbow ribbed at her friend.

And there came the sputtering, as she knew it would. “Ah just don’t plain like lying. It always comes back to bite yah in the flank, and I like mah tushy unbitten, thank ya kindly.”

Their ‘totally not talking about Raegdan behind his back’ session quickly came to an end at that point when, after a brief knock, the door opened and in came Twilight, Spike lying on her back while rubbing his swollen belly.

“Good morning, girls! Who’s ready for the Royal Guard Tournament?”

Yes, yes, yes, ohmyghosh, ohmygosh, ohmygosh, whooooooooooooooo….

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes timesinfinityyesyesyes…

Sparks filled the air around the pegasi dueling in the sky. Both of them were using razor sharp wingblades as their weapon of choice, the serrated metal bands lining the external edge of their wings. It was a great weapon for pegasi that had actually trained in their use as it allowed them not only a path of attack that most ponies were unfamiliar with but also forced opponents to stay clear of the pegasus’ greatest asset and weak point during a fight.

A fight between two wingblade users however was one of the most dangerous, and exciting, things that can happen. Both combatants were forced to make extremely close dives to each other, dodging counterattacks by the hair of their coat or using their own blades to block. The ferocious strike of a wingblade against each other would disrupt both attackers flight paths, leaving the lesser flyer vulnerable to a second attack.

Nothing like that had happened yet. Both of the guards up there were utter pros, as far as Rainbow could judge. She knew that at any moment one of them would slip and there might be something more substantial than a shallow cut. Wingblades were by design sharp but not really dense and the need to allow wings their freedom meant there were some small gaps in their cover. It was not unheard of for a pegasus to try and perform a block only for the opponent's blade to slice through his wing.

She hoped it didn’t come to that. Losing a limb on what amounted as an exhibition fight, even one as awesome as that, was not worth it. Rainbow herself, no matter how freakishly cool wingblades were, never even tried one on when she had the chance. The risk to her treasured wings was just too great.

“Look at that dive,” Rainbow yelled, grabbing a terrified Fluttershy by her shoulders and shaking her harshly in an effort to make her open her eyes. “He is actually doing a corkscrew dive with wingblades! It’s like a pony corkscrew of dea- she blocked him, I can’t believe that, did you see that, Fluttershy?”

“N-no, thank goodness. It sounds scary.”

“Is Raegdan gonna be here soon? We’ve seen half the fights and he hasn’t shown up yet,” Spike asked next to her, looking behind him.

Rainbow glanced back too, just for an instant before turning her attention back to the two guards that had landed and traded a mix of blows with their wings and hooves. Oh. My. Gosh! That mare was the blocking master. She actually used her armored horseshoes to deflect blows!

The Princesses were sitting a step above them on luxurious pillow seats that matched their colorations. A tent had been pitched above them to protect them from the heat, but the sun still managed to glint off its mistress’ coat, making Celestia give off a gentle glow. Luna was well nestled in the tent’s shadow, almost lost in it even in the light of day, enjoying the coolness it provided her from the hot day.

Rainbow and her friends had their own seats just below them. Rainbow had abandoned hers in record time so she could stand over the rail, dragging Fluttershy with her. Spike had also joined them, the little fella actually sitting on the edge.

Around them, various other ponies also watched, officials and their aides, families of the contesters and, of course, loads and loads of Royal Guards. All told, there had to be almost eight hundred ponies, filling the tiny arena to the brim.

“I don’t know Spike,” Twilight answered, “he said he would be and he wouldn’t lie about that. Maybe it has to do with the surprise he is setting up?”

“Do not worry, Twilight Sparkle. Raegdan will show up soon. We are unveiling our “surprise” after this fight finishes actually.” Luna managed to sound both comforting and smug in the same sentence.

Celestia emptied her glass of water, her eyes following the action in the ring. “You know, Luna, you never told me what kind of surprise you are actually planning.”

“Do not fret, sister of mine. I assure you, you won’t like it a bit.” Luna left the comforting part die in a ditch.

“I don’t like the sound of that, Luna. Raegdan and something I don’t like usually means I have to make visits to hospital beds, offer recompenses, and drag Raegdan down to the dungeons.”

“There will be no reason to offer recompenses or drag Raegdan anywhere. Trust me on that.”

“I can’t help but notice how you excluded hospital visits from- oh, my!”

“Looks like you will have to perform one without his help, sister.” Down on the arena, blood was erupting like a fountain from a half-amputated wing. The offender was doing his best to hold the screaming mare down to keep her from aggravating the injury further while a team of medics ran to them.

Rainbow watched the Solar Commander walk to the victorious stallion. He pushed him away from the fallen guard, held up his bloodied hoof with his own, and announced him as the winner of the match. He didn’t seem to even notice the medics trying to save the mare’s wing just a couple meters away from him. Rainbow had heard that he was a badass but now she saw he also was just a plain ass.

When the medic team carried off the wounded and the winner moved outside the ring under the applause of his fellow guards, Steadfast Ray lifted his hoof for silence so he could announce the next match up.

“I believe this is our cue,” said Luna and stood up, taking a big breath. She raised her voice, easily able to be heard over the entirety of the crowd.

“Solar Commander Steadfast Ray. I am sorry to say that we will have to interrupt the scheduled fight you have prepared for us next.”

The Commander trotted towards the stands. “Is there a problem, Princess Luna?”

“Nay, my good sir,” Luna continued to announce loudly, “but an announcement has to be made. My sister has long been served by the Solar Guard, a military force devoted to her protection. I have decided to follow her example and so I proclaim now, before all of you, the formation of the Lunar Guard!”

“A Lunar Guard?” Steadfast Ray sounded mighty offended to Rainbow. He didn’t seem to like the idea of another group contesting with his own. Very poor sportsmanship on his part, she thought.

“Your Favored Radiance, I have to protest,” the Commander beseeched his Princess, “the formation of a “Lunar Guard”,” he spat, “is nothing but an affront to the cause of-”

“Hush, Commander,” Princess Celestia interrupted him, “let my sister finish.” Steadfast blinked disbelievingly.

“Who would even consider joi-”

“Enough, Commander. Silence.”

Luna paused a second, looking curious at the Commander below her and her sister behind her. She regained her bearings and continued, head held high. “This newly formed group will have to work hard to gain your respect to the same degree of the Solar Guard,” Steadfast huffed at that, “so in order to begin on that long, hard road, I present to you my first initiate, to challenge in honored combat one of the members of the Solar Guard so he may prove himself.”

“I bring before you, Raegdan, First Guardsman of the Lunar Guard!”

The crowd exploded. Out of the shadows of the entrance, Raegdan made his way to the center of the arena.

Rainbow was not ashamed to admit that it was one of the coolest things she ever saw. Raegdan was covered head to toe in dark armor that left no doubt as to whom he served. His shoulderplates were decorated with large, dark silver depictions of the moon. In fact, the moon took prominent place in every place of note. His belt, elbows, knees and chest had silver designs of the moon or stars, cast in the same dark metal of his armor.

His helmet was the major exclusion. It’s crest was a mix of a star and horns, rising up over his head, giving it a sinister look. Unlike every Guard helmet, Raegdan’s was fully covering his face, leaving only a small slit for his eyes. Nopony would ever be able to cover their head so thoroughly without severely limiting their vision, but Rainbow guessed that Raegdan’s smaller eyes were good for something after all.

A strange, circular hunk of metal was hanging from his back. It was slightly concave and its design was split down the middle. Strange waves were carved in half of it while the other half had a close, more realistic view of the moon’s surface, small dark craters indented on it.

His weapon surprised Rainbow. She would have expected something like a sword as it was the classic weapon that knight ponies in tales always seemed to wield. Raegdan instead carried a strangely shaped hammer. One end of it ended in a square hammer head, the other was shaped more like a pick, its tip coming to a blunt looking end.

All in all, he wouldn’t strike a reassuring figure in the night. Or day. Top marks for style, though. Totally wicked! Gilda would have approved.

He reached the middle of the arena and the noise from the crowd intensified. Nopony was cheering. Everypony seemed to have it for him, booing and yelling insults. Rainbow laughed at the sight. Raegdan acted like he was hearing nothing but cheers. He was waving his hands and urging them on, thriving in their derision. Rainbow felt jealous at his courage. She couldn’t face a crowd that was, at worst, neutral towards her while her best friends were there to support her at the Young Flyers Competition. Yet here he was, unmoved by the vehemence everypony was piling on him.

She wondered why they acted like that. Was Raegdan’s rep really that bad around the castle? How much of it was earnestly earned by his actions?

A rock was launched from the stands and clanged against the back of his helmet, causing him to stumble.

Celestia rose up, causing everypony to hush, like little colts that pushed their mother too far.

Raegdan quickly waved her down. He searched the ground and found the offending rock. He turned towards the part of the crowd where the projectile came from, seeming to search for the pony that attacked him.

When no obvious target made itself apparent he visibly shrugged and threw the rock at the crowd in random.

Rainbow had never seen something like what Raegdan did. When somepony threw something they basically moved their hoof in an arc with as much strength as they had, letting the object go at its peak. Even minotaurs, she had seen, threw like that, often holding onto something with their other hand so the sudden motion wouldn’t throw them off balance.

What Raegdan did was entirely different. Rainbow was an athlete first, so she knew how important form and motion were. When you launched yourself in flight you had to uncoil like a spring or jump like a frog to put it in easier terms. She saw how Raegdan’s form moved in sudden detail, even as fast as he did it, and her world was ‘rocked’.

He began by moving sideways, his right leg placed far behind his left. He was facing mostly to the right instead of his front, apart from his head that was locked onto his target. His right hand, holding the rock, was stretched against the opposite direction, the left arm almost pointing at the target. And then he uncoiled. His middle twisted, his arm launched forwards and his legs switched positions, his right following him forwards while the left pushed against the packed earth beneath it. Even his fingers moved, seeming to push at the rock as it left his palm. All this was done in less than two seconds.

The rock moved from his hand much faster than when it was thrown at him. Almost faster than Rainbow could see, noticing that he made it spin, it crashed against a guard’s chest, breaking apart and peppering those around him with small shards. Another pair of medics quickly rushed towards the fallen pony. Rainbow realised that she hadn’t seen them even attempting to go check on Raegdan when he was hit. What a bunch of jerks.

Raegdan’s face was hidden from their view, but the way he walked towards them told everypony how satisfied he felt with the results.

Princess Celestia spoke up when he stopped in front of them. “Raegdan, that was-”

“Very rude of them? I agree,” he interrupted her ironically.

“My liege, I implore you to stop this madness. You cannot let this beast befoul our Tournament like that.” Steadfast Ray was obviously still sore.

Luna took offense at his choice of words. While she had a very loud trade of opinions with the Solar Commander, mostly barbs from her and pleads towards a silent Celestia from him, Raegdan jumped to grab the railing and pulled himself up to them.

“So, little ones, how do you like the surprise so far?” he asked while removing his helmet.

Spike was beside himself. “This is so cool!” Yeah, the little guy had good taste as far as Rainbow was concerned. “You are actually gonna fight?”

“That’s the plan. Some cheering from someone on my side would be great if you want to help.”

“This is insane,” Twilight said anxiously. “Raegdan, you are good against normal ponies, but those are trained professionals! This is what they do for a living. You can’t win!”

“Ah, little one. Do you really have so little faith in me?” he asked.

“No, but-”

“It’s ok,” he stopped her. “Normally I would agree with you. But, first point. There’s no real danger, is there? It’s a simple contest, I just have to do well enough. Second point, I didn’t just put this thing on and walk in. Luna has been training me. That girl really knows some things about fighting. For the first time in my life, I feel confident I can win a fight without it ending up with me in bloody chunks.”

Rainbow remembered some of the tales that survived about Nightmare Moon. Luna would certainly know a lot about hurting ponies.

Spike showed his confidence in him. “You have been winning fights so far without training.”

“Yes, but I almost always ended up bleeding my guts out. This time, it won’t happen. I have a few advantages over these guys so I am feeling good about my chances of getting a clean, painless win,” he made his point.

Near them, Luna’s voice was raised in rage. “How dare you dispute the efficiency of my personal entourage! This will not stand! My Lunar Guardsman is twice as good, NO, thrice as good as any of your pitiful excuses for warriors! And we shall prove it here and now.”

“Do you hear that, little flame? That’s the sound of those chances dying in a fire,” Raegdan deadpanned.

“Choose three of your best,” Luna continued, paying no attention to the person that had to do the actual fighting, “one of each tribe. Raegdan shall face them in combat, all three of them against him at the same time.”

“Not even ashes left,” Raegdan said bitterly as he put his helmet back on.

While Raegdan waited in the middle of the arena for his match to start, the girls had huddled near the rail. Luna was with them at the insistence of an extremely worried Twilight. At the very least, they were now in shade. Some merciful small cloud must have popped in the previously clear sky and gave them some relief from the heat.

“I really have no idea what the two of you are thinking trying to pull this off,” Twilight admonished the Alicorn that could crush her in seconds.

“It is all part of our plan, Twilight Sparkle. I may have overdone it, but I am still confident of his capability to win.”

“Win?” asked Twilight furiously. “Let’s set aside that he will be facing some of the highest trained ponies in Equestria. You have him wearing heavy armor for C- Heaven’s sake!”

Rainbow understood Twilight’s point. There was a reason all guards were lightly armored. Heavy plate armor like that was intimidating and protective, but it restrained movement too much and was too heavy. You couldn’t really kick with your hooves when kilograms of metal on your back pulled you downwards and even if you pushed through it you would be exhausted in minutes. Rainbow would always prefer speed over anything like armor. You dodge a hit, you are fine. You get hit, even with armor, you are still gonna feel that.

“You are thinking this from a pony’s point of view, Twilight,” Luna pointed at the figure that had sat down, legs crossed in a very weird way, “observe him. Do you see him bending under the armor’s weight? Do you see his movement falter? He does not possess the pony form but his own. Where you would be correct that a pony would be greatly disadvantaged against three opponents by his armor, it is actually an advantage for him. The armor does not hang on him but straps and ties upon him, covering him like a second layer of skin.”

Twilight still had doubts. “The weight will still tire him out-”

“Nay. Remember, not a pony. His endurance is much greater than any I have ever seen, even from the sturdiest earth ponies. His opponents would tire out before him, even with their much lesser weight. He and I decided to test his limits once.” Luna grinned, embarrassed. “We didn’t really come up with an answer. I… got exhausted and he had to carry me back.”

“Why a hammer?” Rainbow asked. This was bugging her. “Why not a sword or something?”

“I tried to teach him with a sword at first. I felt confident I could make a fine wielder out of him even without knowing how his kind fought with these kind of weapons. Alas, he is completely incompetent with a long blade. We switched to the simplicity of the hammer after he almost cut off his own leg. And I must say, it was a finer choice in the end.”

Rainbow brought the rock throw to her mind. “If he swings like he threw that rock…” she said loudly.

“How strong is he anyway, Twilight?” Applejack asked.

Luna answered her. “About as much as an above average earth pony I would wager at best. But do not be fooled. Watch how he moves when the fight starts. As Rainbow Dash has figured out already, he can put an astounding amount of power into his strike.”

“And that thing on his back?”, Rainbow spoke her own question.

“A metal shield. It was surprising to me too.” Luna was visibly excited about this shield. “He keeps it strapped on one of his arms and has proven amazingly flexible in blocking and attacking. It makes me wish I had arms like my companion if only to make use of such a simple but ingenious barrier. The way he can bring it to protect himself so easily with a single move of his arm is an outstanding advantage over the draining static barrier spells we use.”

Spike’s face betrayed his own excitement and impatience to see his adopted father in action after absorbing all this new information. Twilight was frowning, still unconvinced. Luna let out a sigh and tried her last shot.

“Even without all this, Twilight, your step-father has one massive advantage over the Solar Guard.”

“Which is?” Twilight asked in clear doubt.

“The Solar Guards, for all their training and expertise, have never had to face an opponent that overpowered them in true single combat. They never faced death. Raegdan has. He knows how to fight not to simply win, but to survive and kill.”

“When the time comes, he won’t hold back.”

The Solar Guards to battle against the Lunar Guard had been chosen and everypony waited for the signal to be given by Celestia.

The earth pony stallion that stood in the middle of the trio had chosen more than one weapon. He had donned heavy war horseshoes that would allow him to strike and buck harder during the fight. In his teeth, he gripped a short handled pickaxe, obviously chosen so he could pierce through Raegdan’s thick armor.

The Solar pegasus mare had also forfeited normal weaponry. She had a pair of strangely shaped hoofblades on her front legs. She wore them like normal horseshoes and the spikes faced downwards. Rainbow could only imagine the damage they would cause when used with a landing strike.

The unicorn was unarmed. He was obviously a trained caster, something that made him the most dangerous of the three. Raegdan would have no idea what to expect from him.

Rainbow knew now why they took this long to choose three Solar Guards to compete against him. They must have been taking their time choosing the weapons with the best chance of success. His opponents had probably been coached too.

Raegdan’s body language let them know he was not worried. You know, apart from what he said before, or the venomous looks he threw at Luna. He was totally fine. He stretched his arms to the sides, forming a brief cross shape.

“A beautifully made baiting,” whispered Luna from Twilight’s side. “Let’s see which one of them will take it.” Rainbow didn’t see what she was talking about. What… oh, OH!

“He just showed them how far back his arms can move!” Rainbow thought to herself, excitement filling her. Why would he do that, unless...

Celestia nodded to the combatants.

The pegasus mare was the first to move. She launched to the air, arcing around Raegdan’s side and high overhead, heading for his back. The earth pony charged towards Raegdan while the unicorn slowly moved sideways, covering another point of attack.

“And it’s the pegasus that falls for it.” Luna told them. What was the crazy biped up to?

The pegasus was now making a straight line for Raegdan’s back, her hoofs straight ahead, the wicked hoofblades ready to sink through his armor and flesh. She had almost reached him when Raegdan moved, once again surprising Rainbow in an unprecedented move.

In the span of less than half a second he was out of the pegasus’ course. It was astonishing. Without making any obvious indication he had spun on the axis of his left leg, twisting out of the way in an almost dance-like move. As the surprised mare crossed the now empty space, Raegdan had kept moving. Much like with his throw, he used the momentum of his dodge and pushing again with every part of his body he slapped the guard out of the air with his large shield.

Rainbow was astonished. She couldn’t get in her head how he even knew the perfect moment to move. He couldn’t see behind him and the mare’s flight was nearly silent. “How did he-” she tried to ask Luna.

“The shadows,” she pointed out, “he positioned himself so he could see her shadow as she approached him. A stupid mistake on her part, attacking from such an obvious angle, but,” she raised her voice for Steadfast’s sake, “their training apparently leaves much to be desired.”

The earth pony meanwhile had reached Raegdan. He started swinging his pickaxe at him but Raegdan either blocked and deflected with his shield or stepped back to avoid him. The pony took a page out of his book and used the momentum of his last swing to turn his hind legs to the armored figure and kick with his powerful, magic imbued, earth pony strength.

Raegdan’s shield came forward and absorbed the blow, but he hadn’t had time enough to regain his balance and stumbled back, falling to the ground. Rainbow winced. He was losing the initiative. This was not good.

The unicorn entered the fray. His horn shined sharply and a beam of pure magic was fired towards Raegdan. Raegdan rolled on his back, avoiding it by the closest of margins, a deep trench made on the ground where he used to be.

“Hey, isn’t that too much?” Applejack called out. “If that thing hit him he would be done for!”

Rainbow glanced at her side. Spike had lost his previous bravado and was chewing through his talons. Twilight was doing her little dance, her legs miming a running motion while standing still. Applejack and Rarity sat next to each other, shouting to everyone in hearing range about the unfairness of the fight. Fluttershy had put her head behind Rainbow, refusing to watch. Pinkie… Pinkie had somehow managed to make a small banner reading “Go Lunar Guard!” with childish drawings of a moon and stars and she waved it while cheering wildly. She was the only one cheering for Raegdan so far.

Luna watched the fight with an expression bordering on boredom.

Raegdan managed to get on one kneeling leg, only for the earth pony to reach him and kick him, successfully this time, on the chest, the din of the pony’s horseshoes on the Lunar Guardsman’s armor sounding like a bell. Raegdan was launched back, once more lying down on the earth. A shadow appeared on top of him and he frantically rolled to his side, barely avoiding impalement by the pegasus that was back in the fight.

While the mare was trying to unstuck herself, he used the break to try and get back on his feet.

The unicorn launched another high powered magic beam. This time he aimed high enough that all that Raegdan could do to avoid it was fall down on his hand and knees in a smooth, fast action. Unfortunately, that was the moment that the unicorn’s teammate was waiting for. While Raegdan was in no position to dodge, the earth pony swung his pickaxe, piercing Raegdan’s armor at the side, the blade shoved deep inside before it was pulled out again, blood rushing along as Raegdan’s roar of agony reached them. The pegasus followed suit, flying frighteningly fast and landing her blades on his hastily raised shield. There was another shout of pain.

Raegdan violently pushed the mare off his shield and frantically staggered back to gain some distance. Rainbow could see blood dripping from behind his shield. One of the blades had ripped through his arm. He fought back to his legs. He looked to be in pain, bent over his middle, as he backpedalled away. Red shined bright against the dark backdrop of his armor.

Twilight could take no more. “Princess Luna, stop this. He is seriously hurt.”

Luna kept staring at the fight. “Not before he starts fighting like he is supposed to. He is holding back. He needs to let his viciousness out,” she bared her teeth in a psychotic smile, “and those fools just pushed enough to get his head back into the game.”

Raegdan’s stance changed. Where he was balancing himself carefully and waiting for his opponents move, he now stood straight, almost defiant. He held his hammer at his side, casually, his shield also hanging at his other side. Rainbow felt a shiver up her spine as she saw the difference. It was just like yesterday. The Raegdan that was fighting up until now was Twilight’s and Spike’s dad. The one who laughed and joked and listened to their stories.

The one that was standing in the arena now was the one who threatened Celestia and pinned Pinkie and Rainbow to the wall. This one didn’t care what injuries he received. He only cared about what injuries he could inflict.

He charged forward, his shield held like a battering ram before him, his pain seemingly gone. He roared a word in his alien language, the two syllables merging into each other, smoother than any Equestrian word ever did, filled with more emotion that could possibly be contained in a single utterance, promising pain and retribution.

The pegasus took flight, avoiding him by going up. The earth pony ran forward to meet him.

Raegdan kicked. His unexpected armored boot rose up behind the cover of his shield and smashed the stallion’s muzzle, covering his face in blood from his mouth and nose.

The unicorn shot another beam. Raegdan saw it coming but remained still.

And everypony watched disbelievingly as he boldly lowered his shield and took the beam straight to his chest.

Nothing happened. Like, at all. There was no smoke, no hole, no nothing! Rainbow couldn’t believe her eyes. She saw that beam make craters and now it just… what the hay?

Raegdan turned away from the stunned unicorn and the still fallen, dazed earth pony. He looked at the skies, searching for the pegasus. He spotted her flying above, waiting for her chance. She only had to be patient. Raegdan had no way to reach up there.

Raegdan seemed to come to the same conclusion. He turned his back to her… and the next instant his shield was flying towards the Solar Guard above him.

She tried to avoid it. She could have done it if she wasn’t just hovering in place, something that Rainbow considered an arrogant choice of action for a trained guard, and without the momentum of actual flying she didn’t have the speed to move. The shield’s spinning edge hit her with a loud crack and she crashed down.

Raegdan took his chance to take his most agile opponent out of the fight. He ran towards her and before she could regain her footing he jumped in the air.

And landed with all his combined weight, using his knees, on her wings, snapping them with crack that echoed across the arena, causing the crowd to call out their dismay at the brutal takedown. The mare was screaming in agony beneath him. He took his time getting up, viciously grinding his knees repeatedly against the broken bones. He was crushing her wings! Rainbow’s jaw fell down looking at the blood pooling around her.

A loud, challenging shout made him turn. The earth pony had regained his senses and charged at Raegdan, no longer able to hold his weapon in his dislocated jaw but still willing to fight.

It was not surprising in hindsight that Raegdan had not used his hammer so far at all in this fight. Rainbow believed it was the greatest act of mercy from him considering what followed. A mercy that had ran out when his blood started flowing down his side.

He lifted his hammer up and to his side, the handle held across his body. And when the stallion got close enough he struck.

Raegdan had thrown the stone harder than anypony she had ever thought could. He threw his shield so fast and aimed so accurately that she believed the mare had broken ribs.

It all paled before the strength with which he brought the hammer across his other side.

His strange body once again coordinated in a single strike. The legs pushed the earth. The torso twisted. The shoulders flexed and the arm whipped around. The combined force of all of his muscles working in tandem united with the heavy weight on the solid hammer in one single hit.

The stallion was launched sideways. One of his forelegs got in the way of the hammerhead and it shattered like dry twig. His ribcage caved in. He landed with another of his legs leading the way, snapping as he crashed and slid on the dirt. Over where the Guards family members sat, there was a loud shriek.

The unicorn tried another spell. Rainbow guessed he tried to knock Raegdan back, but the only thing that moved was dirt and dust around him. He then switched to some kind of forcefield. Raegdan laughed, mocking him. He reached forward and waved his hand through it.

Rainbow was no unicorn but she was preeetty sure you are not supposed to be able to do that.

The Solar unicorn tried something else. His horn glow intensified and lightning crackled and replaced the magic shield.

The effect was instantaneous. Raegdan was shocked and screamed in pain. His spasming hand dropped his weapon. He pulled his arm back, cradling it in pain as he examined the newly enchanted electric field. The unicorn smirked and slowly started moving forwards, his efforts focused on keeping up his spell.

Raegdan seemed to be out of options to Rainbow. He had no way to go through the spell and he was slowly getting pushed to the wall. There was nothing he could do to reach the unicorn before he ran out of space to retreat and the spell was all over him.

Of course, Rainbow believed so because, apparently, she was a sane mare.

Raegdan kept walking backwards. When he got close enough he quickly bent down and grabbed the only projectile he had left.

The fallen pegasus mare with the broken wings.

He brought her up over his head and with all his strength he threw her at her disbelieving unicorn teammate. She screamed in pain when she passed through the electrified field of magic and nearly tore her vocal chords out when she crashed on Raegdan’s target.

Raegdan followed quickly behind her. He didn’t bother retrieving his hammer. He pushed the mare off the unicorn with a kick and started stomping the unicorn stallion. He didn’t differentiate between head, body or limbs. Everything was fair game. Again and again he kicked and trampled, pushing himself to crush everything in reach, blood oozing out of his opponents face, bones and ribs shattering audibly in the stunned silence.

“Enough!” shouted Princess Celestia. “I announce Raegdan as the victor of this match. Now get those ponies to medical help, hurry.”

Luna flew to Raegdan as medics swarmed around the fallen Solar Guards. In the reigning silence she landed in front of him and his stance relaxed, slouching in pain. Luna grinned and jumped at him. He grabbed her and brought her up to his shoulder, making a seat for her out of his bent arm.

“Who are we?” shouted Luna.

“The Lunar Guard,” both Raegdan and Luna shouted in unison.

“What do we do?”

“We kick ass.”

“Who are they?”

“The Solar Guard.”

“What do they do?”

“They are the ass!” they finished and Raegdan started bouncing Luna up and down while she cheered and Raegdan waved with his bloody arm. Ponies all around were starting to unsurely clap, most of them still stunned by the savage display they witnessed.

Spike was looking frightened at the pair celebrating their victory at the arena. “I don’t think I like Princess Luna and dad spending time together.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I do either, Spike,” Twilight agreed.

Down on the ground, the earth pony Solar Guard was declared dead. Two ponies in the stands that were crying and trying to jump down to him were held back by others around them.

Rainbow didn’t want to watch any more matches.

Author's Note

The_Mechanic has written a spin-off story of this fic, and this chapter in particular, where you can read Raegdan's tournament fight from the eyes of Sgt. Heavy Hoof, earth pony Solar Guard. The story is here: Blood, Dirt and Steel

Ch.05 - ...ending it bitter.

Rainbow had never been squeamish at the sight of blood. She would be in the wrong line of work if she was. When performing a brand new trick for the first time -or second or third- crash downs were a regularity and she would often cut and bruise herself.

Applejack was the same, for similar reasons. Working on a farm with hard physical labor sometimes translated to accidents. Rainbow and Applejack would often be the one to patch up each other when either of them needed help but didn’t feel like going to the hospital. Which in the case of them both meant almost always.

Rainbow didn’t really have anything against hospitals. But come on! She doesn’t need to have every little bruise checked out. Every check-in so far had been a whole day’s waste for her, half of it just reciting every small nick and cut she had received in the last week. It was major boredom and endless lecture from doctors and nurses. What the hay is masochitisminisiwhatever supposed to mean anyway?

Fluttershy, contrary to what ponies would think, could face any injury without the slightest flinch, excluding her bouts of worrying. Being an animal lover that lives at the edge of the Everfree Forest meant she had seen the end results of many animal fights. Broken bones, bites, deep cuts, you name it, she would just hum comfortingly over it as she examined it casually. Rainbow always thought that was awesome.

Rarity didn’t have the same fortitude like the rest of them, but after finishing the drama queen part she was practical about it. Something about “sharp implements of pain” she mumbled. Rainbow always suspected the prim white unicorn had a hidden wild side, but she never would have guessed BDSM. Live and learn, huh?

Pinkie Pie found the sight of blood -or any wound, no matter the size- gross and nasty. Which, since this is Pinkie we are talking about, meant she glued her eyes to the sight, mixing oohs and ews over it, making constant remarks in her random way.

The great surprise after the revelations of the last couple of days was Twilight. She had been practically raised by the most violent guy Rainbow had ever met and according to their stories she had caught bits and pieces of his fights first hoof -although, apparently he was responsible enough to order Twilight and Spike away when he had the presence of mind or, more often, drag his victim out of sight.

Spike handled himself fine if it wasn’t something serious at least. But Twilight couldn’t even make herself look at blood if she had the choice. And, whoo, boy, Raegdan was really covered in the red stuff under his armor.

Raegdan had apparently figured Twilight out a long time ago and that was why the first thing he did after his armor was taken off and had sat down was to lift her like a filly and cradle her to his right side, facing her away from the cleanup that was performed on him. Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie called the way she huddled against him, with his arm pulled like a blanket over her chest, “super adorable”. Mmm, yeah, maybe it kind of was, Rainbow secretly agreed.

The sudden switch from violence to fawning over Twilight and Spike kept throwing Rainbow out of a loop. It was sweet, sure, but… Rainbow rattled her head to bring out the thought that was forming inside her. It was like… like…

He expected every time to be the last time he saw them.

Princess Celestia had called for a break in the Tournament. Severe injuries were nowhere near unusual, but they couldn’t just continue straight after a pony died.

Luna and Raegdan had retreated -though most would say paraded- back to Luna’s tower. Twilight and Spike ran after them and the rest of them followed. Luna brought Raegdan into her own bedroom and had them help him remove his armor so they could tend to his wounds.

Most of them tried to convince them he should go to the castle’s infirmary instead, but Raegdan refused on the grounds that he would not be a welcome sight at the moment. So, it fell to them to make sure that somepony, whose body they knew nothing about, would not fall over dead on their watch. Fun stuff. Luckily, all Rainbow had to do was pass the bandages.

Luna and Fluttershy both examined Raegdan’s pierced side that was obviously the most serious injury he received. Fortunately, his armor did its work and stopped the pick from digging in too deep and with too much force, though it left his flesh ragged and bleeding profusely. Fluttershy feared there was internal damage, but Luna dismissed her concern, claiming greater familiarity with his body. Raegdan may have been acting cool and reserved, but Rainbow saw how he relaxed after Luna’s assessment.

“I need better armor,” he told Luna that was examining the hole at his armor’s side.

“It was the best we could do at the time,” she answered. “We need to have one either properly forged or get our hooves on better quality metal. The large amount of shaping spells weakened the metal and I cannot increase thickness without it ending a brittle mess. I hoped you would face blades anyway, not armor piercing weaponry.” She dropped the piece she was holding back to the ground.

“A longer handled weapon would be nice too.”

Luna snorted with amusement. “You did well enough with a pony fitted hammer. But, indeed. We will need proper equipment. I am more concerned with your performance.”

“Ah. Yeah, I made some mistakes there, didn’t I?”

“That’s an understatement,” she told him severely. “I will let the bungle of your initial hesitance to actually strike back slip aside. Your blood on my bedspread says enough. But the way you actually disarmed yourself on your own… I am trying to find the words, but the only ones I can think of are not to be used in mixed company.” Raegdan winced at Luna’s criticism. “You got underestimated, like we hoped,” she continued judging, “but now everypony knows what you are capable of. More blunders like today’s are unacceptable. Hrmf, you got bruised too much. Your kind’s armor needs more padding than we thought underneath, it seems.”

Applejack had been sent to retrieve a bag of Raegdan’s blood that Luna kept stored in another room in her chambers along with tubing and needles. Turns out that if you keep fighting and then jump around while carrying an Alicorn is not so good for keeping blood in the inside when you have a couple of holes in you. Raegdan had trouble climbing the stairs up the tower even with Luna’s help.

Rarity, to her dismay and Rainbow’s eternal amusement, had been selected, in honor of her seamstress skills, to stitch him together. Rainbow watched like a hawk, enjoying the way she gulped every time she threaded the needle through Raegdan’s flesh and waited to see if she would try to stitch her monogram after she finished.

His left arm had been less serious if only because his armor and stiff padding under it had been able to hold it tight enough to keep him from bleeding out. The unorthodox hoofblade hadn’t managed to cut completely all the way through, but it left a great gashing hole and cut veins. Raegdan had been able to hastily tighten his arm brace at some point and that was probably the only reason he hadn’t fainted from blood loss yet. Luna held it closed and wrapped some gauze around it until Rarity could turn her attention to it.

Fluttershy and Spike were rubbing a salve over his bruises. The earth pony’s kick had resulted in the entirety of his chest becoming blue and landing on his back didn’t help either.

They all worked silently. Rainbow and her friends weren’t keen on starting a morbid discussion about what happened in the tournament. The way Raegdan and Luna kept grinning at each other, drunk in their own victory, wasn’t a great motivator to do so anyway. None of them were eager to hear their feelings about the outcome.

Princess Celestia had a different mindset.

The bedroom door was kicked open and an angry Princess marched in while Rarity was applying the last stitches on Raegdan’s arm.

Rainbow had never seen the Princess angry before. Celestia’s eyes were glaring at Raegdan, eyelids half closed and her lips were stern. Her mane didn’t move like it used to, in those gentle waves it was known for, but seemed to spread and whip around like a flame. Rainbow could see her wing muscles tremble from the effort she put to hold them in place rather than spread them open in an instinctual act of intimidation.

Rainbow Dash and the rest of the girls moved slightly, opening a path between the angry Alicorn and her apathetic target.

“Celestia,” Raegdan with a cheery smile inclined his head at her, incredibly unaware of her mood, both arms too busy to move like they usually did when talking. “You came to celebrate victory with us? We are kinda busy at the moment, patching my sorry as- self up, but when we are done I thought we might go and raid your wine cellar! How long has it been since you got wast-”

“A pony is dead,” she interrupted him.

Raegdan faltered. “I… noticed? I don’t get it, I thought we won.” He scooted along the bed, leaving Twilight behind him, and sat on the edge.

“Is there a problem?” he said, looking curious.

Celestia’s eyes widened in disbelief. Rainbow herself could not comprehend the sheer callousness of those words.

Celestia walked forward till her face was only centimeters away from him, Raegdan unflinching before her stern gaze. They stood still, measuring themselves against each other.

And then Celestia slapped him with her golden horseshoe, hard enough for the metal to break his skin.

“There is a family down there right now,” she hissed, “crying over the corpse of what used to be a loving father and husband. You tore a family apart today and all you have to say for yourself is “is there a problem?” Should I bring his widow up here so you can repeat that to her? Or maybe his orphan? What in heaven’s name were the two of you thinking? You were practically celebrating on top of his body! I have seen many things, but such sheer cruelty was just...” she looked at her audience for a couple of second before turning back to the cause of her anger. “We are going to talk about this, in detail, later.”

Everypony lowered their eyes. Fluttershy and Pinkie were tearing up, side by side. Raegdan spent a few seconds looking at the blood he wiped from his cheek.

“I see your problem,” he told her, “things didn’t go well today. Finally had a change of mind and decided it would have been so much better if it was my fuc- my corpse down there instead, right?”

Celestia inhaled sharply. Behind Raegdan, Twilight and Spike gasped in horror.

“I never said that, you complete idiot. Stop trying to get out of this by twisting the meaning of my words, Raegdan. You killed a pony and put two others in critical condition. Leaf Stream will never fly again with the damage you caused to her wings. You are lucky Steadfast Ray claimed responsibility for today’s events.” Rainbow shuddered. She had hoped it wasn’t so bad. Losing her flight… what was left for a pegasus without the sky?

“You know, it just came to my attention that you are being rude,” Raegdan changed the topic with sudden hostility.

“What are you trying to do now?”

“I might be wrong because I am an uncultured, stupid, savage monster, but isn’t it considered good manners to ask after someone’s health when he has been hurt?” he asked sarcastically.

Celestia huffed. “You are fine. We both know it takes a lot more than that to kill you.”

Raegdan agreed with her. “Yes. I have taken worse, you would certainly know how much. But how much more can I take, really?” He pointed at the stitched hole at his side. “Somehow, I doubt those ponies knew about what kind of damage I can survive or where my vital organs are located. Take a good look Celestia. What do you think would have happened if that blade landed higher? Would it have pierced just a lung or was it long enough to hit my heart? What about a bit deeper or sideways? Is dying by perforated intestines and stomach as painful for ponies as it is for my kind? Keep in mind, of course, that I can’t rely on your magic painkillers.”

“If you are implying, after everything, that I don’t care-”

“I am saying that I didn’t pull my punches. But neither did they.”

Celestia kicked the ground, her anger returned. “You knew from the beginning they would try to really hurt you, Raegdan! They dedicate themselves to my protection and they have seen you try to kill me twice.” Hold on, did she just say-

“I’ve warned you to stay away from them, again and again. How much longer can I protect you from your own actions? How many more of my ponies do I allow to be hurt because you are my friend? Where do I draw the line? You could have stopped this anytime, I foolishly trusted you to do the right thing for once, and you did not!”

“I did stop it!” he shouted, “it was three against one and they still wanted to play hard. Well, I gave them what they fu- damn wanted. It was the only way it could have ended.”

Celestia shoved her face to his, the beginning of tears in her eyes, her forehead almost touching his. “You just can’t understand, can you? It could have ended otherwise. I let it go on, and I am to blame for it as well, because even then I kept hope that you would not sacrifice my faith in you, once again, over a meaningless fight! I know what you have been through, Raegdan. I know you could hardly be blamed for what you had to turn yourself into. I have shown patience for years, forgiven crimes done in ignorance, and allowed you freedom. If not for Twilight and the lives your gifts have saved, then because of our friendship and I selfishly couldn’t lose that, despite all the pain and beatings you personally delivered to my subjects. But I don’t have much patience left, nor can I keep granting favors to keep ponies from demanding your head. Not when all your promises to control yourself prove false time after time.”

“They tried to kill me first if you-”

“I know, I am not blind! This is not about whether or not you were justified in your actions to defend yourself. If something like this had happened at any other time, I would be supporting you wholeheartedly. But this was not a life or death situation. You could have refused to fight against three of them. You could have surrendered. You could have called for a stop when you got hit. You could have been less you! Nopony had to die. Your actions are not excused this time, not when you had options left.”

She pulled back. Raegdan leaned back on his right elbow, half lying on the mattress.

“I could have surrendered,” he mused darkly. “An interesting notion. But that was not going to happen, Celestia. Either I came out of there with a win or I died. Those were my options.”

“You conceited, sadistic, prideful-”

“Would you like to know why?” he interrupted her with a wide smile, as if everything was forgotten and he had something very interesting to share. To Rainbow, he looked like Rarity when she had a straight flush at poker.

Celestia waited for him to make his point.

“Pinkie Pie, come over here, please,” he beckoned. Pinkie came to his side and sat next to his legs. “Now, Pinkie, I want you to do something for me.”

“Point at the Princess,” he said.

Pinkie Pie blinked and exchanged a confused look with the rest of them. Slowly, she lifted her hoof to point at Celestia.

“Still trying to dodge the issue. What is your point this time, Raegdan?” Celestia asked, her anger still evident in her voice.

“Oh, nothing much,” he answered, patting Pinkie Pie’s head. “Just drawing attention to the fact that she unthinkingly pointed at you when there are actually two Princesses in the room.”

They all turned their head to look at Luna who sat silent next to the bed, completely forgotten, watching them passively.

“Funny how not even you thought about that.”

“Luna is my little sister! Just because that stupid misdirection caught me off gu-”

Suddenly enraged, Raegdan got up and pushed Celestia back with one of his arms. “Maybe you should think of her less as your little sister and more as your equal! Maybe you should stop taking for granted that others have your-”

Luna put a sudden stop to him with a lifted hoof. “That is far enough, Raegdan.”

Raegdan sat back down, his eyes filled with scorn as he looked at Celestia. His lips were pulled back and he was gritting his teeth. Rainbow was reminded of Timber Wolves.

Celestia turned to her sister. “Luna, we are a Diarchy, despite Raegdan’s attempts to get me sidetracked. What is mine is yours. There is no need to-”

“Did you notice any guards outside my chambers, sister?” Luna asked.

“I- what?”

“Your guards will not accept my orders,” Luna said, anger in her voice, “they might bow and call me their Princess, but at the end of the day nothing will be done of what I asked. By anypony. My doors are left unguarded. My rooms left uncleaned. If I wish to eat I have to personally visit the kitchens and wait for my meal or it will be “lost in the bustle”. The treasury will not release funds to me unless they get a direct order from you. I am not a Diarch here, sister. I’m just an unwanted guest.”

Celestia was visibly shocked, the last remains of her anger evaporating. “Luna, if you had told me before I-”

“You would have done what, sister? Order them to obey? Is any authority I am going to have only because you ordered it so?” Luna said bitterly.

She jumped on her bed and sat next to the still fuming Raegdan. “Raegdan has been the only one to unquestioningly stand by my side since my return. A complete stranger to our land has been more accepting of me than our own subjects. He has been doing everything in his power to aid me and you saw the result in the tournament. Jeering and insults. If you wish to punish him for today’s events, then let me tell you that you can’t. He is under my command and I rule today as an accident in the heat of battle. Overrule me on this and you will have to admit that the so called Diarchy, is a farce. ”

“I need ponies by my side if my plans to prove myself as a Princess are going to work, sister, not you having to approve to the maids my request for tea. I need the unmitigated loyalty of a Lunar Guard.”

Rainbow had to point out the flaw in that. “Uhh… sorry Princess, but… one guy is not really much of a guard, is it?”

“There will be more,” Luna insisted, “especially after today. There are ponies who will wish to reach their full potential. They will come to us. There are ponies who will see the desperate need we have of more members. They will come to us. We have proven we are just as good, nay, better, than the Solar Guard and ponies will cling to that.”

“Or you might get ponies who will come to you because of the violence Raegdan portrayed,” Celestia pointed out. “What about those?”

“I will have them too. They will be shaped like clay and proper use will be made of them. Between Raegdan and I, we will forge out of all of them an effective military force.”

To Rainbow, this sounded rather dodgy. It looked like Luna planned to give permission to put the fear of her in her subjects, and considering who her first guard was, she had an inkling of how they would go about that. Did Celestia really feel so guilty for her sister that she would allow that?

If Luna thought she would be able to turn that fear into loyalty, she was off her rocker. How would you convince somepony to trust his former bully? Rainbow still hadn’t forgiven Gilda and she had been her friend, not her victim.

“Why?” Celestia cried out, “what do you want soldiers for, Luna? What is this vaunted plan of yours?”

“What do we have the Guard for, sister?”

“To keep the peace,” Celestia professed, “to keep our ponies safe. Not to endanger them and hurt them.”

“Then they are unfit for what we need. Soldiers are used to fight. To kill. To remove threats. How many monsters roam our countryside, Celestia? Ponyville is but a stone’s throw from Canterlot and even approaching Everfree’s edge is a gamble.”

“Ponyville is protected just fine,” Celestia said, her eyes running over Twilight and the rest of them. Heck yeah, Ponyville is protected. Rainbow’s chest puffed with pride.

Raegdan was not happy with the answer. He moved to stand up again and was held back by a single hoof gesture from Luna.

“Others do not have this protection. I plan to create a proactive force. You have been Equestria’s wisdom and morality. I cannot be that, not anymore. So I will be its sword and,” she chuckled, nodding towards Raegdan, “shield.”

Celestia sighed, finally dropping down on the carpeted floor. “You are imagining a non existing threat or underestimating our ponies. I am not sure which, Luna. When the need calls, the Guard answers. The Solar Guards often engage those missions themselves when I take a personal interest.” Celestia glared at Raegdan once more. “Ask your friend, maybe. He can tell you about that.”

“He has,” Luna answered with no pause, “and that is why we intend on that course. Once we have a solid force, our efforts will begin. I am sorry, sister, but today was the best chance we had to prove our worth.”

“Prove your worth? Did those poor ponies have to pay that price for the Lunar Guard to prove its worth? Did Raegdan have to kill and maim them? Did you have to perform those horrid actions?” asked Celestia sorrowful.

“There was no need for anypony to die, sister,” Luna answered her.

“Yes,” Raegdan growled, “they could have surrendered.”

Celestia decided to table the discussion for later, when both sisters were in calmer spirits. Raegdan insisted there was no need for a discussion and according to her own words Luna had the authority to do as she damn well pleased as long as they weren’t breaking their own laws. Both Luna and Celestia ordered him to shut up.

Princess Celestia left, deeply disillusioned with both of them. She… she wasn’t the only one.

Twilight waited until Princess Celestia was surely gone before asking. “You tried to kill Princess Celestia?”

Raegdan was still angry and he didn’t seem to be able to calm himself down, no matter how he tried. “Twice,” he spat.

“Why?” Twilight wailed.

“Why does someone attack one who commands an army, moves the sun, and is stronger, faster and can burn him to cinders with a thought?” He grinned. “I got jealous of her room. She has a bigger bed.”

“This is not a joke!” Twilight screamed in rage. “Things are obviously worse than I thought. Worse than you ever told me. What have you done, Raegdan? Are you really feeling no guilt for what you did today?”

“Those are heavy questions, little one,” he chuckled. “Ok, fine. You are a big girl now.” He turned to address Spike. “Little flame, go to your room.”

“What? No, I want to stay,” the young dragon whined.

“Please leave, young dragon. You have already been party to too much for one so young, even for someone of your heritance. It has been foolish of us to allow you to linger for so long,” Luna supported Raegdan’s order.

Raegdan waited for a grumbling Spike to leave Luna’s rooms before answering Twilight’s questions with barely contained anger.

“I’ve done some things that you do not know about. That you will never be told about. Some of the Guard knows. The Solars know. Celestia knows. Luna knows. But if I have my way, you will never know. I have my differences with Celestia at the moment, but I am thankful to her beyond words for keeping it a state secret from everyone else.”

Applejack popped the question in their minds. “What could you have possibly done that was worse than killing somepony?”

Raegdan didn’t answer immediately. He just looked sad and turned his face away from Applejack. “Something pretty similar to today, in a way. I have done worse things in my life, but not here.”

Rainbow cursed her mouth. Why did even her tongue have to be faster than her brain? “What’s the worst thing you have done?” Oh, she did not just ask that, somepony tell her she just thought that…

“RAINBOW!” Ah, shoot, judging by Rarity’s tone that was not to be.

Raegdan scratched his chin, depression and regret all over his face. He was actually going to answer her? Should she cover her ears? She wasn’t sure about hearing what he considered-

“I tripped a little girl once, on purpose.” What? What kind of answer was that? Should she ask him for more details? Uh oh, Rarity was looking at Rainbow’s way and the way she smoldered said no.

“You haven’t answered Twilight’s second question yet, Raegdan.” Luna, of all ponies in the room, brought them back on track, her posture screaming resignation.

“Fine.” He leaned against the bedhead, defeated. “I don’t. It just doesn’t register, I think. Not him, not his family, nothing. I told the truth to Celestia. “Is there a problem?”. She is right. Right about everything. I screwed up today, we both did. It was not supposed to be this way. Poor Celestia just wants us to feel guilt for this, at least. Have some empathy. But, compared to everything else, what’s so bad about the clean death of someone we don’t know? I was alive, he wasn’t but I was, and it felt amazing. I know it sounds monstrous. It is. But…”

“I am sorry, little one, I am so sorry. I am trying my best, I swear.”

...when it blows, it’s really gonna blow hard, won’t it?

Rainbow got up from her bed. It was useless. She spent half an hour on that darn thing and all she managed to do was make a mess out of it with all her tossing and turning. The sweet nap she craved was out of reach.

She knew what the problem was. She couldn’t get today’s fight out of her mind and she couldn’t stop thinking about Nightmare Moon.

They had been lucky, Rainbow knew. Nightmare Moon could have crushed them at any point, but she didn’t even take them seriously until it was too late. Discord had done the same, but the Spirit of Chaos took nothing seriously. Nightmare Moon was a different mare however. If she had truly thought of them as a threat… Rainbow gulped.

She was brutal in the stories. She made sure that nopony would even think of challenging her by spreading terror the likes of which had never been seen. There were tales about ponies who refused to sleep by the thousands, the nightmares she unleashed terrorising them to death. Ponies she caught that would be found later in flayed pieces. Monsters she commanded that would obey her every whim, hurting everypony they got their claws on. Rainbow’s childhood was full of nights huddling under her covers after hearing or reading that stuff.

And it seemed to Rainbow that there were too many similarities between those stories and what Luna wanted to start doing right now.

That fight… she felt sorry for the dead stallion and his family, but that could be attributed to sheer accident. It happened. A hit too hard or at the wrong place and BAM, it could end for you right there.They were fighting with real weapons and the Solars pushed him too far. Raegdan himself practically admitted he could have easily died instead.

What was scaring her most was what he did to that pegasus. He could have taken her out of the fight with so many ways. A simple knockout would be so easy. Instead… instead he casually did the cruelest thing she could imagine. She had been too far away, but she almost believed she could hear the bones shattering and slashing through the mare’s flesh as he did his best to pulverize her wings in the short time he had. And he didn’t care at all. He admitted he should be feeling guilt for the dead, but he had completely forgotten about her during his “apology”. It didn’t even manage to stick in his mind. He regretted that he was like this, and it felt like it should count for something, but…

Raegdan was starting to scare her, she admitted to herself. And she certainly didn’t want to see what he would do if given actual provocation. Or orders. Because if Luna ordered him to do something questionable, Rainbow knew that he wouldn’t flinch from doing it. She felt her throat. How strong were those fingers of his? How hard would it be for him to break her neck?

Let’s face facts. Luna, like Nightmare Moon, already had one monster under her command now, didn’t she? Celestia obviously had no control over Raegdan, if she ever did, and he felt no guilt or remorse for his actions. All he cared about was Twilight and Spike, and they couldn’t be around him all the time, or temper him down all that much. Luna might not be Nightmare Moon anymore but her screws were just as loose. And who could keep her under control if she went off the deep end again? Rainbow didn’t want to have to face Nightmare Moon again. She was certain, that if they did, this time she would play for keeps.

Rainbow needed someone to talk with, share her thoughts, and have them laughed off like the silly ideas they were. Ok, not laughed off, that wouldn’t be cool, but…

She went off to find Fluttershy.

Fluttershy was not in her room. In Rarity’s room she found the unicorn nodding to whatever Pinkie Pie was talking about, her attention clearly somewhere where there was no unending prattle, by the glaze of her eyes. Rainbow was heading to ask Applejack if she saw her when she saw Fluttershy coming out of Twilight’s room.

“Hey Flutters,” Rainbow greeted her oldest friend.

“Oh, um, hello Rainbow,” Fluttershy answered. Rainbow had accepted Fluttershy’s timidness as a fact of life by now. It still kille- hurt her a little on the inside however whenever she acted like that to her even when they were alone.

“Were you talking to Twilight?”

“She actually spent more time talking to me. She… needed to vent a few things.” Fluttershy was quiet and moved away from Twilight’s door, leading Rainbow to her own room.

“Like what?” Rainbow asked, genuinely interested.

Fluttershy waited until they were in Rainbow’s room before speaking. “She is afraid about Raegdan.”

Rainbow snorted. “I think she should be afraid for everypony else rather than him.”

“That’s, um, that’s the problem,” Fluttershy explained in more detail. “She told me that Raegdan always had problems keeping himself under control. Now that he is actually trained and armed, she is afraid that things will get so bad that Princess Celestia might have to do more than just lock him in a dungeon for a few weeks the next time he loses control.”

“Oh. Yeah, that is a disaster waiting to happen isn’t it?”

“She is also scared about what Princess Luna and Raegdan have planned.”

Rainbow was puzzled. “They… already told us. They want to set up a Lunar Guard like Princess Celestia has and start killing monsters.”

“Yes, Rainbow, but… then what? Twilight says that Raegdan is smart in his own way. She described him as furiously impulsive and rash, but if he spends the time to think things through enough he can sometimes figure out things that even Twilight or Celestia might miss. And Luna is an Alicorn like Princess Celestia. They surely have more things in mind than just getting a few ponies on their side like this and try to gain Equestria’s respect by going on needless hunts.”

“How is going on monster hunts needless? I’ll admit, we are doing ok in Ponyville, but it would be nice if we didn’t have to worry about Timber Wolves and other nasties prowling too close.”

“Princess Celestia gets reports from all over Equestria for everything,” Fluttershy informed her, “and Twilight took a look at some of those. Things are calm. Things have been calm for centuries actually. There is the random attack, but nothing that would merit what Luna and Raegdan claim. Oh, I just don’t know what to think. I want to believe that they are just desperate for some way to be helpful, but letting them do that seems a bad idea.”

Rainbow considered what had kept her awake along with what Fluttershy told her. “Raegdan is mighty pissed at Celestia for some reason, isn’t he?” Fluttershy nodded and Rainbow continued, “and Luna… Luna does have some excuses to be moody with her too.”

“Right. But one of the things Twilight thought was that… that they might have something more risky planned that what they told us. They might have something bigger in sight than just some loose chimeras… things like Discord.”

“No way! Twilight thinks that they want to mess with that guy?”

“Twilight doesn’t know what to think!” Fluttershy was almost in tears. “She is driving herself crazy with scenarios. Maybe they plan something involving Raegdan’s people, maybe they are going to leave Equestria, maybe they are just grasping at straws for the sake of doing something. She kept going on and on like this. I had to force her to go to bed. I- I don’t like using… that on my friends.”

Rainbow did not want to have her fears confirmed. She still had to ask. “You don’t think.... Twilight didn’t say anything about… Nightmare Moon or something?”

Fluttershy smiled relieved. “No, thank goodness. She says Nightmare Moon was gone for good when we used the Elements. Luna was basically stripped completely of her magic for weeks. No magic entity can survive that.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Rainbow said in relief before jumping back on her bed, her major fear now debunked, and almost ready for an afternoon power-nap. She tired herself with worries long enough. As long as they didn’t have to deal with Equestria’s greatest terror they would manage. What was she thinking? She had faith in her friends. Twilight would find a way to keep Raegdan in check. Princess Celestia would find some way to reason with Luna. Fluttershy would find her own way to the door. Although…

“Hey, what time are we having dinner with them, again?”

“You have to be kidding me, Twilight! What kind of crazies have dinner at midnight?” Rainbow griped.

“Apparently, Luna is more of a nocturnal pony and she and Raegdan tend to stay up for a big part of the night…” Twilight said apologetically. “They really wrecked their sleeping schedule to accommodate us yesterday, I think. I couldn’t ask them to do more than they have already.”

They climbed up the empty tower, the absence of guards making itself painfully clear now, and walked through Luna’s unguarded doors. Applejack scoffed, sounding amused, as they did for some reason. There was nopony there to welcome them in.

“Maybe we should just shout out for them?” suggested Rainbow.

“Rainbow,” Rarity objected, “one does not simply call out for their host in their own home.”

“We do that all the time when we go to Twilight’s.”

“No, you do that all the time. I won’t have you yelling like a yokel inside a Princess’ personal chambers.”

Applejack patted Rarity on the shoulder to get her attention. “This here yokel would like to know how y’all planning to find the Princess then. Unless it’s all fine and dandy to snoop around when in high society.”

“That would be very rude,” agreed Fluttershy, causing Pinkie to guiltily close the drawer she was opening and get back to her place next to Rarity.

“Well, they are probably in the dining room, waiting for us. We will just knock on the door and if they are inside, they will answer us,” Rarity said with a flourish of her mane.

“Ok, Rares. Nice plan,” Applejack complimented her.

“Why, thank you, Applejack.”

“Which door leads to the dining room then?”

Rarity’s face fell. “Oh, uh… it’s probably…”

Twilight took the lead. “If those rooms are designed like Princess Celestia’s it’s probably this one. Come on.”

Twilight didn’t bother knocking on the door. She just walked inside and called out, breaking both of Rarity’s pleads to decorum in one fell swoop.

“Princess Luna? Raegdan? It’s us! Are you in here?”

Rainbow wondered if Princess Celestia’s rooms were the same as her sister’s. The dining room was… small. Oh, they would all fit just fine and have room to spare, but even the guest room where they ate so far was bigger. It was very cozy however, much like the rest of Luna’s rooms, and a pair of glass doors led to a large balcony.

Luna and Raegdan were rushing inside the room from there as Rainbow and her friends were making their way through the door.

“We apologize,” Luna said. “We lost track of time and forgot about our appointment this night.”

“What were you two doing out there?” Spike asked.

“We were just stargazing, little flame. I know it sounds very surprising to hear that we of all people are into that, but- oof.” Raegdan stopped his lame joke when Luna used her back leg to kick his shin.

Rainbow supposed that they were both dressed... formally. Luna was in her own regalia as she was during the Tournament. Crown, ebony neckpiece, and crystal shoes. Raegdan wore his repaired armor, which was now probably his official uniform, but without his shield. His helmet hung from his belt, which she now noticed had been supplemented with a couple of long daggers.

Luna asked them to take their seats at the round table, while Raegdan moved to a cabinet and started bringing glasses over along with a bottle of wine. It appeared that there would be no pony waiters tonight, just like Rainbow thought.

Rarity was looking towards the balcony outside, her mouth gaping like one of those fish Fluttershy fed some of her animals. Rainbow tried to see what was so astonishing about it, but all she saw out there was a fluffy blanket discarded on the balcony. Rarity was probably having a heart attack seeing a Princess leaving something lying on the floor.

Rainbow wondered if it would be ok to ask. She had to ask, didn’t she? Someone would anyway. “So, uh… what’s for dinner?”

Raegdan exchanged a look with Luna. “Wondering where your meal is coming from, Rainbow Dash? It’s ok, we get it. Luna made tonight’s dinner actually.”

Seven pairs of eyes widened and seven heads swiveled towards an amused Princess.

“I am an immortal Alicorn whose life is measured in millennia. Is it so surprising that among all that time I managed to learn how to cook?”

“We are sorry, Princess Luna,” Twilight tried to backpedal their reactions, “but we weren’t expecting you to spend your time at the Castle’s kitchens cooking for us.”

“She didn’t. We have a kitchen right here,” Raegdan said.

“I- what? You have a kitchen in here?”

“It was less of a hassle converting one of the rooms than waiting in front of the kitchens everyday to make sure they actually prepared what we asked for,” Raegdan explained.

“Where did you get the appliances and stuff?” Applejack asked.

“I took them from the Castle kitchens,” he said. “They have plenty.”

“And they just let you move anything you wanted up here?” Twilight said skeptically.

Raegdan chest puffed with pride. “No.”

Applejack, Pinkie, and Spike laughed outrageously at his answer. They both acted like nothing happened hours ago. Was this because they wanted to put everything behind them or did neither of them care? Ugh, this “reasoning behaviours” stuff was hard and left her doubting everything. Luna and Raegdan were being- ok, they were total jerks to everypony else, but they treated Rainbow and her friends just fine. She could, at least, rely on that, right?

“Sure, as long as Raegdan knows that you are his kid’s friend and Twilight is around, you won’t get your wings broken for letting one rip in the same room as Luna,” her mind challenged her mental effort to calm herself. Shut up brain, you don’t get a vote.

Raegdan left to retrieve their dishes. He returned pushing a trolley filled with closed plate domes and started placing them.

“Ours are the two in front, Raegdan,” Luna instructed him.

He nodded and kept serving. After he placed their plates in front of them, he distributed the silverware -Luna seemed to have a special place in her heart for silver- and then poured wine in everypony’s glasses.

He did all this while keeping a folded towel across his left arm, with overdone bows after placing each utensil down, which led to some hissing when he pulled at his stitches, and speaking nonsense in a very bad Prench accent. It was done a thousand times before, but seeing Raegdan of all ponies doing that in his intimidating armor was a blast. Rarity even answered him in perfect Prench.

They all waited for him to take his own seat before removing the domes from their plates. Rainbow liked what she found under hers. Steaming soup and salad. It looked simple, but oh gosh, the smell of it! She was practically drooling. Luna was good! Forget what she thought before, Luna was best Princess!

She was directing a grin to Twilight that was sitting in front of her so she had a clear view of what happened when Raegdan unveiled his own meal.

Twilight flinched back so hard she almost fell down. Rainbow quickly turned her head to see what the matter was and saw Raegdan, holding the cover still in the air, looking at his meal in front him, frozen still. Rainbow recognized what was in his plate due to her long friendship with Gilda.

Twilight was trying to stammer an apology, but Raegdan was not paying any attention to her. He was looking at Luna who stared back at him with what had at first been a proud, self satisfied expression, slowly turning sour and guilty.

Finally, he picked up his plate and stood up. “Ladies,” he said to all of them, “Spike, I’ll be at the study. I’ll return once I have finished my meal.” He didn’t wait for anypony to answer. He rushed out as fast as he could walk without running.

“Whoo, boy, awkward…” Rainbow thought to herself. Everypony else seemed to share her thoughts, except Luna. She was staring accusingly at Twilight.

“I can’t believe this is what it was about. I am sorely disappointed in you, Twilight Sparkle,” she said while taking a sip of her wine.

Poor Twilight was still off her game. She acted like she had no idea what she was actually hearing.

Luna continued to speak, her glass held in the air by her magic. “We have shared so much with each other. But not the reason you abandoned him,” she said with venom. “He saved you. He raised you. He bled, suffered, and stayed for you. And was this all it took, Twilight Sparkle? That he eats meat? The simple nature of his species, his diet?”

Luna’s stern gaze passed over each of them, judging them. “Does this revelation disturb the rest of you, too?”

Rainbow was the first to speak up and defend herself. “Hey, I used to hang out with a gryphon. I even tried meat once.” That had been really yucky actually and up to this day, Rainbow still hadn’t figured out how she got herself to do that. She never asked what the meat was from and never wanted to find out.

She pointed at Fluttershy next to her. “And Fluttershy here has taken care of carnivores. I doubt she minds if Raegdan has to eat meat to survive.” Fluttershy hid her face behind her hair and mumbled an affirmation. Atta girl! So brave.

Applejack and Rarity were hesitant, but supportive. “It’s not like we didn’t get the idea that he ate meat from that story he told us yesterday… It would be really weird to see him eating it in front of me, but as long as it ain’t one of mah animals or a pony, ah guess that I’m fine with it.”

“Indeed. One cannot change his species nature and even now Raegdan acted as a gentleman to accommodate our perceived sensibilities. I would never be so crass as to hold something so small against him. But Rainbow, dear, remember to thoroughly brush your teeth next time, for me?”

“Hey! That was years ago.”

“Dragons eat meat,” Spike said. “I don’t, not yet, but I will have to start at some point.”

“I got a pet alligator!” Pinkie Pie chimed. “His name is Gummy and I feed him fish, but he doesn’t have teeth yet so I have to cut them in little pieces, but I don’t mind cause I love him and I bet Twilight and Spike love Raegdan too and I think you are wrong!”

“Am I?” Luna switched her attention back to Twilight. “Your friends have made clear their acceptance, Twilight Sparkle. But what about you?”

Twilight had tears hanging at the edge of her eyes. What’s more, Rainbow noticed the subtle shaking and pulsing vein. Uh, oh, Twilight wasn’t getting upset. She was getting pissed!

“How dare you? HOW DARE YOU!”

Twilight’s magic was crackling around her. Rainbow hoped it was done on purpose. “Raegdan, I think she did pick up a couple of things from you,” she thought.

“I have known he was an omnivore since I was eight! I’ve known about his hunts and I’ve been down in the dungeons where he does his butchering. And you accuse me of being so shallow? That I would abandon him because he eats meat? What kind of pony do you take me for?” Twilight was enraged!

Luna calmly took another sip, emptying her glass. “I do not know, Twilight Sparkle. Let’s find out. Why did you bereave him the company of the two individuals he loved most?”

Twilight’s anger deflated. “I- I do not want to talk about this.”

“Why did you recoil when you saw meat at his plate?”

“It had… it had nothing to do with… it just- I remembered something.”

Spike, his eyes wide and begging, did his best to make Twilight open up. “Come on, Twilight. You can’t keep it hidden forever. I lost him for too long already. Don’t repeat what happened.”

“I won’t, Spike. It- it was a silly thing. Just some stupid idea that got into my head and I believed it.”

“Maybe it wasn’t so stupid if it drove you to such measures, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna suggested, calmly. “What idea was that?”

Twilight kept silent, staring at her plate. She was taking deep breaths, trying to calm herself. She would actually do it, Rainbow realized. She was curious, very, very curious, but… maybe now wasn’t the right time? Maybe they all had enough revelations today.

“I thought… I believed that… I accused Raegdan that he butchered and ate a pony.”

Rainbow was speechless! That- that was a rotten thing to do when Raegdan was nothing but sweet with Twilight herself. Granted, she could almost believe he would do something that far-fetched but for Twilight to say something like this… How did Raegdan just forgive something like that so easily yesterday? It’s not like Twilight just broke a vase or something.

Luna seemed to take it in stride. She just refilled her wine glass, calmness all over her face, and removed the dome cover from her plate, letting them see she had the exact meal Raegdan had.

“Right. That was a stupid idea.”

Dinner became a quiet affair afterwards. Twilight kept silent and avoided everypony’s eyes. Spike kept looking sadly at the empty seat. Luna was concentrating on her meal, expertly cutting small bites and bringing them to her mouth. The rest of them tried to keep from staring… Rainbow was confused. Was this something she should call hardcore or plain disturbing?

Oh thank Celestia, Raegdan finally returned. He placed his empty plate on the trolley and sat down. That was some really fast eating. At least now that he was back they could get rid of the awkward silence. All they needed was something to break the ice.

“So, you ever ate a pony?” she asked him nonchalantly.

Oh, shoot, she did not just- bad brain, bad! Twilight’s magic lost the grip on her spoon from the shock. Applejack and Pinkie Pie were gaping at her, not believing what she said. Fluttershy had gone beet red and her eyes were looking somewhere else, probably the safety of her own home. One of Rarity’s eyes was twitching. The other promised fire and pain when she had Rainbow in her hoofs.

Raegdan unfroze for his surprise and looked at all of them. “Little one,” he said, gulping, “did you-”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Twilight was blushing worse that even Fluttershy ever did.

Raegdan, thank her lucky stars, decided to drop it. “Alright. We will- we will ignore that, then.”

Despite Rarity’s forbidding shake of the head, Rainbow decided to take another shot. “Raegdan, uh, you think you are gonna get in trouble with the Solar Guard now that you- I mean, eh, hehe…”. Why? Why? She blamed the lateness of the hour. She was usually asleep by now, that was the problem.

Raegdan didn’t seem to mind the topic. He took his glass away from his lips and answered her. “I have been in trouble with the Solar Guard forever. Steadfast has actually been petitioning Celestia to permanently imprison me every few months. Except the last couple of years. He changed his petition to giving me the death penalty instead.”

Twilight left her stupor with the aid of sheer outrage. “He has been doing what?”

Raegdan waved her down, drinking the rest of his wine and refilling his glass. “Don’t mind old Steadfast,” he appeased, “he has valid reasons, to speak the truth. He is tremendously devoted to Celestia and considering what I’ve done… I could almost like him, to be honest. At least, he is being straight in his dislike, but not actually hostile as long as Celestia tugs on his chain and he doesn’t give her much trouble. I know what to expect from him.”

“Except today,” he frowned. He turned to Luna. “I guess the opening there was too tantalising not to take.”

Luna grinned. “Hopefully this defeat will keep him in check for a while. We need no further complications.”

Rainbow finished her soup. It truly was the best soup she had ever tasted. She would love to ask for seconds, but she wanted to leave, more than she wanted to fill up her stomach. The clanging of more silverware on empty plates followed shortly after. Raegdan rose up once again to gather them on the trolley and wheel them out. He returned soon, bringing a wide tray bearing a tea service and plenty of cups.

“I guess some tea wouldn’t go amiss before you leave for bed?” he asked them.

Rainbow would prefer to be on her way, but tea would help her sleep much better, she guessed. She waited for Raegdan to get to filling her cup too.

“Dad,” Spike asked, “what are you going to do next? Are you gonna take part in the tournament again tomorrow?”

“Nah. We are done with that for now. Celestia will kick my a- behind if I show up anywhere near, anyway.” Luna chortled, thoroughly amused. “I think for now we wait, stay quiet for a while, and see if we can get some recruits, right Luna?”

“Indeed, that is the next step,” she concurred. “Barring any exceptional opportunities forcing us to divert our course.”

Rainbow reached for the sugar. She hated cream in her tea, but she wanted it as sweet as possible. She frowned. Where was the…

“Pinkie!” she shouted.

The thieving pink pony looked at her all innocent, the area around her mouth covered in white. “What is it, Dashie?”

“Pinkie, did you eat all of the sugar?”

“Sugar is bad for you, Dashie. Rarity said so this morning, remember? I am just looking out for you, like any good friend should.”

Rainbow heard Rarity’s snickers behind the cover of her hoof on her face.

Luna was addressing her guard. “It was kind of you to prepare this tea, Raegdan. I know you don’t really enjoy it yourself.” Raegdan answered her, but what he said and any further conversation from them was lost in the loud, droning voice of Pinkie Pie.

“Besides, this wasn’t good sugar for tea,” Pinkie continued, “somepony mixed confectioner’s sugar with it. Let me tell you, it doesn’t taste as good in tea as you would think. Or milk. Or chocolate milk. Or…”

There were two simultaneous crashes. Rainbow looked over to see Raegdan had smashed Twilight’s and Spike’s teacups before they had a chance to take a sip.

Rainbow noticed Pinkie’s rant fading behind her head. She couldn’t blame her. Was Raegdan finally snapping even at Twilight and Spike? She got up from her seat. He might be armed, but she wouldn’t let her friend get hit by any bully no matter who he was. She eyed his side, where the stitches were located.

“Did you drink any of it?” he yelled.

Twilight was staring at the broken shards, confused. “What?”

Spike was extraordinary calm. He was wiping the spilled tea off him with a paper towel. “Kind of hard when it’s all over you,” he said.

Raegdan let out a deep breath, looking relieved. “Ok. That’s good… I think you should all go now.”

Applejack wasn’t keen on letting this go without an explanation. “What exactly is the problem here, big guy? This tea can’t be that bad.”

There was a thump behind Rainbow. She turned around to see what Pinkie was up to now, but she wasn’t on her seat. She looked down.

Pinkie was lying on the floor, her whole body trembling violently, white, thick saliva drooling from her open mouth.

Rarity and Applejack saw her too and rushed to her side.

“Pinkie!” Rarity was terrified. She tried to hold Pinkie still and move her head to the side.

“What the hay is wrong with her? Twilight, give us a hoof!” Applejack called out.

Before Rainbow could fully turn her attention to her fallen friend she noticed among the pandemonium Raegdan slump in his seat and in a hushed voice say to Luna. “Well, Luna.”.

“That’s certainly a way to go about it.”

Author's Note

This chapter has not been edited at its entirety so far. EDIT - It has now! Many thanks to Requiem17 for his amazing tenacity!

Ch.06 - An honest day's work

Applejack had spent the day, after the whole deal with the Tournament and Luna’s revelations, walking around the castle. There were a couple of points that just didn’t stick right with her, and some looking around might give her a few answers. She figured it would be an easy chore she took upon herself. Land sakes, she was walking up and down Sweet Apples Acres all the time when looking for sick trees and other problems. This wouldn’t be a thing even worth mentioning about.

What was that sayin’ Granny told her once? Pride goeth before fall? Well, she sure as hay didn’t fall, but she came close. The darn thing was huge and it had more corridors than an apple tree had leaves. It wasn’t enough that she had decided to walk most of it, no sir, she had to keep getting lost.

She still did it in the end. Sheer Apple stubbornness won the day. What was her prize? The bitter realisation that someponies can’t expect to be treated right even in their own home. And that went for both sides of the issue.

She didn’t just walk around blindly. Applejack kept her eyes open and her ears… also open. First off, what she heard. Nothing good, that’s for darn sure. Ponies were talking about Raegdan and Luna. If that was part of their great plan, well then, whoopee for them. It worked. Ponies were talking. What they said however was a different tale.

Nopony trusted Luna. The main reason was -no surprise there- the whole Nightmare Moon thing. Spend a thousand years being the representation of fear and evil in everypony’s heart and they will hold it against ya forever it seems. There were two more recent reasons though.

Reason numbah one; Raegdan. Luna spending all her time with the fella that, from what she gathered, threatened to throttle half the castle inhabitants so far, terrorised the rest and, let’s not forget, attacked Princess Celestia, tended to rub ponies off the wrong way. Apparently, Twilight either didn’t bother telling them or she didn’t know herself, but Raegdan had more control issues than she had thought. She said he only got into major trouble every few months in the past, but that was no longer the case. He’d either go looking for fights with the guards and everypony else or just explode randomly at some perceived slight, scaring the bejeezus out of anypony around. Truth be told, it seemed that if he slipped up some more Celestia will have her hoof forced to do something much more substantial about it.

Reason numbah two; Luna herself. Apparently she was cut from the same cloth as Raegdan. She wouldn’t go looking for fights, oh no, she knew where to find them. She would march out to where the guards were training and kick their flanks to the hospital. Her rages were known too. She would explode at times and yell loud enough to drive ponies to the wall. Like, literally, her voice would push a pony until they were stopped by a wall. The provocations were silly things, like Raegdan’s was.

Come up behind either of them too quietly and you might get your neck bitten off. Well, maybe they had reasons to be jumpy. They hadn’t had quiet lives as far as she could tell. But try to be nice and offer them something to drink or eat and you got it thrown on your face along with some classy death threats. Happen to follow the same path they did behind them? They would turn around and kick your flank. Spend more than a minute in the same room as them? You can guess what happened. And that’s how that particular creek flowed...

Funnily enough, those were the exact reasons nopony trusted Raegdan either. It was like a perfect little yin yang thing they had going, only both parts were black.

As for the tournament, nopony was overjoyed over the idea of a Lunar Guard. The guards swore they would be dead before even thinking about joining “a couple of psychos” and everypony else would consider the idea laughable if it wasn’t so terrifying.

It was a shame really. Applejack would appreciate somepony trying to get rid of some of the dangerous critters lying around. That was the only part she really applauded of Luna’s ideas.

Whelp, that covered the work the furred wonders on top of her head did. As for her peepers now…

She once told Applebloom to mop the house while she was out. Applejack came back later at night, tired as hay and approvingly noticed that Applebloom did a fine job. Then she decided to head for a snack first. After what she saw, she took a gander around the rest of the house. The little rascal had only mopped the path that would take Applejack from the door to her room, banking on her being too tired to actually pay attention to her work.

Same thing happened here. Like Rarity had pointed out to her, the castle was being redecorated so it incorporated images of Luna too. Well, that was a mighty load of horseapples. The only places where that change occurred was the entrance, throne room, and the corridors that led to Celestia’s and Luna’s respective towers. The rest of the castle was all still pure Celestia and nothing seemed to indicate any attempt to change that.

Now, after all her hard work, she could understand the reasoning ponies had. They had “a couple of psychos” in this here castle, feeding off each other, and now they had to show to one of ‘em the same respect they showed to Celestia, the pony who was the epitome of kindness, forgiveness, and all around goodness? On the other hoof… maybe by refusing to act towards Luna, at least, as her sister wanted them to, made the problem worse.

Applejack had concerns. A concerned citizen had to act. She decided to act in the most honored tradition of ponies with a problem with the government. She was gonna complain and demand some answers.

Now, whose ears should she be heading to bite off? This required some thinking from her noggin’. Celestia? If she wasn’t doing her best she sure as hay would be doing it now, so no go. Luna? That… would be plain stupid, let’s bury this line of thought and never speak of it again. Steadfast Ray? Whoo, boy, that would be a disaster. She could it see it now. “Excuse me there, old trooper, but ah got a complaint. I just plain disagree with the way y’all, Princess Luna, and the guy who just killed one of your men, all treat each other. When can I expect that to be all fixed?” Would he use his fancy unicorn magic to throw her out or was he a traditionalist and just buck her flank out the door, that was the real question.

Talking about Steadfast Ray… there was that one other guy she did just recently hear about…

“Enter.” A young stallion’s voice answered Applejack’s knock on the door.

She pushed the door open and walked into the office. It was pretty nice, she had to admit. Spacious and large, nice thick carpet that her hooves sank into with a gentle tickle, maps on the wall. Wowsers, he even had a scaled model of Equestria on a table. Hmm, it didn’t even have Ponyville on it though. Too small for the important details then. She really digged the family pictures on the back. Showed the fella still had his head on straight about his priorities. Was that tiny filly, Twilight? She looked just darn adorable.

“Can I help you miss… Applejack, was it?” he asked after he gave her enough time to roll her eyes over everything. She looked him over. White coat, blue mane with cyan streaks, pretty eyes, taller than normal, nice muscled bod- he looked nice, that’s what she meant.

“Well, hello there, Mr. Shining Armor. Yep, that’s mah name, alright. Applejack Apple of Sweet Apple Acres, straight out of Ponyville. You might not know it, seeing it’s not on your fancy, little model there-”

“Wait, you are that Applejack?” he said with pleasant surprise. He came around his office and offered a hoofshake. “You are one of Twily’s friends! I’ve wanted to meet with you ever since she wrote us about you. I want to thank you for standing by her side, and everything you girls have gone through saving Equestria from Nightmare Moon and Discord, but mostly for being her friend. Twilight needed some mares of her age in her life.”

“Aw shucks, Mr. Shining Armor,” she blushed as she returned his nice, strong hoofshake. Twilight’s brother didn’t just spend most of the day in an office. “We are her friends and we all stick together. That’s how we do things in Ponyville.”

He laughed excitedly. “Please, call me Shining, Miss. Applejack. The proper term is Captain Armor but this is off limits for Twily’s friends!” It was a nice and big honest smile too. She liked him plenty so far.

“As long as you call me just Applejack or AJ then it’s a deal.” His smile got even wider. Applejack answered it with one of her own.

“So, Applejack, please, have a seat. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Nah, ah’m fine, I swung by the dining hall for some juice before I came here,” she told him as she parked her tushy on one of the comfy chairs set on the side. He joined her, sitting on the other one, a small table set among them.

“Is there anything I can help you with or is this just a social visit?”

“I wish I could say it’s the latter, but I have things I wanna talk about. Specifically, things that have come up since my friends and I came with Twilight here yesterday.”

“Wait, Twilight is IN the castle? As in, right now? Spending time here?” he asked, taken aback.

“You didn’t know? I thought she visited her folks yesterday.”

“She might have, but I wasn’t there. I’m surprised to hear that. We might have to cut this meeting short. There’s someone I should let know about this,” he said apologetically.

“If you are talking about Raegdan, he knows.” Shining’s expression spoke wonders. “That’s why we came actually. They made up all fine and seem to be chums again.”

Shining’s relief was palpable. “Oh, good. That’s good. That’s a load off my chest. You met Raegdan then?” Applejack nodded. “You can guess why I feel like that then. I trust Raegdan, my whole family would trust him with Twilight’s life even if he had to face Discord himself, but the last two years have been just unbearable.”

“I snooped around the castle a bit and heard some tales. I know a few things. Even about him attacking Princess Celestia. What was up with that anyways?”

Shining inhaled through gritting teeth. “Does Twilight know what happened?”

“Just what I know. He attacked Princess Celestia. Won’t tell why. Ah figure it’s the usual routine for him.”

“Yeah,” Shining agreed. “He keeps things very close to his chest. But I agree with him on that, Twilight is better off not knowing why. Can I trust you not to tell her what happened?”

“It depends. If I think it’s something she needs to know, I can’t promise I’ll keep my yap shut,” she warned him.

Shining nodded. Apparently, that was good enough for him. “I guess somepony who is spending more time by Twilight’s side than me should know a few things more, in case it is needed. Congratulations, you are that somepony now,” he finished with a bitter smile.

“One day, he just went berserk. He charged at Princess Celestia with a spear he somehow got in his hands. He was yelling, sometimes in his own language, sometimes in Equestrian. He kept telling the Princess that he wanted her dead. That he would kill everypony he could. That he wouldn’t ever stop, no matter what. Pretty scary stuff, huh?”

He had noticed Applejack’s shiver. She could picture the tall guy doing that all too well. In her imagination though, he was wearing black armor and held something more substantial than a spear.

“The Solar Guards that were with the Princess tried to keep him off with shields and forcefields, but he just broke through them and barreled over the two guards that tried to stop him. He caught them by surprise, see. They were both unicorns, and by the time they realized their spells hadn’t managed to stop him, he was all over them and just smashed their heads against each other, taking them down. Then he reached Princess Celestia and…”

“And?” Don’t pause for suspense you stupid colt. This ain’t one of your camping horror stories.

“She put him down with a single kick. Launched him all the way across her room. Then he got up and charged again. And again. And again. He just wouldn’t stop, like he told her. He did manage to draw some blood, which was quite the feat considering he was a moving mass of blood and bruises by that point.”

“Why? What got into him? Why that sudden hate at Princess Celestia? She seemed to like him, most of the time at least. She was not happy at all with him today.”

“Princess Celestia does like him, most of the time at least. Raegdan, for all his faults, knew how to treat her. As a normal mare. He never paid attention to her crown. And he likes her too, very much actually. I think he admires her in a way. Don’t scoff, I know how he acts against her now. Before the whole thing with Twilight happened, they were acting like a pair of happy parents with Twily and Spike as their foals. No, not that way, more like siblings, they weren’t like that. There were bad moments, especially during the first five or six years, but not as bad as the last couple of years. He was getting awfully provoked then, so he gets some leeway as far as I am concerned. It was either by contemptuous fools who thought that neither he or Twilight deserved to be in Princess Celestia’s company or just plain morons who didn’t pay attention to the giant signs that said “don’t buck with this person or this filly”.”

“Then, to everypony’s surprise, things suddenly calmed down. Ponies laid off him and Twilight was no longer getting harassed by idiots who would get a face full of Raegdan for their troubles. He even became outright approachable to strangers. He just turned and left when he was running out of patience instead of… his usual self.”

“A couple of years later, Twilight left him and Raegdan started… breaking down again. I don’t know what she did, only the two of them do, but it drove him insane.”

Shining Armor took a deep breath. Applejack could tell that he hated this part. “More insane, actually. I like him, but despite everything, he never was in his right mind. He keeps switching from friendly to hateful and from kind of remorseful to utterly uncaring. We hoped that he would mellow back down again when he started being friends with Luna, but no dice. He takes the dislike against her very badly. And she returns the sentiment. It’s a conundrum we have. They get worse off each other, but at the same time they keep each other calm when left alone. We have no idea how to handle them, yet, apart from letting them spend as much time as possible away from everypony up on Luna’s tower.”

Applejack pushed him back to the starting topic. “About why he attacked the Princess…”

“Hmm? Oh, yes. Forgive me. I got sidetracked there. So, the Princess was his greatest remaining friend at the time, Twilight having left and Princess Luna still being banished and unknown, and then one day he suddenly hates her and starts spewing death threats against everyone. He attacks and the Princess fights back. Princess Celestia realized what he was doing at the end, and stopped him, but he never forgave her for not doing what she was supposed to.”

“I’m confused,” she said. “What was the Princess supposed to do?”

“Kill him of course. Raegdan wanted to die. That was a suicide attempt.”

“What the hay is wrong with her? Twilight, give us a hoof!” Applejack called out. Twilight had chosen the darn worst moment to freeze up, but ah gotta give her credit. She shook herself out of it the moment Applejack called out to her.

Pinkie was shaking violently. Rarity was trying to hold her still, so Applejack decided to imitate her unicorn friend and give her a hoof. It was hard. Her legs were going all over the place and she started to bounce her head all around, knocking it hard against the floor. Fluttershy rushed over and tried to keep Pinkie from giving herself a concussion.

“Come on, Twilight. What is wrong? What do we do?” she called out. Twilight was examining Pinkie, her stance betraying the fear she also felt, but she was valiantly holding herself together.

“I.. I am not sure. Seizures, contracted pupils, foaming… I think she’s been poisoned!” Twilight announced.

“What?” That was Rainbow. She did a good job in voicing everypony’s shock.

Applejack looked back towards the table. She didn’t believe her eyes. Rainbow was still on her chair, watching them, but that was ok. Rainbow didn’t get in the way if she didn’t know what to do in these situations and let other ponies take charge that knew better. It was Raegdan and Luna that made her hair stand on end.

Luna was not even looking towards them. She was sitting as she was before, taking sips of tea and looking straight down in front of her. Raegdan stood next to her, watching her drink from all the cups he had gathered in front of her, keeping them in sight with the edge of his eyes, waiting, patient as you please. Pinkie Pie was poisoned right in front of them! She didn’t know what they were trying to accomplish, but this was time for action not… whatever they were doing! Pinkie needed help now.

“I am going to try a general healing and cleansing spell. It might help,” Twilight said and her horn lit, getting ready to cast.

Rarity urged her on. “Quickly, Twilight. We need to settle her down and get her to a doctor.” Applejack turned her attention back to the task at hand. She could deal with those two heartless jerks later.

That turned out to be a mistake. There was a clanging sound, metal against wood, and suddenly Raegdan’s hand was wrapped around Twilight’s horn and pulling, breaking her concentration and the spell she was casting.

Twilight yelled out. “Raegdan, what are you doing? Pinkie needs my help, let me go!”

“Not this kind of help, little one. This is for your own good, trust me!”

Twilight was trying to pull her horn out of his grasp. Spike had jumped on Raegdan’s back, shouting to put her down, his little fists banging against his armor. Raegdan was trying to get his arm behind him and grasp the baby dragon without hurting him. Applejack itched to buck him right in his face for doing this now, but Pinkie gave a hard jerk and almost kicked herself in the face. Applejack’s inner voice damned her luck to tartarus itself. She couldn’t let go of Pinkie, not without risking her hurting herself.

Rainbow Dash now had something she knew she could do. She flew out of her seat, backed off a little to gain distance and then, fast as ever, launched towards Raegdan. Applejack watched as she flipped mid-air and, right as she reached him, used her momentum and strength to hit him with her back legs as hard as she could, right on the spot where the wound on his side was.

“Let my friends go, you monster!” she yelled. Raegdan’s face went white with the sudden pain. He lost his grip on Twilight and tried to backhand Rainbow. He was too slow this time and Rainbow was ready for him. She ducked under his arm, kicked his side again and followed it with another kick to his head. Applejack wanted to cheer for her feisty friend!

Both blows landed successfully and now Raegdan was bleeding from the edge of his mouth. Rainbow tried to push again. She turned around for another kick, but Raegdan managed to counter this time. Rainbow took a second too long to twist around and pull her leg back, readying her kick. That was all Raegdan needed. He grabbed Rainbow’s back hoof and swung her over him and to his other side, smashing her against a chair.

“You complete and utter idiot! Sit down, all of you. We know what we are doing.” He yelled, spitting blood on the floor.

Twilight had ran next to the rest of them. Applejack had been too busy trying to hold down Pinkie to help, as did Rarity and Fluttershy, but it looked like their struggles were now ending. Twilight could get them out lickety split.

“I am going to try and teleport us to the castle infirmary. They can help her there!”

Applejack saw Raegdan’s eyes burn with anger. “NO!” he shouted for Twilight to stop, but she was already casting.

His leg flew towards Twilight’s face before she finished and knocked her down.

“That drawing kind of looks like Raegdan. Is it yours?” Applejack asked Shining Armor.

“It was a gift from him. He used to tell stories to Twilight, often at bedtime. His people have thousands upon thousands of them, as he says. This is from his favourite one. Twilight begged him to retell it when he visited once and I fell in love with it. He made this for me on my next birthday.”

“Whoever this is supposed to be, he sure looks scary. His armor looks a lot like Raegdan’s.” If you made a few changes and added the moon imagery you could almost swear it was him. The drawing was of an armored bipedal creature, much like Raegdan. It wore silver looking, spiky armor with a tattered black cloak. His head looked a bit too big. The helmet had spikes pointing up, resembling an iron crown and looked sinister, much like Raegdan’s did. He was holding a large, club like weapon. He was standing on the slope of a mountain, bones beneath his feet, and a sinister tower in the distance behind him. Even further behind was a volcano spewing fire and black smoke, darkening the sky.

“He does. He was the villain of the story. Evil incarnate. The Dark Lord.” Shining smiled. “I wondered why he gave me a picture of him rather than any of the heroes.”

“Why did he?”

“He tried to spin some tale about how I needed to be my own hero and this was a representation of what I was going to fight against in my life, but gave up halfway.” Shining laughed at the memory he was reliving. “He admitted in the end that he just preferred to draw him because he looks cooler. He said the real evil guys don’t advertise it like that anyway.”

It was a nice drawing technically, but not to Applejack’s taste. She had more of a fancy for peaceful vistas. Stallions. “They all go cuckoo over some shining armor,” she thought with a chuckle at her pun. Well, them and Rainbow. Applejack switched the topic back to where they were before being distracted by the strange picture.

“Ok, so any ideas as to why he had been so sour when he first came here? I keep hearing he got into fights, but why?” Applejack asked Shining Armor. After telling her about his… suicide attempt they spent some time going over what happened next. He told her how Princess Celestia locked him up and kept trying to get him back to his senses. He kept up his constant and violent goading, which she ignored, until he accepted she was not going to do what he wanted and his acceptance of it. Raegdan was a very complicated mess, so she tried to make sense of him by going over the beginning again.

“Apart from what had happened to him before he arrived? I can’t tell you about that, Princess Celestia’s orders. It’s not a story you would want to hear anyway. I only know the basic outlines and I still get nightmares. But, if you wonder why he didn’t get any better until a lot later…”

“I have a couple of theories now. I… am willing to share them, but you must make sure nopony hears about them. And I mean nopony. If this reaches the wrong ears, Raegdan will be lucky to avoid being killed. That includes Princess Celestia too. Her continuous protection is the only reason Raegdan hasn’t been killed by the Solars yet. If she loses what little trust she has left in him and they get a whiff of that...”

“Keep in mind, I wasn’t part of the Guard then. I was still in school. But I knew Raegdan, he escorted Twilight everywhere, and he brought her home at least once a week. My parents and I came to know him and he was always polite and civil with us. It was during one of those visits actually, when he said something that stuck with me.”

“What was it?” Applejack asked.

“We were in the living room waiting for dinner to get ready. Twilight was in the kitchen, trying to give mom a hoof. At one point he keeps staring at the wall across from him and I asked what was so interesting about it. He turns to me and says “I was just admiring your dog.” I honestly didn’t expect that answer. We had no dog, nor was there any picture of one in the room. So, I ask him where he saw that and he points at an empty section of the wall.”

Applejack felt one of her eyebrows move up on its own volition. “He was seeing things?”

“Yes! No, wait, I didn’t mean it like that,” Shining said, planting his hoof over his face. “He was looking at the paint. It had been some time since we had a new layer of paint over and there were traces of water damage and dirt. He pointed it out at me, tracing it with his finger. I didn’t see it at first, but if you really looked at it and filled some parts with your mind you could see a dog running. I asked him, “how did you make that out so easily?”. He answered “patterns”.

“Patterns?” Applejack asked for validation.

“Patterns,” Shining confirmed. “He said “We are good at seeing patterns. Too good, sometimes. We often see things that are not really there. We live and breathe them, you could say”... that had got him pretty depressed for some reason, now that I think about it.”

“What’s that got to do with all the hassle he was causing at first?”

“When I became Captain of the Guard I had to review potential… security risks, let’s call them. That included Raegdan. Checking his history, it got me thinking about that day. Patterns. So, I started looking for them, trying to see them like Raegdan did. Really look at them and fill them in with my mind. He himself said that his kind lived them.” Shining walked to his office, pulling out a very thick folder and brought it over.

“That’s a pretty big doorstopper,” Applejack said with admiration.

Shining chuckled as he opened the folder “His most serious episodes occurred when he felt Twilight or Spike were threatened or hurt in any way. But there were others of lesser magnitude, often left explained as simple losses of control.” He leafed through the folder. “But if you fill in some parts, you find-”

“A pattern,” Applejack finished.

“Exactly!” said Shining with the satisfaction of a teacher whose student paid attention. “His “random attacks”, almost half the time had two things in common. They always happened in one of two general places in the castle and always against two classes of ponies. It was always near the living quarters or offices and always against ponies who worked as aides for the Nobility or branches of the government.” He pulled a heap of papers from the folder. Shining Armor had separated them in two stacks. One was labeled “Random attacks” and the other “Twilight/Spike attacks”.

Applejack got hold of the one that had Twilight’s name. It was full of reports. They all shamelessly pointed to Raegdan as the aggressor, and the sections where the injuries were noted down were all overflowing. She compared them with a few from the other stack. Same deal. Raegdan was still the one that initiated everything, according to the guards, but here the injuries were mostly small things, with some exceptions, like a couple of bruises or a terrified pony.

“So he had a grudge against the powerful folk?”

“See, I thought that too. But if he did, why didn’t he attack them directly? So I looked again, poring over for another explanation. After every such attack, those reports say that he was caught about twenty to forty minutes later, often in his room. Compare that with his more spur of the moment episodes that involved Twilight and Spike mostly, and you will find that in those cases he was apprehended almost instantly, often waiting for the guards right where he was.”

“The tall fella was working with a plan? All that was a ruse?”

“Not all of it, but a lot. I think he was looking for something. He didn’t attack those ponies for nothing. He was scaring them off the premises, hiding under the guise of his impromptu violence, to search for whatever he was after.”

Applejack started to understand. “Their rooms! Their offices! He was using the time he had before he got caught to search in there.”

“Right!” Shining agreed, excitement filling him as someone else followed his reasoning. “That’s why he was often caught in his room. He was rushing back there to hide whatever he found. He was probably making his own search for patterns while creating one of his own!”

“What was he looking for? Did you find out?”

Shining shrugged. “I just got theories. But if he got into all that trouble, kept on it so methodically and stealthy, and easily accepted getting into trouble with the Princess for it, there is only one reason I can imagine him doing that for.”

“Twilight and Spike.” Applejack was certain. If Raegdan cared for one thing, that was it. “But why, exactly?”

Shining nodded. “Patterns, again. You know how he first met Twilight? Ok, I can tell from your grimace. Grisly thing. It was the first and most serious attack against Twily that ever happened. But it wasn’t the only one. Once again-”

“Patterns.” Gee golly, this was kinda fun and exciting. She felt like a detective just listening and agreeing with him.

“Princess Celestia was getting her ear talked off to get rid of him. He was getting goaded, through Twilight and Spike, to act dangerously threatening. There were rumors spreading about him. I think somepony was trying to get him out of the way, either so they could try again or retribution. I believe Raegdan had realized that, so for whenever he was locked in the dungeons or indisposed for other reasons, he must have made a deal with Princess Celestia to keep Twilight and Spike by her side at all times, no matter what. That way, she was safe even if he wasn’t there. Twilight couldn’t even come visit us while he was in the dungeons. She even slept in the Princess’ chambers.”

“You thinkin’ Twilight is still in danger then?” That wouldn’t do. Nopony was touching a hair of her friends’ manes while she was around.

Shining shook his head. “I think that’s over with. I told you, he calmed down a few years after his arrival. I think that he was done with his search then.”

“Wait a darn tootin’ moment,” she said suspiciously. “If he had found who tried to hurt Twilight, wouldn’t he tell the Princess or somepony? Maybe you?”

Shining laughed outright. “Raegdan? Let somepony else deal with whoever tried to hurt Twilight or Spike, especially whoever was behind her foalnapping? Never. I think I can guess what happened. I have no proof, just ideas, but even if I did, I don’t know if I would tell the Princess. Whoever did this to my little sister deserved what he got from him,” he snarled.

“I think,” he said after a short, contemplative pause, “that Raegdan somehow managed to find out who was behind it. And then he killed him. That’s why things calmed down later on. There was nopony out there guiding others to goad him and Raegdan himself was basking in a job well done. I searched but I can’t find anything. There were some influential ponies that had gone missing in that time period, but no bodies or sign of foul play were found, so that’s a dead end. If he indeed do something, he was extremely thorough.”

Applejack contemplated what she learned. Raegdan might have been smart and patient, considering he probably found out the pony that tried to kidnap Twilight, even if it took him years and he did it alone. But… that was an if. What if he got the wrong pony? That seemed improbable since, as Shining said, things calmed down, but it just might mean that the real culprit decided to just give up. Not likely, but there’s a chance.

Raegdan went at it alone. He wasted years, digging little by little. All this, without ever leaving the castle. All of it, completely unneeded if he just told the Princess about it. But he didn’t. Because if he did, and Princess Celestia caught the guy, she would imprison him. So Raegdan chose not to. It didn’t matter that the threat to Twilight would be gone anyway. Raegdan wanted blood.

She didn’t like that. Smart, patient, bloodthirsty and, judging from the way he switched from nice guy to vicious, borderline insane. Oh, and let’s not forget, he tried to commit suicide by Celestia. That was a new one. She bet every single apple on her farm that this was the first time somepony tried to off himself that way. She had a couple more things she needed to ask.

“Tell me, how did he hook up with Princess Luna?”

Applejack hated having to be the responsible one. Pinkie was convulsing worse by the second and somepony had to hold her down before she hurt herself more. When Rarity and Fluttershy, to her immense surprise, launched themselves at Raegdan, she was the only one left behind to do this. Did she damn her luck enough yet?

Rarity was the first to reach him. She didn’t bother with magic, Rarity never did when angry. Instead, with a screech, she hurled herself at Raegdan and tried to punch his face. Raegdan’s reflexes stopped her. He saw her coming at the edge of his vision and like lightning, his fist jabbed forward, hitting Rarity right on the chest and stopping her mid-jump. Rarity fell down cradling her aching chest. Spike jumped off Raegdan’s back and rushed to her aid.

“Are you all deaf? Listen to me, and sit down. We are doing… doing…”

Fluttershy didn’t physically assault Raegdan. She used something else instead.

“How dare you!” she yelled. Raegdan had turned towards her, looked straight into her wide stare, and was caught.

The Stare. It deserved the capital S. Fluttershy described it to Applejack once as an attempt to make someone feel as sorry as possible. Applejack had seen her use it plenty of times and one time she was at the right angle to get caught in it a bit. It was unnerving. She felt as if she was looking at Granny’s eyes when she once tried lying to her. It brought to Applejack’s mind her parents, their eyes telling her they trusted her to be good while they were gone for their walk. The look in Applebloom’s eyes as she followed Applejack’s every action, learning from her examples. The steady stare of Big Mac, his quiet assurance that he would always support Applejack all the way. And beneath all those images, a voice that was asking “are you doing what is right?”.

No wonder it brought a dragon to tears.

Raegdan was now captivated in the same situation. He was shaking, almost as much as Pinkie under Applejack’s hooves was. His face had gone almost sheet white, more than when Rainbow hit him on his side. His eyes had gotten wide as saucers, the pupils so dilated there was only blackness in them.

“How dare you hit Rainbow? Rarity? Twilight! We have been your friends and this is how you pay us back? Pinkie is hurting, the same mare who cheered for you, and you let her suffer? You are not getting away with this, buster! You are going to let us go and then, when Pinkie is alright, you are going to give everyone a heartfelt apology-”

Fluttershy was lost in her effort to keep her Stare right in Raegdan’s eyes and delivering her speech. She couldn’t see what Applejack did by her side. He was mouthing something, the same two words, over and over, and had started sweating profusely. He was terrified.

Applejack couldn’t leave Pinkie Pie. She was gurgling now, her mouth had filled with that terrible foam and she was unconsciously trying to spit it out. Applejack fought to keep her head sideways and her airway clear. If she turned her head upwards it would slide back her throat and choke her. Applejack checked to see if Twilight managed to get up, but no luck. She was still out of it. She called out for Rainbow Dash, desperately trying to get her to return to the fight. Raegdan was scared out of his mind. When fellas like him felt like that, they didn’t back off. They fought back.

He was pulling his hammer from his side, eyes still locked with Fluttershy’s.

There was a rainbow colored blur and Raegdan was away from Fluttershy and rolling on the floor as Rainbow Dash rammed into him. She didn’t stop this time, nor did she try staying close to his reach. She was flying around the room, gaining momentum, and when she had enough, she rammed back into him with the sound of hooves clashing against metal. Applejack did cheer this time.

“I won’t let you hurt my friends!” Rainbow yelled.

“You stupid, damn-,” he spoke something in his alien language, “you are doing this worse for yourselves! I am trying to stop you from- OOF!”

Applejack called for Fluttershy to get back and help her. It took a few tries. Fluttershy was captivated by the hammer that Raegdan dropped. Poor girl probably understood what could have happened there. But this was not the time for that! She could barely keep Pinkie down on her own any longer.

Rainbow was holding her own against him, but Raegdan was resourceful and didn’t bother playing nice. As he fell backwards with another hit from Rainbow, he reached from the floor and with a startled “eep”, he pulled the half-conscious Rarity towards him. He looked straight at Rainbow and lifted his hand, ready to bring it on Rarity’s face.

Rainbow took the bait. Her protectiveness kicked in, and she dove straight for Raegdan. But now he was ready for her and she was heading in a straight course for him. He shifted his arm’s aim mid swing and punched straight forward, instead of down, his fist flying between Rainbow’s outstretched hooves and nailing her right on the forehead.

There was a crack and Rainbow crushed down, dizzily shaking her head. Raegdan cradled his hand, examining his fingers with a grimace of intense pain. Rainbow had quite the hard skull so Applejack seriously doubted the breaking sound came from her.

He should have been paying attention because the last attack came from the most unlikely source. Spike had enough and jumped on him, making him lose his balance and landing on his back.

Spike was mad. Raegdan’s threat to really hurt Rarity was the last straw for the baby dragon. His irises were reptilian slits and fire was coming out of his mouth. He tried to scratch at Raegdan, but his armor proved stronger than his stubby claws. His flame intensified. He turned towards Raegdan’s head and took a deep breath.

“Little flame, stop! I can explain, don’t-”

Spike didn’t have time to breathe out his fire. He was encased in a blue field of magic and lifted off of him.

“Enough!” a voice echoed in the room, stopping them all in their tracks.

Luna had decided to intervene.

“Now, you might wonder about that, but Princess Celestia tried to stop Raegdan from ever meeting with Luna,” Shining told Applejack.

“Let me have a wild guess here. She was considerin’ he might try something?” A pretty solid bet to make. Everything about Raegdan so far pointed towards him trying stuff that wouldn’t be welcome by anypony.

“If you think about it, it was a wise call. Princess Celestia didn’t think that Raegdan would exactly hit it off with the mare that -despite not being in control at the time- tried to hurt Twilight and her friends.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. What changed Princess Celestia’s mind?”

Shining sighed in resignation. “Nothing. We just found out one day that Raegdan had, for all intents and purposes, moved into her chambers. He must have met with her, probably sneaked in the tower right under our noses, and…”

“Just became friends?”

Shining gave her an incredulous stare. “It just doesn’t fit at all with him. There never was any fight with her, no arguments, nothing. And I wouldn’t describe their relationship as mere friendship. Raegdan has become something between her servant, guard, and confidant. They do everything together. It’s rare to see them away from each other, and when we do it means one of them is going to get into trouble.”

“What do they do, anyways? I kept hearing they get into trouble but you make it sound as if they spend most time away from everypony.”

“Most of the time, they do stay in Luna’s tower. They are up to something, as displayed by their Lunar Guard idea, but I have no idea what else. Sometimes they come out of there with some hidden gem from Raegdan’s kind, but that’s rare. When they are not up there, they get into fights. Sometimes it’s Luna, the others it’s Raegdan. About fifty-fifty I’d say.”

Applejack was reminded of what she really wanted to talk about. Shining Armor was the best pony available to tell her about that, but he might not take it well. It was a chance she had to take. No pain, no gain. “There is something that Luna mentioned today…”

She saw she had Shining’s attention and continued. “She said that the Guard refuses to guard her chambers, and nopony obeys her commands, apart from Raegdan. She seemed pretty sour about that…”

She trailed off. Shining Armor was looking at her with disbelief. “That’s what she said?”

Applejack hesitated. “This- isn’t that true? There were no guards at all at her tower, or servants either.”

“No, it is true… kinda. But… they themselves are the prime cause.”

“Because they get into fights with ponies, you mean?”

“No, NO! You are right, maids and the rest of the staff are too afraid of them both to go up there. I tried to fix things from my side of things. I had Guards guarding her chambers, but they drove them off. The guards that were posted there came back with near horror stories. Luna was using her magic to ransack through their sleep, somepony -who am I kidding, it was Raegdan- was going through their private belongings and… well, one of the guards had enough and made a comment. Something along the lines of “can’t wait for Princess Celestia to banish her back to the moon again”. They went completely berserk, understandably. The guards were lucky to escape with no life threatening injuries. After that, everypony refused to go near them and Princess Luna and Raegdan seemed to be fine with that. In fact, Raegdan forbid me from sending anypony at the tower.”

“They didn’t seem to be fine with it today,” Applejack explained to him. “Luna gave a whole speech to Princess Celestia about it. Plus, the Princess seemed to know nothing about that. Haven’t you guys told her?” This reeked. This all reeked to high heavens. First they scare everypony away then they complain about it? What were they trying to pull?

Shining seemed embarrassed. He didn’t even dare to look Applejack in the eyes. “In all honesty… Princess Celestia is not being told much.”

“WHAT?”

Shining Armor tried to defend himself. “It’s just that… Princess Celestia has a whole country to look after, among all her other duties. Things that we think we can handle, or she can’t do much about, just gets put aside. It’s the unwritten rule around here. Princess Celestia doesn’t need to know every single thing that happens. It’s why we have other officials and ministers after all.”

“Ok, ok, let’s just ignore all that collective lyin’ you‘re doing, for now,” Applejack said placing her hoof over her eyes, “and let’s get back to Luna’s Lunar Guard idea.” Applejack explained to Shining Armor what Luna wanted to do.

“That… is not a bad idea. It would certainly help relieve all that aggression they have. If it was up to me however, I’d just let them go at it on their own. I doubt there is much that would be trouble for the two of them if they are careful. If it would mean an end to the Lunar Guard idea, so much the better.”

Typical so far. Another pony who was against that. “You hate the idea too, huh?”

Shining’s face betrayed his incredulousness. “Are you kidding me? Do you know what will happen if Princess Luna goes ahead with that? The Solar Guard will have a fit! They are not raising any trouble now because they don’t believe anything will come out of it.”

Ok… She had to expect that. Commander Steadfast was pretty clear on how far away from warm he was about that idea. Maybe Rainbow had called it right this time. “They don’t like the competition?”

“Competition? They don’t care about that at all. It’s the fact that the one pony they were first founded to kill wants to have her own personal army.”

Applejack blinked. She blinked again. Then she gently hit her ears with her hoof. Nope, they seemed to be working fine. Maybe the problem was her brain or something deeper. “I am sorry, Shining. I seem to be a tad more tired that ah thought. Did you just say the Solar Guard is here to kill Luna or should I go get mah head checked?”

“You don’t know how the Solar Guard began, do you?” She shook her head. She never paid attention to all the military stuff. Rainbow might have known, but she would have expected her to say something by now. “It was because of Nightmare Moon. Nopony could stand up to her. Every Guard regiment that tried was brushed off like flies. Princess Celestia was the only one who could take her on, but it was her sister in there. She held back from really fighting her, getting near killed for it in some of their sorties, until she was able to use the Elements on her own and banish her.”

“Afterwards, the whole fiasco let the Royal Guard know how truly unprepared they were with dealing with the really heavy stuff. So they formed the Solar Guard. Their job was to tackle threats that went above the Royal Guard’s capabilities, but also defend Princess Celestia. They live by the idea that each one of them dead in a battle protecting the Princess is one attack less that Princess Celestia has to deal with. You see, if you girls hadn’t managed to deal with Nightmare Moon or Discord, the complete strength of the Solar Guard would be dealing with them next.”

Applejack didn’t feel good about the potential of that attempt. “I doubt they’d be able to do much. Those three today didn’t really put on a good show,” she said sadly. Poor fellas didn’t deserve what they got.

“I didn’t see the fight myself, but I heard about it. Raegdan got lucky.”

“He did end up with a couple of deep holes in him,” she agreed.

“Not what I meant.” Shining was frowning now. Whatever it was, she was meant to take this seriously. “Raegdan didn’t fight their best. Despite what Luna asked for, Commander Steadfast was not going to endanger what he considers to be a precious commodity that belongs to the Princess in a fight over pride. Besides, they were armed and armored with standard Royal Guard gear.”

“They get better stuff in the Solar Guard?”

“Much better. I am talking about enchanted armor and weapons the likes of which I have never seen. Not even they have enough of them to equip their every member, but they have enough to put the smackdown on everything. I doubt they could get Discord, but Nightmare Moon? She was never going to win, even if you girls hadn’t been there.”

Wow. Seems like Raegdan really did get lucky after all. “They aren’t going to try anything against Luna, are they? I mean, she is not Nightmare Moon anymore.”

“No, no. There’s no risk for that. Princess Celestia told Solar Commander Steadfast not to get any ideas and if there’s something the good Commander does it’s obeying her wishes. At least, as long as he believes they are not a danger to herself. If Luna makes a wrong move they take as hostile action against Princess Celestia though… she doesn’t stand a chance, Princess Celestia’s orders or not.”

“Little dragon, I applaud your courage, your fighting spirit, and your haste to defend your friends. However, if you try to direct your flames against my companion again I will tear off your scales, one by one!”

As Applejack was levitated in the air, she made the thought that ponies who performed those kind of threats would yell and shout. Luna didn’t do that. She was talking all civil and quiet like, barely putting any emphasis on her words. It was creepy as heck.

“Luna! That’s enough! Put them down.” Raegdan was making his way up on his feet again. He favored his right side. Considering the smacks Rainbow delivered to his wounded side, he must be in a real load of pain right now. Good! He took a deep breath. “What do I do?”

Luna nodded towards Pinkie. Raegdan rushed to her side and gripped her down, using his knee to hold both her legs down. “Pinkie Pie did a flawless job consuming the poison and there was nothing, not the tiniest speck left to identify it. It is to our fortune that Rarity did manage to pour a spoonful in her cup before Pinkie Pie managed to consume it all. We needed to know what poison it was before we try to treat it-”

“You could still have helped! She was having seizures! Why didn’t Raegdan help us instead of attacking us?” Applejack rarely felt anger like that. She kicked and bucked ineffectively in the air.

Luna didn’t seem to pick up on Applejack’s intense displeasure, or didn’t care. “There are poison variants that are enchanted to feed on magic to quicken or enhance their effectiveness. There is even a very rare one that once it feeds on enough magic, it pollinates the air with itself, poisoning everyone around the victim. We are not dealing with that one, thankfully. But it is enchanted. The magic infusion of a healing spell or a teleport with the power of Twilight Sparkle would kill your friend in seconds. There is nothing we can truly do probably, but she might stand a chance if she is lucky.”

Applejack’s teeth gritted against each other. If Luna thought talking so casually about Pinkie Pie dying was making anything better, she was bucking the wrong tree. So what if it they weren’t sure what poison it was? They could still use the time to drag Pinkie down to some help!

“Likewise, there are more mundane poisons that are equally effective, but an earth pony is normally resistant to most of them because of their inherent magic. If Raegdan laid his hands on your friend in that case, it might have hastened the poison’s work if only a little. The risk was not worth it.”

She turned to the armored figure. “Raegdan. We need to remove as much of the poison from her stomach as possible and get her to the infirmary. Letting a guest die unattended in our chambers will not do.” This had better be just her way of relieving tension with a stupid joke, because if she really meant that, she was getting so bucked!

“I’ve got it,” he said. He knelt next to Pinkie Pie and pulled her up to his embrace, Applejack and Fluttershy refrained from making any protests. He seemed to know what he was doing and at least it was something that would aid Pinkie. He scooped out the foam from her mouth and then forced two of his long fingers inside her throat. Pinkie Pie started wiggling and choking until she gave a loud gag and he turned her head so she could empty her stomach. A torrent of half digested soup, vegetables, candy,and brown sludge covered the carpet. When she was done, Raegdan nodded at Luna and waited for her instructions.

“Good. You will have to carry her down to the castle’s infirmary. Even levitation magic is dangerous for her now, but thanks to your ability you are the best method of transportation.” Raegdan shifted Pinkie in his grasp, one hand forcing Pinkie’s head tight against his chest, the other wrapped around her body.

Raegdan paused before heading out and looked at the still unconscious Twilight, regret emanating in waves from him. “Can you carry Twilight down there, please? I want to get a doctor to check her out too.”

“Rarity and Rainbow too,” Applejack added. They weren’t leaving anypony behind.

“Of course,” Luna agreed and she lifted the other three mares in her magic too. “Raegdan, we will be making our way down on our own. If you could rush with Pinkie Pie, please?” Raegdan nodded at her command and sprinted out, Pinkie still trembling in his arms. He only halted for a few seconds at the door to look behind him, at a pensive Spike.

The little dragon whispered an apology on the verge of tears. Raegdan only stood long enough to flash him a proud smile before running out the door.

Pinkie Pie was going to die. That’s what it looked like at the moment. The doctors did what they could. She had been fitted with so many tubes and IV lines that Applejack wanted to cry just seeing her. She looked so frail and weak. The doctors feared she would stop breathing. They had another line ready to bring oxygen to her lungs in case she… lost the strength to do so on her own. By the time Raegdan had brought her here, the white foam Pinkie kept drooling had become deep red.

They weren’t even allowed in the room. All she had seen was brief glimpses as doctors and nurses made their way in and out the door. The benches they occupied were comfortable enough, nothing like any proper hospitals she had ever been at. She just hoped the doctors here were better too. Please, please, don’t let Princess Celestia have skipped out on getting the best of the best, here of all places!

Pinkie was the glue that kept them all together. She was the one who always pulled them together when their everyday lives threatened to drift them even slightly apart. She would drag them all, one by the other, into each other’s company, no matter what. Pinkie was not just the laughter, she was the joy of the group. Sheer and unadulterated joy, eager to be spread among her friends, making each moment something to hold to as precious and irreplaceable. Applejack was ashamed that sometimes the rest of them faltered as worthy bearers of the Elements they had been entrusted with. But it was with sheer pride that she watched Pinkie Pie, hopping her way around Ponyville, bringing smiles on everyone’s faces, knowing that her friend never did fail like the rest of them. Never could. Pinkie Pie was laughter and joy and smiles and…

Applejack sniffed hard. She didn’t want to start crying. If she did she wouldn’t stop. She refused to believe that it was needed anyway. Pinkie Pie would make it through. She would. Life would not be so cruel as to take her away from them, not like this. Pinkie had so much more to do, so many more days to brighten. She was going to see her hop and skip next to her again. There was no way that the last image she carried of Pinkie Pie would be the shivering mare that had to be tied down, plugged with all those- all those…

Oh Celestia, please, please save her. She could understand those ponies now. She wanted somepony to beg, to plead with, to save her friend. Her heart felt like it was swelling, but not in a pleasant way. It was as if despair filled it and it tried to escape the claustrophobic confines of her chest. It hurt, it really hurt. It hurt even more as she caught another glimpse of Pinkie, a doctor leaning over her and injecting something into her. She could do nothing. Her friend was dying and Applejack could do nothing. None of them could. It was all up to the doctors.

So now, all they could do was sit outside and wait. All of them were tired and some of them hurting physically, but they weren’t going anywhere yet. Fluttershy and Rarity were crying their eyes out, giving in to the despair and fear.

Fluttershy, even at this moment, was trying to put her own grief at hold so she could console Rarity who was sobbing uncontrollably. That girl called herself a coward, but now when the chips were down, Fluttershy was the one who stood strong and supported her friends.

“I wasn’t listening,” Rarity was wailing. “Pinkie Pie spent all afternoon with me, talking to me, and I can’t even remember what she was talking about. My friend is going to die and I wasn’t listening the last time she talked to me in private…” Rarity’s self loathing was filling the air around her. She had nopony to blame outright, so she blamed herself. She blamed herself for letting Pinkie eat the defiled sugar, for not drinking the tea she had in front of her and feeling the effects first, for being an inattentive friend… Rarity kept searching for reasons to blame herself, trying to tempt the universe to change the chain of events and put her in Pinkie’s place.

Rainbow Dash was still undecided on whether to follow their lead or keep on raging against Luna and Raegdan. Rainbow needed a target, somepony to focus her energy on. She had chosen Luna and Raegdan and was not going to give up soon. In Rainbow’s mind they were as guilty as whoever did the actual poisoning. They took too long to act, they were not prepared enough, they hurt her friends, they let it happen. She was firing reason after reason they were to blame for this. Applejack knew this was only a precursor. Rainbow would soon find another target, one that would take the blame gladly. Herself. And when- IF, if Pinkie didn’t make it, which she would, Rainbow would never stop blaming herself.

Twilight was sitting next to Applejack, her head hung low, hiding from view the massive shiner that Raegdan gave her. She wasn’t taking it well. None of them did, but Twilight probably had it worse. Applejack knew that Twilight was blaming herself for what happened. It’s what the young mare did best out of all of them. Spike had curled against her, but Twilight didn’t notice him. She had hoped to have her friends meet someone she liked and spend a few days in the castle like a vacation of sorts. Instead, it all culminated to this moment, Pinkie fighting for her life in that dreadful room across from them, and Twilight was trying to come to terms that she could have killed her friend, because she broke her tenet of thinking before acting. Because she never studied medicine. Because she once again didn’t let herself listen to Raegdan.

Applejack didn’t believe that. She wanted to blame them, oh she wanted to blame someone for this so much, and this happened in their rooms on their watch. Rainbow was not right, but Applejack almost wanted her to be. Rainbow had been screaming her head off about how Luna and Raegdan tried to poison them. Applejack half-heartedly tried to talk some sense into her, tell her there was no way that’s what really happened. Raegdan loved Twilight and Spike too much to let something like that happen. Rainbow’s counterargument though, was too close to truth to ignore.

“He might care for Twilight and Spike, but he won’t shed a single tear if it’s any of the rest of us that bites it.” It was enough to flare up all of Twilight’s worries and guilt to even more massive levels. She kept touching the bruise on her face, as if making sure that it really happened. Applejack tried to feel for her, support her, but…

Pinkie was dying. Twilight’s relationship with the guy who just sat there waiting for Luna to tell him what to do, watching as if what was happening wasn’t important enough as long as it wasn’t happening to Twilight, could go hang itself. If Pinkie- when Pinkie got better, then they could talk.

She looked down the hallway, eyeing a door that was just the tiniest sliver open. That’s where they were now. As soon as Luna arrived down here, she dropped everyone unceremoniously on the floor, asked Raegdan for confirmation whether the doctors had been told about the magic eating poison, and then pulled him in there. They hadn’t come out yet. A nurse went inside at one point and, after some muffled shouting, Applejack saw her running with fear in her eyes. In a few minutes she returned carrying a bag filled with what Applejack guessed were medical supplies.

Rainbow didn’t do a shoddy job against him this time. Good. She hoped he was hurting a lot.

Applejack wanted to have a word with them. Or several, and she would be saying most of them. They wouldn’t be nice words either. She decided to do so. Any action was better than just sitting on her chair, feeling splinters plunge in her chest every time Pinkie’s door opened. Applejack never handled grieving well. She needed to be active, to do something, anything. She had to keep her body or mind occupied with something else. She got up and walked to the door leading to the ones she wanted to spew all her fears at. The girls barely glanced at her as she left her seat, too lost in their own tormenting thoughts to truly notice.

The room was dark but through the tiny opening she could spot a small light at the other end. Carefully, she pushed the door, making sure she made no noise. It swung easily enough on well oiled hinges and Applejack thanked her lucky stars. She wanted to catch them by surprise and not give them any time to think up any excuses this time. She was going to do this like when questioning Applebloom. Questions, shooting one after another, barely giving them time to think through their answers. Now, she just had to be extra careful as she squeezed through and gently pressed her hooves on the floor til she was right on top of them.

This room was large. There were enough beds for maybe six or eight patients at least, but she couldn’t be sure due to the majority of it being in the dark. She eyed her target, the flickering light behind a bed screen. She could hear hushed mutterings but was too far to make them out. It was nothing that couldn’t be fixed with her sneaking skills, sharpened by years of being the big sis. She crept her way deeper into the room, the voices becoming clearer with each step.

Raegdan’s voice cleared up. “...are ok?”

Luna was answering him. Her tone surprised Applejack. Gone was the formality and clipped voice. She sounded sad. “I’m fine, Raegdan. It was just a few drops. A single, normal sip would have killed me in a day or two, but I can handle this. I am weak, but not that much.”

“Did you have to do it this way? Luna, you are not trying to-”

Luna cut off Raegdan’s worried questioning. “No. I promised, Raegdan, and I will keep my word to you. Pinkie promise, right?” Applejack wondered about that but then she remembered. Raegdan had read Twilight’s letters. He probably told her about that. “It was the fastest way to identify the poison, despite the risk. It was our fault, after all.”

Applejack promised to herself that she was getting an honest answer to her question about that. And if she didn’t like the answer she was going to spend the rest of her life in a dungeon for regicide.

She could see their shadows through the screen. They were blurry and distorted, but they were there. She could make them out, sitting next to each other, real close, probably leaning on each other. Maybe Rarity’s suspicions were true. Or not. It didn’t matter right now.

“What do you mean, your fault?” she asked.

Raegdan was the fastest of the two. By the time Luna got off the bed and her horn lit, ready to cast, he had already ripped through the sheet and stood in front of Applejack. His armor was missing and new bandages covered his side, a pink smudge already spreading. Fresh bruises covered his face and body. When he saw who he was facing he visibly wilted.

“Out of everyone that it could be, it had to be you,” he said in a voice of surrender.

“You don’t like me much, do ya, big boy?” Applejack answered.

He shrugged. “I fear you. Let’s leave it at that. Can we help you? Or can you just leave?”

Applejack questioned his statement, but chose to turn towards Luna who had reclaimed her previous aloof appearance. “Yeah, no! Y’all could start by explaining to me what you meant when you said what happened is your fault. If you were the ones to try and poison us…”

Applejack dropped that line of reasoning from her thoughts. It was obvious from Luna’s shock and Raegdan’s horrified expression that she was bucking an empty tree. “Spill. What did ya mean?”

Raegdan sat back on the bed, only this time facing Applejack. He motioned for Luna to come next to him and she obliged at once. Luna raised her head to answer, the way she always seemed to do, but Raegdan put his bandaged left hand on the back of her neck and shook his head.

Luna seemed to deflate. She kept her head low and eyes cast down as she answered. “This was not the first poisoning attempt we had to deal with.”

Applejack’s eyes wide shot open wide. Today was all about surprises. “Explain. Now. Or I bring Twilight and Princess Celestia in here and you can explain all this to them.”

Luna and Raegdan seemed to take the threat much more seriously than Applejack would have expected. They exchanged a look and Luna continued. “There have been more attempts since my return. This was the third using poison. We… we didn’t even think that someone would take a chance at hurting one of you. We believed ourselves to be the sole targets.”

“Why didn’t you tell anypony about this? What about your sister?”

“Celestia? What can she do? Give an order to stop trying to kill us? We still have no idea who is behind this. Anypony could be helping them. We are not exactly popular.”

“Ah know. I did some asking around. Seems to me you are doing this to yourselves.”

Raegdan answered her, a shade of anger in his voice. “Don’t think you have the whole picture. We are all alone in this. There is no one we can trust who can actually help. Celestia cannot do anything more than she does already, and she cannot be involved in this. The only one I trust of the Guard is Twilight’s brother and he is in the same boat as her. All we can do is weather this, hope they make a mistake, and keep searching for them on our own. Why do you think we need the Lunar Guard? We have no one on our side. We are fighting for our lives! If we give the slightest opening we will end up dead. We no longer allow anyone at Luna’s tower for a reason. We need help from ponies we can trust!”

This explained much of what she heard today. Their distrust and anger directed towards everypony… they must have been feeling trapped in a place where anypony could be their enemy. No wonder they were ecstatic about today’s fight. They thought they were turning things to their advantage.

Applejack didn’t want to be the one to burst their little bubble, but somepony had to. “Don’t hold your breath for that.”

Raegdan’s and Luna’s head whipped to her direction.

“I had a talk with Shining Armor and I asked around. The way you both acted today, nopony wants to have anything to do with any kind of Lunar Guard.”

It crushed them. Raegdan and Luna looked scared at each other, having a whole conversation with their eyes and they both slumped down. Raegdan lowered his head and closed his eyes while one of his arms went around Luna who hid her face in his neck.

“I’m sorry, but that’s the honest truth. Even if somepony wishes to join, I doubt it will be somepony you two will be able to trust.”

Luna’s voice was muffled but Applejack could hear the cracks in it as she spoke. “We failed. First step of all our plans and we didn’t even make it this far. It’s all my fault. I wanted us to show off. I thought we did so well! We are dead, Raegdan. We are worse than dead. Celestia will find out everything, and then… then…” Luna started quietly sobbing.

Raegdan turned his torso against her and took her in his embrace, letting her sob on his chest. “Luna, we can still do this. We still have options. Even if it all goes bad, at worst… at worst we run. I can get us out. It might be to a life of hell, but it is better than the alternative,” he whispered urgently, fighting to calm her down. Applejack barely heard him among the Alicorn’s whimpers.

“What are you two trying to do? What do you fear so much?” Applejack asked in a hushed whisper. Their despair and fear filled the room. Despite her own tragedy waiting a few steps behind her, Applejack tried to be gentle. Gone was the strong, proud princess. Luna cried in Raegdan’s arm, her facade shattered, exposing a terrified pony beneath.

“Lots of things,” he took a deep breath. “Survive for one. These assassination attempts are only the first step. More elaborate ones will follow when it’s plain that simple things like poison and magic bombs don’t work. We banked all our hopes on having some fighters on our side in due time. For our protection and... other things.” Raegdan’s hands moved comfortingly over Luna’s mane and her back as he talked, trying to soothe her.

“Other things? Like what?”

Luna stopped her quiet crying just enough to answer with malice. “Like you.”

“Pardon?”

“The Elements,” Raegdan explained half-heartedly. He didn’t seem to want to expand on this but Luna’s comment didn’t give him an option. Applejack would just keep pressing now and he knew it. “We want them gone. We need them gone. Either we made sure they are no longer needed and they go back where they came from or we would just take them and... destroy them.”

Applejack couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The Elements were Equestria’s greatest protection. They were virtues in solid form. And they wanted them destroyed?

“The Elements are needed to protect the world. And you two just want to take that away? Are you crazy?”

“Oh, wake up!” Raegdan said disdainfully. “You think those little gems are the only way to protect yourselves and believe everything is fine because with those you can take down the big obvious targets? They are not. You can do just fine without them. And in essence, the Elements are useless!”

“You think L- Nightmare Moon and Discord were evil and dangerous? They were nothing!” he shouted. ”Worse than nothing. They would never be able to win, not if all of you faced them instead of cowering. They were big, they were evil, they were frightening, and they could be beaten. They were just big bullies. But, real evil, that, you cannot defeat by shooting a magic ray at it once and be done with it. It stays forever, because it is in everyone. Little things like greed, pride, little lies, and distrust. Those are its true face. Little, unimportant acts that you can just wave off, until they pile up more and more, like a swarm of cockroaches, and then fall on all of you, drowning worlds in their filth. Come on, miss Honesty, don’t you know how little lies become big ones? You think corruption and madness works differently? The Elements blind you to that, just like Celestia does. You see them shining and dazzling, taking down the big targets. You keep looking up at them and fail to see the gutter that pools at your feet. The Elements will be the death of your world in the end.”

“Even without those reasons, I want them gone. I’ll shatter them with my own hands or cast them outside this world if I have to. As long as they exist and Twilight is bearing one of them, she is gonna keep getting thrusted into one great danger after another.” Raegdan was almost roaring out his fury. “I have other reasons too, I admit to that, but the point remains! You, out of everyone involved, should be supporting us in this. How long until one day someone decides to get the initiative and kills one of you to take this weapon out of the picture? What if that one is you? I know you have a little sister. Doesn’t she have precious little already? Is she going to lose her older sister too?”

Applejack ignored his rant and the irony he missed in it. He hadn’t seen the Elements in action and that’s why he had no faith in them. But that last part… Applejack had never thought of it like this, but he had a point. If some threat wanted to protect itself from them, all it had to do was take one of them out. She… she realized that if Raegdan was right that it could be her. She could be leaving her family behind forever every time she answered the Princess’ call. One day, she might walk away and never return again.

“Just like ma and pa,” she thought.

She moved her attention back to the pair in front of her. After witnessing today’s confrontation with Princess Celestia, Applejack had half a mind to drag all her friends back to Ponyville away from those two. The only reason she didn’t was her gut. Applejack always had a propensity to tell if somepony was honest or not. Raegdan was like a screaming red light for her. Almost his every action and word was like giant flaming letters to her eyes, spelling out “liar”. Except for a very few. His love for Twilight and Spike was genuine, no question. But it wasn’t that which pushed her to hold her tongue and search deeper.

It was his apology about his lack of guilt. He was lying about that, Applejack would bet everything she owned on this. Applejack believed that Raegdan, deep down, at the deepest core of his being, felt guilt. He lied when he denied it, and the little hints she was getting all day told her he lied to himself most out of everyone, so much that he genuinely believed it now. If she needed any proof, his reaction to Fluttershy was it. Luna… Luna was ringing hollow before. It was only now that Applejack felt she was seeing something of her true self. They did have feelings. They made friends out of each other, they supported and comforted the other. Raegdan looked out for Luna and she did the same for him. They were not the complete monsters they had made almost everypony start to believe.

But did this change things? Were those facts making up for their actions, no matter how justified they felt they were? She looked at them again. They resembled foals, trying to keep each other brave during a thunderstorm. Shining Armor said that they were keeping each other calm. She wondered how often that translated to this exact scene being played over and over in the privacy of their tower. How many times did they plunge into depression and fear? Did they ever feel they had the freedom to let their guard down and just enjoy themselves? Maybe, but Applejack wouldn’t bet a lot of bits on how high that number was.

They wouldn’t make it on their own. She was certain of that. They trusted no pony, not even those closest to them for help. Even now, they would not tell the exact truth. They were hiding things, even as they cradled each other. She wasn’t sure what she should do. They were habitual liars. Maybe they felt it necessary to be so, maybe that’s who they just darn were. How much could she trust of what they said? Applejack’s instincts were not infallible, no matter how much she wished her darn fancy necklace helped with that. This could be a huge mistake, listening and believing them. Should she trust their word that things really were that bad and even Princess Celestia hadn’t taken notice?

She glanced back towards the direction where Pinkie was still fighting for her life. Applejack could hear Pinkie’s answer, clear as day, in her mind, followed by happy giggles. “They are our friends, and friends help each other.” Pinkie… she would trust in her ailing friend. She would help them like they did in Ponyville because that was the right way to do things. Not their own. She would show them that there could be ponies they could trust. That Raegdan’s fables of big, little evil, had no place in Equestria. That there were more ponies out there that could be their friends apart from the two of them for each other. Family, friends, and honest work would win the day.

She just needed an opening, something to worm her way into their core and change their path. And she had one. Today’s talks with Shining Armor and their current condition showed her what the weak link in their chain of solitude was. Luna obviously only had Raegdan to hold onto. Raegdan was the key, and Raegdan’s greatest weakness had been made clear again and again. She knew which tasty worm she had to use to bait her hook. She kept silent for a little more, waiting for Luna’s tremors to subside.

“I know how you can fix this.” She had their attention, Applejack knew it, even if they didn’t show it. “Ponies will not trust you, not with the way you act. But if you change your act enough to show them they can trust you to work with you…”

“Girl, I think you are underestimating how badly we are seen. We are not totally blind you know. We know enough of their opinion.”

“And it is well deserved.” That hit its mark, even a little bit. “You need to do this. You told me, Raegdan, they only need to hurt one of us to remove the Elements. But the same goes for you. How long until somepony figures out that all he has to do to remove you from Luna’s side is to target Twilight and Spike. You can’t be standing guard over all of them.” And… hooked! Raegdan was now fully paying attention to her and actually listening to her words.

“You are not trusted. But we are. Princess Celestia is. Show Equestria that you have a better side, work the way we do, along our side, just enough to stop scaring them away and you might be surprised. Try it our way for once. Twilight and Spike might have died today, Raegdan. Because of the way you chose to do this on your own, they were in danger while under your roof.” No pony today, not the ones in the arena, Celestia, or Rainbow had delivered a strike that hit him that hard.

“All y’all have to do is temper down the violent behavior. Show some understanding. Say sorry once in a while, y’know? Stop hitting anypony who scoots too close with a stick. Do as Princess Celestia suggests. Go out, be seen acting in a decent manner. Everypony is so focused on the bad shows you’ve all made of yourselves because that’s all you’ve done so far. Give them an alternate view. What do y’all have to lose?”

Raegdan was going to give this a shot, she knew. Maybe not because he believed it would work, but because he had no other viable choice. At least, not one that held as much promise as this one, one that Twilight and Spike would approve of after the catastrophe of today. He and Luna were whispering in each other’s ears. She wondered if they ever thought about playing nice before or trusted themselves enough to try it.

Luna announced their decision, her despair waned in the face of a new plan to follow, one that had renewed her hopes. Applejack hoped she was doing the right thing. She still didn’t know their exact end goals. The one she did wasn’t one she was going to allow to happen. But as long as she could use Twilight as a deterrent, she thought there would be no special trouble.

“We- we will try your way, Applejack, but we will need a lot of help. We are not sure if we can convince anypony on our own. But we… we can act with help, at least. We are familiar with pretending to be something we are not, we might be able to keep it up long enough to get a few ponies solidly on our side.”

Applejack wasn’t happy with that notion, but she would take it. Even this, an attempt to “pretend to be something they are not”, might change their behavior enough. Little lies did turn to big lies, but sometimes little lies turned to little truths, especially if those lies were the truth all along.

Luna continued, her regal stance returning. “We will have to act fast. Our first order of business will be to actually find the poisoner, at least the assassin who delivered it in our rooms. If we let this attempt against our... friends?” she questioned. Applejack nodded encouragingly. Luna kept going with renewed vigor. “If we cannot protect our friends, how can we show ponies they can put their faith in our abilities? We will find our culprit and bring our wrath down upon him. The Lunar Guard will not go down without a fight! Raegdan. This is our new chance! We fight back. They backed us to a corner and now they shall reap the spoils.”

Raegdan grinned viciously at the idea of finding the one who endangered his children. Applejack knew that he had too much to deal with at the moment, and no target. But when he found one? Oh boy.

Applejack frowned a bit at the idea that Pinkie’s happenstance was to be used as another attempt for them, but she gave it a pass. Plus, she saw what Shining Armor meant. If there was one person she wanted to get his hands on the one who did this to Pinkie, it was Raegdan. As long as he didn’t kill him of course. This wouldn’t help anypony, not Pinkie, not Applejack, nor Raegdan and Luna. But if she had her way, she would make sure he had a couple of minutes of personal time with whoever did it in a small room.

Pinkie. She had to get back out and find out if there were news. She spent too much time here already. If something had-

The door behind her burst open and along with the sudden rays of light that flooded the room came a lavender unicorn, her hurried trotting followed by the serene steps of Princess Celestia.

Twilight was shedding tears. Oh no, this… this didn’t bode well.

Twilight ignored Applejack and Luna and jumped onto Raegdan’s lap, eliciting a wince of pain from the half naked biped. Luna quickly scooted away and put her serene mask over her face again, her face unmarked by her tears with a quick spell that was cast the instant the door opened.

“Raegdan, help her, you have to help her, you must know something that can help! Please! Please, save Pinkie Pie!” Twilight was frantically begging him, her front hooves shaking his shoulders, hope trying to come up her voice, but failing, ending shattered and broken.

“Twilight, what’s going on? What’s happened to Pinkie Pie?” Applejack was having trouble breathing. This didn’t sound good, not at all. What had happened out there while she was in here?

Princess Celestia answered Applejack from behind her. “I am sorry. The doctors are doing everything they can, but with the amount of poison she ingested… There is nothing they can do to save her. Her natural earth pony magic is feeding the poison. Luna told us what the poison was but any treatment is useless with the strength the enchantment currently has. We can cast no spell to help her, not without killing her outright. We cannot even do anything to ease her pain. I am sorry, Applejack. There is nothing to be done. All we might be able to give her is a quick… release.” Celestia was talking calmly but tears were making small wet trails on her face.

The rest of the girls and Spike came rushing in behind her too. All of them crying now, all of them with a sparkle of hope shining in their eyes. Applejack realized what this was. They came in to beg the alien creature, the one that had knowledge outside of Equestria, to share his secrets and save their friend. Applejack turned to Raegdan, hope blooming in her chest too. “He knows things,” Twilight had said. “They have no magic.” He had to know a way to treat her without spells.

Raegdan looked at all of them, one by one, before turning to Luna, exchanging another one of their looks. Their expressions of pity ravaged their hopes.

“I am sorry, little one. I have nothing. I am no scientist. I am no doctor. All I have are half remembered things I read or learned a lifetime ago. I don’t know anything that can help your friend.”

“No!” Twilight refused to believe him. “You have to know something, anything. You- you once told me that your people had machines that could cleanse the blood! What about that, we can use that!”

Raegdan tried to bring her down gently. “Twilight, that’s all I know about that. A machine that can clean the blood. That’s it. I don’t know how to build it, I don’t know how it works, I am not even sure about its uses in medicine. I’m sorry.”

Twilight’s hopes evaporated, like they did for all of them. She leaned against Raegdan’s chest, much like Luna did before, and sobbed loudly.

Rarity tried to push him for more, refusing to give up. “Raegdan, please. There must be something you can do. Some secret, some skill you have, something!” The white unicorn was joined by the quiet pleading of Fluttershy to save her friend. Even Rainbow had let go of the vestiges of her anger, quietly repeating “please” to him, over and over.

Raegdan’s attempt to remain composed shattered before the expectations they were piling before him, the mass of supplication,and appeal for hope. Applejack figured that he couldn’t deal with this well because it was so outside his comfort zone. This wasn’t something he could fix or scare away with violence. He couldn’t help where it truly mattered. Pinkie Pie was doomed.

“What do you expect from me? I have nothing! You are the ones with magic, with the knowledge of how you actually work. I am not some mythical creature with ancient knowledge,” he shouted at them with bitter sarcasm. ”I don’t have a horn on my head, or a magic mane. I don’t attract virgins with my purity and my blood doesn’t heal the sick or grant eternal life. I have no magic, or technology that can help you. All I have left is what you see before you, my flesh and blood. She is going to die! Accept it! I cannot stop that from-”

He halted his angry rant. He appeared to be thinking something over, gazing somewhere in the distance behind them. Twilight stopped her crying and looked up to his face, waiting. They all leaned forward, hope daring to spring up again. Even Princess Celestia held her breath. His eyes were glazed and his mouth was moving, mouthing his alien words.

“I think… I think I have an idea. Luna, we need to talk. Tell me if this could work…” he pulled Luna away from them and they started arguing in whispers.

Applejack didn’t believe this. Only this fella could actually think of something like that. Luna was sitting behind him, giving him something to lean on, pride and worry both occupying her face at once.

Raegdan was sitting on the edge of Pinkie’s bed. They had removed the tubes from Pinkie’s mouth and moved her so she was half sitting on her rump, leaning on Raegdan’s torso like a foal. They debated a bit for the best way to do this until Raegdan just unsheathed one of his knives and gave it to Luna to make a proper cut.

His arm with the sliced wrist was in front of Pinkie’s mouth, the blood flowing in her mouth. His other hand was gently massaging her throat, urging her to swallow. Raegdan was sweating, his skin was turning pale, and seemed to be getting tired. He had spent most of his day bleeding in one way or another.

Applejack and the others were standing by the side, watching with some disgust. Princess Celestia seemed to find some amusement in it after her initial look of disturbance.

The unicorn doctor dared to cast a monitoring spell on Pinkie. His amazed bewilderment brought waves of relief among them. “I don’t believe this. It’s working. The nullifying effect is weakened, but digesting it spreads it all over her system for long enough. Her magic is being depleted and the poison is starting to get weaker. The antidote will start to work. She is gonna make it,” he announced with a smile. They all cheered, crying out in relief. “Keep going for as long as you can, my big friend. We can stop in a few minutes and replenish what you lost so you can continue this in the morning!”

Raegdan nodded tiredly. A smile was spreading on his face. Applejack turned to see what he was looking at. Twilight, Spike, and Celestia were standing over her side, looking at him with undisguised pride. Applejack felt pride for him too. She was going to do as she said. She was going to help those two and get the girls behind her. They saved Pinkie Pie from certain death. They owed them this.

“You know, among my kind,” Raegdan started to say with weary amusement, “there is this myth that drinking blood like this, from a dead-not dead-drinker of blood, when standing on the edge of dying, you come back to life as a creature of the night, and become like him.” He turned towards Pinkie Pie and employed a strange accent. “Rise Pinkie Pie. Your Mastah calls you. Rise from death and embrace ze night! Ve shall dance in ze moonlight and drink ze blood of ze innocent!” Luna was the only one to laugh at this.

He looked back at their expressions of shock. “This is why I don’t do humor often. It is wasted on you,” he said and kept on feeding Pinkie his magic nullifying blood. “Ze blood is ze life... You could at least fake a chuckle, my little ones.”

Luna and Raegdan exchanged a satisfied glance. Applejack knew in her heart that this was a moment of potential change for them. Whatever they were afraid of, whatever they wanted to achieve, she believed they had a proper chance now. Now all Applejack and her friends had to do was stand by their side and keep them in line. Things would change for those two, starting tomorrow, after some well-deserved sleep.

Applejack was tired as buck.

She just wished they both hadn’t smiled like that when talking about finding their potential assassin. Luna had grinned like that earlier today at the tournament too...

Author's Note

The_Mechanic has written a spin-off story of this fic where you can read Raegdan's tournament fight from the eyes of Sgt. Heavy Hoof, earth pony Solar Guard. The story is here: Blood, Dirt and Steel

Thanks to Requiem17 for editing.

Ch.07 - Opening doors

Pinkie Pie was going to be ok!

When Raegdan was done with his… unconventional method of helping Pinkie Pie, it was finally time for both groups to offer their apologies and thanks to each other. Raegdan stood before them, his whole being focusing on the bruises he had given them, especially the one on Twilight’s own face. He closed his eyes. Breathed deeply.

“I’m sorry for-”

He didn’t make it any further before their massed attack.

Raegdan stood resolute, refusing to bend or fall under their assault. Twilight had leaped high enough to grapple her forelegs around his throat. Rainbow and Fluttershy used their winged advantage to attack his shoulders and arms. Applejack and Rarity went around his midriff. Spike, with his smaller stature, was able to wrap himself around Raegdan’s head.

It was a hug to be retold as a legend. If only Pinkie Pie was awake so she could join in.

“I guess my apologies are not needed,” he said, subdued.

It was a great ruckus as all six of them tried to make their own apologies heard. Spike was crying and begging Raegdan to forgive him for trying to burn him. Rarity, Rainbow, and Fluttershy were apologizing profusely for attacking him while he was trying to save their friend from them. Applejack was begging him to let her make right by him. Twilight herself was swearing she would never distrust him again.

“Yes, it’s all very tragic. We have all learned a lesson today. Can you get off now?”

They all clamped up on him even tighter.

Luna was chuckling at him as she watched. “My mighty warrior has fallen before the cuddling strength of five mares and a baby dragon. Maybe I put too much faith in you?” she teased him.

“Make no mistake, Luna. I can get out of this at any moment, and when I do you are not going to like it.”

Luna laughed at his challenge. “Oh, do your worst. I know you are not going to perform the slightest offensive action against them. You are trapped.”

Raegdan shrugged as much as he could, shaking Rainbow and Fluttershy as they nuzzled his neck. “Your funeral.” He cleared his throat with a series of loud coughs.

“Gee, is no one going to thank Luna with a hug? She was the one who identified the poison and saved Pinkie Pie from a magic overload after all.”

“No! Raegdan, you traitorous bas- mpfffhhhh!”

“And… free!”

“Dig me out!” Luna’s muffled voice ordered.

A few minutes later, after they had calmed down, Applejack shared a few things with them while Raegdan and Luna sat further away, refusing to take part until they were done.

It was quite the rollercoaster ride for Twilight.

First, it was horror, fear, and sympathy when they were told that this attempt to kill them was just the latest in a long series of them. Then came the pity and sorrow when Applejack described their meltdown, along with some nice salting of confusion, and uneasiness, about exactly how close Raegdan and Luna were. The ride finished spectacularly with the reveal of what they wanted to do about the Elements of Harmony. Horror returned for an encore under the loud applause of concern for their mentality as well as the anxiety about… well, everything would have to cover it. The crazy buckers wanted to destroy the bucking Elements of Harmony.

Twilight’s lips stiffened. She had to make sure she never said something like that aloud. Once was enough for this decade.

It is understandable that Rarity, Rainbow, and Fluttershy shared in Applejack’s feeling of the situation. They were going to help them of course, the girls because they owed Pinkie Pie’s life to Raegdan and Luna, and Twilight because… of a decade of love. She wouldn’t drop him off like a bad habit again. They would fix this situation, no matter what.

Twilight, after her mind had cleared a bit, glanced at the end of the room where they sat. It hurt her to look at him. He had really become a mess in the space of one day. The wounds from the fight, then his scuffle with her friends -thanks for reopening his stitches Rainbow- and then having to bleed himself even more blood to save Pinkie Pie, with a potential second or more times to come. His bruises, scars, and bloodied bandages were highlighted upon his now pale, white skin. There was no blood infusion to help him this time. Raegdan and Luna told them they only had a single bag in reserve, and they used it all up that same day. They had more, they said, but after the assassination attempt before this one, they destroyed them all rather than take the chance that any potential assassin actually had a speck of slight originality or somepony got his hoofs on something with that kind of potential. Raegdan had to endure as he was and hope Pinkie Pie wouldn’t need much more of his blood.

Their path was clear. Step one was to make sure those two did not do things worse for themselves. Step two, find who was trying to kill them. Step three, help them.

Twilight had a step four in mind, but she wasn’t going to tell the girls about that before they all had a good night’s sleep.

Raegdan, of course, instead of resting for the remainder of the night, kept awake in full armor, standing guard outside the room as Luna slept. Luna, in her defense, tried to get him to be the one to rest -stars forbid they both trust anypony else to stay awake and guard them while they both slept- but apparently, even the Alicorn of the Night could not move the block headedness that answered to Raegdan when he truly made his mind.

Twilight awoke in the morning and along with Princess Celestia and Applejack, who insisted she tag along, they went to have a talk with a sleep deprived, hurting, and very pissed Raegdan who spent his night fuming over yesterday’s events. Oh, the fun they were going to have. Twilight longed to wake the rest of her friends to participate in the joy of migraines.

How bad was it? Well, Twilight would have thought she could think up quite a few analogies to make her point. Imagine finding yourself having sleep-teleported into the middle of the Everfree or finding out that the original moustache spell had an extended understanding of lips. Celestia forbid it was as bad as breaking a Pinkie Promise right in front of her. But none of those could give the slightest understanding of the true scope of what greeted her. Just… well, the first thing Raegdan said to them as they came in front of him was not “good morning”, “hello”, or even a simple nod. No, the first thing he said?

“Hey Celestia. I am going to go kill Steadfast Ray in a little while, so can we hurry this up? We can all have breakfast together later.” He even sounded all chipper about it!

Yeah. Such was the great glory that awaited Twilight today. At least, judging from the force that Applejack facehoofed herself with, she would have company in her misery. Twilight swore that everything they had agreed upon yesterday, said agreement being that both of them should try to be a little less reactive, was just going through their ears as a shortcut to the garbage bin.

Twilight put her hoof down and let down a sigh. It fell to her to try to be the voice of reason today. Raegdan spent about twenty minutes insisting that he would kill Commander Steadfast. Princess Celestia spent twenty minutes telling him “no” in no uncertain terms. Raegdan was evidently hearing her say “insist some more and I will let you go murder somepony”. She woke up less than an hour ago, how was she so exhausted already?

“Raegdan,” Twilight told him, “there is no way the Solar Guard tried to poison you as retaliation for yesterday. We went back to Luna’s room immediately after the fight. They couldn’t have done it.”

Raegdan either still had doubts or didn’t want to give up his plan of killing the Solar Commander. “They could have sneaked in at some point.”

Applejack sneered at the idea. “What, they just made it past the two of ya? How? You were up there all day. What were you so busy with that you wouldn’t notice somepony come in and fool around?”

Raegdan scratched at his chin, a small stubble now on it, broken in crags by small scars that didn’t let hairs grow on them. He was thinking over the question. What could he and Luna be busy with-

Twilight’s brain emptied a metaphorical bucket of bleach on itself in an effort to stop any unwanted mental images from forming. Rarity was not right. The rest of her friends were making fun of her. This wasn’t something that was happening.

“We did nap for an hour or so,” he answered. Oh thank Celestia, Twilight thought with a thankful glance at her teacher beside her. “It would take some balls for them to try and get in, true. They couldn’t know if we were indisposed or not. On the other hand, we didn’t notice you coming in yesterday either,” he said with a frown.

“Ok, big fella, but the fact remains that you don’t know. It’s way more probable that some other cretin -begging your pardon, your Majesty- did that while you were out of there. Maybe during the tournament, or sometime before. Am ah right?”

Princess Celestia nodded approvingly at Applejack’s explanation. “Anyway, I do not believe that my Solar Guard would try something like that. They dislike you, even more since yesterday, but I doubt they would turn to underhooved measures. I trust Commander Steadfast to obey my orders not to take any hostile actions against you.”

“Oh, yeah, that worked out great yesterday. Nice job,” Raegdan answered sarcastically, followed with a short clap.

“Do we have to go through the same discussion, Raegdan? I have reprimanded him severely for his choice of actions. Even with his exemplary service so far and the fact that, unlike you, he accepted full responsibility for the outcome, I would have taken away his rank. But I could not do anything like that while Luna kept the other half of those responsible safe from even the slightest repercussion, could I? I wonder, does the phrase “you reap what you sow” have any meaning for you?”

“More than you know. But some people get to reap things they never planted in the first place.”

“Like Heavy Hoof’s daughter? I met with her yesterday, you know. A sweet filly. The last words her father told her was that he would be back soon. She asked me why her dad lied to her.” Celestia sighed. “I am thousands of years old and I have no idea how you answer this question.”

“You don’t,” Raegdan answered. “You just say that you don’t know why and let them find out on their own when they grow up that this is how the world is.”

He huffed and just stared at the wall for a minute, clearly lost in his thoughts. Twilight took a careful look at his eyes. They were bloodshot and large bags of skin were hanging beneath them. But he stood erect and attentive. Twilight remembered her childhood, Raegdan keeping awake over a scared Spike that had a nightmare, his presence giving the small dragon comfort. He would easily make it through the day without any rest, but he didn’t usually go through a gauntlet as he did yesterday. He had to be feeling the effects, but… what was that Applejack told her he said? “If we give the slightest opening we will end up dead.” Is that what this was? He refused to show weakness anywhere near public spaces?

Twilight looked at her surroundings. Maybe the corridor of the Castle Infirmary, outside the door of the room where Luna slept today, was not the best place to have this discussion. Raegdan had refused to move however.

“Ok, I’ll concede that maybe, just maybe, to my eternal disappointment, it wasn’t the Solar Guard behind this attempt.” Twilight held her breath. Raegdan just slipped a little. Luna and he had urged them not to reveal to Princess Celestia that there had been more attempts at their life. They all objected to this; it served no purpose and would only stop them from getting more support from the Princess, but those two remained unmoved. Princess Celestia was to know only the bare minimum. Twilight wondered at the time if they also were allowed to learn only the bare minimum themselves.

Raegdan caught on to what he did. One of his eyes trembled for a half second as he waited along with Twilight and Applejack to see if Princess Celestia had realized what he had potentially revealed.

“Then in that case you will be happy to know that I have ordered the Royal Guard to find our culprit.” Crisis averted.

And a new one just begun. “Oh, hell no,” Raegdan told her in his gentle, polite way that he would prefer another option. “They are staying out this. Luna and I can look into this on our own-” Applejack gave a loud cough full of meaning, “along with some help from Twilight and her friends as they have so kindly offered. Lunar Guard, remember? Just because there is only one of me doesn’t mean that I have less authority in your power structures, especially since I am by default my own Commander. Unless of course, your sister’s decrees don’t have quite the same… oomph that yours do?” Raegdan shamelessly baited Twilight’s mentor.

Princess Celestia must have known she was being played but didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she was smiling. A big, toothy grin that looked wrong on her. “Oh, Raegdan. Somepony just tried to poison my little sister, my student, her friends, and you. Did you really think I was going to do the guilty party the favor of keeping you out of it? You will be right there with them, the Royal Guard will just be doing most of the work. They have the means and experience.”

Raegdan stopped leaning on the doorframe. He did not look happy even with this arrangement and his expression was getting outright murderous. The promise of personally finding those responsible was the only thing that had stopped him from going on an undiscriminating warpath. “I do not trust your Royal Guard. They stay out of this, that’s final!”

Twilight racked her brain to find a way to stop him from digging himself in a deeper hole. Think brain, think! Distract him; how? Sprain your ankle, no, that’s stupid, break your ankle! Then while he is busy fawning over you, punch him on the back of his head.

Maybe Twilight just didn’t have it in her to be the voice of reason. She should apply for voice of panic. Daisy, Rose, and Lily had the role well snagged in Ponyville, but Twilight believed she had the potential to go national!

Thankfully, Applejack managed to keep a straight head, so someone who could actually think, spoke for Raegdan. “How about Shining Armor? Raegdan trusts him, right? Can’t they work together?” She flashed Raegdan a wide toothy smile that said “don’t blow this”.

Twilight couldn’t believe she forgot about her brot- oh shoot, she hadn’t even visited him to say hi had she?

They all turned to Princess Celestia, waiting for her decision.

The Alicorn of the Sun sighed, backed into a corner to make a decision she believed to be wrong. Twilight wasn’t sure if it was the right one either, but there was a limit to how much Raegdan and Luna could be pushed. If she overdid it they would just lock her out and keep everything between them again. Then, one day, she would get a letter from the Princess that wrote that they were both dead.

§ § § § § § § § §

Dear Twilight Sparkle,

I regret to inform you that Raegdan and Luna are dead. But their memory will live on. The charred remains of my castle and those of half of Canterlot will be a monument that will make sure they will never be forgotten by the few stragglers that managed to survive.

Your crippled teacher,
Princess Celestia

P.S. When Raegdan mentioned a chemical recipe that made a fire that could not be quenched with water, he wasn’t joking.

§ § § § § § § § §

Twilight suspected she was beginning to develop some serious issues.

“Fine. You will have the personal help of Captain Armor and whatever resources you and him agree to use together. The rest of the Guard stays out of this until you decide otherwise. You will be in command of the investigation officially, as you asked, but Shining Armor has seniority. If he makes any suggestions, I insist that you take them to heart. Oh, and stop petting your weapon. You are not allowed to ask questions with it until you have the actual pony who did it in your hands.”

Raegdan crossed his arms over his chest with a pout. “You used to be fun once. Remember the times you put a sign that read “Complaint Department” around my neck, and had me stand next to your throne on the days you were overflowed with applicants?”

Celestia gave an embarrassed cough. “I, uh, needed to free some time in my schedule to teach Twilight, you know that.”

“Why, yes. It cut down so much of the daily court that we could even head to Donut Joe’s place.” Princess Celestia started fidgeting. “Before you started on the lessons, I might add. We used to have fun together, Celestia. What happened?”

“You came at me with a spear,” she said with a sad smile. Raegdan sighed in answer.

“I miss those days,” he said wistfully.

“As do I. It’s up to you if they will return.”

“I am well aware.”

“How are you feeling by the way?”

“Aw, you care. I’m fine,” he shrugged. “I wish you guys had painkillers that actually worked on me, but I can take it. It’s not like I have any other option anyway,” he chuckled.

“I will brief Captain Armor on his new assignment and he will mee-” Princess Celestia was interrupted by a terrified shriek originating from the room behind Raegdan. Twilight couldn’t believe her ears, but it sounded like… Luna!

Raegdan moved instantly. He grabbed the door handle and only paused briefly to give an order before he went inside. “No matter what, you do NOT come in. Do you understand me, Celestia? Stay out!” He thrust the door open and rushed inside, moving with a speed he rarely displayed, Luna’s screams still echoing down the corridors.

Princess Celestia moved towards the door, but held back from opening it. Twilight moved as close as possible, striving to listen what was happening inside.

Raegdan’s voice was loud and pleading, piercing through the Alicorn’s wails. “Luna, it’s me, it’s ME! Wake up, you are here with me, come on! It’s just a dream, Luna, you are not there! Luna, wake up, please! Please, wake up!”

The screams stopped and were replaced at once with loud, desperate sobbing. Twilight looked up at her teacher and paled at the sight.

Princess Celestia expression was one of grief and disbelief. Twilight had never seen the white Alicorn lose her calm like this.

“Oh, Luna. Why are you hiding from me? Why won’t you let me help you?” she whispered to no one before turning around and leaving, her pace faster than normal.

Twilight didn’t know what to think. She turned to Applejack, her posture asking for some answers. Applejack just shrugged.

Figures.

Twilight tried to emulate Princess Celestia. Keep your expression serene. Look as if you know what you are doing. Don’t allow any of the inner tremors you feel make it to the surfac- oh, sweet, dear-bucking-horseapplesonastick what did she just suggest?

“Calm, remain calm. Lips straight with a slight hint of a smile. Eyes must have an inquisitive stare, as if you see and take interest in everything, but nothing surprises you. Maintain breathing at optimal rate; do NOT hyperventilate,” Twilight chanted the mantra of “Princess Serenity” in her mind. It was working. If only she could consciously control her mane and stop it from slowly spiking in random directions, then she would be just peachy.

She really hoped the girls were buying the act. They were looking at her as if she just told them they should all go and jump onto some nice, not so fluffy, jagged rocks. In a sense, she did.

“Twilight, darling, let me see if I understand your proposal correctly,” Rarity said. Twilight nodded, regally allowing the peasant to continue with her questions. “You want us to, and I have to stress this, deliberately lie to Raegdan that we will be asking around on our own, while in reality we will -I can’t believe this- we will be snooping in their own rooms?”

Twilight nodded again. She did not trust her tongue yet.

Rarity got a fan out of somewhere and sat down heavily. Fluttershy raised her hoof, begging to ask a question.

Twilight discreetly swallowed before addressing her. “You have a question, Fluttershy?”

“Um, yes. I’m sorry, and really, don’t take this the wrong way, but… do you have a deathwish?”

Twilight blinked. Wow, she… she did not expect that. “Rainbow, any questions from you?”

“Oh, no, I think my girl, Flutters, just covered all of my own. Well, I guess I could add, do you think we also have a deathwish? Raegdan isn’t gonna shy away from kicking our butts if he catches us, or worse, soap all of us. Whatever he does to us, he ain’t gonna be gentle. My head still hurts and Rarity is wearing that dress for a reason.”

Twilight sighed. She hoped it would be easier. Just point at a direction and they would follow with no questions. It never happened before, but it was a big universe. Probability had to collapse somewhere, right? At least they didn’t know of Raegdan’s more creative punishments. Then they would have galloped back to him to tattle her in an effort to save their flanks. She threw an epic tantrum once when she was thirteen because he didn’t let her stay up later than usual. She had to spend the rest of the week walking around in pink spotted baby nappies and drink everything from a baby bottle. She only tried to take them off once, but stopped when she saw him grin evilly. At her relief, when Spike laughed at her, Raegdan forced him to endure the same, so he never felt the need to share this story.

The Princess held off any lessons and didn’t meet with Twilight until the punishment was over. Twilight suspected that she heard about Spike’s inclusion and didn’t want to take the risk.

As it was, only Applejack had agreed to her plan. Twilight had no option now but to sin. She was going to bring physical evidence in a debate.

“Ok, girls. I didn’t want to do this, but you forced my hoof. Do you see this?”

Rainbow squinted. “That’s… a list?”

“Exactly. And what does that tell you?”

“That you are an egghead?”

Right. This was getting repetitive, insulting, and something she should have seen coming. “This is a list that I have written. It contains everything we know about Luna’s and Raegdan’s plans, their motives, who could possibly be a suspect for wanting them dead, and everything else we know.”

“Let me see that, please,” Rarity said and pulled the notebook towards her with her magic. She spent a few seconds examining it. “Twilight, the only things you have written here are; Render Elements useless, Render Elements useless, and everypony minus thirteen.”

“Exactly,” Twilight exclaimed satisfied. Finally, they were seeing the point. “We know nothing. We can’t help them like this. I don’t think they have told us the whole story. They must know more about who is after them. They can’t have been living like that for a year and not have a single clue. We have no idea what they are after and thus no idea who could possibly want to stop them. Which I include ourselves in by the way. I can’t understand why they are so dead set against the Elements. I don’t buy in dad’s speech that Applejack told us.”

“Luna doesn’t want them around either,” Applejack added. “She sounded downright hateful about the fact we are connected with them.”

“But this doesn’t make sense!” Twilight was almost yelling in confusion. “She used to be linked to the Elements of Harmony herself. She and Celestia were the ones to trap Discord the first time. The Elements are what cleansed her of Nightmare Moon. Why does she want them gone now?”

“Umm, when I was a little filly, there was a small closet on the wall of my room,” Fluttershy said. Everypony’s attention shifted to her with the sudden change of topic. Fluttershy lowered her head at the attentiveness but continued. “I was… really afraid of it at night. I accidentally locked myself in it once and, afterwards, always kept thinking that one night Nightmare Moon would jump out of there and drag me back inside.” Twilight was instantly reminded of her own childhood fears. “I… told my dad one day, and when I came back home, he had taken off the door and filled in the closet, turning it all into a solid wall. It didn’t matter to my dad if I was right to be afraid of it or not. He just removed it with no questions asked.”

“That’s a sweet story about your dad, Fluttershy, but I don’t understand what it has to do with all this,” Twilight told her friend.

“Maybe… maybe Raegdan is doing the same with the Elements of Harmony? Maybe Luna is afraid and Raegdan wants to...”

Twilight didn’t get it. What the hay was that supposed to mean?

Rarity however seemed to connect some dots while listening to this story. She didn’t look like she liked it though. “The screams you told us about! Twilight… Twilight, tell me, please. Is there a chance… is there the slightest chance, that Luna was conscious while she was banished?”

Understanding dawned like a baleful sun, scorching all her other thoughts, leaving Twilight with nothing but the apprehension of true horror.

One thousand years. One thousand years of solitude. Alone. Completely and utterly alone. No one to talk to, no one to talk to you. No voices, not even your own. Because Luna had been banished. She would have no control of her limbs because there were no limbs for her to control. She had been infused with the moon. All she could sense for one thousand years was just the unmoving surface, the millions of tons of rock… and her own thoughts. How… how did she manage to survive? She should have been a gibbering mess as soon as she returned.

What was she doing during that millennium? Did she try to busy her mind with past memories of her life? Was she trying to find a way to break out without her magic? Did she make plans for her return?

Did she keep screaming with nopony to hear her for one thousand years?

How did her mind manage to stay whole? The amount of mental fortitude Luna must have had to endure this…

It wasn’t entirely enough, was it? The way she screamed a few hours ago. Twilight now knew what Luna had been dreaming of. Raegdan hadn’t been surprised at all. He knew exactly what to do. He rushed in to wake her up. It had almost been an hour since the crying stopped. Neither of them had come out yet. Twilight didn’t dare enter the room before, stout in staying outside because of the way Raegdan forbid them to. Now? She was afraid to have her suspicions confirmed beyond any doubt. How often did that happen? Once a month? Once a week? Every night? Was this the real reason why Raegdan didn’t move from her door, not even a single step down the corridor? Was he waiting for this to happen, for the moment when he had to run to Luna’s aid to comfort her?

Raegdan’s propensity to spend all his time by Luna’s side, practically glued to her, now made sense. He was doing everything he could, fighting to keep her sane in a new world where everypony hated her and ponies wanted her dead.

Raegdan liked very few ponies. He loved even less. Before the last days events she would have limited that list to herself, Spike, and Celestia. She wasn’t entirely sure if Princess Celestia was still on that list, but she believed that she was. Raegdan, for some reason -a reason she was beginning to suspect she knew what it was- was angry, extremely angry with her. If he still didn’t care for her, he wouldn’t limit his displeasure to occasional shouting, snark, and foul language when talking to her, Princess or not.

But this list now included Luna. There was no doubt. Raegdan, somehow, had come to care deeply for Luna, who -if they were correct- was rightfully terrified of the Elements of Harmony. It didn’t matter if they would never use them on her again. Just the fact that they were still out there would be enough to drive her mad with fear. Raegdan knew this. So now, Raegdan believed that the Elements of Harmony were a mental danger for Luna, and a physical danger for Twilight. If Twilight’s darkest thoughts were true, if that was what Luna had gone through… oh, heavens help them, if it was true...

Raegdan would sooner burn the world than allow this to continue. If something was threatening or scaring somepony Raegdan loved… “I am not a scientist. I am no doctor.” That’s what he said last night. That’s what he always said. It really left a lot of options about what he used to be, didn’t it? Even if he wasn’t something like what she feared, Twilight believed it made no difference.

Whatever Raegdan had gone through before in the past, it must have taught him some tricks or given him ideas. Ideas that could be backed up with the magic strength of a desperate Alicorn. Twilight still remembered his claim that if you knew enough, you could cast a spell that could cut through metal as if it was mist. That was an offhand comment. If Raegdan really wanted to, with Luna’s help, he could perform the stuff of nightmares. There was a reason he was extremely careful of what he shared, even if he knew so little as he claimed. The small hints of what he could unleash with some help had panicked even Princess Celestia. She did not fear him just because he broke a lot of bones.

Rainbow spoke in a hush. “I’m… overthinking this, right? It can’t be as bad as I think?”

“Rainbow, dear, I don’t think we can ever come close to imagining how horrible it truly was if that really happened.” Rarity’s voice trembled.

Fluttershy was on the verge of tears. “I just thought that… she was afraid to be away again. That’s- that’s horrible!”

“Oh darn, that’s why your pa… Twilight, Raegdan really meant what he said, didn’t he? We need to tell Princess Celestia what happened to her sister,” Applejack urged. “Those two are really going to-”

Rarity stopped her with a hoof to her mouth. “We are not telling Princess Celestia. Raegdan for once has the right idea!”

“Pardon? Are ya crazy? She needs to know!” Applejack said

Rarity swiped at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Know what? Are you going to tell her that what she thought was an act of mercy -one that she already feels guilt for- locked her sister in a thousand years of agony? How do you think Princess Celestia will feel? We don’t know if she can even help Luna any more than Raegdan does already. He obviously knows what happened.”

“Well, when ya put it like that…”

Rainbow added her own two bits. “Princess Celestia was the one who did this to her. I don’t think Luna would like to talk about that with her anyway. It would be pretty awkward and all.”

“But…,” Fluttershy said, “she seems fine, doesn’t she? She is staying apart most of the time but she joins in and laughs sometimes.”

“I doubt she thinks about it all the time,” Rarity answered. “Raegdan probably keeps her busy to stop her from dwelling on it. But it has to always be there, in the back of her mind. And when she forgets herself, or goes to sleep…”

“That’s it,” Twilight announced, breaking the girls from their own visions of Luna’s suffering. “We are going to Luna’s tower now! Fluttershy, stay here with Pinkie. Shining Armor should be coming by soon. If Raegdan and Luna come out and we are not back yet, stall them. Don’t let them leave before we are back. We don’t want to get caught. Rainbow, Applejack, Rarity, let’s go.”

Twilight scanned the page. Raegdan wasn’t joking. The writing was obviously shifting from one language to another. Not only that, but they were also using different alphabets, Raegdan was radically changing his hoofwriting in random sentences, or he was just plain bucking with whoever would try to translate this, and just wrote it all in gibberish. This seemed impossible. She couldn’t discern a single word that she could use as a starting point. It would take her days to just separate every letter to their possible corresponding alphabet and language.

They had been in the study where they first found Raegdan for an hour now. Well, Twilight and Rarity were. Applejack and Rainbow quickly left to search elsewhere when they saw Twilight gleefully taking a page down from the wall and taking a seat. Rarity was spending her time in front of the extremely large mirror, primping herself.

The door opened and her missing friends came back inside to break her concentration. “Nothing,” Applejack said, “everything’s normal. There was nothing hidden anywhere. Granted, we couldn’t just dig up everywhere or they might notice later, but ah really think we are not going to find anything elsewhere in here.”

“Did you find a second bedroom?” Rarity asked in a sing-song voice while brushing her mane.

“Nope.”

Rarity gave Twilight a meaningful look.

“That means nothing. He could very well be sleeping on a chair, the floor, or they might be taking turns resting. Stop doing that to me, please!” Twilight begged.

“Oh, Twilight. She is a mare all alone, suffering, and has a stallion all day long next to her that understands her and shares her hurdles willingly. It’s only natural that they give in under all that stress and seek comfort-”

“NO! This is not one of your romance novels, Raegdan doesn’t think of Luna like that, and there is no way in Tartarus this ever happened. Now, let me read.”

“Found anything, Twilight? What do all those papers say?” Rainbow was in a room with books and notes for all of ten seconds and she already sounded bored.

Twilight rubbed her eyes. She had been trying to glare the words into meaning by the end. It didn’t work out very well for her. “Nothing. They could have a detailed list of everything we are trying to find out, and I could not read it. I don’t even know where to begin.”

Applejack was trotting along the walls, examining the papers tacked on them. Her frown was deepening as she went along.

“Applejack, anything wrong?” Twilight asked.

Applejack moved to the midpoint of the wall and was looking right and left at the notes. “You could say that, ah reckon. There are only eight or ten pages of notes here.”

Rainbow waved her hoof at the walls that were filled with over a hundred of pages. “You should do a recount, AJ. I think you might have missed a couple.”

“Nope, ah didn’t,” Applejack said. Her frown had been replaced by a self satisfied smirk. “There’s only ten or so, at best. They just repeat over and over.”

Twilight didn’t cast a teleport, but to the naked eye it would make no difference. One second she sat at the chair, the next she was right next to Applejack. She scrutinized every page, looking for confirmation. The page she had been studying was here… and here… and there, there, there… Applejack was right.

“How the hay did you notice that?” she asked with wonder. The pages were so indecipherable, and similar to each other, that even now she could barely notice the repeat. This was expertly done. They had even added some sketches in random points to confuse the eye even more.

“Patterns,” Applejack said. “I’ll explain some other time. Let’s just say that having to check a few hundred of identical trees for signs of trouble every day, tends to leave you with a talent for seeing this kind of stuff.”

Rainbow called out to Rarity. “Hey, miss Glamour, careful over there, ok? If you wear that mirror out, Raegdan will kick your flank.”

“Oh, please, Rainbow. I am not going to repeat dear Pinkie’s mistake. I’m just making sure my coiffure is in place.”

“Yeah, but he- huh, he really cared for that mirror, didn’t he?” Twilight watched as Rainbow was the one to scowl suspiciously now. What was wrong with Twilight today? Did she wake up on the stupid side of bed? Everyone seemed to be noticing things she did not.

Rainbow flew to the gigantic mirror, inspecting the frame. “Rainbow, what are you looking for?” Twilight asked.

“A lever or a button.”

“What for?” asked Rarity beneath Rainbow.

“Every evil lair has at least one secret door. I bet this is it.” Rainbow’s explanation dumped Twilight’s spirits. She had been hoping that Rainbow had noticed something of use. Not go off on one of her fantasies where the world was covered with trapdoors, “evil lairs”, and hidden treasures. Any moment now, she would claim that the entrance to Luna’s real rooms was in the middle of the hedge maze in the gardens and she would demand they march down there to sea-

“Found it!” Rainbow said triumphantly, and with a click the mirror frame swiveled silently on hidden hinges.

Son of a bitch!

That metal sphere… the way its surface was cracked in a grid pattern, the little knob with the small metal loop at the end, the curved lever at its side… it looked so… sciency! Twilight had to grab it, hold it, and analyze it for the sake of scholars everywhere. As soon as Rainbow’s mouth stopped clamping on her tail.

“Twilight, what the hay do you think you are doing?” Rainbow shouted through her gritted teeth.

“I just want to take a look. I’ll put it back later, I swear!”

Rainbow spit out her tail. Twilight did a quick flick to get rid of the saliva. “Twilight, look around you! This is a bucking armory. We shouldn’t be touching this stuff!”

She was right of course. The rooms were completely dark, but as soon as they stepped inside and closed the secret door, magical bright white lights turned themselves on, leaving no trace of shadows. There were rows of what could only be called weapons, judging by the way they were stacked. She recognized quite a few of them. There were the usual weapons, blades, maces, hammers, spears, axes, hoofblades, wingblades, and more. But there were some unusual ones too.

There were some bows for one. Ponies did not use bows. It was easier for unicorns to cast an offensive spell than to try to shoot with one of the ballistic machines. Earth ponies and pegasi did not use them much either. The need to spike them to the ground to use them meant that they were useless for anything except hitting a static target. These ones however, did not have the long spike she knew of. They were possibly made for Raegdan’s use. She had seen him leaving for his hunts with a carved piece of wood when she was younger. She realized now that it was a bow left stringless. He was probably very good with those by now.

There were rows of small, hoof sized metal spheres, the kind that enraptured her before. They were different colors, and some of them were designed slightly differently. Some were shaped as cylinders. A kind of slingshot ammunition maybe? Twilight could detect some dormant spells in them, but couldn’t figure out what the trigger for them was.

Some things she couldn’t understand or guess at all. Like two metal canisters that were tethered together with a kind of netting hanging from them. A flexible long pipe connected them with a peculiar metal tube that had strange bits and pieces extruding from it.

There were jars and boxes scattered around. Near the canisters she found a container with rock oil. Its fumes were making her eyes itch. In a cardboard box next to it she found… soap? There were crystals, probably mined from Mount Canterlot itself. Coils of wire and metal junk had been piled together with them, probably as a project they haven’t gotten into yet. More jars were filled with acids. She found a long roll of parchment, but her excitement faded when she saw it was just inscribed with copies of extremely tiny runework. Why even get into the trouble to do that? Runes were useless on soft materials that could not handle the magic pressures and you could not carve them so small with the attention to detail needed. Mineral samples where thrown around. She found a few a magnets among them. Copper ore was piled in great quantities.

Another box had a note on it. “Find large empty area to mix this.” Inside, she found a bunch of long, empty tube containers, painted red, and a bag of sawdust. There was nothing else.

On a long table there were more metal tubes. It looked like a work in progress. A sketch was on one side. Twilight examined it and saw they were trying to come up with some kind of clockwork that would move small, metal cylinders in sequence, loading them into a metal pipe. They didn’t seem to have a lot of luck with it or just decided to abandon it. Dust was gathering on the table.

On the table next to it she discovered what was probably meant to be Raegdan’s new weapon. It was sparkling new. They had cannibalized rods and wooden handles to make a ragtag, longer, heavier version of his hammer. The end result was blocky and the spike at its side was missing the gentle curve of his smaller one. But with the heavier weight, and greater reach, this would be a true killer.

“Hey, Twilight, come check this out!” Rainbow called from the second room of this hidden compartment. She found all the girls gathered around a pair of armors.

One of them was obviously made for Luna. It resembled her Nightmare Moon assemble, but it would cover her form much more thoroughly. Luna had obviously gone the route that Raegdan preferred and traded speed and movement for more protection. Twilight could detect the starting steps of complex enchantments on it.

The one next to it was almost identical to the one Raegdan currently wore. The plating was thicker and it was a bit wider. Probably in an effort to insert adequate padding between the metal and his body. She noticed that parts that were previously lightly armored now had thick plates covering them too. The sheen of it was.. off, like the one made for Luna. There was no trace of magic on this one, but she didn’t expect to find anything either. Enchanting something that Raegdan would wear was a practise in futility.

She looked to the side. Small rectangles of metal were positioned on yet another small table. They looked different. Twilight moved to inspect them.

“I know he was doing fine with the one he has now, but will be able to even take a step with this one? It looks like it’s twice as heavy,” Rainbow was saying.

There seemed to be two different versions of steel here. Twilight lifted them with her hoofs, trying to judge their respective weight. It was very different. She noticed a metal spike at the end of the table. She summoned it towards her.

“I don’t think he will have any troubles with it,” Twilight told her. “If I’m guessing correctly, that one might even be a little lighter.”

She used her telekinesis to push the spike with as much force as possible through what she suspected was the normal metal they used for armor. It took effort and a build up of speed, but it pierced it. She repeated the process with the lighter piece of metal. It left a very small, shallow dent, but did not manage to go through.

“Wow. What is that?” asked Rainbow.

“I have no idea,” Twilight admitted. “Probably some new steel alloy. It’s very light and stronger than what we currently have.”

“Oh, how horrid!” Rarity exclaimed. Twilight and Rainbow Dash turned around. Rarity and Applejack had opened a cabinet and were reading some papers they found in it.

“Did you find something we can actually read?” Twilight was excited. This could be their chance to find something of substance.

Rarity had become almost entirely green. Applejack also looked sick. “It’s… Twilight, I am sorry, but Raegdan and Luna are entirely mad. If this is what they are coming up with in their free time…” Rarity shivered violently.

Twilight took hold of the papers she was holding. It looked like a plan to kill… Discord? They had noted down different possibilities. From smashing the statue he was currently turned into, to using some of those weapons they had stashed in the other room, to some strangely named spells. A checklist of more things to build was written at the end, but none of the names made sense to her. The last option available, called “last resort before atom split”, was...

Twilight had to fight to keep herself from throwing up when she turned the page around.

They had written down details on how they should cut off Raegdan’s left arm for maximum effectiveness. Schematics followed it, with possibilities of how to use his bones, flesh, and blood to craft weaponry. Fingerbones turned to arrowheads, forearm bones turned to a long blade or daggers, the rest of the bones grinded into small cylinders with a sharp ending. His skin stretched over a small shield, blood stashed into small breakable vials. Muscles and tendons turned into strands of garrote and thin rope.

It was one of the most horrible things Twilight had ever seen with her own eyes, and Raegdan was planning to do it to himself.

She gulped. She didn’t want to find out more. But her curiosity… “Are there… more of those?”

“No,” Applejack answered. Rarity had moved away from the macabre cabinet, refusing to nose around in there any more than she already had. “They seem to have made incomplete plans on how to kill some other things, like dragons, ursas, and stuff, but nothing they paid as much attention to as that. There is also a note mentioning Alicorns, but they got nothing written on it. There are a lot of other papers in here though.”

Twilight started pulling everything out. That was… peculiar and extremely random. Travelogues? Manehattan, Las Pegasus, Vanhoover, Baltimare… what did they need from these? Reports, from- reports? Those belonged in the Royal Archives! She spread them around. They made no sense either. Everything was random. Population census, employment statistics, death certificates, missing ponies reports, trade agreements, immigration, taxes, Royal Guard reports from around Equestria, orphanage listings, Noble houses, land owners. It was a potpourri of nonsense.

Rainbow was checking out another notepad. “Rarity is right. I think those two are pretty insane. These look like they plan to break into a house with a hoofball team.”

“What?”

“Here, check this out,” Rainbow said and shoved one of the papers in question in front of her face. It was a top-down view of a large residence. Circled numbers had arrows pointing routes of entry and movement from different sides. There was a phrase written on top.

“Special weapons and tactics?” she read aloud.

“Maybe that’s what they plan to call their team? You know, something for the Lunar Guard to kick off and relax in the evening. Or morning. I guess they will be working night shifts,” Rainbow said.

“Does it feel to anypony else as if those two are gearing up for war?” Applejack asked.

“They want the Elements of Harmony out of the way, right?” said Rainbow. “This might be what they are planning to replace them with.”

Rarity offered her own opinion on the matter. “If this is the alternative I’d rather stick with my necklace, thank you. The Elements do not kill. Those two instead seem to be going straight for the final solution. This is all too much, and I don’t think they are even half done. Applejack is right. This doesn’t feel as if they are just thinking up defensive measures. ”

“Well,” Applejack drawled, “y’all gotta admit though, they don’t seem to want to half-flank this. Ah mean, if they can find a way to put down a fella like Discord, it would be kinda hard to argue that we definitely need the Elements, right? Plus, if they are willing to go after the nasties in the countryside at least, they got my vote for that.”

Twilight scoffed at the idea. “I don’t think Equestria needs a Lunar Guard to take care of that. Attacks in the wild are really uncommon.”

Applejack stopped her wandering around the room and walked up to Twilight. “Ok, Ah just gotta ask. What the hay are you and Shining Armor talking about?”

“What do you mean, Applejack? I am talking about the monster attacks that Luna and Raegdan claim they want to stop. I have checked the reports. There are basically almost none.”

“Is that what your reports say, Twily? Well, Ah got some news for you. I sell apple pies.”

Twilight blinked and waited. She waited some more. “So what-”

Applejack continued now that she interrupted her. “I sell them at Ponyville, but most of my sales come from villages spread around. It’s actually quite a big income boost which is the only reason Big Mac and I keep doing it. Do you have any idea what we go through?”

“No…”

“Well, let me tell you then. Hell. The roads are crawling with them nasties. Last time, I got jumped by a chimera. Big Mac had to abandon his cart to a wyvern, and it drove us in the red for a week. I’ve seen timberwolves, plain wolves, manticores, chimeras, wyverns, sphinxes, wyrms, you name it.”

“But… did you report those? Didn’t the Guard help?”

“The Guard? Sugarcube, the Guard won’t go against a nest of wyverns unless they know with one hundred percent certainty they killed a pony and have no other choice. That means, if I get eaten while on the road, and nopony sees me actually getting attacked, or find my remains, I get written down as missing. If you wander off deep in the countryside it’s considered your own stupid mistake.”

“This makes no sense, Applejack. Those creatures must be coming out of the Everfree. Things aren’t like that all over Equestria. If it was, how would things like trade continue?”

Rainbow chuckled above her.

“What?” Twilight asked.

“Uh, you do know that it’s the pegasi that take care of that stuff, right? And even we have to form up large groups when carrying a lot of stuff that really slows us down. Most ponies use the trains now anyway. They are safe and they keep the tracks clean. I do some deliveries when I need some extra bits. I’m one of the few who are fast enough to do it solo,” Rainbow said.

“So… they were right about that?”

Applejack nodded.

“I never heard anypony mention that things are so bad,” Rarity said.

“Doubt you would have. City folk probably don’t have to worry about that, and neither do all those who can afford transportation like the train for every little thing. It’s mostly the small villages and those of us who have to cut corners by traveling on hoof that know firsthoof how badly something like Luna’s Lunar Guard is needed. Something pro-active as Luna said. Those who don’t know and try chancing the countryside anyways, well, they go on the missing pile more often than not. I just expected that Shining Armor would know better.”

“If that’s what all of this is for though, why are they hiding it all up?” Rainbow asked. That was the million bit question, right? Why all this secrecy?

They checked the last of the three large rooms that were hidden by the mirror. It was their personal smithy and workshop. Twilight doubted they had gotten anything in here through legal means. In one corner she spotted discarded pieces of Guard armor. A lot of the gear, like the furnace, seemed to have been customized and enhanced with a mixture of magic, strange apparatuses, and materials.

How much did they manage to do in a single year? They had built those rooms, all those strange devices, those plans, they trained Raegdan, forged armors from an unknown steel alloy, and heaven knows what else. Were they sleeping at all?

Luna’s screams briefly echoed in her skull. Probably not. They must have done what Twilight herself did when she had a problem she wasn’t sure how to deal with. Thrown themselves to work, trying to cover everything they could think of.

Twilight went back to examine the armor. They had put on a small show of regretting the use of subpar armor yesterday, and all the while they had this monster hiding right here. Why? What else did they hide? Twilight took notice of the fact that they hadn’t found any spell notes. They must have made something for Luna to use too. The fact that they didn’t feel comfortable writing it down somewhere worried her. What spells had Luna crafted with Raegdan’s guidance?

“There is nothing here that can help us figure out if they have any idea who is trying to kill them, is there?” asked Rarity.

Twilight shook her head. “No. I think they stopped writing at one point or destroyed most of their notes. Paranoia, probably. We might find something if we look harder, but I don’t want to disturb too much.”

“Hey, it’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you,” said Rainbow.

Were they? They had been acting in front of them before. Was it possible that the poison was a part of their plans? Endanger one of them, then spectacularly save them with the resources only they had available? She could almost believe that, if she wasn’t certain that Raegdan would never put her and Spike into a potentially dangerous situation like that.

What if Luna acted on her own though? Would she have done that? Could she slip that by Raegdan? Killing one of them would certainly remove the threat of the Elements of Harmony from her mind. Would she risk Raegdan’s friendship for that?

What about her friends? Raegdan and Luna had considered a lot of options. The easiest way to get rid of the Elements of Harmony, in the short term at least, was to… get rid of them. Raegdan would not want to do that, not to Twilight’s friends, for her sake. But if they ran out of choices… would Raegdan trade one, or more, of her friends’ lives for Luna’s peace of mind?

Rarity interrupted her thoughts. “I believe we may have overstayed our welcome. I vote we put everything the way we found them and hurry back. I don’t want either of them to find us in here.”

Nopony argued with that.

“There are other places we can search later. Raegdan’s old room for instance.” Applejack whipped her head towards Twilight. Did she think he slept at the dungeons before? “There is also a basement below the dungeons that he used to… prepare meat for storage. Nopony goes down there, ever. It would make a good place to stash something.”

The walk back to the infirmary was filled with hushed discussion. Should they confront Raegdan and Luna about their hidden armory? In the end, they decided not to. It would only lead to distrust from them. For now, they had to focus in helping them figure out who wanted them dead. That confrontation could follow afterwards.

They headed to Pinkie Pie’s room first. They all wanted to see if their friend had woken up yet. The sight that welcomed them, before they even headed in, was unanticipated.

Dozens of ponies had gathered in the room, some of them standing by the entrance, looking in. Twilight and her three friends forced their way in and gaped at the sight. Pinkie Pie was awake, leaning on a mound of pillows, awake and paying attention to the armored figure with wide, wonder filled eyes.

The room’s light was off, the curtains closed, casting the room in darkness. The only light came from Luna’s horn as she used her magic to cast an illusion of a dark tower on a barren landscape. Dark, bipedal figures were moving in the distance and two red glares were brightening the distant horizon, the only color in the hellish landscape.

There was something strange about the way Luna shaped the magical field...

Besides Luna, sat Raegdan in full kit. He kept his helmet on, the flickering lights creating moving shadows on his armor, the timbre of his voice changed by the enclosure of metal around his mouth. He moved his arms as he spun his tale, enrapturing his audience with the story he shared. He was a faceless, dark figure, crafting a world before their eyes.

Judging from the way Shining Armor sat in front, his front hooves wrapped around himself as he smiled with childish glee, Twilight knew what story Raegdan told them. Spike was curled up at his side, sharing his excitement.

Twilight spotted Fluttershy in a corner and moved towards her.

“Fluttershy, what is going on here? Why are all those ponies here?” she asked.

“Oh, umm, you told me I had to stall Raegdan and Luna so…” Fluttershy petered off.

Twilight insisted. “How did you talk him into this?”

“It was Pinkie,” Fluttershy explained, a pony shushing her to lower her voice even more. “She woke up and was in pain. She was scared and… she asked if we could bring the Cakes or her parents here. I didn’t know what to do, so I…”

“So you, what?” Twilight had forgotten that Pinkie would be hurting when she woke. They could not cast pain numbing spells on her, not let her drink any potions. The poison was still in her and it still had the potential to grow strong with magic again.

“I asked her if she would be ok if I brought your dad instead.” Twilight blinked. Fluttershy got Raegdan to come and… comfort Pinkie? He agreed? She didn’t know if she should feel disbelief or joy.

Fluttershy kept talking. “Raegdan didn’t want to come at first. He said he couldn’t help like that, but Luna got him to agree somehow. He couldn’t do anything for the pain so he started telling her stories. He really reminds me of my own dad,” Fluttershy said with a smile. “When Shining Armor came in, he took a seat and hasn’t moved since. Luna then told Spike to go around the medical wing and bring over as many ponies as he could. They all seem to like it,” she said with a grin.

Twilight turned back to watch the show. He couldn’t be telling the whole story. It would take him hours. He must have chosen a part of it in random. But it was a good choice. She sat back to watch and listen.

“...the ring’s weight burdened him, but he carried on. He was small, weak, and tired, but still he moved forward. He looked up to the black tower that stood before him. How could he, someone so small and alone, stand before the shadow? His eyes looked at the landscape across him, the black land he would have to cross to reach a destination he would probably never return from. He wasn’t sure how he would manage this, but he would. The world’s hope now laid on the shoulders of a small gardener, surrounded by darkness.” One of the red points in the distance of Luna’s illusion flared. Red streaks flowed upwards to the black clouds.

“His friend,” Raegdan told them, his voice low, as if afraid to speak up. Everypony’s head leaned a bit more forward. “He would not abandon his friend. First he would climb that hellish tower, filled with enemies that would have his head. His friend might be dead, or he might be alive. He would either save him or close his eyes and kiss his forehead goodbye before marching to his doom alone. That was his path. His friend came first, the world after. The ring weighted him down, calling him to use it, but the little gardener ignored it easily. Kings, wizards, and great powers of the world feared that seducting call, but he gave it no mind. He only had his friend on his mind, no temptation of power could sway him again.”

“He charged through the black gate. Fear started to descend upon him. He could hear their grunts, their presence pressing around him. Doubt started to fill him. He would die here. He needed help. What could one as he do? His hand started heading for the ring hanging from his throat.” The crowd was shaking their head, urging the little hero to not give in to the temptation. The illusion had changed. They were now in the tower itself, red flames lighting the room. Broken shadow figures moved on the walls.

“His hand changed direction at the last moment, going to his pocket. From it, he pulled the vial that contained the light of a star of the night sky. Their brightest they had called it. It was now dim, drowning in the darkness and hopelessness of this land. He almost broke at the sight. But then, something in him woke up. The sun, stars, and moon sprang into his mind. The fields and flowers of his home. The smiles of his friends. His little garden. And he did the only thing he could do. On the threshold of the Dark Lord, death, despair, and shadow, the little gardener from a peaceful land started to sing.”

Pinkie Pie broke the reverie, her voice cracked and dry. “What song did he sing? Was it a nice song?” Raegdan didn’t answer immediately. He just looked at Pinkie Pie, his expression hidden behind metal.

Twilight studied her friend too. Pinkie Pie was hurting, but she ignored it as she listened to the story. She was still scared. She could see it behind her eyes. It shook her. Pinkie Pie never seemed to be afraid of anything. Had she realized how close to death she had come? That she was only saved by a miracle?

Raegdan kept silent. The crowd was waiting still. Raegdan nodded to Pinkie Pie and then to Luna. He got up from his seat, towering over the seated ponies. Twilight watched as Raegdan did something he had never done before, not before anypony but her and Spike. He spread his arms slightly, imposing in his dark armor, lifted his covered head upwards, and sang.

He didn’t have a great voice. He could sing if he tried but nopony would call his performance spectacular. Not unless he was doing what he did now. Nopony had ever heard Raegdan speak his language in anything but short bursts. He didn’t speak in the broken way he did Equestrian. His gruff voice rose from his chest and his mouth shaped the sound into soft syllables that ponies did not have. His teeth cut the words with sharp indentations that pulled the ear’s attention. The broken awkward accent was gone, and replaced by confidence.

What ensnared them all was the antithesis in his kind’s songs of what Equestria’s had.

Sang Pony songs were happy tunes. They relied on the ambient magic to enhance them and bring music into their ears. They sang of harmony and cheer, of love and friendship, of good feelings, because that was what the magic responded to. If a song was not somehow positive to the one who sang, it would not exist.

Raegdan’s kind instead took sorrow, pain, anger, and hurt, and made diamonds out of them.

Raegdan’s voice rose as he started his song. He did not have magic to guide him and accompany him. He only had his voice. And he shaped it with his heart, language, and lips, twisting sadness and grief into something beautiful. It was something that nopony had ever thought to do.

Loneliness and longing filled the room, wonder and craving for something lost. He brought all of them into gloom and had them dive into the darkness of despair. For a few seconds everypony knew the loss of hope. But the shadow did not last for long. Assurance and defiance rose up, and at the end a short, bright ray of hope shined. As he weaved his magicless spell, Luna created an illusion of a decorated, round glass bottle in front of him, filled with a dim light, but slowly brightening as he went on.

His voice faded to nothingness. Nopony dared to move. The vial of light was attracting everypony’s eyes until Raegdan brought his hand forward and closed his fist around it, smothering the magic. The only light now came from the entrance, Luna’s still lit horn, and her starry mane and tail. The eyes of some ponies shone wet in the meagre light.

Raegdan slowly sat down. “They could not stand before the light and the song. The enemies abandoned their own tower in a panic,” he whispered. “They did not see a frightened gardener with a short sword, but a brave lord, standing before them with stars woven in his hair and wielding a fearsome, long, silver blade. They ran, afraid and bewildered. And at the top of the now deserted tower, the little gardener heard his friend, alive, singing back to him. They reunited, and together, small, weak, and tired, facing the greatest darkness, they marched on to do their part to save their world. But no longer alone. No longer hopeless.” His arm reached for Luna’s side. “For now they remembered that the shadow was small and brief; for there was true beauty and light above, and stars that would shine forevermore.”

The spell was broken when a doctor came in and turned on the lights. Ponies shook their heads, as if waking from a dream. Shining Armor gave off an audible whine as story time came to an end.

“I’m sorry everypony, but you have to leave. It is time for Miss Pie’s therapy. Come on now, out you go, back to your rooms,” the doctor called.

As everypony left, Twilight could hear them murmur about the story. Some of them were inviting each other to stargaze tonight and share the alien story with their friends. Luna waved them all off. “We hope that you enjoyed this tale, my little ponies. Mayhaps we share the whole tale one night soon, if you are interested.” Most of them seemed accepting of the idea, a few of them even cheered.

“You clever bastards,” Twilight thought.

Pinkie Pie looked much better. The story, and promise of therapy that would lessen her aches, had obviously cheered her up. “What kind of therapy are we doing today, doc?”

“The same one we did last night, Pinkie,” the unicorn doctor answered her.

“Neat!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. “What do we do?”

Rainbow Dash and Rarity started gagging in disgust.

“Huh?”

“Doctor,” Raegdan called out. He hadn’t moved from his position. He was sitting on his chair, his elbows resting on his knees and his helmet was facing straight down. “Do you think we can do this a bit later? Give me ten or fifteen minutes?”

“Well,” the doctor said, eyeing Rarity’s and Rainbow’s reaction. “It might be better I give you some time anyway to personally explain to Miss Pie what the procedure actually entails,” he said with a grimace. ”I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He turned back and left, closing the door behind him.

As soon as the door closed Raegdan took off his helmet and gently put it down. As he slumped even lower he used his hands to massage his head.

“There is no way I am doing this again,” he told them.

“Come on, big guy, it wasn’t that bad,” Applejack tried to encourage him. “You yarned a fancy tale and that song was beautif..ul…”

Applejack’s attempt drained away at the forbidding look Raegdan was giving her. “You have no idea,” he told her, “how much this hurt. I had this story almost memorized. I knew everything about it. I had even learnt one of the languages some characters in that world speak. And now, I can’t even remember some of the most important names. That song was one of my favorites and I had to replace lyrics with nonsense. Do you know what that felt like?”

“It’s not that bad as you make it, my dear,” Rarity said. “You are making a big deal out of nothing.”

“Not a big deal?” he hissed. Rarity took a step away from him. “I will never read this story again. I have no way to remember what I forgot. I will never hear a real song again that I didn’t wreck myself. And I had to be reminded of everything in front of those.. those… why should they… they are not even…” he growled with intense frustration, failing to put into words what really troubled him.

“I am sorry, Raegdan,” Luna apologized. “I knew you would be uncomfortable with this, but it was too good a chance to pass up. If I had known how much-”

Raegdan cut her off. “Not your fault. It’s been decades. I am an idiot for letting something small like that affect me. Just… I have some bad memories associated with telling stories.” He rubbed his eyes with his palms.

Spike spoke up. “I thought you liked telling them. You never seemed to mind before.”

“I wasn’t… alone, before. I used to… tell these stories to another, before I arrived here, little flame. I don’t like giving this privilege to just anyone,” he reluctantly explained.

Twilight realized her mistake. She never told the girls. Princess Celestia had made it clear to her to never ask him personal questions, especially about people he might be missing. It would do no good and only hurt him. If one of them asked him now-

“Your family?” Fluttershy asked. Twilight closed her eyes. Of all the times Fluttershy could choose to speak up…

She opened her eyes again to see Raegdan staring straight at her. “In a way,” he said.

He emphatically turned away from Fluttershy and towards Luna. “So, did it work?”

“What worked?” asked a confused Rainbow Dash.

Twilight was reminded of Luna’s spellcasting. She had understood halfway during the show what she was doing. She was good, extremely good, to hide spells within spells, especially of such different workings.

“Luna wasn’t casting just an illusion,” Twilight explained. “She was also performing a mind altering spell, wasn’t she?”

Raegdan’s face was split in half by a wide smile. “See, Luna?” He elbowed the Alicorn lightly. “I told you my girl was good!”

“Your girl also happens to know that this is forbidden. Mind altering and control spells are outlawed for a very good reason.” Rarity gave off a very lady like cough behind her hoof. She was right, the pot was calling the kettle black here, but in her defense she was almost crazy at the… time…

Oh, right. She forgot who she was talking to.

Luna defended their actions. “If you had taken the time to analyze the spell I was working, Twilight, you would have seen it was just a light perception change. I merely stopped everyone from judging what they were seeing, hearing, and feeling, by the perception of who was standing in front of them. Why do you think everypony stayed and didn’t run out as soon as they saw us?”

Well, from that point of view, Twilight had to admit they were right. She had marvelled at the turnout at first. She should have asked herself why they were all being suddenly comfortable being in Luna’s and Raegdan’s presence. If all that Luna’s spell did was give them an unbiased chance, she supposed she could keep her mouth shut about this.

“Alright. But this shouldn’t become a habit. You can’t be running around with those spells active all day.” Luna and Raegdan nodded at her. For a second, Twilight’s mind flashed an overlay of the Cutie Mark Crusaders nodding along. She was going to keep an eye out for Luna’s spellcasting.

“Gaaghh, nooooooo! I’m not doing this, nuh uh. Never, no, nada.”

Oh, good. Rarity had taken it upon herself to explain what Pinkie’s treatment was, judging from the green tinge. The next few minutes were not going to be fun.

Raegdan opened the door and called out while unwrapping the bandage around his wrist. “Hey, doctor! I’m ready to serve breakfast.” Not fun for all of them, that’s what Twilight should have thought.

Almost an hour later, Raegdan was being served a breakfast/lunch combo in bed. Rarity, Applejack and Fluttershy had done everything they could to keep Pinkie Pie from throwing up all the blood she had drank straight from Raegdan’s wrist. They still were not completely sure on how his “antimagic” worked, so to keep safe they kept going at it with the most disturbing way they could possibly find.

With no blood reserves, Raegdan was now forced to restore himself naturally. A large meal was made for him, courtesy of Luna and a volunteered Spike, with a wide variety of raw vegetables, fruits, a large serving of meat that Luna cooked herself once more, and plenty of milk. They put him on a bed next to Pinkie Pie and he was expected to sleep a few hours at least as soon as he was done.

They had really overdone it with the food, but apparently Luna was planning to help herself to it. Raegdan allowed Spike to dig in but stopped him from trying the meat, refusing to allow him any until he was of an age when he could safely digest it.

Twilight suspected it he was more concerned about where Spike would get a supply of meat if he developed a taste for it. Something told her that as soon as Spike grew enough, Raegdan would pop in Ponyville to teach him “animal behaviors and woodland ways”.

“Are we blood related now? Does that make us family?” Pinkie Pie asked weakly from her bed.

Raegdan paused, his fork staying midway between his plate and mouth. “I’m sorry, little pink, but what?”

Pinkie Pie gasped excitedly. Some of her old giddiness was returning to her. “It does! You even gave me a little nickname, like Twilight and Spike! I’m your little pink now!”

Raegdan’s eyes widened as he realized what he said. “Oh, no. No, that was just a slip-”

“I’ll be calling you dad from now on!”

“No, you wo-”

“Twilight, hey Twilight!” Pinkie was making an effort to wave at her. “We are sisters now! Isn’t that absolutely fantabulous?”

Raegdan addressed Twilight. “She is not gonna give up, will she?”

“No. And when she is able to move again she is gonna hug you and not let go for hours,” Twilight told him. She should probably keep the “I got adopted” party that Pinkie Pie was obviously planning as she lay in her bed a surprise.

“Ah, sh- I mean… uh, dang?” Luna and Spike chuckled. “I just got drank by the Count there, spare me.”

Shining Armor levitated a chair for himself next to Raegdan’s bed. “I believe we should have a discussion about the case now?”

“Indeed, Captain Armor. Do you require information from us?” Luna asked as she delicately patted her muzzle with a napkin.

“As much as possible. Have there been more attempts? Do you have any suspects? Have you noticed anything strange?”

“No, no and, let’s see... no,” Raegdan answered.

“He is lying,” Twilight tattled. “Come on, it’s Shining! Tell him the truth.”

Raegdan gave off a resigned sigh. “Yes, there have been more attempts. About eleven so far. Everything from poison to spells activated by proximity.”

Shining was shocked to hear that. “How did you manage to escape all of them?”

Raegdan shrugged. “Pretty easy after the first attempt. I just taste everything first and check every room on my own, everyday. Especially if we are both gone from the tower even for a bit. That’s when almost all of them occurred. Magic doesn’t affect me and everything else is treatable.”

“Everything else?”

“Luna knows how to treat almost any poison now. And that attempt with the spring daggers was laughable. I am much taller than you guys. They only got me in the thigh. Now, if I was turned to the side, that would be really bad.”

Twilight tried to work her jaw closed again. Spike was gaping at Raegdan. Luna returned to eating and Raegdan took a break to shovel some more food in his mouth.

“Now, suspects. I guess, everyone? I am pretty sure that at least some of your guards are on a double payroll, if you get my meaning. Servants too. That doesn’t mean anything though, it’s been like that forever as far as I know, but it gives everyone a way in.”

“I didn’t know that!” Shining exclaimed. Twilight didn’t either. Ponies were accepting bribes in Princess Celestia’s own castle?

“Outsider’s view and all that. There’s a lot of cr- things going on that you guys are in the dark about. At least, that’s what I think, but hey. I could be wrong. Love and peace reigns in the land, right? Who would accept money to take a bathroom break on a particular time, letting three certain ponies inside the castle that could be, say, foalnappers?” Raegdan finished with sarcasm.

“Is that what you think happened? That the Guard let them in?” Shining Armor asked with wonder.

“No, they found the super secret passage that led to Twilight’s room, but couldn’t get out from there again because they lost the key. Are you sure you didn’t cheat on your exams, Shining?”

Shining’s face reddened. “Hey, I just never thought about that. I assumed they used some kind of magic to get in.”

Raegdan sighed again. “Of course you did.” He turned towards Luna. “See, this is what I am talking about.”

“Indeed,” said Luna after swallowing, “our ponies’ tendency to consider magic before more mundane ways is quite the blind spot.”

“So you do have suspects,” Shining Armor said.

“I can point at a lot of people and tell you things that would make your mane stand so much on end, Cadence would split with you on the spot. But nothing solid. No. No suspects for this. If you wait until the next one I will point you at Steadfast Ray though.”

“Cadence?” Twilight asked. “Our Cadence? My playmate? Shining?”

“I, uh, I’ll tell you later, Twily.” Raegdan smirked at Shining’s glare. More secrets? Seriously? From Shining Armor too? “So, what we have to go on is…”

“I believe the phrase is “a big, steaming pile of manure”,” Luna said. “The only conclusion we have reached is that there are more that one parties involved, one of them much less skilled. Some of those attempts were downright ludicrous in their execution.”

“Everyone’s gunning for us in the assassination business. Isn’t that nice?” Raegdan said.

Their brief conference with Shining Armor turned to be a waste of time. The only outcome they came to was that they had no idea where to even start, and that Twilight owed her brother some personal time or “Raegdan smash”. Shining left shortly after, intending to ask a lot of Guards certain questions. Before he left, he paused to talk to Raegdan, without anypony hearing them. Raegdan’s response to Shining’s long speech was an intense shake of the head and a chilling exchange.

“All of them. I was very thorough in my questions.”

Shining paled a little but looked grimly satisfied. “Are you sure?”

“I may have even gone overboard a bit.”

“How did you hide-”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be, Shining? You don’t want to know more. Go and find me some suspects. They put your sister in danger. They are dead. You just need to let them know I’m on my way.”

Twilight moved closer to the pair that was whispering to each other as they finished off their meal from the same plates. They were onto something and Applejack, along with other experiences, told her not to let them do something unsupervised.

“What are you talking about?” she asked innocently.

“We are making plans for the afternoon, after Raegdan had some rest,” Luna answered her as she guided the last bite of meat to her mouth.

“Good, good.” Act nonchalantly. “You are just curious,” Twilight thought to herself. “So, any plans so far?” she asked loudly.

Raegdan swallowed and spoke. “We were thinking, since it will be visiting hours, we could make a visit ourselves.”

Twilight chewed on that idea for a bit. She doubted anypony would be thankful for a visit from the two of them, but that was exactly the new view they needed to present outside. That they cared for ponies. Overall, Twilight approved.

“Anywhere in particular you want to go for first? Maybe the children’s wing?” she asked with a smile. This could work. Children would be more welcome than others… hopefully.

“That’s a good idea, but I had another pony in mind. What was her name again?” he asked Luna.

“Leaf Stream,” Luna answered without pausing in her work of halving the cheese that was left in two portions.

“Yeah, her. Good idea, huh?”

There were some cracks in Twilight’s vision. The colors were becoming less intense too. She wondered why.

“Oh, that’s right,” she thought. “He just broke my brain. It was only a matter of time I guess.”

Pinkie Pie called out from her bed. “Hey, dad, do you think you could eat some chocolate before I need to drink again? I didn’t like the taste!”

Raegdan rubbed at his eyes. “It doesn’t work like that, little pink.”

“Why not? If you eat something good, won’t it get in you and change the taste? Maybe we can make you taste like licorice!” Pinkie Pie whined.

“That only works with fruits as far as I know, and it only affects the taste of- This discussion is over! Go to sleep!”

Luna’s shoulders were shaking as she tried to contain her mirth. Twilight wondered what the joke was. “Maybe you should share some tips with them. Or haven’t you had the talk yet?”

“Yes, the alien species is the best one suited for this job. That’s why they had me explain the facts of life to Shining Armor and Twilight. I have no idea what they were thinking. You know, not to change the subject or anything, but where had you and your friends gone before, Twilight? You didn’t go and start snooping somewhere you shouldn’t, did you?”

Oh, look. The cracks returned and they brought friends.

“Little one? Little one! Hey, someone get that doctor back in here, now! She doesn’t look good!”

Author's Note

Once again, thanks to Requiem17 for his relentless effort to edit my mess!

I can't help but wonder... did someone get the hint Raegdan gave about something that you can find about him?

He is not supposed to be this huge but you know... scaling, I suck at it. He is about 20% bigger that he is supposed to be I guess on the pic. Or the mane six are too small. You get the point.

Raegdan's song

Interlude 01 - Luna's release

I look up at the wonder filled sky. Years and years of stargazing, and my heart still stirs at the sight. I follow the imaginary lines, tracing the figures and shapes that ponies have made for them through the years. I believe I have found one of my greatest joys in this new world.

To find out they care enough about the stars that they name them, that they give them stories and purpose. It was the most amazing discovery. I felt born anew when I read that. I could not control myself. I ran outside, eager to find somepony out at this late hour. For some reason, I believed I would have found scores.

There were only the guards. They were outside, awake, because that was their duty. I needed to find somepony else, anypony. I flew to the gardens and I managed to find a single gardener still awake during my night.

He bowed nervously when he saw me. They were all afraid of me, but they love my night so much now, I thought to myself.

In my haste I did not even attempt to be gentle or kind as my sister has asked of me. I needed to know, so I asked him, which was his favourite constellation.

He looked at me blankly. I thought it was the sudden question that threw him off. I was so wrong.

“The Big Dipper, I guess, Princess,” he says in hesitance. I do not care how he phrases it. I do not care for the beads of sweat on his brow. I was so glad I could almost start dancing where I stood. There was change, I thought. There is hope.

“Why dost thou choose that one?” I ask. I was so giddy. I wanted him to tell me why he liked it, I needed his approval, I wanted to hear him say that the stars were beautiful.

I wanted to hear him say that he was thankful for my centuries of work and struggles; that ponies finally would give me my due for braving the terrors in their stead.

“It’s the only one I know actually,” he says. “I never really cared to learn any of them.”

I froze. He was trying to stutter apologies I think. In retrospect, I can remember some blubbering noises coming from his direction, but he must have fled soon for I did not see him when I looked again.

My mind was taken over by a single word. “Lies”. My night was not as loved as the day was. Celestia lied to my face. Where were the ponies that supposedly gazed at the night sky in droves? The lovers of comets? The reverie of the night? I spread my wings and flew, unseen. Nopony could ever tell me apart from my sky, not during my hours.

This new city, this Canterlot, has so many ponies living in it. It is truly a marvel. I spent an hour flying overhead, looking for the ponies that I was assured were there.

I found about two dozen. More than half of them were drunks that were returning home or heading for some gutter. Of the rest, some of them glanced up a few times. Then they kept walking. There was reverie, dancing, and music, but it was all done inside closed halls. Celestia could raise the sun right now and it would make no difference to them.

I returned to my room. I was fighting for control of my emotions. Of my voice. I wanted to scream. I wanted to let loose and tear everything apart, to crash these chambers, to collapse this tower, to find my sister and make her pay for the false hope she planted in me.

My anger was quick to be replaced by terror when I thought of her reaction. I returned to the balcony to look up to the moon. I loved it. I truly did. But I was not going back there. Not again. Not for a moment. I could not chance any confrontation with Celestia. I would have to become a shadow of myself. Follow behind her, take my cues from her, and always agree with her. To do otherwise would be madness.

I had but a shade of my old power. The weapon spared me this time, but it took so much from me. I used to be able to beat Celestia with my hoof tied behind my back. Now? I would barely last scant seconds against her full power. Even so, I prefer this than the alternative. But it leaves me so vulnerable against her.

I knew that Celestia loved me, but she would not risk Nightmare Moon again. If she found out… would she even hesitate? Maybe. But she would do it anyway, for the sake of her little ponies, for justice, for the false ideas she treasured. She would send for those six and they would come, the Elements riding on them.

I was hyperventilating. My throat was choking me and my vision was becoming blurry with tears. No, no, no. Not again, never again. That wasn’t what I wanted. It was supposed to be simple, all so simple.

Buck your mercy, Celestia. Buck it to Tartarus.

What was I left with? An eternity of giving up all I was, so I could live in constant fear? One day Celestia would ask the right questions. I would be returned to that hell, but this time there would be no hope of escape to sustain me. I would be trapped forever, for in her kindness she believed it was better than killing her sister. And I would spend eternity banished to the heart of my charge. Undying and alone.

I could not defend myself. I could not run from her. I could not hide. The lie would break someday. Or I would.

It all happened for a reason after all. This had not changed. I was still the reviled one. Even worse than I used to be. All I ever did for them was no longer set aside in the face of their fear. No, worse, it was not even remembered.

I would break again. I knew it. It was inevitable. My plan to be the loyal little sister would not hold.

I wiped my eyes furiously. I could not stop crying. I did not know, was it because I was so afraid or because I mourned for my predetermined fate?

The relentless Steward of the Night was now nothing more than a sad, weak mare, lying in a puddle of her snot and tears.

I had to do something. I was not getting banished again, never again. But I had no way to stop this. It was coming. Celestia would overpower me, her burning eyes would give me one last look of disgust and judgement, and then her precious bearers would send me screaming to…

What right did she have to do this? I could feel my rage returning back to me. What did she know? Always so safe under her warm sun. She did not know what lived in the shadows and the dark. I did not know either, but I was the one who dared them so I could make them safe. I was the one who bled. I was the one who spent days hidden in a deep hole time after time, waiting for my wounds to heal so I could return back to my thankless task. I bled, hurt, starved, and suffered, night after night, century after century.

She wanted me to rectify my manners. Be gentle and kind. Where was the gentleness when I needed somepony to drag me out of the deep caves I delved? Where was the kindness when I prayed for a drop of water as I pulled myself inch by precious inch back to the world of the living? Where was laughter, generosity, loyalty, kindness, honesty, and the vaunted magic of friendship when I cried myself to sleep every time I ripped the remains of a foal out of a monster’s gut?

Where was a simple word of appreciation and compassion for the role that was thrust upon me?

I tried to be kind, Celestia. You didn’t see it, but I was. I was being kind to you. You would never have to know the truth.

But your kindness was merciless.

I have no options left. There are only two paths left to choose. Either I delay my fate for as long as I can or I escape it forever.

I have made my choice. I will not be kind.

I do not need to leave my chambers. The materials of this world are strong, even if made for another purpose. Silk sheets are quickly remade. It is so much easier to use cloth than vines and grass.

I need a clean space for this. The bedroom itself will do. A place to sleep. It is fitting.

I wonder if I should leave a message. A note or a letter. I could say everything I was never able to say. I could make all my grievances known. Let my sister and the world know how they failed me. Lay the blame at their hooves with no way for them to counter my accusations. It would be cathartic to write something like that.

I decide not to. Let them wonder, if they care to do so. Besides, to put such effort into something that only Celestia would show interest for… the thought brought new pangs of pain.

I look at my release. My way out. It needs to be a little higher. I fix that quickly. I test my weight on it. It holds. It won’t be painless and I will have to stop myself from fighting it. I can do it. I have to. It’s not like I have any other choice.

I sit and wait. I will not leave yet. It is still nighttime. My time. I will wait until the time comes to lower my moon. It will drain everything I have but I won’t need magic for what comes next. Poor Celestia. She will think that I have taken my duties back. That her sister has returned to her fully.

Good. Let her feel as I felt. Have the fleeting hope ripped away from her.

These will be my last hours. I do not spend them thinking any more of those petty thoughts. I focus my being on what is truly important. I consciously take each and every breath, entranced in the way oxygen fills my lungs and renews me. I listen to my heartbeat, going strong as it always had. Knowing it was their last beats was making them a fascinating music to my ears. I inhale the scents of the night. I always thought you could smell the night. I wonder if anypony else ever felt the same. I doubt it. I close my eyes briefly. I want to feel the gentle breeze that flows over the fine hairs of my coat as much as possible.

It is such a marvel to be alive, to breathe. To survive. It was the greatest lesson I ever learned on my own. Survival was paramount. Fight for every breath and struggle for the next beat of your heart. It was what drove me for so long. To make sure that as few ponies as possible would have to learn the lesson to the degree I did.

I was going to betray that lesson voluntarily. But subconsciously, ah, that was another matter entirely. That’s why I stood completely still when I felt the blade kiss my neck instead of welcoming it.

Something soft and hard at the same time had wrapped itself around my horn. I felt the magic die on it’s tip. That route of escape was closed to me.

It was becoming a trend.

I did not move. Whoever had me at his or her mercy was in no rush to give the killing blow, despite how close to it they were. I stood still, experience telling me to wait for an opening.

I did not hear anypony approaching me. I felt no magic nearing me. How did my assassin get so close to me?

I do not move my head, but I am able to get a glimpse of him. A fleshy appendage is holding the dagger’s hilt. It looks so much like a minotaur’s hand but it’s fingers look so much more slender. Strong, but slender. I do not see the muscles that operate them, but I am certain of it. They are gruff and pitted with the small scars that only a harsh life can give.

It has been over a minute. How much longer is this unknown gonna bathe in the anticipation of a kill? Why does he not gloat? He is going to do the impossible and kill an Alicorn. Where is the fevered bravado?

He finally talks. The voice fascinates me. It’s accent is broken in a strange way, like he has trouble making the sounds, but trudges on through experience and effort alone.

“Is this what I think it is?” he asks. I know what he means. He has seen my escape route.

“Aye, it is.” I tell him. “I have no fear of you, see? My fate was already sealed before you came in. It is a hollow victory you gain here.”

“Huh,” he says and goes silent again. I wait him out. I wasn’t planning on doing anything anyway. One way or another, this ends tonight.

It is a few minutes before he talks again. His blade has not wavered in the slightest. He has the patience you would expect from a hunter. The stillness.

“Twilight Sparkle,” he says.

I stay silent. He did not wait for an answer anyway.

“She is my little one. She faced you. And you would have killed her.”

“Mayhaps,” I answer. In truth, I do not know. So many of my actions that night are still a mess in my mind. I wasn’t thinking at the time, I knew. I was acting on imagined scenarios. I never even realized I was actually free until I saw the Elements of Harmony appear before me. The shock could have killed me, to understand you are free and not enjoy it until you see the door closing on your face again.

Hope is so fickle and cruel.

The blade removes itself. “Turn around,” he commands. I oblige. I want to see him anyway.

He is like nothing I have ever seen. He is very large and his scars are ferocious. I know, just by the look in his eyes, that he too has learned the lesson of survival. As well as I know it myself. Perhaps even better.

We both understand each other in that moment. We know we share one common trait. The pain of lonely survival. I never knew somepony who truly knew what it was like to live my kind of life.

I am glad he is here. For the first time in a very long time I no longer feel alone.

He keeps staring at me. I know he shares some of my thoughts. But he is not here to give up. He has something to fight for, so he keeps on guard. To challenge him would be to die like a foal at this time. His stare moves from me to my release and back again.

I do not know why he delays. I know what he came here to do. He is here to protect his little pony. Like I did. Like my sister does.

He lifts the blade up. I raise my head, revealing my throat. A quick end. This will be so much better.

His long legs make their way around me. He heads for the makeshift rope and uses the blade to cut it down. I am unable to do anything but watch in shock.

He takes a seat on my bed. He still holds the rope I made and uses the blade to cut it into smaller and smaller pieces. What is this person doing? What is he playing at?

His small eyes lock into mine. There is a cold fury in them. I betrayed the lesson and he knows it. But I know something else too.

He tried to betray it too. I realize who he is now. Celestia told me about him. Warned me against meeting him.

The alien being standing in my room made his way into my chambers and caught me by surprise. He could’ve kill me and I would’ve never known. I knew now why I did not sense magic, but how did he keep me from hearing his approach?

I look at the end of his legs. Of course. He did not have hooves and he had his fleshy feet bare. Such a simple advantage that allowed him to best one of the former most powerful beings of this world.

There is no more silk to cut in pieces. I am his sole attention now. I wonder, what does he see? Does he see a Princess, like Celestia? A survivor that gave up? A weak mare that seeks the coward’s way out?

“Why don’t you have a seat next to me? I think we should talk for a while. I just had a very strange notion I would like to discuss with you.” He smiles as he says that. Does he fool anypony else or am I the only one to see through it? This alien has no joy left in him. I would know.

“My name is Raegdan. Let’s talk, Princess Luna.”

I move to sit next to him. What is there to lose?

“By the way,” he says, “I’m a big fan of your night. My kind always loved the stars. I try to learn your constellations, but there are so many of them. My favorite stars are those three in line over your northern star. They look like Orion’s Belt. They remind me of home.”

The night passes and dawn comes. I do not lower the moon. My sister takes the duty once more. Unlike what he requested, we do not talk. We both stay silent, reveling in the presence of the other. What is there to talk about? The essence is all around us.

To survive means to kill yourself again and again. In a battle against the greatest of monsters it is the true monster that will survive. In the fight against the world it is the truly cruel who will take the path that leads them to another dawn. We stay close and mourn in silence for our choices to keep living until exhaustion takes both potential victim and assassin.

Oh hope, you cruel thing. You fickle thing. Why are you back?

Author's Note

Ch.08 -Didn't pay enough attention

The door was struck once again. A crack appeared on its surface from this latest hit, the force of it almost breaking it open. Twilight gave the lock a cursory glance. It wouldn’t hold out against another one.

Violent crashes, roars of rage, and grunts of pain had been coming from the other side for some time now. Twilight had cast a new silencing spell, but being this close to the entrance meant she was inside of the spell’s outer radius she had set it up.

“Do you think we should go in and stop them now?” Twilight asked Applejack.

Luna’s voice thundered from inside the locked room. “I will bucking murder you!”

Applejack sat down. “Let’s wait a tiny bit more ah say. Ah think they still got some more anger to work out.”

Another minute passed with the sounds of fighting continuing undiminished. Twilight kept looking back at the half broken door.

“Give it a rest, sugarcube. They’ll be out when they are all done and ready.”

Twilight shook her head. She kept trying and failing to wrap her mind around what was currently happening. “I just… I can’t believe they are hurting each other like that. I thought they were friends. Now it sounds like they are-”

“Trying to kill each other?” Applejack asked.

Twilight nodded. She heard Raegdan shout in pain, followed by a resounding slap. Was Raegdan really hitting Luna in there? For real? She would never expect something like that from him, not in a thousand years.

“If it helps,” Applejack tried to soothe her worries, “Ah don’t think they are doing this to hurt the other.”

Twilight’s response was a look of pure skepticism at this denial of reality.

“No, really,” Applejack said. The continuous thumping of metal against stone inside was making a real good argument against her in Twilight’s opinion. “Ah really think they are just trying to push the other to hurt themselves.” Luna screamed in pain. “Ok, not trying, they sound like they succeed just fine.”

“Why, Applejack? Why would they do that to themselves?” The only saving grace in all this was the fact that they forewent their usual practice of heading straight to the guard training hall and kicking everypony’s flank there. Applejack managed to keep them in that room and tell them to work out their issues some other way. Not that this was much better, but at least nopony else would get hurt.

Applejack shrugged. “Self-retribution, Ah guess. The way they see it, they really messed up. So now, they are punishing themselves.”

“By beating each other up?”

“What, this really surprises ya? Ah don’t think they are the kind that would punish themselves by cutting off dessert.” Applejack pointed towards the room where the aforementioned mutual destruction was taking place.

“Raegdan never used violence for punishment-”

“Against you and Spike?” asked Applejack. “Sugarcube, of course he wouldn’t. He loves ya and Spike to pieces and would never even consider to willfully hurt the two of ya. But Luna and he don’t hold themselves up to the same standards. Those two believe they deserve what they are getting right now. At least, that’s what ah think,” Applejack speculated.

Twilight was aghast at the thought.

“Raegdan and Luna don’t deserve anything like this!”

“Ah know, sugarcube,” Applejack agreed. “Nopony does. But you are the one who told us that Raegdan himself is the first to speak up against himself as to how he has some “little problems”, right? Ah think Luna is the same. Those two have been cast out of the exact same mold. Ah’m sorry Twilight, but from what ah’ve seen violence is in their blood. So ah think that this here is the reason they don’t really speak up in their defense when they get hurt or when ponies tried to kill them. If they get hurt enough, then for ‘em it means the debt’s all settled and nothing else needs to be said or done.” Applejack frowned as she thought more of what she just said. “This might actually be part of the problem. Who knows what they might believe they’re free to do because of what they’ve been through…” Applejack lost herself in thought.

“You seem to understand the two of them much better than I do,” Twilight complained. “Raegdan practically raised me and I never thought of that.”

Applejack shook her head as if waking up. “Eh, they’re like foals in a way sometimes. Ya know, like how Applebloom used to think I was against her when she was younger and lashed out at me. Same old tricks work on ‘em too. This here kind’s the same. Make a little filly choose between getting grounded or getting a smack for being in trouble, they’ll choose the smack every time.”

Twilight sat next to Applejack, leaning her back against the wall. “So, what you are saying is that this is their way of-”

“Right now? They are admitting they goofed.”

Raegdan’s pained howl from inside halted Applejack’s explanation. “I’ll rip off your wings for that!” he cried out.

“Are you ok, Twily? Look, you shouldn’t worry, they are not gonna kill-”

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this…” Twilight whispered angrily.

Applejack didn’t answer. Twilight couldn’t see her, not with the way she had her forelegs around her head, but she could take a good guess at her expression. “We were supposed to have a good time. Like we used to. When I was at my parent’s home, the day before yesterday, I was making all those plans. We would go to the tournament and have fun, with Raegdan at the seats with us, not watching him… kill and hurt ponies. We would go to Donut Joe’s, maybe go camping, we would listen to Raegdan’s stories, we would have fun with him, with nopony in danger of getting poisoned! And maybe… maybe I could get him to come to Ponyville with us, and we could show him around. Show him my library, take him to Sugarcube Corner, your farm, Rarity’s boutique, Fluttershy’s animals, Rainbow could put up a show for all of us…” Twilight was almost shouting over the combat’s din.

“I’m sorry, sugarcube. That’s the hand we were dealt. But hey, it can still happen! We are here now, helping them. If it all ends well-”

Applejack’s hopeful speculation was once again interrupted, this time by the door’s failure to endure the latest assault. Pieces of wood exploded everywhere as a dark blue Alicorn crashed through the door and onto the floor.

Luna picked herself up and shook her head harshly. Her magic grabbed a splinter that had gone through her wing and savagely pulled it out, spraying blood on the floor. She spat on the ground, a thick glob of saliva and blood, and turned towards the room’s entrance. Her gritted teeth were red, her coat and hoofs were splashed with specks of blood, and even with her dark coloring Applejack and Twilight could see the bruises forming on her.

Raegdan stumbled out. His armor was beaten up and blood was flowing from beneath his helmet. His hands and boots had a few red splotches on them. One of the large pauldrons had been ripped off. Twilight noticed the bleeding, deep bite on his upper arm. It looked like Luna had almost ripped a piece off.

“Is that all you got, Luna? I thought you said you know how to fight. Come on, oh mighty Alicorn, or are you afraid of getting your ass kicked some more?” he wheezed angrily. He was completely exhausted. Twilight had never seen Raegdan put so much effort in the simple act of standing up except that first time she ever saw him. His breathing was harsh and Twilight believed she could hear a wet gurgle in it. His arms were shaking and he was swaying as he stood.

Luna was in a better condition, but even she was reaching her limits. Twilight could see her legs were trembling, threatening to give out under her. But this taunting spurred her on. Luna’s wings exploded outwards and with a mighty beat she launched herself at Raegdan, forelegs stretched forward.

Raegdan didn’t try to dodge or block. He probably no longer had the strength to do so. They both disappeared from their view and they heard the clang as Raegdan was crushed against the opposite wall further inside.

Twilight got up. She was going in there and putting a stop to this. If they kept on, one of them would end up in serious trouble. Raegdan, probably. Luna was going easy on him, foregoing the use of her magic against him. But he was already drained, both of blood and energy. He had slept for only four hours, he was very possibly anemic, and his wounds never got the chance to heal. His side and arm might be bleeding under his armor.

If they didn’t stop them, Luna could kill Raegdan any minute now.

Inside, Luna was on top of Raegdan, the biped sprawled on the floor. She was riding on his chest and hitting his armored head, her strikes whipping it off from one side to the other.

"Stop! Stop, Luna, you are going to kill him. That's enough!" Twilight shouted.

Neither of them paid her any attention.

Raegdan brought his left hand forward, blocking Luna's last hit. He grunted as her hoof impacted on the wound under his bracer. His right hand punched her straight on the muzzle and rocked her off him.

Twilight kept trying to get them to hear her, to stop. She was ignored.

With Luna off him, Raegdan managed to drunkenly get back on his knees before Luna jumped him again. He managed to grab her, twist around, and throw her on the ground behind him. Luna retaliated with a kick of her back leg, hitting Raegdan’s stomach.

Raegdan got knocked back a bit but quickly regained his footing and managed to stay up. As Luna got up to her legs, Raegdan bent and grabbed the same leg she hit him with. Luna barely had time to grit her teeth at him before he spinned her around and threw her on a wall.

Falling down on his knees again, Twilight could hear him gasping. She moved in front of him. She heard him spitting inside his helmet and saw the red tinted liquid dribble down from the edge of his helmet.

“Raegdan, Luna, stop! That’s enough. You are hurting your-”

Raegdan pushed her to the side. The next second an enraged Luna was back on top of him. They wrestled on the ground, trading hits. Raegdan ignored Luna’s strikes at his torso, grabbed her head from the sides, and headbutted her right on her muzzle with his armored forehead. A few drops of blood from Luna’s shattered nose almost landed on Twilight. Luna fell down.

Raegdan got up to his feet again and tried to repeat his previous throw. Luna was prepared for him now though and as soon as he got close enough she kicked up with her hind leg, nailing Raegdan right between his legs with a mighty clang.

“Oh, you… little… bitch…” he whimpered as he fell down on his hands and knees. “Padding… definitely need better padding…” he whispered in a higher pitch than normal.

“Not so “cocky” now, are we? Let me return the favor now that I got you down on your knees,” Luna snarled and pulled off his helmet. There were small, dried rivers of blood coming from the top of his head and mouth. He looked terrible. And it was going to get worse apparently.

Luna headbutted him with a vicious snarl. Raegdan fell down on his back again. His arms started scrambling around slowly, feeling their way as if he was blind.

“Oh, that felt good,” Luna moaned almost sensually. “Let’s have seconds, shall w- ungh!” Raegdan dropped the act. As soon as Luna gloated over him his right fist launched upwards from below. Raegdan grunted in pain as his fist landed with a thud on Luna’s jaw. Twilight remembered his broken fingers. If he kept this up, he would never heal at this rate.

Luna blinked once and then slowly lost her balance, slumping on the floor.

Raegdan had turned the tables on her. He got on his knees above her as she lay on her back, dazed. He brought his hands together, the two fists side by side and raised his arms above his head, ready to bring them down on her.

Applejack's voice piped up, full of amusement. "Whoah nelly, now this thing right here is getting pretty suggestive, ain't it?"

The unexpected comment brought an instant pause to the two fighters. Raegdan and Luna both looked downwards, Twilight noticing what Applejack meant. The way Raegdan was positioned in between Luna's legs as she lay there was as if-

It was something that was going to haunt her nights. She closed her eyes. Maybe they could go back to beating each other senseless, please?

Raegdan and Luna didn't share Twilight’s opinion. A drop trickled down from Raegdan’s forehead and fell on Luna’s belly. They both snorted as they looked at each other. Soon their loud laughter was filling the room. Raegdan let himself fall to the side, next to Luna, both of them laughing like crazy. It took a while for their insanity to peter off.

Raegdan half groaned, half laughed. "Oh hell, it still feels like I’m going to throw up."

"Was it that good for you too?" Luna asked him, still chuckling.

Raegdan barked in laughter again. He slowly and painfully pushed himself up to half sit on the floor and reached for his helmet.

"You dislocated my left shoulder," he complained to Luna.

Luna got up to her wobbling hoofs. "I believe you did the same to my right hind leg afterwards. Here, give me your arm." She got a hold of Raegdan's offered left arm. With a twist and a push she put it back in place with an audible crunching sound. Raegdan hissed in pain.

"Your turn," he groaned.

Luna lied back down. Raegdan got hold of her leg and traced the connection at her flank with his fingers to find the leg’s socket.

"Getting a little frisky, aren’t we?" she said, amused. Celestia only knew where she found the strength for that. Twilight noticed how Luna forced herself to breathe through her mouth. "Your adopted daughter and her friend are watching, but if that’s what you are into nowadays..."

"Don't make me laugh again. It hurts," he said with a chuckle. He suddenly thrusted her leg towards her body and another pop sounded in the room. Luna, to her credit, barely made a peep. Twilight and Applejack cringed quite a bit in her place.

"Raegdan, how are your stitches?" Twilight asked. What they did was extremely stupid. Pinkie Pie was not out of danger yet. She would need Raegdan's unique brand of aid again, and here he was, bleeding himself out on the floor. How would he be able to donate even a drop more if he kept on? How would Pinkie fare without his nullifying blood?

What would happen to him if he fell into shock from blood loss?

"Surprisingly, I think they are ok. Everything feels whole down there."

"So," Applejack said, "y'all settled then? Done fighting each other?"

“I can’t believe we got played like that.” Raegdan fell back on the floor and lied down.

“We underestimated the Solar Commander,” Luna said. “His response was as genius as it was ruthless.”

“You almost sound like you admire him for it,” Twilight noted.

“Nah,” Raegdan denied the notion, “but you gotta admit a brilliant move when you see it. Learn from it.”

“And what did y’all learn from it?” Applejack asked.

Raegdan shrugged. “Next time, challenge him directly on a one versus one duel? Let’s see Steadfast think his way out of my hands tearing his throat out.” He breathed hard and fast as he lay down.

“So you are sayin’ y’all learnt horseapples.”

“I learned that I am not as half as smart as I thought. How did I let that slip by me? “Her Sun’s Holy name”. I screwed up.” Raegdan panted.

Luna was examining Raegdan as she lay next to him. “Do you feel ok, Raegdan?”

“How can he feel ok?” Twilight asked, scandalized. “Look at him!”

“I… I’m fine, little one,” he said, trying to alleviate Twilight’s concerns. “I just… I’m having trouble getting my breath back.”

“Are you feeling too tired?” Luna asked.

Raegdan thought over the question before answering. “Way more than I should be.”

“I knew it!” Twilight shouted in exasperation. “You are anemic. Tell me, Raegdan, Luna. Are the two of you trying to kill yourselves?”

They were insane! Twilight was certain. They had truly lost it. Instead of acting even a little pensive, a little regretful, anything, they started laughing their flanks off again. Their eyes were actually watering for Celestia’s sake!

She felt a little guilty for using that expression, but habits like these were hard to give up.

"I feel much better and relaxed now," Luna let them know. "Come, Raegdan, let's go to our rooms, treat our wounds, and rest up. Twilight, Applejack, we will be back later tonight to continue with Pinkie Pie's treatment."

"Uh, shouldn't you two get those wounds checked out first?" Applejack asked.

“Raegdan, this is serious. You are not well. In all probability you are not even fit to keep helping Pinkie the way you are,” Twilight told him.

"We are fine," Raegdan insisted. "Just a bunch of bruises," he said while using a handkerchief Twilight passed to him to staunch the blood flow from his bitten shoulder. “Let me worry about myself, little one. I’ve been through far, far worse.” He graced Twilight with a smile. “What I want you to do is find out when little pink is going to be ok to move around again. I’m going to take you, and all your friends, out to Donut Joe’s to celebrate when we can get her out of there. My treat.”

“Did… did you…” Twilight stuttered. He didn’t hear her complaining outside, did he?

“It’s amazing how much your senses sharpen when someone is doing her best to bite a piece off you,” he said while he buckled the pauldron back in place. Luna blushed. “See you later, little one.”

“I hope if someone did something up there, they didn’t mess with the bathroom. I’m not in the mood to die again while preparing the bathtub…” Raegdan’s chuckles trailed off as they left. Twilight made her decision.

“Raegdan!” she called out. “Wait.”

The pair paused at the door. “Yeah, little one?”

Twilight turned to Applejack. “Applejack, do you mind if you escort Luna to her chambers on your own? I need to have a talk with dad.” It was time she did. There were things she needed to clear up. “I will bring him there when we are done.”

“Wait,” Raegdan said in confusion. “Since when do we need chaperones?”

“Ah think you’ve personally needed one since you were born, but we will have to make do with this now,” Applejack told him as she made her way to Luna’s side. “After you, Princess.”

Luna did not move. “Raegdan?”

“I will be right there, Luna. Just don’t go inside until I’m there to check up the rooms. You know the drill.”

“I insist that I am the one who takes the risk for once. We should set a rotation, as I’ve told you before.” Luna sounded exhausted.

“I agree.” Luna smiled slightly to hear him say that. “But there’s this little thing that’s bothering me… oh, of course, how could I forget? I’m officially your guard now. So, no. You will wait for me.” Luna’s smile was gone again. She turned around and left with a huff, Applejack rushing behind her.

Raegdan made his way to a chair that was thrown aside and put it back in it’s place. “Have a seat, little one. We should make this quick. Luna will wait for me only so long before she starts searching herself.” He leaned against the wall and let himself slip down to the floor slowly.

“What was the deal with Leaf Stream? Why did you do that?” Twilight asked. Their reasoning was beyond them. They trusted almost nopony but then they do this?

Raegdan gave a small laugh. Twilight would feel insulted but… she didn’t think he was laughing at her.

“We need a clue, little one. Something to follow. Leaf Stream is someone who has an extremely good reason to want us dead and we just gave her a way to get close enough to do us in.”

Oh, this was getting ridiculous. Raegdan was suicidal. That was the only answer because the one he just offered made no sense.

“Ah, little one. So innocent.” He reached for Twilight and pinched her cheek. “Whoever wants us dead, at least one of them, will try to recruit her. The bait is just too good. Now, we just need to be patient and wait for Leaf Stream to make her attempt. Then, we will question her and we will have our guy. Risky, but it’s all we got for now.”

Twilight understood now. It was a dirty trick in her opinion. “You are setting up Leaf Stream. You don’t care at all. She is just a pawn to sacrifice, isn’t she? You just gave her the matches and now you wait for her to get burned.” Twilight tried to put all the loathing she felt about this plan in her voice. Leaf Stream did not deserve this, not after what Twilight saw in her room.

Raegdan lost his smile. “Look, little one. When I thought up this plan… you are right, I did not care. Let her burn. That’s what I would say an hour before. But… she really impressed me in there, you know?” Raegdan pleaded for Twilight to understand his reasoning. “I hope she will decide to take a chance with us. Maybe she will come forward and reveal any conspiracy they try to lure her into. I really hope she does.”

“And if she doesn’t?” Twilight asked.

“You must not forget one important thing, Twilight. No matter how Luna acts, no matter how little use of her title we make, she is still a princess. Her safety, her life, comes first. Everything else comes second. Leaf Stream has the chance to do the right thing, or the wrong thing. I will act accordingly.”

“This is not fair to her, Raegdan. She is no position to make the right choice in her state.”

“Life's not fair. If it was, I would not be a homeless mur…” his voice trailed off, tinged with anger. “It’s not fair, Twilight. That’s life.”

“It doesn’t have to be!” Twilight contested his reality. “If the world isn’t fair then it’s your job to make it so!”

“...what?”

“When you need food, you don’t just whine that you starve and that that’s how the world is. You farm the land. You work hard and you make a difference. And if enough ponies help, you can have enough food to feed the whole world,” Twilight finished her short speech with a strike of her hoof on her chair. Raegdan was looking at her with wide eyes.

“That… that sounds like something your friend Applejack would say. Did she say that?”

“Princess Celestia told me that actually. Justice and fairness do not exist out in the world. They exist in the heart and we make them real through our actions. Princess Celestia told me that the world is not fair herself. She is not blind, Raegdan. But Princess Celestia, unlike you, is trying to do something about that instead of giving up.” Twilight smiled at him.

Raegdan kept his face down. “Celestia is… exceptional. I’ve never met someone like her, anywhere. I thought that… I believed that someone like her was just a dream, a fairy tale. I wish there were more like her. But there are not, Twilight. There is only just one of her. This is a war she can’t win.”

“It doesn’t mean she will stop trying,” Twilight told him. “Or that we shouldn’t help.”

Raegdan silently looked at his helmet for some time before putting it on and standing up. “Go down swinging, eh? That I can relate to.” He clapped his hands together. “What do you want me to do then?” Twilight got up and they started moving towards the exit together.

“I want you to give Leaf Stream a chance. Ask her if anyone came to her before she does something rushed.”

“I think that’s stupid. Fine. I will do that, if she says yes. Happy?”

“Close enough,” Twilight answered.

Raegdan stopped her before going out the doorway. “Twilight? You know I am trying to do my best, right?”

“I know you do, dad. I just think you can do much better.”

“Hmm,” he hummed unconvinced and strode out. Twilight believed she could make him change his tune. He could do better. She had seen it first hoof. She thought back to Leaf Stream. Something had stirred him in there. Both him and Luna.

Perhaps, for all their talk about accepting the world as not being fair, something in them still fought against it. They reached out for Leaf Stream in their own, strange way, but they did for a little while. If Twilight and the girls kept close to them, kept pushing them to be better-

“You killed my daddy.”

Twilight pulled herself out of her daydreaming. They had been on their way out of the medical wing, towards Luna’s tower. In their path stood a little earth pony filly. Her coat was light green, almost yellow, and her short mane was the same shade of yellow gold that Applejack’s hair was. She was tiny. She couldn’t have been more than eight years old at best. She was sitting on her rump, staring up at the armored figure of Raegdan with no trace of fear.

Only an intense sadness.

It would have been an image that made you scared for the little filly. Raegdan, in his dark armor, was intimidating at the best of times. Now, he was battered and covered in red streaks, looking battleworn. He was a bloodstained black tower, standing over a defenseless foal.

The filly was safe however. For you could plainly see from the way he stood that if there was somepony who felt fear it was not her.

Twilight walked forward. “Are you lost, little filly? My name is Twilight Sparkle. Where is your mother? What are you doing here alone?”

The foal did not even glance at her. She only had eyes for the frozen figure in front of her. “My mommy had to talk with a doctor here.” She pointed at Raegdan with her little hoof, accusing him. “You killed my daddy!”

She started crying suddenly, her large eyes filling with fat tears. Twilight could barely watch as they flowed slowly down her cheeks. “Why? He was the best daddy in the world! Why did you do that? Why did you kill my dad?”

“Twilight… Twilight, do something…” Raegdan whispered pleadingly.

Twilight shook her head and stepped aside. The message was clear. Raegdan had to do this on his own. Twilight would stay near, but for the filly’s sake. His stance bellied the betrayal he felt.

Raegdan went down on his knees, in front of the unflinching filly. Twilight knew why he was so shaken now. The conversations she had with her friends, the differing viewpoints and opinions, let her understand some things about him more clearly now. Twilight and Spike used to believe that Raegdan was a mountain that had taken a living shape. Not anymore.

Now, as he knelt before that orphan filly, one that he could not send away in fear or run away from, Twilight noticed Raegdan’s confidence slip. He was afraid and at a loss. He gently reached out for the crying filly but quickly pulled his hand back as if it was burned.

His helmet turned to Twilight, silently begging for help. Twilight waited, unresponsive.

“What is your name, little girl?” he asked.

“Morning Dew,” she choked in response. She was looking up at Raegdan again, this time with amazement. Raegdan’s gentle, soothing tone, the one he used on a distressed young Twilight, coming out of that dark helmet was something unexpected.

“Morning Dew,” he repeated. “I am Raegdan. I’m… sorry.”

“If you are sorry, why did you… I want my dad back!” Morning Dew shouted. “Why did you kill my dad?” Twilight hated herself a little at that moment. This little filly did not deserve this. Morning Dew did not deserve losing her father, nor Twilight allowing her to go through this. The filly was looking for an answer she could easily understand where there was none.

“He- because… I…” Raegdan was stuttering, trying to come up with an answer. Twilight kept quiet. What she was doing was harsh to both of them, but it needed to be done. Raegdan needed to come face to face with the consequences of his actions, no matter whether he was in the right or not.

Raegdan’s shoulders straightened and with a ferocious snarl he rose up in a fast, smooth action. His right hand took hold of the hammer on his side. Morning Dew stepped back in surprise.

“He wouldn’t- he can’t be…” she thought. Twilight’s horn lit up. If he made the slightest move against Morning Dew she was ready to stop him.

Raegdan’s voice became gruff and threatening. “I killed him because he got in my way. I crushed him because he wanted to save his friend. I took him from you because he stopped me!”

“I don’t like heroes, little Morning Dew!”

Twilight worked her jaw, making sure it was still in place. What in the name of stupid was he saying?

“You… you are evil!” Morning Dew sobbed, pointing at her father’s killer with her hoof.

“That’s the point! Why else would I kill your dad? I enjoyed it.” Raegdan’s fist tightened on the hammer’s handle, the material of his glove screeching audibly in the silence.

A terrified cry came from the end of the hall. A tan unicorn mare ran towards them and quickly dragged Morning Glory to her in her telekinesis. “Please,” she sobbed, “don’t hurt my daughter, not my daughter!” she screamed. Morning Dew’s mother retreated from Raegdan’s presence, seeking refuge against the threshold of a closed door.

“Then maybe you should keep her closer to you!” Raegdan snarled, waving his hammer threateningly.

“Please, please. She is just a little filly, please, she is all I have left, please…” Morning Dew was pushed behind her mother’s body as she tried to shield her child in any way possible.

Raegdan didn’t answer. He slowly holstered his hammer back into the little loop on his belt. He made his way down the hallway, passing them by in quick, long steps. The terrified mother was cradling her daughter, head turned away from Raegdan and crying, begging mercy for her daughter all the while.

Twilight saw Raegdan turn at the first available corner. She ran after him, leaving the crying pair behind. She caught up to him easily. Once he was gone from the sight of the two mares he used the wall as a support and almost limped as he made his way to Luna’s tower.

Twilight ran behind him, rose up on her legs, and hit him on the small of his back, making Raegdan grunt. “Why did you say those horrible things to her?” Twilight shouted. She had never felt angrier at Raegdan. “She is just a child!”

“What was I supposed to say?” Raegdan was gasping and out of breath inside his helmet. His voice was full of bitterness and anger. “That her father died and left her because a bunch of morons decided to have a dick measuring contest? That his corpse was used as a stepping stone in a series of escalating, idiotic “plans”? I took enough from that child. Let her believe that her dad died as a hero, fighting against an evil villain, at the very least. He did so, after all. God knows that if the world really was fair then I should be the one who died yesterday, not him!”

“Come on, Raegdan… that’s not true!” Twilight’s anger evaporated by that kind of talk. It brought to mind the contents of Princess Celestia’s latest letter.

“Better that she hate me and want me dead instead of telling her that her dad left her alone in this motherfucking, stupid, unfair existence for no real reason!” he growled. ”Fucking hell, I owe Celestia an apology, don’t I? I’ve been letting her clean up after my shit for so long…” He stopped walking to regain his vented breath. Twilight was shocked. She had never heard him swear in Equestrian as much as he did today in all her years combined. Raegdan punched the wall, hissing in pain and cradling his broken fingers.

“What the hell am I doing?” he whispered to no one. “I should just grab Luna and run. We are mad to even try something like this. We are truly mad. We are going to destroy everything. We can’t do this.”

Twilight shushed him soothingly. “Dad, it’s ok. Me and my friends are here now. We are going to help you. Everything will be alright. We are here for you.”

Raegdan pulled Twilight into his arms. “Little one, if you knew, if all of you knew what we did before, what we…”

“It wouldn’t change a thing, Raegdan. Why are you so afraid? Why won’t you talk to us?” Twilight tried to plead with him once more.

Raegdan didn’t answer. Twilight was ready to accept this as another one of those moments when he ignored her questions, when he answered in a low voice.

“We love you, little one. We don’t want you to hate us.”

About an hour before…

“Luna, Raegdan, are you sure you don’t want to reconsider this? I really, really, really, don’t think Leaf Stream will want to see either of you,” Twilight tried to plead with them. That pegasus just had her flight taken away from her. The last thing she needed was to see the persons responsible standing in her room.

Luna was amused by the whole scenario. “I believe the way in which she will regret our visit the most is the lack of weapons in her hooves.”

“Oh, yeah, thanks for reminding me.” Raegdan unsheathed the two daggers from his belt and hid them behind his boots. He removed his hammer and laid it against the wall. “Temptation removed,” he announced.

A part of Twilight wondered for whom.

Raegdan grasped the door’s handle. Applejack slapped his hand off it. “How about y’all let us go in first? Ya know, prepare her and all?” she whispered.

Raegdan and Luna exchanged a look. They both shrugged and took two seats next to the door. Twilight hoped that this had a chance of working out.

If she only knew what they were hoping to achieve by this. She would be more certain of herself if she had less doubts about if she wanted this to work out.

Applejack opened the door and went inside. Twilight heard her saying “Howdy” to the room’s occupant. So much for getting out of this by finding her asleep.

She followed Applejack inside.

The mare looked… destroyed. She was lying on her stomach so that she didn’t put any weight on the remains of her wings. The doctors had amputated them. There was nothing but short stubs on her back now. Leaf Stream’s eyes were puffy and red and she was heavily bruised. The desolate mare was still not done mourning the loss of her body parts. Twilight thought of Rainbow Dash and her love of flying. If Leaf Stream was anything like her, she probably never would.

“I know you,” the bedridden mare choked. Her voice was hoarse. “You were there yesterday, talking with that thing that took my wings. What are you doing here?”

Twilight froze. What were they doing here? What could they offer to this mare? They didn’t know her. They were not her friends and she doubted she would want them to be.

“We are just, uh, visiting,” Applejack said.

Twilight latched on the usual pleasantries to get them through. “Yes, we thought you might want to see a friendly face.”

“No, thanks,” Leaf Stream said petulant. “I had enough of “friendly faces” for today.”

“How about a couple of unfriendly ones?”

Oh, no. Oh, no! They couldn’t even give them a single minute? Raegdan and Luna marched inside, no care in the world as they hunted around for a seat. Luna sat at a chair near the door while Raegdan pulled a stool right next to the bed. He was actually going to sit right next to her bed!

Leaf Stream let out a hateful hissing sound as soon as she saw them. Her stubs twitched. Twilight was certain that if she still had wings, she would have spread them out aggressively. Somepony owed Twilight a drink. She bet right when she said Leaf Stream would not be happy.

“You! You, you, you, you… you ruined me!”

Raegdan’s covered head was turned towards Leaf Stream’s back. “Why did they cut them off? I didn’t do that good of a job, did I?” Oh Celestia, he was going to be cruel to her. Twilight hoped that was something that just slipped and not the reason he was here.

Leaf Stream’s eyes started watering. “Oh, yes you did, you bucking monster!” She gulped, visibly reining in her emotions to speak. “You shattered my bones to pieces and they sliced through every muscle and tendon. There was nothing left to heal. You took away my life!”

“So dramatic. You are the most talkative dead person I’ve ever seen then. What is this?” Raegdan was pointing at a short leash that kept one of Leaf Stream’s hind legs tied to the bed.

“Why did they restrain you?” Twilight asked curious.

“I’m a pegasus with no wings,” Leaf Stream said bitterly. “Of course they tied me down. It’s standard procedure. Most pegasi that have something like this happen to them look for someplace high to jump from so they can feel the sky one last time.”

“They are not trusting you not to do the same, then?” Applejack asked.

“No, because they caught me crawling my way up to a balcony this morning.”

Twilight swallowed to moisten her dry throat. This mare needed help. Where were her family? Her friends? If she was left alone…

Raegdan was no longer at his place. He had lowered himself in a weird pose, balancing on the tip of his feet, next to Luna and exchanging whispers with her. They were both staring at Leaf Stream in a calculating fashion.

After a minute, Raegdan got up and reclaimed his place. Luna moved her chair and joined him by Leaf Stream’s bedside.

When Leaf Stream calmed herself and started glaring at Raegdan he removed his helmet and smiled at her, catching her by surprise. “You know, at first I thought you would be afraid when we came in. But you are not, are you? You are furious, the cold kind of anger, but not afraid. I’m definitely impressed.”

“We both are,” Luna nodded along.

“You destroyed my life!” Leaf Stream shouted. “You took everything from me!”

“Well, not everything”, Raegdan said. His smile left him. “You are alive, aren’t you?”

“Alive to do what, monster?”

“Anything you want, I guess.” Raegdan shrugged. “You could use it to take another shot at me if you want. I advise against it, but it’s an option. So you lost your wings. The other guy lost his life. The unicorn… what happened to him anyway?”

“Coma,” Leaf Stream growled.

“See?” Raegdan was smiling at the furious pegasus again. “In comparison, you are doing great.” He pointed at her with his finger, almost touching her muzzle with it. He quickly pulled it back with a chuckle when she tried to bite it. Luna smiled.

Twilight moved to put a stop to this. “That’s enough. We didn’t come here so you could taunt this poor mare. I… I honestly expected better from both of you.”

“This bucking monster would not-”

“We are not taunting her, we are being serious.” He turned back to Leaf Stream. “I bet you think you are standing at the bottom right now. You are not. I know because I have been in that abyss, I threw myself into it, and you, little girl, are nowhere near to even seeing that pit. You are angry at me? Good! Use that if you have to.” He leaned forward, bringing his face right up to her own. “Show the petty monster that even if it tried its best, it did not manage to break you. Take that leap if you think you are nothing but trash. Just remember, while you get closer, and closer to the ground, that sound will not be the wind rushing by your ears.” He flicked her ear gently. “That will be me laughing.”

Leaf Stream just looked at him. Raegdan was probably the last pony she would have expected to come and give her a pep talk. Or what he thought passed as one.

Luna offered her own piece. “You did not join the Guard because it was a simple job. You obviously pushed yourself to be the best you can be. You would not be selected into the Solar Guard otherwise. You fought for it. Are you going to give up now, Leaf Stream? Will our victory over you be the complete annihilation of your body and spirit?”

Leaf Stream growled. “I can’t bucking believe this is happening to me. Are you two serious? Why in the Sun’s Holy name are you even here?”

“A good question,” Raegdan said as he scooted a bit closer to her, making her try to inch away from him, “We are here because we have something to offer you.”

“You? Like what?”

Luna answered her. “A new duty. How would you like to join the Lunar Guard?”

Silence reigned. Twilight tried to shut her open mouth. It felt almost impossible. Applejack and Leaf Stream faced the same problem. Luna had her usual “I am bored” expression. Raegdan waited patiently for Leaf Stream to answer.

“The stories are true. You two are really bucking insane,” she whispered. “You cannot be serious…”

“We are deadly serious,” he chuckled. “So, should I put you down as a yes?”

Leaf Stream exploded. “If you think that I am going to betray Princess Celestia, just because I am no longer a Solar Guard, to join the freaking Nightmare and her murderous pet, then-”

The rest of her sentence choked on her lips as Raegdan’s hand grabbed her throat, fast as a snake, and squeezed. He pulled her closer, bringing her face to face with him. Twilight stepped forward, ready to stop him before Luna’s horn lit and felt the Alicorn’s magic gently pushing her back.

“You will show respect to Princess Luna. She is your ruler, half of the Diarchy, and if you show such blatant disrespect to her in front of me again I will give you a hint of what really awaits in the abyss. Do you understand me, little girl?” Leaf Stream nodded. Her eyes betrayed her fear. Twilight could understand her change in behaviour. Raegdan’s former cheer was gone and replaced with ice. His every word was calm and meant to be taken as honest truth.

He let her go and she gasped for air. “You do not have to answer now on whether you want to join or not. The offer will stand until you are ready to give us a definitive answer. I don’t care if you have wings or not. I don’t care if you love Celestia more, hell I applaud you. What I care about is if you can do your duty, and obey orders. Do right by us and we will do right by you.”

“After doing this to me, you want me to just… work for you? And what the hay would you even need from a crippled pegasus? I can’t fly anymore! This is nothing but a cruel joke!”

Raegdan waved off her life changing injury. “So what? One third of the population can fly. There’s no shortage of pegasi. But how many can stand having the person who tore them apart next to them the very next day and not lose their sh- senses? I’ll take that kind of courage every time over flying or some precious “talent”,” Raegdan said the last word sarcastically.

He leaned close to her again. “We are not Princess Celestia’s enemies, whatever idiocy you guys think. I demand proper respect to both princesses.” His brow furrowed in puzzlement.

“What do you mean you are not a Solar Guard anymore?”

“I- I got discharged,” she said.

“What?” Raegdan was disturbed at this. “Already? Just like that?” he demanded.

Leaf Stream gulped. “I- I lost my wings. What use is a crippled pegasus that can’t fly as a guard? Commander Steadfast promised me a full pension, even if I was still an initiate rank, but they had no use for me any more. I got that much at least.”

“Just because you lost your wings doesn’t mean you are no long- wait. Wait, wait, wait.” Raegdan got up. He was angry. Very angry.

“Twilight, what got into him?” Applejack whispered to her.

“I don’t know,” she answered. She really didn’t. What upset him that much?

“You were an initiate?” he asked, spit flying from his mouth.

“Yes,” Leaf Stream asked. She had started shivering. Twilight moved to Raegdan’s side and pushed him to move further away. He was scaring her. It was just yesterday when… when he did that to her.

Twilight looked at the bandaged stumps again. “Raegdan did that,” she thought. He didn’t need to do that, but he still did it anyway.

“And the other two?”

“Same,” Leaf Stream answered. Some of her confidence returned with Raegdan’s threatening presence further away. “I think Sergeant Heavy Hoof would become a full member soon. He was a Solar Guard for two years, a year longer than me and Lightning Array.”

Twilight glanced at Luna. She had stood up and looked similarly angry. Raegdan and Luna exchanged a low growl. Twilight didn’t see the significance in what Leaf Stream told her, but those two were on the same -indecipherable- page.

Raegdan kept his back turned to them, taking long breaths. When he calmed down he addressed Leaf Stream again. “Well, it seems you no longer have anything tying you down then. Let me know when you decide. We can make use of you. You can still serve the princesses. Both of them. Get your life back. Maybe more. I’ll even sweeten the deal. If you join, I’ll give you a fair chance to kill me, at the time of your choosing. No consequences. Who knows? You might make it,” he shrugged.

He followed Luna as she rushed out.

Leaf Stream turned towards Twilight and Applejack. “Were they serious? They really just asked me to work for them?”

Twilight nodded.

“Are they insane?”

“Jury’s still out on that,” Applejack answered, “but for what’s it worth, ah think he really meant it. Twilight, we shouldn’t leave them on their own! Come on!”

They found them down the corridor. They had been looking for an empty room and when they found one they hurried inside. Twilight noticed two things as they followed them a few seconds afterwards. One; Luna had cast a silencing cone spell. Nopony outside could hear them. Two; Luna seemed to prefer to fume quietly. The spell was cast for Raegdan’s sake.

“He fucked us!” he was shouting while he was pacing like a madman. “He literally bent us over, and fucked us. He put one over us so thoroughly we needed to have it spelled out for us. We got fucked, Luna. We took it so far up our ass, it took us a day to regain feeling and realize what he fucking did-”

He stopped when he spotted Twilight. He raised his finger at her. “You didn’t hear that. So help me, if I ever hear you talk like that-”

“Boy, ya really are the “do as I say, not as I do” type, aren’t ya?” Applejack cut him off.

Raegdan kicked at the wall. “You don’t get what happened, do you?”

“Get what? Raegdan, what’s the matter?” Twilight asked.

Luna answered her question. Her voice was low, threatening, and trembling. “Commander Steadfast Ray took every possibility of success from us at the tournament. Nevermind the fact that he pushed me so Raegdan had to face three opponents at once. He also had him face the least trained of the Solar Guard.”

Twilight still didn’t understand their reasoning. That was good news. If Raegdan had faced better trained opponents he might not have survived the fight. Was it a pride issue? Did they really want to face the best the Solar Guard had to offer as Luna had demanded?

Luna saw straight through her. “By having Raegdan face those three he removed any chance of us gaining anything through that fight.” Raegdan behind her was pacing back and forth, muttering. Luna was half growling her words now. “Forget how we ruined our image after the fight. If Raegdan lost, the Lunar Guard would have fallen to the Solar Guards dregs, despite my challenge. If Raegdan won, then his victory would be only against the lowest of their ranks, making it meaningless, especially if he received wounds. And even if he had finished the fight in the quickest way possible-”

“Which means killing the f- initiates,” Raegdan explained.

“-then we would be branded as brutes for doing something like that to opponents that were so outmatched. As it is, we got the worst outcome possible. Raegdan killed and crippled initiates, which managed to wound him, and then... we ruined every last vestige of hope of turning this around with our own actions after the fight. No wonder nopony wants to join us as you claimed, Applejack. In the common guard’s eyes we might as well have put civilians in there to slaughter and we barely managed even that.”

“He must be laughing his ass off,” Raegdan said through gritted teeth. “It cost him nothing that he could not replace through that very same tournament and he f- put us down hard! Word will spread about the rank of those three, he will make sure of it. We were never going to get any recruits from the Royal Guard, no matter what.”

“Uhh, Shining Armor already knew they were initiates yesterday. Ah guess they all know already,” Applejack told him hesitantly.

Raegdan stared at the wall with unfocused eyes before kicking it again.

“I have a question,” Luna said. “What did she mean by “the Sun’s Holy name”? I have heard similar expressions on occasion.”

“I have no idea,” Raegdan said while sullenly kicking the wall again. “Just something they say I guess. Like “Celestia’s sake” and stuff. I don’t pay attention to that crap. I think Steadfast has some similar sayings, like a few others I’ve met. Leaf Stream probably got it from him, like a fucking bootlicker.”

“Ah think he is one of those folk that worship Princess Celestia. Leaf Stream is probably the same,” Applejack said.

Raegdan whipped around. “They do what with whom?”

Applejack spent some time explaining to Raegdan and Luna about ponies who believed that Princess Celestia was a true deity, offering some examples of ponies who sometimes took it too far. She told them how it often ran in families or villages, that a lot of ponies in some degree had that belief. Twilight scoffed at that kind of thing. Princess Celestia would probably laugh at them if she wasn’t afraid that she would insult them by doing so.

Luna was perplexed, interested, and amused. Raegdan took a seat halfway and supported his leaning head forward on his hands as he listened.

“Oh, fuck me!”

Twilight wondered if she could get a piece of soap on her hoofs and whether she could get away with it.

“Another problem, big guy?” Applejack asked him.

“You guys have divinity/beliefs/tenets. Why didn’t anyone tell me you have that?” he groaned.

“I think you mean religion,” Twilight supplied him with the proper vocabulary.

“Thank you, little one. Yes, that. You have religion. You have a religion that worships Celestia. You have a religion that worships Celestia and you have the best guard regiment under the command of a guy who has a religion that worships Celestia. A regiment that probably worships Celestia in it’s entirety.” Raegdan was leaning over just this side of hysterical as he went on.

“Where are you getting at, Raegdan?” Luna asked him with suspicion.

He took a deep breath and let out a short laugh. “Well, Luna. I got good news and bad news. Which ones do you want to hear first?”

“I’d like some good news. I haven’t had those for a while,” Luna said with dread.

“The good news is that Commander Steadfast is not behind any of the assassination attempts,” he said sarcastically.

“And the bad news?” Twilight asked.

“The moment he thinks the two of you really step out of line he will bring the whole Solar Guard on your heads?” Applejack said in Raegdan’s place.

Twilight could only stare.

“That’s not simply bad news. That’s terrible news! Raegdan?” Luna gasped.

“Ok, that was a pretty fast deduction for someone of your experiences, little apple. Care to explain how?” Raegdan asked.

“Shining Armor told me. Ah mean, he said that’s why the Solar Guard formed in the first place. So that after the whole Nightmare Moon thing Princess Celestia would not have to fight against her or something similar on her own.” Applejack looked at the pair that looked back at her horrified. “Y’all didn’t know?”

Luna shouted at Raegdan. “Is this true? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Raegdan shouted back defensively. “Because I didn’t know! Why didn’t Shining Armor ever tell me that?”

“Well, did ya ask him?” Applejack said.

“No!”

“Why didn’t you?” Luna demanded.

“I thought the Solar Guard was just a better trained guard regiment, not a damned crusader arm- oh, fuck me!” he cried out, his expression one of shock and fear.

“Oh, I am really going to buck you up for this, make no mistake,” Luna snarled. “What now?”

“If they think that Celestia is the goddess of the sun… of light… of good… then…” Raegdan trailed off.

“Oh, no. Don’t say it! Don’t you tell me that….” Luna growled.

Raegdan had become furious again. “Yeah. Guess who got saddled with the role of being the dark, evil one. Not just a former “villain”, but an actual goddess of evil. One that fought the good one before. One they are all expecting anytime now to turn-”

“Fuck!” Luna screamed loud enough to throw a bed against the wall.

Twilight agreed with Luna. This just became ten times more difficult. If ponies believed those things about Luna and this kind of thinking spread-

“I have no idea what to do about this. The two of you seen as goddesses… dear Hea- no, screw that. This is worse than you think, Luna. There is no reasoning with certain kinds of people, and if they believe you are evil incarnate... We need to think up on this.” He put his palm over his face. “Oh crap, they might really believe I want to kill Celestia, and I just put myself up as the poster boy for the Lunar Guard…”

Twilight sighed inwardly. Ten times, she said? Bitter experience told her she should be getting ready to make some multiplication tables.

“What I need right now is to blow off some steam! My stars, what the hay is going on anymore?” Luna shouted.

“Yeah, I feel the same.” He stared at the marks he left on the wall and the bed Luna had thrown aside. “The Royal Guard training halls are not too far away. We might be able to find a few guards there.”

“Good! We can help them stay sharp,” Luna told him through gritted teeth.

“Oh, hay no.” Applejack blocked the exit. “You two ain’t gonna start that up again. This is exactly what we talked about. You are playing right in his hooves. Y’all don’t need to tear out your own eyes by your own volition. If ya need to work your stress out, either do it some other way or find something in this room to hit. Are we clear?”

“Ouch!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

“Yep. Ouch indeed. Not a good day overall for the dastardly duo.” Applejack said.

Rarity sniffed loudly. “Applejack, please. Must you make fun of them? From the sound of it they are really trying.”

“I feel sorry for little Morning Dew. Do you- do you think we should do something about them?” Fluttershy asked.

“Judging from Leaf Stream’s situation, Commander Steadfast is probably on top of this. Though Luna might want to make sure they are ok, at least financially,” Twilight said. “Maybe she at least can make up somehow for Raegdan’s idiocy. I still can’t believe he did that, and I was right there. How about the investigation? You girls find any leads?”

“I had some thoughts,” Rarity said hesitatingly. “I’d like to believe it’s not true, but let’s face facts. A new princess in power would unbalance the political landscape in Canterlot tremendously as soon as she takes up her duties in full. Plus, from what I heard, the nobles have no love for Raegdan. More like, pure, throbbing hate. I’d love to nose around at certain places, but a lone designer from Ponyville doesn’t have the credentials to go where would be needed, no matter how glamorous I am.”

Twilight thought about it. It made sense and it was better than what they had so far. “I might know somepony who can help you. He can be your way into high society, but… you won’t like it.”

“Oh, my dear, I can handle anypony as long as it helps our friends. Can we trust your contact though?” Rarity asked.

“Yeah. He and Raegdan are in extremely good terms. He will help if it involves him.”

“Splendid. And intriguing. Who is it?”

“Let me see if I can get him first. He might not even be around,” Twilight said so she could delay the dreadful reveal as much as possible.

“The guards might be into it,” Rainbow Dash said. “Either they helped or one of them acted on his own. Shining Armor agrees with that. Boy, was he pissed. He followed Raegdan’s hints and found that some of the guards have houses in much better neighborhoods than they should with their salary.”

“So, two avenues to pursue. Three if Raegdan’s plan works out,” Twilight added loudly. “We still need to find some way to boost the way ponies see them. More than ever if Raegdan is right.”

Rarity clapped with her hooves. “Oh, oh. Pinkie and Fluttershy had some ideas about that. Fluttershy’s suggestion is lovely. We can organize some storytelling nights, like Luna alluded to. Raegdan doesn’t have to be the one to tell all the stories even though his alien tales will be the main attraction, but we can make a great theme out of them. We should try to attract some families and children especially. If we can pull off a couple of these events, make ponies more used to their presence…”

“That is a great idea! Ponies loved it today. Well done, Fluttershy.” Fluttershy blushed while Twilight made a notation on a checklist. “And Pinkie’s idea?”

“That one was a stroke a genius, darling, let me tell you. Here, I’ll let Pinkie Pie explain herself,” Rarity pointed to Pinkie Pie’s bed.

Pinkie Pie was watching as they conversed by her side. It was weird to have her normally exuberant friend stand still and silent, but Pinkie Pie was nowhere near being fine yet. When everypony’s attention turned to her, Pinkie Pie motioned to Fluttershy. “Folder A3 LR-PR.TAY, please,” she said in a tired voice. Fluttershy passed her a thick folder.

Pinkie Pie coughed gently. “My proposal for helping Luna and dad, after careful thought and consideration of all the relevant data and dangling plotlines, is this…”

Pinkie Pie opened the folder. A mass of confetti burst out along with streamers, whistling noises, and already inflated balloons that couldn’t have fit in there.

“A party!” Pinkie Pie cried with a gigantic smile!

Author's Note

Thanks to Requiem17 for editing!

Also, letting you guys know that I started up a new "story". By story I mean a mess of various chapters that are gonna have excerpts from Twilight's and Spike's life with Raegdan before they moved to Ponyville. The first chapter is up. Take a look if you are interested and let me know what you think, or if there's something particular you'd like to see Raegdan handle in the life of two children.

The story is here!

Ch.09 - Stop! Donut time.

“Will you freaking stop nibbling on my neck?”

“I crave ze taste of ze blood!” Pinkie Pie cried out, her tongue running over her chops.

She raised her hoof dramatically, reaching for the sky beyond the ceiling. “I must feed my cursed, unending hunger,” she announced grimly. She swiftly lowered her hoof back down and leaned backwards so she could look Raegdan in the eyes. “And I’m not nibbling. I’m piercing your neck with my vampire fangs.”

Raegdan pushed her on the table in front of him and leaned to his left, inspecting the “bite” on his reflection on the shop’s window. Outside, a young colt that was watching him in fascination jumped back at the sudden movement. “You damn well gave me a hickey! I’ve told you, you can’t be a vampire, little pink, cause I’m not one. You are just incredibly weird. It’s a completely different kind of curse, and I’m the one suffering the effects.”

Pinkie Pie crossed her forelegs like Raegdan often did. “Then why do I feel an overwhelming urge to feast on something red and squishy, huh?” Her hoof rose up to point at her vampiric sire. “Explain that, daddy-o!”

“Sweet heavens, fine!” Raegdan picked up his plate and surrendered it to Pinkie Pie. “You can have my cherry donuts. Are you happy now, little pink?”

Pinkie Pie lifted her newly won treats over her head in celebration. “My vampony mystical powers of persuasion have finally manifested! I’m gonna rule the night, dance in ze moonlight, and drink ze blood of pinkie-promise breaking ponies.” Pinkie Pie slithered to her seat next to Raegdan, already taking her first taste of her conquest.

“I have already laid claim on the first part, Pinkie Pie,” Luna monotoned from her place on the other side of Raegdan, “but you can go forth with the other two,” she emboldened the pink pony.

Raegdan hit the table with his fist. “Damn it, I’ve told you all, don’t encourage her. She wanted me to file her teeth to canines yesterday. I’m the one who has to put up with her adorable madness.” He briefly tousled Pinkie’s mane before waving his arm towards the counter, but Donut Joe was too busy with another client to pay him notice.

“How are you feeling, Raegdan?” Twilight asked.

“Hungry and sour,” he answered. He was frowning as he watched Pinkie ravage his meal.

“No, I mean in respect to your health. Any dizziness, weakness, is your vision-”

Raegdan put his palm over her mouth to silence her. At least he wasn’t putting the whole thing in there, as certain ponies tended to do. The taste took a whole day to fade.

“Little one, I fainted once, for ten minutes, two days ago. I. Am. Fine.” He indicated Pinkie with his thumb. “Look, she is ok, there is going to be no more blood drinking,” Pinkie Pie paused her happy chewing to make a disappointed sound and Raegdan poked her nose. “My wounds are starting to close up -finally-, and I’ve been taking it easy for a couple of days. Now, if I could actually eat something...“ Raegdan lifted himself up a little -as if he needed to in order to stand out- and beckoned for Donut Joe’s attention once again.

“That wasn’t ten minutes dad, you woke up two hours later. Twilight is right to be a little worried,” Spike corrected him.

“Exactly, I woke up two hours later. Cause I took the chance to nap. I’m very sneaky like that.” Raegdan kept waving. He leaned towards Spike. “Is Joe ignoring me?” he asked suspiciously.

“Spell,” Luna said laconically beside him.

“Hmm, right. I forgot.”

Raegdan stood up. Pinkie, Rarity, and Rainbow scooted back in their booth seats to let him pass.

“I’m going up there and getting something myself. Do you want me to bring you anything, little flame? Or how about you girls? Luna?”

“Two more gem encrusted donuts if there are any left,” Spike ordered.

“What are you getting?” asked Pinkie Pie.

Raegdan pointedly looked at the plates spread around. Twilight made a mental recount. His first order of chocolate donuts had been claimed by Luna to escort her own order. His apple glazed ones were currently being shared between Applejack and Rarity. The vanilla cream ones he bought in their place were the ones Twilight was eating along with Rainbow and Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie was munching on his latest attempt. Any guilt Twilight might have felt was washed down by her juice that cleaned her palate for another taste of the delicious, creamy filling.

“I’m gonna see if he has plain bread or something. Maybe something burnt.” Twilight rolled her eyes at him. Now he was just being dramatic.

“A variety of the smaller ones that I saw on the display would be welcome,” Luna said. “I wish to taste more samples of this amazing confection.”

“I would like some too, if it’s not too much trouble,” Fluttershy said with a smile.

“Heck, just bring a big platter of those. These are the best donuts ah’ve ever had!” Applejack added with enthusiasm.

Rarity reached for him before he moved away. “I’m sorry, darling, but are you sure your friend is going to be here? He is kind of late, isn’t he?”

Raegdan glanced at the clock over the register. “He will be here. He is just a lazy son of an.. something. He probably didn’t want to get up before noon.” He left them and stepped in the back of the large line that had formed up before Donut Joe. The ponies in front of him glanced over their shoulder for a second before staring straight ahead, barely daring to move.

Twilight took the opportunity to interrogate the only half-reliable source she had as far as Raegdan’s health went. “Luna, is he actually fine? He hasn’t been pushing himself, has he?”

“No, no, he is honest,” Luna assuaged her. “We have been spending most of our time recuperating, talking, and making some hypotheses. We haven’t even spent an iota of time going over our projects for the last two days. We should get to it later today,” she said, going into planning mode. Twilight did her absolute best to keep her face passive. She quickly crammed a bite in her mouth and started to chew. It wouldn’t do to let Luna know that Twilight was aware what their projects were about.

“The rest of the time he has spent with young Spike and some chores he set on himself, like talking to my sister,” Luna continued. She looked into Twilight’s eyes with some concern. “I’ll do you the favor of letting you know in advance that Raegdan is not very happy with some things that have come up, but I will let him inform you himself of the steps he has taken to correct them.”

Twilight felt her anxiety making a comeback. Spike looked puzzled at Luna’s statement as well. Who knows what Spike had said and what meaning Raegdan had pulled out of it. She decided to forget about it. She already had enough on her plate. If it was something that really upset Raegdan anyway, he would have brought it up already.

She spent a few minutes happily chewing on her share while talking over the details of the first story night they were organizing. The girls were all overly excited about the upcoming event, exchanging preferences on the genre of stories they wanted to hear, and how they could use Luna’s proficiency in illusion spellwork to enhance the experience. Luna herself, infuriatingly, kept insisting they should perform a larger version of the spell she cast at their impromptu session a couple of days ago.

“I’m telling you, Luna, you can’t do that. It’s not moral, and it’s illegal.”

“I’m a princess of the realm. I am the law. How can it be illegal? I’m only going to cast a low powered suggestive spell. Something to put our guests at ease with ourselves,” Luna countered, frowning.

“It is still morally reprehensible.”

“Morally reprehensible?” Luna spat. “Tell me, Twilight Sparkle, is it not also morally reprehensible to have everything you ever done thrown back in your face and have all your works rejected because of actions that were not your own?”

“Luna, please,” Rarity interjected herself in the conversation, “you have to understand, even all this time later ponies are still afraid of Nightmare Moon. It is not fair to you, yes, but it is understandable, is it not?”

Luna brought her hoof on the table, shaking every plate on it. Twilight noticed with the edge of her eyes Raegdan looking back at them with obvious concern while waiting for his turn. “I am not referring to my time as Nightmare Moon, but before that. I acted as the morally superior mare, and all it got me was loneliness, suffering, and eventual banishment. I think I would like to try being a little more lax in my ethics now.”

“Well, your sister might not appreciate the sentiment though,” Applejack said. “She said she is gonna be there, did she not?”

Fluttershy nodded. “Oh yes. She found me out in the gardens yesterday while I was looking for a good spot for us to set up and asked me all about it. She was very thrilled with the idea.”

Luna was thoughtful. “Celestia was never near as good at subtlety in spellwork as me, but even she would notice something with such a large radius. She would not approve of it, not without extensive explanations, and even then...” Luna tapped her hoof on the table rhythmically as she thought. “Fine, Twilight. I withdraw my suggestion. I will limit myself to illusion magic for the duration. Is this acceptable?”

Twilight let out the breath she was holding. One step done with. “It is, thank you. If you don’t mind me asking… what exactly did you do before? The books only mention something about you guarding dreams.”

“Dreams?” Luna gasped. “Are you telling me that is all that is left of my services to Equestria? That was just a… pastime, or a hobby, you could say. I was keeping the dreams of foals free of nightmares, especially those that had gone through tragic experiences.”

Rainbow Dash pulled back the hooves she was keeping protectively around her plate to keep Pinkie Pie from accessing her booty. “You can actually see ponies’ dreams? Have you seen mine?” she asked with evident rising stress.

“I can, yes. It is a conscious choice however. I do not know what you dream of unless I specifically attempt to find out,” Luna explained. “I was never very good at helping the foals anyway. All I could offer was a short reprieve and a few words of advice made up on the spot that could hopefully help them. Of course, some of them tended to have nightmares of me afterwards.”

“This is all very interesting, Luna, but you still haven’t told us. What were you actually tasked with doing?” Rarity prodded.

Luna turned her gaze to the sunlit streets outside. Twilight was fascinated by the effect that Luna seemed to have on her surroundings. While they were all bathing in the sun rays coming through the large window, Luna seemed to always find a place with shadows to stand. Or the shadows seemed to find her. Even her reflection on the glass was extraordinary. While Twilight could barely see her own, Luna’s was mirrored perfectly on the glass as if it was dark outside.

“Maybe we should save this for the event you are planning. These are not stories that should be told under the sun,” Luna said sadly.

Twilight tried to shake off the effects of this morose statement. “Alright. Let’s talk security then. Shining Armor has five or six guards in mind that he is absolutely certain will be no problem for us at all.”

“Only that few?” Luna asked.

“We don’t want to make ponies think there is gonna be trouble at something like this. Shining will be there too. Besides, for some peculiar reason, I don’t think you or Raegdan would trust to have much more than that around.”

Luna smirked. “True. I insist however that Raegdan keeps on his armor as well as his weapons.”

“Umm, that might not be the best choice, “Fluttershy cautioned. “The little colts and fillies might get scared…”

“Tough,” Luna said with a shrug. “We are endangering his life enough by having him stand in place for hours at an event ponies will know he will be at beforehand. Without his armor, all it will take is even a simple rock thrown at his head with enough force to kill him.” Luna stared Twilight down. “This is not negotiable. I am not risking him for a glorified puppet show.”

Twilight decided not to push it. Luna was putting up a good point. Their potential assassins were still out there. She wondered if she could use magic somehow to soften the visual impact of Raegdan’s armored look. A distortion field that would blur his image maybe? No, she rejected that idea, it would only make him seem worse. Maybe-

She was taken out of her thoughts by an enormous, donut filled plate landing in the midst of the table. “Make room, you food bandits. I have your orders here,” he laughed. He passed a smaller plate to Spike and made his way back to his seat holding a small stack of breadsticks for himself. “By the way, guess who finally made it.”

Twilight looked to the side and she saw him. Her face lit up with a smile and she waved cheerily at him. Trapped in the corner as she was by Applejack and Fluttershy, she couldn’t get up for a hug.

“Hello, Blueblood,” she said. “It’s so good to see you again!”

“Lady Twilight,” the white stallion greeted back, “a pleasure as always. I’m sorry for my delay, but-”

“You!” Rarity hissed, sounding remarkably like a cobra. She had finally noticed who had joined them and made her displeasure known.

Prince Blueblood blinked at Rarity twice and jumped back in reflexive defense once he recognised her. “Ah, it’s the gold digger!” he cried out in alarm.

Rarity’s anger sputtered out in a short display of indignation before attempting to reignite itself. It was not given a proper chance to do so, however, by Raegdan’s howling laughter.

“Wait,” he said as he guffawed, “she was the Gala’s gold digger you told me about?”

“Yes!”

“No!”

Raegdan kept laughing, shielding his eyes from watching too much of what he considered hilarious beyond words.

“You attached yourself to me like a leech as soon as you saw me,” Blueblood loudly accused Rarity.

“I was just trying to get to know you,” Rarity defended herself, raising her voice. “A decision I thoroughly regret!”

“Oh? And tell me, my dear “lady”, was that desire to know me born out of anything else but my title and wealth?” Blueblood pushed.

“Listen here, you miserable facsimile of a stallion, your title is all that’s known about you with the way you hide yourself. And I can see why.” Rarity spoke through her gritted teeth. “You threw me in front of a crashing cake to save your sorry hide.”

“I certainly wasn’t going to put myself in front of a pretentious mare that only cared to- Raegdan, please, can you stop with your cackling?”

Raegdan wiped the tears from his eyes. “Ah, sorry, sorry. It’s just-” snickers kept escaping him, despite his efforts. “Let me introduce you. Rarity, this is Prince Blueblood, noble lord of the House of Blueblood. Prince Blueblood, this is Rarity. Owner of Carousel Boutique -did I get the name right?” Twilight nodded. “Right. Owner of Carousel Boutique, fashion designer, and bearer of the element of Generosity.” Raegdan covered his face with his palms and kept on laughing. Luna, Spike, and the rest of the girls had joined him in a more temperate fashion.

Prince Blueblood deflated. “Oh. So…”

“Yes,” Rarity said with enough bitterness to ruin every single pastry in the shop if given solid form. “Not a gold digger.”

“Thank you heavens for this little moment, thank you,” Raegdan chanted in the muffled confines of his hands.

Blueblood timidly took the empty seat next to Fluttershy. His expression brightened up as his eyes roved over the table. “Oh, breadsticks!” he said and pulled them over his way with his magic. “I love them. Crunchy, delicious, and healthy! Thank you, Raegdan.”

Raegdan’s laughs were cut off as his food levitated away from him.

“Oh, this is so exciting! I feel like one of those femme fatales in spy novels!” Rarity squealed, clapping her hooves.

Raegdan made a snapping noise with his fingers in front of Rarity. “Look, this might be dangerous. Are you sure you want to go ahead with this?” He was loath about their choice of actions.

Rarity huffed. “Please, I’m going to be fine. Acting is in my blood. I was born for the stage!” Rarity said with flair, flipping her mane.

“It’s true,” Rainbow agreed, nodding sagely. “She has been voted Ponyville’s resident Drama Queen three years in a row.”

Rarity gave the stinkeye to Rainbow, Raegdan’s long arms getting in the way of giving her a black eye instead. “Anyway,” Rarity continued, “it’s all laughingly simple. I will attend tomorrow’s dance as Prince Blueblood’s date and make a thinly disguised show of wanting to earn favor with any nobles. I’ll “let slip” that I have unlimited access to Princess Luna’s schedule and accommodations, as well as yours, Raegdan. If somepony approaches me…” she halted. “Well, what do I do if somepony does?” Rarity asked, genuinely curious.

Luna answered her. “You seize their offer with your teeth. Promise them anything in return for access to their circle of associates. Look desperate and needy.”

Rarity hesitated. “And if… if they ask me to try and kill you?”

“Then you say yes,” Raegdan urged. “We will put up a show of an assassination you planned we barely escaped from if we need to. We will figure out the rest as we go on. First step is make contact.”

“If by any chance, any of my political opponents ask you to perform any kind of damage on me, make it plain that you do not care for hurting your noble patron,” Blueblood interjected. “Loyalty to noble blood will make you even more of a desired tool for them if they believe they can trust you. Do mark up their names if you can though. Oh, and stay away from my aunt. You do not want to end in her bad side, or her good one.”

“The one from your father’s side?” Rarity asked to confirm the mare’s identity.

“Of course. Aunty Celestia is not gonna be there, nor would she be a danger, dear heavens. If my father’s sister comes to you, and she probably will, endure her insults then hurry away.” Blueblood’s advice was filled with urgency.

“Hey, isn’t she the one that really wants me dead?” Raegdan tapped at his lips as he recalled the mare in question. “Didn’t she tell me once she would have my skull as a litter box for her cat?”

“Yes, yes she did,” Blueblood answered, tiredly.

“Fun lady. That really made me laugh,” Raegdan chuckled, slapping his hand on his thigh. “She might be a good bet actually, but Blueblood is right. Stay away from her, little white.” Raegdan had become serious once again. “She is dangerous.”

Rarity nodded, a bit shakily as the seriousness of the situation was making itself clearer to her.

“So, I just stick around with Shining Armor, playing secretary, while Rarity goes right into the timberwolf’s mouth all alone?” Rainbow Dash challenged Raegdan. She wasn’t very happy about her assignment, or letting her friend go somewhere like this alone.

“You are not going to be “playing secretary”, Rainbow Dash,” Luna said as she threw the last piece of the donut she was eating in her waiting mouth. “This will just be your front. Your real mission is another.”

Rainbow shone with excitement. “Oooh, do I have to sabotage someone? Go behind enemy lines and-”

“No, but you will still like this one.” Raegdan was nursing a glass of water, refusing to fall in what he perceived as the trap of ordering a drink for himself only for somepony else to take it from him. “Your job is to go to the Royal Guard training halls or mess hall at every opportunity and bedazzle the guards there as much as possible.”

Rainbow’s smile widened. “I like this plan! But, uh… why?”

“You go in there,” Raegdan explained, “and show off your stuff. Then, whenever you get the chance, spread stories about how you got into a fight with me and almost kicked my ass. Tell them about how you kept kicking at my stitched side,” Rainbow Dash blushed at the reminder. “We want to know which ones have it in for me, or Luna. Make a good show out of not trusting me in particular. We can’t give you explicit directions because we have none. You will have to feel your way around. Look for opportunities to dig deeper.” Raegdan winked at Rainbow. “Maybe make a comment or two about earning some extra bits to a few guards Shining Armor will point out to you.”

“So basically, I really am a spy operating freely behind enemy lines, right?” Rainbow asked with a smirk on her face.

Raegdan and Luna stared at each other before shrugging and saying “sure,” in unison.

“Yes!” Rainbow Dash fluttered in the air with her right hoof going up in a victory pose. “I’m a freakin’ spy! This. Is. Awesome!”

“You know, when you said we’d be coming here, I didn’t expect this to become a cloak and dagger thing,” Twilight said with some wonder and worry mixed in a perfect ratio.

Rainbow lightly punched her shoulder. “Ease up, egghead. This is gonna be fun!” she said enthusiastically. Twilight shook her head in exasperation. Rarity and Rainbow were treating this like a storybook plot, but there were ponies out there that were actually planning regicide. If they got wind of them, who knew what they would do?

Spike lifted his arm to ask a question. “Um, Rarity and Rainbow aren’t going to actually be in danger, will they?”

Luna shook her head. “We don’t believe so. We will be keeping an eye on them however. Do not fret, young drake. Shining Armor is aware of their assignments, as is my sister.”

Twilight’s mouth popped open. Raegdan and Luna, the “don’t tell Celestia” duo, the keepers of secrets, the pair that could stand in front of a burning building in an attempt to hide it while stating that the day was just a tad hot and insist nothing was going on, did that?. “You actually spoke to Princess Celestia about this? I thought you were dead set against it.”

Raegdan refilled his glass from a pitcher. “We couldn’t very well endanger your friends, no matter how willing they are, without taking some measures for their safety could we?” He took a quick sip.

“Have you talked to her about…” Twilight nodded her head towards Luna who raised a questioning eyebrow at her.

“Yeah, yeah,” Raegdan slumped in his seat, looking defeated. He reminded Twilight of a colt acting sour because things did not go his way. “I apologized to her first, like I told you I’d do -the old coot had me grovel at her feet at one point, but whatever, she has the right to do way more than that a thousand times over. Since it made her smile at me again... in all seriousness, she was quite happy about it.” Raegdan’s frown deepened. “I was hurting her quite badly, wasn’t I?” he mumbled.

He lifted himself straight on his seat again. “Then I told her about the Solar Guard. Turns out, she already knows. She informally allows it for some reason. I think it’s something personal to her, she didn’t want to tell me. As for Luna… she already had a talk with Steadfast the same day Luna returned.”

“And?” asked Twilight and Applejack in unison.

“Steadfast told her that it is the Solar Guard’s belief, as well his own personal one, that Luna is completely innocent of all of Nightmare Moon’s wrongdoings,” Raegdan grumbled.

“You don’t believe him?” asked Applejack.

Raegdan vigorously rubbed his face with his palms. His skin reddened and the small scars on his face stood out even more. “I believe him. I can’t imagine him telling such a direct lie to Celestia. But… I’m not underestimating him again. I don’t like this. It’s too clean, too easy. Too convenient.”

He hit the table with his forehead and stayed bent like that as he continued. Pinkie Pie used his back as a makeshift table to stack one plate of little donuts as she filled a second one from the large platter. “This religion thing has been going on in the Solar Guard for centuries, and she knows it. Supposedly, she has it under control, but…”

“You don’t think so, do you?” Twilight said, concerned.

Raegdan huffed. He turned his head sideways so he was looking outside the window. “I don’t know. Among my kind… that’s a risky thing to mess with, but maybe that was just us? I… I don’t think I should trust myself much, especially lately.” He heaved a sigh. “They haven’t done anything in a year against Luna as far as I can tell. Maybe I was the problem all along?”

“I don’t understand,” Blueblood said, concerned. “Is aunty in danger?”

“Who knows?” Raegdan answered, despaired. Luna rubbed his back in support with a hoof and he let out a relieved breath. “Best case scenario, I am getting an ulcer for nothing at all. The way I screw up lately, that’s probably it. Worst case, we can’t do anything immediate without setting things off. I’m not taking that chance. I’ll let things lie for now rather than making up another stupid mess. We have too much on us to handle as it is. Like little pink’s plate on my back. Could you…?”

“Sorry dad, I’m just done!” Pinkie giggled.

“And anyway, I need to be careful,” Raegdan continued. “One more screw up like the tournament, too soon and without ample reason, and all bets are off. She’s had it up to here with me.” He lifted his hand throat high. “All favor and special treatment has been thrown out the window.” He groaned. “Figures that now she decides to do what she should have done at the very beginning.”

“I am glad that she did not do that,” Luna consoled him.

Raegdan turned his head slightly to look straight at Luna. “Heh. So am I now.”

Raegdan didn’t get up until Luna removed her hoof a minute later. They exchanged a short lived smile. Twilight kept wondering as the past few days passed if Rarity was right after all. She couldn’t tell. They were not acting anymore lovey dovey, but should she even expect them to? On the other hoof, they seemed so much at complete ease with each other. She had seen Luna casually use Raegdan as a seat, or just nonchalantly pull his hand over to act as a paperweight, and he wouldn’t even act as if he noticed. He would do the same, leaning on her, or anchoring his elbow on her. There were those small touches too. Nothing intimate, truly. Just, every now and then one of them would reach out for the other, as if making sure of their presence. But Raegdan always had been the physical type. So this could be just that. Or not.

How the hay did you ask somepony you saw as a partial parent if they were lovers with one of the reigning diarchs anyway? She furiously scratched her metaphorical tongue with a metaphorical hoof.

She turned her attention back to the table just in time to see Prince Blueblood passing a batch of documents to Raegdan. “What are those?” she asked. “Ooh, did you manage to get some background info on potential suspects?” Twilight herself was certainly tired of beating around the bushes in the dark.

Raegdan raised an eyebrow and chuckled. “We have potential suspects? I certainly didn’t know that. No, little one, these are bank documents.”

Rarity gently put down her coffee cup. “What are these for, if I may ask?”

“These are for all of you. Here you go.” Raegdan passed a single page to every one of Twilight’s friends. Twilight got two. She scanned the first document. It was basically a long winded receipt of a bank transfer. Her own account had just been enriched with five thousand bits. That was quite a hefty sum-

Wait, what the f-

“You’re paying us?” Rainbow Dash cried out in surprise.

Raegdan shook his finger at her. “Luna’s idea. We are reimbursing you. You are all losing business and income while staying here to give us a hand. I think this will do short term. Unless you disagree.”

“Actually, ah do,” Applejack said coldly. “This here is too much. None of us makes even close to this much in a month. And ah don’t take money for helping friends, big fella.”

“Shame. You are gonna have a problem then, cause we won’t take them back.” Raegdan was stern and decisive. Twilight got busy with the second document she was given, but still paid attention to them. “I don’t care what you do with the money. It’s yours. You left your farm behind for days now and we have no idea how much longer we’re going to need you. Have your brother hire some help while you are gone, or give them to charity if you prefer he works himself to exhaustion. It’s done and over with.”

Applejack turned to Prince Blueblood. “Ah’m terribly sorry, but ah can’t accept this. You will have to take your bits back,” she told him with a tone that made it clear she would not accept no for an answer.

“I’m sorry, Miss Applejack, but you seem to be assuming you were given that sum from my own personal fortune. I only arranged the transfer. The money belonged to Raegdan. Good luck butting heads with him,” Blueblood said with a dashing smile as he left them stunned. Blueblood picked himself off his seat. “And with that, my business here is complete. By your grace, Princess Luna. Miss Rarity, I’ll have somepony pick you up from the castle tomorrow at eight. Raegdan… good luck. Au revoir.”

The little bell over the door was barely loud enough to hear in the din of the filled donut store, but to everypony, except Raegdan and Luna, it sounded like thunder.

“You have…” Rainbow paused to glance at everypony else’s papers and calculate quickly, “thirty thousand bits to pass around? Where did you get that much money?”

Raegdan shrugged. “Poker? I have way more than that. I gave Twilight-”

“Fifty thousand bits?” Twilight gasped loudly. She counted the zeroes one by one very carefully. She rubbed the print in a daze to make sure it wasn’t just excess ink. “What for?”

Raegdan ponderously pointed at Spike.

Spike looked down at his chest as if expecting to see somepony else occupying his space. He pointed at himself with a claw dubiously. “Me?”

“Spike sleeps in a basket in your room back in Ponyville, doesn’t he?” Raegdan asked.

“Yes, but it’s because we don’t have that much space. There’s only one bedroom-”

Raegdan interrupted Twilight. “When you get back, you’ll hire some construction workers and have them add an extra room for my little flame. It can’t be that hard to do. It’s basically a treehouse from what I understand,” he said with some distaste.

“Yes, but this is way too much,” Twilight said, remorseful. She always meant to do something about Spike’s living space, but her salary wasn’t that great and ponies didn’t really flock to the library. She had managed to save a few bits, but still needed a lot more. Raegdan’s offer was outstandingly more than what she needed for the construction.

“He is going to need furniture too, like a proper bed, and things a kid of his age wants to have in his room.” Spike’s eyes sparkled as he imagined a brand new room just for himself. She couldn’t blame him. He had resorted to using the space under her bed as storage for some of his things, like his comics.

“There will still be plenty left-”

Raegdan hit this thigh with his palm, making a loud slapping noise. “What’s left, you use. There must be a lot of stuff you want, things you need to repair, or replace, aren’t there?”

Twilight nodded reluctantly. Her own mattress wasn’t in the best of states, and some new kitchenware wouldn’t go amiss. The stairs creaked too much for her liking too. Especially the third step from the top. She was afraid that one day her hoof would go through it and end up coming down the stairs head first. The library was old and hadn’t been properly maintained for a long time until she came along. With this many bits she could basically rebuilt it all the way from top to bottom, actually making a proper home out of it rather than just a couple of rooms at the second floor.

Her breath was hitching. She didn’t expect something like this, but she should have. Raegdan endangered himself daily acting as Luna’s sole shield, or by his own troubles, and he still spared the time to make sure that Spike and her were comfortable back in Ponyville, no matter what.

“It’s settled then. You either take the money, or I come down there and fix everything myself with my own hands.” Raegdan was completely serious. His forehead briefly furrowed in thought before he made his decision. “If this all goes well, I’m coming to Ponyville for a visit anyway. I’m gonna make sure- hey now!”

Twilight and Spike had gone over the table at the exact same time to hug their dad.

Twilight waved through the store window at the pair that headed back to the castle. She noticed that everypony in the street gave them a wide berth. If it was Princess Celestia out there, ponies would either rush around her, or bow down until she passed. None of this happened with Luna. The Alicorn gave a simple nod back to the girls that were waving them goodbye from the other side of the window, and Raegdan gave a short wave before discreetly turning his attention to constantly checking his surroundings as they walked on.

Donut Joe came by their table, giving them a more meaningful smile than the usual he kept on at all times for his customers. “It was nice seeing you all here again. Should I expect Princess Celestia to tag along next time?”

“Hmm, maybe,” Twilight answered distantly. She kept looking outside at some ponies who seemed to murmur to each other as Luna and Raegdan left them behind. “Joe? What do you think about Princess Luna?”

Donut Joe was a pretty good read for the common Canterlot pony. He made a point of sharing a few words with his clientele, and couldn’t help but hear things. He was the equivalent of a bartender, but one that worked in the mornings. The throb of Canterlot’s thoughts was pulsing through him, a little filtered by his natural kind disposition, but still basically the truth.

His hesitation to answer right away spoke volumes.

“She seemed… nice. Quiet.” Those were all true. True, but generalisations without any real meaning. Across her seat, the corners of Rarity’s mouth gently arched downwards.

Pinkie Pie climbed on the seat and gave a little whirl. “Just wait until we get her to really open up!” Pinkie gasped as an idea came to her. “We can make this our “hang out spot”! We can come here everyday, eat creamy, delicious, soft, sugary donuts…” Pinkie Pie tapered off as her mouth slacked off and drooled excessively. Rarity softly nudged her shoulder, making her shake her head, tongue still out and launching spit everywhere. “This will be amazing! We can make this booth our reserved seat, talk about our jobs while we are supposed to be working, initiate a comedic tangle of relationships that don’t go anywhere, crown status quo as king, make a theme song where we all fall in a fountain...”

Twilight tuned out Pinkie halfway. Donut Joe’s trembling smile and half step backwards was all she paid real attention to. “You don’t want her here, do you?”

“I’m sorry, Twilight, but… she scares me.” Joe was apologetic. “She seemed really nice as I watched you all, but when I greeted you in, the look she gave me…”

“You used to be scared of Raegdan too,” Spike reminded him. “And he turned out to be great, hasn’t he?”

“Yes, indeed, but… Raegdan is, I mean he does look like…” Twilight motioned him to stop beating around the metaphorical bush. She was very aware of the first impression Raegdan gave. “Thing is, you’d expect that from him, feeling like a pastry slowly baking behind the glass as he looks on, after the first time at least. Getting that kind of feeling from another pony is… disturbing,” he admitted. He continued, contrite, “and she is- was Nightmare Moon. I mean, isn’t it natural to be a little… concerned?”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “It has become boorish to have to repeat this time and time again. Princess Luna is no longer Nightmare Moon. That atrocious thing is gone for good. Princess Luna is not to blame for that creature’s actions.”

“Ya don’t believe us?” Applejack asked. She too had seen Joe’s skeptical look.

“You’ve heard the stories,” he said uncomfortably. “A lot of ponies wonder why she didn’t try to stop her from doing some of those awful things.”

“Who says that she didn’t?” Applejack countered.

Donut Joe fiddled with his apron. “If she did, she did quite a poor job then, didn’t she? I mean, the Burial alone… that one sounded like the Nightmare was taking a lot of cues from her, didn’t it?” Joe turned to leave. “I have some things in the oven in the back. I’ll see you girls later.”

Pinkie Pie had all her enthusiasm drained by that point. She had copied Raegdan’s previous stance as she faceplanted on the table. “Nopony really wants to be their friend, do they?” she said sadly.

“Chin up, Pinkie Pie!” Rainbow tried to brighten her up again. “We are on the case. With you around, they’re gonna make tons of friends! Right?” She smiled shakily at Applejack, who hurried to nod excessively.

Twilight made a mental note to do a little research. Everypony seemed to know about Nightmare Moon and the frightening stories that abounded about her. Twilight herself knew only a couple, heavily censored, that she heard before she got her cutie mark. Even those haunted her young mind. With her upbringing in the castle, it was no wonder neither her or Spike knew any of those stories that ponies took for granted. Princess Celestia would not approach such a subject that made a monster out of her sister, and Raegdan plainly didn’t know them. It was time for her to hit some books on the earliest opportunity available. Even Fluttershy seemed to know more about-

Thinking about Fluttershy, she noticed that she hadn’t spoken or even moved for a while. She was looking out the window, eyes glazed, paying no attention whatsoever to her surroundings. As Twilight watched, a stallion that passed by gave Fluttershy a short appraising look through the glass, and Fluttershy neither blushed or eeped. She didn’t even notice the attention he was giving her.

“Fluttershy?” No answer. That was odd. She tried again, louder. “Fluttershy!”

This time it worked. Fluttershy blinked rapidly, before turning her attention to Twilight. “Oh, um, sorry. I was a thousand miles away there,” she apologized softly.

“What were you thinking about?” Twilight asked curiously. It was not like Fluttershy to zone out like that.

“Oh, I was just thinking about Raegdan’s story,” she continued bashfully, “and about the little gardener. Twilight,” she asked in hesitation, “there were others in the story, right? Proper heroes?”

“Well, in the full story, yes. There are a lot of characters. There is a wise wizard, warriors, kings, and descendants of ancient bloodlines...” Twilight listed off some of the heroic characters in the tale.

“And they are the true heroes, aren’t they? I mean, not that the little gardener wasn’t brave enough himself, but it’s them that save the world, right?”

“No, not really,” Twilight explained further. “Everything the other characters do is just a distraction at the end. It’s the little gardener and his friend who save the world. There is this person, who at the end becomes the king of the world’s greatest city. He is noble, kind, strong, and wise, the greatest of his kind… and the first thing he does as the king is kneel before the little gardener and his friends.”

“Twilight, don’t spoil it!” Spike complained.

“But the little gardener was scared! He wasn’t as brave, like they were, was he?” Fluttershy was anguished with indecision. It was plain to see why. For Fluttershy, the idea that it was not the fearless that were the most important was earthshaking.

Somepony was doing some projecting upon that story’s character.

“He was scared. Really scared,” Twilight said softly. “It’s because he was so scared and weak that kings and wizards knelt before him. How can you be brave if you are not afraid? Out of every hero and warrior, the greatest of the great in that world, no one was as brave as the little gardener and his friends.”

Fluttershy’s eyes shone as she heard Twilight go on. “I see. So, it was ok to be afraid because despite his fear he was still brave enough to keep going on, for his friends, right? Thank you Twilight.” Fluttershy sat back in her most straight pose, which meant she was half crawling inside herself, but better than how she stood before.

“You are welcome, Fluttershy. Don’t worry, you will hear the whole story from Raegdan soon.” Twilight patted Fluttershy’s shoulder.

At least she could still help one of her friends with a little, simple problem.

“So what’s the plan for later, Twily?” Applejack asked.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m gonna go take a nap. I think I might have overdone it.” Rainbow Dash gently poked her belly. It was unusually shiny and round.

“Really, Rainbow, you should refrain a bit more. Also, going to bed after a meal is a horrible idea. All this weight will go to your stomach and thighs,” Rarity warned.

“Eh, I’ll burn off plenty of it later,” Rainbow said. “Luna wants me to spar with her later so she can teach me a few tricks before heading to Shining Armor tomorrow. Something tells me I’m gonna need all the rest and food I can take.” Rainbow winced in anticipation of the treatment that she was in for.

“The rest of us are going to take it relatively easy,” Twilight said. “We still have a lot to do for the day after tomorrow. We need to actually set up the seating, prepare the bonfire, order some food and drinks... we will spend today making the invitations-”

“I see I dodged a bullet there,” Rainbow said. “I think I’m gonna enjoy getting my flank beat to the ground more than having to deal with this.” Pinkie Pie shook her tongue out at her. The pink party pony could barely wait to start. She had said it would make a great precursor to the big formal party she would kick off in a few days.

“I’m not coming,” Fluttershy notified them.

“What? Why?” Twilight asked, troubled. “Is something wrong?”

“No, I just… there’s something I got to do. At the gardens. I’m gonna be a bit busy, if you don’t mind. Sorry.”

Oh. She was probably missing her animals. Twilight expected to see Fluttershy surrounded by birds somewhere in the next few hours. It was gonna be fine. Fluttershy’s presence would be needed more to help settle in the foals when the event started anyway. The rest they could take care of on their own.

“We are also going to continue our investigation later tonight,” Twilight whispered, making sure Spike was not paying attention.

“Is that wise sugarcube? Ah’m afraid we are gonna get caught. Ah don’t think we are gonna find anything important anyway. Obviously if they had something we want to know hidden away it would have been in there,” Applejack whispered back.

Rarity shook her empty glass. “Spike, could you be a dear and get us a pitcher please? I’m so terribly thirsty!” she whined.

“Right away Rarity!” Spike made a spectacular jump over the three ponies in his way and ran towards Donut Joe.

“Now,” Rarity said after Spike got out of hearing distance. “Twilight might be right to want to continue. If Raegdan acts anything like the novels I’ve read he might have hidden things in more than one location. Applejack is right too though. I think we might be endangering their trust for no reason.”

Applejack put her hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “Twilight, is this even about trying to discover if they are really holding something back, or are we doing this because you want to find out Raegdan’s secrets?”

“This is about finding out their secrets, Applejack! If they get into trouble-”

“Ah don’t mean that and you know it. Ah think you want to go ahead with this because you are tired of being kept in the dark as far as your stepdad goes. Ok, knowing they are making all that stuff was good to know, but ultimately it doesn’t really help us out with anything, right?”

“Applejack is right, Twilight. Not only is this a waste of time, but we are risking the hoofhold we have gained with them,” Rarity said. “Let’s focus on what we are trying to achieve here, shall we?”

Twilight shook Applejack’s hoof off her. “We are gonna be fine. We got in their secret armory and didn’t get caught, right? Trust me, this is going to go just fine,” she assured them.

“They know!” Rarity said, hysterically. “Twilight, they know! I told you this was a bad idea. They are gonna have our heads! He is gonna…” her eyes flicked towards the grizzly trophy that Twilight kept in a pouch. “He is gonna have our horns!” she hissed in terror.

The heavy door behind them shook the room with a vibrating, clanging sound as it was forcefully shut.

Author's Note

This chapter has been edited by Requiem17, the magnificent.

Interlude 2 - Nightmare Moon: The Burial

Crystal Drift came back to consciousness slowly, piece by piece. The first thing to return to him was, surprisingly, his smell. He smelled dirt, freshly dug. Granted, he was a pegasus and not an earth pony, and his job as a Royal Guard meant he didn’t have a lot to do with earth based activities, but this smell… it was instinctive, everypony knew it at some point in their lives. Also, it was exceedingly strong. As if his nose was almost pressed into the soil itself…

That’s when Crystal Drift’s eyes finally opened. It was night again. How long was the day allowed to reign this time? He was looking at the ground from a low, parallel position he had never achieved before, not even at his worst drinking extravagances. His chin was almost scraping the rough dirt below it.

Sense of touch came immediately after. He was acutely aware that his body lay horizontally straight below him, his limbs positioned straight ahead and… trapped! He was buried. Somepony had buried him all the way up to his neck! He could feel the rocks and ground pressing on him, all around his body, as if he was in a press that started warming up, ready to operate.

Hearing. Somepony was moaning next to him, on his right. He struggled to rotate his head and see. One of his fellow guards, one of his unit. Drift knew him only as Grit. The earth pony refused to share his whole name, though Drift supposed that was because the other half was not something flattering. Grit was slowly coming back to consciousness too. He opened his eyes and he, by instinct or chance, immediately turned his head towards Crystal Drift, looking at him questioningly.

That’s when the laughter erupted out.

Crystal Drift felt the blood in his veins freeze. Grit’s gray coat coloration lightened up as he also realized what was happening. They both turned their heads back forward with some effort to confront the laughing mare.

No, not mare. Monstrosity. Nightmare Moon in the flesh. She had lied down some distance from them, her long, back legs almost sensually laid towards the side. Her coat was black, darker than the night itself, and her ethereal mane whipped all around her. She could be beautiful beyond comparison but Celestia herself if not for her glowing serpentine eyes and the sharp teeth she showed off at every chance.

Right now she let them take a good look at her sharp canines as she spread her mouth wide and laughed, long, hard, and cruelly. Drift and Grit could do nothing but wait.

Her maniacal laughing tapered off to chuckles. Her gaze locked into their eyes, first Drift and then Grit. She kept sniggering all the while.

“Aren’t you fine stallions going to beg for your life?” she asked. Her voice was a provocation. Sensual and sultry, every word dripping with undertones of an entirely different meaning. It pulled at you, until you remembered yourself and looked at her face again.

“What do you want from us?” Drift asked while at the same time Grit was saying, “Guards do not beg.”

The Dark Alicorn slowly rose up, her movements slow and languid. “Oh, guards do beg. You will be begging too in a few minutes,” she promised with a smile that revealed too many teeth for a mouth to contain. “As for what I want from you? Well, what do I need from my sister’s so called “guards”? Nothing. You are useless,” Nightmare Moon discarded their duty as if it was nothing but a dirty rag. “Guards? You do nothing, but stay in the well lit areas of your cities and villages, spending my night huddled around a fire and congratulate yourself on a job well done when nothing comes for you and you don’t have to run and scream for my sister to send help.”

The Walking Nightmare got closer. She smelled like blood. Drift felt sick when she almost pushed her muzzle into his. He didn’t want to touch this thing, didn’t want to smell it.

“There is only one thing you and your ilk were ever good for. Die. Be an obedient little distraction and get yourselves killed like worms while the real work is done by those who can. On second thought, I do need you. I need you to perform your duty.” She smiled at him wickedly. “Die. Die messily, die horribly. That’s what you are here for after all, isn’t it? Delay me with your little deaths.”

“We will stop you. You are not going to win, Nightmare Moon,” Grit vowed gruffly beside Drift. Drift nodded grimly in agreement. The Mare Who Stalks In The Dark would not win.

Nightmare Moon tossed her mane away from her face. She looked bored now. “Unless my sister decides to get off her fat flank and finally do what must be done herself, you little “guards” will keep dying in droves. I honestly have no idea how many of you I’ve killed so far.”

“Hundreds,” Grit answered.

Nightmare harrumphed in disappointment. “Sounds like you don’t know either. I was curious too.”

His fellow guards! Drift couldn’t believe he didn’t think of them until now. He had been stationed here with a unit of sixty guards. Where were the rest of them?

His panic over the welfare of his comrades must have shown on his face because Nightmare Moon answered his unspoken question. “Oh, don’t worry about your friends. They are around. A little bit of them here, some of them there… Depends on where the pieces landed when I unleashed my spell. Trained guards…” the terrifying monstrosity chuckled once more. “You see one single opponent against you and instead of trying to surround me, what do you do? Mass all together, hoping that huddling beneath a magic shield will save you, never considering that I might have already cast my spell where you stand. No wonder you cannot do what you are supposed to do. You simply. Don’t. Have. The killer’s. Instinct.”

Nightmare Moon lied down again, closer to them, halfway between where Drift and Grit were buried. “But enough about that. I’m being sore and cranky about the past,” she laughed. “What’s important is what is gonna happen to you.” Drift exchanged a nervous glance with Grit. “I am going to give you a chance to get everypony out of this cold, hard ground.”

Grit wasn’t taking the bait the evil in front of them dangled, but… Drift was too curious, wanted to get out of this too much. This wasn’t a way for a pegasus to die.

“What would we need to do?” he asked. He could see Grit frowning at him for even considering the idea of doing what Nightmare Moon would ask.

“It’s simple,” she said. “Do this, and I’ll stop. Nopony else has to die again from my hooves. The moon will not force the sun to lower itself again, the nights will become normal again, and the nightmares which plague your people will stop. All you have to do…”

The Carnivorous Pony smiled seductively at them, not allowing her teeth to show. “... is say that you love me. Say that you love me, for everything I ever did. Say that you appreciate my gift of the peaceful night. Say that I am your princess.”

This is what she asked? In return for their lives, they had to say those few words?

There was only one answer. Grit wouldn’t speak up, his set face showed his absolute resolution to spare no more words for The Nightmare. Drift was the one who had to say it.

“Buck yourself, you crazy bitch. You are a monster. You always were a monster. And you will die like one.” She was evil. She always had been. Since time immemorial she showed up in the darkest of nights and behind her came horror and death. The Night belonged to her. Everypony knew where the fear of darkness originated from.

Nightmare Moon’s smile remained but her eyes lost their glint. She rose up once more, towering over them. “And so fades any last hope and my path is set.” She locked eyes with Drift once more. “Your fate is set too!” she snarled.

She moved back to where she had been before, the first time they saw her lying down. She sat down on her haunches, her back turned to them. “I do… have a few more things for you. As someone who is going to die, you deserve this, little “guard”.”

Her horn glowed intensely, bathing everything around in a blue glow. Up in the sky the moon lowered itself. The sun rose quickly as the moon hid beneath the horizon. Princess Celestia was always hasty to take advantage of any respite Nightmare Moon gave them to bring as much warmth and sunlight to Equestria. There had been no slow mornings or lazy afternoons for years now. Only the long, frightful nights and scorching, short days.

“There. You can have my sister’s sun since you adore her so much more. Of course, her love will end up roasting you alive. I think… yes, I think I will let her have a long day for once.” Nightmare Moon smirked evilly. “I’m sure you two will enjoy every moment of it. After all, who needs the coolness and quiet of the night when you can have this?” She turned her face away from them once more.

It had been less than a minute and Drift was already getting too uncomfortable. The ground around him was starting to heat up too. He knew that soon he would feel as if he was being cooked alive.

“I have more for you. If you were a unicorn and bothered to look, you’d see that I have put a silence spell on the two of you.”

“A silence spell? But.. we hear you just fine.” It was a mistake to keep talking to her but Drift was starting to panic.

“Of course you can. I made it so you can hear me and I can hear you in turn. What you could not hear is everything else.” Nightmare’s horn glowed briefly once more.

Crystal Drifts ears were assaulted by shouting, screaming, and crying. It all came behind him, where he could not see.

Nightmare’s magic flared once more. The air in front of Drift and Grit shimmered and solidified until it became a mirrored surface, letting them see what lay behind them.

Crystal Drift felt like an idiot. He was an idiot. It took him too long to consider the fate of his fellow guards, and he never even thought what happened to the people of the village they were stationed in.

They were all behind him, buried like he was. Stallions, mares, and foals. All of them crying, all of them begging.

“Why didn’t you do what she said?”

“I don’t want to die, please, help me, somepony help me!”

“...lestia, hallowed is thy name, great is thy Grace…”

“Mom! I want to go home! Mommy! Help, help!”

“We love you! We love you, just get us out, please!”

“Spare my children, please, they are too young, please!”

“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, dig me out, out, out, outoutoutout…”

Grit broke his silence, bellowing at the Nightmare. “We love you! We love your night, you are our princess, and we love you! Get them out, please! Kill us, but spare them, please, I beg you!”

Drift could only cry as he looked at the terrified faces in the mirror. They all… they listened to them while she made her offer. They listened while he sentenced them to this cruel fate. Oh Celestia, what did he do? What did this monster make him do?

“How many?” he managed to whisper. He couldn’t see everypony. Too many were hidden by those in front of them. How many of the villagers did she condemn to this slow death?”

“All of them,” she answered, being able to hear his negligible whisper just fine. “Sixty eight stallions, eighty nine mares, forty two foals. See, if you had told me how many guards I’ve killed, I’d be able to properly keep score now.”

“Let them go. Please, let them go,” he whispered.

“Ah, ah, ah. You made your choice.” Nightmare Moon stared upwards to the sun. “Let’s see if this will convince you now, sister. You cannot hide behind a wall forever. Sooner or later, you have to go into the darkness and hunt down the monsters.”

Nightmare Moon spread her wings and soared into the bright sky, leaving them behind.

Crystal Drift was a strong pegasus and he could always handle any temperature or weather discomfort better than everypony he knew. He kept conscious and heard the cries behind him silence, one by one. The last one to call out was a small filly by the sound of her. She screamed for her father to wake up until she also was silenced.

The guards managed to find them in the end. Crystal Drift survived. Grit did not.

None of the villagers did either.

Twilight shut the book that contained the accounting of that incident’s sole survivor. If this was what Nightmare Moon did, if that’s what Twilight was destined to go after as a bearer of the Elements of Harmony…

She opened up the book once more. There were more written here. Stories of those who survived those years of darkness.

She put the book back into its place and left her room to find her friends. She needed to be around others right now.

Ch.10 - Closing doors

“I can’t believe how easily you get to them Applejack. I’ve never had half the success you have.” Twilight was honest in her admiration and slight self-deprecation. Applejack had kept Raegdan and Luna in line almost effortlessly since day one. The two of them had come down to the gardens, curious to witness the organization taking place, and they instantly got to work trying to mess everything up.

Their every attempt to further sabotage themselves in the planning of the storytelling event, either by suggesting doing a body search on everypony and securing every unicorn’s horn with a field distortion collar, or putting an inhibition spell on them on their entrance, was swiftly shot down by Applejack, with some help from Rarity. Twilight still wasn’t entirely sure if they had meant it or if they were just poking their own dark kind of fun at them by that point. Pinkie egged them on by asking if they could have Rainbow Dash flying above with some thunder clouds ready to strike down any naysayers. Raegdan and Luna actually applauded at the suggestion.

Twilight on her own would have made her throat hoarse trying to talk some sense to Raegdan, and all she would get in return was a pat on the head. Twilight was amazingly relieved when Luna started yawning and Raegdan escorted her back to her tower.

“I believe our dear Applejack might have Applebloom to thank for that,” Rarity snickered.

“True that! Those two are just like little rascals at times, ah swear. Attract their attention with something shiny, or something they care about, and they will hang on your lips,” Applejack said proudly. “Word of advice, sugarcube. Don’t try to antagonize them. They’ll get all stubborn. Move their attention elsewhere and then get back to what you want them to do from another angle. Like when they were fighting remember? They were all set to ignore us when we would tell them to stop. Say something they don’t expect to give them the pause ya need and then be firm and unmoving.”

Twilight rubbed her head. “Suddenly, my parents successful dealings with Raegdan make sense.”

“If ya think those two are tough to handle, try to keep a bunch of fillies like Applebloom and her friends in line.” Applejack laughed.

“You just need to know the buttons to push darling. Sweetie Belle will do anything if I frame it so it refers to her friends, or getting her cutie mark. Those two are even simpler in comparison. They are each other’s big, shiny lever, and they haven’t realized it yet. Too bad for them that even Commander Steadfast saw it though.” Rarity looked up at the stairs they were passing by. “You say you used to live up there?”

“Yep, astronomy tower. My room was on the first floor but in later years I spent so much time at the observatory I moved most of my belongings at the top. Raegdan lived in there.” Twilight pointed at a wooden door, hidden from view by a couple of columns.

“It looks like a storeroom,” Rarity observed.

Twilight opened the door and walked in the dusty large room. “That’s because it is.”

There was dust everywhere. The room was dark and there was only a single window to illuminate it, the glass of which had turned almost black by the amount of dirt on it, letting nothing through. The only real light came from Twilight’s spell. Black shadows were cast around them from the huge crates laid haphazardly and the covered furniture.

“He lived in here? Why?” Applejack asked. “Don’t tell me Princess Celestia ran out of guest rooms,” she said dubiously. She patted a covered couch and sneezed loudly when a cloud of dust covered her.

“He chose this place himself.” Twilight pointed at the end of the storeroom. “He made his bunk in a small space behind that huge box, right against the wall. He always lived with as little as possible. He kept the absolute minimum of clothes he needed. He only ate what the kitchens would serve anyway. He did his own cleaning. He never asked for more, he even hunted for the meat he needed instead of letting Princess Celestia have some brought from the Griffins.”

“But why? I thought for sure that the Princess would let him stay in a proper room,” Rarity said.

“He claimed that all this was an amazingly tremendous luxury for him compared to what he used to have. Or not have.” They all looked at the grimy room around them, dark, humid, and full of cobwebs. “He said he didn’t want to upset his luck. I wonder how he makes do in Luna’s room now.”

Rarity gave a knowing hum that Applejack snickered at.

“Stop that! Here it is. His “room”.” Twilight introduced them to Raegdan’s old dwellings.

It was a sad, little corner. His bed was a pile of old blankets laid on the floor. It was obvious that he used to keep this closed section clean, but everything had been reclaimed by dust. Three small wooden boxes were on the side, pushed against the large crate that served as a makeshift wall. A few stubbed candles were still on top of one. He had pinned a multitude of papers on the crate. Twilight hadn’t been here in many, many years and had never seen them here before. She got closer.

They were old drawings made by her and Spike. Raegdan had kept almost all of them. Space was made in the middle for one in particular. Twilight recognized it. She remembered drawing it along with Spike when she was ten.

It showed her next to her parents and her brother. Spike was on the other side of her and he had added Princess Celestia to his other side. At the end, distant from all of them, stood a biped figure. The top of the drawing was titled “Our families”. It was the first time they had ever included Raegdan in any of their drawings. Even if they had set him apart, he still treasured it apparently.

Next to that childish drawing he had pinned three photos. One of her, one of Spike, and one of Princess Celestia. Below, there were more photos. Shining, Cadance, her parents, Prince Blueblood, and… four mares she didn’t know. She didn’t expect to see Blueblood have a place of honor here. Then again, they were, more or less, all the friends Raegdan had.

But who were those four? She examined them carefully. Two of them were smiling, if you could call it that, they looked so fragile and hesitant. The other two seemed… lifeless. Especially the last one. Her eyes looked dead. If he had their photos here they must be friends of his, but Twilight was certain she had never seen these mares before.

Twilight felt her heart give a little jerk. She noted the way he had positioned the bedding’s head across the photos. It was the first and last thing he saw every day.

“This is what he considers luxury then? I would hate to see what he thinks as austerity.” Rarity gently poked the blankets and spread them out. They were old and threadbare.

“Where did he keep his stuff, Twilight?” Applejack asked. She was also examining the makeshift wall.

“These boxes here, I guess. Let’s take a look inside,” she answered.

The first of the three boxes was a grand disappointment. It wasn’t empty. It would be better if it was. Instead, they found ashes inside.

“Whelp, I guess we found the notes and stuff we were looking for,” Applejack said, unneededly.

Twilight looked at the box cover they removed. There was less dust on it than on the rest of the room. She sighed. This did not bode well. “Next one,” she said.

The second one was empty. Rarity’s horn lit and she pulled a few threads from the bottom. “I believe we found his old closet,” she said. She critically eyed the threads. “Horrible quality. I don’t know how much this cost, but anything would be too much.”

They opened the last box. That one was still full of various items. They started to pull them out carefully.

Twilight pulled out a couple of books. She looked at them with distaste. What was he doing with this kind of reading material?

“What are these about, Twilight?” Applejack asked as she left Rarity to rummage in the box on her own.

“This one is about eugenics.” She noted Applejack’s blank look. “It’s basically like breeding, but for ponies. You know, selectively increase desired characteristics by mating-”

“Yeah, ok, ah get it. Very classy. The other one?”

“This one is also peculiar. It’s a book with alternate theories of teleportation.”

“Like the thing you do?” Applejack asked.

“Kinda. This one was written centuries ago. It has some radical theories on using the same principles to make or use portals to other places.”

Rarity lifted her head from her search. “Other places?”

“Other cities. Or even other continents.” Twilight frowned. “It can’t work obviously, the magic requirements alone are huge, but the theories here have some value. Thing is, there was only one copy and it was stolen from the Royal Archives a few years ago.”

Applejack eyed the book suspiciously. “Are ya telling me we just found that copy?”

“I do. I wonder what he needed from this? It’s useless to him without somepony to cast spells and a teleportation spell or portal would never work for him.” Twilight opened the book at a random page. She gasped with horror at what she saw. She quickly checked the rest of the book. It was the same! “I can’t believe this!”

“Twi?”

“He ruined it! He covered the better part of most of the pages with ink and even tore some off. This is monstrous!”

“Oh my, I think I just found something interesting here!” Rarity yelled at them.

She pulled out a small wooden box that had been tied shut with string. A word was deeply carved on it in Raegdan’s written language. Twilight’s outrage melted away at the sight. She had seen this box before.

“I… completely forgot about that. Strange. I would have thought he would keep it somewhere near him.” Twilight put the books she was holding down.

“Is it something valuable?” Rarity asked. She was examining the knot on the string.

“It is for him, yes. The word on it? It says “home”,” she told them. Rarity rotated the box so she could examine the carved word. “It’s the one single thing he has left from where he came from.”

“Just this? I- I have to admit, I am very curious. But I am not going to handle such a personal item without his permission.” Rarity reluctantly put the box back inside the small crate.

“Ah don’t suppose you know what he has in there, Twilight?” Applejack asked. Curiosity had gotten the best of her farmer friend. Who could blame her? She doubted if she could stop herself from opening the box in her place.

“It’s…” Twilight hesitated but decided to tell them nonetheless. Better to hear it from her than risk asking Raegdan himself at some point. “It’s an old ring. Or what remains of it. It’s broken, worn down, and half melted. I think it’s made of poor quality iron or tin. It’s not a pretty sight. It’s all he has left, and you can’t even tell what it is anymore,” Twilight told them with sadness.

“Did it have any important significance for him? Apart from being a piece of home of course.” Rarity’s eyes were locked on the box.

“Yes. His mother gave it to him as a gift when he was still a child. He told me he never stopped wearing it until his finger was too big for it. When it became too small, he hung it around his neck. It didn’t have any material value, but he held on to it because it made her happy to see him keeping it around. It’s… worth everything to him.”

Applejack took off her hat and held it to her chest for a moment of silence. Twilight and Rarity brushed at their eyes. It was so easy to forget. Raegdan always seemed so much at ease with what happened in his life. Like nothing could really faze him for long. He was always making fun of whatever happened to him or ignored it as unimportant, but Twilight had began to understand that all this was just a facade, to keep everypony from realizing how lonely he was. So far away from his home, friends, and family, it might as well be a different planet away. He told her once while drunk that he would rather die than go back to trying to find the way to return, no matter how much he wanted to go back home.

A home that all he had to remember it by was a misshapen piece of metal that he kept stashed away because he couldn’t bear to look at it without crying. She only asked him to show it to her once. She swore to never do that again after what happened. He gruffly told her to wait for him outside after showing it to her while he packed the mangled memento out of sight. Twilight had stalled long enough at the door to barely hear the sound of his soft crying. It was the only time that he cried or shown true regret about his lot in life that she knew of. She ran out before she was noticed and neither of them ever mentioned the ring again.

He had latched on them so hard, as if he was drowning and they were the rope holding him up. How did he really feel? Underneath all his bravado, how much pain was he hiding? She tried imagining losing everypony in her life. Just gone, with no way to hear from them again. The thought of it alone almost physically hurt. She couldn’t actually do it. Her heart and brain rebelled against it.

Luna could understand, she realized. She certainly must have known what it was like to be ripped off from her world, better than anypony else ever could. Twilight sighed inwardly. Both of them had gone through experiences that could be described as torture -that they were most adamant not to share-, both had lost their world, had performed actions they were ashamed of -another thing they wouldn’t share, though Luna wasn’t such a terrible mystery-, and both were unbelievingly lonely before they met. Twilight wondered how much Luna knew about Raegdan’s past. She was probably the only one who knew the complete truth. Raegdan must have certainly-

“There’s a second box here,” Rarity announced. She showed them another version of the box that contained the ring.

“I haven’t seen that before,” Twilight said, mystified. She examined the box carefully. There were two different words carved on the top, neither of which she knew, with two and five letters respectfully. The string on it looked much older and frayed by time. It had obviously been a very long time since it had been opened.

“So, no idea what he has in there?” Applejack asked.

“None at all. I… should we open it?” Twilight was heavily conflicted. She either found out what was in here now or she never did. What if it was as personal as the ring? Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe all that was in there was an old piece of cloth that they could get no meaning out of. Would it be a breach of his personal life if they saw something they couldn’t understand the importance of?

“It’s your call Twilight,” Applejack burdened her with the sole responsibility.

Twilight took the box in her magic. She shouldn’t, she knew that, but… damnit, Luna knew everything about Raegdan and she had spent only a year with him. Twilight was jealous of her, she accepted that, but Twilight herself could be trusted with Raegdan’s secrets as well. She carefully untied the string, not paying attention to the little voice that called her a hypocrite.

All three of them grouped around the box as she opened it, and they all recoiled back at the sight. Twilight lost her grip on the box, but Rarity managed to catch it before it hit the floor.

They slowly gathered around again to take a second, longer look. Inside the box was a long lock of blonde hair, a small purple ribbon tied around it. One end of the hair was slightly burned, blackened and curling on itself. The other end had dried out, reddish brown flakes covering it.

They stood silent, looking at it for some time.

“Who do ya think this belonged to?” Applejack asked in a whisper.

“Do you… do you think it was someone from his family?” Rarity asked in an equally low whisper.

“Gosh, ah hope not.”

Twilight sealed the box again and gave it to Rarity to put it back. That had been a mistake. A horrible, horrible mistake. He had lost more than she ever thought, didn’t he?

Rarity had returned to the crate’s contents. “There’s more here. Oh, this here looks official. Let’s see what it… of course. What else? Celestia forbid we don’t find something morbid again.”

“What’s that now?” Applejack asked, slightly amused.

Rarity was leafing through a few papers. “Well, these here are bank account statements. Raegdan might be living an austere life, but he really has about… oh. That’s… that’s a lot of bits.”

Twilight’s curiosity was piqued. She could barely recollect something that Princess Celestia said about reimbursing Raegdan some day for some of the things he shared, but wasn’t one hundred percent sure on that. She had figured that the bits he spent on them today was most of what he had earned.

“How much does he have left if you subtract what he gave us today?” she asked, feeling slightly guilty for taking his money. It’s not like he had a steady income of any kind, unless Luna had arranged for him to start getting paid as the sole member of her Lunar Guard.

“A lot,” Rarity answered to Twilight’s intense surprise. “He is rich. Very, very rich. I think he has a share in the… Equestrian Railroad Association? Dear Celestia, how did he manage that?” Rarity was astonished.

Twilight felt a flash in her brain as she made the link. She remembered when he saw the train station for the first time. He had fallen down in laughter, his legs kicking up in the air when he saw the stallions tethered up in front.

“I think I know how. Remember how the trains got pulled before they built the steam engines?” Twilight reminded them.

Rarity blinked with a vacant look before she also made the connection. “Ah, I see. Another gift from his home. It seems he traded this one for a share in the company. Though from what I see here, he has barely touched any of the money it earned him. The biggest withdraws I can find here -apart from what he spent today- are about fifty to a hundred bits per month on average. That’s a pittance. But… hmm… he has quite a large amount of money funneled out to other accounts, monthly.”

“What was all that morbid stuff about?” Applejack asked.

“Oh, yes. Sorry, it slipped my mind when I saw those numbers.” She brought another sheet in front of the stack she held. “It’s his last will and testament. I do not believe we should read this.”

“Oh.” That was all Twilight felt like saying.

“Well, it’s meant to be read at some point, isn’t? We’ve gone this far anyway. Besides, ah’m pretty sure ah can guess who gets everything of this newly discovered fortune,” Applejack said with a meaningful eyebrow wiggling in Twilight’s direction.

“Well…” Rarity started reading with fading reluctance. “It’s not much. Basically he leaves what little of material personal possessions he has to you and Spike, Twilight, to keep, share, or destroy as you see fit. There are instructions for his funeral,” Rarity frowned in displeasure. “There is not to be one, no funeral, no grave, and no memorial of any kind. He wants his body burned and the ashes thrown anywhere available. He suggests a -oh Celestia- a landfill. Seriously, what happened to his self-respect?” Rarity demanded, waving the papers around her. “As for the money… oh… that’s- that’s strange…” Rarity’s eyes shifted from Twilight to Applejack.

“Well? Don’t keep us in suspense. Twilight and Spike get everything, right? What’s the big deal?” Applejack asked impatiently.

“True. He has left instructions that all his fortune is to be liquefied and every bit he has, except enough to continue those monthly payments for a few years, is to be divided by three. One third goes to Twilight. One third to Spike. The last third… well, the last third of the money is to be delivered to the Apple family, owners of Sweet Apple Acres at Ponyville.”

“...what?”

“It’s quite clear, Applejack. When Raegdan… passes on, you and your family will not have to worry about bits for some time.” Rarity told her. She leafed back at the bank papers. “Or, as it would be more appropriate to say, a long time,” she added.

Applejack closed her eyes, breathing deeply. Twilight was stunned. She wracked her head to figure what this meant. Why would Raegdan… why? How? Why?

“Twily?” Applejack said, calmly.

“Uh, yes?” Twilight had an idea what was coming. She wasn’t looking forward to it.

“Would you mind explaining to me the meaning of this? Why would Raegdan have my family in his will when he never met any of us?” Applejack said in a very calm tone.

“I have no idea?” Honesty was the best route, wasn’t it? Then why did it feel to Twilight that it wouldn’t do a fat load of good to her.

“You have no idea. Twilight, ah don’t like this. Ah don’t like this one tiny bit. Ah don’t know how or why, but ah don’t want my family involved in any of Raegdan’s hare brained schemes. So, let’s try this again. What’s the meaning of this?” Applejack was getting upset at her.

“Applejack, honestly, I have no idea why he would do that.” Applejack didn’t look convinced. “I swear! He might… maybe he did it as charity? Maybe it’s his own way of helping out my friends.”

“Ah don’t need charity Twilight!” Applejack said, offended.

“I know you don’t Applejack. I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t know why. I never know why he does half the stuff he does. Believe me.”

Rarity came in between them. “Applejack, dear, you’re overreacting. Maybe this is nothing but a gift from him. For some reason he thought you deserved it more, or would put the bits to better use. He obviously values family. Perhaps he felt a connection with yours through Twilight’s letters. It’s not like he did something bad. Let’s just ignore this, shall we?”

“...Fine. Ah don’t like it, but fine. And ah want answers, real ones, when all this is said and done, ya hear?”

“Of course, Applejack. We all do. Now, I think there’s almost nothing left in here. Another wasted effort girls. Nothing of real use here. Oh, this is different. What is-”

Rarity screamed and threw the white cylinder she had pulled out away from her. She turned around and ran behind them, screaming all the time.

“What the hay? What was that about?” Applejack asked, covering her ears with her hooves.

Twilight approached whatever it was that caused Rarity to act like that. She pulled it closer with her magic. It was white, tapered to a pointy end, and…

Oh.

“Oh, Raegdan. What have you done?” Twilight thought to herself.

Rarity was making croaking noises in the corner. She was doing all she could do to keep herself from emptying her stomach. It was perfectly understandable. This was a very disturbing find.

“Twilight, is this what ah think it is?” Applejack asked, disgusted.

“Yes. That’s a unicorn’s horn.” Twilight examined it carefully, despite how reluctant she was. It was just the bone of the horn, what they called in medical terms the alicorn. It was long, much longer than average, almost Celestia sized. She checked the base. The part that was connected to the rest of the skull had been expertly trimmed off. This horn had been removed with painstaking care. Who did it belong to? Why did Raegdan have-

“Is there anything else in there?” Twilight asked Applejack.

“I… uh…”

“Applejack!” Twilight called to bring her back to attention.

“Ah, yeah, let me check.” Apprehensive for anything similar popping out at her, Applejack dug all the way down to the end of the box’s contents. Twilight waited, examining the horn’s sharp end.

“Nope, nothing else Twilight. Look, can we go now? I think I’ve had enough of digging through Raegdan’s stuff for a lifetime. Ah really like the big guy, but ah’m sorely tempted to bring that thing there to Princess Celestia’s attention and let her get to the bottom of this. If Shining Armor hadn’t said-” Applejack covered her muzzle with her hooves.

Twilight’s eyes popped straight at Applejack. That was it. She had enough of tipping around, waiting for Raegdan to drop little hints, and she certainly wasn’t going to stand for her friends hiding information from her. A little filly left orphaned. A mare left crippled. A stallion lost in a coma. Pinkie Pie almost dead. Raegdan and Luna apparently afraid of their own rooms, inspecting them for traps every day, as if they were intruders in their own living quarters. A horrendous… thing like this in Raegdan’s possessions. And all for what?

She had no idea. Three days trying to deduce what the heck was going on and she still had no idea. None at all. Someponies were trying to kill Luna and Raegdan. Why? She had no idea. Luna and Raegdan were afraid of something, but it wasn’t the ponies trying to kill them, at least not really. What was it? She had no idea. Luna and Raegdan had assembled an armory. For what? She had no idea. What was the real reason they needed a personal army? No idea. Why weren’t they honest with them, or Celestia? She glanced at the bone in her magic field. She was starting to have some suspicions for this at least, but this was the end of it. She was done wading through ignorance, timidly asking for scraps, and acting like a little filly again, trusting other ponies to know best. She was a grown mare. She would have her answers.

And Applejack had some of them.

“You are a horrible liar Applejack. You know it and I know it. So don’t try to lie about this. What did Shining Armor say? I want to know everything!” Twilight demanded.

Applejack sighed in surrender. “Gotta say, it would be a load off mah chest sugarcube. But are ya sure about that? It’s not… good. Not good at all.”

“Everything, Applejack. All that you know,” Twilight reiterated.

Applejack told her everything, holding nothing back. Applejack told her about Raegdan’s suicide attempt. That alone was almost enough to break her newfound resolve, but Twilight pressed on. Her expertise lay on her mind, on her thinking. She had to know as much as possible or she would continue being a dead weight.

Applejack then told her about Shining Armor’s theory of what Raegdan did years ago.

Twilight let the horn fall and clatter to the ground, raising a small cloud of dust. She looked at it with rising horror. Rarity’s face was filled with disgust. Applejack let the facade of calmness fade from her and adopted a stance of surrender. She had known what it was the moment she saw it, Twilight realized. Applejack didn’t want to tell Twilight because Applejack believed in family most of all, and she didn’t want to do anything that might ruin Twilight and Spike’s relationship with Raegdan, not when she wasn’t entirely sure.

“It’s a trophy.” Twilight whispered to herself in horrified fascination.

“Maybe,” Applejack said. “Or maybe it’s something else entirely. Maybe he stole it from a medical school for instance. Ah don’t think so, but we don’t know for sure do we?” She brought her hoof to Twilight’s shoulder. “Look, sugarcube, we can’t know for sure, can we? It might be nothing at all.”

“He was skinning him when I went in there…” Twilight kept whispering, memories rushing back to her.

“What? Twily, what are you talking about?”

“When I had that fight with Raegdan,” Twilight explained, speaking in a low voice and broken, trembling sentences. She felt cold, so very cold. The dust and tight confines of the storage room were choking her. “Two years ago. I… I found some papers in Princess Celestia’s office. Old ones. They were about Raegdan. Reports. From the medical wing, back when they first found him. They had brought him in almost dead. Bones broken, burnt, slashed apart, and a hole in his chest that had pierced him through, barely missing going through his heart. He almost didn’t make it. They kept him muzzled. That’s what I found most strange. As if they were afraid he was going to try and bite them, eat them. I… I wondered then. We never met one of Raegdan’s kind before but… that must mean he never met one of our kind either, right? So… so if he met a pony, and he was hungry… if he was hunting for food… they called him a monster as soon as he arrived here, even half dead. Why, unless-”

“Twilight, ah think you might be overreacting. That’s just an assumption-”

“-so I went to find him, ask him what had happened so long ago. He was down in the dungeons. I went inside and I saw him- he tried to tell me it was just a large boar. He had cut off the head and legs, but there was enough of the coat left… I convinced myself later on that I had just imagined it. That I was too lost in my own fears and I just… projected something made up in my mind over what really was there.”

“Twilight? What are you saying? You said you made a mistake, didn’t you? Come on, Raegdan wouldn’t do something like that,” Applejack insisted.

“Boars don’t have white coats. Boars don’t have colors on their flanks like- like cutie marks. He was skinning a pony!” She pointed at the horn in front of her. “This pony. Oh, Celestia… what did he do? How could he do this?” she shouted in horror.

She turned around and started marching outside. Applejack and Rarity rushed beside her.

“Twilight? Twilight, where are you going?” Rarity asked, frightened.

“The dungeons,” she answered. “There might still be something there. You are right, Applejack, I don’t know. But I have to. I will,” Twilight choked.

The dungeons were bleak and damp, as they should be. It was what you expected of them. You weren’t sent here for giggling too loudly after all. But Twilight and her two friends went deeper, entering the level below them. The old dungeons. Here, there was no light, no small grates that allowed a modicum of sunlight to pierce through and remind the prisoners that on the surface there was life and light.

Down here there was only darkness and the fire lit torches that struggled to keep it at bay.

Twilight didn’t bother with those. Her horn lit up and she created a magic lantern to shine above them, bathing the dreary surroundings in a soft, blue glow. She nodded towards a heavy iron door that blocked one of the cells, deep down the corridor.

“That’s the one,” she said. “It is going to be quite… smelly, just so you know. It’s very bloody work, what he is doing, and it leaves quite a distinct smell.” Her voice echoed on the cold, stone walls.

“Oh, great,” said Rarity. “I swear, I will never feel clean enough…”

Twilight opened the door. The room inside was…

It was sparkling clean, that’s what it was. She examined the floor. The wet stone was shining in the magically conjured light. This room had been thoroughly cleaned, and recently at that. There were still some puddles of water in the corner. When did they-

Twilight’s gaze locked in the middle of the room. There, upon a lone stool, were two small pouches, inviting them to look through them with their presence.

“This certainly looks better than I feared,” Rarity said in relief. She noticed the stool that Twilight was approaching. “Oh. This isn’t going to end well, I can tell.”

Twilight examined the pouches as her friends approached her, one from each side. They were black and cheap looking. The smaller one was on top of the bigger one, the base pouch having something solid stashed in it. Twilight picked up the small pouch first, dread filling her, and pulled out some of it’s contents.

It was hair. Just a tiny pile of a few short hairs wrapped in a piece of paper.

“Huh? Now that’s kinda anticlimactic, ain’t it?” Applejack said.

Twilight wasn’t sure about that. She concentrated on her spell, changed the light’s color to a bright white, and checked the short hairs again.

It was a small collection of different colored ones. There were white ones, blue, orange, purpl-

“Uh oh,” Twilight said.

“What?” Applejack asked. “What did ah miss? Rarity? Why are you looking all scared? What’s going on?”

Twilight, her magic grip shaking, piled the coat hairs back in the small pouch and retrieved the bigger one. She pulled out the pair of rectangles that it contained.

“Ah, ponyfeathers,” Applejack cursed in understanding.

Two metal squares. One of them had a hole pierced through it. The other one had a small bump. Twilight looked back into the pouch. Yep, there it was. The metal spike she had used.

“They know!” Rarity said, hysterically. “Twilight, they know! I told you this was a bad idea. They are gonna have our heads! He is gonna…” her eyes flicked towards the grizzly trophy that Twilight kept in a pouch. “He is gonna have our horns!” she hissed in terror.

The heavy door behind them shook the room with a vibrating, clanging sound as it was forcefully shut.

The three young mares felt their hearts beat somewhere between their neck and mouth. They spinned around to see Raegdan, fully armed and armored, tucking the door’s key in his belt. Twilight had to admit, when you were face to face with him like this, knowing he was not currently on your side, he looked much more… terrifying. He switched hands on the lit torch he was carrying and pulled out his hammer. He pointed at them with it.

“You two,” he said coldly to Rarity and Applejack. “Corners. One each.”

Applejack took a step forward. Rarity had frozen in place, her only movement the chattering of her teeth. “Hey now, big fella. Look, I know what we did was wrong, but-”

“Corners. Now!” Raegdan whispered harsh and loud.

Rarity ran towards the back left, as far away from Raegdan as possible. Applejack gulped and slowly stepped backwards towards the other one.

Raegdan finally turned his attention to the last mare in the large cell. “Sit,” he told Twilight. There was no reason to fight him on such a simple order. An hour before she wouldn’t. Now however, she had decided she would no longer bend her head and obey blindly. Not with what she knew.

“You can’t keep us in here against our wishes,” she told him. Raegdan’s helm leaned sideways, a gesture portraying his question. “If I want to I can teleport my friends and myself outside in seconds,” she let him know. “And you can’t stop me. So don’t try to give orders to me!”

Raegdan nodded. A dark chuckle sounded underneath his helmet, chilling Twilight’s blood. What did he find so funny-

He took a step back and used the bottom of his hammer to strike the iron door behind him three times. When the loud noise stopped echoing in the room, he spoke.

“Luna?”

“Yes?” Luna’s voice came from outside. Oh, this was bad. Twilight didn’t expect Raegdan to have her here with him. Still, it didn’t change things. Twilight was extremely proficient with the teleportation spell. She should be able to escape even Luna herself.

She hoped.

“Twilight says that she can teleport all three of them away. Tell me again, how would you stop her?”

“I would not even attempt to,” Luna said behind the door. Twilight gulped when she heard her tone. Luna spoke calmly, but there was a fury hiding behind her words. “I know the teleport spell myself, as well as far more dangerous and painful spells. I also know exactly where Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash are at the moment. So please, by all means, let her know she is free to go any time she wishes.”

“Thank you, Luna.”

It was the simple and factual way they talked that convinced her. It could be just a bluff; she hoped fervently it was all just a bluff. Not knowing for sure if it was or not meant that Twilight couldn’t risk it. Not when she didn’t even know what they were planning to do to them right now. Maybe… maybe this was supposed to serve as a warning? To scare them into not talking to Celestia?

Twilight sat on the stool.

When Raegdan came to stand in front of her, she asked the first question that came to mind. “Why is Luna staying outside?”

“Because I begged her to give you a chance,” Raegdan answered. He was keeping his voice low on purpose, as if doing his best to refrain from giving in to a mounting rage and screaming his head off at them. Every word came out as a hiss, distorted almost beyond any recognition from the helmet covering his head.

“If it was anyone else but you…” his hands shook, the trembling torchlight making mockeries of everything it illuminated. “Anyone else would be dead now. If Luna didn’t kill them, I would. Do you have any idea what you even did?”

“We knew you were-”

“We trusted you!” Ragdan yelled with the full strength of his lungs. “We gave you our trust and you… you mocked us right behind our backs!” He pointed at Applejack with a trembling arm. “One day after your blustering speech about trust you were ransacking through our room. Honesty… hah,” he ridiculed. “It’s the same thing everywhere, nothing but a big pile of crap!” Applejack lowered her head in shame.

“Don’t you dare blame Applejack,” Twilight yelled. “That was my decision and she supported me because she is my friend, and you are a stinking liar!”

“Are you actually going to try to turn this around on me? While you were caught red handed?” Raegdan said with sarcasm.

Twilight’s indignation flared up. She wasn’t going to be laughed off or yelled down this time. “You and Luna are building weapons! We saw it!”

Raegdan rushed forward and ripped the steel samples Twilight was still holding out of her magic grasp, violently. “Exactly! And you and your friends just… frolicked in there, unheeding of the danger. You have absolutely no idea what half of those things were in there Twilight. One wrong move and… were you fucking trying to kill yourself?” he shouted.

“You are the one who is keeping these kinds of secrets!” Twilight countered. “Don’t you try and pin this on me. I keep asking, and asking, and begging for answers, and all I get are half truths, outright lies, or nothing at all. What did you expect?” she said in indignation.

“I expected you to show some decency to the fact that we might have a reason we keep things to ourselves,” Raegdan yelled, furious. “We have explosives in there Twilight. Explosives! One wrong spill, one wrong spell, was all it would take to set them off. Nevermind what Celestia would do if she knew. You and your friends would be dead. And the reason we build them is our own. I don’t lie about the fact that I have secrets. I’ve straight out told you that I have them! But you just had to know more, didn’t you?” he jeered.

Twilight took two deep breaths to calm herself down a bit. Tears would not help. “You do lie. You lie about everything. Always. This stops now.” Twilight revealed the horn they found.

“You lied to me,” she whispered savagely. “You made me think I was a horrible, faithless daughter to you. You killed somepony, you were gutting him right in front of me, and you lied and piled guilt I shouldn’t feel on me!” She threw the bone at his chest. Rarity and Applejack gasped softly at the disrespect she showed towards the last remains of the unnamed unicorn.

Raegdan’s dark eye slits stared at the horn at his feet for a moment before bringing his armored boot down with a grunt and snapping the object that brought his sins to light at two. “You went through Luna’s tower, you went through my room, do you want to search my pockets too? Or do you want to wait until I am asleep so you can also do this behind my back?”

“Don’t try to guilt trip me! Don’t try to change the subject! I want answers. Either you give them to me or to Princess Celestia!” Twilight threatened him. “Was this the pony who had me foalnapped?”

Raegdan loomed threateningly over Twilight. “Who told you about this? No one should… Shining Armor! I can’t believe he actually-”

Twilight pushed him away from her. “Don’t try to intimidate me either. I am not scared of you! No, Shining Armor did not tell me. He wasn’t sure himself. He told Applejack what he suspected.”

Applejack hushed a whisper at her from her corner. “Twilight, ah love ya like a sister, but please don’t put me in the middle of this.”

“Her?” Raegdan asked, scandalized. “The moron talked about something like this with the fucking bearer of the element of honesty? Heavens, does all of Canterlot know already?”

“Hey!” Applejack shouted offended. “Ah didn’t tell nopony but Twilight. Just because ah like being honest doesn’t mean ah can’t keep a secret!”

“That’s enough!” Twilight shouted them both down. “Tell me now, Raegdan. No more avoidances. No more lies. Just the truth, for once in your life. What did you do in here?”

“None of your business,” he yelled.

“Then it will become Princess Celestia’s business, unless you tell me.”

“You think Luna will let you reach her, without your friends paying the price?” Muffled laughter came out of his iron visage that Twilight cut short in an instant.

“You think Princess Celestia will let Luna get off with a slap on the hoof if she hurts my friends?” she smirked back. That must have wiped the smile off his face. He anxiously looked over his shoulder towards the door.

Raegdan stared back at her, still as a statue. “You want the truth?” he asked in a scared whisper after a few seconds.

“Yes!”

“No matter what? Even if I believe it’s in your best interests not to know?”

“Yes!”

“And what if it means my death? Do you still want to know?”

There was a bright blue line of light behind Raegdan, brighter than anything Twilight had ever seen, leaving the door’s lock dripping in a flow of molten metal. Luna kicked it open and ran inside, sweating and gasping for breath. “That’s enough! We are proceeding with the plan, Raegdan. They can’t know.”

For a few gut wrenching moments Raegdan didn’t answer. “No.”

“No? Raegdan, my sister will no longer protect you, nor allow me to. They will push for your execution. I am not losing you, not now!” Luna shouted in anger.

“She asked for the truth, Luna. I will tell her. She wants my life in her hands? I’ll let her have it.”

“You’ll- are you insane? You are throwing everything away for what? You think she will understand? She can’t. None of them can. All they know is their comfort and perceived safety! You took it upon yourself to stop the monsters preying upon them and they will hang you for it because you were not up to their impossible standards! That’s what they do! She’s never had to make a harsh choice in her life! She will not understand!”

“Why not?” Twilight challenged. Her blood was boiling, and she took advantage of the boldness her rage was giving her to speak her mind. “You think that I am an idiot? That I can’t understand Raegdan if he tries to talk honestly to me for a change? Do you think you are the only one who deserves to know the truth about him, just because you two sleep together?” she erupted.

Luna’s eyes widened in surprise. “I thought we were keeping our bedroom arrangement a secret!” she hissed at Raegdan sideways.

“Is she even talking about that, or-”

Luna brought her hoof down on the floor with force, the sound echoing in the deep, dark dungeon cell. “Enough! The point is moot. By the time I am done it won’t matter what they found out-”

Raegdan knelt beside Luna and pulled her against him in a one armed hug. “Luna… Let me do this instead, please?”

“They will never trust us, Raegdan, and we can’t trust them in turn!”

“It’s Twilight, Luna. If she can’t forgive me for this, even a little, then how are we going to accomplish anything? Luna, please.”

“Raegdan… if they talk, you will be killed. I won’t be able to save you. I no longer have the strength to stand alone against my sister. I understand why you hesitate to approve, but this is the only way we can make sure you will stay safe.” Luna whispered pleadingly.

“I know. Luna, it’s either me or you taking a fall at this point. Please. Let it be me.”

“This is an attempt to level the field between us once more, isn’t it? Raegdan, there is no need. I can-”

“What if Celestia finds out if you do this? We are not risking you-”

“No! I had enough of this. I am not losing what little I have left. I’ll wipe out their-”

“Luna,” Raegdan said with calmness in contrast to Luna’s panic. “I never told Celestia where the rift currently is. Worst they can do is kill me. But you…”

Luna trembled and slowly closed her eyes in surrender.

Raegdan gently run his gloved fingers through Luna’s mane as he rose up. “Twilight, get up and step back.” Twilight did as he asked. Raegdan unsheathed one of his daggers and used it as a lever to tilt the stone the stool was standing on. He got a hold of it and pulled it off, revealing a secret stash. Twilight was impressed. She would never had thought to search right below her, in the room’s middle, in a simple hole. She would have searched for magical imprints or a secret mechanism, not a hole in the ground, and after seeing the kind of clean up they performed she would not have even tried. From the hole he removed a box filled with papers and a rolled up canvas.

“Raegdan, please, don’t,” Luna begged.

“You wanted the truth, little one? Here it is!” He unrolled the canvas in front of her. Inside it, meticulously stashed, were a variety of tools. Twilight saw scissors, screwdrivers, hammers, pliers, nails, cutters, saws, files, and a lot of other similar things. Almost all of them were speckled with rust.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Your precious truth. You asked me what I did in here? This is what I did. I tortured and killed fourteen ponies, mares and stallions. Then, I ate most of their remains to dispose of them without being caught. I disguised them as a result of my hunts. The horn belonged to lucky number fifteen. I kept him alive and in as much horrific, excruciating pain as I could manage for almost a week. I tried for more, I really did, but I ran out of medical supplies. When he couldn’t take it any more he ended up like the others. I cut him apart, skinned him, ate him. That’s who you saw.” He pointed at the shattered horn on the ground.

Twilight looked back at the sharp instruments.

That wasn’t rust.

She backed up away from him. Fifteen ponies. He- he did this to fifteen ponies! She tried to gulp down something that had gotten stuck in her throat. She couldn’t keep her eyes from straying to a serrated knife. Some of its teeth had been broken off and… and there was something stuck between a few of the rest.

“Raegdan, I can still-” Raegdan brought a finger to Luna’s lips, keeping her from continuing.

“The truth. Nothing but the truth,” he mourned. “I made them beg for death, Twilight. I broke their hooves and hammered hot red nails through the cracks, all the way to the bone. I smashed and sawed off their horns. I ripped off their wings. I plucked out their eyes, I cut off their ears, and I pulled off their teeth one by one. I didn’t bother wasting my time doing this to all of them, most of them were simple thugs. But on a few special occasions, I got really creative.” His voice got lower and growling as he recited the torment he brought upon his victims.

Twilight could swear she felt a waft of sickening, metallic smell coming from that hideous pile of metal instruments. It took all of Twilight’s courage and resolve to stop herself from teleporting away that instant from this monstrosity, that had taken her stepfather’s form, to her friends’ side and get them out from here where this kind of slaughter took place. She still took two shaky steps towards them. They were right. Everypony who ever called him a monster was right. She just didn’t see it for so very long. She had been blind because the monster was on her side, wasn’t she? He mutilated ponies and he did not care, he did not even try to defend himsel-

“I killed him because he got in my way. I crushed him because he wanted to save his friend. I took him from you because he stopped me!”

Luna was looking at her with her eyes shining wet in the flickering torchlight, accusing her silently for the death her following actions would bring on her only friend. Raegdan was standing still next to her, his helmet turned away from Twilight, shoulders slumped in defeat. He didn’t believe Twilight would hide this from Celestia for him. He had given up and waited for Twilight to run off and bring Celestia’s wrath upon him. Once more, he offered no defense, no excuse for himself.

Twilight desperately wanted her mentor to help her. This was too much. She loved Raegdan to bits, once upon a time, but this was fifteen deaths they were talking about. This was a crime. Murder. Worse. He confessed and he called it the truth. The dried blood on the tools he used was proof enough to convince her.

But was it the whole truth?

“Why?”

“Why, what?” he asked back.

“Why did you do this to them? Even if you had a reason to want them dead, even if it was because they were the ones who foalnapped me… why did you torture them this way? Why didn’t you tell somepony about them instead?” She trembled. She wasn’t sure if it was fear or disgust. What the tartarus was happening? Just earlier today he… and now...

Oh, Celestia. Which was the real one? The father or the monster?

“Why I never told anyone about them is easy. I have no tangible proof I wish to offer that they did anything at all. All I had to go on was hints that took me years to assemble… and afterwards what they screamed in hopes I’d stop.” He was completely indifferent to what horror his words alluded. Luna seemed to worry, but only because he revealed what he did to them, not for his actions themselves.

“It took me a long time to find the first link in the chain. From then on, everything escalated quickly. The moment I got them in here they never stood a chance. They told me everything. So I kept moving on, from one to the next, until I got every single one of them, no matter where they hid, or who they were. Magical defenses and alarms were a joke and no bodyguard of theirs ever saw me coming,” he chuckled humorlessly. “You ponies barely know anything about stealth if it doesn’t involve invisibility and silence spells. Hell, I only delayed because I needed to rationalize my absences from the castle when I went after them by leaving on a hunt, and all that meat took a while to finish off.” Twilight heard Rarity behind her throw up.

“And all that… all that torture and killing… because they foalnapped me? Fifteen ponies dead in such a horrible way because you didn’t trust Princess Celestia to find proof? To bring them to justice?”

“Partially… but also because I am guilty of the same crime your brother is. We both prefer to keep a secret from her rather than hurt her by letting her know about something she can’t help with, or facts that would only bring her pain, even if she should be aware of them. Go ahead and ask him if he has told her about the bribed guards yet.” He raised his head away from the floor to look at her direction. “And as far as I’m concerned I was justice enough for those bastards. Anything else but me was a mercy they didn’t deserve.”

“Princess Celestia knows about the foalnapping, so that’s a load of horseapples,” Twilight said, harshly. “You are hiding something else. Tell me!” she demanded.

There was a slight hesitation. “Fine.” He motioned towards Applejack and Rarity. “You two can come near now.” He bent down and started searching through the papers in the box.

“I should have you bite it off,” Luna muttered.

“I’m sorry?” Raegdan said, distracted.

“You forced me to do it when I broke our promise the first time. You are killing yourself as surely as tying a rope around your neck. You should bite one off from your side,” Luna groused.

Raegdan waved his right hand in the air, palm and fingers spread open. “Tell you what, when they run off to your sister I’ll tear off the whole hand with my teeth. It will help fill the time until Celestia comes here to chain me up.” He returned to his search as Luna narrowed her eyes at him.

Twilight was perplexed by the whole exchange. There were whole layers of meaning in those few short sentences they kept exchanging, hints of a most strange relationship and their precious secrets. Trying to resolve them would distract her from the task at hoof however, so she chose to ignore them.

After a few seconds of sorting through, Raegdan had pulled a small stack together. “Here you go, little one.” He threw a paper out of the thin stack at her hooves.

“Don’t call me that!” Raegdan bowed his head at her clipped tone. “What’s this?” she asked.

“You.”

Twilight brought the paper in front of her, Applejack and Rarity reading along from her sides. There was a small photo included. It depicted a young unicorn filly with a white coat and a pink mane. The document was filled with personal info. Name, cutie mark -not earned yet-, parents, age -just eleven years old-, residence, an accounting of her disappearance-

It was a page out of a missing pony’s report. Poor little filly. But what did this have to do with her?

And why did she look vaguely familiar?

“I think you mixed up your pages there. That’s not mine,” Twilight said.

“No?” Raegdan questioned with fake surprise. “Are you sure? Well, maybe it’s this one then.”

A young pegasus mare, fourteen years old, cutie mark of a sun bursting through a cloud, light pink coat with a two colored mane of white and yellow.

“How about this one? Are you sure this isn’t you? Or maybe this one? One of these two maybe?”

Unicorn filly, eleven years old. Pegasus, thirteen. Earth pony, twelve years old. Another unicorn, thirteen years old too.

“I don’t understand. None of these have anything to do with my foalnapping. Will you stop your riddles and tell me straight out what this is about?” Twilight complained.

“You are right, little one. None of those girls is you. The reason is, I saved you.” Raegdan pushed his finger against Twilight’s forehead, below her horn. Twilight knocked it away with a hoof.

“That’s your defense? You saved me from getting lost like these poor fillies and that means what you did is excused?”

Rarity was still looking transfixed at the first report. “What- what happened to them? Why do you keep these?” she asked in a whisper.

Raegdan went back to digging through the box. He paused to take off his helmet and gloves, letting Twilight see his face. He didn’t look good. There were lines all over his face. Twilight noticed a new, hoof sized bruise on his cheek.

“You have a little sister I think?” he asked without looking. His fingers were dancing on the edges of the folders, their dexterity separating pages and thumbing through them at an amazing speed.

“Yes. Sweetie Belle,” Rarity answered warily. She was still afraid, but her fear had been tempered by her curiosity.

“Does she look a lot like you?”

“We are sisters,” Rarity simply said.

Raegdan finally found what he was looking for. He gave another few pages to Twilight. “Keep her at Ponyville. I can’t know about the rest of the large cities, but if something like this happened right under Celestia’s nose in Canterlot... It’s almost impossible that something like this could happen to her now, but why take the risk?”

Orphanage reports this time. Twilight skimmed them quickly.

“These have nothing to do with the missing fillies,” Twilight said. “Or me.”

“They don’t?” Raegdan asked. She really disliked the way he fed her little nuggets of information, keeping her on the edge. It was frustrating her and making her anger fade away. He always did that. Whenever he had something to teach her he brought her slowly to understanding with questions, inching her closer and closer to the answer.

“No, they don’t. These are all about newborn foals.”

“Compare the dates,” Raegdan instructed her.

Twilight put the files next to each other doing as he said. They were not the same, none of them were. She was missing something. What was she supposed to try to find out? Were these foals related in some way?

Rarity gasped beside her. She was still holding the first page Raegdan handed them. Her eyes were flickering in a panic from that page to another that Twilight was holding in her magic. Twilight compared the dates. Still not the same. There was a difference of a little over eleven months-

Her blood went cold the same moment her stomach churned in disgust.

“No. This can’t be true. This… abomination can’t happen in Canterlot.” She refused to believe what she was seeing. This was sick. This was grotesque. This was…

Applejack was grinding her teeth in righteous anger as Rarity whispered what she had figured out in her ear. Twilight could barely contain her tears. “Why… how could somepony do something like this?”

Raegdan collected the condemning papers out of Twilight’s trembling magic hold and back into the box. “Pretty, fertile young mares. Some of them with extraordinary physical attributes. Horns longer than normal. Large wings. A favored symbol for a cutie mark. Light coloring.” He looked at Twilight. “Magical strength far beyond what’s normal. And young enough to have multiple tries at a perfect newborn. At least, that was the excuse for some of them. For the others, it was just the fun of it. I’ve told you before, little one. Life's not fair.”

Oh Celestia. Oh Celestia, no. This was what they had in store for her back then?

This is what they did to these poor fillies?

“What happened to them?” she croaked out. This could have been her. She felt bile rise up her throat.

Raegdan shrugged. “I took too long for most of them. One of them smashed her own head open just as soon as I untied her. I... I didn’t stop her. Another one committed suicide the day after I left her at her home. Two of them are in a mental hospital, one of them catatonic. I can’t just go and ask about them, but I don’t think they have gotten any better yet. I doubt they ever will. They had been... used for years.”

“What about the other two?” Applejack asked.

“They seem to be coping so far. I had them swear not to tell what happened to them. In return, I promised them I’d make sure this would not happen again -and I did- and some financial aid for them and the others, or their families. I check up on them from time to time. It helps them stay sane if they have someone to vent to.”

“You… you saved them!” Rarity breathed in amazement.

Raegdan picked up his helmet again. He didn’t put it back on, he kept it in front of him, examining it. He pricked one of his fingers on the central horn, a drop of red blood crawling down on it. “Not much of a rescue, was it?” he said with another one of his shrugs.

“Too little, too late,” he added in a brooding whisper.

“You still didn’t completely explain why you never told Princess Celestia about… this,” Twilight pointed out.

“What, is it so hard to believe that I was reluctant to go up to her and say “Hey, Celestia. I killed a few more of your subjects right behind your back, fifteen of them, catch you later.” What would it serve anyway? They were dead and she would only blame herself when she had no way of knowing. There are… things going on that she doesn’t know about, she has no way to know about them. Too many lies, interests, and people, between her and those who need her. I have no idea about most either, but I have more… experience than her in what dark crap people can get into and I’m a really suspicious bastard. Maybe I should have kept one of them alive and face the punishment for my actions, I realized that later, but you know… moron.” He shrugged. “Now I can’t prove crap and I have no idea about their connections with other nasty business they were implicated into because I didn’t think to ask while… I can’t imagine something worse than this going on, not even I expected to see this happen here, but that doesn’t mean they are less bad either. Yeah, I’d rather rip out my own heart than see her expression when she hears about all that,” he finished bitterly.

He kicked the box back into the hole. “There’s your whole truth, Twilight. At least, as far as you are getting. I’m not giving you names. There are some secrets that are not mine to give. Now that you got most of what you wanted, what are you going to do?” he asked her. That was a good question. What was she going to do?

Twilight pulled the girls back to discuss their next move under a silence spell. Luna finally approached Raegdan and sat next to him. They both looked ready to wait an eternity for Twilight and her friends to come to a decision.

How did the tables turn like that from a few minutes ago? When had they stopped being the accused and become judge, jury and… and executioner?

“This still doesn’t make it right,” Rarity told them. “I know I wouldn’t say the same if that had been Sweetie Belle. That unicorn filly looked so much like her... I really, really want to keep my mouth shut and let him get away with it, but…”

“Rules are there for a reason,” Applejack grumbled.

“Yes. On the other hoof… those girls wouldn’t share the same opinion would they? Or their families.” Rarity wiped her eyes. “It’s so easy to say that what he did was right, or what he did was wrong. I wish I knew for sure which one it was. It’s hard to tell when the decision is on you.”

“I know,” Applejack agreed. “It sickens me to think what those poor girls went through, their families losing them to that… Ah wouldn’t stoop to torture, but if ah had those responsible right here in front of me… ah think I’d be guilty for murder too. What he did however, that wasn’t right either. There’s a thing called due process, right?”

“Yes,” Twilight said. “He has no proof that what he did was excused. He didn’t have the right to do these horrible things. Torture is not accepted by Princess Celestia’s laws for any reason, and even if it were it would be by her permission alone. By all accounts, in a court of law, he would be found guilty.” Twilight kept her stare on the floor. She didn’t want to look towards Raegdan or Luna. She didn’t want to make this kind of judgement.

“Would he?” Rarity wondered.

“What do ya mean?”

“Well, he doesn’t have solid proof that those ponies were guilty. At least, none that he is willing to give. On the other hoof, there is no proof that he actually did anything, is there? He made sure of it.” Rarity noted.

“What about these… tools?” Applejack pointed towards the still rolled out canvas.

“Bloody knives in the room he uses to butcher the animals he catches for meat?” Rarity was thoughtful. “I doubt Luna would let this pass as concrete evidence. I don’t know if they can figure out who the blood belonged to however.”

“They can’t,” Twilight said. “Not after so much time. The spells won’t detect anything.” She kept thinking of Raegdan letting Spike climb on his shoulders, laughing as he threw him on a mattress only for Spike to start climbing all over him again. Spike’s little claws cut him a little sometimes, but Raegdan never complained. He just kept playing with him, keeping the baby dragon busy and entertained.

“There are the fillies he rescued,” Applejack reminded them.

“Yes. Everything would rather depend on them, wouldn’t it? What do you think they would do?” Rarity asked.

Applejack took off her hat and gave it a brief pat to clear some dust that wasn’t there before putting it back on. “Probably not condemn the guy who saved them from all that.”

“So all we have for certain is his own confession. We could try to give him in. We would probably succeed. No pony would take his word over ours would they?” Rarity asked for confirmation she didn’t really need. They all knew what would happen if Twilight would point at him and cry out “murderer”.

“That wouldn’t be right either, would it?” Applejack kicked at the floor in frustration. “We would be throwing him to the wolves and they would eat him up because they don’t like him or Luna, not for what he did or didn’t do.”

“Which means there wouldn’t be much of a fair trial for him,” Rarity huffed.

“There wasn’t any trial of any kind for those mystery ponies either,” Applejack reminded Rarity. “Just his own brand of vigilantism. But you are right. It ain’t sticking right with me to do near the same with him.”

“You don’t want to give him in either, do you?” Rarity whispered, shamefully.

“After seeing the pictures of those fillies and knowing what happened to them? No. Ah might change my opinion later, when it really hits me what he did to all those ponies, but right now ah want to pat him in the back and say “good job”. Twilight, if we tell Celestia about this… what will she do?”

“I don’t know,” Twilight confessed. “She will probably imprison him and start an investigation. She will do her best to give him a fair trial. Which means she might distance herself away from it so she won’t influence it to his advantage either. Or she might support him. I… can’t know for sure, not anymore.”

“And while she does that, what will Luna do?” Rarity asked.

Twilight tried to estimate the Alicorn’s actions. “She will try to get him out of it in all likelihood. Support him. Whatever little leeway she still has will get torn apart in the process if she defends these kind of actions, and she will. There will be a rift with her sister again, I just know it. And without Raegdan or us on her side -I doubt she will want to even see us after this- whoever wants her dead…”

They pondered the implications of their decision in silence.

Rarity listed their options. “So if we stay silent, we let him get away with torture and the murder of fifteen ponies. We would become accomplices in a way actually. If we talk, he will end up dead. Either by law or some knife in the back. Luna might end up the same way, or worse, we could get another incident similar to Nightmare Moon again, right?”

“If we end up getting him killed?” Applejack asked, disbelievingly. “She is gonna have the guts of everypony involved. Ah don’t think Raegdan is gonna allow her to do anything risky to herself or us, but the moment he is dead and gone? She is gonna go berserk, ah’m sure.”

“We are not telling anypony. Not yet,” Twilight suddenly decided. It was as if a light guided her path. There was only one way out of this that she could see and she would follow through. She brought her silence spell down and marched in front of the waiting pair. She would do the right thing this time. No more hiding behind her hoof. Raegdan kept telling her all the time… well, now she believed him. Even if he saved those girls, that had to be an accident. He wouldn’t do this for them. There was no true pity or kindness in his heart. He just pretended, always acting, always wearing a mask, over a mask, over another mask. She was certain that she knew what hid beneath all his lies now.

A monster.

If Rainbow Dash wasn’t her friend he would have broken her, just like Leaf Stream. If Pinkie Pie wasn’t her friend he would have let her die. If Rarity wasn’t her friend he would kill her for entering his armory. If Applejack wasn’t her friend he would kill her too for knowing his secret.

This creature belonged in this very cell, with the door locked and barred, never allowed to see daylight again.

“We will continue as we were, as if nothing ever happened. We will keep helping you, for Luna and Celestia’s sake. Here’s the trade off. The moment that Luna’s position is secure, when you are both safe and we can be certain there will be a fair trial… you will confess to Princess Celestia. There will be no more secrets like this from you.” Twilight laid down her terms.

Luna’s motion to protest was stopped by Raegdan. “Agreed, little one,” he said with a quiet serenity.

Twilight narrowed her eyes. “Don’t call me that, not anymore. Maybe you were right in doing that, or maybe you were not. I can’t believe a liar like you that every single one of them deserved everything of what you did to them, and even if they did, you had no right. I can’t even trust your word that any of this happened, if those girls even existed, or that… madness happened to them. I won’t be the one to decide that though. But what I know is that you lied to me, you hurt me, you threatened my friends, and you tried to force me to choose between you and what I was taught to believe in, and I will not forgive you for any of this. I’m not going to cover for you anymore, or turn a blind eye to what you do. The slightest suspicious activity, from either of you two, and I’ll let Princess Celestia know everything.”

“Littl- Twilight… I’m sorry.”

“No, you are not.” Twilight’s breath hitched on her throat. “You are sorry that now I understand what you really are, not for what you did.” Twilight turned her back on it and Luna. “Let’s go. We need to be up early tomorrow to tackle the last few chores, and Rarity still has to prepare herself for tomorrow’s dance with Prince Blueblood. Unless you’ve changed your mind, Rarity?”

“No, I… will go ahead with it.”

Twilight led her friends out, slamming shut the heavy door behind her. Raegdan and Luna kept their heads low as they left. She heard it yell for her when they had almost reached the stairs heading up to the upper dungeons.

“Twilight? Twilight, please don’t tell little flame or little pink! Twilight? Twilight!”

She didn’t bother answering back to that thing.

It was longer than an hour afterwards that the silence broke in the dank cell.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you hiding your horn behind me.”

“I would have told you. I wasn’t going to hide this from you.”

“I know. It’s fine Luna.”

“They would have told Celestia. Twilight wasn’t sure what to do and believed that she should know what’s been happening behind her back. By everyone.”

“I know, it’s ok Luna, I don’t blame you. Did you… make her hate me? Would she have forgiven me otherwise?”

“I… don’t know. Mind control is a misnomer. I put some dams in the river of their thoughts. I don’t take over the consciousness, not unless I have no other choice.”

“At least… she won’t suspect we did this to them. Not if it ended this way for me.”

“I’m sorry. Maybe she will change her mind or I could give it another shot later on.”

“Don’t. I don’t need their love. I’ll be… fine.”

“She might talk later. Or her friends might.”

“I don’t think so. If they didn’t go for it now… still, putting some inhibitions about it on them would not be amiss. You need to put some more “dams” about this on Shining Armor. Maybe reinforce those on him already too.”

“First thing tomorrow. I feel as if time is pressing us. Celestia suspects too much, she is just stalling like she always does. We can’t win against her, not on our own while she has the Elements and her guards. “Law” and “Justice” lie in the hooves of those who have the power to force it and right now she is the absolute law. We only get one chance Raegdan.”

“We can’t afford to wait or rely on the girls alone. I think we should start plan B in the meanwhile.”

“That’s a risk. Plus, we will need to waste time to train them.”

“We would need to train them anyway even if they were guards, we have to make soldiers out of them. Besides, they might turn out more loyal to you if we work extensively on them. Let’s just start scouting them out. If the girls’ way works out, we will have our forces complete even faster.”

“I will begin tonight. Can we head to bed now?”

“Sure. Do you think they can find those who keep trying to kill us?”

“Not unless we let them. I’ve done some work on Rarity already. She will fail.”

“Rainbow Dash?”

“We will let her do her part and tell Shining Armor everything she finds out. They are both ours practically. We might learn something new and interesting.”

“Luna?”

“Yes?”

“It hurts.”

Interlude 3 - Dead monsters

The Everfree Forest is pretty much the same as it always was. A thousand years later and the feeling it was pervaded with remained constant and unchanging. A sense of deep, unnatural darkness overtook you as soon you took cover beneath its canopy and dread filled your whole being. The slightest movement became the covert passage of a stalker and the faintest of sounds was the measured approach of a predator sizing you up before its charge.

The shadows in here were not the soothing gentleness of my night in an open field. They were oppressive and threatening, refuge and concealment for a thousand possible fates. A dark patch on the uneven ground could hide a hole for the unsuspecting to trip on or break their leg, leaving them sprawled among the gnarly roots for the hungry residents to defile and feast on. The disfigured branches played their own twisted shadow theatre, creating so many hungry puppets reaching out for the passing traveller that their tired eyes would soon take them for granted and ignore the deadly real threat that hid among them.

The Everfree shadows were not anyone’s allies, not for the strangers that strode into it or the residents of these woods .

I felt more at home in this dangerous forest than I did at that unknown castle with my sister. At least here I knew what to expect and what was expected. I wondered if my companion did. He seemed strangely exuberant.

“You understand that we only have little more than an hour of daylight at best before night arrives?” I try to warn him. He has told me that he has hunted here often, but given his horrific timing and what seems to be unconcern for the threats of the Everfree Forest, I find myself questioning him for the first time since we met. Granted, we would only skim the relative edge of the forest and stay far away from the deep depths where the true horrors lied, but even the comparatively safety of this area translated to monsters that could kill us in seconds if caught unaware.

“Exactly as planned,” Raegdan says. He kneels down and bends the bow so he can finally brace the string on it. It takes considerable effort for him to do it. The wood is thick and the string lightly vibrates as it struggles to keep it from springing back straight.

“You wanted to hunt at night?” I can barely believe that he would try something like this in a simple hunt for food. If this is an attempt to impress me-

“No. I just don’t like spending the whole day cramped in a little niche in the bushes waiting for something to come by.” He uses his shoulder to hang the bow on his body and picks up one of the spears. He throws the second one to me and I grasp it in my magic. “Usually, I just spend an hour or two hunting. If I don’t kill anything by then, some monster will invariably start hunting me at nightfall. I just need to keep on guard and I have my meal delivered to me.”

“Is this your usual hunting ground?”

“It used to be. The last couple of years I’ve been hunting further south. I like to keep the area near Ponyville as clean as I can. If we had gone there I’d have packed axes instead of spears. There are too many timberwolves down there for some reason. They avoid me now though so it’s hard to put them down.”

“What happens if what comes after you can overpower you? A cockatrice for example.” The spear is pretty good. He has changed the handle I notice, replacing it with a much longer one. A bad choice for an earth pony or a pegasus, but for him, and my use of magic, the extra distance is always welcome.

Raegdan was walking carefully, his attention dedicated to inspecting the ground for tracks. Maybe I judged his wilderness skills too harshly. He seems to know how to differentiate recent tracks from old ones at least and he can certainly take care of himself. “Cockatrice. Is that the one that looks like a chicken snake with the petrifying stare?” he asks.

I wait for him to look back at me and then I nod.

“I hope we do run into one. They taste just like chicken, even the snake part, and they are easy to kill.” He taps the area right next to his eyes. “Their stare doesn’t work on me you see. I swear, I saw the last one actually sweat before I killed it. You know, predator meat is usually not good at all but I would take cockatrice over everything else in here, even boar.”

Intriguing. A hunting partner that was immune to some of the most fiendishly difficult opponents. Magic like abilities were always among the worst to deal with. Usually, a moment of distraction meant the death of those who made the mistake.

“How about a manticore?” I challenge him with a more physical encounter.

“I have killed two already so no go.” He lifted up his spear as if to show it off while we walked deeper into the forest. We were still near the northern edge; we had to head even more inwards before having a good chance to find prey, so we still had the opportunity to talk. “They jump for the kill like idiots. I just placed the end of the spear against the ground, held it in place with my foot, and waited for them to land on it.”

“Just like that?”

“I may or may not have been mauled a bit before that the first time but I was the one who walked- well, crawled away in the end. I found a nice, comfortable hole to hide in until I was strong enough to have a chance to make it out alive, you know the drill.” I nod along as he talks, I know the drill indeed. “I didn’t have to make it all the way out on my own though. Your sister got worried after two days and came to find me in person. She came into the forest and actually started calling out loud for me. That’s why I no longer tell her when and where I go hunting. I’m not saying she can’t deal with most of what creeps in here, just…”

We walk along in silence for a while.

“The second one I finished off in seconds though. Its meat was hard and tasted like old leather so it really wasn’t worth it.”

I could have told him that. I weigh the spear I hold. A pony might have trouble properly setting the spear to kill a manticore this way, but with the extra length I could picture the manticore’s flesh sliding deeper and deeper under its own mass. I could spot the obvious disadvantage in this method of killing it however.

“And how would you fare if your blow failed to kill it?”

“Meh,” he voices. I chuckle at this.

This in itself is a victory for him. My… banishment had robbed me of many things, my laughter among them. Raegdan was terrified upon the realization of what I had lost while I struggled to even understand the notion once more. He had gone to great, and now I recognize them as ridiculous, lengths to spring laughter out of my heart once more. He had tried jokes, games, and even resorted to slapstick with himself as both the perpetrator and victim. I could now finally laugh at the memory of how his long body circled in the air when he, with great presence of mind, stepped on the banana peel he had surreptitiously dropped a few minutes ago. It was an amazingly stupid and stale joke but when he said he’d try everything, he meant it. He didn’t give up until I had honestly laughed for the first time in centuries.

And have I mentioned how refreshing it is to finally be accompanied by someone who shrugs at the idea of pain, killing, or dying? Raegdan did not fear being hurt. He liked to avoid it if possible but if he had to he would place his hands in a fire with another one of his common shrugs. Someone sensible to interact with at last.

Raegdan has given some thought to the scenario I presented him with. He shrugs again, making me chuckle. “I’d play it by ear I guess. A lot depends on how much it got hurt, whether it would manage to slug me while being so close to me-”

“You’d have lost your spear at this point,” I remind him.

“So I’d back up a little and hit it with an arrow I suppose? Worst case scenario, I leave empty handed. No, wait,” he corrects when he sees me lift an eyebrow at this, “worst case it rips off my head. But at this point there is no need to guess what I would be doing, is there?”

As I said, refreshing.

I try to think of something else he might not have ran into in his previous hunts. Something different than a manticore or a cockatrice. A flying predator perhaps.

“How about a wyvern? Have you ever seen one?” Wyverns were much more dangerous opponents. Flying, fast, agile, moderately resistant to magic, and their stingers were imbued with one of the deadliest venoms you could encounter. I had seen ponies lost to the merest scratch. I had been lucky, or good enough, to never find out how resistant, if any, I am to their venom.

He has stopped beside a burnt out tree, the sad victim of a lightning storm, and examines the sky through its naked branches.

“It depends. Are they larger than me, green, have a beaked kind of snout, and a long tail that looks like a whip with a hooked knob at the end?”

“A pretty good description,” I concur.

“Then yes. Two of them,” he answers.

I’m impressed. When I was at my best, I would have hesitated to take on more than four of them at a time even with the element of surprise. “When was that?” I am very curious to hear this story.

“Just now,” he says and points upwards. I anxiously stride to his side and look through the narrow window the burnt tree provides. I manage to catch a short glimpse of two wyverns circling above before they fly towards the west. I saw enough in that little time.

“Those were young ones,” I tell my companion. “Their skin was still mottled with brown.”

“I noticed that. I thought it was just camouflage for the forest.” Now that the wyverns have gone out of sight he has turned his attention back to our surroundings. Good. He hasn’t forgotten where we stand.

“It is. Wyverns are late fliers and hunt on the ground in their early life. But their presence indicates they have a nest to our west nearby. Their numbers can easily run wild, and given how close we are to the forest’s edge…”

“Some ponies are going to be lunch sooner or later?” he guesses. I nod once more. I’m not sure if I honestly care at all about this possibility anymore but going after such an inviting target is an ingrained part of me. The idea of combat was too tantalizing after sitting on my flank for so long. “You know Luna,” he says nonchalantly, “we came here to hunt. You do remember that?”

He was right. This short hunting trip was for his benefit, I only came along because he invited me. He has been sneaking daily into my chambers for the last two months -the guards still have no idea that he slips around them- to talk and spend time with me and this is the first time we left Canterlot. If it wasn’t for him I would still be trapped in my own room waiting for the next ticking of the clock to pass the time.

If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be doing even that.

These two months have been a struggle for me, for both of us. I told him things I never expected to share with another living soul. Raegdan in turn shared his own secrets with me. Places we have been, creatures we have fought, acts we committed, people we lost. There were too many of them all.

Amidst those late night conversations we had found ourselves drawn back to the one question that a silky, inviting voice whispered seductively in both of our heads, again and again. Why keep on going? What could make this struggle worth it anymore when you had nothing left?

We haven’t figured out a good enough answer yet, not solid enough at least. When you have been pushed beyond your limits, when you have no other choice but to lash out, screaming against injustice at a world that does not care, cannot care, are you still the one to entirely blame for your actions? I wasn’t sure about the answer and neither was he, but we agreed on one thing. Whether we were to blame or not, we did accept that these actions, in the end, were our own. There was a choice, there always had been, even if it was between death or depravity. And as for punishment, retribution, the pretension of fairness that so many clinged to... should there be one? If the punishment is a grace and relief like no other… do you still give it or deny it?

Reprisal could not touch us. How could it? We had gone far beyond our mere deaths to being proper justice, laughable concept as it was, even if we would not welcome it. There was only one horror for each of us that could torment us adequately.

But even if we had been ten times the monsters we became, we would not deserve that! It was too much. This torture… there were no words to describe the crushing loneliness and the loss of self in a sea of inner terror. Neither of us would face banishment again. We would see this world burnt down to ashes before this happened once more to either of us. We’d rather kill everyone and everything than.. than...

The path of retribution was barred with the twin chains of want and fear… that left us with only one other possibility to consider. But it wasn’t time yet. Our plans were still in infancy, mere shades hinting at the idea of an outline at this point. We were going to build our arms and prepare for a war they had no chance to win. Scout them out and aim for the chinks in the armor of this kingdom before we strike. Not on our own, the two of us would not be enough. We were discussing a possibility that could be the key in everything, a small army trained to our standards. This time, we would do our worst in the best way possible. Their disdain would not influence us. Their animosity was unimportant. We would show these fools what hid in the deepest darkness.

And that in the absolute murky depths they would find us.

“You are correct,” I tell him as I return to the present. “We are here to hunt.”

“Still,” he says thoughtfully. “Nest, huh? It would be faster than just wandering around, and I’ve never had wyvern before…” Oh, I misjudged so much. So this is how he would excuse our venture? “I wouldn’t mind having an exciting hunting story either. Besides, Ponyville is not that far from here for something that can fly. I’m not letting these things come anywhere near my kids. Let’s go play exterminators. West, right?”

Why couldn’t he have been here a millenia ago?

“I count six of them,” I whisper to my companion. The wyverns have found a large clearing to nest in. I see two breeding pairs among them and there’s a raised, freshly dug area on the ground, right in the center, that I’m certain hides their eggs.

“Seven,” he answers back. His hand reaches out and gently moves a few of the leaves out of my line of sight, with one finger pointing slightly upwards at the same time. Behind the dense branches of a tree I spot movement. He was right. Seven wyverns.

We keep watching from the deep shadows as the sun sets. The wyverns get agitated all the more as time passes. They must be hungry. The area around us was devoid of most animals. It would not be long until they expanded their hunting territory.

“We may have missed more of them,” I instruct him. There could be more hidden deeper into the edge of the clearing or flying above. Others could be hunting, but might soon return if they heard their nestmates call out.

Raegdan slowly and quietly places down his spear and nocks an arrow, briefly sighting down his target before lowering it. “More, less, does it make a difference?” he asks with a shallow shrug. “Is there a chance that we are going to turn around and beg for the guards to come help us?”

The idea alone makes me feel as if I tasted something foul. I may have often conscripted aid but I never left the field like a coward in order to seek help. If I had to achieve victory on my own, as it often was the case, then I did so. I was weaker now but I was not helpless. I still had my pride, my old experience, and the lessons thousands of fights have taught me.

“Wyverns are resistant to magic,” I whisper. “Even with my old strength, I could not gain victory over this many in a fair fight on my own without fatal risk.”

“Who says we are going to let this be a fair fight? What are we, idiots? And don’t forget, this time you are not on your own. How resistant are they to an arrow in the chest?”

“None at all,” I chuckle. “They may look slightly draconic but their physical defense is nothing like them. Their wing musculature conjoins at the chest though, so your arrows better have enough power to pierce through them. Remember, beware their tail. Their venom is not magic.”

He looks around, carefully examining the area we hide in. This part of the forest is especially thick in an outstanding contrast to the clear area in front of us. The trees are too close to each other and fallen branches, logs, and giant rocks made our approach from this angle problematic, at least for me. Raegdan had no problem navigating around, over, or beneath each obstacle, using his hands to hold his balance or briefly falling on all fours to silently creep over the trickier surfaces. “Alright. Depending on what you can do, I think I might have a plan.”

“They outnumber us four to one at least, maybe more if we are particularly unlucky. If you have an idea I’m all ears.”

“First, we are going to surround them...”

He gave me thirty minutes to make my way to the other side of the clearing and prepare, having already lost almost twenty five of them to just repositioning myself. I felt like an amateur. He would have made it in half the time at most with the way he moves. Hooves are great for striking your opponent, but I would trade them in a heartbeat for the functionality and stealth granted by his appendages.

Carrying both spears, most of his arrows, and keeping active the tether with the three arrows I had positioned at his location did not help matters either. I endeavored to keep my horn’s treacherous glow as low as possible, so I held everything with my wings and teeth. Dexterity dies a disgraceful death when you carry two spears about two meters long each. Dignity follows soon after but nopony saw me at the moment.

I only have seconds before we begin the assault. I do a quick recount as I spread the arrows in position. I count two more wyverns. Nine in total.

Nine wyverns. If there were more than that or they caught whiff of us before we were ready we were doomed. My magic was no longer strong enough to hurt them easily and Raegdan had nothing but his bow, four arrows, and a knife. I could teleport to his side, risking an injury in the tangled area, but one spear in his hands would not save us. One scratch from their stingers and it was over for both of us. I suppose I could fly and escape if it came to it but…

What would be the point?

I cannot help but feel more excited than I have been in a long time as I silently count down the seconds left. Seventeen. Sixteen. A fight against overwhelming odds with a worthy companion at my side for once. If our plan worked we would take down the majority of them with ease, any of them remaining would have to be dispatched the old fashioned way. My tongue slides over my teeth in anticipation. A single wyvern could be death on its own if you fought it carelessly in close quarters. Seven. Six. Even if the hasty plan failed, I could barely wait for us to begin. My heart was drumming a familiar beat. This, this is what I had been made for, what I had been doing for centuries. Four. I was once again risking my life; kill or be killed. Three. Raegdan was doing the same, his hard earned instincts crying for bloodshed. Two. There was nothing like this thrill. Nothing could ever compare.

One.

The hunt was on.

I saw the glint of the recently raised moon on the arrow as it flew towards its target. It hit its mark with devastating strength. It actually knocked the wyvern slightly backwards. When it fell, I saw the arrow had embedded itself almost two thirds in despite the distance and the wyvern’s mass..

The rest of the wyverns hissed and cried out when they saw their dead nestmate. All of their vital organs were located in their chest, tightly packed. A single hit with enough power to pierce the dense muscles and thin scales surrounding them would fell them every time. For their large size and ferocious attacks they could be slain easily with the proper strike. Raegdan’s heavy bow had strength to spare. His preference for a single fateful strike made them easy prey to his weapon of choice.

The pack had started moving towards Raegdan but stopped when I used my magic to make the nearby branches rustle loudly. As one, the wyverns seized their advance and seemed torn between choosing a direction to attack or defend from.

A second arrow was let loose. Not as fast on the draw as I had hoped but it was dark, his bow was heavier than anything ponies ever used, and he hadn’t practiced for fast volleys. I only wished he would not miss. He only had two more chances to thin their numbers.

He did not miss. The wyverns had remained still, only moving their heads as they scanned the woods for their quarry. Another one fell. Seven remaining, hopefully.

The wyverns had spotted where the mysterious strikes were coming from. They unleashed a screeching cry that silenced the forest around us and soared for their target in a straight line, ignoring any further distractions I made. Disappointing but expected. Another arrow easily found its mark, this one piercing a wyvern through the soft neck and down its torso. Six of them left.

I could barely keep myself from charging in among them through their vulnerable flank, or unleashing a magic bolt of my own, but I had to stick to the plan.

I spotted Raegdan standing up while drawing on his last arrow. That was too much of a risk. He should have already ran. They were getting too close. He let loose, dropped the weapon and ran into the trees without waiting to see the result. He had missed this one. I huffed in disappointment. Really, they had been in spitting distance and the best he could do was slightly discomfort one of them with a small hole on its leather wing. How did he manage to kill the first three and entirely miss this one? Still, three of them dead was an amazing success, far beyond our expectations.

The wyverns follow him under the trees, folding their wings and using their claws to speed on the ground. They were unbelievingly fast but we hoped that Raegdan would prove faster in the tangled area they followed him into. As long as he did not trip, he should make it.

We hoped. It was completely dark among the thick trees and he had less than thirty minutes to memorize the route he would take.

I use the time I have to charge up my spell. I wanted each arrow to have at least as much force behind it as his own. He would never let me hear the end of it if they just bounced off their chest. Of course, in that case we would be dead so there was really no point in obsessing over this eventuality. Angry thrashing, wood splintering, and Raegdan’s taunting bellows are heard from the forest across.

A little over a minute afterwards Raegdan makes his way into the clearing from the same point the wyverns entered. He had managed to take them in a circle. Good. That meant they would be after him any moment now, packed together and in position.

Scant seconds later the wyverns scampered out of the dense forest edge. They stood still for a moment as they located their prey and unfolded their wings. They soared low to the ground and charged for the meat that brought them so much trouble.

“Luna?” Raegdan yelled out as he ran towards me. He sounded out of breath and exhilarated. He had been having fun.

Time to have my own. I smirk in anticipation. Just a little bit closer. The glow of my horn intensifies, shining his way to me like a lighthouse.

“Now!” I yell back. He dives to the ground as I instructed him, rolling in a smooth motion to bring himself looking the other way around. At the same time I unleash my spell.

Twenty three arrows give in to the pressure that was building inside them and are magnetically pulled towards the three arrowheads I had tethered them to at the other side of the clearing. The sudden discharge of magic dazes me for a few moments but it was nothing compared to how I would have felt if I tried the same through more traditional spellcasting.

I do not waste time trying to witness the result. Raegdan is unarmed. I grab the two spears and dash right behind the arrows’ path, making my way towards him.

The spell had been an unmitigated success. Five more wyverns lie dead, pierced like pincushions. Or not. I can barely make out the feathers at their end, so deeply they have penetrated their target. Using magnetism instead of pure force to launch the arrows worked as efficiently as he promised. Bolts of pure magic be damned, I had a new favorite method of killing. The last of the monstrosities, the one Raegdan had made a hole on its wing, had been sheltered by its brethren in front of it. I throw one of the spears towards Raegdan as it slowly comes for us. We make our way to opposite sides around it without the need to communicate our intent.

The wyvern screeches angrily and turns towards me. A wise choice made by the unthinking animal. I had a greater reach than Raegdan with the spear and I was the more dangerous opponent.

It lunges forward, trying to bite me with its beak shaped snout. I cannot help but take the opportunity it gives me for a strike. As the wyvern’s head reaches for me I smack it sideways with the spear. Raegdan takes the chance he was given by its attack to cut apart the leather wing, grounding it. He is too close to it, which is a boon as the envenomed tail end fails to pierce him. The whip like tail however hits him hard enough to launch him slightly backwards, dropping him on the ground, the spear falling from his grasp. The stinger bites downwards for him, but he started moving as soon as he landed and he rolls away from it. Too close, too damn close. He needs a distraction.

I slash at the right wing. This wyvern will certainly not be able to escape us now. Nine of these creatures die tonight, no matter what.

The wyvern ignores me and my strike. Instead, it focuses on Raegdan despite my efforts. As he makes his way onto his feet, the wyvern’s neck snaps forwards like a snake uncoiling. He barely dodges once more, but his right hand snaps forward in an instinctive counterattack.

The wyvern’s eye pops like a grape as his fingers dig in and squeeze. It thrashes its head in pain and Raegdan is once again launched backwards, this time much harder, his manic laughter silenced by the lack of air in his lungs. He is an easy victim where he lies, lumbering back upright as fast as he can manage, but with a single flare of light from my horn and a challenging yell I finally attract the wyvern’s attention to me.

I could end this easily with my magic. One single wyvern was easy prey, even as I was now. Raegdan fought without magic, however, and it would be poor manners to show him up.

Besides, it’s so much more fun this way.

The wyvern slashes wildly with the talons at the tips of its folded wings. I dodge the first and sidestep the second, feeling the air vibrate right past my snout, and give it a shallow cut when it snaps with another attempt to take a bite out of me. I growl in frustration. A little bit closer and I could have torn its throat open.

As it was I got too close for nothing. The wyvern unfolds one of its wings and pummels me with enough speed and strength to make me falter. I did not expect it to strike back in this way to gain this kind of reach and now I have handed over the initiative advantage on a silver platter. My balance is off, my side aches, and it might have sprained my own wing.

The wyvern whips its tail behind it, forcing Raegdan who had approached to duck low, and tries to puncture me with it. I desperately jump back with the aid of my wings despite the pain, barely avoiding the fatal gash it would have made. The wyvern lets out a hiss, spreads its talons, and prepares to leap towards me in an attempt to overtake me. I am still too close to avoid such an attack from something this large with no injury. I brace myself for the mangling to come but then the wyvern gets tugged violently backwards.

Raegdan had grabbed hold of its tail and dragged it away from me with an almost psychotic smile. His legs were working like pistons, overpowering even the two legged clawed hold of the much heavier wyvern on the dirt and stone.

The wyvern let out another frustrated scream, stopped struggling to move away, and turned its long neck towards my companion. Raegdan was risking being eaten alive to give me the opening I needed. I rush forward, aiding the thrust of my magic hold with my physical momentum. The metal point sinks into its flesh, meets some resistance as it rips apart tendons and muscles, and then slices apart lungs and it’s heart. A fountain of blood rushes out of the heavy wound caused by the spear on the side of its chest as the wyvern folds to the ground, some of it spraying on me. I felt a little disappointed with the short length of the battle even though it gave us quite a bit of trouble. Maybe I should have made sure that a second one had survived. One versus one would have made for a better, longer fight that could chip off the rust off me more efficiently. I can’t believe I let myself get hit like that.

Next time, I’ll be the bait. At least Raegdan got a better dose of adrenaline by having them snap at his heels.

Raegdan was inspecting his arms, searching the myriad of scratches he had on them for one gained by the wyvern. His action had been a little reckless but I could not deny its effectiveness nor the amusement he and I derived from it. As long as he hasn’t been harmed that is. That wyvern had been whipping its tail way too much around him.

“Anything?” I ask somewhat anxious as he brings his bleeding forearm closer to his eyes.

He shakes his heads after a few seconds. “No. These are all from my run in there,” he says as he points towards the forest. “What’s the score?”

I laugh, finally overtaken with the sweet scent of victory. “I took down six of them. You got three.” That’s right. The Lady of the Night might have to work off some crinkles but she is still undefeated.

“I claim half a point for this one. Plus, I shot four times,” he complains with a frown.

“Your last one missed.”

“What, at that distance? Damn, I suck-” we get interrupted from a furious screech behind him.

A lone adult wyvern had returned to its nest and saw the two of us standing over the remains of its nestmates. My spear was still lodged in the last kill’s chest and Raegdan had dropped his somewhere I could not see. I spread my wings and rush in front of him as the wyvern dives with massive speed. I would shield him and buy him time to find his weapon.

Death after a victory of such ease, despite the strength that stood against us, was stinging my pride. At least wyvern venom was almost instant and this one was ready to pierce me through. I stand my ground as its stinger comes towards my inviting torso-

The world becomes a blur. My stomach aches as my body is rushed into a speed it was not prepared for and my lungs empty forcefully when I crash against a fleshy obstacle.

I fall to the ground dazed and confused. I manage to get a glimpse of Raegdan pressing his knee on the wyvern’s head to hold it down before he savagely plunges his hand through its eye socket almost down to his elbow, reaching for its brain.

I think I hit my head, or my sudden lurch and stop nauseated me beyond reason. I close my eyes and painfully throw up. My side hurts and one of my back legs is either sprained or dislocated. I spit to clean my mouth from the remains of the vomit and try to get my breath back. Before I have the chance to, a slimy hand grabs my face and forcefully pushes me on my back.

“What did you think you were doing?” Raegdan yells into my face, overpowering the ringing in my ears with ease.

“I tried to stop it…” I protest weakly. Oh stars, I can smell the wyvern’s fluids on his hand.

“Bullshit! You didn’t even attempt to use your magic. No shield, no attack, no nothing! I know what you tried to do.” He shoves something in my mouth.

“What are you-” I choke through the obstacle between my teeth.

“Remember the promise we made? You just broke it. So now, you pay for it. Bite down!” He is furious. I have never seen him even slightly angry before, nevermind this searing rage. He is not talking so much as barking, grinding his teeth and snarling when he stops roaring at me.

“No.” I know what he is talking about now. I can’t do it. I am not paying this kind of price! I refuse.

He has been my only friend. He kept the night terrors away as much as he can ever since he found out about them. He listened to me, without judging, only understanding. He wanted to be around me, he cared for just me, with no obligation, duty, or blood ties driving him! He knew my secret and did not care. I- I couldn’t bear the thought of mangling him so permanently after what he has done for me in such a short time…

He gives me no choice. “Either you pay the price we agreed on or I break my promise too, and I won’t do it where you can stop me,” he threatens.

I bite down instantly, as hard as I can. The crunch of bone thunders in my ears and the iron taste of his blood floods my mouth.

I bring bandages for Raegdan to replace the rags he had used to staunch the blood flow at first and to cover the wound later. He had removed them a few moments ago and is critically inspecting the damage I did to him.

“How is it?” I ask him. I have no idea how the anatomy of his hands work. Could removing one of his fingers damage the others beside it? Have I robbed him of the efficiency of one of his precious hands with my selfish actions?

He picks up the bandages and gauze I have placed on the table in front of him and carefully starts wrapping it around his hand. I move in to help him but he jerks his hand away from me and shakes his head. I wouldn’t be much use anyway. It is hard to apply a bandage with care on someone who dispels your magic field as soon as it touches him.

“I have no idea. I’ve never had to deal with amputation from the healing side of things, at least in the long term,” he finally says. “I think it’s going to be ok. It doesn’t bleed and you cooked it pretty well. It has a nice crust and everything. It looks delicious,” he jokes.

“Does it hurt?”

He shrugs. “A lot. Cauterising is always hell. We can’t do anything about the pain now so why dwell on it? Later on, we can open up that whiskey bottle I saw in your drink cabinet and celebrate our successful hunt properly.” Raegdan wiggles the little stump he has left. “Huh, it’s true. I can still feel it!”. He chuckles and seems to talk to himself. “Heh, I’m nine fingered like him, only I wasn’t wearing a ring to lose.” He tightens the knot he made with his other hand and teeth. He winces as it forcefully presses upon the fresh injury. “I miss proper painkillers so much…” he whispers, but I hear him.

“I’m sorry. I- I wasn’t really thinking, this won’t-”

He presses the hand that is still unmarred on my lips to silence my apologies. “Hey, the whole point of this is that it’s done and over with. There is nothing to forgive now. We start anew, agreed?”

“Agreed,” I answer smiling and I kiss his cheek on an impulse. I... honestly have no idea where that came from.

He reaches where I kissed him with the tip of his fingers. He is… he is actually blushing! I cannot believe I managed to get him to do that so easily. I would have made fun of him but… I hoped my dark coat was enough to hide my own burning cheeks.

“Well, at least my efforts are appreciated,” he awkwardly jokes. He fiddles with the bandage for a few seconds, keeping his eyes away from me, before he jumps on his feet.

“Celestia! Sunrise is only hours away. Celestia will be coming over to check on you later and we don’t want her to know where we have been. Bath. You need a bath or she’ll know! I’m, uh, gonna go and prepare it for you, alright? I’ll be right back,” he rants in a panic, barely bothering to breathe, and rushes into the bathroom, almost tripping himself up, closing the door behind him.

That… might have been a mistake. We will have to clear up things later or… just ignore it in its entirety. Yes, that would be the wisest move. We don’t need any further complications. This kind of thing never happens to someone like me or him anyway.

I can hear the water filling the large bathtub from where I stand. Raegdan, in his haste, failed to close the door properly. I listen to the taps running with eagerness to soon put myself beneath them. If there’s something I really enjoy about this modern age it’s the plumbing. I would be hard pressed to return to making do with an icy river or heated up buckets of water and a pile of rags in the corner of a room, especially midwinter.

Now that I think about it, I remember that some of the past noble mares, even my sister, used to have maids to help them bathe. I believe that Celestia probably still has ponies employed for that. I never felt comfortable enough allowing anypony I did not trust so near to me to do that myself, but I could see the appeal. I was always tempted to give it a shot the rare times I stayed in our castle. I hum in thought. He was right here and if I asked he would oblige in my request as he always did, I was sure. He needed to clean up too after all and the bath was certainly more than big enough for the two of us. No one minded having some help with those hard to reach places, right? Closing my eyes I wonder how efficient and relaxing his dexterous fingers would be shampooing my-

There is another sound from the bathroom. A high pitched whine, followed by the crash of something heavy.

“Raegdan?” I call out his name, not thinking much of it.

There is no answer.

He always answers back. Always.

I hurry inside the bathroom, my magic almost ripping the door off its hinges. The luxurious bathtub, a small pool on its own, has started overflowing, water spilling on the white marbled floor. Above it on the wall one of the tiles has broken apart, revealing a circle of spent runes. I look across it. There, slumped against the wall, Raegdan lies unmoving. His clothes were also smoking on his chest and had been lightly burnt. I dash to his side. There is a little blood on the wall above, where he hit his head, and the porcelain sink he crashed into had broken off and sliced his arm. The cut looks pretty deep but luckily it barely bleeds at-

No.

NO!

I put my ear against his mouth. I hear and feel nothing. He is not breathing! I push my head against his chest, where he showed me his heart was located.

No heartbeat. Nothing at all.

No. No, no, no! Stars above, help me! This wasn’t supposed to happen. He is immune! No magic, either from a spell, rune, or pure force, should be able to touch him. How? How did this happen?

I look back at the runes, desperate to decipher them, to understand what was done to what’s mine. It is sloppy work, inelegant work, but it worked well enough. It stored magic inside it -the paper thin tile had hidden the slight glow it would have generated- it detected the water level on the tiled pool beneath it, and then collected all that magic to turn it into…

A lightning spell.

His heart. I had to restart his heart! If I take too long-

How? He mentioned something about this once, when we were discussing what little he knew of his kind’s medicine. Compressions to the chest and forcing air into the lungs using your own. He mentioned a steady rhythm that you had to follow, but either I could not remember it or he never said what it was.

But what he had said was that this was relatively rare to work, even less if you didn’t know how to do it properly, which I did. The other option was… another electric shock? I- I think that was it. He said they used a machine. I think ponies might do the same thing but I am not sure. I’ve almost never been at or used hospitals of any kind. I could do it with a spell but… it had to be directed to the heart, didn’t it? How powerful was the shock supposed to be?

I was wasting time, doubting myself when I needed to choose a path of action. Another electric shock. It would either work or it would not. I could start with a low power spell and amp it up as I kept trying. If I attempted restarting his heart the other way I would have no way of knowing whether I was doing it wrong or right until he either came back, or there was nothing left to save. I could drag him to the castle’s infirmary but if I was wrong and they didn’t know how to save him either… no time, I have no time!

I turn off the faucets and swipe the water away from him with my magic. I lay him down on his back carefully. Did he hurt himself when he crashed against the wall? Was his spine still whole or had he broken it? No, I should focus on the immediate concerns. Bring him back to me first, tend whatever injuries he has afterwards.

I needed to direct the spell to his heart. Would just hitting him with another lightning spell be enough? I didn’t know, and I had too little time. How would I do this? If his touch wasn’t stopping me from casting I would just stab him with my horn and then cast to make sure, but I can’t, and I don’t know exactly where I should-

I have an idea.

I move quickly. I’m not sure how long he can stay like this before he perishes entirely, but I’ve allowed two or three precious minutes to pass me by in vain. I run back outside and head to the dining room. I need a knife, but Raegdan’s is too large and sharp. I rip open the cabinet where the cutlery is stored and take one of the dull butter knives. I make my way back to my precious companion. I would have teleported but I did not want to risk my magical reserves. I had no idea how many tries this would take me.

He hasn’t moved. He is still not breathing. I… I kind of hoped I’d find him sitting up, waiting for me with a smile, waving away my worries. Raegdan is dead. My friend is gone, his corpse lies right in front of me getting colder by the second. They killed him. Somepony took him from me. I-

I grab his shirt with my teeth and pull. The fabric stretches and then tears. In the bright, strong lights of the bathroom his scars are painfully visible as are the bruises he got earlier. There, right over the centre of his chest. The scar Celestia gave him. I can use that as a guide.

I take aim and stab him. A few drops of blood ooze out, but nothing more follows. His heart is no longer beating so it can’t pump his life outside his body.

I have my connection. This should be close enough to almost touch his heart if what he told me was correct. I just hope I angled it right.

I focus and cast the weakest lightning spell that I can on the knife’s handle. Raegdan’s body spasms lightly. I press my ear against his chest once again, mindful of the knife.

Nothing.

Another shock, more powerful this time. Nothing again.

A third one. His skin has gained new burns and a slight whiff of cooked flesh starts to permeate the air. Please, please, let me hear his voice once more. Don’t take this from me, don’t.

No heartbeat.

I swipe at my eyes. No! I had to keep going. I needed to cast the spell with more power. I was too gentle. Raegdan could handle some rough treatment. He would not let death win, not now. I would not allow this to happen. I won’t lose what little I have left.

I cool down the knife with a frost spell first and then hit him again with much more power than my last feeble attempts. His muscles contract and expand violently. His torso rises up in one sudden movement, stays up for half a second, and then lands back down on the floor with enough force to dislocate the knife. I must have either cut something, or the sudden lurch did, cause blood has started gushing-

Blood!

Raegdan takes a sudden deep breath and starts coughing. He lives. He lives! I kick the knife off him and quickly pull down two towels with my magic, throwing them on his chest and the gash on his arm. I push against them with hoof and wing to staunch the blood flow that has finally started in earnest.

The coughing and gasps for air continue for a minute. I don’t trust my own voice to speak yet. I just wait for him to regain his senses, drinking in the sight of his chest rising and falling in an unsteady rhythm.

He finally has enough control of himself to open his eyes. He is… there is obvious pain on his face. His eyes have reddened up with blood from burst tiny veins. There’s a small tear of bright red leaking down his cheek from one of them. He looks at me as if not recognizing me.

“Luna?” he asks unsure. My relief is beyond words. I feared I had taken too long, that I failed him. I blink rapidly to chase away the burning in my eyes.

“It’s me,” I whisper back. I can barely keep myself from crying like a foal. He was dead. He was dead and now… now he has returned to me. He hasn’t left me!

“I- I heard you call. I tried to answer back but…” He coughs. His voice is rough and hoarse beyond words. I can barely understand the raspy sounds he whispers. “I couldn’t. I tried but I couldn’t. I’m sorry, I… I tried as hard as I could…”

I shush him gently. Stupid stallion. Needlessly worrying about not answering to my summons for once. “Everything’s ok. You are going to be ok.” I use my unoccupied right wing to caress his shoulder, to assure him that nothing else is going to hurt him. I think it helps him to calm down so I keep at it, needing the reassurance myself.

“What happened?” he rasps. He takes deep, fast breaths, as if he had been running all day with no stop.

I tell him. He doesn’t remember what happened after he stepped into the bathroom. I tell him how I revived him. He weakly tries to lift my hoof from his chest so he can see the stab wound for himself. I allow him a quick glimpse before I continue applying pressure. I need to bandage his injuries. I remember where I left the gauzes. I summon them to my side and with as much help as he can given his condition we wrap up his new injuries. Thankfully, his severed finger did not start bleeding again.

Several minutes passed in silence as he rested. “Help me up,” he finally demands.

“There may be other injuries,” I caution. “You might have broken something.”

“Then help me get up and find out.” I would have wanted to do the same, so I help him up, having no counter argument that wouldn’t ring false. He is struggling to keep his balance, staying upright more out of sheer willpower than strength. His body shakes and he can’t hold his limbs still despite his obvious attempt to do so.

“This was a trap for you,” he says. “Someone wanted to kill you.” The rage I saw earlier is slowly returning, targeted at the unknown assailant this time.

Attempts on my life were nothing new, but usually they took the form of dark silhouettes advancing on me while I rested. I never expected to face assassination in this new, softer Equestria that my sister had built. My naivety almost- did cost Raegdan his life. Whoever did this would scream for a mercy that would never come. They bucked with the wrong Alicorn. I was no soft Celestia.

He stumbles towards the runework on the wall to examine it. He almost falls but I stay by his side and steady him. Despite the agony of every little motion he keeps moving, refusing to give in to something inconsequential like pain when he has a goal he wants to achieve. “Someone knew you were gone. This took time to set up.”

“The guards.”

“Maybe. Or they just took a hike when they heard a purse jingle, if they were even around. They are not really keen on guarding you. There are days I just walk up here with no one to stop me.” He collapses on the edge of the filled bathtub. “There may be more like this,” he groans.

I agree with him. I certainly wouldn’t have missed the chance to place more traps ready to be sprung if I were in their place. The possibilities were endless. We couldn’t trust anything in any of my rooms anymore. Everything could be trapped, poisoned, or envenomed. Everything edible and drinkable could accommodate death. Every door was a gamble. A needle hiding in the furniture could be waiting to deliver a lethal scratch.

A simple walk to the exit of my tower was now a threatening undertaking.

“Give me a few more minutes,” he gasps, moaning in pain as his body keeps convulsing periodically. “Then… then we start searching everywhere. After that… I’m moving up here with you.”

Author's Note

It has come to my attention, thanks to Abstract Indigo, that the medical science behind what happened with Raegdan is wrong. I will fix this later on to reflect a more realistic way of what happened but in essence the chapter doesn't really change. Raegdan gets electrocuted, half dies, Luna saves him.

Apologies for my half assed research. I did try, but apparently there's a reason I never became a doctor DAD!

Ch.11 - Avoiding the consequences

Pinkie Pie had a rule. It was a pretty big rule and she always made sure she followed it no matter what, rain or shine, milk or juice. She had others rules too; always eat the cherry first on a piece of cake or if you have the choice between a chocolate cookie and an oatmeal cookie always eat two chocolate cookies and save the oatmeal one for later, and so on. But this rule was different, though no less important. This was a friendship rule!

If a friend makes a baddy, you don’t get huffy, you get huggy.

Pinkie Pie reaaally didn’t feel like getting huggy with Twilight now for one. Not that Twilight wasn’t an amazing friend, she totally was! She was smart, motivated, and always kept trying to explain things to Pinkie that she didn’t have to -Pinkie might not be book smart but everypony knows that you can’t supersede momentum by planting your hooves in place and going all “boi-oi-iong!” with your mouth; Pinkie just didn’t have time to care about that when she was busy going all “boi-oi-iong!” with her mouth. Oh, and Twilight had this one great slumber party one time where she didn’t invite Pinkie, but Pinkie Pie didn’t mind as long as the rest of her friends had a splendid, good ol’ time!

...Pinkie would have invited her....

Anyway, trends in the superficial romance of the Equestrian Robin aside, Pinkie Pie had to really fight the urge to not get all huffy with Twilight. Ok, so Raegdan did a major doodoo. A very big one. Maybe one of the worst Pinkie Pie had ever heard, imagined, or heard scary tales about. The worst one was the one that those ponies did.

She did her best to not think about that. Balloons, think of balloons, red and blue, yellow and green, with smiley faces drawn on them. Going all poing and sproing, bouncing everywhere, reaching the top of the ceiling, a little filly crying alone in a room, hurt and used, balloonsallaroundandconfettiandthere’samariachibandcakeand…

Balance restored on the razor’s edge, Pinkie continued on her way, lightly skipping along as she headed towards Luna’s tower.

For two, she was in quite a bit of a huffy with Raegdan too. Pinkie didn’t know what he should have done but she wished he had done something else that worked better, where everypony said they were sorry and meant it, all the fillies went back home with nothing ever having happened to them, Twilight didn’t hate her step-dad, and Pinkie ruled over Candyland with a tyrannical iron fist that could transform into a fondue pot. How hard could that have been?

Ok, so her expectations might have been a tiny, whizy, itty bitty high.

Didn’t matter anyway. It had stopped and it was over with. Well, it did matter and a little part of Pinkie was tearing up inside, saying it would never be over for some. Okie dokie, so it stopped enough. It was like a hoof scratching on a blackboard. The blackboard and the scratches were still there but the hoof and noise was gone. Maybe the hoof had been slapped away too violently and Twilight might have been right saying that Raegdan hadn’t filed all the necessary papers to be the class’ Blackboard Monitor but here’s where Pinkie was getting into the stickie with Attendance Taker Twilight Sparkle.

Raegdan was going to the School Principal soon enough to explain himself. Principal Celestia would do the punishment for his icky, not Twilight.

So why did Twilight decide to be such a meanie mean and hurt him so much worse than Princess Celestia ever could?

Pinkie stopped her skipping, which had at one point become normal walking -so pedestrian!- , to spare a thought for the poor baby dragon. Spike didn’t need to hear even what little Twilight decided he should know, but at least he hadn’t been forbidden from talking to his dad again. Good thing that Aunty Pinkie had a talk with Probable Crush Rarity and had scheduled an uplifting visit to Raegdan for Spike sometime after Pinkie had her talk with daddy numero two.

Daddy. Huh. The girls thought Pinkie was mostly joking around but Pinkie really liked the idea of Raegdan as a dad. When she was all sick Raegdan held her in a way that her own dad rarely did. He was so much bigger that she felt as if she was in a warm snuggly cave where nothing could ever touch her and she would be safe forever and ever. Raegdan might be a big liar with asbestos pants -Pinkie certainly wasn’t blind or deaf- but he didn’t lie about loving his family. You can’t lie with hugs.

Which was what really made Pinkie get all huffy with sister Twilight. Raegdan was her family. Even more important, Raegdan was her adopted family. Raegdan had no blood ties with Twilight, Spike, or Pinkie -he called her little pink so it was ok to include herself there, right?- and he could have just been friends with them, which would be super duper awesome, but he didn’t. Instead, he chose to love them like family. It was like he was their friend, then became their dad, then became their friend again and it all got mixed into this bowl like oats and hot water making delicious gruel. No, wait! Wrong analogy! Brain Police, catch that wayward thought and lock it in the slammer. Yes, that’s the place, right there, next to that despicable criminal called Sense of Personal Space. They will never see the light of day again!

Where was she? Oh, yeah. You don’t give up on family, you don’t give up on friends, so you certainly don’t give up on somepony like Raegdan. Ok Twily, he was wrong and never should have done that and should have instead gone to the Princess first, and he will go to super jail now, which even if he could avoid it would choose not to because you asked and he will do as you asked.

You never, ever, stop loving family. That’s cruel. Twilight had told him before that if he told her the truth it wouldn’t change a thing and she would trust him. Twilight should change her name to Twiliar, cause that’s a big fib that she told him. Despite what he did or not, Twilight should not have done her best to rip his heart out to offer it to the old gods so that they would raise the sun u… huh, that was a stupid thought. Where did that come from?

Pinkie Pie was on the case however! She would march up those stairs, find him, and tell him that she wuvs him, Spike loves him, and that when Twilight stops being a doodoohead she will remember that she loves him too.

That’s a lot of stairs by the way. If Pinkie was a princess -one day Candyland, one day- she would have her room on the ground floor. The view, on the other hoof, might be totes worth it. She frowned. Hold your ponies, Luna has wings, she doesn’t need to have a room up high to get a view. Pinkie gasped. She had wings! She didn’t need to climb the stairs, that’s why she didn’t mind them. Pinkie furrowed her brows in thought. Did that mean that this tower was her roost? Dashie liked to stay up high too. Was it a pegasus thing? There are a lot of races with wings so maybe the politically correct term was flyer? Or featherly inclined? Did they all have a secret life, far away from the prying eyes of the wretched ground-dwellers? What crazy adventures did they get into up there, where the heart widened to be as broad and welcoming as the endless horizon itself?

Pinkie Pie knocked on the dark double doors, a simple rhythm of a song she had been humming yesterday, and then kicked at them with both of her hind legs since she misplaced her cymbals. Whooo!

One of the doors creaked open slowly -Pinkie made a mental note to bring some oil with her next time- and half of Luna’s face looked out at her suspiciously. Her visible eye kept trying to shift to Pinkie Pie’s neck only to roll back in position. Pinkie had noticed her doing that every time they met.

“Have you ever been on a date with an Equestrian Robin?” Pinkie asked Luna’s left side.

The eyebrow on Luna’s face that Pinkie could see rose up, an eight or maybe a nine on the I-B-row scale. Applejack would be glad to hear she was still the undefeated champion.

“Not to my knowledge, but I have been doing some heavy drinking on occasion lately so who can really know?” Luna answered. “Why are you here Pinkie Pie?”

“Oh, Twilight told us that Raegdan tortured and killed fifteen bad po- Wheeeee!” Luna’s magic opened the doors wide, grabbed Pinkie and threw her inside, closing the doors shut with a very cool metal clang.

It went all “doooooom!”.

“Are you playing at being insane or are you really that crazy? You don’t talk about this kind of thing out in the open you-”

“Were you going to make a sandwich?” Pinkie pointed at the very, very large knife -someponies might call it a sword if they weren’t notorious experts of the culinary art like Pinkie was- that hovered next to Luna’s head.

“Hmm?” Luna seemed to notice she was still holding her butter buster sword in her magic and she carefully put it down by letting it lean on the wall, the sharp edge glinting with promises of jammy goodness. “I was planning to if the right, or wrong, individual showed up. Now, why are you here?”

“This little sister wants to talk to big daddy!” Pinkie answered cheerily.

Luna’s eyes narrowed as she glared at Pinkie. She seemed to be doing that a lot. She’d get wrinkles if she kept it up. Do Alicorns get wrinkles? They might find out soon enough. “I believe Raegdan has had enough for a while. Maybe you could give him some time to heal himself before you ponies try to completely crush his heart beneath your hooves?”

“Huh? Don’t be silly.” Pinkie shooed away the ridiculous idea of doing that with her hoof. Raegdan was following a hammer motif after all. “I didn’t come here for that!”

“Then, once again, I ask. Why are you here?”

Pinkie stood straight and saluted. “Corporal Pinkie, present for daily hug rations, sir! Where do I deliver the payload?”

Luna shook her head in irritation but at least seemed to give it some thought instead of denying Pinkie outright which was a pretty good thing. Ponies always were upset when they said no and Pinkie still went ahead with whatever she wanted. It was better for everypony involved if they just said; yes, ok, do what you want, I’m not sure, or go ahead if you think you have the- hey, where are you going?

“I will… allow you to see him. You don’t mind if I take some precautions first?”

“Like what?” Pinkie sat back down, relaxing.

The dark blue Alicorn approached Pinkie Pie with her horn lit. “You know first hoof how we need to be extremely careful. I just need to make sure you are… clean.”

Pinkie raised one of her front legs and sniffed loudly at the pit between it and her torso. “I took a bath. If you see anything suspicious it’s just leftover chocolate, Pinkie promise.”

“What?”

“Huh?”

“I meant that somepony might have placed a type of monitoring spell or something similar on you. I’d rather not take chances considering what you might discuss with him, ok?”

“Oh. Okie dokie. Commence with the cleansing!” Pinkie cheered her on. Luna closed her eyes and Pinkie could almost feel a little tickle somewhere near her left ear.

“Done?” Pinkie Pie asked when Luna opened her eyes again.

Luna slowly raised her hoof to point at one of the doors. Pinkie winked at Luna -careful to give her No. 23 “Gotcha!” and not No.32 “Cya later hot stuff”- and gleefully hopped her way through the door. Maybe she should have opened it first but headbutts didn’t hurt at all. Poofy hair stands for victory and endless headbuttingness.

Ooh, new room. This one brought the cozyness up to twelve, which was crazy since everypony knows cozyness can normally go only up to nine point marshmallow. It was a comfy and neat living room. The pillows on the couches and chairs were so plushy they looked like they could swallow you up. Pinkie didn’t want to chance the maws of the dreaded couch hounds that could be hiding in that softness but somepony had to find out if they had good, springy springs and she was the mare born for the job. Oh, Raegdan first, focus Pinkie, focus. Where was he?

Right, he was sitting in front of the fireplace. Strange to have it lit on such a warm day, but he didn’t have a coat like they did. He had his normal clothes on, though Pinkie saw him way more often in his armor, but Rarity was right, they did look to be pretty thin and old. No wonder he sat in front of the fireplace. Nevertheless, no armor was a good thing. It pinched.

He hadn’t noticed her yet despite Pinkie hopping her way in and around the room behind him. Raegdan was focused on the fire. Every now and then he picked up a large sheet of paper from a stack next to him and stared at it for a while. Then he would loudly glug a couple of swallows from a dark bottle, crumple the paper, and throw it in the fire. He kept a small pile of random stuff in front of him. Pinkie Pie only recognized his own helmet from the whole stash. It looked like he had been smudging it red, starting from that stylish starburst.

Pinkie Pie, tired of being ignored, or not being noticed, after the tenuous wait of whole eternal seconds, jumped on him from behind, latching on his back with her hooves around his neck, holding on as tight as she could. Two seconds later, and a failed attempt to breathe in, they had combined into the fearsome form of a lumpy heap on the floor.

Raegdan crawled his way back to his bottle, only turning to see his attacker after he made certain there was still more liquid inside. “Ah, littl- Pinkie Pie,” he slurred. “What are you doing here?”

“Came to see you,” Pinkie answered simply, trying to ignore what he didn’t say. “What are you drinking?”

“Alcohol.”

“Why?”

“Cause there’re things I’m trying to stop feeling. Are you allowed to be here?”

“Twilight isn’t my boss. She might be, but if she is then she really pays badly. I haven’t seen a single bit yet and I’ve been working my cute tush off. What are you doin’?”

“Burning stuff.”

“Why?’

“Cause there’re things I’m trying to stop feeling.” He tipsily got up to his knees. “I think I just had a deja vu for some reason.” Raegdan fell back down on his rear and brought the bottle back to his lips.

Pinkie took the opportunity to peep at one of the papers he was burning. Her peep led her to an eep and then a pirouette on her hip. “That’s one of Twilight’s and Spike’s drawings! It belongs on a fridge,” Pinkie Pie whipped back at him.

“They all belong in the fucking fire, that’s where-” Raegdan gasped out in surprised pain. His eyes followed the movement of the ruler that Pinkie waved in front of him. He looked back at the bottle suspiciously.

“Don’t swear!” Pinkie Pie said with authority.

Raegdan shuffled on his knees to the side to pick up a handkerchief that had fallen on the floor. He kept it in the tight fist of his left hand. Pinkie Pie noticed the color shifting to red but she didn’t allow his cool, color changing powers to distract her.

Raegdan fell back down, leaning his back against a couch. “Twilight told you everything, didn’t she?”

Pinkie nodded and scooted closer.

The bottle rose once more and emptied more of its contents in Raegdan’s stomach. “Did she tell Spike?” he asked.

“Yes. Well, not really. She told him you hurt some ponies and that when everything is over you are going to be on trial and might not get out of it this time. He didn’t want to believe her but he asked Rarity about it and Rarity gets too emotional sometimes and she couldn’t stop herself and she cried and then Spike started crying too and-”

“Alright, enough. I get it,” Raegdan interrupted her.

“Don’t be mad at her,” Pinkie pleaded. “She is very confused right now.”

Raegdan snorted a single, loud laugh noise hard enough to rock him as he sat. “I’m not mad at her,” he explained after another swallow of his elixir. “I’m damn proud of her. I always was the bad example, the way to not do things. I used to be utterly terrified she would someday copy the way to go about doing things from me and not Celestia. ” The bottle’s bottom went high then low again. “Keeping Spike away from me is the right call. He is a dragon after all. He must stay away from bad influences.”

Pinkie brought her hoof to her chin. There was a retort she should make to this kind of thinking. Something Raegdan would understand. Hmmm… oh, yeah. The answer was in her hoof all along.

The ruler went “twaang!” on Raegdan’s hand holding the bottle, causing him to reflexively drop it. Lucky enough for the carpet, there wasn’t much liquid left in it and nothing spilled.

“Now, you listen to Miss Pinkie Pie. Spike’s an amazing friend and I won’t stand for any accusations against the one who raised him-”

“But I’m the one who-” The ruler vibrated twice in a row on both of his hands.

“-and if he wants to spend more time with his dad, despite what he may have done, then that’s what he will do.” Pinkie Pie raised the long ruler in the air. “By the power of Grey Plum School Supplies, I have the ruler. I shall use it to make this happen.” A surge of power and light failed to emanate from the wooden metric device. Pinkie shook it to make sure it was a dud.

Raegdan looked at her impassively for a few seconds, mulling over her words. He picked up the bottle, drained it, and answered. “No.”

“Huh?”

He used the couch as support to rise up. It took him a couple of tries. He swayed as he stood, and his speech was almost imperceptible. He did try to make up for it by sheer volume, though Pinkie’s fluffy ears were not really ready to be deaf yet. “Get out! Get out of here and don’t you dare come back! I ain’t gonna be a reason for ’em to fight among themselves. Little flame lives with Twilight now. He isn’t seeing me again and that’s final!”

“Hey now dad,” Pinkie tried to calm him back down, “that ain’t true! Spikey loves you and-”

“Don’t call me that! I’ve ruined everyone who called me that!”

Pinkie made her eyes widen and made her lip tremble as she gave him her best puppy look. “You saved me.”

“That’s how it fucking starts. No more! I won’t kill more of you!” His hand took hold of the paper drawings and threw them into the fire. Pinkie gasped in shock and rushed to save as many of them as she could.

Luna had walked into the room and took a seat next to Raegdan as he was setting himself to go on a rant. She interrupted him by levitating a short glass in front of him. “Drink this,” she told him simply.

Raegdan took it from where it floated in front of his face and swallowed its contents in one go. He coughed once as the burning drink went down his throat, carefully set it down on a table, blinked, swayed some more, and fell down unconscious.

Pinkie Pie poked him with her ruler a couple of times after she set down the few drawings she managed to pull out in time. “So…” she asked curiously, “do we put him in a barrel and bury him in the garden now?”

Luna rolled her eyes. “He is unconscious, not dead.”

A small gust of wind tousled Luna’s mane as Pinkie nodded fervently. “Do you roofie him often? I don’t think that’s appropriate, and it needs a thematic setting like a party with crazy lighting at the walls and loud music to really work.”

“What?”

“Huh?”

Luna shook her head. “I gave him a double shot of one of the stronger drinks I keep around. He is a lightweight. Could you help me get him to bed, please?”

“Ok. Do we arrange turns with a coin toss or do we go by age?”

“What?”

“Huh?”

“Just… I’ll take the top, you take the bottom,” Luna said annoyed.

“Oooh, I like the way you think,” Pinkie cooed.

“What?”

“Huh?”

Luna lifted Raegdan and let him sprawl on her back. Pinkie crawled beneath his legs and rose up. “That’s not lightweight. That’s not lightweight at all!” she whined.

The route to Luna’s bedroom was out to the hall, up the stairs, down the corridor and into her room. Not an easy task for two ponies carrying a biped. The stairs especially. What was it with Luna and stairs? Did she even consider that most ponies cannot fly? Sure, it was fine for her and her Robin sweethearts but the rest of them... It was a good thing they figured out how to best secure him on their backs after he fell off them twice while still relatively low on the staircase.

Pinkie Pie tried to give them a rhythm to coordinate with. Luna was ecstatic with the idea and added her own spin to it.

“Boom. Boom. Boom.”

“Shut up.”

“Boom. Boom. Boom.”

“I said shut up.”

“Boom. Boom. Boom.”

“By all that is holy, I will haunt your dreams for eternity.”

“Boom. Boom. Boom.”

“Shut up.”

They finally managed to throw him on the softness that was Luna’s very large bed. Raegdan was softly snoring and he had immediately set off on making a drool puddle on the pillow he was sleeping on.

“Why didn’t we just lay him on the couch downstairs?” Pinkie asked.

Luna did a momentary enactment of a statue. “Because… this is better.” She levitated a sheet over him and let it float down and cover him. “Anyway, Pinkie Pie, may I ask a favor of you?”

“Sure,” Pinkie replied happily.

“There are some things I need to do. Could you please stay here until I return, and look after Raegdan?”

“Okie dokie.”

Luna nodded satisfied. “Good. I’ll lock the doors behind me. If somepony tries to come in make it clear to them that both you and Raegdan are in here but do not let them realize he is unconscious. Don’t open the door no matter who they claim to be. Understand?”

Pinkie Pie saluted Luna once more. The Alicorn seemed to be uncomfortable with the idea of leaving Pinkie Pie behind to stand as guard but that was probably because she hadn’t heard of her exploits against the invading forces of diet soda in the battle of Sugarcube Corner’s Soda Corner. Many packets of good sugar were lost that day in service of a greater cause.

Luna turned to leave, halting to speak to Pinkie Pie one more time. “You have my thanks for trying to help him through this. He is not as strong as he claims.” Luna immediately vacated the room without waiting for an answer.

When she heard the distant click of the twin doors shutting close Pinkie moved to Raegdan’s side and watched him as he slept. She felt sorry for him from day one. Him and Luna both. It was because of their laughter. Oh, they laughed, and made jokes, and teased each other or others, but… all this laughter and she still hadn’t heard a laugh that gushed all the way out from inside of them. A true, happy laugh. It would be kinda hard to hear one from them now after this.

Some of his hair had fallen over his face, almost getting into his mouth. Pinkie brushed it away. Her head guiltily swiveled around, already knowing nopony could see her but still double checking her triple check.

“You know,” she spoke to Raegdan’s sleeping form, her hoof stroking his chest, feeling the rise and fall of his lungs. “There were always some… things I wanted to do to my dad. Things a.. proper daughter shouldn’t be thinking of, and he wouldn’t tolerate. But you are different, aren’t you? I don’t think you will get really mad at me, even now, and you are close enough to a dad for me to make this work, to enjoy it almost as much.” She leaned closer, reaching for his face, the tip of her tongue slipping out of her mouth, a drop of saliva dancing on the edge.

This… this was better than she could dream of. His hairless skin was so smooth… It was like finding a piece of heaven to work her own unique brand of pink magic on. She was careful and gentle, like a dandelion that brushed your muzzle as the wind carried it past you, making sure not to awake him, not before she was done.

“Oh, this is going to be perfect,” she murmured softly and excitedly. She carefully lifted his shirt, exposing his torso, its surface so wide and muscled, confident enough to move lower now that she had finished with his lips. She would save his arms for later. The sheer thrill and anticipation was making her shiver.

The bright pink marker started tracing hearts, balloons, teddy bears, and happy, sappy words. The slight tickling caused Raegdan to smile, curving the curly pink moustache Pinkie had drawn on him.

Rainbow sauntered in the Royal Guard training hall. It was almost noon but Guards were still practising on rings paved with blue, rigid mattresses. Pegasi were flying up in the air, dodging softballs and colored harmless spells that the unicorns were throwing at them. There was a flurry of activity from every corner.

That’s what it looked like until she took a closer look. Nopony there seemed to be putting himself or herself through the same rigorous standards that Rainbow did for herself. Everything was mechanical, an obligation to be fulfilled, a part of the workday that they were looking forward to be done with. They were practicing, training themselves pretty well admittedly, but they weren’t pushing themselves.

She had an inkling of a thought that things were different in the Solar Guard training hall. Rainbow was also certain that if Raegdan and Luna managed to get the Lunar Guard off the ground it would be even more different. What would happen to a Lunar guard that Luna or Raegdan caught not trying hard enough? Probably a rousing session of “fight and/or run for your life”. Good thing that Rainbow had already decided to go the Wonderbolts route. She was too disenchanted with the whole Guard corps so far.

Alright, off to work. Spymaster Rainbow Dash was set to…

What the hay was she supposed to do?

Ok, that would take a little bit of noggin’ use. Rainbow wanted the guards to trust her and think she didn’t like Raegdan and Luna. So, she had to diss them in front of them. That left quite a bad taste in her mouth, especially considering what had happened with Raegdan. So maybe Raegdan crossed a line but hey, at least he did do something. Nopony seemed to be going after these fillies anytime soon if it wasn’t for him. Wrong way to do it? Sure. Better to do the wrong thing as far as Rainbow was concerned however than just sit on your flank twiddling your feathers.

Twilight turning so viciously against him rubbed Rainbow wrong too. It could be her Element talking or urging her, but he did do… that for Twilight’s safety, didn’t he? That should count for something apart from a vicious cold shoulder.

Ah, well, Twilight knew the guy better. She probably had gone through the same before… oh right, that’s why they had come here in the first place after… two years when she wasn’t entirely sure about what he had done? Ponyfeathers. Raegdan was screwed.

Rainbow turned her attention back to the task at hand. Ok, dissing Raegdan and Luna. She could do that, they told her to do that themselves after all. Uh… pretend she kicked his ass, which she almost did when he wasn’t even trying to really hurt her, and then if it came to that she would just have to chip in her talk with… actions.

She was going to have to fight, wasn’t she?

That was totally cool, Rainbow was always up for a good spar against… trained soldiers… Ok, she had this. She would have felt a bit more secure if a certain princess had actually shown her flank yesterday when she was supposed to be preparing her for this stuff. On second thought, considering what went down, if Luna had shown up Rainbow would now be on a bed next to that other pegasus, playing solitaire and waiting for her next dose of painkillers.

“Hey, weren’t you with Ni- Princess Luna and her… her guardsman at the tournament?” Three guards had closed up on Rainbow while she was too busy staring around like a total loser. This was it. The moment of tru- spying artmastery!

“Yeah.” Totally got it. Don’t mess this up.

“Must be nice being friendly with… a princess,” the only pegasus in the group said. Rainbow had noticed their pauses and swift switches to what they said. This group was exactly what she needed.

“You’d think so,” she answered, acting out being bored, “and it might have been true if she wasn’t such a raving lunatic. That Raegdan guy too. I even got into a fight with him.”

The female unicorn eyed her critically, looking for any signs of injury on her. “You don’t look as if you have been in a fight with that monster.”

“Totally have,” Rainbow defended herself. “I just didn’t let him get a hit on me.” The trio looked disbelievingly at her. “You saw how he got nailed on the side at the tournament, right? I got a couple of good kicks there and down he went, like a dumb tree.” The mare that had challenged her story laughed out loud, the other two joining in. Gosh, she felt deplorable.

“And you got out of a fight with him unscathed? I’m not sure I believe that,” the male unicorn said, being obviously skeptical.

“Ok, he did get me once. Punched me right on the head. My skull turned out to be harder than his fingers though.” Rainbow smirked.

The unicorn stallion snorted a laugh. He addressed his comrades. “I’ve seen her pet run around with its hand bandaged. I think she is telling the truth.”

“Sounds like you know your way around a fight then,” the mare guard smirked. “Care to give us a sample of your skills?”

“Anytime, anywhere, sister,” Rainbow cried out, her hoof poking the guard on the chestplate. Horseapples, that looked to be pretty tough! She hoped she was either going to get one too before heading into the fight or her opponent would take it off. “Who am I going against?”

“Me,” the mare answered. She headed towards a spot on the wall where practice weapons had been laying on racks. Her magic grabbed a long blade and she swiveled around it in a dizzying speed, bringing it around her in slashing and spearing motions, creating a wall of moving steel.

Rainbow was pretty good with her hooves, relied on her amazing speed and reflexes, and knew she was in a very bad spot right now. This guard mare was good. The good news was the blade was blunt and could only give her bruises, maybe break something at most, or give her a concussion. The bad news was she was probably getting bruises, something broken, or a concussion in a few minutes.

She took a deep breath and stood in front of the rack to make her choice. The unicorn guard had range, technique, skill, and experience. Rainbow would have to counter those paltry advantages… somehow. Ok, wingblades are right out, don’t even look. Blades...Rainbow imagined herself trying to block that whirlwind of metal with a piece of metal that she held with her teeth, her soft, breakable muzzle right on its path. Nope. No weapons she had to hold with her mouth. The best she could figure out was a choice between combat horseshoes or a spear. She decided to go with the spear. Maybe if she charged fast enough she could nail her before she got a chance to hit back. She pulled one of them from the rack. Wow, they, uh, didn’t have a point but something like a knob at the end. Boy, that would be so devastating against her guard armor.

Horseapples.

“So, uh, what’s your name by the way?” Rainbow asked.

“Lotus,” the mare said. “One of the rings is free now. Shall we?”

“Yeah, sure. Can’t wait,” Rainbow lied through her teeth. She always was up for a contest but having already seen what can happen to limbs, like her precious, precious wings, she was understandably shying away from the thought of that chunk of metal having a go at her when she had never actually wielded a proper weapon in a fight before. She needed to figure-

“Already itching for another fight Rainbow Dash?” A cold voice spoke behind her. Rainbow quickly whirled around to come face to face with Luna. The three guards that were with her took a short step backwards. Lotus dropped her sword and was trying to creep in front of Luna’s line of sight to prevent her from seeing it.

“Ah, having a friendly spar I see.” Luna pointedly stared at the spear Rainbow was holding while her magic brought the sword that Lotus failed to hide in front of her, a frightened squeak emerging from the guard’s lips. A series of cracks filled the silence as Luna performed a series of motions similar to Lotus but much faster. “The balance is off. Somepony could get... hurt with this,” Luna deadpanned.

“I was just about to have a friendly spar with Lotus here,” Rainbow said, trying to accentuate the word “friendly” just right enough for Luna to get the meaning that she could do with some help here.

“Really? Hmm…” Luna threw the sword towards the racks, treating it as a piece of junk. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, my loyal guard, but I cannot allow this.” Oh, thank Celestia, Rainbow thought. She wasn’t getting her flank split in- “I would like to have a turn with Rainbow Dash myself. We have… something to settle.”

...what?

The spear levitated away from Rainbow’s weak hold. “Swords with blunt edges and spears with no tips are not weapons. They are toys meant for children,” Luna lectured them. “We shall fight barehooved.” Luna kicked off her shoes, removed her neckpiece and crown, and dragged Rainbow towards the empty ring, leaving the shocked guards behind them.

What was Luna playing at? Was she… was she taking the chance to give Rainbow a beat down for what happened between Raegdan and her friends? Ah, shoot, she had gone into their secret armory herself, she was the one who found it. Well, that’s it, she was dead. Time to place her head between her back legs and kiss her-

“When you feel a flick on your left ear,” Luna whispered, “stop whatever you are doing and kick straight behind you, as hard as you can.”

-or maybe Luna had a plan. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad- oh shhhhh-

When a pegasus took to the air there were some motions they usually had to go through, notably when they launched themselves at speed. A small crouch was the customary form that allowed the pegasus to use his or her legs as a makeshift spring to give themselves a burst of speed.

Luna spat on the very idea of giving her opponents a warning of what she was going to do.

One moment Luna stood all casual like at the other end of the ring, the next instant one of her front hoofs was about to smack Rainbow right on the kisser. Rainbow somehow avoided that hit, don’t ask how, she had no clue, and took to the air herself.

She tried to gain some distance via altitude but when she stopped and turned around Luna was right on her face again, about to give her the appletree treatment, Applejack style. Rainbow’s wings reversed the direction she was flapping at, something extremely hard, draining, and painful. Assisted by gravity she went down to the ground, Luna’s legs barely brushing the top of her head.

She should have stuck with Lotus! Luna was not playing around.

Luna landed in front of Rainbow moments after, not allowing Rainbow a single second to get her bearings back. Rainbow decided to go on the offensive. With a push from her wings to give herself a boost, she tried to punch Luna’s face. The princess merely leaned her head to the side, her features bored as she watched the hoof completely miss her by mere centimeters.

Second verse, same as the first. Luna was playing around. Rainbow just happened to be the chew toy. It was time for Rainbow to shake things up. Luna thought she was fast? Rainbow would show her what fast meant.

Rainbow turned her body around, as if to kick with her back legs. She heard the clop of Luna’s hooves as she casually took a single step back. Didn’t matter. Rainbow didn’t intend to kick at her but at the floor. She was in the air once more, faster than anypony, even Luna could realize.

She needed to build up speed. She flew in a wide arc, each beat of her wings enhancing her velocity to greater heights. She aimed right for Luna. Even from this distance, that she was now closing fast, Rainbow could see her smirk. She thought she could easily dodge or strike back at Rainbow easily, just like Raegdan did, didn’t she? Well, Luna had either forgotten or didn’t know something very important.

Rainbow Dash was a stunt flyer.

One of her wings came up as the other sliced the air downwards. Her pegasi magic grabbed hold of the law of motion and kicked its flank upside down. It was one of the sharpest, tightest u-turns Rainbow ever did. It was as if the cyan pegasus had mastered the teleportation spell. Where before she was heading for Luna’s front, now she was heading for her back, only a meter away from her target.

Correction; Luna was one meter in front of her and less than half a meter below Rainbow. Luna had ducked -she actually yawned and stretched like a cat while she did so. Rainbow sailed past right over her, her sweet stunt wasted. She kept going, maintaining her speed until she could turn around and try again. That was the plan, if at first you don’t succeed try again harder and faster.

She heard another pair of wings beating right behind her. Luna was after her already! If Luna thought that Rainbow would allow her to beat her in a contest of speed then she was totally out of her gourd. She would head for the line of columns at the other end of-

Rainbow felt her ear being flicked. Luna’s whispered advice roared in her mind. She halted mid-air, her wings straining to break down her momentum, and dedicated all the considerable strength of her muscles to a double kick backwards with every ounce of force she could muster. She felt her hooves connect hard with something!

Oh, horseapples, she felt her hooves connect hard with something!

She rapidly twisted around just in time to see Luna crashing on the ground head first, blood flowing from her muzzle and mouth, dripping on the ground right after her, a crimson drizzle that followed her painful, downward arc. Luna pushed herself back on her feet and wiped her mouth with her hoof, turning the color of her coat to a dark purple. The Royal Guard Training Hall was silent. Every guard had been paying attention to the fight taking place and now they all gapped at the sight of Luna bleeding.

“So, uh, does that mean I win?” Rainbow asked.

Luna’s horn lit bright, her ferocious glare locked on Rainbow. Her magic grabbed Rainbow out of the air and shoved her down to the ground in front of Luna, none too gently at all.

“I may have made a mistake in treating you like the so called “guards”, Rainbow Dash, but make no false assumptions. This was just a spar. In a real fight…” Luna’s magic pressed around Rainbow, making her skin itch and shiver. Her head twisted on her neck until it reached the limit where it could comfortably turn and pressed further just enough to get the message across with the creaking sound of her bones. Rainbow felt an urgent need to scratch her left ear. Luna’s magic threw her to the wall like a ragdoll. “We will have a rematch soon,” Luna promised. She turned and headed for the exit, leaving Rainbow crumpled against the wall and every guard staring wide eyed between her and Rainbow.

When Luna was gone Lotus and her two friends rushed over to help Rainbow get up, their smiles wide and gleaming. “You actually bled her!” the pegasus guard uttered bewildered. The crowd around them broke the silence with a cacophony of cheers and hoof stomps.

“Congrats kid,” Lotus screamed in Rainbow’s ear under the echoing applause of the guards. “Nopony has managed to do that! So far she has been beating each and every one of us to the ground. First her monster and now her? You’re on fire!” They dragged her towards the exit. “This calls for a drink. Let’s go celebrate!”

Rainbow gazed around as they pushed her in front of them. Guards were shouting their congratulations, many of them clapping her back with a hoof. Everypony seemed ecstatic. She hoped that was mostly the high of watching the underdog gain an unexpected victory and not the sight of Luna’s face broken and bleeding.

It seemed she was going to have a harder time with this spying thing that she ever guessed at. She flexed her pained wings. Luna might not have actually laid a hoof on her, but she pushed her right to her limits to do so.

At least now she had some nice cold cider to look forward to. Perks of the spy business, she guessed. She just wished she had company she could enjoy.

It was almost noon. Fluttershy hurried through the stone pathways that had been set on the ground to reach the furthest side of the huge palace gardens. She had to hurry or she would be late but, oh, that family of birds was just so beautiful. She lost track of time watching the parents teach their young how to fly and now she had to trot faster than she would have liked, attracting unwanted attention.

Fluttershy looked up, her legs unheeding of the lack of attention she paid to her path and unerringly finding their footing. The sun had almost reached its zenith. Ooh, she would be cutting it close. This just wouldn’t do. She sped up, her wings delicately pushing her forward in a false flight that still left her comfortingly grounded.

She finally made it to the place she had chosen yesterday. It was so peaceful here. This part of the gardens was almost deserted; the only other occupants in sight were two Solar Guards guarding one of the entrances that was too close to Princess Celestia’s tower where her private chambers were located. They were far off enough that she could easily dismiss them and pretend she was completely alone. There was such silence too. A quirk of the castle’s architecture and the way the well pruned, tall bush walls had been planted gave this place a silence unlike anything else in Canterlot. She loved the chirping of birds and the animals calling all around, but there was something to be said about a solitude as this, where the only sound was the breeze passing through the leaves of the trees around her.

It was almost time. She took her carefully picked position. The wind was blowing just the right way too. Fluttershy closed her eyes and lifted her face upwards, the sun’s brightness making it through her eyelids and making her eyes ache just a little bit. She waited for the right moment when the sun reached its absolute highest point.

“Risen the sun,

upon my soul it shines.

The shadow leaves me,

fearful of Her light.

Risen the sun,

through me flows Her light,

making me pure,

worthy of Her sight.”

A second voice joined her, speaking the words in perfect sync.

“Risen the sun,

higher than all.

I fear not the Moon,

shielded by Her hold.

Risen the sun,

upon my soul it shines.

To Her Divine Radiance

I offer soul and life.”

Fluttershy fluttered her eyelids, trying to rid herself of the burning glare that had been imprinted in her sight. She could only see blurs when she turned to the stallion that stood behind her.

“Miss Fluttershy! For a minute I was afraid you’d decide not to join me today.”

“Oh, no. I would never do that!” Fluttershy denied the playful accusation. She accepted the offered hoof and walked into the gardens with her companion.

Twilight paced in front of Princess Celestia’s door. The Solar guards standing by the golden double doors did not bother asking her the purpose of her visit. Even if Twilight hadn’t been granted free reign to knock on these doors any moment she felt like, all guards that had taken that post while she was still around knew that sometimes it took her a few minutes to gather up her courage to do so.

It wasn’t an instance of lack of courage now. It was anxiety. It was stress. She had questions that she wasn’t sure she wanted to ask, answers that Twilight feared to get.

She also feared she might spill something she should not. The mere thought of Princess Celestia knowing what Twilight meant to keep from her until it was the proper time brought her shakes. The idea of telling her mentor everything she heard last night was liberating and terrifying at the same time.

She knocked on the door, a quick, desperate rapping, before she had the opportunity to reconsider for the twentieth time. The door clicked and opened just a smidge almost instantly. The princess was inside and somehow knew who was outside her door, but couldn’t afford the time to come out herself. Twilight was used to this. Celestia often allowed her to make her own way inside. The guards grabbed hold of one of the gold and white doors to open it for her, closing it behind her.

As soon as the door was shut Twilight heard the princess calling for her. “In here, Twilight.” Twilight followed the familiar voice to Princess Celestia’s personal study.

Celestia was sitting in front of a large, simple desk that was so laden with stacks of papers Twilight was often amazed it didn’t break under their weight. Celestia often spent a large part of her day toiling over this very desk.

Twilight had yet to see the stacks lessening in volume.

“Hello, Twilight. I’m so glad you came to visit,” Celestia giggled merrily, “you’ve been spending so much time with Luna and Raegdan that I was afraid that you forgot about little old me.”

Twilight smiled. Being in the presence of her teacher already lifted her mood. “I’m sorry Princess. There’s been so much going on that we-”

“Oh, Twilight. There’s no need to apologize,” Celestia shushed her down, her magic simultaneously pouring a cup of tea for her visitor from the ever present teapot while setting down a soft, magenta colored pillow for Twilight to sit. “Sweet Fluttershy has told me about the nighttime event you have been organizing for tomorrow evening. A magnificent idea, and one I can hardly wait for. I’ve missed Raegdan’s stories.”

“Thank you Princess. We are trying our best,” Twilight answered simply.

Celestia’s smile brightened. “Now, where have I heard this line before? I must thank you Twilight. Your presence and that of your friends has really made a difference on how Raegdan has been acting lately. It’s in the way he moves and talks. I believe he hasn’t gotten in anything worse than an argument this past week. I feel like we are getting his older, softer self back. Well, not really that soft but you understand me. If that wasn’t enough, your selfless efforts to help Luna… Twilight, there are no words to describe how happy that makes me.”

Twilight’s hoof scrawled on the floor. “It is the least we could do Princess. They both saved Pinkie Pie and we could not just leave without offering our help.”

“That is admirable but it’s not what I was talking about. I meant your efforts to make my sister more approachable. She never had friends you know, at least not any that I knew about apart from myself,” Celestia explained wistfully.

“Well, she has Raegdan now.”

The smile returned on Celestia’s lips. “Yes, she does. It may have brought so much trouble and… hurt some ponies, but if I may be utterly selfish? I am joyous to see Luna has someone she can rely on. Especially if it’s Raegdan when she needs protection.” Celestia’s eyes were filled with elation. “And now that my favorite student and her capable friends are here I see my two greatest friends, slowly but assuredly, switch their stance already. I have such great hopes for the future…” Celestia shook her head. “But you didn’t come to hear me sing your praises, Twilight. Is there something I can do for you?”

Twilight saw the sense in what Raegdan had claimed. Even if she hadn’t been resolute in keeping Raegdan’s deeds hidden from Princess Celestia until the proper time, Twilight would really have to harshly push herself to utter the words that would shatter this honest, brilliant smile.

Twilight nodded towards the Alicorn’s workload. “I… don’t think I should be wasting your time. You have so much to do…”

“Nonsense,” Celestia said gleefully and pushed the papers she was reading away from her. “Anything to get a break from this.”

Twilight giggled. She put her hoof over a stack of paper that had been yellowed out by time. “I don’t know Princess. Maybe you should keep working. Some of these seem to have been in your in-tray for too long.”

Celestia gasped theatrically, bringing her hoof to her chest in mocking shock. “Twilight! You wound me! I’ll have you know that I am very diligent in keeping up with the paperwork. Why, there have even been a couple of times in my centuries old reign where I have finished half of it in time to still be relevant.”

Teacher and student let their laughter join together, relaxing them from their respective tensions.

After they calmed down Celestia continued in a more sober tone. “No, this little paper tower isn’t part of today’s work. Just some old reports I am looking into.”

“Oh,” Twilight had always been interested in the princess’ side projects. They always tended to be something very interesting. “May I ask what these are about, Princess?”

“Guard reports.” Her words made Twilight freeze, though luckily Celestia wasn’t looking at her to notice. “What Luna said the other day… It made me wonder. There are certain inconsistencies. What’s strange is that this seems to go way back, maybe two centuries or more.”

“What kind of inconsistencies?” Twilight couldn’t help herself but ask.

“Numbers.” Celestia had turned her attention to the stack in question, her hoof scratching her chin in thought. “They don’t match. There’s a certain number of monster attacks yearly, which I noticed is suspiciously steady. However, the number of confirmed threats that have been neutralized is lower. I could write it off as the guards simply being able to only drive the monsters responsible back rather than take them down or ponies avoiding their areas of activity; it would certainly explain this difference…”

“There’s a but in there, isn’t it?”

“Life multiplies. Monsters breed. With their number culled so little there should have been more attacks every year, enough to make Luna’s fears a reality according to this.”

A simple discussion with Applejack would be all it would take to confirm everything. Why did Princess Celestia need to reach this conclusion on her own? How come somepony like Applejack or Rainbow Dash hadn’t come forward and let her know already?

“What keeps throwing me off is the Everfree Forest. I haven’t been able to even scratch the surface yet, but so far it’s the only place where the numbers have matched up properly for the last year. It is very puzzling.”

“They do?” Twilight asked in wonder.

“Yes. All the reports agree on this. Almost zero activity in the last year from the side that faces Ponyville, up to a number of kilometers to the north and south. It seems you and your friends may have been doing more good than you even knew,” Celestia mused. “At least that’s what I hope. The Everfree obeys no rules but its own. It may just be a lull or something similar.”

“What do you think is the reason behind this discontinuity, princess?”

Celestia stared through half-lidded eyes at the huge paper load that waited for her to read it, sign it, authorize it, and do it all over again the day tomorrow. “I believe I might be getting hoodwinked. I thought I had systems in place to prevent this, with councilors, spells, and the input of the common pony, but somehow this may all have failed, in this aspect at least.” Celestia sighed. “Or I may be reading too much into nothing else but clerical sloppiness. I will keep digging, though it will take me time until I can be certain of anything. If it is the latter I am going to have a good laugh at my own expense. If it is the former though…” Celestia’s eyes brightened with an inner fire. “I am not going to laugh, and the expense will be on others.”

Celestia took a deep breath, followed by a slow sip of her tea. “Once again, here we go talking about my own problems. Tell me Twilight, how can I help you?”

Twilight let her head hang low to avoid her mentor’s eyes. “There have been some things I am curious- no, not curious, I need to know this. Princess… why i- was Raegdan so cruel at the arena?” She couldn’t straight out ask her in a way that revealed what she knew but she could mask her question this way and still get her answer.

Celestia visibly hesitated. “Twilight… Twilight, you know he doesn’t want me to tell you about his past.”

“But surely there is something you can tell me?” Twilight pleaded, her want for understanding clear on the set of her features. “A reason, an explanation, why? The things he has done- at the tournament he just ripped those ponies apart for no reason.”

“Twilight, I know, I was there.”

“Why did you allow i- him to stay here? Why didn’t you just send him back from where he came from? You knew what he was like. Why?” All the frustration, all the heartache that she had ever been put through demanded an answer. Twilight’s eyes threatened to mist and her voice tried to betray her. The assertiveness she had claimed as her own just yesterday was pulling away from her like a scared child. She once again gathered her resolve, forming it into her own version of steel armor that would protect her heart and weigh down more than her body. She needed to know why Princess Celestia, virtue personified, let something like Raegdan loose in her own home?

Princess Celestia calmly strode next to her student and pulled Twilight into a hug at her side with her wing. “Twilight… I can’t tell you specifics about his past. But I can tell you what happened between him and I. But you must remember, this is not the same Raegdan we are talking about anymore.”

Twilight took a deep breath, letting the scent of the white Alicorn bring out memories of happier times and the feeling of warmth and security. It was what she should have done from the beginning. Princess Celestia trusted Raegdan for a reason. Twilight would be proved wrong and everything would turn all right with the world again.

Princess Celestia drank deep of her cup, checking the dregs she had left at the bottom with a longing for something more substantial. “Let’s see. At first... we thought he was nothing more than a monster that made its way out of somewhere, maybe the Everfree or another similar location. The Solar Guard and I were going to... take him down.”

“You mean kill i- him.”

Celestia sighed. “Yes, that’s what I mean. Forgive me Twilight. Sometimes I still think of you as a little filly that should be protected. It’s hard to let this feeling go in its entirety.”

“It’s ok, princess. What happened then?”

“I had reached the location where he had made his camp along with four of my Solar Guards. I believed them to be enough. But you know how surprising Raegdan can be. He overtook them easily enough. They were not prepared to face such a savage yet intelligent opponent. In the end I managed to corner him myself and it was all going to end right there but… it was then that he spoke. I didn’t understand him but it became obvious he was something more than a simple beast. We brought him back to Canterlot to keep him alive and interrogate him.”

Celestia tightened her hold on Twilight. “It took time but we taught him enough to make him understand us. Between the few words he learned to speak and the drawings he resorted to when his extremely short vocabulary failed him, he told me enough. It was a confession of shorts. Something horrible had happened to him that made him desperate for someone to know, to understand what had happened to him.” Celestia took a trembling breath. “I failed him on that. I stopped him, before he could tell me everything. I couldn’t bear to hear more and he didn’t have to tell me. I had made my decision. I was going to have him executed.”

Celestia’s words were a heavy stone thrown into the previously calm waters where her expectations had pooled, shattering the previously unbroken surface and casting ripples that would reach further than this particular lake. This… this wasn’t what Princess Celestia was supposed to say! “W-what?”

“This is the past now, Twilight, so don’t judge him according to it. Based on what he told me himself… he…” Celestia swallowed heavily before continuing. “He used to be something alike to a demon. Before he arrived on Equestria… the things he did… The only one I could even compare to what Raegdan had become is the thing that took over Luna.”

“He- he killed… people you mean?” Celestia nodded. “But… how many? Why?”

Celestia shrugged. “I can’t give you a number Twilight. He doesn’t know and I don’t want to ask him to guess. As for why… some things he did because he believed he had no other choice or to defend himself. There were times in his life were he was driven insane, he isn’t sure himself what he did then, and at other times… he hurt others as much as he could on purpose. If he was pushed enough, if he was given sufficient reason, he lashed out with unimaginable brutality. I think it might have been a way for him to feel back in control,” Celestia speculated.

“Then… he is still the same, isn’t he? He did exactly that in the tournament.”

“No,” Celestia turned down that assertment. “No, I don’t think he has been cruel here, not as he understands it anymore. What he did at the arena, the way he was thinking as he was at the time, was just a way to keep everypony else from challenging him. It was an act of intimidation. It came to him as natural as breathing in that state.”

Celestia returned the conversation back to its original track. “I believed he had nothing left in him, apart from bitterness and hate. There was still a small spark of regret which I was afraid was not enough. He didn’t ask to become this but all I felt I could afford to give him was a quick death. He thanked me when he heard my sentence,” Celestia remembered with grief.

“But- but you changed your mind. Something happened to make this change, didn’t it?”

Celestia nuzzled Twilight until she calmed down enough. Twilight had been too lost in hearing Celestia’s words to notice how frazzled she herself had become, her vaunted will to stay in control evaporating without her notice. “You did, Twilight. You changed him. I was terrified when I saw he was gone from the hospital wing. I thought he changed his mind and escaped to hurt my ponies, to be cruel and vengeful, maybe even that he was the one who took you. Instead, he saved you. Something about you… you may not believe me but the difference was outstanding. It was like seeing a dragon donate his hoard or Discord suddenly decide to use his powers to keep the streets clean. You changed him. You made him feel something apart from hate and brought him back to sanity. He didn’t ask me for it but it was plain what he wanted. I gave him a chance. I watched him closely for months and he only kept getting better. There was still violence in him but considering how easily he could have done much, much worse... Twilight, he needs you. He is trying, he is failing often, but he is. If someone like Raegdan can still attempt to absolve himself, find some way to repent and live with what he has done… then there is hope for everypony.”

“Like Luna,” Twilight said in understanding.

Celestia recoiled suddenly at Twilight’s sudden epiphany into her mind. A small reluctant smile soon returned. “Yes. I… admit there was some personal motivation. But I do not regret my decision.”

Twilight understood Celestia’s reasoning. It was a matter of morality, of belief into the ability of inherent goodness to prevail over even the worst of sinners. Condemning Raegdan while it still had a chance to change its ways, when it evidently was trying to, would be to spit upon everything Princess Celestia believed in.

How would her beloved teacher fare when she found out what Raegdan had done behind her back? Especially if its motivation for performing torture on them was not just to pull the truth out of them but if it was its desire for cruelty against what it believed to be a deserving target? If it had been its true nature clamoring for a reason to break through? How would Princess Celestia feel then?

Princess Celestia tried to quell what she believed were her student’s fears. “Twilight, I know you are still affected by what you saw at the tournament. I should have gone ahead and stopped it, but I hesitated because there are rules. The fight could not be interrupted until a winner emerged unquestionably.”

Twilight had wondered about that. The Solar Guard tournament had always been a violent affair. “Why do you allow something like this anyway?” she asked while pushing herself against the soft white coat.

“The Solar Guard was needed in Equestria. I am quite powerful, if I may toot my own horn, but there’s only one of me. Things were different when Luna was… was with me. She used to be relentless in her efforts to make the night safe for everypony. Sometimes I didn’t see her for months or years at the time. When she was- When she was lost to that demon… what Nightmare Moon did with her own hooves was only a part of the terror she brought to our land. The Solar Guard was what kept Equestria from falling, even after... Nightmare Moon was gone. Over the following years monsters and other threats emerged. I tried, but I couldn’t be everywhere and guide my ponies at the same time. Only with the aid of the Solar Guard was I able to make a difference,” Celestia explained.

“The Solar Guard used to have so many casualties. It may seem harsh but the tournament was the solution to that. It was better to make certain only the best would make it into the dangerous role of the Solar Guard through combat trials in an environment where we could at least provide immediate medical aid than have them prove if they had the mettle for it in a true life or death situation. They lessened their numbers but increased the quality of their training. The tournament has stopped far too many lives being lost in return for the occasional heavy injury or rare death. It’s why I was able to let Raegdan off the hook so easily. Technically, he did nothing wrong in accordance to the rules.”

“Morally though…” Twilight said.

“Another issue altogether. As you might be able to see clearer now, Raegdan was amazingly lenient with them at the start of the fight, so I foolishly allowed it to go on, as it made me think he had a better hold of himself. We all shared responsibility for what happened, me, Steadfast, and Raegdan, but I insist that Raegdan should have been the one to back off and stop it, despite him being the one who actually tried to keep it civil. He risked more than his life, he risked everything he had been trying to change in himself for something that he and Luna could accomplish in a number of different ways. You saw how angry I was with them.”

“I did.”

“I mean, I’ve had to make so many concessions for his sake. Then, right in front of me, he almost went back to his old ways in a matter of seconds while he knows this is exactly what he should be trying to avoid. He couldn’t even recognize what he did wrong when I confronted him afterwards, not even enough to try and lie at least.” Celestia sighed. “Maybe Luna has the right idea.” She turned her gaze back to her office. “Maybe a Lunar Guard would serve him better. If he can’t let go of what he was in its entirety, he could be using his skills against proper targets, away from Canterlot. I just wish… he could go back to what he was before everything happened to him. I would love to meet that person, just once.”

The truth was going to destroy her, Twilight realized. She still believed in Raegdan, still thought it was trying to become something it wasn’t.

“He is like an addict that is verging on falling back to his old habits, isn’t he?” It made a strange kind of sense.

Celestia brushed her cheek against the top of Twilight’s head. “An imperfect example but one close enough. There is no need to worry about this anymore however, is there my student? Not with you and Spike back in his life,” Celestia perked up once more.

Twilight hated herself. “No, Princess Celestia. There isn’t.” It was the hardest smile of her life.

It hadn’t helped, it had been no use. Twilight felt more conflicted than ever. If Raegdan was as dangerous in the past as Princess Celestia claimed and it was returning back to his old ways… There was the matter of those reports, these omissions, misleads, and lies that were being told to the Princess of the Sun. Raegdan and Luna knew more, far more than they revealed. It felt as if two parts of her were at war and worst of all she wasn’t certain which part she wanted to win. She wanted her step-father back but as she kept getting answers she wondered if she ever truly had one or just a carefully constructed persona. The memories of her young life were being torn apart and revealed themselves to be made of nothing but lies.

Should she be supporting Luna in the creation of a Lunar Guard? What if the violence that would certainly entangle Raegdan once again became the tipping point that turned it back into something that even Princess Celestia thought was irredeemable?

A door at her side silently slid open and a field of magic pulled her inside in the span of a second.

Twilight fought off the dizziness from the sudden tug and found herself staring into the eyes of a furious dark blue Alicorn. “What. Did. You. Tell her?” Luna asked her vehemently.

“I- nothing. What are you doing Luna? You are scaring me!”

“Good. You should be scared. What did you tell her?” Luna’s hot breath tickled Twilight’s nose. It didn’t make her want to laugh at all.

“Nothing!”

“Lies!” Luna screamed. “I don’t trust you, I don’t have any reason to trust you! You told Celestia about Raegdan didn’t you, you traitorous worm?”

Twilight was starting to become genuinely scared. She tried to discreetly cast a teleport spell to escape but found her efforts to shape the magical field harder than they should be and the spell slipped away from her. She gazed upwards at her horn. Something made of white and red cloth was impaled on it.

“Luna, I didn’t tell Princess Celestia anything, I promise!” Luna’s mouth turned into a thin, harsh line. “If I had told her she would be rushing out to imprison it, right?”

Luna took a deep breath, her anger leaving her along with the air in her lungs. “I’m sorry. You’re correct. I am too agitated and lack of sleep isn’t helping my case,” she confessed. Twilight finally took notice of the slight lisp in her voice. Her muzzle was swollen and… yes, there were a few red stains around her mouth that hadn’t been cleaned well enough. “If my sister knew she would not waste time in making sure her subjects are “safe” and would-”

The world halted in its tracks. Luna’s lips mouthed a string of words. She was looking stunned.

“It?” Luna asked disbelieving.

“It?” She spewed out not sound but ice and frost.

“It?” Her roar was fire. It was pure rage and magma, it was light and darkness, it seared Twilight’s ears and spirit and the absolute hatred it carried pierced her through the heart. Luna was on Twilight in an instant. Her teeth ripped whatever was blocking Twilight’s magic but before Twilight had a chance to do something with her short freedom Luna’s horn lit up, brighter than ever.

“So what happened then?” Applejack asked a tipsy Rainbow Dash. She had to steady her and straighten her back on course as they walked back to their rooms so that Rainbow Dash could sleep off her “spying expenditures”.

“Weell…” Rainbow Dash slurred proudly, “after I showed them g...gua… guys a thing or two about how a pegasus really fights, they took me out for drinks!”

“Ya don’t say? Well, ah never would have imagined. And then what?”

Rainbow puffed her chest and tried to fly upside down into a wall before Applejack pulled her back down. “I drr-aaaank them aaaall under the- the table!”

“That is very impressive Dash,” Applejack said to Rainbow’s off-beat nods. “Considering it’s barely the afternoon ah think you might be well on your way to alcoholism. Good job.”

“Hey, you are just- just jealous, aren’t you?” Rainbow Dash accused her lifelong friend while poking a door at chest height.

“Over here Dash. Ah didn’t know making a spectacle out of yourself was something to be jealous of. How did you even get back to the castle?”

“I flew. Maybe. I don’t know actually.” She looked around. “How did I get back?”

“Pigeon instincts. Ah bet ya share the same talents with the rest of them birdies.”

“We prefer the term “featherly inclined”. Anyway, you are jealous cause I’m an amazing spy and you are not!”

Applejack looked around, hoping everypony was out of hearing range as well as their sight. “You might have been a better one if you didn’t yell that out,” she chastised.

“Ask me what I found out. Come on, ask me, I dare ya.”

Applejack sighed. “What did you find out Rainbow Dash.”

“Nothiiing! I ain’t telling you nothing cause I’m an awesome spy and I only report to my superiors.”

”Oh? Pray tell, if I happened to be one of your “superiors” what would you possibly have to report?” Applejack challenged.

Rainbow Dash gestured to the invisible pony at Applejack’s left to come closer while holding the one to her right away. “Ok, get this,” Rainbow whispered conspiratorially. “Turns out the guards are kinda divided about Luna and Raegdan.”

“Ya mean some of them like them?” Applejack asked hopefully.

“Oh no. Celestia, no! They all think they are both pretty much psychopaths that will pummel them all to the ground at the slightest provol- provota- reason they get. But, you know, some of them think that since Celestia says jump they should jump with no questions asked. They just kinda feel scared about jumping Luna and Raegdan… wait…”

“Ya mean they want to actually do their job but are scared of those two?”

“Yes. No. I mean- oh, let’s hurry it up, I think I might hurl in a bit- I mean yeah, Luna and Raegdan don’t really want to do much with random guards around them but turns out those guards that don’t like theeeem? They outnumber the other guys a lot so they are not all really keen on getting the stinkeye and a big old beating for being Nightmare Moon supporters. Was your mane always blonde?”

“Luna is not Nightmare Moon,” Applejack said automatically.

“Preach it sister. Just, you know, not to me. Ok, here’s our stop. Help me get into the bathroom.”

Applejack considered the benefits of visiting a bar herself in order to forget the splashing sounds, heaves, and swears Rainbow cried to the skies. When Rainbow got out she quickly made a beeline for her bed that included two loops and a trip on her own hooves. She sunk into the soft mattress with a deep sigh.

“Before you head to dreamland, on whose side were those guards you were with?” Applejack asked.

“Uhhh, they were camp “Luna is Nightmare, Raegdan is a monster” but I’m pretty sure Lotus and Skyline are mostly going with the main flow so that’s why. It’s that sneaky guy, Smoke Ring who-” Rainbow yawned loudly. “Who, you know, who…” Rainbow Dash let out a loud snore as she descended into the dreamlands with the conviction of the heavily inebriated.

“Well, ain’t that a sequel hook if I ever heard one,” Applejack said to herself. She tried to coax Dash under the covers until a strong wing smacked her on the jaw making her reconsider and let the pegasus be instead. If she was fine with apple tree branches she could deal with no blanket over her.

Applejack left Rainbow Dash’s room, making as little noise as possible. Unneeded as it was for somepony like Rainbow it was how she had been taught. Applejack pulled the door close as gently as possible, hearing the “clink” sound of the bolt coming from the door in front of her and… her left?

Applejack turned her head to that direction to come face to face with Luna doing the exact same thing with Twilight’s door. They both blinked at each other.

Luna looked terrible. Rainbow had said that Luna had allowed her to get one solid kick in making her bleed, but this… this was much more! Luna’s left eye was so swollen it could not open at all. Her mouth was bruised too and covered in dried blood. White cloth that had turned pink was tied around her torso and one of her legs.

“Are you… ok princess?” Applejack asked when she finished looking the wounded Alicorn up and down.

If Luna looked fazed before it was gone now, leaving her aloof as she usually was. “Nothing that can’t be fixed when I return to my room. Can I help you Applejack?”

“Uhh, yeah. What were you doing in Twilight’s room?”

Luna’s eyes pointed at Rainbow’s door. “The same thing I suspect you were doing in Rainbow Dash’s room.”

Applejack blushed fiercely. “Hey ho now, Rainbow and I ain’t anything like that, we are just good friends and-”

“My stars, is everypony’s thoughts dwelling on nothing but coitus lately?” Luna cried out. “I like innuendo jokes as much as the next mare but I draw the line at making assumptions that I slept with Raegdan’s adopted daughter!”

“Well, it would have to be quite a kinky affair if ya ended up looking like that,” Applejack couldn’t help but rib on Luna.

“I was just helping Twilight Sparkle to her bed, same as I assume you were doing with your friend, unless you were busy plucking her feathers instead?”

“No, no, message received loud and clear. No more jokes... for now.”

“Good. If we are done I will be taking my leave.”

“What happened to Twilight anyway?” Applejack asked before Luna could do more than turn away from her.

“She… is just exhausted. There was an incident and it took a lot out of her.”

“Ah. So… are things somewhat quite settled between the two of ya?” Applejack dared to hope.

Luna walked in front of Applejack and shrugged. “I guess we will know how successful I was once she wakes up.” Luna’s open eye was looking at something on Applejack’s head. “Was Rainbow Dash drinking?” she asked.

“Yeah. How did ya know?”

Luna’s hoof pointed behind Applejack’s left ear. “You seem to have some proof of that there.”

“Ah, horseapples. How did she even manage that?” Applejack said in disgust. Her hoof moved to swipe at the offending spot but she stopped herself before she could spread the mess.

“Allow me,” Luna said. Her magic ripped a small scrap of the cloth she had tied around her leg and wiped away the unseen “Mark of the Drunk”.

“Ugh,” Applejack scratched her mane. “Ah feel so itchy, it’s almost like it’s still there.”

“I promise you, there is nothing there.”

“Say, Luna, what happened to ya anyway? You and Twily didn’t get into a fight, did you?”

“Not to worry, Applejack. I promise you, my wounds are nothing but the product of my own stupidity. I need to return to my tower. I will see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. See ya tomorrow Luna.” Applejack waved her off. Something stunk here. She wished she just knew exactly what.

Apart from Rainbow’s projectiles that is. “Oh Celestia, ah feel all dirty. Next time she can sleep it off in a gutter.” Applejack headed to her own room and the sweet release of the bathtub.

There was nothing. Existence had faded long ago, swallowed by a darkness that swirled and moved in a freezing wind. Bright lights had briefly twinkled in the void, only to be savagely smothered by a raging presence that devoured any sense of warmth in this desperate gloom.

“You wanted to know, didn’t you? You wanted to know how a monster is made? Fine! Have a taste of the kind of life that you are so quick to dismiss,” Luna’s voice echoed in Twilight’s head mockingly.

There was a light in the world again, revealing a scene where everything was frozen in time. A strange lamp was hanging from the ceiling of an empty room. A thick wooden table was in front of her. Everything seemed so tall and short at the same time. She felt like a giant. Twilight’s mind filled with senses not her own. She could smell the room and the acrid smell of smoke permeating it. The light was weak but still hurt her eyes as if she had spent hours in the dark. She could feel the limbs of her body and with it came the realization that it was not her own. Her back legs were straight below her torso while her front ones hung from the side. Her ribs burned like fire, her back felt as if shards of glass had impaled her and her limbs were made of lead, exhausted beyond anything she had ever felt or even imagined.

She had no control over this body. She was a prisoner behind a pair of unblinking eyes. Her head, or the head of the puppet she was now placed into, was killing her, throbbing with a pain that was red and angry. Her tongue could taste the blood that had pooled in her mouth.

Luna’s voice filled her being again. “He told me this while he was drunk. He thought- he thought the pun was funny! He doesn’t even think of it as a noteworthy bad experience anymore, just something that simply happened!” her voice snarled with hatred. “Let’s see if you will think the same as “it” did after you go through this.”

Time continued and sound returned. Dust was floating in whirling patterns in front of her and the lightbulb was swinging on a thin white cord. She could hear the wind howling outside and a strange mechanical sound came from a pale yellow rectangle at the top of one of the walls near the ceiling. The agony in her borrowed body intensified. She tried to move but it was useless. She was still just a watcher, no, not just a watcher. Whatever was going to happen she was going to feel it.

The drowning sense of fear she was wallowing in was all hers. The body she occupied felt anger, defiance, and a strange acceptance, but little fear.

Twilight barely had time to analyze the situation, to observe everything that was around her, before something came down brutally on her back, inflaming the pain that was nesting there to new incredible heights.

The body she was trapped into clenched its teeth trying to stifle the grunt that escaped it. She fell forwards to the wooden table, her upper body sprawled violently on it. The hands she had no command over futilely struggled to raise her battered body back up. There was no strength left in them, she could feel it. This body was exhausted beyond its limits, running on nothing but fumes, kept awake by willpower and the waves of agonizing pain that washed over it.

There were scars over the arms. Only one or two but she recognized the shape and location. She had seen them so many times before.

A hand grabbed her- no, Raegdan’s hair, pulled him up a few centimeters, and smashed his face on the hard wooden surface. Twilight wasn’t sure if she should be thinking of it as her or his jaw, but she was certain it had cracked at least.

Whoever it was that was inflicting that kind of pain on her- them- talked from behind them. Twilight wished she could see who it was but her eyes were closed, too absorbed in trying to ignore the pain. “Stop fighting me, boy,” it hissed.

The voice was strange. It sounded like a myriad of people talking at once while at the same time it was definitely a single voice. Twilight thought she could hear traces of Raegdan, Luna, Celestia, Commander Steadfast, herself, her friends, maybe a few guards she thought she recognized, and others she could not. She wondered if this was how whatever was behind her really talked or this is how Luna portrayed that person’s voice.

Raegdan did not obey the order. His palms fell flat on the table and tried to push himself up. Twilight could feel the muscles shake and tremble, the burn from their own toxins flooding them and breaking down his attempt.

A large carpenter’s hammer broke Raegdan’s right forearm. A scream came roaring out, followed by a whimper, and he fell back down on the table, his legs weakly scratching the floor as if trying to push himself away from the pain. His left arm took hold of the broken forearm, trying to coax it to quiet down.

Twilight screamed in her own head. The pain was unreal.

She felt the tormentor push against Raegdan’s body from behind. A hand reached out from behind their back, cloaked in darkness despite the light from the ceiling above them, and pulled Raegdan’s left hand over his right side, pulling him so that his back laid against the table. The edge was digging into her backside and the way Raegdan’s body was lain was painful. A form was in front of her, featureless as all light was swallowed by it before it reached it. She could only verify that it was biped and shaped like Raegdan. It deliberately pushed Raegdan’s top of his palm down on the table’s surface as if signifying he had to keep it there. The shadow arm left their sight for a moment and returned from the creature’s side holding something steady over Raegdan’s left arm.

It was an extremely long iron nail. It shined menacingly in the white light, promising nothing good to come. Twilight felt Raegdan’s eyes widen and for the first time during this ordeal their mouth moved and spoke. “No…”

The hammer came down on the nail’s head, driving it in Raegdan’s flesh. A part of Twilight’s brain that wasn’t busy screaming in pain and terror recognized the small circular scar that this would form later. The nail scraped the bone, adding a different level of pain. The hammer came down again. She felt the nail slip along the bone, luckily not trying to go through it. The hammer kept striking until the nail pierced all the way through the arm and was buried deep in the wooden table, immobilising the arm. Twilight thought that Raegdan might have been screaming in pain too but she wasn’t sure. She couldn’t tell if that was him or her.

The shadow arms moved again, pulling at the broken arm. There was no mercy. Another nail was produced and the process repeated. It was even worse. Every strike made the broken bone grind against itself. Raegdan vomited raw bile. Twilight was pleading for Luna to make this stop but there was no answer from the Alicorn.

Finally, It was over. The hammer was thrown to the corner by its wretched owner and Twilight had never felt more relief than when she saw that torture instrument away from her. Raegdan’s lungs were working overtime. Even now he was still trying to lift his arms up but he was so weak that Twilight wouldn’t be able to spot his attempts if she couldn’t feel the muscles trying to work in vain.

At least it was done. Twilight had truly underestimated what Raegdan had gone through, she admitted this out loud, or at least with thoughts as strong as she could make them, hoping Luna could hear her. If that’s how he had gained just those two pinpricks of a scar… She wanted to know nothing more. She just wanted to go back home and forget that kind of pain even existed.

She waited. It wasn’t fading or disappearing. Whatever this was… it wasn’t done, was it? What could follow, what else could the dreaded tormentor in the shadows do? She pictured Raegdan’s ravaged body in her mind, the countless scars covering it. No, please no, she screamed for Luna to not let her go through something like this.

Whatever part of Raegdan’s life this was, this kind of torture would not continue today. She once again felt the torturer on her- them, pushing himself against Raegdan’s body, his movements bringing small eruptions of pain from the nailed down arms. She felt hands reach around Raegdan’s waist and fiddle with the clothing, pulling violently. She heard the breathing, quick and short.

“No, no, no. This didn’t happen to him, that’s a lie. This cannot be, this is not real, that’s a lie. Luna, you are lying, this is just an attempt to make me forgive him for what he did. I refuse to believe this happened.“

The clothing on Raegdan started getting ripped and torn.

“This isn’t real. This didn’t happen. It can’t. Luna, stop this! I don’t want to go through this, I can’t. I… I can’t… please… no, no, no!”

Two hands tore off the shirt and ran over his body. Raegdan was still fighting, trying to pull at his arms, refusing to give up. Twilight could feel him wresting control from his body that was trying to blackout. He wasn’t… he wasn’t going to escape this, neither by his own strength or blessed oblivion.

Twilight screamed with all of her soul. The pain had been nothing, not compared to what was going to follow.

“Luna, please, I beg you. Stop this. Stop this!”

“I don’t want to see this happen to my dad!”

“Wake up.”

Twilight opened her eyes. She was back in the room that Luna had dragged her in, lying on the floor. A small cushion had been placed beneath her head. She no longer felt her body be on the verge of being ripped apart and the memory of how it had actually felt was quickly fading away like a dream -or a nightmare. Luna was sitting on the floor at her side, scowling at her.

“What- what did you do?” Twilight croaked. Her throat was parched. She was thirsty. How long had she been here?

“I put you to sleep,” Luna’s chest trembled as if she was hiccuping and her breathing was short with the occasional deep, trembling breath. “Then I took control of your dream and shaped it.”

“Why did you do this? Why did you make me go through this?” Twilight cried.

“Why did you do this to Raegdan?” Luna asked back. “What you saw? That was nothing. He has nightmares of the first time you left him but never this. You… what you are doing to him is going to destroy him!”

Twilight wished she could calm herself down but the “dream” was still fresh in her mind. “He should know better. I love him, I do, but he did similar to what you just showed me to those ponies, didn’t he?” Twilight defended her actions.

“He does know better, you sheltered, ignorant child,” Luna roared, losing her patience. “That’s why he did everything. He will never allow you to go through anything that even slightly resembles what happened to him. That’s what they would have done to you, you moron. He knows first-hoof what would happen to you. He protected you!”

“I never asked him to do something like that!”

“He loves you, you idiot. He will sacrifice everything in a heartbeat for you!”

“I don’t need him to do that!”

“Of course you say that now! You can afford to when you are the bearer of the Element of Magic and not a whore locked in a cell waiting for your master to get horny enough to ride you until he exhausts himself!”

Twilight took a deep breath and made sure the cloth, that she was certain now had been stained with Raegdan’s blood, was away from her. “Speaking of which, I wonder what he will do when he finds out you raped my mind.”

Luna’s eyes widened in realization and her horn brightened. Twilight was ready however and had calculated her move long before. Her magic gripped a glass cabinet from the right of Luna’s position and launched it at her, breaking it apart on her body before she could even attempt to evade it.

Luna stumbled but did not fall. One of her legs had a large piece of glass embedded in her. She snarled and her attempt to strike back was interrupted by a chair coming down on her face. Her wound from Rainbow’s kick reopened and widened, dripping blood on her chin.

Twilight didn’t dare to let down. She didn’t bother with fancy spells or anything. She needed to be efficient and she needed to put Luna down as fast as possible. She couldn’t afford to waste time shaping anything more complicated than simple levitation, not while she still had ammunition. The couch at the other end of the room rose up and cruised for Luna. It was heavy and Twilight put all of her considerable magical strength into it. It crashed into Luna and carried her all the way to the wall where it impacted and shattered, Luna’s body right between it and the wall.

Twilight picked up another chair and waited. That had been a serious hit. If Luna managed to get up after that she would have to get another faceful of the castle’s furniture.

She did not. Twilight carefully moved the rubble off Luna. Luna was unconscious and Twilight guiltily noticed a jagged piece of wood was sticking out of her torso. Twilight moved closer to inspect the wound. It didn’t seem to be that deep. That was good. She didn’t want to have to tell Celestia that she killed her sister in self-defence.

She had won. Twilight barely believed it. She needed… she needed to tell Celestia what Luna had done but… Should she? The answer was yes, so why was she hesitating? Maybe she should just tell Raegdan instead. The question of course is what could or would he actually do.

Twilight didn’t want to go running to him. She could deal with this on her own. First, she would make sure Luna didn’t bleed to death on her watch. Then… she would tell Celestia that her sister... entered her mind uninvited. If Celestia pushed to know more… Twilight would have to tell her what she really-

The chair she had previously been holding hit her on the side of the head.

“You do not let your opponents just lie in front of you,” Luna said as she got up on her legs. “You either finish them,” the chair dented itself on Twilight’s head again, “or make sure they can’t get up again.”

Twilight was captured in Luna’s magic. The Alicorn brought Twilight in front of her while simultaneously ripping off the offending foreign objects from her own body.

“I am simply astounded by everypony’s ability to turn on those who would defend them, citing their moral superiority when they themselves are incapable of being anything but victims. Is it really so hard to just accept that he loves you and wants nothing more than your safety? Must he be crucified for it?” Luna spat blood on the floor.

Twilight’s patience vanished. “I know he does. That’s what makes what he did my fault. If it wasn’t for me then he would have told Celestia and I wouldn’t be the cause for what happened!”

Luna’s anger washed away instantly. She simply stared at Twilight while she was trying to control herself and stop her tears. “I see.”

“I was… I was just…”

“You believe you are the reason he didn’t have those ponies investigated by my sister but tortured them so savagely instead. That he resorted to his bloodthirst because of you.”

“He is better off with just Spike. I was the one who always brought him trouble. Celestia told me that… I am right, he was trying to become better and he didn’t because of me!” Twilight started crying again. Luna made a jerking motion forward as if wanting to approach Twilight but instantly regretted it.

“You two, stupid…” Luna whispered. “Twilight Sparkle, Raegdan would surely disagree with you. He loves you and Spike equally, and the loss of even one of you would break him once more. The two of you are what pushed him to control himself as much as he was able to. What do you think will happen if he loses you? Do you think he will keep trying or let himself revert to something uncaring and emotionless to forget his pain?”

Twilight stayed silent for a while. “I don’t… Too much has happened. He… I love him, but I’m angry, and disappointed, and hurt… I… I… need some time to think. This is all too much.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m honestly sorry for… what I did. I was angry and wasn’t thinking. But I assure you, everything will be all right now.” The bright light that emanated from Luna’s horn washed over Twilight’s mind.

“That’s... I’m sorry for interrupting you Luna. I should have knocked.”

“It is fine Twilight. Next time you hear sounds of violence don’t just rush into it. Scout ahead if possible, and a shield is always a good idea as long as you don’t rely entirely on it. Are you feeling ok? My spell did not harm you when it flailed out of my control, did it?” Luna asked concerned.

“I’m ok. Just a couple of bruises and a major headache,” Twilight said, rubbing her head with her left hoof. “But you are bleeding. We need to get you to the hospital wing.”

Luna hesitated. “I’m going to be fine, Twilight. I worry more about you. Allow me to escort you back into your room. The half-shaped fields are probably to blame for your pain. Some rest will do you good.”

“Thank you. Some sleep sounds really nice right now… I’m sorry for barging in on you like that.” Twilight looked guiltily at the destroyed furniture. “I should have realized you were… having a moment.”

“Furniture is easier to replace than the damage I do to my reputation. I’ve learned my lesson thanks to you.” Luna stepped to Twilight’s side and started walking while binding her wounds on the go. Some ponies that they ran into stared with their mouths open at the bloody princess while Twilight smiled apologetically at them.

“Twilight,” Luna said when they next were alone again. “I promise you that I will fix this. I’m not letting my friend get hurt again.”

“Thank you Luna but really, it’s my fault. I just need to learn to knock.”

Luna hummed and nodded at her. She didn’t talk again and seemed lost in thought until Twilight went inside her room.

The pair of eyes that had followed her ever since she pulled Twilight Sparkle into that room had fled. Their owner didn’t want to push their luck too much.

Pinkie Pie hopped outside to greet Luna. “Hello Luna. Me and dad had a wonderful time, though he won’t know it until he wakes- oh my gosh, are you ok?”

“No. I believe I have just discovered that I am an idiot.”

“Huh? Don’t be silly, you are brilliant. You are a princess!”

“Is Raegdan awake yet?”

“Pappa is still on a nappa,” Pinkie Pie said.

“I need to wake him up,” Luna said while heading for her bedroom. “He has work to do. Could you find your own way out, please?”

“Sure! See you tomorrow princess.” Pinkie Pie waved at Luna.

“Goodbye,” Luna answered simply and closed the door.

Today had not been a good day all in all. She achieved what she had set out to do, all the spells had been reinforced, but she managed to turn what was supposed to be a simple interaction with Twilight Sparkle into a disaster. She should have kept calm but that was easier said than done. Twilight Sparkle was right. What Luna did to her was despicable for more than one reason, and the only way to fix it had been with more of the same. The cause was worth it though. If Twilight and the rest succeeded in aiding them, and it all ended as planned, it would be of no matter, less than inconsequential really. There were worse betrayals to come anyway. She let out a pained breath. Twilight almost crushed her with her last attack.

Twilight and her friends would never know what she did today. Luna would tell Raegdan however. No secrets. There might have been a couple of occasions where they both professed their reluctance to revisit them by speaking of them but even so all it would take would be to ask again to know. Both of them had done so. She wouldn’t try to keep this from Raegdan this way. It would only lead to a true fiasco.

Maybe trying to regain Twilight Sparkle’s affection for him was a lost and senseless cause that had no meaning in the long run, but Luna had thought she could give him a little bit more time with his daughter before she and the rest of them turned against them for good. They still had time until that happened. Surely, she couldn’t be blamed for wanting her friend to savor some happiness before then? Too bad she failed.

Luna created a pale soft light to see her companion’s state. She hoped that Pinkie Pie hadn’t-

The view left her speechless. After a few seconds of simply staring she managed to chuckle a bit. She wished she was in a better mood so she could appreciate Pinkie Pie’s “artistic endeavors”. No, what she really wished was that Raegdan was in a better mood and not… bitter, like he was before, and they could laugh at himself together. She could really do with a reprieve right now.

She had to wake up Raegdan. He had a job to do but… it was still early. They had plenty of time to talk and explain herself before that. Luna climbed on the bed, careful not to disturb him, getting under the covers, and winking out the light she had conjured. Raegdan, though still deeply asleep, sensed her proximity to him either through her weight moving the mattress or her own warmth. His arm rose up as if it had a will of its own. Luna scooted to the vacated space, letting her head rest on that perfectly shaped pillow between his chest and shoulder, mindful of her horn. When she had nestled in her familiar place the arm descended on her back, pulling her to his embrace.

She could do with some rest. They had an hour or two available to nap.

She’d missed this. They barely slept lately at all. Too much work, too much planning, too many fears. They had to take what little sleep they could in shifts in order to make as much as they could out of their limited time. They could properly rest tomorrow at least. She intended to spend most of tomorrow right here, just like this, both of them healing together.

She’d really miss these peaceful moments when they’d be too busy keeping themselves alive as long as possible while all of Equestria screamed for their heads. Oh well, it would be fun in its own way at least.

Luna’s physical pains and mental fears melted away as she drifted off, both sleepers’ dreams finally safe, guarded by each other’s reassuring presence.

Ch.12 - A blast of a time

Rarity anxiously considered her choices. None of the potential prospects appealed to her. There was no connection, no desire to let them wrap themselves around her form. The clock was ticking, rapidly bringing her towards the hour where she would have to prove her mettle. The battlefield of minds, etiquette, obstructions and distractions, was calling for her blazing presence. And lo and behold; she had nothing to wear.

“...drunk off his mind and actually burning all that stuff. Ah mean, you saw how he kept it in there before, right? All careful and in a row?”

Dear Applejack was a distraction she sorely needed right now. Rarity knew if she let herself be completely embroiled in her audacious act of bringing so few of her creations along she would just scream in frustration. Was that... pantyhose? What did she even bring that for? Hay, why did she own it?

“I saw Applejack. I cannot presume I would have felt the same powerful impact if it was me and Sweetie Bell, but I do believe it is close enough to feel deeply sorry for him.” Of course, fashion could be a distraction in its own way too. Oh, she was a fool, a complete nincompoop, a simple dolt. She should have asked Prince Blueblood what he would wear so they could at least color coordinate.

“Pinkie has the right idea. Twilight can’t just gosh-darn her pa to heck even if the big cahoot did that. Ah’m about ready to march in her room and give her a piece of my mind!” Applejack finished with a sharp rap of her front hoof on the floor.

Right, she had to put a stop to this. Duties of friendship and all that. “You will do no such thing Applejack. Leave the poor thing alone. Twilight has enough on her mind.”

Applejack stared at her for a single second. “You know Rarity, there are other ways to settle things too besides just sitting on your-”

“Yes, yes, no need to be crass.” Should she wear something on her head? She did bring a tiara along, didn’t she? “I just want to point out the fact that it hasn’t been a day yet-”

“Kinda my point. We should be nipping this at the bud! At the farm if you let something like that grow you end up losing a whole crop! Did you know that she slips every now and then and calls him a monster or just “it”? She thinks I ain’t noticed.”

Rarity continued on as if Applejack hadn’t just interrupted her like an ill-mannered foal. “-and Twilight had to make an awful decision. She now she has to deal with the fact that she might have put her adopted father on a time limit at the end of which he could end up imprisoned for life or even executed. If she wants to convince herself that she condemned a vicious monster and not the person who tucked her in bed when she was a filly… well, do you want to be the one to break her out of that delusion so soon?”

Rarity turned back to her limited closet. She would have to deal with this logically. She had seen Prince Blueblood at the gala. Stallions were always so set in their ways. He’d go with blue, black, and gold accents. Oh, she could use silver instead. That would give her an excuse to wear that wonderful tiar-

“So we just lie back on our flanks and do nothing? That doesn’t sit right with me.” Applejack said, sounding bitter.

To think that she had been getting inspirational too. “Applejack, dear, none of us will be sitting on our lovely posteriors, as you eloquently put it. We are going to be good friends and help Twilight and Raegdan both as much as we can.”

The way Applejack stared at the floor, shaking one of her hoofs, was intensely familiar. Rarity took a deep breath. “Is there something else on your mind Applejack?”

“Well, do ya… do ya think that Twilight’s decision was the right one?”

Rarity turned her back on Applejack and fussed with the articles of clothing around her. She needed to pack those that didn’t make the cut back into their places. Her chosen outfit might need some airing and pressing too. Earrings! She completely forgot about earrings. Huffing to herself she turned back to searching. She must have brought a pair or two along. She couldn’t allow herself to be made a fool like that on such a momentous undertaking.

“Rarity?” Applejack kept savagely needling her from behind. Couldn’t she be afforded to have a moment to work in peace, please?

“Yes. I think it was.” Rarity sat next to Applejack, dropping her pret- her search. “He may have done “that” because he wanted to keep his child safe. He may have done it because he didn’t trust anypony else, not even Princess Celestia. But remember what he said about that last pony? He kept him alive and tortured for a week Applejack. A week! Can you fathom what he possibly did to him in that span of time? I can’t. That’s what nightmares are made of. If it was only about keeping Twilight safe he could have killed him since the final solution was the only one good enough for him. He did not. So yes, he will have to answer about that, no matter how much a part of me says good riddance to somepony who would do that to a filly.”

Applejack and the floor kept their intimate relationship intact so far. “He did save those fillies though…”

Rarity put one of her hoofs on Applejack’s shoulders. “He did. But I don’t know if he ever even thought about them when he started out. I think he had other things on his mind instead.”

“He got them out of there anyways,” Applejack defended Raegdan.

“So he has some basic decency at least. That means he is capable of recognizing what is wrong and what is right. Which is why, when the time comes, he will be judged as a sentient individual that knew what he was doing with every act he performed counting for him or against him.” Rarity hoped she wasn’t being harsh.

Applejack sighed. “Ah feel sorry for the big lug. You are right, but thinking he might get a death penalty or a lifetime in the dungeons for taking out those bad apples gets mah knickers in a twist something fierce.”

Rarity rose up once more and set herself on straightening her selected dress. She’d have to forego earrings, she just didn’t have the time now. “I like him too even if he scares me sometimes. That’s why when the time comes I shall do my best to support him and ensure he is shown as much leniency as possible. I’m more worried about little Spike first, then Twilight, and Raegdan a distant third. A stallion like him always finds a way to manage. He’ll be fine.”

Applejack nodded. “Alright. Ah see ya point. Need any help there?”

“Oh Celestia, no!” Rarity coughed at Applejack’s look. “Ahem, I meant; I’m quite done, but thank you for your considerate offer nonetheless.” Applejack’s attention was thankfully diverted by a knock on the door. “Could you get that dear? I’m in no condition to answer the door right now.” Rarity went behind a sheet she had hung as a makeshift screen to change into her dress.

“Can ah help ya?”

“Good evening miss. I am Prince Blueblood’s coach driver. The prince is waiting at the castle grounds so they can depart together. Is she ready?”

“Let me check.” Applejack’s voice boomed out. “Rarity? Are ya ready yet? They’re here to pick ya up!”

Oh fine, she’d have to do without the tiara.

The coach was opulent and spacious, decorated in gold and blue. Rarity let herself be bathed in the sheer class it exuded. Why, even the coach ponies pulling the coach in the front were dressed in outstanding finery. This little assignment of hers was shaping out to be so very fun. There was only a teeny black cloud on the horizon.

“Are we going in a circle? I’m not familiar with the Canterlot streets but shouldn’t we be heading north?” she asked her date.

Prince Blueblood was pouring champagne on two delicate, crystal glasses. He offered one of them to Rarity. “I thought we could use a few extra minutes to converse in private, miss Rarity.”

Rarity accepted the glass in the hold of her own magic. She had read this part on so many books. It was basically required for her to say it now. “Prince Blueblood, are you trying to seduce me?” She fluttered her eyelids at him. Rarity knew well the effect those long, thick eyelashes of hers had on the average stallion and…

Why was he looking terrified?

Prince Blueblood coughed and took a sip of his drink, seeming to regain his composure almost instantly. “Miss Rarity, perhaps we should address this before everything else…”

Of course. They had History, spelled with a capital H. She had to remedy and salvage, salvage I say, the situation. Not that her dreams before the Gala had been reinvigorated and brought forth, what a ridiculous little notion, hahaha. “Prince Blueblood, I know we had a… falling out before but-”

“No, no, please. Let me finish,” he appealed. “How do I put this?” He pulled in a deep breath, the impressive white trunk of his body swelling -not that she was looking. There were a lot of things she was not doing. “Miss Rarity, you are beautiful, you are elegant, you are interesting, and a mare that anypony would be fortunate to know even as a mere acquaintance.”

Oh, blessed fate, her dreams, all those dreams she had in those precious moments before sleep took her were coming-

“But I have to admit, I would sooner seek to find myself wrapped in, say, Raegdan’s embrace than yours. If you understand what I mean.”

-crashing down.

Huh?

Did he mean he had a thing for Raegdan or-

Oh. Oooh.

Oooooh.

Drat. Why is it always the good ones? Maybe going after stallions that followed fashion and made excessive use of beauty products did have a couple of disadvantages after all. She guessed there was always Big Mac… but let’s face facts, with a name like that who would be surprised if it turned out he had the hots for Thunderlane instead?

“I, uh… understand,” Rarity said expressively.

“I would ask that you keep this to yourself, if you would be so kind.”

“Of course, I understand completely.” She nodded fervently.

“On to other issues then! Have Raegdan and Luna coached you on how to act and behave while we are at the ball my aunt is hosting?” Blueblood asked.

“Ah… actually no. They haven’t.” His aunt was hosting the ball. The same “I’ll have Raegdan’s skull as a cat dish” aunt? The one she was warned to stay away from?

“Splendid!” Blueblood was relieved. “That means they won’t have given you any wrong ideas. Now, rule number one; You are an idiot that can’t tell she has been given an obvious insult, no matter the veiled ones.”

Rarity was aghast. “I’m supposed to play the part of a moron?”

Blueblood chuckled. “Miss Rarity, everyone will. I myself will endeavor to be crowned the king of moronic and lecherous leeches of society. Everyone will be guessing that you are not but they cannot be sure, can they? Not without breaking the illusion they put on themselves too. Feel free to give back as much as you receive in a manner that will leave them guessing, but remember, you certainly don’t want to appear too smart in your deception. We want our mysterious ponies to think they can outsmart and use you, correct? They might not reveal themselves tonight to you but we should plant the seeds nevertheless.”

Rainbow Dash and Applejack must never know, Rarity vowed internally. “I will… do my best. Anything else?”

“Yes. Rule number two; You know nothing of importance. However, we will have to slightly circumvent that one in order for you to bait efficiently. As far as you are concerned, the most important thing about you is your ability to get really close to Princess Luna and Raegdan.”

Rarity sighed deeply. Maybe this wasn’t going to be the exotic adventure she thought it would be. The businessmare in her was screaming as she realized how much this image she was going to project could hurt her in a professional way. It wouldn’t stop her, no way, no how. Still, a part of her was going to mourn deeply for the clientele she might estrange for life in the following few hours.

“Can I ask you a personal question Prince Blueblood?” Rarity interrupted the “etiquette” lesson.

“Just Blueblood while we are alone miss Rarity, please.”

“As long as you call me Rarity. How did you get involved with all this?”

Blueblood lied back, smiling. “Ah, now, that’s a long story I would prefer not to tell in detail. Short version; I needed help with some personal issues and I felt Raegdan was the only one who could really help me. We have been close friends ever since and I helped him in turn with some things he cannot do by himself.”

“You must have had quite the bond with him.”

“I barely knew him back then,” Blueblood confessed. “Most of our interactions until then involved him telling me to get out of his way or scaring the hay out of me. Oh, and there was that one time that he kicked me.”

Rarity had to remind herself severely that a lady does not stare and certainly does not let her mouth be an open invitation for any flies in the area. “Why did you go to him for help then? Moreover, how did you convince him to help you? So far he hasn’t struck me as the type to go out of his way for somepony he doesn’t know.”

“I believe the fact that I actually went to him for help surprised him enough to hear me out. As for why… Raegdan and my late father hated each other. Enough that they both wanted the other dead if possible. Any excuse to ruffle him up was good enough for Raegdan.”

Rarity was deathly curious to know what Blueblood needed help with but she noticed how he was careful not to hint on his own reasons in asking for Raegdan’s aid. Since it seemed to be very personal to Blueblood, Rarity would have to relinquish this line of questioning. Until they were a bit closer. Then she could pursue it again. She was patient.

She also did not miss the fact that somepony that Raegdan wanted dead ended up that way, but she chalked that up to coincidence. Raegdan was not responsible for every death in Canterlot just because of what they found out yesterday.

“Back to the matter at hoof then. How dangerous is your aunt, truly?”

“I know what you are here for. Let that monster know that someday soon I will be wearing a dress made from his skin and drinking my tea from a service set made from his ground up bones.”

“I… Lady Serenade, I assure you, I have no idea what you mean!” Rarity stammered. This was going badly. Blueblood’s aunt, Honest Serenade, had homed in on her minutes after making their entrance. She was very similar to her nephew, and judging by the multitudes of paintings on the wall, her late brother. Bluntly put she could very well pass for a wingless, shorter Princess Celestia if it wasn’t for the permanent disapproving scowl on her.

Rarity’s eyes couldn’t help but sweep back to the host’s cutie mark. A golden cup filled with red wine with an eminent drop falling down. She dearly wished that didn’t mean she would have to deal with a drunk version of her later on.

“Like hell you don’t,” the white mare whispered while simultaneously briefly abandoning her scowl to smile graciously at a passing noble. “One of the bearers comes into my house after dilly-dallying for days with that freak of nature and its new owner, and you expect me to believe anything you try to serve me? You can drop the act while you talk to me honey. I don’t have anything personal against you. I expect nothing from you but to convey a message.”

Rarity tried to claw her way back into her role. “Lady Serenade, I may have spent time with the aforementioned pair but I guarantee you that it wasn’t anything pleasant or an experience I found to my liking if that’s what you are trying to insinuate.”

Honest Serenade chuckled. She stopped a waiter to exchange her depleted glass with a new one. “Ah, even though you may not be the one carrying Honesty I will believe that. How is Laughter by the way? Any complications in her recovery?”

“She is perfectly fine. May I ask how you know about that?” Rarity answered back, her facial expression carefully constructed to a perfect blank.

“There is very little that I cannot find out my dear. This… Raegdan believes himself so very clever and cunning as does his bitch of a mistress. He is not the only one who can read between the lines, and I have been involved in this game longer than him. I know far more than they suspect.”

“Do you know any manners?”

The white noble unicorn mare laughed. “Scathing. Especially coming from a poor little seamstress from derpville, middle of the sticks, cornhole of Equestria.”

“I am not obligated to stand here and endure this kind of malignant treatment,” Rarity huffed, raising her snout high in a dismissing fashion. Blueblood’s rules weren’t doing her any favors. This mare spit on them, even as Blueblood, and the rest of the nobles, as far as she could tell, reverently followed them.

“Of course not. You are free to stop taking advantage of my hospitality at any time dear. How is your head? Are you feeling any dizziness?”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing, nothing. I expect that “Princess” Luna is a very subtle mare in these issues anyway. Very impatient however. Everypony in a row in a single day? Does she believe us all blind?” Serenade swilled her drink as she stared at it. “I am going to be very cross with the kitchen. This should have been chilled significantly more.”

“What are you implying?” Rarity asked, aghast.

Serenade laughed once more, throwing her drink behind her and getting a new one. “It all sounds sexual in a way, doesn’t it? I wonder if she gets all horny from this kind of thing,” she speculated with half lidded eyes. “Maybe afterwards she returned to her little tower and commanded her pet to ride her hard until she could only whimper for-”

“Lady Serenade! Please. Have some decency!”

“Decency? Oh, you are such a joker honey. Considering whose hooves you lap you are the last mare who should be talking about decency to me. I bet that two legged beast has you all thinking that he is some kind of misunderstood creature. He is not. I at least understand him perfectly. He is a murderer and a liar. His mistress? She is even worse.”

“Lady Serenade, if you’d please listen-”

The mare ignored her. “I know. Here’s something you might find interesting. Did you hear the tale of how he selfishly saved Magic when she was a little filly?”

“I have been told the story, yes,” Rarity admitted.

“But did you know that it’s a complete pile of crap?”

“Excuse me?”

Honest Serenade drained her glass. “Think about it. Here he is, the noble Raegdan, trapped in the infirmary, healing from wounds that would fell any pony, griffin, or minotaur. He is in the middle of trudging his way back to the realm of the living. Despite that, behold,” she cackled, “the benevolent carnivore fights his way through his agony and three dangerous thugs, and saves the little filly. Such a hero, am I right Generosity?” Her voice almost drowned Rarity in its sarcasm.

“What he did was heroic, you have to admit that.”

“Oh, it was, it was. That’s why I’m saying it stinks so much it makes me sick,” she theatrically gagged. “Think, Generosity. You might not be Intellect but you must have a mind of your own still somewhere beneath that little horn. Raegdan the vicious, Raegdan the unforgiving. Raegdan, the one who never cared about anyone but his own. Raegdan, who has been spotted so many times claiming that it all comes down to survival, that you either do everything you can to survive or perish. He is held together by stitches and spit at this point, and what does he do? He drags his dying body through a potentially hostile city and kills a bunch of thugs, almost finishing what our princess started, all for a filly he doesn’t know. Why would he do that Generosity?”

“I believe it was because he reportedly has a soft spot for foals.” Rarity said. What was that crazy mare’s point?

“Oh yes, of course. That’s why he has done the same for so many other fillies and colts, isn’t it? No, wait, that can’t be it. Let me think… why... yes!” Honest Serenade feigned a look of achievement. “He hasn’t given a rat’s ass about any other filly or colt out there. Learn to think for yourself little bearer. You can’t have everything spelled out for you. If you do, most ponies will be only too glad to teach you how “gullible” is spelled. Although by this point you have probably been taught how to write it in cursive. I think I had about enough of your presence miss Rarity. I have some matters to arrange because of you and I am wasting time you could spend in your little “investigation”.”

Rarity tried to put on the air of an exasperated pony that dealt with something she could scarcely comprehend. “If that is what you wish. I have to say that you are mistaking my intentions here.”

Honest Serenade was about to step away but stopped in her tracks with a quiet snicker. “Dear. Dear, dear, dear. You are nowhere near the actor you believe yourself to be. You have been sweating nonstop ever since I approached you and you have the most telling tics I have ever seen.” She pointed at a door. “I would go and make myself presentable once more if I were you. Make sure you do try the buffet. My cooks are simply exquisite.”

Rarity quickly moved towards a shiny silver carafe to check herself. Thankfully she was able to stop herself before biting right through her lips. That dreadful mare was right. She was a mess. She was so sure she held herself solid but apparently her body had other ideas. She felt betrayed. She needed to calm down before she ruined her dress. She rushed towards where Serenade pointed. She still had a chance to make this work.

“You know, I often find myself invited to their company, tedious as it is. Why, I often have to just wait for them in their little, solitary tower all on my own for them to appear.” She might have been too obvious in her selling points but the rest of the night’s attempts so far had been met by blank looks or ponies sharing their own woes instead of biting the bait.

“I understand your hardships so well miss Rarity. That pet of hers once sent one of my most efficient aides to the hospital for days. The misery I had to endure! I was forced to walk up and down the halls like an errant boy, looking to make sense of the bureaucratic nonsense that has taken over our fair-”

Rarity graced the stallion with a radiant smile as he went on his tale. Inwardly she fought to keep her yawn from reaching her mouth. This was going to go on for some time, she could tell…

“...then he punted me all the across the room because I simply appreciated young princess Cadance’s physical merits- are you laughing?”

“Excuse me, I just coughed. My drink went down the wrong pipe. And then?”

The old stallion harrumphed in the memory of his embarrassment. “It’s hardly my fault if a strapping young thing like her struts her well shaped flank right in front of me. I tried to force him to apologize for this insult but instead, if you can believe the nerve, he picked me up and threw me out the window, which was still shut…”

Don’t laugh Rarity, don’t chuckle, don’t snicker, don’t giggle, don’t grin. She had to fake support to this lecherous old-

“...perhaps you would like to escort me to a more… private setting?” The old noble wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. Rarity fought back the urge to retch.

She wondered if she could order another punting from a certain biped.

“Princess Luna is an affront to royalty! I made the mistake of considering her as somepony who could offer some support in our effort to lower taxation and she physically assaulted me. She is a madmare and should be banished back to the moon where she belongs!”

“What you are telling me is very upsetting. Have you talked with Princess Celestia about this?” Rarity asked with honest concern.

The young stallion turned his head away. “Well, I tried but… Princess Celestia rarely has time for letters from the Canterlot Noblery. We are expected to petition her in person if we need something discussed with her.”

“Why don’t you go then?”

The noble waved his cast in anger. “Because everytime I try to go into the palace that insane mare finds me and breaks my leg again. This is the third time I had to put my leg in a cast because of her and I’m not doing this again.”

“But to give up on such a worthwhile cause…”

“I’m sorry, but I tried my best,” the unicorn whimpered. “The point is moot now. The decree has passed and now my fellow nobles and I have to carry more of the burden of Equestria ourselves while the selfish farmponies and peons go off scot free, flaunting their lowered tax percentage.”

“Oh.”

Rarity was heading towards the bar where she could order a real stiff drink. This place was madness incarnate. She wondered how many of these boneheads were pretending and how many were for real. She had the feeling that very few were like Prince Blueblood but she couldn’t be sure, could she? The whole situation made her head hurt. She severely overestimated herself and her abilities. She had imagined herself to be in a secret room by now, surrounded by shadowy figures that were plotting regicide and treason. Instead, she found herself smack dab in the middle of the abode of idiocy and drunkenness.

It wasn’t that bad, and she could see herself enjoying the setting if not for the selfish nature of most of the ponies surrounding her and her own mission. Which was going so very, very badly. Rainbow Dash would never let her live this down. She had been at this for hours and she had nothing to show for all her effort.

Two ponies approached, making a beeline straight for her. She patted her coiffure, making sure it was impeccable. Time for another show, she thought sighing. She offered her hoof as they stopped in front of her.

“Greetings. I am miss Rarity.”

Both the stallion and the mare ignored her proffered hoof. “We heard that you know… Princess Luna?” the dark coated stallion asked.

Oho, finally all that hard work was going to pay off. It was similar to her own creative process after all. She had to deal with false starts and drudge through repetitive motions until she could see the glorious result in front of her. “Indeed I do. I happen to be conferring with them quite often-”

“Could you please tell her that we love her and her night? She is our princess, no matter what other ponies say and we truly love her. She is the moon.” The mare that interrupted Rarity was smiling brightly and honestly.

“I… Yes. Yes, of course I will tell her. Is there anything…” the pair walked away, smiling at each other. Oh, how strange. Another meeting that ended in disappointment.

That was weird and unexpected. Maybe not so unexpected after all. Luna couldn’t be universally reviled, could she? She must have a few supporters here and there, ponies who actually believed Princess Celestia when she assured the populace of Princess Luna’s redemption and her rightful return as a diarch.

Luna would be happy to hear this message of support anyway. She could use a pick-me-up like that.

Rarity happily let her stress flow out and alcohol flow in. She felt about ready for another round of trying her hoof in something she now felt woefully inadequate at when the worst pony available sat next to her.

“You are still here my dear? I’m surprised you haven’t left.” Honest Serenade expressed with disappointment.

“You do not have to worry about me my dear lady.” Rarity’s mouth dripped with saccharine goodness. “I will be on my way out later tonight, along with my date.”

“Yes, my “wonderful” nephew. This is what I mean. It appears you have been ditched. Tsk, tsk,” Serenade chuckled.

Rarity kept calm. She swallowed the liquid in her mouth in proper ladylike fashion. She brought a napkin to her lips and dabbed at them. Then, and only then, did she turn towards her beloved hostess. “What?”

“He left.” Serenade’s hoof swept the hall behind her. “Do you see that knucklehead anywhere? He departed about an hour go. Something about a headache. Seems like you were not important enough for him to remember.”

“But- but I- we-”

“I would offer a coach to take you back to the palace but truthfully? I don’t really care enough about you. Have fun walking back to your masters.” With those words Serenade dismissed her and got lost in the crowd.

Rarity looked around, eyes wide and fearful. She had really done it. She was all alone, right in the timberwolves’ den. She was surrounded by ponies she didn’t know, ponies who made living a lie a constant part of their lives. At least one of them might have taken part in what almost killed Pinkie Pie. Hay, the hostess herself made no secret…

Rarity glanced at her drink with a severe lack of trust.

Was she really still standing around like an idiot? Did she want to find herself convulsing on the floor, the ponies around her just looking on while life faded from her limbs, and that dreary mare chuckled at the show? This wasn’t a time to spent clinking glasses of poisoned wine or delivering frivolous smiles. This was time to spend in a panicked run. She had to get out of here! Her “partner” had showed his true face and if she had her way that face was going to get thoroughly punched!

She was getting out of here and back to the palace. Then, after a good night’s sleep she would seek out Raegdan, borrow his canvas toolbag, and go after the miserable, little cretin!

Rarity made her way to the mansion’s double doors that led outside. A young mare called out to her as she was about to leave, making her heart shudder and convulse. When it turned out she just wanted to give her the coat that she had surrendered on her entrance Rarity let out a deep breath of relief that turned into panicked coughing. She bid the mare to keep it. Who knew how it could have been tampered with? She wasn’t risking her precious life, not when she was just a few meters away from the exit.

She could see the palace from here. She really didn’t know this area but how hard would it be to just head towards it? She could be back in relative safety in an hour.

Rarity rushed into the darkness of Canterlot.

She was lost. It wasn’t really her fault, of course not. She might have… overreacted a bit and because of it taken a wrong turn or two. Too many novels, that was the issue. It had been a wonderful way to relax while simultaneously feeling a thrill she never expected to feel for herself.

She felt the whole “thrilling” experience now. She wished she would have the chance to speak to a couple of authors of her favorite series some time. Mostly to tell them that they sucked the proverbial spherical elements and that they knew nothing about what they wrote. Her heart beat faster, she’d give them that, but it wasn’t because of the “inherent romanticism”, it was because she was scared shi-

Clink.

She heard that! She absolutely and conclusively heard that! Somepony, no, someponies were following her. She kept hearing heavy hoofsteps that stopped a second too late after her own. She kept seeing a shadow in the sky. It wasn’t her imagination, it definitely wasn’t!

And she had managed to make her way into a jungle of alleyways. Good job Rarity. Brilliant indeed. They were going to catch up to her and-

The shadow that had been stalking her from the sky descended in front of her. It wasn’t a pegasus like she thought it was but perhaps the most terrifying looking griffin she ever laid eyes on. He was predominantly black, his beak was chipped, and the claws he gleefully displayed were razor-sharp. He looked rough and battle-hardened and his eyes revealed that he didn’t win any of those battles fairly.

“Run, white piggy, run!” he whispered.

If that’s what the gentlecolt wanted Rarity was only too happy to comply! She turned tail and headed back where she came from. That’s when she ran into a couple of her new acquaintance’s friends. Two large minotaurs were blocking her path. Rarity took the only route that was left to her, hoping nopony else would appear in front of her. In that respect she was lucky.

Regretfully, she ended up going into another, narrower alley with a dead end blocking her continued escape. Rarity barely had a second to wish she could cast Twilight’s teleportation spell before the griffin landed in front of her once more. She tried to escape again, but was defeated by two pairs of strong hands grabbing her and pinning her on the dirty ground.

“If- if it’s money you are looking for I only have a small pouch of bits on me,” Rarity stuttered.

“Ya got a good hold of her, ye two?” the griffin asked. One of the minotaurs grunted in answer. “I mean it. If she manages to get away from ya two dumb oxes ye won’t be finding even this little work anymore. Heck, ye won’t be finding yer fingers!”

“He said we got her,” the marginally smaller minotaur placated. Rarity noticed that they both seemed to have too little fur growing on their arms and they looked very similar to each other. “What now?”

“Now we make sure she gets the message.”

Calm down Rarity. This was only an act of intimidation. If they wanted you dead they would have done the deed by now. She already went through worse last night and she was fine. “If it’s a message you want me to.. forward to somepony you only had to ask!” Rarity tried her best to give a dazzling smile while a hand around her neck pushed her cheek first into the ground.

“That ye will honey. The message is “don’t mess with the wrong bucking mare” and we will write it with yer broken legs.” The griffin’s sharp beak presented her with a wicked smirk.

Rarity thrashed wildly. She tried to focus her magic to cast something, anything, when a hand painfully slapped her lit horn and the minotaur holding her neck pounded her face in the ground warningly. “Please- please you don’t have to do this!”

The griffin went out of her view as he moved behind her. She could hear his claws clicking on the stones. “I s’posse not. Ye’re quite pretty for a pony. I suppose I could… break something else instead if ye prefer.”

“Hey, you didn’t say we would be doing this kind of thing!” The bigger minotaur protested.

“Ye got a problem with that ye dumb ox? Wanna have a go with me?” the griffin challenged his underling.

The minotaur, much larger and wider than the griffin, lowered his head. “No sir.”

“Good. Now, why don’t ye raise ye pretty little tail and let me have a look see. If I like what I’m seeing ye might get out of it with just one leg broken and I’ll get paid twice.”

“You won’t dare…” Rarity’s voice trembled. “I’ll… I’ll scream if you don’t let me go. Half of Canterlot will wake up if I put my mind into it,” she threatened him.

The griffin came back into her view and pulled an enchanted crystal from beneath his wing. “Go ahead and scream ye prissy thing. No sound gets far with this thing here. We are going to have a lot of fun before we are done with ye stupid kind of-”

Something clanged at his side.

Rarity saw a metallic cylinder bounce once then roll gently towards them. The strange canister had holes carved into it and a weird little button-like protrusion at its…

“We have explosives in there Twilight. Explosives!”

She recognized that thing. She was dead. They were all dead. She put her hooves over her face with a trembling cry, unwilling to see her end, even as the other three victims of this terrible weapon curiously turned towards it.

“What the heck is that thing ye-”

Even with her front legs covering her face Rarity could see the bright explosion of white and she certainly heard the immensely loud “bang” that cracked over them. It pulsed through her skull leaving her dazed and confused. She suddenly had trouble telling up from down.

She raised her head. The hands that were grabbing her were gone. Her assailants had fallen to the ground, torn between covering their eyes or ears. Rarity looked towards the mouth of the alley.

Out of the deep darkness, materializing like a vengeful spirit, emerged Raegdan in the blackened, bulky armor he had kept hidden in their armory. His right hand was grasping a hammer that was larger, longer, and heavier than his old one while his left was pulling a dark blue cloak off him. A bandolier was wrapped around his torso, with more of his cylindrical devices strapped on it.

The two minotaurs were blinking rapidly, trying to regain their eyesight. They stumbled standing up, still unaware of the approaching Lunar Guard. One of them tried to blindly reach for Rarity. The hammer came down from his side, brutal and unyielding, easily breaking the thick, muscled forearm. The large brute screamed as he fell down on the ground once more.

His partner heard them; both the sickening crack of broken bone and his friend’s scream. He turned towards their location, his eyes struggling to regain their sight. Raegdan twisted his torso, enhancing the strength of his blow with his body’s movement as he backhanded him with his left hand. The hard steel of his bulky vambrace impacted his opponents muzzle with a spray of blood and a grunt of pain.

Both minotaurs were down and bloodied in less than three seconds. Rarity was looking at her savior with a mingled mix of fear, wonder, gratitude, and curiosity. How in Celestia’s name was Raegdan here, just in time to save her?

The horned helmet turned towards her. The dark slits slightly moved as Raegdan inspected her for injuries. He gave a sharp nod towards the alley’s exit, motioning for her to leave. Rarity was not going to be the stupid kind of damsel in distress that needed to be told twice. Her curiosity did overtake her however and she glanced backwards as she left, slowing down.

The minotaurs were fighting an uneven battle against Raegdan. They were almost as tall but also broader, heavier, and certainly stronger. Raegdan was easily overpowering them, even without using his weapon. He was holding the hammer’s handle near the head and using his fists instead. Every punch and every kick came sparingly and calculated but it had the strength of his entire body following it, just like Rainbow praised him for after witnessing this for the first time in the tournament. He barely bothered avoiding the minotaur’s counterstrikes. Not that he needed to. Rarity doubted they would be able to do anything to him with bare hands against his thick steel hide other than bloody their own hands. Raegdan mostly absorbed their blows by putting his thick vambraces or shoulder pieces in the way. It wasn’t even a real fight. Raegdan was playing with them like Opal did with one of her toys.

One of them aimed a fist against Raegdan’s head which caused him to cut himself against the sharp horns of his helmet even as Raegdan rolled with it. Raegdan spun on the heel of his right leg and as he faced his opponent again, his empty left hand instantly grabbing one of the minotaur’s horns. He used this handle to spiral him around in a circle and forcefully end this carousel by crashing his opponent’s already hurt muzzle on the wall. Two low kicks at their knees threw the minotaurs down to the ground before they could even move.

One of the minotaurs tried to stand up. Raegdan swiftly kicked his chest and pinned him down. Raegdan’s heavy metal boots were moving in lazy arcs, taking his time as he chose his target. Every jerking movement by the minotaurs was answered with another shattering kick at the offending appendage or torso. The hammer now stood ready at his hand, fingers wrapped around the end of the iron handle, making it obvious to his unfortunate victims that they could either endure their beating or have it over with in the span of a downward swing.

Rarity realized she couldn’t see the griffin anywhere.

She wasn’t given the time needed to act on her discovery. The black flyer made his appearance diving behind her, his talons digging into her coat. A claw positioned itself right on her throat.

“One more move out of ye metal boy and this chick here’s dead!”

Raegdan’s hammer lowered itself gently, sparing the minotaur that tried to fight back at his feet. Slowly and deliberately he turned towards Rarity and her captor like a stalking predator, shoulders and helmet first with the rest of his armored body following suit. He strode towards them.

He barely made five steps before the griffin tightened his hold on Rarity and a drop of blood seeped out of the prickle on her neck. “Ah-ah. One more step and she dies. Ye are gonna drop yer little weapons and sit the feck down before I slit-”

Raegdan’s left hand tore one of the spheres from his chest and threw it . It landed on Rarity’s left. Her unbelieving eyes noticed the difference. This one looked like a crude pineapple. This wasn’t like the previous one that had exploded with harmless light and noise. Raegdan spoke for the first time since he appeared.

“Boom.”

Oh sweet Celestia, no. The griffin came to the same conclusion and reacted instantly to save himself. Rarity was pushed off him and onto the explosive. She could feel the cold metal digging into her stomach. She was going to die!

The griffin tried to escape by air once more. Unfortunately for him Raegdan had started moving before he even finished pushing Rarity. His long legs and a running jump allowed the hammer’s spike to dig into the griffin’s thigh, stopping his desperate retreat. Using this newfound leverage Raegdan twisted him around as he landed back down and threw him towards the wall. The dark griffin’s scream of pain was silenced by Raegdan’s second strike. The beak exploded in pieces like shrapnel as the large, heavy hammer crushed his face. Shards of yellow, white, and red splattered everywhere.

Rarity was screaming. She had been for these few seconds, ever since she landed on that thing. Celestia only knew how she had the lung power to scream at this volume but Rarity kept screaming loud enough to shatter eardrums. That thing below her would detonate any moment now and even if she rose up she had no cover, nor did she know any shield spells. This made no sense! Raegdan was supposed to save her, not kill her! Why did-

Raegdan’s boot gently prodded her. She stopped her frantic screams to look up and she saw him motioning for her to move. Rarity blinked. She still had time then? He had a way to stop it? The paralysis that had taken her over was dispelled. She jumped off his explosive weapon and watched as he calmly bent down to pick it up and holster it back on his chest.

That bastard! That infuriating jerk!

Something croaked miserably in the silence. Rarity sidestepped to see behind Raegdan as he also nonchalantly looked over his shoulder.

The bloody, feathered heap let out a pathetic mewling. The little stump that remained of his beak moved as the griffin tried to cry out something. Rarity’s stomach churned with pity and revulsion. The poor thing was still alive with that kind of damage? His face had caved in and broke apart! How could he… oh Celestia, she was going to heave, she was going to… She turned to the wall and emptied her stomach.

Raegdan stood over the broken form, his body language displaying his wonder as he watched. He levered his hammer’s head at the height of his eyes. It was if he critiqued his weapon for not working right. The sad noise repeated itself.

The hammer’s spike tore through the griffin’s flesh once more with a squelching noise. Raegdan lifted the griffin’s head up to his eye level with some effort, using the hammer as a meat hook.

“Louder.” The whisper that tore through the night was cold and unforgiving.

The beak’s remains struggled to form words. The griffin only had one eye left and it seemed unable to focus. The other one had dribbled off his shattered skull as Raegdan raised him in the air. “ ‘Ersy… aah ‘ersy… ‘eaase…”

The helmet turned sideways as if pondering the request. Luna’s guardsman lowered his fallen foe down to the ground carefully, almost lovingly. Rarity grimaced at the wet sound of the spike coming out.

One of Raegdan’s knives was unsheathed and went through the griffin’s remaining eye. Rarity closed her eyes and turned around before she could see more.

She heard enough. It took a few seconds for the stabbing sounds to cease.

She glanced at her remaining assailants. The two minotaurs had retreated as far away from Raegdan as possible at the alley’s end. One of them was holding a broken plank of wood, the only weapon available to him against the nightmare that had descended upon them. Their faces were swollen, and heavy bruises, some of them bleeding, covered their bodies. Rarity saw Raegdan look at them for a couple of seconds and then slowly, emphasizing the movement, looked over his shoulder behind him at the exit before turning back at them.

If the pair wanted to escape they had to go through him.

Raegdan hooked the hammer at his belt. He pulled the second knife out of his sheath and threw it, along with the bloody one, at the minotaurs’ feet.

Their eyes went from the offered weapons to the dark, armored figure that stood in their path with no weapon in its hand. Raegdan’s hands rose up and made a beckoning gesture.

Rarity applauded the minotaurs’ choice to deny the offered challenge. They looked from the weapons at their feet back to Raegdan’s dark, metal form. Then, the larger of them, the one whose arm was broken, took a step forward and carefully kicked the daggers back. Raegdan was a dark mirror to their previous movements as he stared from his daggers to his opponents.

With a shrug, he removed a metal orb from his bandolier. Any further movement was interrupted by a latching pair of hooves that belonged to a white unicorn.

“I- I quite think this is enough.” Rarity might have stuttered a bit but she was proud of the way she kept her voice loud and strong. She knew that if Raegdan believed he could bend her mind he would go through with it.

“They’re still alive.” His voice was wrong. It was as if he barely bothered to form the correct sounds.

“Look, you don’t have to kill them,” Rarity pleaded. “For Celestia’s sake, look at them. They are not trying to attack us!”

“We surrender!” the smaller minotaur cried out in fear, desperate for a way to survive the night. “We don’t want to fight, please!”

“See? It’s over.”

“No. They breathe. They saw too much,” Raegdan explained, the slits of his helmet unwavering from his quarry. “And they tried to hurt you. They die.”

“No!” Rarity pushed him with no effect. She tried anyway. “If you are supposedly doing this for my sake then I ask you not to. I forgive them.”

“...what?” Raegdan asked genuinely puzzled. “They tried to hurt you. You will forgive someone you don’t know for something like that? While… No.”

Rarity kept trying to push him back and get in his way, not letting him move.

“Lady, please,” the minotaur behind them spoke again, begging the only one who seemed to have a chance of getting them out alive. “We only did this because we needed the money. We have no job and we were desperate. We had no idea what Grunge was going to have us do. We are bitless and starving! Surely we don’t deserve to be killed for that? Please, help us out!”

The little gears in Rarity’s mind turned. “Well, that settles that then, doesn’t it? I know how we can get out of this little predicament with everypony involved satisfied.”

The horned helmet stared at her unconvinced.

“You are going to hire them.” She prodded the black armor with her hoof decisively.

“What?”

“What?” the minotaurs behind her echoed disbelievingly.

“You need recruits, don’t you? Here you go. Two of them, ready to serve. They need a job, you need the bodies. If they work for you they will have to do as you say, right? You can order them to keep silent. Think of it as a… a “community service” type of punishment! It’s perfect! You don’t even have to worry about the… solar kind of problem since they are minotaurs. Or any other type at all. They are outsiders! As for trust… I think they fear you too much to try anything until you learn to trust each other.”

“She wants us to work for the Night Bringer?”

“Shut up you idiot, it beats dying like Grunge. We need the job too, or did you give up on eating?” the other one argued.

“But… with that thing?”

Raegdan was staring at Rarity. “What do you say?” she asked, hoping she actually did something correctly tonight for a change. She could get through that thick skull, she knew she could.

“Hrm. Intriguing. Luna will be the one to decide if they join, not me. You two,” Raegdan pointed at them with his bloody hammer. “Go to the castle. Tell the guards there to put you in the dungeons under the orders of Princess Luna.”

Rarity fought down the urge to hoof pump.

“How- how do you know we won’t make a run for it?” The smaller minotaur asked.

“Do it. Run. Find out how that will work out for you. Now get out of here before I come to my senses.”

The terrified pair did not need to be told twice. They left as fast as they could manage. They hugged the wall as they walked by Raegdan. “We’ll be at the dungeons, we swear. Thank you for your help miss. We won’t forget this,” they cried as they passed next to Rarity.

When they were alone Raegdan bent down and picked up his daggers. He wiped the bloody one clean using the dead griffin’s feathers. Rarity turned her head away from watching.

“Did you have to kill him?”

“He attacked you. You are a guest of the princesses, bearer of an element of Harmony, and a hero of Equestria. They were going to hurt you. I’m under Luna’s orders to keep you all safe, no matter what. Those two helped him. You should have let me make an example out of them. Generosity… why am I not surprised?” His shoulders fell slightly and his movements seemed to relax just a bit.

“If you didn’t try to solve everything with death and violence you might be surprised at the amount of options you have available.” She saved their lives at least. Moreover, she saved Raegdan from blackening his soul even more.

“Hmm. So tell me, did any of these alleged options help when they had you pinned down? Did reason appeal for you? Was morality enough to shield you? When you had nothing left did mercy come? No. What stopped them in the end was an arm willing to hurt and kill.”

“Yes, it did. But arms willing to be violent were what forced me to the ground and made me fear for my life. Fire may keep you warm but you don’t feed it until it burns everything around you. Besides, from what I heard you owe your life to reason, morality, and mercy.” She didn’t want to get into this kind of argument with him, not now. He rescued her. She had to remember this. Only yesterday she was standing right there as his adopted daughter spurned him and despite that and the role she herself played, the way she betrayed his trust… He saved her with no hesitation.

She considered the fact that he wanted the poor minotaurs dead partly because they took part in the attempt to hurt her. She felt complimented in a strange, morbid way.

Raegdan leaned against the wall with his back. His armor screeched as he slid downwards against the wall until he finally sat down.“Maybe you are right. Maybe not. He tried to take you hostage. Any possible chance for favors ended right there.” He looked upwards at the moon. “I don’t mind killing. You might forget it sometimes when talking to me but this is what I really am down to my core. Could I put him down without killing him? Maybe, but it would be a lot harder and far more dangerous with you around. Why should I bother anyway? This hammer I carry around was not made with carpentry in mind.” Raegdan pulled the dark blue cloak towards him and rummaged through it.

“Don’t you consider this type of thinking something you should change? Is pity so disdainful for you?”

Raegdan shrugged. He pulled a small silver flask out of the cloak and quickly took a sip as soon as he removed his helmet. Rarity wasn’t sure in the darkness of the alley but there seemed to be something red on his face. Perhaps he had been injured and she didn’t see it.

“No… but pity is the domain of good people who can comprehend it, not mine.” He shook his head violently as if trying to rid himself of an evil thought. “That’s enough. I’m not gonna bother rationalizing and explaining myself anymore. What’s the point? I hurt people. It’s what I do and it’s the only thing I’m good for. End of story. And they all lived happily ever after.”

Rarity was certain about three things.

One; Raegdan’s issues ran deep enough to bring despair to the most hardworking Diamond Dog.

Two; Applejack was right. Twilight needed to rebuild her relationship with him, fast, before he went off the deep end. Ok, deeper in the deep end. Raegdan never sounded so cold and apathetic before. It was like talking to somepony dead. There was no passion in his voice, no emotion. He could be reading everything out from a script.

Three: He was rationalizing. Only now he seemed intent on portraying himself as a guiltless killer. That he was hopeless. What was he trying to achieve? Did he really mean this or…

Twilight. She bet her boutique and all her merchandize on that. It all came down to Twilight. Rarity had suspected that Twilight acted like that in part because she was afraid to come face to face with the fact that she would have to give in her adopted father to the authorities. Raegdan raised Twilight. He knew how she thought. If Rarity’s suspicions were right and Raegdan thought the same as she did...

What if he wanted to convince them that he really was the monster that Twilight was already convincing herself to believe he was in order to make it easier for her? Would a parent damn himself as an unrelenting monster in his child’s eyes in order to save it from heartbreak?

Rarity knew the answer to that. Oh my Celestia, the girls had to know! Luna had to be told! Who knows what depravities he might later allow himself to sink to in order to prove Twilight correct if this stupid posturing didn’t work. No wonder he didn’t want to see Spike anymore. He could be planning to alienate his children from him right now.

Or not. Maybe he had just given up on even trying to do anything. Maybe he wanted to be nothing more than a hammer.

Rarity tried to run some damage control. “Not everypony believes that about you. Yes, you are too… eager to turn to violence. I can’t understand why. I have seen how you look under that armor and clothes and it confounds me why you are so aloof about causing the same to others.”

“Twilight believes that and she is right. As for why I enjoy that… you learn to after a while.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know about that. What I do know is that little Spike doesn’t believe that’s all you are. Celestia doesn’t believe that. And despite her claims, Twilight doesn’t either.”

“None of them know. They know nothing. They have no idea-”

“Luna doesn’t believe that. From what I understand she does have an idea, doesn’t she?” It was her last shot. If he refused this one too… she would have to find another way to reach him. Or Applejack would. He listened to her for some reason and if that didn’t work there was always Pinkie Pie.

But perhaps she didn’t need to resort to their help. Raegdan froze and seemed to be thinking. Good. Let that thought ferment and take hold in his stupid brain. Rarity would keep prodding and stirring, making sure he didn’t convince himself he was nothing but a killing machine.

Celestia forbid he does. She didn’t want to be around in that case.

“I… It seems I might have some things to think about… Maybe I shouldn’t be so hasty… There’s still some time,” He looked at her. “You should head back. Turn right and keep going straight. Ignore any other path. You will end up on Clover main street. It’s crowded, it’s lit, and it leads straight to the palace. Tell Shining Armor to get a couple of guards and meet me here,” Raegdan directed her. “Tell him we got a body to deal with.” He concentrated his attention on his bottle, drinking in small measured sips.

Rarity looked towards the dark streets that waited to swallow her. “What if there’s somepony else-”

“They were the only ones after you. You will be fine. I’ll be right behind you until you reach the main street,” he assured her.

“Thank you for everything. I would hate for you to think that I’m not thankful for your help, I only meant that you might have overdone it when you didn’t have to… If you don’t mind me asking, how did you even appear on time?”

“Did you forget? Luna promised we would keep an eye out for you. She told me not to let you out of my sight until you were safely back at the palace. I’ve been shadowing you since you left the palace. Why did you leave without Blueblood anyway? I almost lost you when you ran out suddenly like that. I barely caught up in time. I can’t exactly let myself be seen if I don’t want to attract a crowd or cause a stampede, and I can’t run in this getup either, unless I want to sound like a clanging bell.”

Rarity hissed through her teeth. “Don’t remind me. Blueblood ditched me. I had to be told by Honest Serenade that he had left the premises without me.” Raegdan chuckled. “What?”

“She lied. Blueblood was still there. It’s a big place. He was probably somewhere out of sight and she took the opportunity to make you leave without him.”

Rarity’s eyes shot wide as she realized how easily she played right into that mare’s hooves. “Wait, that means she is the one who…”

“Maybe. Maybe. We can’t know for sure though, can we? That’s how she likes to act. She keeps everything just off enough that you can’t pin anything on her but know that it was her anyway.” Raegdan rose up, pulling his cloak with him. To Rarity’s relief he used it to cover the late Grunge’s body after he took the enchanted crystal off him and, for some reason, a shard of his beak. She shivered at the thought of touching that.

“So we are going to do nothing?” Rarity cried out, feeling deeply disturbed. “She… said she wanted you dead! She said she knows more than you think. Raegdan, she might try something against me again, or… or the girls! We are in danger!”

“Don’t worry about her. When I’m done here I’ll pay her a visit. She won’t try something against any of you again if she knows what’s good for her.” He took a long drink from his flask.

“You are not going to kill her, are you?”

“No,” Raegdan spat out. “I won’t touch her, not yet. We’ll just leave her a friendly reminder.”

“Meaning?”

“Maybe place one of my daggers on her pillow. Maybe Luna will visit her in her dreams. Maybe both. She may think she knows a lot but she needs to remember that we’re the ones who know what’s really important in this kind of game. We know where she sleeps and we can get her anytime we wish. Some targets are acceptable. Some are not. She will obey these rules or the gloves come off.”

He turned the flask upside down, shaking it. Not a single drop came out.

“Are you… trying to get drunk?” Rarity asked, shocked to see he drank so much already.

Raegdan shook the silver flask a couple more times and capped it. “Nah. If I drank this much I wouldn’t even be able to stand straight. That was cold coffee. I hate it but it helps with the hangover. I tried to get drunk again before but Luna gave me a choice about that. I like my genitals where they are so no more alcohol for this guy until further notice.”

He turned serious again and looked depressed. He took off one of his explosive weapons off his chest and examined it carefully, using it as an excuse to keep his eyes from meeting Rarity’s. “Can I… ask you for something? I need some help.”

“Of course darling. You just saved me. Anything.” Rarity doubted he would ask her for something she would not do. Perhaps she thought wrong. Maybe if she was able to help with this then he would ask for her help with Twilight-

Raegdan rubbed his face with the palm of his hand, reluctance and determination fighting for dominance on his features. He spoke hesitangly. “I… messed up. Luna told me something and I- I said something in return that I shouldn’t have. I hurt her. I hurt her badly. She was trying to help and I… We’re fine now I guess, we... talked it out, but I want to make it up to her, for this and more. I need a favor. And I need you to keep it a secret from her until I’m ready.” He pointed at Rarity.

“As long as it is not something extremely weird or something I don’t approve of I can do that.” She smiled at him.

“Oh, this will be very, very weird. I need you to teach me something.”

Author's Note

“True courage is about knowing not when to take a life, but when to spare one.”
J.R.R. Tolkien

Ch.13 - A Story Night

Applejack knocked on the dark double doors a lot louder than she normally would. She didn’t want to catch any more flack for sneaking around their place. In fact, she made double sure they knew she was here.

“Luna? Raegdan? Y’all here? It’s me, Applejack! Can ah come in?” She yelled loud enough for her voice to -hopefully- penetrate the thick doors in front of her muzzle. She could hear her words echo behind her down the tower’s staircase.

She heard a clicking sound from the lock and a muffled answer but couldn’t make out the meaning. To heck with it, she wanted to talk to them, not her own reflection on Luna’s shiny doors. She dragged one of them open, the door easily sliding on its well oiled hinge. “Ah said, can ah come in?”

The farmer could now easily hear the diarch call out for her. “I said, yes. Ascend to the second floor please, we are in the bathroom!”

The bathroom? Alright, Applejack was all up for being all casual like in a friendly place but there were some limits, don’t ya think? Still, she braved open the door on the second floor of Luna’s chambers, hoping she just overthought things...

...and gosh darn it, there were the both of them, all drenched in the tub. Raegdan seemed to be naked which she believed, if she had gotten the gist right, that while he didn’t mind anyone seeing him like that, he preferred not to. Mostly because as he had said his -ahem- “farming equipment” was all up front in display for all to see. She didn’t need to see. That colt better stay sitting.

She kept referring to him as a young colt sometimes, even though the guy was probably at least twice as old as her. Must have been because if it didn’t involve his own special brand of “talents” she was often felt feeling like the most mature of the two by the far.

“Ah’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Applejack tried her hoof at that tact thing Rarity kept on yapping about. Seemed to be the proper moment.

“No. I was just checking his stitches,” Luna answered. Whelp, that explained why she had her muzzle all the way down there so low at his torso.

“Careful there Raegdan,” Applejack teased. “She might be using that excuse to get a peek at ya.”

“I have already seen everything there is to see,” Luna dismissed Applejack’s comment, smirking. “Did you believe we are concerned with modesty when treating any injuries he gets?” Her teasing smile got even wider at Applejack’s apparent relief at not hearing any raunchy tales.

“Ah thought we were gonna curb on these jokes.”

“You started it.”

“Fair enough. You two take your bath together often?”

“Is that strange?” Raegdan asked. “I thought that sharing a bath was common for you guys. For my kind not so much, but personally I don’t mind at all. I’ve even taken baths with Celestia before anyway. It’s not like it’s a big deal.”

Applejack could feel her eyebrows reaching for the heavens. She wondered if he had the slightest idea how many colts and stallions -and some mares- fantasized about what he said doing all casual and all.

Luna dunked herself below the water’s surface for a couple of seconds. “Such a rascal I have to tolerate. He would not rest until he completed the set with both sisters. I think it was common in my time but the practice fell out apparently. Celestia is probably still comfortable with it,” Luna said when she surfaced again.

“I’m starting to get a slight sense of discomfort right about now though,” Raegdan said.

“You tell your discomfort now is not the time to rear its head. Applejack, could you please bring me that knife on your left?”

“What ya need that for?” Applejack asked. Raegdan seemed to have frozen in place at the sudden request and was waiting for Luna’s answer.

Luna pointed her hoof at Raegdan’s left forearm. “It’s time for these to go. Raegdan, do you need help?”

“No, no, I got it.” Raegdan cut the stitches one by one and pulled them out one handed. A couple drops of blood flowed out of the tiny holes left behind. “I’ll keep a bandage on it for a couple of days for safety and then it’s over and done with. Was there anything you wanted Applejack? I will have to get out and dry off at some point and unless you want to catch a glimpse of-”

“Ah ain’t catching anything. You keep your little guardsman out of sight or he’s gonna need stitches too. Ah came all the way up here to let ya know that we are expecting ponies to start arriving in a couple of hours. Ya might wanna be down before then. This is your show after all,” Applejack hinted heavily.

The rest of the girls were getting more and more anxious as the appointed hour for the nighttime event came closer and the duo was out of sight. When Applejack left, Rarity was constantly rearranging napkins on the snacks table, Twilight had Spike buried under a pile of checklists, Fluttershy was jumping from place to place in search of something to help with, Pinkie Pie was hanging from the tallest tree in the garden so she could be the first to see the guests arriving, and Rainbow Dash’s snoring had brought the guards running to find that “dangerous beast” three times so far.

“We will be down as soon as we are ready,” Luna said, splashing some water on Raegdan with her hoof. “Raegdan, I have to look my best.” She moved so she sat with her back against Raegdan’s chest. Luna’s magic levitated a bottle in front of him. “Wash my mane again. This time don’t stop massaging until I tell you to.”

“At this rate there won’t be a mane left and if I wait for you to tell me to stop we will be here until tomorrow…” Raegdan complained, but he still poured a generous amount of shampoo on his palm.

“I’m not trusting anypony else for this and… see… there’s this thing that’s been bothering me -ah, right there- lately… Oh yes, I remember now. You are -scratch a bit higher- officially my guard now so you have to do as I order you… mmmm…” Applejack watched in wonder as the dark blue Alicorn figuratively melted.

“See, I knew this was gonna come back and bite me, but I still said it. I’m a moron like that. Since when does being your guard make me your bath attendant too?”

“Perks of the job… Don’t you dare slow down! You are doing my coat and tail afterwards and you shall help me preen my wings.”

“Alright. And what about me? Do I get the favor returned?” Raegdan asked, sarcastically.

“I shall hold your head below the water’s surface until I conclude you have been cleaned enough,” Luna answered while pushing her head harder against Raegdan’s working fingers.

“Ah. The drowning method. While it is indeed the most masculine of baths I am not sure I approve in this case.” Luna tittered like a little filly at his answer.

“Ya two seem to be in good spirits. Any special occasion?”

Raegdan’s smile slowly dissipated. “I am trying very hard to be optimistic about your and Rarity’s… plan.” Raegdan sighed and his shoulders drooped, though his fingers kept working uninterrupted. “But I admit to having some doubts. I- I don’t know. Maybe we should let it lie. Twilight’s right after all and… I was never meant to be so close to her and Spike. I was to be their guard for some time until she was safe and then Celestia was supposed to... this has all been a huge mistake...”

“Hey now, ah don’t wanna hear any more of this talk out of ya,” Applejack shushed him down. “Yer not doing yourself, Twilight, or Spike any favors by acting like a prima dona drama queen. Heck, Rarity herself thinks you are being over dramatic so you can guess how bad you look. Just act normally, that’s all, like you used to when she still lived here with y’all.”

Rarity had rushed into Applejack’s room this morning, shortly after talking with Twilight. After telling her about last night’s events, they both had a long discussion about Raegdan’s stability. Rarity told her how Raegdan acted when she stopped him. Short, clipped sentences, without any emotion and barely any effort in their articulation. His cruel savagery in dealing with that lousy griffin. His barely held back desire to kill those two without need or reason. The way it took him some time to return to normal.

All that, plus what little Princess Celestia told Twilight about Raegdan’s past, had led Rarity to one conclusion. Raegdan minus his kids equaled murder spree waiting to happen. If that’s how he acted after a single day… neither of them wanted to know how he would end up in a month. If he was going to stay out of major trouble long enough to help Luna with her own problems they had to keep him sane and stable. They were ready to argue Luna down to give them her aid only to find her agreeing with them without question. Evidently, she feared that Twilight’s rejection would greatly damage Raegdan’s psyche despite his projected attitude.

Applejack would have done the same anyway. Letting a family rip themselves apart was not something she would allow as long as she had a say in the matter.

Raegdan blew a stressed out breath. “Well, I guess you are the family expert.”

“Ah don’t need your sass. Just do as we talked about.” That’s right little colt. Keep faking that you are fine with whatever. At least this way he won’t end up like yesterday again.

“She is being correct Raegdan,” Luna added. “You need to shake up Twilight’s mind towards positive memories, not reinforce her current views. You will only damage her mind if you continue like this, trust me.”

“Damage? What, you mean like a psychological thing?” Applejack asked, concerned. Nopony mentioned anything about any damage to Twilight.

“A figure of speech,” Luna said dismissively. Her eyes were closed and her head moved gently under the careful ministrations of Raegdan’s thin fingers. She kept humming and mumbling. “In other news, we also had some correspondence arrive today,” she answered in a dreamlike voice. “We will share the good news later. Change of plans Raegdan. After you finish my coat you will shampoo my mane again.” Raegdan muttered something about unending cycles. “I hope this evening goes as well as you assured us Applejack. We have actually been looking forward to it.”

“Don’t ya fret princess. We are right on top of things!” Applejack rearranged her hat and smiled proudly.

Then she turned tail and left. She didn’t wanna watch the rest of the washing too. Last thing she needed was a reputation as a peeper following after her.

“So… what are you doing there Applejack?” Rarity asked in an obvious attempt to initiate a conversation. Applejack could tell there was something in particular she wanted to talk about, but she was going to go all circling about it first in typical Rarity fashion. Was that a pun? She should keep it in mind, see if she can use it sometime later.

“Cutting mahself a slice of apple pie. Want one?” Applejack offered the small plate she had prepared for herself.

“No thank you. I’m fine.”

“Suit yourself.” Applejack shrugged and moved down the table. She had spied it somewhere around here… aha! She grabbed the can of whipped cream and put a generous dollop over her piece. Thinking about it she decided to double it. It’s not like there was a need to save enough for everypony else.

“How do things look so far in your opinion? Pretty poor showing, isn’t it?”

“Poor showing?” Applejack scoffed. “Rares, all we need is a couple of tumbleweeds to complete the picture. Nopony’s here but us.” She took a bite. She could barely feel something solid under all that cream in her mouth. Perfect. That might take some of the bitterness out.

“It’s… it’s still early enough. This is Canterlot after all. It’s a traditional requirement to be fashionably late.”

“The guests were supposed to start coming in at nine. It’s after eleven now, ain’t it?” Applejack burst that little bubble without mercy. She was feeling mighty bitter and it took a little effort not to bite out at anypony. She had promised everything would turn out ok and now look at this mess. She didn’t like breaking her promises or turning into a liar.

“Point taken. Have you seen Luna and Raegdan?”

“Yep.” She pointed with a hoof at the shadows, away from all the lights and the central fire they had lit up. “They holed up out there about an hour ago.”

“What a mess…” Rarity poured a glass of water for herself. Applejack noticed how she added a lemon slice. She wondered if she could do that with an apple slice or would that be weird? “What I’ve been meaning to ask you all day however is what happened with Twilight. She seemed extremely upset with my misadventure last night. What happened with her? I barely saw her all day.”

“Well, as should be expected, she rushed to the library, pulling down books like crazy. Law books. She was trying to find out whether Raegdan was allowed by law in what he did or not.”

“Oh Twilight. What was her reasoning?”

Applejack put down her empty plate and started hunting down for some juice. She certainly had a lot of options to choose from. They didn’t spare any expense and now she was feeling mighty guilty about that too. “Ah think she is pretty darn confused. One moment she was worried about the big lug, the next she was determined to find something that would condemn him. She kept going back and forth, back and forth. It got me kinda worried, let me tell ya.” Applejack was heavily concerned about her friend. The last couple of days must have really shaken her up. Twilight was not even making sense at times.

“Hmm. Did she find anything?”

“Yep. If Raegdan is operating under the same rules as the Solar Guard does, and it looks that way so far, anypony so much as nudges us and he is free to “take any action necessary to ensure the safety of the princess or those under her direct protection”. What action that can be is up to his own discretion at the time. Is it strange that ah’m not surprised he didn’t know what the Solar Guard was meant for but he had that part pat down?”

“No, I am not surprised either. While I have to say that I am relieved to hear that there won’t be any unwanted further issues, I can’t help but worry about the carte blanche this gives him. I guess it’s a good thing for Lady Honest Serenade she didn’t try anything more direct, like slapping me. Though Raegdan didn’t seem to be hostile to her if you ignore last night’s events. How strange is that? The mare salivates at the thought of his corpse and he is enjoying every second of it.”

Twilight, Spike, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie came to join them. None of them looked happy, Pinkie Pie most of all. The pink earth pony’s ears and mane had drooped, and she looked almost ready to cry. “You alright there sugarcube?”

“No,” Pinkie responded in a petulant tone. “Nopony is coming. I’ve never been to a party where no guests showed up before. I’m saaad…” Fluttershy kept a wing around Pinkie to comfort her.

“I don’t understand why. Somepony should have been here, if only out of curiosity. Maybe there was something wrong with the invites? We did write down the right date and time, didn’t we?” Twilight had a large scroll filled with ticks rolling in front of her at ridiculous speeds.

Pinkie Pie pulled an envelope out of somewhere. “Let me check… yep, we did. It’s all written down, right over the hugs and kisses.”

“Pinkie!” Twilight yelled. “Those were supposed to be all sent out! No wonder nopony has come.”

“Don’t be silly Twilight. I know that. We posted every single one.” Pinkie defended herself.

“Then what is that?”

“One of the invites. I got the rest of them somewhere around here.”

“But why do you have them Pinkie?”

“Cause everypony sent them back…” Pinkie looked completely depressed once more.

“Wait a second there Pinkie,” Applejack cut in. “When did this happen?”

“Oh, um… I got them back this morning,” Fluttershy said. “I went to the post office to send a letter to Ponyville and they gave them to me.”

“Darling, why didn’t either of you say anything?” Rarity asked, concerned.

Pinkie wailed. “We thought it was a joke. I’ve never seen a party invitation sent back!” Rarity rushed to Pinkie’s side, rubbing her back with her hoof.

“There, there, darling. It’s ok. Those ponies were just rude, we wouldn’t want them here anyway. Why don’t you come with me and we can have some of the nice food that’s on the spread? More for us, right?”

Pinkie sniffed, nodding along. “Ok…” Fluttershy and Rarity stuck by her side as they moved to the part of the buffet table that held the more sugary treats for the foals.

“Well, ain’t that a hoot. Ah don’t get it,” Applejack said once Pinkie had moved far enough not to hear. “They loved his story before. How come nopony wanted to come now?”

Rainbow Dash joined in suddenly, flapping her wings above them. “I think we might find out. Look who made an appearance!”

A dark green coated pegasus with a brown mane was walking slowly towards them. Rows of bandages covered the remains of her amputated wings. Applejack was torn between being glad to see her about after the way she talked about doing something too rash the last time she saw her and apprehension about this night getting worse than just a no show.

Now, Applejack completely understood that Stream Leaf had suffered a life changing loss. Ya don’t just lose a part of you and just spring back into business as usual, no way. She sure as heck had a reason to feel bitter and wanting some payback against those that did that to her. Applejack understood and forgave any comments that were sure to come out of her mouth.

But, gosh darn it, she really wished the mare was whole and fine so she wouldn’t be feeling guilty if Applejack smacked the back of Leaf Stream’s head the way she looked at the empty seats around her. All smug and satisfied. They were trying to do a nice thing here. They didn’t need that kind of attitude rubbing their face in the mud.

“You know,” Leaf Stream said when she reached them, “I seriously wish I could say I didn’t expect this, if only so I could be pleasantly surprised, but I did, I totally did! Looks like terrifying little fillies and making them orphans doesn’t pay that hot after all!” she heckled triumphantly.

Rainbow Dash floated in front of her, coming muzzle to muzzle with her aggressively. “Hey, we are not in the mood for naysayers here. If you came to gloat I’ll be glad to punt you flying towards the door!”

“Wow. Making flying jokes at the cripple? Is that what makes you feel like a big filly?”

Rainbow Dash rapidly backed off. “I didn’t mean that! It was just an expression- Twilight, tell her I didn’t mean that!”

Leaf Stream laughed at Rainbow Dash’s panic. “Calm down tough little filly. I’m here on business actually. Where’s the monster?”

Twilight pulled attention on her with a meaningful cough. “If you have a message I will be glad enough to make sure it reaches it- its recipient. We would like to keep things civil, you understand. For everypony’s sake.”

“You mean you are afraid he might decide to rip off a couple more bodyparts, don’t you? No, seriously, I get it. I’d still prefer to talk to that thing in person. He can’t be that busy right now, can he?” Leaf Stream said with a look around her. “It’s not like there’s anypony here.”

“For your information ponies did show up,” Rainbow Dash claimed.

Applejack was surprised to hear that. She hadn’t seen anypony arrive.

“Right. I believe that. Where are they?”

“She’ll be back soon. You see, Princess Celestia is kind of an important pony.” Rainbow Dash said with a satisfied smirk.

Leaf Stream stared unbelievingly for a second before she burst laughing so hard she could barely stand. “Seriously? Seriously! The only pony who showed up was her sister? Oh Sun help me, this- this is like a little filly’s birthday party where none of her classmates showed up. I actually feel bad for her now.”

“Hey!” Rainbow protested. “Twilight’s parents were gonna come too but Raegdan didn’t want to invite them for some safety reasons- Applejack, tell her to stop laughing!”

Evidently the poor mare didn’t feel bad enough, in Applejack’s opinion, to stop her from choking because of how hard she laughed. It did cheer up Applejack how Leaf Stream almost swallowed her own tongue when she heard the voice behind her.

“I am so sorry to have to drop out like this. Has anypony else arrived yet? Oh, hello Leaf Stream,” Princess Celestia cheerily smiled at the grounded pegasus which was quick to bow as low as she could go without digging a hole in the grass with her muzzle. “Please, get up. I would like to forego formalities today. Twilight, where is my sister?”

Twilight pointed a hoof at the same direction Rarity did before.

Celestia raised a hoof over her mouth. “Oh my. I hope they haven’t taken it too hard…”

“We wouldn’t know,” Applejack told her. “We ain’t heard a peep from ‘em.”

“They are probably busy reliving Raegdan’s act of murder yesterday and having a good laugh…” Twilight murmured. Applejack heard her and was about to lay it on her about that spiteful comment but Princess Celestia was quicker on the draw.

“Twilight Sparkle!” Celestia cried out, upset and austere. “I would have never expected to hear something as terrible as this from you. Luna sending Raegdan after your friend saved Rarity. Raegdan being there saved Rarity. I have been given a report on that griffin’s suspected and known crimes. Rarity was unbelievably lucky to have Raegdan at her side. She told me what he threatened to do, what he wanted to do, and I know thatso do you.”

Celestia stood imperiously over Twilight, the smaller mare trembling on her hooves. “No matter what Luna and Raegdan have done, have acted, or how they think, the fact that they helped your friend remains. I would have expected you to show them your gratitude, not disparage them behind their backs for keeping one of your close friends safe. Am I understood?”

“Y-yes Princess Celestia. I’m… I’m sorry…” Twilight had lowered her head low to the ground and was almost in tears.

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.” Celestia sighed deeply and raised Twilight’s head high with her wing. “Perhaps telling you these things yesterday was a mistake. It has obviously upset you too much. We will talk about this tomorrow. Right now I want to check on Luna and Raegdan.”

On their way to the duo’s hiding hole they passed by the rest of the girls. Rarity and Fluttershy were covertly being amused by Pinkie Pie’s staring contest with a tray of sugar. After a few bows that were quickly halted, they joined Princess Celestia’s growing entourage.

“I’m surprised ah ain’t seen Shining Armor yet. Wasn’t he supposed to be here?” From what Applejack had gotten from him, Shining Armor was an avid fan of Raegdan’s stories. She would have expected him to be here from minute one. In fact, he should have been here anyway, helping provide security though the point was now moot. Twilight had decided to dismiss the few guards they had around half an hour ago.

Celestia answered with a disapproving voice. “Captain Armor has quite a few questions to answer in light of recent events. For example, how was Grunge, a griffin of such a notorious list of offenses, able to stay in Canterlot without being apprehended? I doubt he will have a lot of personal time for the foreseeable future.”

“Ah have no doubt he was doing his best, princess.”

“Oh? Well, I do,” Princess Celestia answered in deadpan. “This is not just about the attack that occurred yesterday. A personality like Grunge doesn’t loaf around. I didn’t believe Rarity was his first victim in Canterlot. And yet, where were the reports? Stashed in a box out of sight, among who knows what else. Captain Armor better shape up his guards and station, and have solid results for me soon or I am going to be very, very displeased. The whole castle’s staff had better tread lightly in fact. I’ve been without Luna for far too long and allowed myself to let my beliefs influence my decisions too much. This stops now. There are going to be a lot of changes when she takes up her duties once more and Equestria has the diarchy it was always supposed to have.”

Celestia’s ears perked up as if she heard something. When they approached the tall bushes, behind which they believed Luna and Raegdan were, Applejack could also hear their voices in the silence of the night.

“..ime’s up. What have you got?” That was Luna’s voice.

“I got a rose. Eleven brights and two dims.” Raegdan.

“Where?”

“There. See? That’s the stem and the two dims are in the petals…”

“Hmm. I see it. I do believe I remember it from the astrology book however.”

“I’m not the one who cheats. What have you got?”

“A diving pegasus wielding a spear. Twenty three brights and five dims.”

“Are you kidding me? You are not kidding me. Where?”

“Two stars over the topmost of your flower. That’s where the spear ends. Move east and you can follow it all the way to-”

“Damn. Ok, I see it. I’m writing them down.”

“So… remind me, who’s winning?”

“Screw you.”

Luna was giggling when their group came around the green, living wall. They were both sitting on the grass, backs leaned against the marble base of a statue. Raegdan was writing on a notebook while Luna was laughing and rocking his armored shoulder, making him pout as he tried to keep his handwriting steady. She waved at their group when she saw them approach.

“Hello sister. Have any of our guests arrived yet?”

“I’m sorry Luna. I don’t think anypony is-”

“I see. There’s no need to fret. We saw which way the wind was blowing soon enough and have made peace with it.” Luna addressed the girls clustered around Celestia. “I apologize for wasting your time.”

“Oh come on now, princess!” Applejack protested. “That ain’t your fault. If ponies don’t want to come and have a good time then that’s their own-”

Pinkie Pie jumped on Raegdan’s unoccupied side and shoved her muzzle in the notebook he was writing in. “What are you two doing? Are you playing a game? Is it a fun one?”

“Just something we made up a few months ago to pass the time… little pink,” Raegdan answered her.

Applejack smiled. That nickname brought back the glow that was missing from Pinkie Pie. For some reason, Rarity’s front right hoof spasmed when she heard him.

“How do you play?”

“It’s easy enough. We have a time limit of five minutes. In that time we need to find a shape among the stars. You get points according to how many stars it uses, how bright they are, and the image itself,” Raegdan explained the simple rules.

“Huh. So it’s like the night version of looking for shapes in the clouds. Who’s winning?” Spike asked from his seat on Twilight’s back.

Raegdan turned back a page on his notebook. “I haven’t included tonight’s totals yet. Last count, I had one thousand, two hundred, and forty three points.”

Luna chuckled.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, do your little dance, and pat yourself on the back. Luna’s last count was…” Raegdan sighed in defeat. “Two hundred million, one thousand, nine hundred, and eighty two points.”

Everypony just stared while Luna was laughing uproariously and Raegdan sulked. “How did she manage that?” Applejack asked in awe.

“She fu- freaking cheated! She used that!” Raegdan’s finger pointed accusingly at a star they couldn’t pinpoint in the night sky.

“You said galaxies count,” Luna said, still laughing.

“I had no idea you even knew what they are or which one of them is one!”

“Well, I did. Why would I ask otherwise? It was positively fair. I even allowed it to count for only one hundredth of a point.”

“Per star! Per star! A galaxy has at least two hundred billion stars! Maybe twice as many. Maybe much more.”

“Are you are saying I should have more points?”

An indignant Raegdan stomped his way away from the group under the blue Alicorn’s laughter. “Don’t mind him. He is overreacting. I suppose this is the part where we call this off?” Luna asked.

“I don’t see the need to do that Luna. The girls have already gone to the trouble of preparing all this. I say let’s take advantage of it. There are some wonderful treats we can taste and we can still share the stories among us. What do you say?” Celestia’s smile was pleading and hopeful.

“I don’t know, we could use the time to work on some things…” Luna pondered the suggestion. “Those treats… is there any chocolate?”

“Lots!” Pinkie Pie shouted excited. “We have chocolate cookies, chocolate pastries, chocolate cake, chocolate donuts, chocolate milkshakes, chocolate cupcakes, chocolate-”

Luna’s tongue slipped out and ran over her lips. “I suppose we could do as you propose. I just need to make sure that Raegdan does the totals correctly and he doesn’t cheat again. Don’t start without us!” Luna spread her wings and quickly soared to Raegdan’s side.

While they waited Celestia spoke to Leaf Stream. “I am surprised to see you here Leaf Stream. Few ponies would be gracious enough to accept such an invitation as you have after what you suffered through.”

“Oh, um… thank you, your Highness, but I wasn’t actually invited. I just thought I might be able to talk to them about a… job they offered me.”

“Really?” Celestia was bewildered. “Today is just full of surprises. May I ask what exactly this job entails?”

“I, uh… would like to discuss the details with your sister first, your Grace. I’m not exactly clear on what they expect from me either.” Celestia nodded her acceptance and let the matter drop.

Applejack was observing the pair that was engrossed in tallying their points with occasional stops for Luna to smack Raegdan on the back of his head with her wing, when Rainbow Dash decided she had enough of the silence. Applejack just knew that this would turn memorable. Rainbow never failed to deliver.

“So, uhh… Princess Celestia. Applejack told us that Raegdan mentioned that he has… bathed with you?” Applejack covered her face with her hoof when she heard the question pop out of Rainbow Dash’s mouth. She saw Rarity’s face go even whiter, if that’s possible, in that brief second before she covered her eyes.

There was a slight pinkness on Celestia’s cheeks. “Oh, I’m old fashioned. You understand. Communal bathing, mixed company or not, was not that unusual even a couple of centuries ago. And he is a friend,” she said this in a tone of voice that meant; There! That explains everything!

“Right, right…” Rainbow Dash nodded. “He gets naked when he takes a bath? All clothes off?”

The pink burn on the princess’ face intensified just the tiniest bit. “Yes…”

“What I am trying to ask here is,” Rainbow Dash coughed, checked over her shoulder to see if Spike was nearby but evidently decided to go ahead anyway. She leaned a bit closer to the Alicorn. “...how does he, you know, rate down there?”

Applejack could hear Rarity’s mumble, “Rainbow Dash, I swear, when we are done here I’m dragging you down to the dungeons and I’ll swallow the key…” and see Twilight’s mouth open and close repeatedly with no words coming out. Fluttershy had actually shoved her head in the bushes. Spike’s features were puzzled as he tried to understand the question’s meaning.

Celestia laughed nervously, and quite obviously faking it in Applejack’s honest opinion. “I believe a quick lesson is needed here. Shared baths, at least as they used to be, are not the… the “steaming affairs” they write about in some books.”

“Oh?” Rarity was blinking her eyes in a “what kind of books would those be? I have no idea!” innocent type of blink.

“Yes. It’s nothing like what ponies make it out to be,” Celestia said dismissively. “There are some rules after all, put in place exactly to avoid this kind of awkwardness. You can understand. No touching, or “helping” of any kind, or getting into each other’s personal space. You keep an appropriate distance actually. There are bath attendants but they are different. They are professionals who do a job. Not your friends, acquaintances, colleagues or anything. Otherwise it would be a situation similar to having a dinner with friends and feeding each other with your hooves.”

“Ah see. Very educational,” Applejack said. She glanced covertly at the pair just a little bit away from her, as did all of the girls. Being the closest one she could just barely make them out whispering to each other. The only sounds she could make out however were some very awkward sounding mumbling.

Less than a minute afterwards they walked back to them, holding just a smidgen more distance between them than they usually did. “Alright, I guess we can start now,” Raegdan announced.

“Who’s winning, monster?”

“Why don’t you jump off a cliff you- what the hell are you doing here?”

Applejack found herself in quite an impressive position these last few days. The apple farmer from Ponyville had become the de facto counselor, aide, attendant, chaperone, and when needed to, tamer of the Commander of the Lunar Guard, who was currently interviewing his only candidate to join so far.

It sounded impressive and all, but most of the time it all came down to something too similar to babysitting.

Raegdan was a pretty smart guy when he needed to. Too often however, when dealing with ponies outside their group, that attribute was replaced with intolerance, threatening language -and actions-, and impulsiveness to bring all that to bear. Ergo, Applejack taking a seat by his side. A few times per day Applejack would cough meaningfully and Raegdan would instantly shut up and sit down like a trained dog before he said or did something wrong, either violent or insulting.

Those occurrences were lessening every day, thank Celestia, but boy, did the big lug make life difficult on her. One minute he was joking and acting all friendly, the next he could be looking at somepony with eyes half closed as his fingers were visibly spasming with held back desire to tighten into fists.

Now this? This right here? This was one of those splendid times. Ya think he’d be happy that Leaf Stream showed up to answer to his offer, especially since her answer was yes. Instead he had looked downright murderous for a few seconds. Applejack just could not get into his head sometimes, no matter how hard she tried.

Luna had skipped off the proceedings in order to have a hope of sampling some of the chocolate treats that had been promised to her before a renewed Pinkie Pie devoured everything. Raegdan wanted to keep it as private as possible, so it fell to Applejack alone to make sure this… job interview would end on a high note that was not somepony’s scream.

“Your reasons,” he demanded.

“Excuse me?” Leaf Stream asked, shaken. Her previous bravado had perished when Raegdan started being serious and cold.

“I said, your reasons. We need people. That’s why we asked you. But why did you choose to accept our offer?”

“I, uh, well… I- It was... Ok, I was being seriously depressed. I just lost my wings and all. You and… Princess Luna tried to cheer me up. In a seriously disturbed way, but you did. I thought I-”

“Bullshit,” Raegdan interrupted her. He paused a moment to glance at the rest of the party that had gathered near the bonfire. Some of them, Princess Celestia and Twilight especially, kept their eyes almost constantly glued to them. “Try again little girl.”

“Alright. It was your offer. The one where I get a chance to kill you. You took my wings. If that’s what it takes to-”

“Second try is also a bust.” Raegdan placed his elbows on his knees as he sat, leaning forward and closer to Leaf Stream. “You don’t want me dead. I don’t fucking know why, but you don’t. Not enough at least. Oh, you hate my guts and would gladly break every bone in my body, but kill me in cold blood? I can’t see you doing that yet, though I have no idea why.”

“Maybe seriously hurting you a lot is good enough for me!” Leaf Stream snarled.

“Better. But still not good enough to accept being ordered around by the likes of me.” He placed one of his fingers on her forehead, pushing her head back. “I would trust you more if only you really wanted me dead. I could be certain you’d stick around and obey enough to learn as much as you need before you took your shot. Let’s try this again. Your reasons.”

Leaf Stream didn’t answer. She kept glowering at him, her previous discomfort and fear all forgotten. Applejack wondered what she should do. Raegdan was being a tad hostile, but considering the risk he was about to take he was being surprisingly easy going. Maybe she should call for a break and pull Leaf Stream over and have a talk with her, gal to gal. She might be more willing to talk to somepony else.

“I’d rather not say,” Leaf Stream said. “It’s personal.”

“Of course it’s “personal”,” Raegdan said sarcastically. Leaf Stream’s frown deepened with loathing. “We are not talking about a fast food cook position. If you don’t want to tell me then you could go look for a job like that inst-”

“Everypony acts like I’m dead.”

Raegdan leaned back and folded his arms in front of his chest. He made a rolling gesture with two of his fingers towards Leaf Stream to continue.

“I have seen other pegasi that had serious problems with their wings because of an accident. Most of them could barely fly, even for a few minutes. I even met one who had lost one of her wings. Like me.” Leaf Stream swallowed before continuing. “Always, whenever I saw one of them, I had that same thought lurking in a corner of my mind: what was left for them now that they could not fly? Are they even pegasi now?”

“And then it happened to you,” Raegdan prodded her.

“Then it happened to me,” Leaf Stream agreed, her hoof making fast swipes at her eyes to hide how much this still pained her. “Everypony thinks the same thing for me. I can see it in their eyes, the way they look at me. Pitying me as if I’m dying instead of just being a- a cripple. First thing I found after I came out of the operating room was… was that I was no longer a Solar Guard. Everything I had worked for... it was worth nothing. I lost it all. Almost nopony came to see me, and those that did? They could barely look at me. They barely talked to me. They didn’t come to see how I was. They came to pay their respects to a dead pegasus.”

Applejack found herself sitting on Leaf Stream’s side now, close enough to almost touch. “How about your family, sugarcube? Have they come to see you yet?”

“They did. My parents. My younger sister. A few friends.” Leaf Stream shook her head, strands of her long brown mane almost whipping Applejack’s face. “They… it was horrible. Whispering all the time, barely daring to make a noise… it was as if they stood in a mausoleum, not my room. They all expected me to do the same thing like it was the only choice I had left. Take the money from my pension as a Solar Guard, get a place of my own somewhere quiet, and live out my life there. They believed the only thing I could do now was… was stay in a house alone and left to rot.”

Applejack’s hoof rested on Leaf Stream’s shoulder. “That’s not true. Ah bet your family loves you. They probably have no idea what to do either. This is bound to hurt them too. They’re yer family!”

“I know. I know. Doesn’t make it any easier not to hate them a little for it. I sent them away. I couldn’t… it was like...” she said, dejected.

Leaf Stream took a few breaths, calming herself. She raised her head to look at Raegdan. He hadn’t moved or changed his bored expression. He was waiting for her to finish.

“The only ones who didn’t treat me like that, that stupid faked respect, was N- Princess Luna and you,” she growled. “Do you have any idea how it felt, to know that the only ones who believed I was still essentially whole, that I was still me, were the two who did this to me in the first place?”

“Pretty angry I’d guess,” Raegdan said with a non-committing shrug.

“Angry does not begin to cover it. I was- I wanted- I needed to- to-” Leaf Stream was stuttering as she struggled to find a way to express her feelings.

“Rip me apart with nothing else but your hooves and teeth? To hit me until you could no longer move and there was nothing left of my face but a bloody pulp? Bite off my throat and feel the blood gushing in your mouth?” Applejack stared at Raegdan as he intoned these horrible sentences at a level voice. It was the way he said it. As if this was a perfectly normal way of thinking.

“Yes! Oh, I wanted to hurt you so much that I was trembling at the thought. I still do. I hate you for this, for being bucking offended when I told you I was no longer a Solar Guard. It could have been so easy,” she whispered, “to just give up if both of you hadn’t come into my room. I could have killed myself or live like an empty shell. Wake up, eat, breath, crap, do something nonsensical like… like gardening, go to bed, repeat until I die. Nothing but a routine to sleepwalk through while I slowly faded out.”

She put her hooves around her head. “I can’t do it now,” she cried out. “I can’t do it cause if I do then… then I- I am less than… You two had no reason to try and stop me from… from doing anything. You two treated me like I was still normal, unchanged. Alive. Not a fragile bauble ready to break at a sound louder than a whisper.” She growled with barely suppressed rage, “I’ll be damned if I don’t prove this to everypony else too by any means necessary. Then I’ll kick your flank. I won’t kill you but I’ll cut off one of your arms maybe. Make it fair!”

Leaf Stream was breathing heavily. Applejack risked a backwards glance. Everypony was looking at them. She wondered if they had heard the last couple of sentences. Leaf Stream had been getting pretty loud there. She turned her attention back to Raegdan. The tall biped was still sitting there, dressed in his usual armor with his helmet on his belt. A finger was tapping his lips as he sat deep in thought. Then he suddenly clapped once.

“Great story,” he said. “Very touching. I almost teared up.” He chuckled at the menacing look Leaf Stream was giving him. “Congratulations. You are now a part of the Lunar Guard. Head over to the others, tell them the “good” news, have something to eat or drink to celebrate. You will have to stick around I’m afraid. Princess Luna has something to share afterwards and now it concerns you too. Welcome to the dark side. Have fun,” he waved with a thin smile.

Leaf Stream looked for confirmation at Applejack’s direction who could do nothing else but shrug. This wasn’t as half bad as she feared. She rose up to follow behind her when Raegdan called her back.

“Hold on a second Applejack. I want to have a word.”

“Alright,” she said and put her flank back in place on the ground. “What about?”

Raegdan’s eyes watched as Leaf Stream moved away from them. “Was she telling the truth?”

“It doesn’t work like that. Ah don’t have any special powers to see the truth if that’s what you thinking. Would be pretty useful though.”

“I know you don’t. It’s your gut instinct I want to hear. Was she telling the truth?”

“...Yeah. Yeah, ah reckon she did.”

Raegdan hit his armored thigh with his palm in disappointment. “I thought so too. That’s a shame.”

“Ah’m sorry, ah thought that was a good thing. What are ya talking about now?”

“You think she would have signed up with someone to shove a knife in our back while we slept? The way she feels? No, she wants to prove something and she wants to do it on her own. If someone did approach her she would have probably kicked them out. I’m still gonna watch her, but it will probably be in vain.”

“Look on the bright side fella. Y’all finally getting some recruits after all. Ya got Leaf Stream on your side and you still got those two minotaurs to decide what to do with. What’s up with them anyway?” Applejack asked.

“They are in. They spent the night at the infirmary. They are still there actually. I guess I have three guards to train now…” He closed his eyes and laid his head back, looking tired. “This is a victory. Why doesn’t it feel like one?” His gloved hands rubbed his eyes.

Applejack heard him whisper to himself as she headed back to the others. “How can she possibly not want to kill me? Who the hell thinks like that?”

“...so not only did they have to let us go, they gave us a whole bunch of gems! Mountains of them. So we returned home victorious and we never heard from any Diamond Dogs ever since!” Spike finished his tale with a flourish.

Everypony clapped and laughed at the little dragon’s rendition of their adventure. He embellished and dressed up the tale so much that Applejack wondered at times what would happen next. She never expected that part where an armored dragon broke down a door with a giant hammer to help them fight off the Diamond Dogs.

Spike stood up on the pillow he had settled on Raegdan’s lap and bowed before them, basking in his success. Princess Celestia got into a brief wolf-whistle contest with Raegdan that she triumphantly won.

“Alright, who’s next? Pinkie Pie, do you want to tell one now?” Applejack asked.

“How about we hear one from Luna instead?” Rainbow Dash interrupted before Pinkie Pie could answer, which was quite the admirable feat. “She did promise to tell us what she used to get up to in “ye olden days”.”

“One thing I fondly remember about my time is how nopony ever said “ye olden days”,” Luna said from where she lied. She had placed cushions next to Raegdan and was lying on her back, looking up at the star filled night sky.

“Ya know princess, Rainbow is right. You did promise us a story today,” Applejack agreed with Rainbow.

“Oh fine. What would you like to hear?” Luna asked, bored.

“Well,” Rainbow said, rubbing her chin, “how about you tell us what you actually did? I mean, everypony knows that Princess Celestia did… whatever Princess Celestia does, all the princessy things. What did you do?”

“I certainly wasn’t doing a lot of what you call princessy things,” Luna said, smiling vindictively at her sister who had a sour expression. “I was busying myself with other activities.”

“Like what?”

Luna rocked on her sides and switched so she could lie belly down. “Let’s see… In “ye olden days”, and I mean really old, long before… you know, Equestria was far more dangerous. Do you remember sister?”

“That would be hard to forget,” Celestia agreed. “Our ponies’ communities almost never had a day where at least not one of them was lost.”

“When you say lost, ah suppose you mean…”

“Killed. Hunted down. Eaten,” Luna confirmed. “Ponies were nothing but prey to the monsters that roamed the land. Easy pickings if they were caught outside, even in moderate numbers. First thing that we did was assemble as many as we could of those separate villages and townships into larger settlements. It was easier to safeguard them that way. Celestia then started doing what she does best.”

“I guided them,” Celestia answered their questioning stares. “I learned and it turn I taught. I helped ponies to grow. For a long time I was the sole connection between them all. We started farming the land more efficiently. We built walls. We formed militias. We mined, crafted, and traded. One step at a time until we became something more coherent that just a few towns and villages peppered around, united only by years old rumors and the occasional lucky traveller who managed to make the journey to the closest place of safety.”

“That’s what you did sister. My role was another. While Celestia travelled among the ponies scattered everywhere, doing her own hard work, I travelled the wilderness, doing mine. There were monsters roaming the roads. Wyverns and other flying beasts were hunting down the Pegasi. Nests were forming in the forests and dark creatures were breeding in dark caves. All this had to go if our ponies were to have a chance. That was my chosen duty .”

“That… doesn’t sound easy,” Rainbow Dash said, timidly.

“It wasn’t for either of us. We each were alone in our work. I tried to form a… a kind of Lunar Guard you could say. More than once. Nopony could endure this life or the battles. I could ill afford the time to waste on training them extensively enough, not when I saw them fall so easily again and again. I moved, constantly. I hunted.”

Luna’s eyes were directed at the fire, lost in memories. “I did so for years. Decades. Centuries. I barely rested. I barely had time to heal. More villages and towns were sprouting in the land, and as they did so did my work’s demand increase.”

“You never told me how bad things were for you Luna,” Celestia observed, sadly. “If you did I would have helped. I would be right there by your side. None of… so many bad choices could have been avoided if I had been there to aid you.”

“You could not,” Luna answered, inexpressive. “That’s why I never told you anything. You needed to do your own work that would safeguard our ponies much better than one single mare or two ever could. You had your own battles, ones that I would never be able to fight. You were forging a nation out of nothing. I was merely buying you time and kept as many alive as I could, no matter the cost. I was the stopgap measure, the short term solution that kept back the tide while you worked on the long term. When the population could finally afford and produce a somewhat dependable army to keep itself safe, I believed I could slow down. Of course, at that point, other issues arose.”

“Like what?” Rainbow asked.

“Plagues. Diseases that could now spread to their heart’s content with the roads safe enough to travel. Ponies and other beings who delved too deep into dangerous magics. Other nations that started to see the Equestrian civilization slowly thrive and amass power. Enemies who feared the rising power of the Princess of the Sun.”

“We did not have that much trouble with them as I recall. There were a few troubling incidents, but everything was mostly settled with diplomacy,” Celestia said.

“Minos had sent five groups in total to assassinate you,” Luna said.

“No, no,” Celestia disagreed. “There was only one group. I remember how terrified they were after they were disarmed. I never believed their hearts were really into it.”

“Yes. I missed that one,” Luna countered. “I was so relieved you managed on your own. Excellent work by the way sister.”

“Luna! I- I can’t believe you never told me! What happened to those you stopped?”

“I sent them back to Minos of course. The minotaurs of old were very stubborn. They received the message in the end. There were others too, but they stopped trying to aim for you. After a while they decided that they needed to take me down first before they got to you.”

“Oh Luna…,” Celestia lied next to her sister, one of her white wings enveloping the smaller, dark Alicorn. “Why did you never tell me all this? Why did you leave me in the dark?”

“I saw too little of you to darken our times together with these sordid affairs. It was of no consequence. They helped me stay sharp and they stopped soon enough, mostly because of you. You allied ourselves with them and they had no need to continue wasting people. I… to be honest I had been planning to push you to take us to war against them. I’m glad I delayed in doing so. Who knows how badly things would have turned for everypony involved.”

Luna half stood, sitting on the cushions and shaking off her sister’s wing. “So in essence, that’s what I did. Making the night something no longer lethal and terrifying. I did dip my wing in governing and “princessy” things every now and then, mostly when I had to stop for some time to heal and rest. Basically I mostly had some talks with local nobles and made sure they did not get any funny ideas. I threw a couple of wrenches in some idiot’s plan, I shook things up, stirring the waters so the muck could come to the surface before I once again returned to my normal duties. A thankless and lonely task but one that had to be done.”

Twilight spoke up, too many questions crowding her mind to keep silent. “Why was no mention of this made anywhere? Why were ponies not thankful if you did all this for them?”

“Easy enough to answer. I never had time for personal acquaintances and even Celestia didn’t know where or what I was up to every time I was gone. I would stay in Celestia’s residence for a month or two before I left without returning for years. I did not spend my little leisure time reliving my activities or giving interviews,” Luna answered. “You can find some heavily distorted records of my old adventures if you search though. They are in the fairy tales section of the library. I’m almost always the evil one in them.”

“But why-”

“Time and a second set of eyes has given me the perspective I need to understand why. Consider this now. Picture yourself in a village in the middle of nowhere,” Luna instructed. “Monsters are everywhere. You sleep behind barricaded doors, fearing every sound, every movement in the night. One moonlit night a certain mare arrives. A dark blue Alicorn. You know that this is not good news. You know the stories. It means she is here for one of two reasons. Either to drag some of your friends and neighbors away in the night to aid her in a goal that seems incomprehensible to you, one that will end with most of them dead. Or maybe she comes bringing remains of ponies. You might wake up only to find that your friend, sibling, spouse, or child never made it to their destination. You might never even know if that body is them if you are unlucky enough. More often than not she brings nothing but bones. The Alicorn cannot help, won’t help. She only says that she has these for you and leaves quickly, rushing back into the night, her dark news delivered. Now, keeping all that in mind, Twilight Sparkle, tell me.”

“How thankful are you to that mare?” Luna asked.

“Dark,” Pinkie Pie said in the silence that had claimed them.

Luna briefly spread her wings, the fire’s light briefly dimming. She worked off the kinks in her neck and sat back down. “So, we have established the setting. Now, as for a tale… hmm…” She looked at the ground, contemplatively, before settling her attention on Pinkie Pie, the pink mare holding a bowl of gummy worms in her lap.

“I remember one,” Luna said. “This was over a century before my… Anyway, I had been told from a merchant that he spotted the ruins of a caravan during his latest journey. I had him tell me the location and I flew to the area. It was somewhere near where Baltimare is if I am not mistaken. I found the caravan’s remains. Everything had been crushed. It was the first thing that struck me as so strange. There were no claw or tooth marks, no marks of any kind really. Everything looked as if it had been bludgeoned with tree trunks. I found no bodies, which was not unusual, but also no blood. Not even a single speck.”

Everypony was paying close attention now, listening carefully. Applejack reminded herself that Luna was talking about real events, not a simple story to entertain them. This caravan’s fate… she remembered her latest venture to sell apple pies when she had to outrun that chimera. The one that is probably still there.

Luna continued. “I looked around. Finally, what I thought to be a small rockslide proved to be the collapsed entrance to a tunnel that led deep into the earth. My first thought was a Tatzlwurm, but they are solitary creatures. I found a whole cluster of holes after some digging. Whatever this was, I considered the chance that I had never met this before, unlikely as that was. I weighed my options. I could enter one of the tunnels and go after what made them, but I decided against it. They did not look stable and I knew not what awaited me. I needed to search for the lair or bait them out.”

“I went to the nearest village to find help. I could not afford to spend days or weeks searching on my own. I recruited some ponies that knew the area and we started our search. One of them knew of a cave in the forest so we made our way towards it. It… was what we searched for. Outside the cave’s mouth we found the bones of scores of ponies, completely bare. Once again, no marks on them. They were clean and smooth as if the flesh had been dissolved in acid.” Everypony trembled at the implications. Fluttershy and Rarity were holding each other while Applejack could feel Rainbow Dash discreetly edge closer to her. Luckily, Spike had found refuge in his adopted father’s arms who listened to the story with a slight, interested smile, the drake taking courage from Raegdan’s unflinching behavior. Twilight had gone to Princess Celestia’s side while Pinkie was unabashedly holding on tight to her new friend. Leaf Stream was more preoccupied attempting to unglue Pinkie Pie from her than listening to the story and defending her cookies from the ravenous pink pony.

“We didn’t dare to delve into the cave yet. We would be sorely disadvantaged in their own home while we did not even know what we had to face. I gave some instructions to my companions and enacted a simple plan. We caused a ruckus, attempting to draw them out, to find out what we were dealing with. It worked. It worked far too well,” Luna said, crestfallen.

“To this day, I have no idea what they were. I believe I may have chanced onto the first nest they made on our land. Maybe they migrated here. Maybe somepony transported them. Maybe they were banished from elsewhere. They were like Tatzlwurms in shape and size but earth colored. Their skin was craggy and hard. They seemed to be blind but they had an unerring way of tracking their prey regardless. The skin on their front rolled back to reveal a gaping maw with hooked teeth that undulated inwards. They slithered out of the cave and burst out of the ground. We were surrounded in seconds. Our spears could not pierce their hide, magic did not hinder them, and even the strongest of kicks would merely push them back for a second before they lunged back at us.” Applejack saw Raegdan look extremely interested all of a sudden.

“Luckily it had been nighttime and many of the ponies around me had torches lit. The worms were incredibly fearful of the fire’s burn. We formed a circle of fire and halted their advance. The worms retreated and we soon had large fires burning. We had lost many but retreat was not an option. I could not let these monsters multiply or spread any more. They were too dangerous and there were too many. If they bred quick enough as their current numbers exhibited... I gave instructions to put out most of the fires, but have them ready to be relit. We organized another attempt to draw them out again, and while the worms were distracted by the meal out of range due to the raging fires, I slipped into the cave undetected.”

“I did not create a light or make anything to reveal myself. I did not cast spells to mask my presence, fearful that they might be able to sense magic. I put my faith on my own skills. I advanced slowly and quietly, relying on my limited ability to see in the dark and the touch of my spread out wings. There were twists and turns, holes and paths that lead everywhere. Left and right, up and down. I slowly drifted deeper into the cave, ever downwards until I sensed a foul smell. It smelled like rotting co- food. I followed the stench until I reached a great, dug out cavern, deep into the earth. My vision was not good enough to pierce the deep darkness far enough. I could sense and hear a massive presence stirring the air. Certain that I had reached my goal, I cast a light spell as powerful as I could make it, and hurled it upwards to the ceiling of that titanic hall.”

“I saw a worm, far greater in size that any of the others, coiled in the middle of the massive cavern. It was humongous, almost the size of a great dragon. It did not attack me and when I took to the air, hovering above it, I saw why. It was a matriarch, the queen of the nest, and the guardian of their unborn. Hundreds of eggs, thousands, were gathered in the safety of her coiled body. A massive collection of worms that could each devour tens of our ponies and spread through our land like a tide. As I flew over the monster I cast the most powerful spell of fire I could and unleashed it upon the eggs.”

“The worm matriarch was seared by the great pyre that overtook her children, but she did not perish alongside them. The death of her clutch sent her into a rage. She launched like a viper and tried to strike me dead, again and again. The cavern shook and rocks fell all around me as that fury was unleashed upon the walls with every missed strike. I barely had time to cast my fire spells. I had to be constantly on the move, dodging, countering. We fought for minutes, though it could have been hours, on a battlefield that slowly moved upwards as boulders rained from the ceiling, the hall slowly digging itself towards the surface, and bringing the floor that much closer. Shards of rock exploded around me, slicing my flesh and the matriarch’s few glancing strikes broke my bones. In the end I was victorious. My enemy lay dead, scorched by my spells.”

“It took me time to make my way out. The path I had followed was now out of reach. Without knowing exactly where or how deep I was I could not teleport. I had to slowly carve out my own tunnel. My companions had left long before, having returned to their homes. I stayed in the area for weeks, hunting down the worms that had remained, though their threat was essentially over now that they had no way to breed. I never saw their like again.”

Luna let out a deep breath and seemed to return to the present. She looked around her, looking slightly surprised, and saw all of her listeners looking at her dumbstruck. “I- I guess that wasn’t the kind of story you wanted-”

Raegdan started clapping. The sudden noise brought them out of their trance and everypony joined in, giving Luna a grand ovation. Luna smiled bashfully and dipped her head to them before lying back down.

“That was awesome! I love flank kicking stories like that,” Rainbow Dash said. “Can you tell us one more?”

“I have another idea. Why doesn’t Raegdan tell us one? One of his adventures, like Luna,” Twilight said with a pointed look.

Uh-oh.

“You don’t understand! I don’t have any stories like that,” Raegdan whispered on the verge of panic.

He had claimed he needed to get a drink and think of a story he could tell them. He caught Applejack with the edge of his eyes and she got the hint to come along.

“Ah don’t see what the big deal is. Just pick one that makes you look good,” Applejack said in support. “You know, one where you help somepony or do something good… You do have stories like that, don’t you?”

Raegdan shook his head. “Ultimately? No, not that much. If you try to play hero you die. I was trying to stay alive. I did try to help sometimes, but I was mostly interested in… travelling. Going from one place to the next, as fast as I could. Meetings of any kind never really ended well for all sides involved. If you think stories where I end up having to kill people to keep what little I had or… find the supplies I needed are appropriate…”

Applejack hummed in thought. “Ah think stories where you get violent won’t fly that well with Twilight right now. What about those occasions where you tried to help others?”

“I think those are just as bad. As an example, one of those times was when I was holed up in a shelter with others of my kind. We were surrounded by... anyway, I convinced them that we should try and escape rather than stay in that hole and wait to die.”

“Why don’t ya tell that one?”

“Do you see anyone else like me around? How do you think that turned out for them?”

“Ok, we need something a bit more positive. You said you travelled. Surely you must have seen something impressive, or interesting enough. Something to wow us and all.”

Raegdan scratched the top of his head. “Actually… Luna’s story reminded me of something… Yeah. Yeah, I think I got something impressive enough to tell without involving me directly. I will have to keep it short though.”

“Good enough. Let’s head back then. Ah have no idea how I’m going to eat everything ah piled up on my plate.”

“Sit next to little pink. The problem will solve itself.”

They both went back to their respective seats. Everypony was staring at Raegdan intently, though with different expressions. Celestia and Luna looked slightly worried. Rarity and Applejack watched with concerned faces. Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Spike were waiting anxiously. Leaf Stream and Twilight looked on with suspicion.

Raegdan rested his arms on his knees, leaning forward. His eyes were closed and his face was shrouded by his own shadow as he sat in front of the fire. He began speaking slowly and quietly after letting a few seconds slip by in silence.

“Imagine a world full of cold. Where everything is dressed in ice and snow, where you can see the wind, and the sun is nothing but a faded light behind grey clouds. A world where the only sound is the roaring fury of the snowstorm, the crunching of the frozen, hard snow under your every step, the beating of your heart as it strives to send warm blood to your extremities, and your ragged breath. A world of white as far as the eye can see.”

“You walk ahead. There is nothing else to do. You just walk, and walk, and walk. You carefully make your way across roads of snow, testing every step ahead of you for the holes and crevices that wait to swallow you. You climb over frozen boulders, hoping that if you slip again you will be able to hold on once more. You walk and walk while something far behind you could be following you, slithering on the snow. You do not stop. You keep on walking. You cannot delay yet cannot hurry. You just walk. You slowly climb on, reaching higher and higher on the mountain that’s in your way. And then, exhausted from your journey and half blind from the snow, you turn around the corner of a cliff and you see it. The city.”

“It is not really a city. It is a citadel, an imposing behemoth of steel and stone. Towers are shining black in the dim light of this forgotten sun, dressed in gleaming necklaces of silver. Huge walls hold the city in their protective embrace and you can see the creeping ice and snow has stopped short of them, revealing scorched black earth and rock. As you slowly close the distance you see more.”

“The walls are carved with a pattern, a grid. Perhaps, if you squint really hard, you can see something shining deep in these trenches. You approach and as you do you hear the slithering that was your constant companion for days. Only this time it comes from up ahead. You see long shapes approaching the citadel’s walls, swimming and sliding on and through the snow and ice like serpents. Multitudes of them, thousands. A moving, crawling sea. They reach for the walls and when they do… the city erupts in fire.”

“The walls roar and a wave of fire coats the earth across all directions. The blast of heat reaches you and briefly warms you. The serpents squirm and burn but still try to reach the walls, those behind the ones who burned climbing over their carcasses. They pile on one another, trying to reach the walls, to dig through them and crush them under their own weight. The fire erupts like a volcano once more and this time it remains burning. The walls become fire, heat, and death. They burn seemingly forever.”

“But even these gigantic flames have to stop. The fire trickles down and drowns itself out. There is nothing left but smoldering ashes and the crinkling sound of metal and stone cooling down. You approach carefully, but in wonder. As you approach nearer, through that valley where a storm of fire raged, where it is still warm, an opening appears on the wall. Shapes come out, wielding fire in their arms. They come to you as you come to them. They guide you into the citadel, quick in their movements. There is no longer cold, no more ice, no more wind. There is heat and warmth, a haven from the frost outside. Out of every possible fate in this white world of death you have chanced upon the safety of the walls of the city of fire.”

Raegdan finished speaking. He sat silent for a while and then leaned back on his large chair, signifying the end of his small story.

“That… that’s real?” Twilight asked in wonder. “There really is such a city?”

“There was… It’s not there now. Nothing’s left there now,” Raegdan answered.

“You’ve been there?”

“For… quite some time. I’m not sure how long. Time flew for me when I was there.”

“What happened to it?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“It fell. The walls failed and the city was destroyed. It lasted for a long time but everything has to end sometime I guess…”

“What happened to its people?” Fluttershy asked with worry. “Did they make it out?”

“...Yes. Most of them. I would not know what happened to them later on. I never returned there.”

“It must have been a wonder,” Princess Celestia said in awe. “A stronghold such as this in such harsh conditions. Such ingenuity in its construction, such endurance in its people…” Her face turned worried. “Those serpents you described… Is there a chance that-”

“I know exactly as much as you about them Celestia. Nothing more. It is getting pretty late and we have a lot of things to do tomorrow.” Raegdan turned towards Luna. “How about we tell them now?”

“I do believe it is time,” Luna said as she revealed a letter. “ We have some news to share. We received a letter this morning that was addressed to me. It was quite the surprise but not as much as its contents. It was sent by the Thestrals, which I believe some of you might know as bat ponies?” Luna watched as some of them nodded. “A pity. An oversimplification of their culture and merit. Almost a derogatory term.”

“I met one of them once,” Rainbow Dash said. “He was a wicked flyer. Not the fastest by far but boy, could he pull off some amazing tricks. He could like, dance in the air. Best flying dexterity I ever saw.”

“Ah heard they are bad luck.” Applejack frowned. “After the whole thing with Zecora ah ain’t so sure ah’d put that much stock in it though…”

“I think that might be because of the whole leather wings, fangs, and weird eyes,” Rainbow answered. “They are not very friendly looking but that guy I knew was ok. He liked to compete and have fun.”

“They say they had joined Nightmare Moon…” Leaf Stream mumbled. “They are not very welcome by some ponies…”

“They did not,” Luna and Celestia said in tandem immediately.

Luna continued. “I think that rumor must have circulated because they went through that ordeal relatively unscathed, but that was mostly due to their wandering lifestyle. They did not stick in a place waiting for me to find them.”

“What about your letter Luna?” Celestia asked. “Why did they write to you?”

“Ah, yes. Thank you sister for returning us to the topic at hoof. They are currently residing near the swamps south of Baltimare and Horseshoe Bay. They have received news of my return and the announcement of the formation of the Lunar Guard. As their ancestors did long before so they do now and call upon my aid,” Luna said with immense self satisfaction.

Leaf Stream looked puzzled. “And what does that mean for the rest of us?”

Raegdan spoke up, smirking. “It means you’d best pack your things. Tomorrow, we are heading on a recruitment drive and some heavy monster hunting.”

Ch. 14 - Woot! Road Trip!

Applejack leaned against one of the train station’s columns and watched Raegdan have a discussion with Rarity as they stood near the platform. If he didn’t say a few things that needed to be said, she would have. For once, providence was doing her a solid and she could hang back and enjoy the show with a satisfied smile.

Raegdan was pointing at the pyramid of suitcases that towered over him, casting its shadow upon him. It was a mountain, with peaks made of duffel bags, rockholds carved out of suitcase handles, and a stream of silk and satin that flowed down to the valley of pearl beaded purses, under the guarding shadow of four separate umbrellas. One of them had a flower motif. “What the hell is all this?” he asked, flabbergasted.

“My absolutely necessary luggage,” Rarity answered. “If we are going through the wilderness as you told us then I’m going to need a lot of hygiene products, bug sprays, a decent tent, and other amenities. And of course, if we are truly heading to Manehattan afterwards, I will need to carry along my dresses, jewelry, more beauty products, as well as a range of my creations, fabrics, and tools in case I find an enterprising chance in such a prolific hub of fashion. Is there going to be a problem? Should I leave a couple of my towels here?”

Raegdan was rubbing his temples with his fingertips. “I am trying very hard to come up with a nice way of saying it, I really, really am. On the other hand, there’s something to be said for simplicity and directness. I am not carrying all of your shit.”

Applejack was doing her best to hide her giggles. This went exactly as she had imagined so far.

Rarity pursed her lips in displeasure. “Language, please. Besides, I have spotted what you and Luna are bringing along. You were dragging whole crates with you.”

“These are supplies we need. As in, to live.”

“We are going to be using a cart to carry them, correct? Surely there is enough room for my measly belongings?” Rarity looked at him with wide, pleading doe eyes.

“There are…” Raegdan briefly stopped to count in his head. “Seven of us. Solid Charge might not be able to help because he has a broken arm, Leaf Stream is still not completely healed, Luna is a princess, and you are… you. That leaves me, Cast Iron, and Applejack. Pulling a cart through rough country. Carrying equipment for seven people. Plus rations. Plus some… weapons and sensitive gear we are bringing along just in case. No, there is no room. Quit it with the puppy eyes. I raised two kids, I’m immune.”

“This is an outrage! I am coming along with you on such a dangerous trip out of the goodness of my heart to give you the help you asked for-”

“Oh, I suppose Manehattan has nothing to do with it? Or Thestral weavings?” Raegdan smirked knowingly at Rarity. Applejack copied him. It sure hadn’t taken him long to spot Rarity’s buttons.

“These are purely coincidental, ephemeral opportunities that I-”

“Your crap stays here. End of discussion. You can take… two suitcases.” He raised two fingers in front of Rarity’s eyes. “Not large ones, especially if you expect me to carry stuff back,” Raegdan said, now wagging his finger at Rarity. Out of the crowd that was watching them a single pony dared to approach a little closer and stare at him open mouthed. Applejack figured him out for a tourist.

Raegdan turned to look as he spotted the movement so close to him and the stallion made a very poor decision.

“Does it know any tricks?” he asked Rarity.

Raegdan unhooked the hammer from his belt and took two heavy steps towards him. “Sure. Let me show you my favorite.”

A sharp cough came from Applejack’s direction. Raegdan stopped moving towards the petrified stallion and turned back to Rarity with a sigh. “Choose what you want to bring along and have your friends carry the rest back to the castle. We don’t have that much time.”

Raegdan left Rarity gawping at the monumental task of choosing only a small percentile of her precious commodities to carry -or to be exact have them carry- with her and moved down the train station, ponies rushing out of his way. Applejack hurried to catch up with him.

“You are being cranky today,” she observed. She kept smiling at the ponies around them in an effort to appease and calm them. She was debating whether it was better to let him scowl or tell him to put the helmet on. She remembered the sight of him in a dark dungeon cell. Might be better to let him show his frowning face instead, she decided.

“Just tired. I haven’t slept. There were a lot of preparations to make before we leave. We had to lock down the tower and make sure no one tried to dig through our stuff… again,” Raegdan said with a pointed look that left Applejack blushing.

“Ah suppose Luna performed some kinda ancient magic? Forbidden dark rituals of the night?”

“No. We simply stashed everything in the armory and trapped the mirror door so if someone opens it the wrong way a lot of things will go boom. A lot easier and effective. Hopefully it won’t come to that, we worked our asses off to build everything in there. We put a sign on the doors and every window, advising anyone trying to get in to make sure their will is up to date and if they could be so kind as to inform the guards of their attempt so they can make sure no one is anywhere near the tower to get caught in the blast radius,” he chuckled.

“Ya really did that? What if somepony innocent gets injured-”

“Look, it’s a shocker, I know, but we lied. It’s not going to be anywhere near that bad. For anyone else. If someone does stick their nose in the wrong place,” he sighed, “I’m gonna be spending days clearing Luna’s chambers of body parts and intestines.” He paused for a second before adding, “and a couple of walls… and the floor.”

The image he described popped into Applejack’s mind in vivid detail. For a second there she could almost smell the blood, deep red as the ripest apple, on her nostrils. “Ah think ah’m gonna be sick,” she declared with a gag.

“You might want to ask Rarity for some barf bags. She probably has some packed, heavens know she has everything else. We are going to be doing quite a bit of walking through rough areas. If something comes for us we are not going to run unless it all goes to hell. If you are that uneasy at the thought of blood… unless it’s the idea of cleaning plaster and bricks that disturbs you,” he joked.

“No, no. Ah’m ok. As long as it’s not other ponies or anything ah can manage,” Applejack said, hastily. A thought occurred to her. “There’s not gonna be anypony… coming after us out there, right? Ah mean, there won’t be anypony else around or anything so if-”

“I will fall down on my knees and kiss one of Celestia’s statues so hard on the ass that the real thing will get a bruise if that doesn’t happen. That’s why I am trying to get us to leave as fast as possible and why we will be abandoning the train before we reach Baltimare. What the hell is wrong with it anyway, did you find out? We should have loaded up our things by now.” Raegdan was looking up and down the tracks looking for the train that had not arrived yet.

“Ah think it’s an engine problem. They told me something cracked. They’re gonna hitch the coaches on another one but it’s gonna take some time,” Applejack answered.

She had volunteered to find out what was the reason for their delay. Normally the railway would have opted to cancel this run and repair the engine but reconsidered when Applejack mentioned that the princess was going to be one of the passengers and was in a hurry. She just didn’t mention which princess in order to avoid the chance for any disappointment to strike at her. Also, if they knew it was Luna and chose to ignore her needs, even a little, it would be Raegdan that would be striking at them instead. Applejack doubted she would be able to stop him if he was given a reason such as this to break some heads for Luna’s sake.

“Damn our luck. We just can’t get a break, can we? I guess we can only wait now,” Raegdan said, shaking with head with disappointment.

“Actually, there’s something we can do. There’s this little cafe right around the corner. Twilight, Spike, and Pinkie should be there. What do ya say we go and have something to drink with them, huh?” Applejack tried to entice him.

Raegdan stopped walking. He looked back, towards where Applejack had nodded. “I… don’t know. Maybe I’ll be pushing it-”

“Nope, wrong answer. We are going.” Applejack put her noggin to good use and started pushing him from the back. “March, boy, march. Ya ain’t leaving without saying goodbye!”

“Stop shoving your head against my ass! I’m walking, I’m walking…”

“I’m just going to say goodbye and then leave, ok?” Raegdan haggled. “I have to go find Luna and the others, I’m very busy and-”

“Yeah, yeah, ya little, clucky chicken. Look, they are sitting over there…” Applejack slowly lowered her pointing hoof. “Huh, who’s that with them? Do ya know her?”

Raegdan stopped keeping his eyes on the ground and looked where she had pointed. He frowned. “That’s Lady Honest Serenade. Maybe you should wait here.” He moved purposefully through the patio, knocking chairs and tables in his way. Ponies were shoved aside in his passage and whirled to speak their mind to whoever acted so rudely against them, only to rapidly change their mind when they had to lift their heads to look up at the pillar of black metal that walked among them.

“The one who had Rarity attacked?” Applejack asked with rising anger as she tried to match his gait, jumping over fallen chairs. “To hay with that!”

“Allegedly had her attacked.” He stood at the side of the table the party of three were sitting. “Hello Serenade. I did not expect to see you.”

The mare turned towards Raegdan with a pleased smile, pretending to have noticed him only after he spoke. “Nopony ever does my dear monster. Oh, is this the armor I’ve heard so much about?” She pointed at the helmet hanging from his belt. “Do put on the complete ensemble, please. I’d like to witness the full effect.”

Raegdan obediently wore the horned helmet. “Do you like it? I also have a hammer I could acquaint you with.” he said, his voice distorted with metallic, hollow undertones.

“Oh yes, I approve. It is so very much… you! Shouldn’t you have a cape too? Maybe something made out of ponies’ skin? A collage of their cutie marks perhaps. We wouldn’t want anypony to misinterpret what you represent,” Serenade said laughing.

“I’m working on it. I’m thinking of getting something in white and gold with a dash of red for a centerpiece,” Raegdan answered back, the slits clearly pointed at Honest Serenade’s cutie mark. Applejack coughed. His helmet turned towards her long enough to spot where she was looking at.

Twilight was sitting next to Pinkie, both of them looking sad. Twilight’s eyes were making her displeasure at Raegdan known. He straightened up as if chastised.

“A splendid choice, but I believe it would clash horribly. Does this armor design have any special meaning besides the obvious? Did a genocidal murde- forgive me, I meant hero, of your people wear something similar?”

“In a way. Kind of like my name, I believe it suits me.” Raegdan’s index finger slid along one of the tall horn extrusions on his helmet.

“Was this really the best you could do?” she asked, chuckling.

“There was another one I could have chosen, but I don’t think I ever went the extra mile for it. Besides, it was taken by something far more deserving of it. Let’s have a seat Applejack. What have you been talking about?” he asked. Applejack was astounded at how… courteous he acted towards Honest Serenade and how she did so in turn. If you ignored the words they actually said of course.

Applejack herself wanted to buck that sneering smile right on the teeth and to hay with the witty repartee or whatever this was.

“Aren’t you going to take your helmet off first?” Serenade reprimanded him. “There are ladies present.”

“Yeah, but they don’t mind,” Raegdan said while pulling a chair for himself from a neighboring table. The small wooden chair groaned dangerously when he put his weight on it.

Serenade laughed. “Oh, I will miss you in a way. I really will. Maybe the stories about necromancy are true and I can find a way to bind your soul to your remains when it’s all said and done. Then we could keep having those delightful back and forths. You do have a soul, don’t you?”

“For all you know, I have more than one. Maybe I even have one that you would be interested in.” A loud slurping noise came out of the black helmet. Honest Serenade’s smile faded away and her gaze turned to hard steel. “What were you talking about before we interrupted?”

“The glorious past,” she said. The smiles and laughter was gone. It made Applejack nervous. “Your rescue of the young mare in front of me for once.” Serenade nodded towards Twilight who was examining her half filled beverage.

“That again? What is there to talk about? Everybody else involved is dead. There’s nothing more to say but good riddance.”

“Yes, they are, aren’t they?” Serenade growled. “But there is still the matter of your motives. Why you did what you did?”

“Motives?” Applejack asked from her side.

Honest Serenade had three glasses in front of her. One of them was empty, one of them was full of wine, and the third still had some left. She grabbed that last one with her magic and drained it in one gulp. “My bits are on a suicide attempt. I don’t think you were trying to save a little filly. You went there to die while trying to save a little filly.”

“Has anyone ever told you it might be unhealthy to spend so much time thinking about me?” Raegdan’s fingers were rapping in sequence on the table.

“Oh, no. I have an obsession. Whatever shall I do?” She said in deadpan while taking hold of the last glass. “It would be so much like you. So bucking selfish. Were you thinking that dying while trying to save a little filly would make up for something? When it would leave her in no better position? You must have been so surprised when you lived through it. Why, somepony might start believing you would be trying to make up for that for the rest of your life when you realized what a total selfish bastard you were even while trying for redemption. As if you have a candle of hope.” She took a measured sip and sloshed it in her mouth before she swallowed. “Maybe I’m not the only one with an obsession sitting here.”

Applejack eyed Twilight. She kept her head low and her breath seemed to hitch. Pinkie was not much better off but she probably hadn’t been able to counter the spewing bulge of filth that sat with them and all she could do was sit next to her friend in support. Applejack understood Twilight’s duress. If what that filth said was true, and Applejack didn’t even entertain the idea of believing anything that came out of her hole, Twilight was not somepony whose fate he cared for but only a means to an end.

Applejack gave enough credit to Twilight to not believe that under normal circumstances, but sometimes it is just too easy to believe you are not really loved.

“Ya really are something else, ain’t ya?” Applejack said, angry. “If ya think you can convince anypony that Raegdan doesn’t love Twilight and Spike then ya really are off your rocker.”

Honest Serenade looked at her as if spotting her for the first time. It made Applejack gnash her teeth. “Ah, the esteemed Applejack of the wide spread Apple family.” Her smile returned, showing too much of her teeth and looking hungry. “I have heard so much about how selfishly you aid our tall, friendly monster here miss Honesty. Oh, how I laughed. It warms my heart to know you are so close to him, so helpful. My dear monster, you must be getting quite the kick out of having her of all ponies helping you! Oh, you poor mare! I woke up in the middle of the night the day I heard, thinking about it, and I just couldn’t drift off to sleep again because I giggled like a schoolfil-”

A fist wrapped in leather and metal crashed on the table. One of Honest Serenade’s glasses was shattered beneath it. Applejack saw a shard manage to pierce through the thick material and into his hand. Raegdan gave it no notice. He growled with unconcealed hate.

“You are just one step away from crossing a line, Serenade. One more word out of you and I’ll rip your tongue out and shove it up your-”

Honest Serenade jumped up and leaned over the table, mirroring Raegdan, bringing her muzzle so close to his iron visage that Applejack could see her reflection on the dull metal. “I don’t have to say another word. I only need to nudge things along. I used to dream about the day I would tear you to shreds, but I have come to realize that I don’t have to. You are going to do this for me. You are going to ruin everything you ever loved, everything you try to protect because that is the only thing you do. I’ll barely have to flex my hoof.”

She turned towards Applejack, her eyes glinting. “The truth has to come forth someday, doesn’t it Honesty?” She bared her teeth at Raegdan. “When it does, I’ll be there, watching and laughing. I live for that day. The truth will come out singing and you and your bitch will lose everypony around you before you DIE!” She took a deep breath and smiled. “Which reminds me; Do let Princess Luna know that there are some who are in… possession of a few questions about one or two spells of hers. Mainly about their… effectiveness. Have a nice trip to Baltimare,” she waved.

Applejack swore she could hear Raegdan’s teeth grinding against each other, even through the thick helmet he wore.

She took hold of her wine glass and turned around. “Waiter!” she called out. “Put everything and whatever else they order on my tab. It’s my treat!” She headed towards a white carriage trimmed with red, drinking while walking.

Raegdan stayed immobile over the table until she boarded her carriage and departed. Only then did he let himself fall back on his seat. The undersized chair could not take this sudden weight and broke apart, making him fall first on his flank and then his back with a grunt.

Pinkie was on his side in an instant. “Are you ok dad?” she asked full of worry.

“Peachy,” he said. He stayed lying down and weaved his fingers together over his stomach. “Are you two ok? You shouldn’t listen to her. She is full of-”

“Was anything she said true?” Twilight asked in a voice full of sadness.

“Truth. I have come to really loathe that word. Every time I hear it lately...” Raegdan made his way up to feet, letting out a grunt of pain as he straightened his back.

He knelt next to Twilight and took off his helmet. He placed it on the table, rotating so it looked the other way and took one of Twilight’s front hooves in his hands. Twilight hesitated and briefly pulled away, but allowed him to go through with it when she saw he didn’t resist.

“Twilight, I’ll tell you this. This is the one thing I am entirely sure about and what you should never, ever doubt. I love you. More than anything. No matter what, I’ll never stop loving you. Do you believe me Twilight?”

“I… I… I think so but… if you love me so much why do you lie to me? Is Raegdan even your real name? Honest Serenade claims you have never told me a single true thing about you.”

“Twilight…”

“Is Raegdan your real name? Tell me this at least,” Twilight insisted.

“...no. No, it’s not.”

“So… you lied to me even about your name. I don’t even know your real name. How? How do I believe you or trust you?” Twilight pulled her hoof out of Raegdan’s cusped hands.

“Twilight, the important thing is-”

“I lied to Princess Celestia. She asked me a few things and I had to lie to her. I’m not sure if I am doing the right thing, I am doubting myself all the time, and my head, my head feels so clouded. What about Spike? When the truth comes out… what will I say to him? He will be devastated. It will all be my fault. You went and did that because of me. Spike and I will lose you and it will be because of me. Princess Celestia will realize that all the trust she put into you was for naught because of me. Those ponies died because of me. All because of what I am and because I didn’t try harder to change you when I was a filly, I let you remain a monster because I was more interested in my studies and having fun and-”

Twilight’s descent to a panicked, stressed bout was cut short by a slap delivered to her cheek, courtesy of Raegdan’s four fingered hand. It wasn’t a hard hit, it barely made a sound even, but the sheer shock of Raegdan hitting her was enough.

Raegdan was furious. He pushed the tip of his finger against Twilight’s muzzle, making her look cross eyed as she tried to keep it in view. “You listen to me and you listen well. You will never say something like this again. You won’t even think of it. None of this was ever even remotely your fault. I will deal with Spike. I will deal with Celestia. I will deal with everything. This is not your fault, the blame of whatever I do lies with me and only me. I’m the one who’s supposed to be protecting you, not the other way around, and if I hear you spew this self-blame crap again you will feel my hand once more. Am I understood?”

“But I-”

“Am I understood young lady?” he said in full strict parent mode. Applejack could almost hear Granny Pie’s voice overlaid over his.

“Yes,” Twilight said, quietly. Applejack might have been wrong but she honestly believed she could spot the corners of her mouth curving imperceptibly upwards. Maybe she had needed a taste of real parenthood to help her get set straight again.

It would be an insult to the element she represented to say she wasn’t feeling mighty jealous of Twilight having two sets of parents looking after her.

“We will talk when I am back. Really talk. I promise. Little pink,” Raegdan said. Pinkie Pie rose up straight on her hind legs and saluted. Raegdan threw a large pouch at her that jingled when it landed. “Take this and Twilight, find Spike, and go have some fun. Go on a shopping spree or something. Find her some rare books. Do whatever and go wherever the mood strikes you. Just have a lot of fun, ok?”

He rose to his full height and picked up his helmet. “I have to go. Too much to do. Goodbye Twilight. I love you,” he said before leaving, putting on his helmet instead of hanging it on his belt once again. The few customers of the Cafe quickly pretended to be absorbed in their drinks once more.

“Goodbye…” Twilight whispered softly after he left their sight.

Rarity saw her life being shred in tatters. She felt the heat as it went up in flames. She knew the pain as it was beaten worse than a pinata on one of Pinkie’s parties. Oh world, know the misery and fall from grace that once was Rarity.

She would enter Manehattan with almost nothing to her name but two paltry suitcases. She carefully placed them near the rest of the group’s property that was awaiting the train to load them up. She was very, very gentle with them. The lightest unnecessary movement and the clasps would fail. They were already trembling with the effort of holding almost twice the amount they were designed for.

Solid Charge and Cast Iron, the two minotaurs from… the other night were standing nearby, keeping an eye on their items. “Excuse me, gentlestallions?” she called out. “If you would be so kind as to be very careful with my luggage when you load it on the train?”

They both stood up, almost at attention when she addressed them. They were adorable in the way they rushed at her every word. “Of course miss Rarity!” Solid Charge, the largest of the two called out. “We will be paying special attention to them, we promise!” He tried to salute with his broken right arm, forgetting the cast. He smiled sheepishly and did so with his left. His friend chuckled at his side.

Rarity raised her eyebrow at his behavior. Cast Iron lowered his head ashamedly and whispered an apology to Solid Charge.

Adorable.

Solid Charge sharply turned his head and menacingly lowered his extremely large horns at somepony who approached. “Miss, this is the property of Princess Luna. I advise you to move away now,” he growled in his baritone voice.

“Oh good. I’m in the right place then,” Leaf Stream said and threw a small satchel on the pile.

The minotaur pair moved towards her, threateningly brandishing the weapons Raegdan gave them: a long spear for Cast Iron and a one handed axe for Solid Charge.

Rarity held them off from doing anything. “Boys, stand down, please. We were expecting her.” The pair stopped advancing on Leaf Stream and moved protectively at Rarity’s sides. “Allow me to introduce you. This is Leaf Stream. She is also part of the Lunar Guard. Leaf Stream, this is Solid Charge and Cast Iron.” Rarity pointed at each minotaur as she introduced them, like a proper lady should.

“Wow, our numbers have gone through the roof, haven’t they? There’s enough of us to guard a single door if we do eight hour shifts,” Leaf Stream said.

“There’s no need for such sarcasm. Princess Luna and Raegdan are working on it,” Rarity said.

“Leaf Stream… That sounds like a pegasus kind of name, doesn’t it?” Cast Iron asked.

“Yep. I probably have it because I am a pegasus.”

“Where are your wings?” Solid Charge asked, unabashed.

“Our esteemed commander took them off when I fought him in a tournament. What happened to your arm?”

“Our, uh, commander broke it when… we… fought him…” Solid Charge said with apprehension, glancing at Rarity.

“Neat,” Leaf Stream said as she took a seat on one of the crates. “If that’s how recruiting will work we are going to end up with an army of cripples. How come this guy is not broken?” She pointed at Cast Iron.

“Miss Rarity stopped him before he… before he did more,” Cast Iron answered.

“Huh. How nice of her.”

Rarity watched as the well of conversation ran dry particularly fast. She tried to spark them back to talking again. “I guess you are all very impatient for your training to begin, right?”

“That will be something to look forward to,” Cast Iron said. “You guys have any idea what kind of hurdles they will put us through?”

Solid Charge shrugged at his friend. “Dunno. Something tells me it might be worse than the one the Minos Chargers go through. I don’t believe the Night Bringer is going to be any soft on us.”

“Minos Chargers? What is that?” Rarity asked.

“Frontline division of the Minos army,” Leaf Stream answered. “Their job is to disrupt enemy formations and create openings for the rest of the army. Long distance sprinters in extremely heavy armor. You need to have quite the endurance to withstand their training.”

“Oh. You were a part of them, Solid Charge?”

“Yes miss Rarity. I joined up for seven years. Got bored, left, then hooked up with Cast Iron here. We decided to travel and ended up destitute and homeless in Equestria.”

“What about you?” Leaf Stream asked the younger, smaller minotaur.

“I worked as a blacksmith but… well, Minos is crawling with them. Unless I wanted to earn nothing but scraps I had to get out. I thought we could make a decent living here but you ponies don’t care about good quality work. It’s all about the magic and we had none since we don’t know runework and unless we hired a unicorn with funds we did not have...” Cast Iron said, bitterly.

“A blacksmith? Truly?” Rarity asked. “You should mention this to Princess Luna and Raegdan. They do not seem to be willing to put a lot of trust on magic alone. Especially with Raegdan’s issues.”

“That thing has even more issues?” Cast Iron taunted. Solid Charge quickly slapped the back of his head as soon as Rarity glowered at him for this insult. “Sorry. It won’t happen again miss Rarity.”

“Let’s hope so. Magic doesn’t work on Raegdan or anything he touches,” Rarity informed them.

Cast Iron eyes glowed with hope. “Really? Maybe I can work for them as a blacksmith instead and get out of training-”

“Don’t get your hopes up buddy,” Solid Charge let him down quickly. “I think they are more interested in bodies right now. What use is armor and weapons if you don’t have anyone to use them?”

Cast Iron bent his head at the rejection of his idea. “I hope they are not too harsh at least.”

“Yeah, keep dreaming,” Leaf Stream said, sarcastically. “I asked our glorious commander about that. He didn’t outright say it but I seriously think he is planning to take us into the Everfree Forest for training.”

Solid Charge stood ramrod straight when he heard the name. “Isn’t that the forest south of here that’s like the Underkeep in Minos with all the-”

“That’s the one! Enjoy your bodyparts while you still have them boys. Turns out he hunts in there for meat or fun. On his own. After dark,” she cackled disbelievingly at the words coming out of her own mouth.

The two minotaurs went white. “We are going to get brutalized…” Solid Charge said while carefully sitting himself down. “I should have stayed in the army…”

Applejack went into the train station’s waiting room. She finally had some good news. The train was out on the platform and the two minotaur lads were loading up their gear. They were finally getting on their way. It would be good to stretch her hooves, as soon as they left the train that is.

She was looking forward to the trip. She enjoyed the countryside, but ya just didn’t get enough chance for sightseeing, at least not on your own. Now that she would have somepony like Raegdan with her, Applejack felt she could indulge herself.

If she tracked him down so they wouldn’t miss their ride that is. Where was the tall… fella… uh oh. That didn’t look good.

Raegdan was sitting in a corner, his posture screaming that he was busy feeling mighty sorry for himself. Luna was sitting in front of him, talking to him quietly. Neither of them had noticed Applejack approach. Probably because they were too busy whispering loudly to each other.

Applejack made her way behind a column close enough to hear them. She knew she shouldn’t, not after all the mess they had just gone through, but curiosity is too great a force to resist when given such an opportunity.

Raegdan was talking to Luna now who was gritting her teeth angrily at what she was hearing. “-she doesn’t know but she suspects. Look, let’s face facts. We can’t touch her. We might reach a point we have to give her what she wants!”

“I am not making this trade! I say we kill her and be done with it.” Luna hissed.

Raegdan made an x motion with his hands. “I’m not willing to make that risk. I’m not letting them get hurt. They’re beginning to get their life in order. Silver Tallow is even getting married. I did it by mistake but I did it. Me! I am not losing this!”

“Fine! Then we do nothing. She has nothing but suspicions anyway. She cannot hurt me.”

“If the wrong people get wind of those suspicions it’s all over!” A loud sound echoed in the building as Raegdan brought his fist upon a wall. “If the Lunar Guard manages to get off the ground you won’t need me any more. You can continue on your own. Just make sure you keep my corpse so you can make-”

Luna’s hoof silenced him with a hard slap. “You did not just say that!”

Raegdan rubbed his cheek and moved his jaw sideways a couple of times before speaking. “I thought we agreed that I am expendable-”

“No, you keep saying that and expect me to agree. I do not.” Luna shoved her face against Raegdan’s briefly, pushing his back against the wall. “This is a joke! You know full well that even if I agreed you would not be able to go through with this. You would wait till the last moment and kill everyone that stopped you from fleeing. The point is moot anyway. Either we do this together or we run. That was the deal.”

“Luna, if we don’t do our best you will lose it all to her. You have one chance only and if you waste it then this world is hers,” Raegdan said warningly.

“You do your part and I will do mine,” Luna growled. “If one of us dies on the attempt, fine! But we are not marching to the gallows without a fight. Do you understand me, my Lunar Guardsman? This is an order! We will fight to the bitter end.”

Raegdan leaned his weight on his legs as he sat. “It will be a pretty bitter end anyway, no matter what.”

“That is the nature of endings.” Luna shook her head and chuckled. “I came here to try and cheer you up after your disastrous attempt at becoming a foal entertainer and what happens? We both get depressed.”

The conversation seemed to be over. Luna and Raegdan just sat together now, seemingly content as they were. Applejack retreated, carefully. She didn’t even dare lift her hooves off the floor. She more or less slipped her way back like a skater on ice.

All she got from that was that the only reason Honest Serenade was safe from these two was because she blackmailed them or had something hanging over them. Applejack wondered what that was, but she wasn’t going to be a fool again and start digging around. She would keep her eyes and ears open, keep what she heard to herself, and work on gaining their trust. The cloak and dagger stuff just wasn’t paying out enough for her. The living proof was wallowing in misery just a few meters away from her.

They sure were being dramatic though. They talked like Honest Serenade could take over the world or something. What was the deal with that? That mare seemed interested in one thing only and that certainly wasn’t world conquest.

Why the heck did she hate Raegdan so much anyway?

Well, she wasn’t going to bother with all that. Not unless they asked for her help. Till then, mouth shut, ears open. It served her well in the marketplace with all the gossip she overheard, it would serve now. There’s a time for being honest in words and a time for being honest in actions. They wanted to keep their secrets? Applejack would keep them for them too, like a friend should. When the time was right and proper she would let them know she overheard, apologize, and make her reparations.

Applejack walked back to the duo, this time overdoing her steps just a tad to make sure they noticed Applejack approach. Luna whispered something to Raegdan and met Applejack halfway.

“Is there something you need Applejack? Has any progress been made so far with our mode of transport?”

“Uh, yeah. Train’s here and your new guards are loading everything up. Rarity’s keeping an eye on them. Is he ok?” Applejack asked with a flick of her head towards Raegdan. She was actually worried about him. Things weren’t going as well as she had hoped with Twilight and he seemed to be taking everything much more to heart than Luna did.

At least that’s how it looked. Luna wasn’t very keen on being expressive most of the time.

“He is in a bit of a foul mood. Some young colts and fillies approached him earlier on. He tried to be friendly and he was handling himself very well, winning them over.” Luna sighed deeply. “Until he tried to pat one of them on the head. He had a piece of glass embedded on his hand that he either forgot or hadn’t noticed. He accidentally cut the colt’s ear.”

“Ah, horseapples. Ah was there when he got that in his hand but ah didn’t think he would leave it there. That’s mah fault princess.”

“I highly doubt it. It was just bad luck. We seem to be getting a lot of it lately. The colt started screaming, the foals started screaming too when they noticed the blood, the parents rushed in and saw Raegdan over them with blood on his hand. Then they started screaming too…” Luna shook her head in disbelief. “If I wasn’t certain that Discord is trapped in stone… Luckily, your friend Fluttershy made her appearance. She treated the foal and managed to settle them down after I arrived and got everypony to quiet down enough to hear her.”

“Ah guess Raegdan is not taking it well.” That explained how they got into such a morose mood. Poor guy.

“I think he was trying to prove something to himself and it backfired spectacularly. He will be fine. We will be joining you shortly. You should go and make sure our belongings are treated with respect. The last thing we need is for the train to explode and have even more delays,” Luna told Applejack.

“Sure. Ah let them know you are on- wait, what? Explode? You have brought your explosives along?” Applejack asked, horrified at the idea.

“Of course. The Thestrals did not inform us on what monsters plagued them exactly so we decided to be ready for anything. Is there a proble- Applejack?” Luna called at Applejack as she ran back outside as fast as she could go.

Applejack had to do a number of things. Like find plenty of soft padding, rope, and pray nothing went off while she tied everything down as securely as she could.

Oh Celestia, Solid Charge and Cast Iron were throwing Luna’s crates on top of each other all willy nilly when she left them. She hoped she reached them in time to stop them.

Fluttershy was waving goodbye at the train as it was leaving. Applejack and Rarity were hanging out of the window, all of them exchanging farewells with each other until the smoke churning machine took them out of sight. She sighed. She was going to miss them so much. Oh, she hoped they would be alright. It all sounded so dangerous.

“Fluttershy! Fluttershy, did the train leave? Are we too late?” Fluttershy turned her head to see Twilight and Pinkie Pie running towards her in a frenzied state. Twilight’s hair had exploded in various directions.

“Yes. I’m sorry girls. I know you wanted to say goodbye but they were already unbelievably late as it is. I… I asked the stationmaster to wait a bit but… I’m sorry, I should have insisted more!” Fluttershy said in her usual self blame.

“Wha- No, that’s not it, Fluttershy. I mean, it would be nice to be here to send them off but-”

“Spike!” Pinkie Pie cried out, hopping in place. “Fluttershy, have you seen Spike? Small baby dragon, about this tall, purple and green, likes gems? Did you see him?”

“Pinkie, I know who Spike is. Um, wasn’t he with you Twilight?”

“No!” Twilight shouted in dismay. “He told me he was going to hang out with you!”

“Oh. I… I didn’t see him at all Twilight. I’m sorry-”

Twilight ran to the edge of the platform and looked for the distant speck in the horizon that was the train her friends had boarded. “Oh Spike…”

“Daddy’s gonna have his hide when he finds him,” Pinkie Pie observed with straightforward calmness.

“So will Applejack and Rarity. If he is lucky Luna simply won’t care.” Twilight’s mouth trembled as she tried to hold back her anger from showing. “And when he is back he is going to have to deal with me. Come on Pinkie, I need to write a letter and ask Princess Celestia to send it.”

The pair ran off, ignoring Fluttershy’s protests that were barely louder than a whisper.

Fluttershy looked at the distant black mark and then her friends as they left her behind. She walked down the platform until she was shrouded in a dark shadow. She looked up.

A spent volcano made of Rarity’s mountain of luggage, trunks, and suitcases was hiding the sun. Dresses and fabrics, victims of a torrent of hurried repacking and crocodile tears were draped like sad curtains, hiding the truly horrible sights, like a tea towel discarded in favor of a night mask and extra lipstick. A mass of red pincushions was creeping from the top, like lava making its way out. Thousands of needles shined with the unfulfilled promise of painful prickling.

She wondered how she was supposed to bring all that back to the castle on her own. At least it would give her an excuse on why she delayed to tell him where Luna and Raegdan were going.

Still, all of that on her own- hold on a second. She looked around wildly.

Where was Rainbow Dash?

“Hello? Anypony out there?”

“Rarity? I’m sorry! I won’t do it again. You didn’t really swallow that key, right? That was a magic trick, right? Rarity? Did you really leave me here?”

“Somepony get me out! It’s dark in here…”

The compartment door slid open and Luna walked in to join all of them. They had the whole two front coaches to themselves, Raegdan made sure of that. Every now and then he would march up and down the train, even checking the driver’s cab.

Applejack asked him what did he expect to find but he just shrugged. Better safe than sorry, he said. For her money, she bet he was just feeling too antsy to sit down.

“I told you, you wouldn’t be able to sleep with all that racket,” Raegdan told Luna. “You are not used to this kind of noise.”

“This dreadful infection upon my ears is nothing a spell can’t fix. It’s the blasted movement that I can’t get used to.” She sat heavily next to Raegdan. “This will be a long trip.”

“Give it some time. You will be too tired to mind it in the end.”

Luna leaned forward and looked over where Raegdan was looking. Applejack had noticed he kept staring at something in the distance, as if looking through the train walls, somewhere in the direction of Canterlot. It was unnerving in a way so she stopped paying attention to it. The train swivelled and turned at a couple of points. His head had rotated as if keeping whatever he saw in sight, even though nothing was there.

“Is there a problem I should be aware of?” Luna asked.

“Hmmm?”

“The way you stare…”

Raegdan straightened up on his seat as if he realized he had been caught doing something naughty. “Sorry. Nothing, there’s nothing wrong. It’s just… it’s weird travelling the opposite direction, you know? There’s a voice in my head screaming I’m going the wrong way. It’s an instinct that’s hard to ignore after so long.”

“I see. This is good,” Luna assured him. “You are no longer bound to- are we stopping? It’s hasn’t been any longer than three hours.” She looked out the window.

The constant, repetitive thumping of pistons was slowing down and a high pitched squeal was rising in volume. The train whistle blew twice.

“The train needs to refill on fuel and water. It will be doing five more stops before it reaches Baltimare. We will get off on the last one.” He had resumed looking back to wherever while talking.

Applejack did the math quick in her head. “Just at the crack of dawn then.”

“About. Get as much rest as you can.” Raegdan rose up from his seat. “We will need to cover as much distance as fast as we can and we will go through some really hard patches. There are almost no roads to where we are going and we have too much stuff with us.”

He walked to the end of the coach, stopping short of the door. “And keep your eyes and ears open. I swear, I keep hearing something.” He took his hammer in hand and went off on another patrol.

“Has it occurred to him that he could have us patrol instead of doing it himself?” Leaf Stream asked around her.

“He is probably not used to the fact of having you available,” Rarity defended him.

Leaf Stream hummed. “Nah, I think it’s because he’s a suspicious ba-” she paused when she saw Luna staring at her, waiting for Leaf Stream to finish her sentence. “Ba- bas… bar… ok, I was going to say bastard. But I didn’t do it, I mean- shoot!”

Luna yawned. “You are excused this time. Raegdan is your leader now and I expect you to act accordingly from now on. Otherwise, I’ll kick you out.”

“So no insults unless we are one hundred percent certain nopony can hear us. Gotcha!” Leaf Stream nodded.

Solid Charge laughed. “Pony military doesn’t seem that different from the minotaur one on that aspect at least. What kind of officer ranks do you have anyway? I suppose since we are the first to join we might have a good chance of advancing later on?”

“It’s pretty straightforward,” Leaf Stream started explaining. “We got the initiates, who are the rookies. The full fledged guards, then Corporals followed by Sergeants-”

“We won’t be using this system,” Luna interrupted Leaf Stream while gazing out the window, watching the ponies who were refueling the train. “It does not suit our needs.”

“How are we supposed to have orders coming down the chain then?” Leaf Stream asked.

“We are not aiming to have anywhere near the numbers the Solar Guard does, at least for the foreseeable future. We are hoping for thirty guards if we can get them. We will consider an increase in numbers later on. We need a backbone first. You will be divided in squads according to your talents and specializations under the command of team leaders.” Luna turned back to her three new guards. “This will not be set in stone however. All of you must be able to take proper action on your own. I refuse to have a separate army comprised of officers with nothing else to do but babysit the rest and fill rooms with nothing but paperwork. We will be working too much to afford something stupid like this.”

“So… no initiate ranks or…” Leaf Stream asked.

“You will go through training with Raegdan first. The survivors will be training with me. Then both of us for the final stretch. Only then you will be Lunar Guards. Right now you are just weight around our necks.” Luna lied on a booth and closed her eyes.

Cast Iron leaned over to tap Leaf Stream for attention. “Did she say “survivors” or was it just me?”

“Get up! Everyone wake up now! We are leaving!” Raegdan’s voice hissed through the coach. Applejack lifted her neck lazily and looked around with half opened eyes. She hadn’t slept well at all. Just like Luna, the train’s stupid tremors kept her from sleeping deeply. She kept half waking up.

Raegdan was up among them and started kicking them, though the one he gave to Applejack was more of a nudge. It got the message across though. She lifted her covers off her and climbed on her hooves.

“The hay is going on?” She looked out the window. “It’s still dark and we haven’t stopped yet,” she said while rubbing the sleep off her eyes. Next to her, Rarity was mumbling and trying to wrap herself deeper in her blanket to avoid Raegdan’s voice and pushing.

“We are getting off now!” he whispered as loud as he dared. “All of you be up and about in ten seconds or I’m going to use my hammer to wake you up, I am not kidding. Get up you fuckers, now!”

“Language,” Rarity mumbled sleepily.

Raegdan grabbed the water bottle Cast Iron was drinking from and emptied it on Rarity’s head. She started screaming like a banshee but Raegdan quickly closed her mouth with his hand.

“Are you insane? This is no way to wake up a lady you brute!” she said in a low volume after a few -about ten- attempts where she was being gagged as soon as she talked too loud.

Raegdan unhooked the single lantern that was still lit on the ceiling and brought it in front of him so the weak light could illuminate him. “Does it look like I’m joking? Get up!”

Applejack gasped along with Rarity. Raegdan’s armor was splashed with vivid red and she highly doubted it was paint. Cast Iron’s mouth fell open at the sight. It woke them up faster than any cold shower ever could. Solid Charge picked up the small axe and took position next to the door, Leaf Stream following right behind him. “What happened?”

“Supposedly that griffin had enough friends that somebody wants revenge for his death, but I call bullshit. I think he just made a decent excuse or false lead for someone. They’ve set up an ambush. They are waiting for us at the next refueling station-”

Solid Charge opened the door he was guarding to let Luna in. “It’s all clean. There’s no sign anything ever happened,” she said.

“Good. Can you make the drivers stop the train?” Raegdan asked.

“Please. Is that even a question that needs answering?”

“Solid, Cast, Leaf, Applejack, you are coming with me. As soon as the train stops we unload everything and put it on the cart we brought along, fast and quiet. We need to cover as much distance as possible while it’s still dark. Rarity, you take a walk down the train. If anyone wakes up and asks what happened tell them it’s just a brief stop to fix something. Move!”

Raegdan rushed through the door, heading for the cargo carriage, his new guards following behind him.

“Ah’ll be right along,” Applejack whispered loudly behind them. “Ah just need to find my hat!”

Nopony answered her. She sighed and turned to Rarity. Luna was already gone. “What a mess, huh?”

“I was looking forward to a pleasant trip, not another repeat of…” Rarity sat down heavily. “Have things always been this bad and we were just too blind to see it, Applejack? Or is it just them?”

“Ah think it might be a combination of the two. They’re like magnets for the worst kind of trouble. We’d better hurry along before-”

“Rarity? Applejack? What is going on? Did something happen? Are we in Baltimare yet?” Applejack and Rarity looked in shock as a baby dragon crawled out from under a bed, rubbing his eyes with his little claws.

“Spikey?” Rarity voiced their surprise. She looked at the direction Raegdan went, biting her lips. “Your father is going to kill you!”

Raegdan,

If Spike did as the first letter said, you should be reading this before you stop at the first station. He lied to me and claimed he was off to meet with Fluttershy when in truth he hid on the train to follow after you. Please, leave him on the refueling station. Princess Celestia is lending me a chariot and some pegasi guards to retrieve him. I’m on my way as soon as we send this letter. Let him know he is in big trouble when he gets back.

Twilight.

Hey daddy-o!

Writing a letter that is not an invitation is weird. Very weird. How can Twilight do that anyway? It’s unnatural!

Anyway, please be kind with Spike. Poor guy probably didn’t want to spend time away from you. Tell him I’ll be coming along with Twilight to protect him from the meanies. They are going to torture him dad!

They want to cut off his desserts!!!

Your little pink.

Dear Raegdan,

I pride myself on my patience and understanding. I realize that this is a trying time for Spike and he missed you terribly these last two years. But he has to understand that you are not out on a picnic and by doing this he has exposed himself to terrible danger. You yourself outlined your plan to move through areas that have been marked as dangerous (recent events had led me to believe that the conditions there might be harsher than I was previously assured they are) and you and Luna have too much on your mind already without having to keep an eye on a baby dragon.

Please, send back a response with Spike to inform me of his punishment. I do not usually say this but in this instance there must be one and it must be strict.

Otherwise I might be tempted to blacken his lying bottom with my own hooves!

Your friend,
Celestia.

“What did they write?” Spike asked, trembling.

Raegdan passed the letter back to Rarity who was using her magic to give him enough light to read. “Nothing much. Just… hoping you are fine. We are going to have a long talk you and me when we are somewhere safer though.” He sounded utterly calm but Rarity could hear the cracking of his knuckles as his fist tightened.

Rarity read the letter herself. What Raegdan said wasn’t really the underlying message but Spike would find out soon enough when they returned to Canterlot. The important thing now, as Raegdan and Luna claimed, was to cover as much distance as possible. They would try to send a message back later, though Celestia only knows with what. None of them packed any ink.

“He won’t be the only one to talk with ya about this, Spike. What ya did was… whelp, no point in crying over spilled milk now but ah’m gonna have a talk with Twilight about a certain dragon who is gonna be spending his summer working on a farm instead of having fun.”

Raegdan moved to the back of the cart and started pushing from behind when needed while Applejack and Cast Iron were tethered in front, pulling. The four wheeled cart groaned and creaked as it made its way over rocks, holes, and shrubs. Leaf Stream and Spike were riding on top. Rarity hoped she could charm Raegdan into letting her climb on the cart too after they stopped.

Stumbling around in the dark was not fun. The only light they were allowed, apart from her brief horn glow while Raegdan read the letter, was whatever they got from the moon and the stars. Rarity wondered what would break first; one of the cart’s wheels or one of their legs?

Perhaps she shouldn’t be jinxing their little trip even more.

“Any chance you tell us what happened back there?” Applejack asked as she grunted while trying to pull the cart over a dense cluster of foliage. Applejack’s orange coat was hidden beneath a dark green cloak.

Rarity herself was covered by a dark blue one that she desperately hoped wasn’t the same one Raegdan had used to cover that griffin’s corpse two nights ago. He had wound it tightly around her in a way that really made her no favors, muttering about brilliant white coats all the while.

She did not think he meant it as a compliment on this occasion.

“A griffin had boarded on the train two stops ago. He saw me.”

Rarity blinked and felt her ire increase as she stepped on something squishy in the darkness. “That’s it?” she asked, disbelieving. “We are out here, getting ourselves covered in mud, because you saw a random griffin?”

“He saw me and he was neither curious or scared. He barely looked at me,” Raegdan explained. He grunted heavily and the cart lurched forward over the obstacle they were trying to make it climb over.

“Huh,” Leaf Stream said from her envious seating. “It seems patrolling up and down by yourself paid out after all.”

“No offense, but I think I’m way more of a suspicious bastard than any of you. Luna and I waited for everyone to fall asleep and then we went in to ask him a couple of questions. He was there to keep an eye on us, let whoever was waiting for us know if we left the train too early.”

“And the… red thing?” Applejack asked, phrasing her question so Spike would remain unaware of what she meant.

“Things got intense,” Raegdan said, laconically.

There was a sudden flutter of wings and Luna slipped out of the dark as if by magic. “I have gotten rid of the sack. Nopony is following us and the grass is long and wet enough to partially hide our trail when the morning sun dries it.”

“Finally, some good news,” Raegdan’s voice came from behind them. “Any spot we can camp for the day?”

“There is a thick copse of trees further along. It will shield us from any prying eyes while we wait the day away,” Luna answered.

“Excuse me, sir? I thought we were going to travel all day,” Solid Charge asked from his position next to the cart.

Rarity looked back at Raegdan who wasn’t answering. “Raegdan? Solid Charge asked you something,” she prompted.

Raegdan looked up in surprise. “Hmm? Oh, he meant me? Of course he meant me, I’m the only other guy here,” he mumbled to himself. Luna chuckled as she jumped on the cart next to Leaf Stream and started taking inventory, silently. “That plan is a crapshoot now. There are griffins who might be looking for us. If we peek out during the day they will spot us. No, we will travel during the night from now on. It’s safer.”

“Did ya really think this through? The more dangerous critters are nocturnal,” Applejack said. “What do we do when one of them comes at us?”

Raegdan shrugged. “We let it find out that it could have better ideas. I’m more worried about that ambush turning into a hunt for us. Monsters don’t carry crossbows.”

“Ah admit to being a little surprised you ain’t itching to go and fight them,” Applejack commented.

“They fly, I don’t. I have brought bows along but they will have the advantage. I don’t go for fights where I don’t have enough of it myself if I have a choice. Besides, I’m not risking a fight with anyone while you, Rarity, and little flame are here. If, by any chance, I can get the jump on them first though…”

“Then what? Two of us can’t really fight if you noticed and Cast Iron isn’t trained for this,” Leaf Stream said.

“You let me and Luna worry about them. If they do find us first, the plan is for all of you to ditch the cart and run. The three of you will keep Applejack, Rarity, and Spike safe while you head for cover. Luna and I will stay back and fight them off on our own.”

“I seriously doubt they would be picking a fight with an Alicorn unless they massively outnumber us. What if you the two of you can’t win?”

“If there are more than we can take then you will head for the nearest village. Luna will take Spike and fly away. Hopefully most of them will try to go after her, but good luck on catching her.”

“Ah noticed you ain’t mentioned what you will do,” Applejack interjected.

“I will buy time for the rest of you to get far enough.” Spike cried out in dismay, but Raegdan quickly shushed him. “That’s an if, little flame. I highly doubt they will find us now. Even if it comes to that I am not going to let them simply kill me. I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

“Why don’t we just send a message to Princess Celestia with Spike and ask for help?” Rarity asked. “There’s no reason to risk-”

“No! This… look, we can’t go begging Celestia for help at the first sign of trouble. Even if we did, any pursuers would just back off when the guards arrived and all that everyone will understand is that Luna and her people can’t even step out of Canterlot without Celestia holding their hand. We don’t need them anyway. We are fine. None of you worry about anything, we had to improvise a little, and we have to travel some extra distance, but-”

“Raegdan,” Luna interrupted him. She was gazing at the cart’s contents. “That sack you gave me… did you check its contents first before emptying it?”

Raegdan groaned. “Why am I not surprised? No Luna, I did not. I was in a hurry and it was dark, and something tells me I’m gonna regret not using some light to see if that was ours… It was ours, wasn’t it? Fu- Graagh!” he yelled in frustration. “What did I throw away?”

“Almost all of our food. We have less than half left. Considering we are going to be traveling on hoof for longer and we have an extra mouth with us-”

“Sorry…” Spike said with his shoulders hunched and miserable.

Leaf Stream laughed. “Not worry about anything, hah. Isn’t that what you said Commander?”

Rarity tried to bring some optimism to their situation. “A little bit of dieting never hurt anypony. We can stand missing a meal or two. What’s important is that all of us are fine and unhurt.”

“I think I’ve lost enough weight already, thanks,” Leaf Stream countered.

“That’s enough. This is no great issue,” Luna assured them.

“She is right,” Raegdan agreed. “Look, do we have enough for… Leaf Stream, Applejack, Rarity, and Spike?”

Luna mumbled as she calculated. “Perhaps, though we will have to ration and forage a little on the way.”

“What about the rest of you?” Rarity asked.

Raegdan addressed the minotaurs. “Minotaurs eat meat, right?”

“Yes,” Solid Charge answered. “Though not often at all in pony lands. It’s very hard to find.”

“Not very hard to find out here,” Raegdan said. “Let’s hope a critter, as Applejack put it, comes along soon and tries to take a bite.”

“Yech!” Leaf Stream put out her tongue in disgust.

“What about the... Princess Luna?” Solid Charge asked.

“It is not the first time I find myself with that sole option in the wild. I have grown to enjoy meat.”

“Once more, yech! Hey, can’t the dragon eat meat too?” Leaf Stream asked, looking at Spike.

“My name is Spike and no, I can’t yet. I don’t suppose we have any gems, do we dad?” Spike asked, hopefully.

“Take a guess little flame. Take a guess.”

“Aw.”

Leaf Stream was looking Spike up and down. “How old are you anyway?”

“I’m almost thirteen. How old are you?” Spike asked back with some hostility. Rarity guessed that he had realized that Leaf Stream did not exactly respect Raegdan.

“I’m twenty six. So nyah!” Leaf Stream showed her tongue at Spike, making Applejack, who had turned her head around to watch, guffaw.

“Huh, you are a year older than me,” Cast Iron said as he pulled the cart alongside Applejack.

“Yes, I’m a crone, I know,” Leaf Stream said. “How about you lefty? How old are you?”

“Twenty nine,” Solid Charge answered.

“Wow. You are practically ancient. I bet you are giving our boss a run for her money. I’m gonna be calling you gramps.” Luna hummed in amusement next to her, still on the cart.

“Hey dad, how old are you? I can’t believe I never asked before,” Spike called out a little louder for Raegdan to hear him.

Rarity was eyeing the spot that was left empty next to Leaf Stream and wondered if anyone would object if she climbed on. She certainly wasn’t heavy at all, they could easily carry a few pounds more. She called out for Raegdan, who was rudely not paying attention again. “Raegdan? Spikey just asked you a question.” She waited a few seconds for an answer that never came. “Raegdan, don’t tell me that you of all ponies are ashamed of your age… Raegdan?”

The cart had moved along and left Raegdan a few meters behind them. He was standing still, his hand touching his face hesitantly.

“Raegdan?” Luna asked as she jumped down from the cart and approached him. “Are you alright?”

Rarity approached too. Applejack and Cast Iron had stopped pulling and looked at the scene behind them. Raegdan was pulling his mane in front of his eyes and trying to see himself in the meager reflection of the helmet in his hand. His movements were becoming more frantic by the second.

“Raegdan,” Luna called out again, her voice soothing. “Please, calm down and tell me what’s wrong.” Rarity stopped walking towards them when Luna motioned for her to stay away.

Rarity had come close enough to see that Raegdan was trembling. His breath had quickened and she couldn’t be sure in the dim light of the moon, but she didn’t like the look of his eyes. He seemed to be on the verge of full blown panic.

“Luna?” Raegdan asked. His voice was dry and he seemed to have lost the ability to intone the words correctly. “Luna… how old am I?” He sounded terrified.

It was right then that his eyes shut and he collapsed on the ground.

Interlude 4 - Plague

Coarse Root shoveled one last time and then fell on his side, coughing and fighting for air to fill his lungs. His son let his own shovel drop to the ground and tried to come to his side, but Coarse Root waved him off. He just needed a small break. The years had not been kind to him and the foul disease did not help at all.

He had to struggle to get back up. He was on his last legs, he knew it, but he would be damned if he let Spring Mountain know that. The colt was nowhere near a better condition than he was. Coarse Root however was determined to outlast him. He wouldn’t let his boy’s body rest out in the elements. He would bury him in a proper grave. Only then he would allow death to take him.

“Are you alright dad?” his son asked him. “Maybe you should rest a little.”

“I’m fine,” Coarse answered back, gruffly. “I’m digging, ain’t I? Come on, we need to finish this. We also have to drag the bodies over later. We ain’t done by half.”

Spring stuck his shovel in the ground and wiped his face from the sweat he had built up. Coarse was certain he was using the excuse to hide his tears too.

The colt did not deserve this, not right in the prime of his life. Coarse cursed and damned everything in sight behind his teeth. The plague had sprung up too suddenly, too strong. His son was too far gone to risk the others. He had to be left behind, to die alongside his father.

Spring did not deserve this. The anger behind that thought gave Coarse new strength. The shovel dug deep, breaking apart the soil and cutting through the small roots. Pebbles and dirt spilled as he threw his load outside the large hole he was in; the damned mass grave they were digging.

He kept shovelling, ignoring the pain in his muscles, his labored breath, the wet gurgle that came from his insides. He didn’t glance at the sores below his shedding coat. He only stopped when he heard hooves approach. At first he thought his son was coming over his way, but it was the wrong direction. He dropped the dirty shovel and quickly turned around to warn the pony that was too close already to back off before he caught the sickness too.

Coarse Root came face to face with the face that had haunted his dreams for so many years.

“You!” he said, stating in not recognition, but accusation. “What are you doing here?”

“My duty. What has occurred here?” The dark blue Alicorn asked. Coarse watched her as her gaze travelled apathetically over the village that was now emptied of all living ponies. She looked over the corpses they had piled nearby and the grave they were digging.

She was as creepy and terrifying as she had been the first time. The day was coming to a swift end and the shadows had lengthened. When she had appeared however… it all went wrong. It seemed as if every shadow now spiraled around her, trying to reach her and caress her. She was wrong, completely and utterly wrong.

“What does it look like?” he spat. “The plague.”

“You are being overly hostile,” the dreaded figure said. His son heard them and came to stand behind Coarse. “I would advise you to show me a modicum of respect. I see you have too few breaths left. You would not want to shorten their number even more.” She walked around the dig site, measuring it.

Coarse Root made a horrible realization. Every night, every nightmare, every time he glanced up to the moon and he saw her sombre face... She had become one of the greatest of axis upon which his life rotated. And she…

“You don’t remember me, do you? Do you even know where you are?”

The dark mare had reached the bodies, inspecting them closely, unminding of their… ripe smell, or the fear of infection. He scoffed. What was the plague when compared to her anyway?

“Should I? This is just a village from what I see. I’m sorry, a dead village.”

“You bucking bitch!” he yelled. “You forced me and my friends to help you and you do not even remember? My friends, my brother, got eaten by those worm monsters! You told us to make noise to attract them back and then you left. You left us alone to become their meal! Where were you?”

“Oh, that was here?” The moon mare looked around with a semblance of curiosity. “I needed to get inside the cave with as little fuss as possible. If I had told you my plan you’d have ran earlier that I required.” She was barely paying attention to him. She was looking at the village.

“I was the only one left! Everypony died!”

“In that case you did better than I expected. Well done. I honestly thought you all had died.” She looked towards the setting sun and quickly turned away, eyes tearing. She huffed with disdain and took a single step to the side to become shrouded in a shadow that Coarse was absolutely certain was not there a second ago.

“You never even cared to find out, did you?” He was grasping the shovel and tried to step towards her, but his son held him back.

“I had other things on my mind. I spent weeks in there and the matriarch had broken my legs. By the time I was out,” she shrugged, “I had already lost too much time to waste more on you. You were either alive or you were dead. I was not curious enough to find out. I needed to return to my work.” She yawned. “And now I need to wrap this up quickly. I am tired and wish to sleep. Where are the rest?”

Coarse wanted to kill her. He wanted this more than he wanted anything in life. He wished he could dig another hole and then he could shovel dirt on that cold, featureless face. Not much though. As far as graves go she deserved only a shallow one. Markless.

“Uh, what do you mean… uh, your… Highness?” Spring Mountain asked from behind him.

“Oh, manners? I’m surprised. The rest. The grave you are digging is too small, there are not enough corpses here, and this village can house more ponies than that. Where are the rest?” She yawned once more.

“They are on their way to Baltimare,” Spring Mountain said. “Those who were not yet sick or still in the early stages. There are rumors that the plague can be cured. If so, it would be in Baltimare.”

“I see.” Princess Luna’s gaze turned to the distant horizon, towards Baltimare. “When did they leave?”

“A few hours ago,” Coarse Root growled.

“I believe I can still catch up to them.” She spread her dark wings. “Keep digging. You will need to make it even deeper than that. I will be back to help with the burial.” She flew off, following the road, her form casting a long, dark shadow in the light of the setting sun.

They watched her disappear. Coarse grabbed his shovel again. “Put your back into it son. We still have work to do.”

“Alright dad. It didn’t turn out half bad, did it? Mom and the girls will make it safely there now. That’s something, isn’t it?” his son tried to cheer him up with a shaky smile. That Alicorn had shaken him. She did the same to everypony.

“It is. I guess it is.” He couldn’t help but think that if she had made her appearance sooner then maybe there could be hope for his colt too. Still, if she made sure his daughters survived… he would have to reconsider cursing her with his last breath.

He remembered the last time he saw his brother. His face, full of fear and doubt as it was cast in light and shadow. Too many shadows and too little light. Not enough fires. She assured them that everything would work out. Only now he understood what she had meant.

He remembered his brother screaming. One of those things had erupted out of the ground and took half of him in his mouth. His brother begged for help, for somepony to save him. The… thing was half crawling, half seizuring on the forest floor as it slowly gulped him down its gullet. Coarse tried to pull him out but he couldn’t overpower the hold of those serrated teeth. His brother was painfully aware all the time. The worm had swallowed him whole and… the screaming still hadn’t stopped.

Only quietened in volume as it came from the depths of the worm’s stomach where his brother was being digested, still alive.

She did not trust them to be able to fight off those things long enough. So she left them underprepared and made due with them taking long enough to be eaten instead.

The sun set and the night mare’s moon rose. They did not stop digging. They lit torches and kept up their work. She said they needed a deeper hole. They would do so.

If somepony knew about graves it would be her.

They were finally done. They lied on one of the fresh, soft piles of dug out earth. His colt’s breath was now sounding worse than his own. He was younger, but he was not as hardy as his old father was. When the Princess returned he would leave him in her care and move aside to dig a lone grave. Maybe two if he had the time. She owed him a few minutes to cover him with earth too.

There was a wooden creaking sound from the road. Father and son lifted their necks, trying to see in the darkness. Perhaps she had sent for help. Somepony to aid his son or carry him to Baltimare to be treated. His heart swelled with hope.

The Alicorn’s form slowly took shape as she neared the torches. She was pulling a large wagon on her own with ease. She kept yawning as she did so. Then he saw the wagon. He recognized it.

He felt his chest being ripped apart. His son screamed, a howl filled with grief and anger when he saw how she betrayed them.

It was one of the wagons his family and neighbors had taken to travel to Baltimare. Their corpses were piled in careless rows on it. He spotted the blonde mane of his wife. Usually as vibrant as the summer sun, now it was as dull as rotting straw. Silent tears ran down his cheeks. He should have known. He should have expected this.

They should have kept their damned mouths shut.

The murderess unhitched herself from the wagon and stood at the edge of the grave. “It seems you can follow simple orders after all.” Her horn lit and the bodies of his loved ones started hovering over the hole and left to fall with an ugly thud. There was no respect in what she did. Only a chore that she wanted to be done with as quick as possible.

Just like the last time.

“What… what did you do?” Spring Mountain asked, openly sobbing. “You were supposed to protect them!”

“No, I’m supposed to protect Equestria. I am not letting the plague spread to Baltimare because of some rumors. Are there any bodies left in the houses or did you take them all out?” she asked, her attention focused on emptying the wagon.

Spring Mountain roared in rage. He grabbed the shovel’s handle in his mouth and charged the dark Alicorn. Coarse was too stunned to even try and stop him. He could only watch as his son was lifted in the air, surrounded by the glow of magic.

She did not even afford him the courtesy of looking at him while she snapped his neck. She threw the corpse of his firstborn into the mass grave.

All that Coarse Root could think of was that this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. His son was supposed to be buried in a grave of his own. Coarse was supposed to dig it himself and mark it properly. He was supposed to stand over it and say goodbye to his poor child when he died, peacefully, taken by the disease.

His wife and daughters were supposed to survive. None of them were meant to be thrown in a hole in the ground like trash.

The torches hovered in the air and their fire bloomed, burning brighter and wider. The flames spread like petals and flew, each of them aimed at a house of his village. His home, the place he grew, the place where his children grew, everything he had known, burned around them.

“You… you…” He couldn’t think of a curse strong enough, potent enough for her. She was beyond anything he had ever thought possible before. “You… nightmare! You monster!”

“You will show me proper respect!” the madmare said, demanding something so ludicrous even as he felt her magic at the sides of his head.

“You don’t deserve it. You don’t care. You let us die, you killed everyone, and what matters to you is… is respect? Everypony in Equestria has figured you out. Nightmare!”

The pressure around his head painfully increased. He felt unable to move a single muscle of his body. “I do what must be done! I am not a monster!”

“You killed my son and threw him away like garbage!”

“I.. I gave him a quick end!”

Coarse Root’s skull was aching like nothing else, save his heart, ever had.

“You know exactly what you are, don’t you?”

“Shut up…” she growled.

“You know what you have turned int-”

“I have no other choice if I want to stay sane! Can you even imagine my life you despicable little worm? The centuries crawling by while I spend every waking second that I have to the service of ponies like you? The pain, exhaustion, and misery I go through each day? This is my life! This is what I do so she doesn’t have to! It will be worth it,” she whispered, “one day I’ll make it safe, all safe, every shadow, every night…”

“Sometimes you have to admit you are fighting a losing battle and all that is left to do is dig your own grav-”

“No! NO! I’m not giving up! I’m not a monster. It’s not my fault. I’ll make everything right, I can still fight, I can still protect my sister, I WON’T GIVE UP, I AM NOT A MONSTER!”

There was a sound of breaking and Coarse barely had time to wonder one last time who the Alicorn was talking to. His vision suddenly turned to the sight of his son’s corpse, eyes still open, before darkness took him. He briefly saw his brother’s face, still screaming, before everything collaps-

“Luna! You are back! Oh sister, please tell me you will stay for a few days at least.”

“I’m thinking about it. I am exhausted. Do I still have a room here or has it been turned to a storeroom during my absence once more?”

“Those were my gifts to you Luna. They just piled up while you were gone. Your bed awaits you. Go, get your rest. Dinner will be ready for you when you wake up and you can tell me what you have been up to all those months.”

“My stomach can barely await but I need sleep even more at the moment. Sister… before I take my leave… I heard rumors about a cure to the plague?”

“Oh? I’m sorry Luna, we do not have a cure yet, but we can treat it now. We have set up special hospitals where we house the victims. If we can help them survive the symptoms then the disease weakens enough to be overtaken by the body’s immune system along with some help if the pony in question is strong enough. It gives them a solid chance at least.”

“I see. So… so the plague…”

“It is not the threat it once was. We can deal with it now, at least partly. We will have a cure very soon and then it will be wiped from Equestria forever. Is everything alright Luna? Has there been another outbreak?”

“...Everything is fine sister. Yes, there was one, but there’s nothing to be done now. The dead are buried and the village was put to the torch to safeguard any curious travellers. I have taken care of everything. I’m just glad there will be one less thing to deal with in the future. I… I really need to rest now. I’m… I’m going to have to leave again after dinner. There is some unfinished business I have to attend to. I owe someponies a proper… anyway, any chance you could dine with me before I go, please?”

Interlude 5 - The City of Fire

John leaned his head closer to the valve. He sniffed hard, trying to identify a fresh smell in the claustrophobic tunnels that reeked of fumes. He turned his ear to it. He wasn’t certain, not with the cluttering of tens of workers tending to the pipes in the labyrinth around him, but he believed he could make out a slight hiss.

It was better to be certain than risk a failure. His hand reached for the wrench in his belt before reconsidering. Metal was too precious to wear and waste without reason. Flesh was cheap and so was cloth. He used a scrap of fabric to get a better hold and tightened the valve as hard as he could.

John spent a few minutes making sure he had done the best he could. His fingers and arm ached but he ignored it. He had more work to do. He checked the valve once more, this time under the light of his fading glow stick. It looked good. No hiss, no smell, and his tools were unmarred so far. If he kept it up it would be extra ration credits for him. He smiled in self satisfaction.

He banged the valve’s code and his own on the walls along with the message of its condition. The clanging message spread outwards, was picked by other workers in nearby passages, repeated and spread until it would reach one of the foremen.

The fabric went back into his pocket and John fell down on his hands and knees once more, crawling to the next valve, checking the pipes next to his as he went. He was getting too big for this. His growth spurt came late but it came with a vengeance. He doubted he would be able to fit by his sixteenth birthday.

John delved deeper into the inner darkness of the walls of the City.

The section’s foreman checked the few tools John had been issued with, his critical eye scanning carefully for the slightest scratch. “Tools all clean?” he asked gruffly.

John lifted his hand, showing off the marred, bruised flesh and torn skin.

The foreman frowned at the sight. “Boy, if you bled in there and there’s the slightest corrosion because of you…”

“Come on Bark, you know me,” John said. “I was careful. I always am. Can I get paid now? Please?”

Bark leaned behind his office and pulled out a single receipt. He made a note with a pen and brought his stamp down on it as if angry at the world for teaching people to request compensation for their work.

John read the receipt. Four ration credits with a two credit bonus. That was not enough. “Bark, I got the tools back all clean…”

“I don’t care. That’s all I got to give. Six credits for a shift’s work is too much as it is.” Faces full of marks of grease, sweat, and exhaustion gazed at John’s back with envy. Bark was a moron. At least one of them would try to shake him down and get his credits for himself when he made his way out through the crowded work station.

“I need more work then. Have you got anything else for me today?”

Bark leaned forward, the desk groaning beneath his muscled bulk. He was an aged mountain, but one that could trash every single one of them in here. “Someone’s getting greedy. Have you fallen into bad habits boy? Should I call the Dogs to check you for marks?”

“That’s not fair Bark. I just asked for work.”

“Life’s not fair boy. Get used to it. Why do you need the extra work? Give me your reason.”

“Bark…”

“Reason. Or stop wasting my time you little-”

“Dad hasn’t been able to find work yet.”

Bark leaned back. Hostility had settled long ago on his face, but most of the time it was a front. It kept trouble away. “Four of you, right?”

“Yeah...”

Bark’s right hand went back into the drawer and came out with a form. He filled it in and stamped it. He gave it to John, almost shoving him back to the crowd. “Go home, use some of those ration credits, and rest. Be where the form sends you at the start of the night shift then be right back here for the morning shift. You will be going back into the wall.”

John nodded his thanks to his foreman and before anyone could understand what was happening he had ducked and ran through the crowd behind him, pushing and diving under seeking arms. He managed to escape with the credits still safe. All it cost him was some blood and skin left on the nails that tried to drag him back.

Let them keep it. It would grow back and he was getting mighty used to pain.

He dashed and turned among the crowd of low class workers in the streets outside. He took turns, made circles, and forced himself in the company of ragged teenagers scrubbing and searching for the slightest trace of recyclable materials, starving for that one extra ration credit. He faked injuries and hunger. Lying had become second nature.

Honesty lost you everything in this life. It wasn’t meant for people like him, not unless it was family.

He looked up, trying to make the fire towers through the cloud of ash and smog that covered the low levels. There was fresh air up where the higher classes lived. They lived in warmth that was comfortable and not sweltering. They did not have to bleed for every single meal.

...they could see the sun.

John wasn’t sure if he had ever seen the sun, at least not clearly. He thought he might have once, or he might have dreamt it. But he had seen the moon and the stars once. His father sneaked him outside the walls for just a few minutes. The air was clean and you could see the cold white outside for miles. When he looked up…

It was only once but he would never forget. He fell in love with that sight. He was determined to join the Fire Scourgers one day. Then he would be able to walk outside. He would see the stars again. He would see the moon again.

A rusted rectangle of metal fell from somewhere above, crashing and killing the unfortunate low class that happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. His fellows around him rushed around like pecking vultures. A fight broke out for the bloodstained metal piece and the right to search through the dead woman’s pockets.

John had too many credits on him to gamble them against a prize as this, no matter how desirable it was. If it had happened on his way to work instead… he sighed at the lost opportunity.

The bodies available for looting had become two already. He left before he was tempted too much.

He reached home, a shell like all the rest around him, but it was his shell. His family was inside and that made it special. It made it the greatest place in the world.

“Alright mom, I gotta get on my way!” John called out.

His mother, bent, way too lean, but still strong and enduring, halted him. “One second honey. Your little sister has something to show you. Ok darling, come show your brother what daddy got you!”

“Dad got her something? Mom, how? We can’t afford to-”

John’s mother shushed him with a finger expertly placed on his lips. “Come on Johnny, just this once, stop worrying, ok?”

His little sister came bouncing into the room. The six year old made a pirouette and presented her blonde hair for his inspection with a smile that could blind. A small bow made out of a small ribbon of the most vibrant purple that John had ever seen adorned her golden hair.

His tiny sister ran up to him and jumped so he could grab her in his arms. “Do you like it?” she asked. Her voice had a lisp that she had found amazingly funny ever since she lost one of her front baby teeth.

“I like it,” John answered. “Purple is a very nice color.”

“It’s lavender,” his sister answered with the arrogance of a toddler who had just learned a word and every grown up who didn’t use it was stupid.

“Lavender then. It’s very nice, but I have to go work now, ok?” He tickled her stomach. “This little tummy needs food, right?”

John leaned over and kissed his mother on the cheek after his sister retreated back to her room and dolls, giggling. “I gotta go mom. See ya tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I’m heading back to the wall for the morning shift right after. I’m not coming to bed tonight.”

“Johnny, you are overdoing it. Things are not-”

“I’ll be fine. Just because things are not that bad now doesn’t mean they can’t get worse later. I’d rather we have something we can fall on if something happens, you know? Let dad know.”

“Be safe honey!” his mother called out as he left out the door.

“Always am,” he answered back.

One time he ends up setting foot in the Long Spire, the largest and highest reaching tower of the city, and where does he end up going? Down. All the way down to the holding pens. Sometimes John believed that luck had a very weird sense of humor.

He went into the room he was directed to. A mountain of a man, though unlike Bark who was made of solid muscle, this one was built out of layers of fat, was inside joking around with a lean, grey haired old man. The fat one’s look of joviality turned sour when he spotted John walking in. The old man just glimpsed once at him, tiredly.

The mound of lubber rose slowly. “What you doin’ here little boy? Area’s off limits fo’ the likes of ya!”

“Do you think the Dogs would let him down here if he didn’t have business here you fat blob? Sit down before you have a heart attack,” the old man said calmly, drinking from a weathered old canteen.

John rushed to speak before any argument could rise up. The Dogs had let him through and he wasn’t in the mood to have to pass before them once more so soon. Those bastards are always too glad for the slightest opportunity to beat or kill somebody so they could search through their pockets before ditching them into the furnaces.

“I’m here to work,” John jumped forward and gave his form to the fat man. “I’m here for the night shift?”

The fat man didn’t even look at the paper. He passed it immediately to the old man and came to stand before John, hand rubbing his triple chin thoughtfully. “Does he check out?”

“All right and proper. Be good to the kid, huh?”

A huge, sweaty palm rested on John’s shoulder, almost taking him down. “Alright boy, calm down. We’re not Dogs so you can stop trembling in your little pants. We are former Fire Scourgers though so remember to show respect, huh?”

“Yes sir. Uh, what are my duties here sir?”

The massive shoulders shrugged. “Clean, fetch, feed, and water the prisoners on this level if we ask you to… you’re basically the lil’ bitch on our block. You do everything we ask.” He winked hungrily at John.

“I said be good to the kid!” The old man hadn’t even turned his head around to watch.

“My… my father is… was a Fire Scourger too.”

That attracted the old man’s attention. “What section?” he asked, scratching his scraggy beard.

“Uh, south wall, second section.” The old man scared him somehow. The giant man was nowhere near the level of intimidation this old man’s stillness exhaled.

“Was?”

“He got… burnt. Friendly fire. Someone got panicked and he, he lost his right leg to the flames.”

The old man nodded at his colleague. “I think he’s talking about John. Remember him?”

“No way! John? He’s still kicking? Well, I guess he can’t exactly kick now but… What’s your name boy?”

“John.”

The old man looked at him with a mix of amusement and pity. “Your old man couldn’t even think up a good name for ya?”

“I’m, I’m hoping to change it to something of my own one day.”

“Hah. Good luck with that. I’m trying to do the same,” the fat man laughed. “So, for your own good, call me Blob. Not very imaginative, I know, but hey, it beats the old one.”

“He is named after a flower if you want a hint.”

“Hey! I don’t go around telling your own secrets!”

“That’s because I have none.”

“Excuse me, sir? What is your name?” John asked.

“Sir. That’s all you get to call me. Enough with the chit chat. You have work to do. I’ll show you how we feed the animals here in block R.”

John almost sleepwalked into his home after the end of the morning shift in the wall. He removed the credits he had earned from his pocket and surrendered them to his mother before stumbling to the mattress behind a threadbare curtain that he called his room.

A few seconds later he was almost entirely asleep when kilograms of sisterly delight jumped on his stomach and other places.

“Tell me a story!”

“Little one, please… I need to sleep…”

“A story, please! You haven’t told me a story for ages…” Her purple ribbon danced before his eyes as she made a trampoline out of his intestines.

“Argh! Alright, alright. Just a short one, ok? I’m tired.”

“Yay!”

“Once upon a time there was nothing. Nothing but a song, a song as rich and wide as the sky. The song danced and filled the void, creating shapes and fate, bringing things it sang of to life…”

“Why don’t we ever feed that one?” John asked Sir.

Sir opened the little hatch located at the cell door’s eye level and looked inside for a few seconds. “That one is special. We got orders to keep him under special care. Me and Blob feed him when you are gone.”

“What’s he done? Killed anyone important?”

“No. We are trying to make him talk. Haven’t gotten a peep outside of asking us to let him go. The ones up high on the Long Spire above us are losing patience.” He kicked at the stone bowls on the floor. “You need to clean these up before you head for the morning shift at the wall or it’s half pay today, ya hear?”

“I hear you Sir. Why is it so important that he talks?” John asked.

“He is an outsider.”

If the bowls weren’t made of thick, rough stone, they would have shattered. “Outside? He is the guy who came from the east? I thought it was a rumor! That was years ago!”

Sir bent down, amazingly spry for his age, and helped John gather up the bowls again. “Don’t let anyone know or the Dogs will come after you. It’s not that big of a deal. We know there is at least one more city out there. What we want to know is how he traversed the frost and not get eaten.”

“He probably had a flamer.”

“No, he didn’t. Even if he did, how would he carry enough fuel? All he had was a strange shooter and some knives.”

“A shooter?”

“A weapon, like the one the Dogs use when they really need to. It shoots metal pellets.”

“That sounds like a real waste.”

“Yeah, and it would scratch the wyrms at best. No, I don’t know how, but he made it all the way here without a proper weapon.”

“Why won’t he tell? What’s the harm?”

“Beats me. We keep asking him every day.”

They walked into the room that had become Blob’s habitat. He was hovering over a device that John had never seen before. A multitude of metal slivers, like nails or needles, were punctured in a metal bed that was glowing red hot. “The lady’s nail slippers are ready old man. Ready to go agai- ah, you still here boy?”

“What’s this?” John asked.

“Nothing you should worry about. Get out and get on your way. You’ll be late for your wall shift.”

“But-”

Sir pushed him from behind. “Do like Blob told you boy. Get out. Now.”

John nodded. “Alright. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

He closed the door behind him and hid in the plentiful shadows of the tower’s underbelly, beneath some of the pipes that covered every inch of the city. As he expected, the door opened after a minute and Blob, luckily it was him and not Sir, checked the corridor. John waited some more. He had enough time until his shift started.

The screaming started after a while. It was muted and barely made it through the thick walls and doors, but John was waiting for it. It seems he was right about how exactly they were asking the outsider the questions they mentioned.

He left his hiding hole and returned to his own life. He had a family to provide for. That’s what was important.

Something was thrown at him as soon as he passed through the door. He grabbed the object out of the air before he even realized what was happening. Looking down, John saw he was now holding a mop.

He didn’t need to ask. Sir pointed him to the floor. He started cleaning up.

“Next time you try to overhear, make sure you don’t hide somewhere that hasn’t been cleaned for ages,” Sir told him and left him to his work.

“Here dad, let me help you to bed.”

“I’m fine, put me down! I’m not a fucking cripple yet!”

“Don’t swear, our little one will hear you.”

“Sorry. Sorry, I’m just… I’m… I haven’t found anything yet, I try and…”

“It’s ok dad.”

His little sister tugged at his trousers. “What does fucking mean?”

“Nothing you should worry about. How about I tell you another story before I head to work, ok?”

John made his way to an empty cell. A pen as they called it. If the Dogs brought you down here you were no longer a person. You were an animal. He intended to mop every available surface. Sir was in a foul mood. It was best to spend his shift staying out of his way doing some work.

The pen’s floor was covered in blood.

He quickly retreated. His back made contact with something that wasn’t a wall. He turned around and came face to nipple with Blob.

“You’re a curious little rat, ain’t ya?”

“I’m just doing my job. What the hell is this?”

Blob pushed John aside and closed the door. “The old man told me how you spied on us a couple of weeks back. I guess you figured it out. The guy we ask questions? Some very important people are tired of waiting. One of them came down here. Said he had a way to make him talk.”

“What happened?”

“Bullshit happened that’s what. Asshole should be a Dog, not a Spire class. Ways to make him talk… bah! I haven’t seen a man get higher that he did while… nasty business kid. Worst part is it keeps happening. Drives the old man crazy.” Blob shook his head sadly. He patted John’s back. “Come on, it’s feeding time.”

“This is insane. Why doesn’t the guy talk?”

“I don’t know kid.” They started setting the bowls in a line, ready to fill them up with the nasty gruel concoction the animals in the pens ate. “But I don’t think he ever will talk. He’s certainly gone through the same before. We won’t break him. I’m thinking we should do him a favor and kill him. Stage an accident or something. Won’t be long until one of the Dogs or occasional Spire class that come down here to have their fun goes too far one day anyway.”

“This isn’t fair.”

“Life ain’t. There ain’t no kindness in this world kid. Sorry. Get me a couple more bowls, will ya?”

Two weeks later one of them came down from the Spire while John was still there. Blob and Sir brought the outsider to another cell. John got a good look at him. Poor guy could barely stand. They had to half carry, half drag him. They put him in the cell where John had found the blood.

“Want to leave kid? Call it a night?” Blob asked him.

“No.” He didn’t let his disgust show. This was torture for torture’s sake. The man wouldn’t talk and even if he did… what secrets did they imagine he held? Maybe he had just gotten lucky. You walk outside where the wyrms hunt, you get eaten. That’s it. If he had any special weapon, any device that kept him safe, they would have gotten hold of it.

The screams started again. John’s courage almost failed him.

But it didn’t. After a few seconds they only strengthened his resolve.

“I’m gonna go get the mop ready.”

His sister was asleep. He kissed her goodnight and got ready to head to his night shift once again. He had made a decision. Today he would follow through with it.

Blob and Sir didn’t realize anything. He went out on the corridors, mopping the floor as he surreptitiously made his way to the outsider’s cell. He checked around before taking out the keys he had pocketed. John unlocked the cell and walked inside the outsider’s cell, dagger ready in his right hand.

There was some kindness in the world. The man wouldn’t have to suffer anymore.

“Are you ok?”

“I’m fine little one. Are you here for another story?”

“I wanted to see if you are ok. Is mom going to be home soon?”

“Her shift still needs some time to end. We can go for a walk if you are bored.”

“Ok. How come you don’t go to work now?”

“I’m still not allowed to. Mom will have to work in my place for a little while. Come on, let’s go.”

John had to keep calling for his sister to come back. She kept running ahead or to the side, poking everything in sight. She loved to explore. She hadn’t learned how dangerous and terrifying the city could be at times.

He had dreamed of Blob and Sir again. Nothing much, just… how he found them when he regained his senses. Sir, with his face punctured by those needles, limbs broken… the old veteran broken like a ragdoll. Blob with his throat swollen and burnt black, unhinged jaw and broken teeth. The plaque where they heated the needles had been lodged inside his throat. It was the most horrible sight he had ever seen.

They didn’t deserve that. They were just trying to survive, eke out a living like everyone.

The sirens went off. Wyrms.

“What’s happening?” His sister asked. She hugged his leg, afraid of the noise and the movement of the crowds as they ran for cover.

“The wall is going to fire up. Come on, we need to move away from any pipes. Remember not to touch anything, ok?”

His sister nodded. John carried her in his arms as he found refuge for both of them in a small alley. He waited for the screeching of the walls as they lit up everything around and the waves of heat that would hit them, even at the eye of the storm.

What he heard instead was a sound he had never heard before. An explosion of unprecedented fury and power. He pushed his sister back and rushed to the exit of the alley.

He caught sight of a tower near the wall falling. It was falling towards-

Oh mercy, please no!

The wall had a great hole in it. An entire section had blown off. It was the city’s worst nightmare come to life.

The Fire Scourgers would be rushing there to block off any wyrms managing to make their way past the fires. He hoped they would be fast enough. He and his sister were far enough but…

His mother was working near that section! She was in danger! He had to get his sister home and run there to find her as-

The earth quaked beneath them. He saw a giant fireball rise to the sky and debris coming down their way like rain as the wall near their section exploded. John barely had time to tremble at the sight before he saw two more sections explode as well.

Three.

Five.

Eight.

They were all dead. The city screamed with millions of voices. The wyrms were coming. There was nothing now to hold them back. Too many holes, too few Fire Scourgers.

“I’m scared! What’s happening?”

He took his sister in his arms. He looked up. Debris had struck the towers. Pipes all around the city must have burst. He could see clouds of black smoke and flames rise high. The city had fallen.

“We need to run… We need to run!” He had no idea where to go but he wasn’t letting his sister die. She wouldn’t burn in flames and she certainly wouldn’t be eaten by the wyrms, not as long as he lived.

It was a nightmare. Smoke, soot, ash, screams. The city had gone stir crazy in its death throes. He wasn’t sure where he was going. All he knew was he had to get away from the walls.

Death was crawling in through them.

People were killing each other. He saw one low class, braver than most, assault a Dog. The Dog, a burly, menacing looking man like all of them, tried to use his weapon against his opponent. He didn’t even manage to raise his rifle halfway up before a blade went through his eye and he dropped dead.

The man who killed the Dog bent down and picked up his weapon. John halted right there. He knew that man.

The outsider.

He evidently remembered him too. They looked at each other, two figures standing still for a second among the chaos. One of them cradling a little girl, the other a weapon.

The outsider spoke. “I owe you one for letting me out. I’ll let you turn around and leave, how about that?” He didn’t wait for John’s answer. He turned his back on him.

“Wait!”

“What?”

“They… they told me you know… you travelled outside without the wyrms eating you!” John said, desperate.

“Get to the point.”

“Take us with you!”

“No.” He turned around to leave.

“You owe me! You owe me and you’ll pay me back! Take us with you.”

The outsider paused. John waited with bated breath. “Fine. Keep up or I leave you behind.”

John had never thought there could be such cold. Little flakes of snow whirled around on the frozen winds that buffeted them. He was used to the heat of the cit-

The city was dead. Home was gone. He wondered if his parents made it. Maybe they had been too quick to abandon home. They had lost sight of the burning city two days ago as they headed to their mystery destination. The outsider, still refusing to give his name, told them again and again that his own home was now almost in reach.

John worried that he had brought his sister along to die in the cold. There was nothing here. The outsider was leading them up a mountain to the west. They were going to freeze to death somewhere with a view.

He missed his mother. Please, please let her be alright. Let him see her again. Please.

“We are stopping here to rest for a bit.”

John fell on his knees. He was exhausted. He had to carry his sister for hours every day. The outsider was relentless in his haste. He made a comfy burrow out of the bundle of clothes they stole on their way out for his sister to continue sleeping in.

“Are you sure you are not lost?”

“I’m not lost. I can’t get lost. We are going straight home.” The outsider sighed heavily. “Wait here.”

He left them there. John stood over his sister and thought. He thought of home mostly. He also thought of a suspicion he had. The wyrms had not bothered them. They were still alive even though they had spent days outside. He suspected he knew how they made it so far.

He made sure his sister was safely bundled up. He went after their “savior”.

The outsider was looking at the mountain they were climbing. His gaze was locked at the top. “What?” he asked gruffly.

“There has been no sight of wyrms,” John said.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Why?”

“That’s a secret.”

Bullshit. There was no secret. There was no technique to crossing the frost. There was a city to the east though, that’s what Sir had said.

“It’s because they have eaten, isn’t it?”

The outsider turned around to look at John. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“The wyrms. They are not coming after us because they don’t have to, do they? They have eaten their fill. They feasted on the city. That’s how we made it all the way here, right?”

“Boy…” the outsider growled, warningly.

“What happened to the eastern city? The one you came from?”

The outsider just looked at him, silently.

“Why did the walls fail like that? I was in them every day, repairing them! If there had been something that could lead to this I would have seen something. Everything had been working properly. Yet even the section that I was helping maintain broke apart. Right when you needed passage, only weeks after you escaped!”

The outsider walked towards him. John tightened his grip on the dagger he kept hidden behind him. He didn’t mean to lead this to a confrontation, not yet, but he could not control himself.

“You killed everyone in my home so you could die in the frost? I tried to help you the only way I could and you killed everyone I knew! My family! My parents! You are nothing but a monster that-”

“I AM NOT A MONSTER!” John tried to bring his dagger forward but the outsider was faster. His arm snapped in half.

“They forced me to do it! I just want to go home! I didn’t ask for this, I just wanted to go home but you keep stopping me, you keep hurting me, you keep getting IN MY WAY!”

The outsider’s fists rained down on him. He felt teeth chipping and his jaw crack. His leg shattered as his opponent’s foot met the side of his knee.

“You think you know loss? You think you know pain, you little shit? You know nothing! Well, I’m not giving up. It’s not my fault! This time I will go home, this one WILL take me home, I know it will, I’m going home, I WON’T GIVE UP, I AM NOT A MONSTER!”

Every limb had broken. Every breath was fire. He had lost his sight out of one of his eyes. He didn’t think it was because it had swollen shut. It felt empty and there had been a slipping sensation…

“I’m not a monster,” the outsider whispered, regaining his breath, as he stood over the fifteen year old that struggled to hold to life.

“John? Are you here? I had a bad dream! John?”

His sister. His precious sister.

The outsider turned towards the voice.

“Keep her alive…” John whispered.

The outsider turned back to John, looking shocked. “What?”

“You owe me. You… you owe me… keep her alive… keep her safe… Mom… mom would never forgive me if I let my sister… If I let her come to harm...”

The outside gazed down on him for what seemed like years. His right hand rubbed at his chest, below his neck. He pulled something small from beneath his clothes and looked at it, paying no attention to the child at his feet. He was a slit of darkness as he loomed over him, in between the grey sky and the white frost. He left John to bleed behind him and moved back to where John’s precious little one was waiting.

John could do nothing but hear their voices before they left.

“Where is my brother?”

“...he went up ahead. Come on, we gotta catch up.”

“Why did he leave me here with you?”

“Someone had to go ahead.... What’s your name anyway?”

“I ain’t got one yet.”

“Well, how do they call you?”

“My brother calls me his little one.”

“Wow… that… that’s stup- what are you doing?”

“Tying my ribbon. Help me.”

“You little shi- fine. Give it here. There. Now that you have your stupid purple thing on can we go?”

“It’s lavender!”

“I don’t fucking care. Listen to me and listen well. Your brother is not here. I’m not doing you any favors. You keep up or I leave you behind to die. Is that clear?”

“You are mean.”

“Start walking or I’ll kick you, you little shit. Walk!”

They left.

John had nothing left to do but wait to die. He spent his last minutes as he froze and bled praying. Praying the outsider would keep his sister safe. Praying his mother had made it safe. Praying he could be forgiven for what he let loose.

Something slithered in sight.

A wyrm.

It was following their tracks. It was going to attack them. This one was hungry. It’s black, rocky surface slipped easily on the ice and show.

Well, he had one last thing he could do after all.

He wouldn’t let his sister be eaten alive.

“Over here you piece of crap. Come get your meal…” He forced his lungs to work, to speak up instead of whisper. The wyrm turned towards him.

Please, let the outsider keep his sister safe. Please, please, pleas-

The maw opened up and the teeth surrounded him.

Ch.15 - On the road

Twilight ran towards the golden doors, not waiting to see if the Solar guards standing at the sides would open them for her in time or not. She would just teleport in if they were- ok, turns out that their reflexes were as sharp as ever. This meant that she wouldn’t smash into the doors as she slipped and almost tripped on her own hooves; however, it did mean that her new roadblock was now Princess Celestia herself.

Luckily, the princess was quick enough to sidestep.

Hello wall.

Pinkie was right behind Twilight the whole time, managing to keep up with her rampant teleporting and running, by way of non stop hopping. She landed next to Twilight with one final jump and grinned at her newly accordion shaped friend.

“Princess…” Twilight had trouble breathing. All that running, along with teleporting so much… her stamina had been completely drained. She also had a new found difficulty in breathing through her nose. She felt ready to fall down and take a nap where she stood, but that may have been the concussion and not exhaustion.

“Spike… wasn’t there,” she gasped as she tried to talk and breathe through the same hole. “Nopony saw any of them… we made it… phew, we made it all the way to the fourth station, the guards are, ouch… we had to spend the day there, the guards were exhausted… nothing! Spike wasn’t there either! We searched all day!” she cried out.

“It’s alright Twilight. Breathe and rest. I received a message a little while ago while you were gone. Spike is fine,” Princess Celestia comforted her student. Pinkie Pie clapped with her hooves next to Twilight. Twilight shot her a venomous glare. The pink earth pony wasn’t even out of breath. How the heck did she do that?

“What- what did they say?” Twilight asked with plenty of relief as she surrendered to her exhaustion and lied down on her side. Not the most dignified way to hold yourself in front of the princess, but who cared right now? Thank Celestia, literally, for her fondness for plush carpets.

“Not much I am afraid. They wrote on the back of the letter we sent them, using lipstick. Rarity’s I assume. Luna says that all of them are fine but they had to make a change of plans. She didn’t give any details.”

“Can we write them back?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“I already have. I think we should wait for them to write to us again before we send another message. If they don’t in the next couple of days, then yes. Until then we will have to wait. There is an issue they have to deal with,” Princess Celestia said.

Twilight covered her eyes with her hooves, afraid to hear the rest. “Oh no. What happened now?”

Princess Celestia served tea for all of them and set the cups on a nearby table, gesturing for them to take a seat. Tea meant that either the princess was comfortable, or she wanted to ease her guests, or believed the intrinsic calmness of her usual tea service ritual was needed. Two out of the three meant that she wouldn’t like the news then.

Her cup floated in front of her, wrapped in golden magic. Twilight took it in her own. For half a second she looked suspiciously at the gold liquid within. Princess Celestia’s blend always made her feel extremely mellow. She wondered if Celestia was adding a little extra something in her cup.

Pinkie Pie was piling so much sugar in her own tea that it was in danger of overflowing. Pinkie was obviously over her incident, or her love of sugar was not to be deterred by a mere deadly poison.

Twilight drank deeply, letting the hot tea soothe her nerves as she waited for Princess Celestia to speak up.

Celestia followed suit. She put down her cup with a gentle clink. “There was an… episode involving Raegdan.”

“It- what? Is everypony alright? Applejack, Rarity, Spike, is any of them hurt?” Twilight asked, getting back into panic mode.

“Everypony is fine Twilight,” Celestia said. “Raegdan is fine too, just unconscious.”

“Oh, good. I was worried somepony had gotten hurt. Did Applejack or Rarity write anything?”

Celestia threw a curious look at Pinkie Pie who shook her head in response. Twilight basked in the warmth flowing down her throat. “No Twilight. Of course, that is good news in its own way. It means nothing of much importance happened.”

Pinkie Pie made eye contact with Twilight and nodded towards Celestia.

“What?” Twilight asked.

Pinkie Pie nodded harder, her hair bouncing like jello.

“Pinkie Pie, what?”

Pinkie Pie got up from her seat and stood on her hind legs. She stomped around for a few steps. Suddenly she gawped widely, brought her front hoof in front of her eyes, and fell down on her back. She quickly popped right back up, looked around as if confused, and went back to nodding towards Celestia.

“Pinkie Pie, I have no idea what you are trying to say,” Twilight said. She looked back at Princess Celestia and shrugged to display her ignorance at her friend’s antics. Celestia had been looking straight at Twilight, only occasionally glancing at Pinkie Pie while she performed her charades.

Pinkie Pie pulled at her ears and sighed, disappointed. “Is something wrong with dad?” Pinkie asked.

“Dad? Twilight, have I missed something?”

Twilight groaned. “Ugh. They have kinda adopted each other.”

“He calls me little pink!” Pinkie Pie said proudly.

Celestia beamed a wide smile at them and laughed. “Oh, this is just precious. I can’t believe he did that. See Twilight? I told you your presence does him good.”

“What happened anyway?” Twilight asked.

“Twilight… has Raegdan ever told you how old he is?” Celestia asked.

Twilight considered the question. Had he ever told her? She could remember asking him one time. She had wanted to have a birthday party for him at her parents home. She knew she had asked him when he had been born. He said he doubted the calendars they used matched so she had chosen a date at random. She must have asked then but he didn’t answer, she couldn’t remember why, he used some of his usual excuses probably so… she could remember that they had put one single candle on the cake.

He had let Twilight blow out the flame.

They never repeated it. Twilight thought hard on that. Why didn’t they ever do it again? She had tried to, she was certain, but she kept getting sidelined either by Raegdan or her own parents.

Did her parents know more about him than she ever did? He could ignore Twilight’s questions, but if her mother asked him something she was determined to know, something she deemed important enough, would Raegdan refuse to answer? She doubted he would. If there was somepony who could out stubborn him it was Twilight Velvet.

“No. I asked him but he never told me. He never told me a lot of things,” she said, with her bitterness returning. She felt the anger and resentment bubbling up again. It was like an infection that was once again slowly filling up with pus, ready to explode, in her mind. She thought it had drained out yesterday, when he assured her he would finally talk to her, when he assured that he loved her.

Did he? Did he really? Or was it like Honest Serenade claimed? A selfish thing, meant to ease what conscience he had. As long as Raegdan could claim that he loved somepony he could excuse himself in his own mind.

She tried to think of Raegdan as she used to, she did. It was hard. A new feeling of violation, of resentment, of pure anger, of abhorrence and disgust, would suddenly come forth at times. Each time she knew, knew it down to her core, it was because of him, of it, of- of… whatever Raegdan was now. A shadow in her mind, engulfing every good thought she had of him and staining it or- or revealing it for what it truly was. She could almost hear her own heartbeat as those thoughts resurfaced.

It sounded like a hammer striking a nail. It made her feel sick somehow.

She felt confused, torn, so much more than she did just a few days ago. A gap between how she used to think of him and how she did now that was widening day by day, hour by hour. There were bridges left, connections back to an oblivious or uncorrupted past, but they too were cracking. Some of them had been repaired those last two days but they were slowly starting to crumble again.

She wished she could talk to her mentor, to Celestia. It was all backing up inside her, clamoring for release. She could not. More than the fact that she had agreed not to speak to her teacher and ruler about what Raegdan did, it was a feeling that strained her heart every time she thought about going ahead and talking to her regardless. A horrible feeling shouting that to do that would be horribly wrong. Forbidden.

“What does this have to do with anything?” Twilight asked. “I mean, why is it important to know how old he is? Did he get angry because someone asked? No, that makes no sense, and you said he fainted… Princess Celestia, what is wrong with him this time?”

Celestia was looking down on her student, with a hint of sadness on her expression. “I cannot answer that question Twilight. I do not know enough myself. I believe I can make an accurate guess, but I could be entirely wrong. We will have to wait until I talk with Raegdan himself. Until then-”

A series of knocks came from the outside of the golden doors of Princess Celestia’s chambers. A Solar guard opened one of them and walked inside. “Princess Celestia, the bearer of the element of Loyalty is here and demands to speak with miss Twilight.”

“Rainbow Dash?” Twilight asked. “We wondered where she was.”

“Let her in, please,” Celestia gave permission.

They could hear Rainbow Dash’s loud voice from outside when the guards told her she was allowed to go through. “Thanks for getting me out of there Smoke Ring. See ya later!”

“Dashie! Where have you been?” Pinkie Pie hopped over to Rainbow’s side and tried to hug her. Rainbow’s hoof kept her at a distance.

“Where I’ve been? I was locked in the dungeons for two nights and a day! Rarity put me in there for “overstepping social boundaries”, and none of you jerks came to find me,” Rainbow said, looking seriously peeved.

“I’m so sorry Rainbow. We didn’t know-”

“Oh yeah? I was gone all day and none of you tried to find me?”

“We thought you had gone flying again like usual and-”

“Well let me tell you something. I, Rainbow Dash, by my authority as the bearer of the element of Loyalty, decree that you guys suck! Applejack sucks. Fluttershy sucks.” Rainbow pointed at Pinkie. “You suck.” The hoof moved towards Twilight. “You suck. And most of all, taking the championship grand prize of sucking, Rarity sucks. She especially can go ahead and suck a big-”

Twilight coughed violently, interrupting Rainbow Dash. She nodded towards Princess Celestia, warningly shaking her head and raising her eyebrows.

Rainbow Dash stalled, biting her lip. Then she took one long breath and let Tartarus loose. “You know what? I don’t care anymore. All of Equestria must know.” Rainbow Dash shouted at the top of her lungs. “Rarity can go ahead and suck a big, thick, meaty, fat co-”

The door clanged shut. Rainbow fell upon the door, kicking it as hard as she could. “Twilight! Twilight, that ain’t funny! Let me out! Come on, the princess didn’t mind it, she is like thousands of years old, you know she has heard way worse, I saw her giggling, I know I did! Twilight, don’t, don’t dispel the-”

“Great, she turned off the lights. Hello darkness my old friend.” Rainbow Dash sighed heavily. “I hope Smoke Ring’s shift ends soon and he gets me out of here again. I guess it’s back to scratching stuff on the walls until then. Let’s see, how do you spell “Twilight Sparkle is a screamer”? I think I left some space by the door.”

“I’m telling you, it’s all about the money,” Cast Iron said. “Someone is trying to keep his piggy bank safe and fat.”

“Who in their right mind would seriously try to kill a princess for a few bits? No, it’s because of Nightmare Moon,” Stream Leaf insisted, striking the rock beneath her for emphasis.

“A few bits? Hello! Did you miss the train we were riding on?” Cast Iron waved his arm towards the exit of the small shallow cave they were in. “Do you have any idea how much money rolls on these? Ignore the constant stream of ponies and the bits that flow in their coffers from the passenger tickets. Just the cargo trains alone... We are talking about a railroad made of gold!”

“What the hay do the trains have to do with anything you idiot?”

“She wants the Lunar Guard to clean up Equestria of most monsters right?” Cast Iron blinked. “Oh gods, she wants us to do that... “

“Focus!” Leaf Stream told him. “Finish up what you were saying.”

Cast Iron shook his head. “Ok, let’s say she manages to do what she wants, ok? Even though it will take a very long time. The roads become safer and you ponies can frolic around. Suddenly merchants can use the roads to move their merchandize. Well, what happens to the railway then? It basically loses its monopoly on travel and cargo shifting. Ponies get more options, prices will have to go down to compete… It turns back to a buyer’s market, the worst nightmare of someone having an iron grip on a whole pie. And that’s just one thing that changes because of her.”

Leaf Stream stopped and gave some thought to Cast Iron’s claims. She didn’t look entirely convinced yet. “Ok, I admit, that makes some sense. But whoever wants those two dead would have to know about that before and she only recently started the Lun… oh.”

“What?”

“That’s what she was basically doing anyway before she became Nightmare Moon. Hunting down monsters. She said so herself,” she said, scratching her chin. “I suppose someponies might know if they dug enough. Just because it’s not widespread knowledge-”

Solid Charge interrupted her. “Do not refer to Princess Luna as Nightmare Moon if you can. Miss Rarity asked us to cut that out.”

The aforementioned mare smiled approvingly from her soft perch. It had taken three bedrolls and a few blankets, but Rarity now felt comfortable enough. If she spotted any spiders however she would have Cast Iron clean them -again.

“You two will make a wonderful couple,” Leaf Stream cooed. “Dibs on being the bridesmaid. Unless Cast Iron would rather wear that dress instead.”

“Hey!”

Solid Charge kept both his eyes focused on what Luna ordered him to do, ignoring the conversation next to him. Rarity looked at the object of his intense focus, Raegdan. It had been hours and he hadn’t regained consciousness yet. He was lying on a bedroll with a blanket rolled up beneath his head, acting as a pillow. If you ignored the ropes Luna had ordered them to tie him with, keeping his wrists behind his back and his legs bound together, you would think he was just napping.

“I still say it’s because of her possession. I mean, look at the guy she keeps by her side.” Leaf Stream unnecessarily pointed at Raegdan’s sleeping form. “He didn’t even bother making his gear look any friendly at all. They see him in his armor, all black and evil looking, looming over them; it’s not that big of a jump to thinking she is getting ready for round two, you know? So bam, somepony thinks it’s better to get them first. They might even consider themselves big damn heroes.”

“Money makes more sense to me,” Cast Iron refuted her, his blunt nails scratching his fur. “What do you think Charge?”

Solid Charge did not turn his stare away from Raegdan even for a second. “I think it’s politics.”

“... yeah, sure, why not?” Leaf Stream said. “I mean, banquets and hanging out in rich, opulent embassies has to get seriously boring at times, right? Makes sense that they try to up the excitement with some regicide-”

Rarity cleared her throat to interrupt Leaf Stream from going off on another taunting monologue. “Solid Charge might not be that wrong. I’m certain that the pony who originally hired them to attack me was lady Honest Serenade.”

“That one? Oh, I’ve heard of her.”

“You have?”

“Sure, who hasn’t?” Leaf Stream said. “She is Prince Blueblood’s aunt, though some say she is his mother. Others say she partied too much when she was younger and passed him off as her brother’s, others say old Pureblood was the one who partied too much if you get my meaning… Anyway, she doesn’t have anything like Blueblood’s title, but she has a lot more unofficial power.”

“Let me guess,” Rarity said. “She has dirt on everypony, doesn’t she?”

“Bingo. Everypony knows what a nasty piece of work she is, but you can’t do much of anything if she wants to get involved somewhere. She has a problem with our boss I take it?”

“Yes, though it seems Raegdan is her prime target. She really, really hates him for some reason,” Rarity said, thoughtfully.

“Gee, I wonder how that could have happened with such a swell guy,” Leaf Stream said, her obvious sarcasm dripping like always. “If she wants to she could pull in some big names to help her, though I don’t know if even she can get anypony to join in a plot to assassinate a princess, no matter which.”

Solid Charge spoke up. “What if she doesn’t have to convince them? I wouldn’t try to guess too much since I know squat about how the Equestrian government works, apart from the fact that the princesses stand on top. Some ponies in important positions have to be afraid that she is gonna upset the power balance. How hard would it be to convince them to get rid of her before she starts rocking the boat?”

“...Damn it, that might not be that farfetched,” Leaf Stream admitted. “Princess Celestia, everypony knows what to expect from her. Princess Luna on the other hoof-”

“They know nothing about. Worse, I don’t think she’d care about keeping appearances. She’d be blunt and to the point,” Solid Charge finished. “It’s… I guess as far as politics go she would probably be like the Minos Chargers. She would disrupt things, keep everyone off balance, reveal the weak points-”

“And then Princess Celestia would know where to strike and set them right. She is very nice normally, but if she finds out you are abusing her ponies… Ok, like I said, that makes sense. You might be onto something.” Leaf Stream patted Solid Charge’s lower back. “So, part of our job will be to protect her from our own people. Neat. And to think, I believed I had a bad taste in my mouth before. Oh sweet ignorance, how I miss thee.”

“Well…” Solid Charge continued, looking uncomfortable. “That might not be all.”

“What do you mean?” Cast Iron asked, edging closer.

Solid Charge’s eyes quickly glanced at his fellow minotaur before turning back to Raegdan’s sleeping form. “You ever ask why we call her the Night Bringer back home?”

Cast Iron was taken aback. “What? It’s obvious ain’t it? She is the one who raises the moon.”

“Then why don’t we call the other one Day Bringer?”

Cast Iron opened his mouth to answer. He left it hanging open for a few seconds before closing it with his teeth snapping against each other.

“There’s a very old story,” Solid Charge said, “that we minotaurs knew how to raise the sun and moon. So did the unicorns. So did the zebras. Maybe others too.”

That drew Rarity’s attention. “Oh yes, that’s mentioned in the Hearth’s Warming tale. Unicorns used to raise the sun and moon. I suppose with the princesses around there’s no longer a need to do this anymore.”

“Yes miss Rarity. I’ve heard that one too. Thing is, we minotaurs don’t know how to do this any longer. Neither do the Zebras, and I’d hazard to guess that neither does any unicorn alive,” Solid Charge said.

“Of course not,” Leaf Stream said, taking a bedroll out of the dwindling pile and lying on it. “Princess Celestia is the Sun now.”

Solid Charge nodded. “For unicorns and ponies, yes. But why would other nations let such precious knowledge get lost?”

Leaf Stream huffed. “I guess you are about to tell us?”

“The story goes on to say that the knowledge on how to control the heavens was not lost. It was erased. The Night Bringer came and robbed the nations of every instance of the spell, of every person who knew how. That’s how she gained that title.”

Leaf Stream covered herself with a thin blanket. “I kind of wish you had waited for me to lie down first. Was there a point to this or are we doing our very own story thing? I know a very good one about a pegasus, a unicorn, and an earth pony going into a haunted bar at midnight.”

“No one ever went to war with Equestria for over a thousand years,” Solid Charge said.

“Heck yeah. We would kick their flank.”

“Are you sure that’s the reason? You have your Royal Guard, but are they enough to face off against an army the likes of Minos can field?” Solid Charge countered.

“We have a lot more magic on our side.”

“But is that enough of an advantage?” Solid Charge asked. “I doubt every unicorn can cast useful magic in battle. Whatever your unicorns can do with magic Minos can do with other means. Experienced means.”

“We have the princess,” Leaf Stream reminded him.

Solid Charge sighed. “Yeah. That’s what I was thinking. I wonder now, thinking about that story… who in their right mind would try to fight a war with Equestria if it means that the Princess could stop the sun in retaliation. Or, something I just thought up… what happens if there is a war and Princess Celestia dies?”

“Uh oh,” Cast Iron said. “That would be pretty bad. But we got Princess Luna now, right? She could replace her.”

“Yeah buddy, she can. What does that mean though? Is Equestria now no longer immune? Is Princess Luna a prime candidate for a prisoner? Is our King and his council back in Minos making plans in case the Night Bringer attacks them? Are they making plans to attack Equestria themselves or kill her?”

“Whoah, hold on,” Leaf Stream called out. “Why would your people want Princess Luna dead?”

“Round two, like you said. What if they are afraid that she might try something like it and this time she wins? Who could stop her if Princess Celestia dies? To kill her afterwards would be madness.”

“Princess Luna would not do that!” Rarity said, condemning that train of thought. “This is in the past. It won’t happen again.”

“Yes miss Rarity,” Solid Charge said, trying to placate her. “Do they believe that though? And even if they did, well… Princess Celestia is a fair ruler. Everybody believes that. She has shown that repeatedly for a thousand years. Everyone trusts her and asks for her help. Princess Luna however… Politics can be a cutthroat business, you know?”

Leaf Stream covered her head with her blanket. “I thought having to stay near him and take orders from this monster was the worst part… Seriously, each possibility is worse than the last. I seriously hope we ain’t right about any of them.”

“Uh…” Cast Iron lifted a hand like a schoolcolt. “What if… what if we are right about all of them though?”

Rarity hadn’t thought of that shocking possibility. She genuinely thought they only had to contest with a few ponies like Honest Serenade that wanted Luna and Raegdan dead. That was bad enough. The idea that… that the whole world could set out against them… that so many felt they had so much to gain from Luna’s death, within Equestria and without...

No, that was nonsense, she decided. Luna and Raegdan would have thought along these lines before they ever had. If they believed they really had to face such odds…

Rarity remembered Applejack telling them of Luna’s response when she believed for a few moments that they had no chance of making the Lunar Guard work. Would they really need their own personal forces if all they wanted was to protect themselves against the likes of Honest Serenade?

No, that didn’t make much sense did it? Raegdan would be easily able to take care of somepony like her. He could reach Honest Serenade’s bedroom and leave undetected, he had done so a few days ago. He didn’t even consider it hard to do. He certainly wouldn’t shy from killing her or whoever wanted to hurt Luna. He would make sure she talked before killing her. They would know everypony involved right there and then.

But why… why hadn’t he done that already? Almost a year and they knew nothing? They didn’t even attempt to question Honest Serenade or anypony else? Raegdan said he couldn’t touch her for some reason, not yet, those were his words. But nopony else? Raegdan, out of everypony she could think of, would not cower of doing so.

It didn’t make sense. They must have known about Honest Serenade. When they explained things to all of them they claimed they had no suspects. Did they lie? What was she thinking, of course they lied. Why would they keep that sec-

“That’s a scary thought,” Leaf Stream said to Cast Iron. “You think that might be true, oh great saviour, Rarity the magnificent? Are we really screwed that much?”

“Language, please,” Rarity said. “I do not know. This is all conjecture at this point.” What was she thinking about before? It seemed important. She decided not to push it. It would come to her on its own. She was more worried about the slight headache that she felt. She rubbed the left side of her head, attempting to soothe the pain.

“You think that’s scary? I got something real scary for you,” Solid Charge said.

“Oh boy, what a treat,” Leaf Stream said with false enthusiasm. “Let me guess. This cave is an Ursa Major’s home and it will be back any second now?”

“Too small for one of them. No, that’s not it.” Solid Charge pointed at Raegdan. “He’s been awake for twenty minutes now and I think he just managed to cut the ropes around his arms on the rocks behind him.”

Rarity and Leaf Stream threw their blankets off themselves as they stood up, faster than they both thought possible.

Raegdan opened his eyes.

Fluttershy was enjoying a quiet morning tea with her new friend, Commander Steadfast Ray of the Solar Guard. His office had a magnificent view at the east and he had personally placed vitro windows that filtered the sun’s rays in magnificent colors. He had left the centre of the window unpainted however. He wanted to always have an unfiltered view of the sun.

They were making small talk while Steadfast Ray was reading reports from the night before with a bored face. He made no secret of hating this part of his job, but he was diligent at it nonetheless and he expected perfect reports in return from his Solar guards.

They talked mostly about their respective hobbies. Steadfast Ray had a great love for painting, on any medium, but never had enough time to practice. He showed her how he had a single inkwell in his office and always kept it covered, otherwise he would find himself doodling on the edges of the documents he was reading.

The Commander’s adjutant knocked on the door and entered almost immediately, without waiting for a response. The mare did not even glance at her commander’s guest. She immediately headed for his side and whispered quickly in his ear.

“Hmm. Let her in,” Steadfast said. He turned towards Fluttershy. “I’m having an unexpected visit, but I intend to send her off quickly. You can stay and wait here if you want to my dear.”

“Oh, what if your guest wants privacy? Maybe I should go.”

“If she wants privacy she can go to her own home,” Steadfast said, resolute.

The door opened once again and a mare with a white coat and vibrant pink mane entered. “My good Commander. Always so direct. May I have a seat?”

“You may, lady Serenade. How can I help you?”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened with surprise when she heard the name. She instantly regretted not leaving when she had the chance. She hid her face behind her mane.

“Oh, look at the shy pony,” Honest Serenade cooed. “Isn’t she adorable, Commander Steadfast? Come on Kindness, I don’t bite.”

“Some ponies would claim otherwise. My time is limited lady Serenade,” Steadfast said, warningly.

“Of course, of course. This tea and cookies won’t consume themselves will they? And Kindness won’t let herself be plowed without intense courting.” Fluttershy became a single color hue, matching her own mane. Steadfast was trying to pierce a hole through the mare using only his eyes. “Oh, was that too much? Did I overstep my boundaries? I am so, so sorry.” Honest Serenade smiled widely.

“If that was the last of your vitriol my lady, the door is right behind you-”

“So, the Lunar Guard. Catchy title, right?” Honest Serenade managed to make sitting on a wooden chair look as comfortable as sitting on a plush armchair.

“A mere shadow of the Solar Guard. It is almost not worth thinking about.”

“Ah,” Serenade said, with utmost satisfaction. “What a way to phrase it. Almost. Yes, almost not worth thinking about. Of course, it might be worth thinking now that they actually do have a few members and are heading out to claim more.”

“Two minotaurs and a crippled pegasus who should have been…” Steadfast almost growled. He took a deep breath and continued, “she should have remained in the care of the hospital. If they can amass one hundred times that number then maybe they could have a chance in a fight against the castle’s maids.”

“Somepony’s been counting I see,” Serenade giggled. “Steadfast, Steadfast… come on, you must know what happens when ponies see somepony who has already crossed a threshold and nothing happened to them. More will think about joining in. Some of them will.”

“Mere scum and dredges that have nowhere near the training, equipment, or resolve of our Order. What are they to us?”

“Training can be remedied. Equipment can be provided. Here’s the thing however as the common pony will soon see it. Solar Guard, Lunar Guard. They guard the respective princesses. They are the same,” Serenade sang, mockingly. “At the very least, they will soon be.”

Steadfast Ray clenched his teeth. Fluttershy stayed completely still, hoping they had completely forgotten about her. She really didn’t want that tongue turned against her. Not when none of her friends knew she was here.

“This abomination-led farce is not the same as our Order! The Solar Guard carries on a holy duty!” Steadfast almost screamed, spit leaving his mouth.

Honest Serenade closed her eyes and… did she purr? “Oh, now we are reaching the part I was waiting for. The abomination. Luna’s pet. Your fellow... commander,” she said with glee.

Steadfast Ray stood up and went around his office, standing in front of Honest Serenade. “What are you here for?”

“Ooh, straight to the point? I can’t complain, I like the point we are getting to. By the way, you do know why Kindness is here, don’t you? You can’t be that blind.”

“I have complete trust in my comprehension of miss Fluttershy’s allegiances.”

Honest Serenade laughed, a deep hearty laugh. It made Fluttershy’s hair rise. It sounded so off…

“Love it, I love it. Ok. It doesn’t make any difference anyway. Our dear monster is gonna be away for so long,” she sighed, sadly, “it feels wrong not to have a welcome back gift. So, how would you like a chance to beat that thing down to the ground? Bleed it, maybe cripple it a little if things go too far in the heat of the moment. Prove the superiority of the esteemed Solar Guard? Without getting into trouble with Princess Celestia of course. We don’t want to bring the ire of our holy ruler upon us.”

“... Go on.”

Honest Serenade grinned like a predatory cat.

“Is that enough Applejack? We could make a fire big enough to be seen all the way to Canterlot by now,” Spike said as he unloaded another pile of drywood near the cave.

“Eh, ah think you can stop now. That’s enough,” Applejack said from where she lied on the soft grass under the shade of the trees. The cloak she was forced to wear was a little too hot, but Luna had been very clear that she was not allowed to take it off for any reason if she stepped out of the cave. Applejack supposed that it was better to endure a little discomfort than to take chances and get on Luna’s bad side.

“Great!” Spike wiped the sweat off his brow. Little guy had been working for a couple of hours non stop. “Are we gonna build the fire now?”

“Nope. No fire. Luna’s orders. We ain’t starting a fire unless she says so.”

Spike looked at Applejack with wide, unbelieving eyes. “But… but why did you have me gather up all that?”

“Just a little preview of what’s waiting for ya,” Applejack said. “If you think that’s bad, wait till we get back to Ponyville. Ah’ll have ya moving rocks just for the sake of it.”

“This isn’t fair.” Spike kicked a small branch out of his way. “Twilight is gonna take my comics for sure, you will have me working my scales off, and dad… oh, dad is gonna think up something cruel and unusual!”

Applejack pulled her hat off her eyes. Luckily, brown was an acceptable color as long as she didn’t go waving it about. She never did, but she really had the itch to do so now. Let out an yeehaw and rear up on her hind legs just like cousin Braeburn.

Weird.

“Spike…” Applejack started. “Ah know it seems strange that we had to tie up Raegdan like a prisoner, but Luna-”

“Eh, no biggy,” Spike said with a shrug, resembling too much like Raegdan for a single second. “Mom- Princess Celestia did that a couple of times anyway.”

“What, tie him up? Really?”

“Sure.” Spike sat next to her in the cool shadow of the tree she had chosen. “Sometimes they would talk together while Twilight and I were studying. I saw him faint once during their talks. I guess it must have happened before because Princess Celestia seemed to know what she was supposed to do. She tied him up and put him in another room to wake up.”

Applejack could only stare for a little while. What kind of wacky… “Why?”

“Dunno. They never said why. Dad was fine when he woke up, but mom kept an eye on him and they talked almost nonstop at every opportunity for a few days. I asked dad what that was about but you know him enough by now, he never-”

“Says much, yeah. Ah figured out that much. So… you’re ok then?” Applejack asked, still concerned.

“Yeah, I’m… why did he faint like that now?” Spike asked. Guilt was written all over his face. “It’s my fault, isn’t it? I shouldn’t have asked that.”

Applejack sighed and brought the little guy closer to her in a hug. She was ready to comfort Spike when another voice joined in, doing it for her.

“This was not your fault young drake. If someone is to blame for what occurred it would be me,” Luna said as she walked into the tree covered area they were camping in. Applejack felt the temperature cool just a little bit and almost saw the shadows become a smidge darker.

“But I’m the one who asked him-”

“Something that I should have asked long before. I’ve never had a friend before and I never thought to ask his age. I’m surprised Celestia never did either, though I guess she didn’t think of it for the same reason as me. I didn’t think to ask even when he told me of his kind’s average life expectancy,” Luna sat across them, beneath a different tree.

“How much is that?” Applejack asked.

“On average? About eighty years from what he told me. They can make it to a hundred or more, but from my understanding it depends on a lot of things.”

“How… how old is dad? I mean, I’m a dragon, I’m gonna live for a long time. How long does he have left you think?” Spike asked. Applejack tightened the one hoofed hold she had over him. Shoot, she never thought about that. Even if she had she wouldn’t consider that Spike had reason to start worrying about that, but the baby dragon obviously did now. She ought to have a talk with Twilight when they get back, let her know about Spike’s worries.

Luna shook her head, looking dejected. “I do not know. That’s the problem. I do not think he knows either. Eighty years… if that’s true, by the accounts of his travels, the sheer distances alone, he should be… Gah, this is frustrating!”

“What’s the problem? Why doesn’t he know? How can he not know such a simple thing?” Applejack asked, genuinely shocked that something so normal had turned into such a big deal.

Spike was thoughtful. “It’s not the first time dad forgets things…” Applejack looked at him curiously, her expression urging him to explain further. “One time, after he got released for hurting a pony really bad -he stayed in the dungeons for a long time for that- he had forgotten how to read.”

“To read? How can ya forget how to read?”

Spike simply shrugged. To him it simply was something that happened as far as his father was concerned.

“You see part of the problem now,” Luna said.

“Part?”

“It’s… complicated. It’s also something I’d rather discuss with everyone present if it comes to that. We need to be very careful. A misstep here could have dire consequen-”

There was a small cave where they camped. Nothing spectacular, more like a small room dug into the stony hill, a few meters deep at best. However, it was cozy enough to sleep in without needing to bother setting up any tents. It was where they had left Raegdan to sleep.

It was where Rarity’s shout came from.

“Applejack! Help!”

Luna, Applejack, and Spike ran. Luna was leading ahead with Spike far behind them, his little legs not letting him keep up. Luna was about to go through the cave entrance when something barreled into her and knocked her a couple meters back and down on the ground.

It was Rarity.

Applejack changed course so she could check on her friend and the princess. While she was passing in front of the cave’s mouth she felt a rush of air as something jumped over her. She turned her head and saw Raegdan landing on the other side of her.

“Raegdan? What are you doing? What happened?” she asked.

Luna pushed Rarity off her, the white unicorn landing next to the princess with a loud, pained eep. “Applejack, stay away from him!” Luna yelled.

Applejack almost disobeyed that order and tried to approach Raegdan. The glint of silver light on his right hand instead warned her off much more effectively. He was holding a knife. Details she hadn’t given attention to came to the fore. There was blood on his wrists and around his mouth. His eyes were wild, and his head was swivelling around in little increments, trying to keep everything in sight. He kept his stance low, legs spread apart, blade ready. He was talking, muttering to be exact, but not in Equestrian. He was talking in his own language.

Worst of all; he didn’t seem to recognize any of them.

Applejack stepped back. She didn’t know what was happening but she’d be one stupid pony if she even entertained the notion that trying to go near him right now was a good idea. He seemed to relax a bit when she distanced herself. She took another step back and so did he, getting further apart from each other. Luna was slowly getting up, trying to attract as little attention as possible. Applejack hoped she had a plan.

If she did it was probably completely ruined when Spike caught up to them. The small dragon quickly ran towards Raegdan before anypony could warn him off. “Hey dad! You’re ok!”

Raegdan, moving exceedingly fast, grabbed the green scaled child and brought him in front of his torso, holding him up with his left arm. His right hand held the blade right below his chin, the sharp point ready to pierce through his neck.

“Dad?”

Pinkie swallowed the mulch that used to be a respectable pile of cookies with an audible gulping sound and a little more effort than ponies gave her credit for. Making your throat stretch wide enough for all that to go down into your belly all at once is not as easy as it looks.

Princess Celestia was looking at her with wide eyes. “There is some cake left if you want it…” she said, sounding hypnotized.

Pinkie Pie nodded cheerily and licked her lips as Princess Celestia pushed forward a double decker chocolate cake. There was only one piece missing from it, located completely untouched in a small plate in front of the princess.

The ravenous hole of darkness opened wide and closed again. The only sound apart from chewing was a clap, as air rushed to fill the sudden gap. Princess Celestia’s jaw fell one more millimeter closer to the ground.

“Are you going to eat that?” Pinkie Pie asked, pointing at the lone surviving slice of cake. Princess Celestia shook her head.

Clap.

“Phew!” Pinkie Pie lied back on her chair, rubbing her pink, distended stomach. Celestia’s still open jaw dropped open a little more as she watched Pinkie’s stomach slowly, but visibly, go back to its normal dimensions.

“I can’t believe I was arrogant enough to think I have seen everything…” Celestia whispered.

“You know what would be great right now?” Pinkie Pie said to her ruler. “A nice, sweet cupcake to chase it all down.”

Celestia’s eyes wandered over the desolate carts that only minutes before carried enough pastries, sweets, and snacks to make a bunch of ponies comatose . “I’m… afraid we are out,” Celestia said, with equal parts regret and relief. “How about I pour us some more tea to help us digest?”

“Ok. Do you have more sugar?”

“I… yes, I think there’s some left. Here you- it’s ok Pinkie Pie, I’m fine with just cre- oh, I guess I can make do with plain tea just as well.”

“Thanks princess! Hey, you know what we should do? We should go to the kitchen and bake some more cupcakes since you are out! I have this idea for a triple decked cupcake with different frostings and chocolate chips. I’m not sure which frostings I should use. I have narrowed them down to twelve. Hey, we can make all, uh… one thousand, three hundred and twenty of the possible combinations and try them out! We can make the ultimate royal cupcake.”

Celestia’s insides rumbled their protest at the idea of having to chew their way through such a number. “Maybe later. I think I’d prefer we talk a bit first.”

“Okie dokie! About what?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Twilight and Raegdan. Twilight is hiding something from me. I have become very worried these last few days.”

“Oh.”

Celestia waited patiently, drinking her tea. She let a minute pass before continuing. “You are being very quiet Pinkie Pie. Based on Twilight’s letters and what I have personally seen, this is a little out of character.”

“Sorry. I’m not sure if I should even say anything,” Pinkie Pie admitted.

“Has Twilight or Raegdan forbidden you from talking to me?” Celestia asked.

“Nope, just the voices in my head. I can ignore them a little though. What do you want to know?”

Celestia paused for a second, obviously torn in asking a million different things. She settled for her original course. “Twilight has been trying to hide it from me, but I can plainly see how strained her relationship with Raegdan has become these last few days. I’ve noticed her showing signs of derision towards him, sometimes less, sometimes more. Raegdan himself seems to be extremely disappointed in himself. Of course, he has been trying to play it off as something inconsequential. The last time this happened Pinkie Pie, I had to stop one of my closest friends from killing himself. If you can, I’d like you to help me stop things from reaching this point again.”

Pinkie Pie nodded. “I’ll try my best princess. I don’t want either of them to get hurt.”

“Pinkie Pie, what happened?” Celestia asked.

“Um, I’m pretty sure none of them would want me to go into details…” Pinkie Pie said, scratching her head.

“In your own words then,” Princess Celestia spurred her on. “What is wrong?”

“I think Twilight is very, very tired of dad lying to her. I think she is blaming herself for things that she shouldn’t and she is also blaming dad for not being “not-dad”. Mostly, I think she is very confused. That bad mare we met yesterday isn’t helping any.”

“Bad mare? Who do you refer to?”

“Honest Serenade,” Pinkie Pie said. “She kept telling Twilight that Raegdan doesn’t really care for her.”

Princess Celestia snorted angrily. “Honest Serenade? Oh, that complicates everything. Raegdan has been insisting I stay out of their feud, and I have done so as long as they kept it to threats and insults only. Pinkie Pie, whatever she says about Raegdan she says out of hate. Don’t put any weight in her words. Make sure Twilight knows that.”

“She really hates dad, doesn’t she?”

“It’s so weird to hear someone else apart from Twilight and Spike call him that… Yes, she does. She can be very nasty to anypony she sets her sights on, though nothing can ever approach the bitterness she directs at Raegdan.”

“Does she even like anypony? She seems to hate everypony she meets. I bet she doesn’t have a lot of friends…” Pinkie Pie murmured, sadly.

“No, no she doesn’t. She isn’t all that bad however. She completely reworked how orphanages operate in the last two years, making sure the foals get quickly adopted to worthy families and checked on regularly. If there is somepony she likes it’s the orphans. But it’s not her I want to talk about. What lies is Twilight tired of?” Celestia asked.

“Well, everything,” Pinkie Pie said, jumping up from her chair and spreading her hooves wide. “Twilight doesn’t know even his real name!”

“Oooh,” Celestia whistled. “I can see why she would be upset if that’s how she thinks about it. Though to be honest, he hasn’t been lying so much as, ah, avoiding answering to her. There are no easy answers that he can give and he has been trying to keep her from knowing how bad things can get for some.”

“He told her they would have a talk when he gets back,” Pinkie Pie admitted.

“Good. It might clear up the air between them. I’ll have a talk with him before that, make sure he understands that it’s time for some certain secrets to be told.” Celestia stood up. “Pinkie Pie, if you need my help in any way, don’t hesitate to ask. I do what I can but it seems a lot of ponies have been hiding things from me,” Celestia said, letting some of her own bitterness show.

“Well… I was supposed to organize a big, proper party for Luna, so ponies can meet her and see that she isn’t bad, but I’m worried they won’t accept the invites again…” Pinkie Pie said hesitantly.

“Hmm. I do believe I may have a solution. If we can push it back for a little while we can pull off the good old bait and switch. Ooh, this will be fun! How do you feel about taking over an already existing event?” Celestia asked.

Pinkie Pie put on an eyepatch. “I think I’m ok with it.”

“Put him down, now!” Applejack yelled.

That was obviously the wrong thing to do. Raegdan might not understand her words, but he certainly understood her tone. He backed up a step and used the dagger to push Spike’s chin upwards. The baby dragon was ready to burst into tears.

Luna attempted to move in a better angle of attack without Raegdan seeing her. The biped was not fooled however. He barked a word at her and tightened his hold on Spike enough to make him cry out in discomfort. Luna froze where she stood, glaring daggers at Raegdan’s direction.

“Can’t ya talk to him?” Applejack asked Luna, helplessly looking while the little dragon that she was supposed to take care of was endangered.

“I can’t,” Luna answered, her voice cold. “I don’t think he understands what we are saying.”

Darn our luck, Applejack thought. He forgets how to read, now he forgot how to speak and understand Equestrian on top of forgetting who they are? “Well, can’t ya talk to him in his own language? You must have picked up a few words, haven’t you?”

“I can call him a fornicator of his own progenitor, but I don’t see how that would help. We need to wait for our chance-”

“Chance, schmance! Come on big guy, it’s us,” Applejack pleaded. “You remember us, don’t you? Come on Raegdan.” Applejack spoke slowly and clearly.

Raegdan remain unaffected. At least until Applejack said his name. He looked at her, visibly shocked. “That’s it. Raegdan. You remember? Raegdan!”

Raegdan screamed at her. His left arm twisted and tightened its grip, Spike screaming himself as the dagger pushed hard at the soft scales of his throat. He roared alien words at her, a stream of hatred and fury directed right for her. Applejack dashed backwards and fell on her flank in her haste to distance herself and stop him from harming Spike.

“What… what happened? What did he say?” Applejack asked, shocked, when Raegdan stopped shouting. He was showing his gritted teeth at her, like a rabid dog.

“I believe he called you a fornicator of your own progenitor, among other things. Stay back, don’t antagonize him,” Luna instructed. “And don’t say his name anymore.”

Raegdan was slowly and steadily stepping backwards, prodding behind him with his foot before setting his weight on it. If they hoped he would trip and fall they would be extremely disappointed. He had reached the trees when Applejack heard Leaf Stream’s voice behind her.

“Applejack, out of the way, now! Go gramps go, just like I told you!”

Applejack glanced behind her and immediately got out of the way, barely keeping a scream from erupting. Solid Charge and Cast Iron had dropped on all fours and galloped towards Raegdan. Solid Charge was using only one hand, his broken arm kept tight against his chest. His enormous horns were hazardly moving up and down at the rhythm of his broken gallop. Despite his disadvantage, the former soldier was moving faster than Cast Iron.

Solid Charge reached Raegdan. Luna’s companion was watching the outstanding, horny mass galloping for him. He was standing right next to a thick tree trunk, leaving him with only one way to dodge. He waited till the last second and half leaped, half crouched to the left of Solid Charge’s path.

Exactly where Cast Iron was headed.

Raegdan saw him coming. He took a half step back and threw the baby dragon towards him, turning his back on the charging minotaurs and starting to run while Spike was still in the air. Cast Iron leaped and snatched Spike, holding tightly onto him as he fell on his shoulder and rolled on the rough ground, his charge broken.

“Got him!” Cast Iron shouted in triumph. Solid Charge ran to his side to help him and Spike get up.

“Back off now, both of you. Princess, he’s all yours now!” Leaf Stream called out as she came out from the shadowed entrance.

Luna didn’t have to be told. Raegdan barely had time to make three running steps before a furious Alicorn was on his back. Luna’s front hooves hit Raegdan’s head from the sides like a set of cymbals while her back hooves kicked his legs behind his knees. Raegdan fell down, clutching his head. Luna jumped off him and strode to his side.

Raegdan was still holding the dagger. He half rose, swaying on his feet and struggling to maintain a semblance of balance, and tried to slice at Luna’s head. Luna simply turned aside, letting the edge bypass her harmlessly. Raegdan barely managed to stand straight up, his legs shaking. Luna easily dodged the next few strikes, his swipes too broad and too far from their actual target, and kicked the side of his knee. His leg bent slightly at a direction it was not meant to go. Raegdan fell down on his knees again. Luna used her chance to remove his dagger by biting on his hand while he was distracted by the pain. The dagger fell down and Luna kicked it far away.

“I believe it is time to finish up with this foolishness. Raegdan, you must listen to-”

At the mention of his name Raegdan growled, a deep guttural sound. He leaped forwards, attempting to grab and wrestle Luna.

Luna didn’t even blink at the attack. Raegdan was too dizzy and confused by the smashing twin blow she delivered on his head to fight efficiently. She ducked low and met him halfway. Right as Raegdan was on top of her she brought her hoof up, the shall shred of strength she put on her blow was enhanced by Raegdan’s weight as it was brought down on her.

Hoof met crotch. Unseen by Luna, the minotaurs also went down in sympathy, clutching their own parts. Applejack and Rarity winced at the sight. A choked laugh came from behind them all.

Applejack could barely believe her eyes. Luna took him down in less than half a minute and he didn’t even manage to touch her.

“Lie down and don’t try this again. I know every single weak point, you showed them to me. You need to listen,” Luna said to the moaning figure lying down in a fetal position. “But if you can’t understand me this is- ah, of course. This might help regaining your trust.” Luna’s horn lit up. An extremely small object was lifted from behind her neckpiece, tied on a string around her neck. Raegdan’s half lidded, teary eyes widened at the sight.

Applejack wasn’t near enough to see what it was apart than the fact that it was black and tiny.

Raegdan dug underneath his shirt with one hand, the other still cradling his injury. He had a similar object tied around his own neck. His eyes wandered from one black… pendant, perhaps, to the other. His eyes seemed to clear and confusion reigned on his features.

“L- Luna?” he gasped, his voice filled with pain. “I’m- where am I? What the hell hap-” He lost his grip on the string he held and violently threw up on the ground in front of him. Luna stepped back to avoid getting splashed. “Oh heavens. Did- did you kick me in the-”

“Yes. You deserved it, trust me,” Luna answered.

“I bet.” He rolled on his back, gripping his boys tight. He was sweating and his face was red. “Next time kill me instead, please?” he croaked.

There ought to be a campfire in Applejack’s opinion. The sun might still be up for a little while longer, but issues like this, out in the wild, you solve them over a burning fire. Something they could all congregate around. Now, they were just standing around the cave, some of them lying down, some of them sitting, some of them standing. It felt wrong somehow. Cold.

You’d think they would have done this sooner, but no. Luna told them all to go to sleep while she and Raegdan were talking through what happened on their own first. From what little Applejack managed to see, it wasn’t much of a conversation as much as Luna giving him something to stand on. Luna seemed to know what drove him crazy like that. He had started to remember what happened and he had huddled himself against one of the trees. Luna was talking to him like Fluttershy would when she tried to approach a wounded or sick animal. Applejack left them to it. Her presence there wouldn’t help at all. Raegdan would try to keep up his tough act if she stayed.

Weariness, stress, and the day’s events took their toll and everypony was asleep pretty fast despite their misgivings. Spike had been too shaken up at first to sleep. He was full of questions and fear. He wanted to ask his adopted father what happened, why he threatened him like that, but at the same time he wanted to stay away from him, for a little while at least. The baby dragon didn’t say anything like that out loud, but his body language spoke volumes.

It was Rarity who had come to his rescue. The white unicorn coddled him and praised him for his bravery. The young dragon fell all too easily before Rarity’s wiles and smiles. Rarity kept him too occupied to let him think about what happened and, if they were lucky, Raegdan would say the right words to keep Spike from being hurt from this day’s events.

Raegdan was now inside the cave along with all of them, as far away from them as he could get... or as far away from him as they could get. He was keeping himself busy donning his armor. Applejack had wondered in the past couple of weeks -had it really been only so little time?- if he kept his armor on almost all the time out of paranoia or if he liked the effect it had on ponies. Watching him wearing it, she asked herself if it was at least partly to save time. He inspected each piece and buckle before strapping in on his body, testing out if it was tight enough or not. He moved and flexed his limbs, checking their range of motion, and only when he was satisfied did he move to the next one, and oh boy, there were plenty of them! It probably took him a good half hour at least to put that thing on.

Applejack was the first to talk, breaking the awkward silence. Nopony knew how to start, but she wasn’t going to start hiding behind her own hoof. “Alright princess, Raegdan. Could one of ya kindly please explain to me what the hay happened today?”

“Not much to say, is there?” Leaf Stream said. “The guy who’s supposed to be giving us orders is crazy.”

Raegdan was leaning with his back against the cave’s wall. He had started putting on the pieces around his chest. He was watching them but didn’t try to deny Leaf Stream’s accusations.

“Nothing to say to that?” Least Stream asked. “Just gonna- yeah, you are just gonna stare at me? You beat the crap out of us, you almost ripped my stitches out and bit Solid Charge’s hand hard enough to almost cut a piece off, you held your own kid hostage, and you are just going to stand there? Seriously?”

“What do you expect me to do?” Raegdan asked.

“Anything apart from standing there like a dolt! Answer some questions perhaps,” Leaf Stream said. “Also, and I know that this is extremely crazy but stay with me here, apologize to us? Your friends? Your own kid?”

Luna raised her hoof, silently asking Leaf Stream to calm down. “This is what we intend to do. What questions do you have Leaf Stream?”

“Ok, first question; Is this gonna happen again? Second question; If it does, can I be the one to uppercut his balls next time?”

“Would you mind treating this situation with the gravity it deserves, please?” Rarity yelled, losing her usual patience. “Poor Spike could have been traumatized by this.”

“We’ve all been traumatized here missy. Some more than others. Forgive me if I’m trying to look at the bright side.”

“Is that what you consider the bright side you insensitive b-”

Applejack cut them off, striding to the middle of them. “Alright, everypony knock it off. We all want answers and to be assured this won’t happen again. Luna, this ain’t gonna happen again, will it?”

Luna exchanged a look with Raegdan. Raegdan turned his eyes away almost immediately. “We… cannot know. I don’t believe so, but even if it does we all know what to do now. Is this enough?”

Applejack glanced at the frowning faces around her. “Ah’m… gonna go out on a limb and say no. Not yet. Ok, did this have anything to do with-” Applejack paused, hesitating. “With a certain question?” She continued.

“You mean when little flame asked me how old I am? Yeah, it did.” Raegdan answered gruffly.

“...ok, ah admit, I thought outright saying it might make ya go all crazy again. Care to explain what happened?”

“It’s… personal,” Raegdan said, rubbing his face.

“I think you made it clear that there isn’t much room for personal issues when you questioned me. Or are you exempt from that?” Leaf Stream asked, scowling.

“This is different.”

“Why? Because it’s about you? You almost slitted the kid’s throat, did the princess tell you that?”

“That wasn’t me! I would never hurt little flame!” Raegdan shouted.

“Try telling that to the kid, why don’t you?” Solid Charge scoffed.

Raegdan glowered at the minotaur. “Don’t you try and judge me after what you let that griffin try to-”

“The difference “sir” is that I apologized to miss Rarity. I am here, as she asked us to be, as penance for what I almost allowed to happen to her. I’m still here despite realizing that you have no business trying to lead as much as a bunch of baby ducks to a pond. So with all due respect, “sir”, don’t try to stand on a higher moral ground than me. At least I stopped digging a hole beneath my hooves and I don’t put the blame on ghosts and possession!”

Cast Iron put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Hey, calm down buddy. You don’t wanna mess with-”

“Like tartarus I will!” Solid Charge yelled. “I’m not doing the same mistake twice in a row. Leaf Stream is right.” He pointed a finger at Raegdan and addressed Rarity. “I’m sorry miss, but either he explains himself adequately or I’m taking you, Cast Iron, and the kid, back to Canterlot.” He turned back to Raegdan. “And you will have to kill me if you want to stop me!”

“Alright, why don’t we all calm down for a bit?” Applejack said, getting in the middle once more. If this thing erupted in her face she was going to get thoroughly trotted on. She tried not to think about it. “Come on Raegdan, Solid Charge has a point. Speak to us, be-”

“Honest?” Raegdan spat. He threw down the pauldron he had been trying to tie on himself. “Fine. Just fu- fine!”

They waited. Raegdan took his time, calming himself down. Nopony complained. They all needed a few minutes.

“Fine. I’ll explain why I went backwards there for a little while. I think it’s quite obvious to all of you that I’m not from around here?” Raegdan asked, looking at all of them. Luna moved to her usual position, right next to Raegdan, giving her silent support.

“I’ve certainly never seen or heard about anything like you, “sir”,” Solid Charge said, You do resemble minotaurs in general shape but apart from that…”

“Yeah. Thing is I’m from pretty far away,” Raegdan explained. “I’m not gonna bother you with distances. Further than you can imagine is good enough.” He closed his eyes. “I left home when I was… in my twenties? I remember my birthday when I turned twenty but I’m having trouble recalling the ones after. I vividly remember getting a new helmet for a- a mode of transport my kind uses. It was custom made. I crashed and broke it a few months later. It did it’s job fine though, saved my head from turning into a broken melon.” His interlude was broken by Luna’s gentle cough. “The point is I’m much older than my twenties now. I never thought how much before. I never thought about it,” he hissed.

“I’m an idiot. I’m the greatest moron that ever lived. That’s my main problem,” Raegdan said, angrily. “I should have thought of it. I never meant to leave my home you know. It was an accident, a random thing that could have happened to anyone, and it happened to me, my friends, and… huh.” He paused suddenly.

“What?” Applejack asked.

Raegdan turned to Luna. “I had a girlfriend. I had forgotten about her,” he said with wonder. “I know she died but can’t remember what happened to her…”

“We’re sorry for your loss,” Rarity said.

Raegdan shrugged off Rarity’s condolences and sombre tone, opting to revel in his rediscovered memories instead. He was no longer talking to them but Luna, who mirrored his own growing smile. “I remember her now at least. Crap, I can’t believe I forgot her. She was a tiny thing. Reached me about this high.” Raegdan brought his hand somewhat lower than the height of his shoulder. “She was so friendly with everyone, she was like a small angel of my own. She even rode on my shoulders from time to time. Hah, she and Celestia would have made great friends! She had this adorable way of fake shrieking if I teased her, always made me…” The joyous smile that had pulled his lips apart died instantly.

“I remember how she died now. It- she didn’t deserve that. It was my fault, like always. I should have- I was so scared, I didn’t even try-” Luna spread one of her wings behind him, covering his back. Raegdan trembled for a few seconds before regaining his composure.

He rubbed at his eyes, suddenly looking so exhausted that Applejack could feel her own muscles hurting. “I think I stopped caring, stopped being scared, soon after that. I became who you saw out there. I spent so much time, so much effort. I did so many things I shouldn’t have done, all for the sake of going back home. If I made it back and saw my family again it would all be worth it then, wouldn’t it? I abandoned friends. I left people to die. I killed, and killed, and killed. I wasted everything that ever mattered for a chance I never had,” he finished.

“Ok, that explains nothing,” Leaf Stream said. “Can you make it a little clearer for us? Maybe stop talking in riddles?”

Raegdan opened his eyes and addressed Applejack. “Luna told you how much my kind’s average lifespan is, right?”

“Oh, yeah, she did,” Applejack agreed, breaking out of the trance she had gone into. “Eighty years.” A thought came to her. “Ya ain’t dying out of old age or something are you?” Spike gasped when he heard her.

Raegdan chuckled. “No. No, that’s not it. My friends were about my age. My… my sister, I had a sister, was younger than me. Eight years younger I think. My mother and father were a little over their forties, that’s what I think at least.” He signed and put a palm over his eyes, holding it there. “I’ve been travelling for so, so very long. I had to cross mountain ranges, oceans, deserts, I crossed whole continents. All of it, so many times it became monotonous in a way. It all blended together. All I remember is- is walking. Walking and running. There were also… delays for other reasons. A lot of people didn’t trust me. Others feared me. Others wanted things from me. It caught up to me so many times to have its fun. And I forget. I keep forgetting so much. Maybe my mind is too broken or maybe I forget so it doesn’t break any more. I can’t recall even half of the places I’ve been. I don’t know how much I remember. Almost everything? Almost nothing? I have scars that I can’t remember getting.”

He pulled his shirt up, showing them his ravaged body. He pointed at a row of circle-like scars that crossed his torso diagonally. “Something bit me, almost ripped me in half, and I can’t remember it. I can’t remember treating the wounds, I can’t remember healing from them. But I might remember tomorrow. Then again, I might never.”

Applejack started to get a sense of where this was heading, the general shape of what brought Raegdan to that fit of madness. She looked at Rarity, wanting to see if her friend had managed to reach the end of the still misty path before her. Rarity was smart, smarter than everypony gave her credit for. She had already seen way ahead than all of them. She was looking at Raegdan with a horrified expression, her hoof covering her mouth, and her eyes were full of pity.

“Raegdan…” Rarity whispered, “how long ago should you have died?”

“I don’t know. A long time ago probably. I can’t be only as old as I look and I fear that if it wasn’t for the scars and what I’ve been through I’d look younger. Have I changed at all in how long you’ve known me little flame?” Raegdan asked Spike. “Have I aged at all?”

“I- I don’t know,” Spike said, trembling. “I can’t tell- no, I don’t think you have. You’d have to ask mom to be sure.”

“I intend to,” Raegdan answered, looking at the shaking dragon with new sadness in his eyes.

“I don’t get it. So you are immortal or something?” Leaf Stream said. “Well, whoop de doo, what’s the problem? Shouldn’t you be happy about that?”

“Leaf Stream,” Rarity explained, “his kind doesn’t live anywhere near that long.”

“Yeah, I get that. That’s why I say he might be immortal or close to it. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is,” Raegdan said with a dead look, “that even in the best case possible, if I returned home now all that I would find would be the graves of my family. There hasn’t been a home for me to return to for a long time now.”

“Oh.”

“That’s if I just… don’t age properly. Maybe I’m a hundred years old now and I’m going to fall dead in a year or two. Or maybe… maybe I’m as old as Luna or Celestia. Maybe I’ve been home already and I didn’t recognize it. Maybe I- maybe my sister had children or grandchildren and I…heh, maybe I’ve met my nieces or grandnieces already,” Raegdan said, starting to break up in hysterical laughter.

“You know, I could have gone all “here’s uncle Raegdan,” and then, ha, haha, I could have shot-” Raegdan coughed as he tried to stop himself from laughing long enough to finish his sentence. “I might have done it already, who knows? Ha,” he laughed, “I certainly don’t! Oh heavens, wouldn’t that fit the bloody theme so well?”

Raegdan pushed himself off the wall and limped towards the exit, his hands trying unsuccessfully to choke any more of those terrible barks of laughter escaping his lips. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he managed to say with difficulty. “I gotta- I gotta go out and- ha, haha, hahaha!”

Luna glanced between the exit and them, her front hoof half raised.

“Go,” Rarity urged. “You can’t leave him alone now!” The princess rushed to follow the fading mad laughter of her friend.

Solid Charge sat down carefully next to his fellow minotaur. None of them spoke. They just sat, waiting, looking at the rocks opposite of them. Leaf Stream was examining Raegdan’s leftover pieces of armor from where she stood. Rarity and Spike had bunched together, Rarity’s hoof stroking his small head. Spike got his wish. His adopted father wasn’t going to leave him any time soon from the sound of things if Raegdan was right.

Applejack felt like she was in a funeral with the way they all stood around, silently and with their heads down. She was in a sense. Raegdan had buried his hopes of seeing his family right here in front of them. Applejack knew how it was to admit the truth in front of others, to actually say the words. No wonder he didn’t want to talk at first. Death was not real, not as long as you didn’t say it out loud. You always harbored a bit of hope that somepony would come one day and tell you there was a horrible mistake. That they would tell you that your parents were fine and coming home soon.

Until you said it out loud. It becomes real then, and it hits you hard. It shreds you. Applejack knew, and she also knew that for years afterwards she blamed herself for doing it. She had woken up so many times thinking to herself that if she hadn’t opened her mouth, if she just kept silent and waited, her parents would come back one day.

Stupid, yeah. You still believed it though.

“He’s crazy, right? I seriously mean it. He’s insane,” Leaf Stream said.

Solid Charge tried to scratch his skin beneath his cast, but his fingers were too big to reach down there. He huffed in resignation. “I ain’t sure what to think about all that,” he said.

“Me neither,” Cast Iron agreed. “Imagine trying to spend so much time going back to your people only to-”

Solid Charge shoved him lightly. “Bad choice of words. I don’t want to think about it.”

“He said he had friends with him,” Rarity said with a deep sorrow in her eyes.

Applejack took off her hat. She stared at it. It felt easier than looking at everypony else. “Marefriend too. Ah guess he saw them all… go.”

“Perhaps not all of them. He said he left them. Abandoned them if I’m not mistaken. I wonder why?”

“Perhaps they decided to stop,” Cast Iron said. “They quit trying to go back if they had been too far by then.”

“Gods, this is a depressing line of thought,” Solid Charge joined in once more. “If that happened, I doubt it went smoothly or they would have let him go on alone without an argument. I barely know him and I can guess how that would turn out. No wonder he went insane.”

“My dad is not insane,” Spike muttered. “He will be fine, just watch. He’s always fine.” Rarity patted Spike’s back with her hoof. She shook her head at the rest of them behind his head, telling them not to challenge him on this.

“So… we let it slide?” Leaf Stream asked. “Just like that? One sob story and it’s all well and done?”

“I don’t know if it’s ok but… what else can we do?” Solid Charge asked. “Are you staying miss Rarity?”

“Yes, I am,” Rarity stated proudly. “I don’t run away from my friends at the first sign of trouble.”

“In that case…” The two minotaurs exchanged a short glance. “We are staying too. We said we owe you and we meant it.”

“Leaf Stream?” Applejack said. “What about you?”

Leaf Stream sighed deeply. “Alright. I think I’m gonna give him a pass too, just this once. Only this once though, ok?” She looked at them warningly. “And if it happens again, remember, I called dibs on the crotchkick.”

“Was having Solid Charge and Cast Iron attack Raegdan like that your idea Leaf Stream?” Luna asked.

Leaf Stream emptied the last bite out of her bowl with guilt in her face. It wasn’t fun to eat while others watched and went hungry. Applejack, Rarity, Leaf Stream, and Spike were the only ones who ate today. Even the minotaurs were able to get something solid in their stomach when Luna managed to catch a rabbit. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough for all of them, so Raegdan and her chose to completely starve this day, citing greater familiarity with enduring hardships.

In Applejack’s opinion it was this exact way they took discomfort in stride that made it hard for anypony to keep grudges. Luna was a princess and she hadn’t slept or eaten while keeping her own untrained guards as safe and in as much comfort as she could provide under the circumstances. Raegdan was pretty much the same, though in his case he didn’t seem to consider doing that out of any reason apart from being used to it - Spike’s case being the only exception where he actually thought about the dragon’s comfort. He had stared back at Cast Iron with obvious puzzlement when the minotaur thanked him and Luna, like he had trouble understanding why for a few seconds.

Leaf Stream stumbled her words at the unwanted attention. “I, er, yes princess. I thought if he saw them commit to attacking him he would try to escape, hopefully letting Spike go, rather than keep using him as a hostage.”

“How did you know he wouldn’t do something rash instead?”

“Personal experience,” Leaf Stream said, showing off her amputated wings. “You see something massive charge towards you, you try to get out of its way, training be damned.”

“Hmm. Your mark. What does it mean to you?”

“My cutie mark?” Leaf Stream turned her head to stare at her mark. It was a few leaves, colored lighter green than her coat, tumbling in the wind. “I was very good with currents. I always had a sixth sense about how the air would shift and what would happen, no matter how bad the weather got. I could have become a good weather pony, but I decided to become a guard instead. Why?”

“Nothing,” Luna answered. “Just thinking about translations and potential. Get ready, we will be leaving when it gets dark.” She headed towards the loaded cart where Raegdan was unpacking some of their gear. A couple of their boxes had opened, revealing that they had brought along plenty of weapons and even Raegdan’s second set of armor along with the one they had made for Luna.

Raegdan was stringing one of the bows. He would head north and move parallel to their own course, on his own. He hoped he would make a good target for something to come after him if he was alone, and secure some meat for himself and the others. He also hoped he would be able to spot if anypony was searching for them after all.

He seemed to be fine if you ignored the random, reasonless bouts of giggling he burst into every now and then. Everyone stood still and watched him carefully every time he did that. He pretended he didn’t notice.

Applejack moved to Rarity’s side. The white unicorn was watching the darkening sky with a smile. “Ever heard of the “use yourself as bait” hunting method?” she asked.

“Oh please darling, you sound as if any of us should be surprised by now. You are not worried, are you?”

“Nah. Ah hope it might help him clear his head. How did his talk with Spike go?”

“Fine. Everything’s been settled.”

“So Spike is ok?” Applejack asked, worry creeping into her voice. “He ain’t gonna be hating on Raegdan too, is he? Ah reckon it really wasn’t his fault for what happened and ah don’t think he would really hurt Spike if it came to that.”

“I don’t believe he would either. If somepony had pushed him I believe he would have snapped back to his senses rather than hurt Spike, ending this much sooner. He didn’t even bruise him you know. If Raegdan repeats this again however, excused or not, I will castrate him.”

“So Spike forgave him?”

“Please, Spikey has a heart of gold.” Rarity turned her eyes back to the sky. “He is worried about his father right now, not what happened. Spike will be fine. As long as Raegdan keeps up his tough act a little longer, Spike will be once again convinced he is invincible.”

“True. That’s good for something at least. It was pretty damn scary to see him break apart like that earlier. That laughter will be sticking with me in mah dreams,” Applejack said, shaking her head.

“I know Applejack, I know. He took it better than I would have, even so. I am worried that it hasn’t sunk in completely however.”

“Oh boy. Ya ain’t thinking we are gonna have a repeat, will we?”

“I have no doubt in my mind that it will take him more than just a few hours to come to terms with what he told us. Right now he is just ignoring it. I think he’d better find a good target for his frustrations tonight or somepony is gonna be turned to paste when it does. Keep a close eye on him, will you?”

“Ah will. You too.” Applejack frowned. “What the hay are you looking up for anyway? Something wrong with the sky now?”

“Oh Applejack, you haven’t realized?” Rarity asked, her eyes shining. “It’s gonna be nighttime soon!”

“Uh, yeah. We are getting ready to depart. So what?”

“No, no. It’s gonna be nightfall… the moon is going to come up and Luna is right here,” Rarity explained, shaking with excitement.

“Oh. Ah see.”

“You do realize that nopony has seen Princess Luna raise the moon for over a millennium? Out here she will have no choice but to perform her duty publicly. Oh, it’s going to be such a sight!”

“Alright, alright,” Applejack laughed. “Don’t go all fanfilly on me now!”

“I’m off,” Raegdan announced, loud enough for everypony to hear him. “Luna will stay with you. I’ll either be back with you by morning or waiting for you if I find a good camp site before you do. Keep safe and quiet, alright?” He pointed a finger on Rarity. “And no lights, I don’t care how much you are scared of mud.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Luna warned him.

“If I don’t, won’t I break the greatest streak of fail and stupidity creation has witnessed?” Raegdan said. He sighed when he saw Luna scowl. “I’ll be careful and I’ll be back in time. I promise.”

“Ya know, ah can’t help but wonder if it’s wise to let him go off on his own now that he’s actually gone.” Applejack whispered to Luna.

Luna turned to address both Rarity and Applejack. The hard, half-bored expression was replaced by one of frustration and worry. “What else was I supposed to do? Keep him tied up like a prisoner? No, I had to send him away from Spike and the rest of you until he can make himself forget once more.” Luna lowered her voice so none of the others could hear her. “He’s too scared to accept the truth. By the time he’s back he will only half-remember what happened. Denial will serve for now, but at the same moment he will be a ticking bomb. When he returns keep an eye on him. Keep him busy until we are back in Canterlot. Celestia will be able to help.” Applejack and Rarity nodded their understanding.

They watched turn and leave under the waning daylight. He had armed himself with a bow and a spear apart from his usual gear. He didn’t look back and they didn’t say anything. They just watched.

Spike decided he didn’t want to stand there and watch him go.

The little dragon yelled for the armored figure to wait. Raegdan stopped and the green scaled child managed an outstanding jump that reached Raegdan chest height. Raegdan grabbed him in mid air. The minotaurs at the side, along with Luna and Leaf Stream stood a little more rigid as they watched.

“Hey little flame. Look, I’m sorry for-”

“Nevermind that. Are you gonna be back soon? I tell you, this place is scary! I keep hearing noises. I know Princess Luna and the rest are good but… can you come back a little sooner? Please?” Spike pleaded.

Applejack couldn’t tell what Raegdan was thinking, not with the full helmet he wore. Bless Spike’s little heart though, this request full of trust really must have helped. Raegdan regained some of the smoothness he had lost while speaking. “Tell you what. I’ll be back in a few hours whether I find something or not. At worst I can look for something to eat tomorrow again. What do you say?”

“Ok. Hey, if you find any berries-”

“I’ll get them for you,” Raegdan laughed. “Just stay near Luna and the girls until I’m back, ok? Don’t go wandering off on your own.”

“In the dark? I’m not crazy! I’ll stay on the cart until you are back.”

“Good.” Raegdan patted Spike’s cheek and put him down gently. “I’ll be back soon with some goodies.” He waved goodbye at Spike and the rest and left once more, his steps lighter. They watched him go until his figure vanished behind the curve of the hills.

“Or we could do that,” Luna whispered to Applejack, looking extremely surprised.

Luna and the rest kept busy while waiting for darkness to fall by securing everything on the cart, trying to minimize the shifting of weight and clattering sounds while they would be pulling. Rarity kept turning her attention from the sky, where the first pinprick stars had started to show, to Luna.

The Alicorn called out for their attention. “It is time for us to continue our journey. Climb up Leaf Stream, Spike. I’ll follow behind in Raegdan’s place, giving a push when needed. Applejack, do you need help with the reins?”

“Uh, no, Ah don’t… Ah mean… nope, I’m fine, it’s easy enough.” She threw a questioning look at Rarity before heading to her assigned spot. Rarity didn’t notice her. She was still staring up at the sky with her lips slightly spread.

The sky was clear and the moon, though no longer full, was giving them plenty of light to trudge along the coarse ground. It would only get worse as the days passed. Things were still pretty good however and hopefully would remain so until they reached their goal.

It’s just that when the moon rose Luna was busy tying a knot.

Ch.17 - Bottoms up

For a few minutes the whistle of the wind and the breaking of waves were the only sounds in the world at the cliff’s edge.

“Princess Luna, are you… we presumed too much, didn’t we?” Silverwing said. His disappointment was obvious, as was his even greater self-chastise. “We are sorry. We- we believed you-”

“Whoah, hey,” Leaf Stream said, stopping the stuttering, old Thestral in his tracks. “How about you give us a chance to actually think about it for a little while first, huh? I mean, seriously, you drop this on us out of the blue and expect us to have a plan five seconds later?”

“Oh. I’m sorry, you’re right. Of course, I’ll-”

“Why don’t you head back? Give us some time? I mean, we still got some time, right? That thing ain’t reaching Horseshoe Bay tomorrow, eh?” Leaf Stream laughed. “It doesn’t, does it?” she added in a desperate, worried tone.

“No. It stays stationary for a random amount of days, but we never have any idea how much distance it will actually cross or when-”

“There you have it!” Leaf Stream interrupted once more. “Now shoo, off you go. Give us some privacy.”

“I- yes, yes. If somepony can deal with this, it is our princess. Princess Luna, by your leave…”

Luna nodded to the elderly stallion without turning away from the sight of the maelstrom. Silverwing audibly swallowed and left without another word, his steps down the path much heavier that when he climbed up a few minutes ago.

Leaf Stream’s eyes tracked the Thestral until he had gone far enough. She quickly turned back to her two bosses. “Please, tell me you guys have a plan!”

Everypony around turned to them. Luna and Raegdan were still sitting on the ground, eyes locked on the impossible task ahead of them. They both shook their heads as one. “It’s… It’s impossible! You don’t kill Leviathans. You can only run. Move everypony away and hope someday it may die of old age!” Luna whispered.

Applejack started to slowly understand the magnitude of what they really were up to. “Only thing ah heard about Leviathans is that they are really big monsters… ah don’t know if ah ever believed they were real.”

She remembered Granny Pie telling her about them once. Too be honest, she had thought it was more of her “in mah time, everything was different! The apples were sweeter. The monsters were bigger,” spiel.

“Oh, they’re real enough,” Solid Charge said. “Too few of them, thankfully. This is the fourth one in recorded history.”

Luna was standing up in an instant, the hairs of her coat risen up straight. “There is a third one now?” she screamed, terrified.

“Yes,” Cast Iron replied. “I, uh, I guess you must have missed it. It’s northeast of Minos.”

“What is that one like?” Luna asked with eyes wide with fear.

“Have you seen the Ironscape mountain range?” Solid Charge asked while sitting down himself.

“Once or twice.”

“If you go there now you will notice there’s an extra mountain. That’s what it looks like.”

Rarity was doing her best to make her trembling lips work properly. She finally managed to get enough control to ask her question. “What- what if that thing attacks?”

“The plan so far is to evacuate as soon as we notice it so much as lightly shake. We pray it’s hibernating, but we can’t know for sure. Every team that has been sent there so far hasn’t returned. We can only hope it keeps sleeping or waiting for as long as possible, and that it moves real slow when it wakes up,” Solid Charge finished saying.

“But… that doesn’t sound anything like the one here!” Spike pointed out in a hurry. The little dragon’s imagination, spurred on by the tales he read, had gone into overdrive. His small arms were shivering.

“They are all different,” Luna shakily said, sitting down next to Raegdan once more. “The other two… One of them is also a sea creature. I believe it might resemble an octopus, though one of unimaginable size. I only ever saw two of its tentacles. It swatted Celestia and I like flies. I managed to dodge far enough to the side to escape with only a couple of broken legs and ribs. Celestia tried to put up a shield. That thing almost killed her while we only managed to annoy it. We were lucky. We weren’t able to give it cause up to that point to take us seriously. We left it alone. It seems content to eat whales in the south seas, and we think it likes the warmer waters. Celestia tries her best to keep the temperature there ideal for it ever since. The other one is… more terrifying. There’s a reason they are called the Badlands now. It lives in there. It hasn’t tried to approach the mountains so far… or as much as I know. Has it?” Luna anxiously asked Leaf Stream.

Leaf Stream shook her head. “No. That’s the good news. Bad news is it’s still spry as anything. We’re starting to think that waiting them out is not going to work but we don’t know what else to do. If one of them changes its habits or something provokes them we’re toast.”

Applejack thought she knew about monsters. Celestia knows she had seen her share of them. She thought hydras or dragons were as big as you could get. Maybe the Ursa Major they had never seen, the baby one was certainly big enough. These things were striding her world and she had no idea they were out there.

How did anypony who knew of them sleep at night? How could she from now on?

“Where the hay did those things come from?” she asked, scared out of her wits, turning to stare at the maelstrom. What if there were more of this? She tried to imagine the endless ocean in front of her filled with whirlpools as far as the eye could see. It was scarily easy to do so.

“No idea.” Cast Iron shrugged. “I know they tried to see if the Mountain left any hoofprints… they found a huge, vast trench behind it leading north, as if it dragged itself to its current position.”

“Well, then we know, don’t we?” Rarity exclaimed. “Where did that trench lead to?”

“Nowhere,” Solid Charge said, scowling. “It just ended, miles away, as if the damned thing dropped from the sky.”

Applejack wanted to ask Luna if she knew anything more. While everypony else was looking at the surface that hid the newest terror that had been thrust onto Equestria she had turned to look behind them. That’s the only reason she caught sight of Raegdan and Luna exchanging knowing glances.

“You know where they come from! You named it,” she said to Raegdan, pointing a hoof at him. Everypony looked at her. “When ya saw it, ya said a name. Haribdal or something.”

“Charybdis,” Raegdan corrected her absentmindedly. He immediately covered his mouth with his palm. “Crap,” he swore.

“Aha!” Applejack yelled, triumphant. She pointed with her hoof even harder.

“The Leviathans came from your home?” Rarity asked.

“No! No, we don’t have things like that where I come from. It’s a shame actually. If they appeared there instead my kind would be able to deal with them easily.”

“Easily?” Solid Charge asked, disbelievingly. “What kind of weapons do your people have?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Then you can kill it!” Leaf Stream said.

“With what? Swim over there and whack it with my hammer?”

“How did ya know its name?” Applejack insisted.

Raegdan let out a frustrated breath. “It’s from a- a myth. A very old story, over two thousand years old.” He pulled his legs, crossing them in front of him. Spike sat in front of him, like a child waiting to hear a story.

A story he was going to get. Raegdan closed his eyes, his shoulders relaxed, and his hands rested on his knees.

“There was an ancient hero. His name was Odysseus. He was a king, a warrior, and among the heroes of his age the one most renowned for his cunning and intellect. He and his fellow kings had laid a bloody, ten year siege on a city. It finally fell thanks to a plan he had made to successfully sneak himself and a few soldiers beyond their mighty walls. The city had fallen and pillaged. The alliance of kings dissolved, and each and every one of them returned to their home.

Odysseus’ journey back to his own kingdom was filled with perils and danger. He had made an enemy of the god of the sea and for ten long years, fraught with battles and monsters, he wandered from one adventure to the other, delaying him from returning. Ten years of this until he made it home to his family. One of the obstacles in his way was Scylla and Charybdis.

There was a narrow passage, a strait he had to cross with his ship. At one side, in a cave among the rocks, nested Scylla, a gigantic monster with six heads. At the other side…” Raegdan pointed towards the maelstrom. “Lied Charybdis. A monster of insatiable thirst that three times a day would swallow the sea whole and spit it back out.”

“How did Odysseus kill the monsters in the myth?” Cast Iron asked, excited. “If he managed it we can try to do the same thing. Myths usually have a grain of truth. If it’s the same beast it might work!”

“Odysseus had to cross the narrow passage to reach his home. So he made the best decision he could. He sailed the ship near Scylla. She ate twelve of his soldiers. Twelve of his companions who travelled for years with him, dead. He considered it a good trade. Charybdis would have eaten all of them.”

Cast Iron sagged. “Oh… I hoped…”

“Yeah, well, hope in one hand, shi-”

“Raegdan, please! Language!” Rarity yelled.

“Oh, you know that one, don’t you?” Raegdan smiled briefly.

“Where did it come from in that myth?” Applejack asked.

Raegdan closed his eyes tightly and gently hit his head with his fist a couple of times. “Uh, I know that one, I know I do… I almost remember it.” He rubbed at this eyes, groaning as he tried to pull the memory forth. “I, uh… Charybdis was made. Yes, that’s it. She was made that way.”

“She?” Rarity asked, incredulous. “It’s a female?”

“The myth says that the god of the sea had a- a contest or argument with his brother and king of the gods, the ruler of the earth and sky. Each of them claimed they held domain over a larger kingdom than the other. So the god of the sea decided to sink a couple of islands to show his brother that he couldn’t only deny territory from him, but also add it to his own. The king of the gods didn’t take well to that, so in order to punish him he targeted one of his brother’s daughters and turned her into… well, that.” He pointed to the sea once more.

Everypony watched the distant whirlpool for a few minutes. It felt so peaceful up here. A soft breeze was blowing over them and she could smell the sea, so powerful that it felt as if the air was partly made of salt. Even the view was something outstanding, only demolished by the knowledge that there is something alive down there causing it. Something that moved. Something horrible.

“These two gods sound like real jerks,” Spike noted.

Raegdan shrugged. “Eh, I think the idea behind those myths was to show that no one is perfect, not even gods. So yeah, they really were jerks.”

“Can’t ya make something to kill that thing?” Applejack asked. “Luna said you had brought explosives along in the cart. Won’t these work?”

“They did what?” Rarity shouted. “Explosives in our cart? I was riding on that!” She fell backwards fainting. Cast Iron quickly grabbed her before she touched the ground. “Thank you darling,” she whispered sideways, sounding extremely conscious despite her closed eyes and slackened body.

Raegdan mulled over Applejack’s suggestion. “The hand bombs won’t so much as scratch it… We brought chemicals along so we could make a much stronger explosive, just in case. One of the strongest ones actually. But I doubt we have enough. Did you see the size of that shadow under the water? It must be as big as the castle!”

“Then make as much as you can and dump them in there!” Applejack said.

Raegdan shook his head. “I simply don’t think I have enough. Even if we did- It’s too sensitive. It’s not meant for… gah, what’s the word? Depth... bombs I guess. It doesn’t mix well with water or sudden movement.”

“It’s worth a try though, doesn’t it?” Leaf Stream pointed out.

“Alright,” Raegdan conceded. “We have a plan B for boom. It might be made out of tissue paper, why not? Luna, we need to find someplace to mix the explosives. I hope you can do your telekinesis thing from far enough. That stuff can go off with a simple shake.”

“Can’t you make them more stable?” Cast Iron asked.

“Oh sure, of course.” Raegdan’s tone of voice left no doubt on what he thought about Cast Iron’s question. “I just don’t want to because I like the idea of risking dismemberment because I hiccupped at the wrong moment. It adds some needed spice in my boring life.”

“I just thought that you could-”

Raegdan shoved him away with both arms. “No, you didn’t! Do you have the slightest idea what it took to make what little we have been able to make so far? How do you find a chemical or element when you have no idea how it’s called in Equestrian? Let me tell you, trial and error is no fun at all when the right answer is the one that can kill you! I’m not about to start mixing it further with stuff I have no idea about.”

“We do have one more option,” Luna reminded Raegdan.

Raegdan’s anger was replaced by an instant of visible fear. “Oh, no. Better leave it alone to eat whatever it can. Let it swallow Baltimare if it wants. It’s not worth it.”

“Hey, if you have something that can kill it we should think about it at least,” Leaf Stream said.

“You don’t want it dead that much,” Raegdan insisted.

“Why not? What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Think of it like this. There’s a good side and a bad side. The good side is that what Luna’s suggesting will kill it so dead we might never find a piece of it.”

“And the bad side?”

“The side effects. How do you feel about a huge cloud of invisible energy that travels with the wind and can cause death, incurable diseases, and birth defects?”

“Not- not a fan,” Leaf Stream stuttered.

“Me neither. Last time I set one of those off I made sure I was really, really far away and I would never return there again. Anyone else have any other ideas?”

“Poison?” Applejack suggested. “We could throw some in there and it will swallow it.”

Luna stroked her chin. “If that thing can withstand eating some of the things that live in the sea, I doubt we could find something strong enough to affect it. Simply put; it’s too large, too alien, Applejack. A lot of poisons can barely affect me or even Raegdan. On the one occasion where Raegdan imbibed an exceptionally lethal one for ponies it did nothing to him but make him queasy and give him dia- umph!”

“Let’s- let’s hold off on the unnecessary details Luna, please?” Raegdan interrupted her with a hand across her muzzle.

“Sorry. The point being… we have no idea if the poison we would choose to use would even do anything apart from waste our time to amass the necessary quantity.”

“We’ll just go with plan boom for now. I don’t see any other option so far,” Raegdan told them.

“Sir, before that,” Solid Charge said, standing up. “You left a question unanswered. Do you know where the Leviathans came from? Or how they got here?”

“No. I have no idea,” Raegdan answered.

“They can’t have popped out of thin air.” Solid Charge said.

“Of course not. That would be ridiculous. Luna and I have work to do. As for you all… you either find us a small boat or build a raft.”

“Ah’ll be blunt,” Applejack said to the young Thestral in front of her. “Ah didn’t expect ya to have a small pier of your own out here.”

“We like fish,” Sheer Drop explained. “We all pretty much look forward to returning here every time. I know that most pegasi don’t like swimming that much with all these feathers, but…” He unfurled a leather wing. “Not much of an issue with us, eh?” He smiled. “You should meet my brother. He’s even doing scuba diving.”

He led her to a small rowboat that was rocking in the waves. “Are you sure this will do? We have larger and better ones if Princess Luna wishes for them.”

“Ah’m pretty sure they intend to send that one straight to the monster’s mouth. Let’s not waste one of your good ones. If it floats it will do.”

“Oh, it floats. It’s not much good for anything else but it can float. I’ll row it over to the beach as you asked. Want to come along?”

Applejack remembered the giant shadow underneath the water. She shiverred. “Nah Thanks but… no. Ah’m not really in the mood of getting in the water after seeing that thing.”

“I understand. That monster is a real horror, no question about it. Not only that, it has eaten all the fish! I swear on Princess Luna’s moon, I haven’t seen so much as a sardine these last few days. You’d think the fish would be smart enough to stay away from it.” Sheer Drop sighed, wistful for some of his beloved delicacies.

“Maybe it pulls them near it somehow,” Applejack speculated. “Ya know, like a smell or something.”

“Probably,” the Thestral agreed, climbing on the boat and grabbing the oars. “It makes as much sense as anything. You need anything else? I need to head for spear practice afterwards.”

“We’ll be fine. Ah give ya a holler if we need ya,” Applejack assured him with a smile.

By the time she made it to the small, sandy beach the rowboat was already there with Sheer Drop nowhere in sight. Rarity was lounging there, lying under an umbrella that Spike held for her. The other three rookie members of the Lunar Guard were filling up the boat with straw.

“Luna and Raegdan ain’t here yet?” Applejack asked.

“I’m pretty sure they’ll be here soon,” Leaf Stream said. “They are finishing up their explosives.”

“Huh? Ah thought they were done with them. Ah heard a loud bang about two hours back, ah thought they were testing them.”

“Oh, you didn’t see them coming back afterwards,” Leaf Stream snickered. “They returned to pick up some more of their chemicals. Their first try must have been a bust. So, here they come, both of them covered in dirt as if they dug themselves out of a hole in the ground. The princess walks in front, head low, and our glorious commander follows behind her, drilling into her ears. “Once more, what did I say?” And Princess Luna answers, sounding like a scolded filly. “Pour everything drop by drop from a close distance so it doesn’t splash, keep it cooled down.” He nods, she nods… and he says. “Once more, what did I say?” It went on and on till they left. All the time, non stop. Me doth think the princess almost blew them both up to kingdom come.”

“Oi, you find that funny, do you?” Spike shouted at her, dropping the white umbrella.

“They are fine, aren’t they? Jeez, lighten up. So I make some fun of your daddy. In case you didn’t notice he did something far worse! I think I’m being extremely gracious when you consider he tortured me and left me grounded for life.”

“In her defense though, it really was pretty funny in hindsight.” Raegdan arrived on the beach along with Luna. A wooden box was floating in front of Luna who had her gaze locked at it, barely daring to blink. Raegdan, walking much further away from Luna than he used to, was carefully keeping his eyes on the path in front of Luna.

“Is… do you have them in that box?” Rarity asked with dread.

“Yep.”

“Is it… dangerous?”

“Yep.” His eyes flicked to her for a second. “You might want to take some distance and let us finish up here.”

They left as they instructed and watched from a distance. The pair carefully put the box on the boat, securing it tightly and bracing it with cloth all around it. Luna used her magic to gently push the boat on the water and took to the air. She grabbed hold of a -very long- rope that was tied to the stern of the rowboat and, flapping slowly, dragged the boat and its cargo towards the whirlpool, letting it go when the current took hold of it.

Luna returned to shore to watch the little boat head for the titanic maelstrom far away. Rarity peeked her head over the rocks they were all hiding behind. “Is it safe to come out yet?”

“You do realize that Luna had everything under control? She put an incredible amount of magic over that box to make sure it wouldn’t go off,” Raegdan called out in answer.

“Then why didn’t ya tell us?” Applejack asked as they came out of their cover and headed towards them. The minotaurs complained about the beach and its sand as they walked back. They kept losing their balance all the time.

Luna was chuckling. “We’re sorry. It’s just that the image of all of you scouring behind the rocks like rats…”

“That wasn’t funny!” Rarity said.

“Let’s agree to disagree and leave it at that.” Luna turned back to watch.

“When will it go off?” Solid Charge asked after a couple of minutes.

Raegdan answered. “There’s a spell that will light it all up in about… twenty more minutes, give or take. Hopefully that will be enough time for Charybdis to swallow it.”

“Is that what we are calling it now?” Leaf Stream asked around her.

“It’s as good a name as any,” Cast Iron said, standing next to her.

“Will that be enough to kill it?” Leaf Stream asked again.

Raegdan frowned. “No chance in hell. It’s too little. Also, this explosive is much less effective as distance increases. If we could put that box next to somewhere vital? Then yes. It might.”

“Then what’s the point of this?”

“The point is that we are testing it. I’m also hoping it will do some damage in its insides, maybe make it splash around a bit and surface. I want to see how it looks like, if it has something vulnerable we can target!”

“And if it does? What happens ne-” Leaf Stream halted mid sentence, interrupted by probably the loudest noise Applejack had ever heard. It was no mean feat. She had heard a sonic rainboom go off more than once.

Applejack saw a great spray of water launch in the air. She tried to see if the boat was still there, but it was too far and the tumultuous sea around Charybdis didn’t even let her get sight of the whirlpool. “That wasn’t twenty minutes,” she commented.

“No. It damn wasn’t. What happened Luna?”

Luna gulped heavily. “The explosive is too sensitive and the sea is raging too much! The magic of the enchantments drained themselves in their effort to keep the explosives from going off much faster than the runes could collect ambient magic to keep powering them.”

“We just wasted half our supply for a fart in the water. It’s no use trying that again unless we can work something out.” Raegdan kick the sand at his feet. “And we would need far more. We might end up having to head to Baltimare after all. Another waste of time.”

“Now what?” Rarity asked.

Luna’s wings unfurled. The hesitation was replaced by fury. “Now we try something else. I have some new spells in my arsenal. I won’t give up so easily,” Luna snarled.

Raegdan held up his hand. “Luna, wait, don’t-” Luna flew, heading for the whirlpool. “Damnit!”

They watched, Raegdan gritting his teeth and tightening his fists hard enough for his fingers to whiten. Luna crossed the kilometers that separated them from Charybdis quick enough. They could see her form, a single distant speck of almost black against the gray sky.

Light gathered bright around the Alicorn, like a newborn star. Everypony’s breath was cut as an impossibly bright and thin beam of blue seared across the whirlpool. It lasted for two or three seconds. The airborne figure stopped it soon enough. Luna lightly dipped in the air before regaining her altitude. After a small wait it became obvious this attack did not faze the Leviathan at all. Light amassed around Luna again as she tried more spells.

She made a few more different attempts, but they didn’t see any visible results. There was a slight buzzing in their ears for one second, but apart from that nothing else. Lights flashed down, vanishing under the sea. After a short while Luna started gathering her magic again. Another beam like the first one erupted outwards.

This one lasted much longer. Steam rose from the surface of the water. Luna kept pouring on her spell for long seconds until the bright light flickered and died.

The whirlpool was still there. Charybdis did not even respond. The Alicorn did not fare as well. Luna suddenly dipped again and then quickly regained her height, only to lose it again, much faster.

“The idiot exhausted herself! She’s going to fall in there!” Raegdan ran towards the waves, kicking off his shoes and ripping his shirt in his haste to take it off.

Cast Iron managed to catch up and grab him by the shoulders. “Hey, hey, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Let me go you moron! She’s going to fall in,” Raegdan shouted.

“You can’t reach her in time and if you go all the way out there that thing might pull you in. We have to call the Thestrals, they can fly there and-” Raegdan swiftly crouched, momentarily escaping Cast Iron’s hold, and thrust his elbow behind him, right on the minotaur’s side, causing him to fall back with a pained grunt.

“Get in my way like that again and I’ll gut you alive!” Raegdan warned him before diving in the water.

Raegdan was deep in the water, swimming towards the maelstrom when Leaf Stream shouted. “She’s coming back. Look!”

Luna was indeed coming back, but with great difficulty. She kept losing altitude or veering sideways. She was still away from the shore when she fell into the sea. Raegdan was already swimming towards her and reached her before she could vanish under the waves. He grabbed the Alicorn from behind her back with one of his long arms wrapped around her. He used the other one to paddle them back to the shore, slowly but steadily fighting against the pull of the sea.

He reached the shallows and lifted Luna in his arms in front of him, holding her protectively. He slowly made his way out of the water and on the beach, the waves and shifting sand threatening to throw him and his precious cargo down to the ground.

“Give me those towels, now!” he ordered Rarity, breathing hard, as soon as he stepped on dry sand. Rarity and Spike quickly obeyed. “Put one down for her to lie on.”

He gently lowered Luna on one of Rarity’s soft, fluffy towels. Luna was awake but gasping for breath. She looked exhausted. Her muscles were spasming. Applejack was certain that even if she hadn’t fallen in the water she would still be drenched, only it would have been in sweat. She was lucky Raegdan was already so close to her. There was no way she would have been able to keep herself afloat from the looks of it. She would have drowned for sure.

Raegdan took a towel from Rarity and with delicate softness started drying off Luna’s coat, mane, and tail, lightly massaging the tired muscles at the same time. Luna accepted the treatment silently, focusing on getting her breath steady and coughing out a little saltwater every now and then.

“I tried- I tried everything,” she said, struggling to speak amidst rapid breaths. “Even the half-finished sonic spells. There’s too much water and it- it flows around it like a shield, a wall. I didn’t even- even scratch it! Tartarus, I didn’t even breach the water enough to approach it.”

“We saw steam rising,” Rarity said.

“Just- just the surface. The water moves too fast. I tried to heat it, maybe force it- force it to move, make it shift even a little. Nothing,” Luna gasped, bitter. “It’s too large. I don’t have the magic to sustain the spells long enough to even discomfort it. I thought the spell of focused light might make- make it. Too much water, too much turbulence, not enough strength. It never even realized I was there. I did nothing!”

“That’s enough,” Raegdan said. “We did fine. We know what doesn’t work. We will think of something else to try next. Come on, climb on my back. You need to get some sleep.” He helped Luna to her legs and with help from Cast Iron and Solid Charge got her on his back.

“You need- you need to dry off too,” Luna said.

“I will.” He turned to Applejack. “Get someone to bring something for Luna to eat. We will continue this in the evening after Luna gets some sleep.”

“You too,” Luna said, resting her chin on the top of his head. “Get something for him to eat too.” She closed her eyes.

“No worries princess,” Applejack said. “We’ll all take care of ya both.”

Luna snored gently in response.

Spike retched and letters came out.

“We’ve got mail,” the gentle dragon croaked after he spat out everything. His claws grabbed everything around him and tapped them straight. He headed towards his father and the princess. They were sitting on the open threshold of the residence the Thestrals gave them, talking among the soft lights of the Thestral caravan.

The Thestrals were keeping themselves busy with their own daily routine. All of the girls had speculated that they would be strictly nocturnal. They were for the most part. Living out at places away from everypony else, with nopony else to rely on, meant that they couldn’t afford to sleep the day away, not in safety. They kept a rotation, shifts of some sorts. The Thestral caravan was always full of activity. Ponies above were flying, either for joy or practising combat maneuvers. They were working their own metal, they carved wood, they weaved, they cooked, played music, and talked.

They lived as if they tried to live life to the fullest, cramming as much in one second as they could.

“It felt… strange when I was flying above it. Invigorating,” Luna was telling Raegdan. Applejack was sitting nearby, listening but not trumping in. They seemed to have a strange vibe going on, one line feeding into another from each of them, sometimes reaching conclusions together, and finishing or complementing each other’s sentences.

“Like magic?” Raegdan asked.

“No, magic I would recognize. There was none there. It was the air. It felt crisp and clean. Pure.”

“Huh. Wonder what that means… Got something for me little flame?”

Spike passed a couple of scrolls to Raegdan. “This one’s from Princess Celestia, and I’m pretty sure this one’s from Pinkie Pie. It smells like candy.” Luna leaned in to inhale deeply of the aforementioned scroll. “I don’t know who sent this one.”

“They wrote my name wrong. This one is meant for Wrecked Tan. Please tell me this hasn’t been the literal translation of my name all this time.” Spike laughed along with Luna.

“It’s not. Your name doesn’t have any meaning in Equestrian,” Luna said after being done with her short laugh.

“It’s probably from Rainbow Dash. She doesn’t really care about spelling at all, she just rushes to get it over with as soon as possible,” Applejack said. She moved a little to keep her legs from numbing. “Does your name mean anything in your language?”

“It’s just a description for me,” Raegdan said as he also took a sniff of Pinkie’s letter.

Spike quickly interjected in the brief lull as Raegdan opened the scrolls. “Hey dad, I’ve been watching Charybdis all day and she hasn’t spitted out the sea so far.”

“That would be a neat trick to see. That thing’s huge, but it’s not that huge,” Raegdan said, smiling.

“Well, your story said it did it three times a day. It hasn’t done it once so far,” Spike said, full of disappointment.

Raegdan put the scrolls on his lap, forgetting about them for the moment. “No. It hasn’t has it?”

“Perhaps it’s not the same beast,” Luna speculated.

“Maybe. It makes me think, though. Charybdis’ obviously isn’t drinking all that water does it? What’s the reason for the maelstrom it creates?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? It does it to feed.”

“Why like that? Have normal mouths gone out of fashion? It seems like too much effort to go through. How much does that lardass need to eat?”

Luna considered the question. “I don’t think it uses magic to create the whirlpool. It must need an outstanding amount of energy. It is probably the reason it moves. Drain the area of marine life, move a number of kilometers away, repeat.”

“Hmm. What if it also eats like a blue whale?”

“You mean if it… Oh, I understand. Yes, that would make more sense and it explains why it stays in this area even when seemingly all the fish here are already gone.”

“Ah missed a step there,” Applejack said. “Can ah have a translation?”

“Charybdis might be using the whirlpool as a means to funnel water through it to eat… everything it can eat. Like a sieve, filtering every living thing out of the water, not just larger fish but smaller lifeforms too, and perhaps the plankton as well,” Luna explained.

“Where does the water go then?” Spike asked.

Raegdan’s fingers dug into his hair and scratched at his scalp. “I had this picture in my mind of a monstrosity with a huge bloated stomach or a jellyfish resembling a fleshy balloon,” he said. Applejack frowned at the disgusting images he laconically conjured. “What if it’s more like a tube? Water goes in one side, comes out the other, drained of everything worthwhile.”

Spike snorted with barely restrained laughter. “Like a non-stop fart.”

Raegdan snorted too and stroked Spike’s head. “Careful there little flame. Your age just showed.”

“I believe it must be more complicated than that,” Luna continued, thinking out loud. “It must also have a mechanism to consume it’s larger prey. Charybdis is large enough to swallow whales easily.”

“Maybe these go into… a more traditional type of… stomach?” Raegdan hesitantly guessed.

“If that was true then wouldn’t swallowing a ship possibly damage it?”

“Maybe. No, I don’t think it works like that. It would be too easy. It must have a way to tell them apart and get the trash out quick.”

“Why do you think that?” Applejack asked.

“Because if it didn’t it then letting Charybdis swallow some ships could probably give it enough of an indigestion to kill it. No way in hell it’s that easy. I gotta jump through hoops to open a jar of jam under normal circumstances. What are the chances a monster of that size will get killed by sitting on the sideline and letting it be when it can screw with me magnificently instead?” Raegdan finished his rant and started reading Rainbow Dash’s letter. Every so often he would wince at an exceptionally horribly misspelled sentence.

“Speaking of screwing me over…” he groaned.

“What is it?” Luna asked.

“There are rumors spreading about me and… my culinary choices. She- oh heavens help us all, she says she can deal with that, and of course she won’t say how. That will end great, I can tell.”

“Anything else?”

“Let me read further. Some hopefuls recruits… how the hell did she manage that, nice going! If they pan out I owe her something nice in return. And, uh… oh. Here’s the rake I was stepping around for. Read this,” he directed Luna and held up the scroll for her, one finger pointing at the proper section.

“My stars, she has slain Equestrian grammar, leaving nothing but burning schools and crying scholars behind her,” Luna gasped. Applejack decided then and there to do something about her cyan friend. There’s a new low for you when a stranger the likes of Raegdan and a pony who was gone for a thousand years are the ones who lament about your writing skills.

“Let’s see…” Luna was reading, half mumbling. “I haf… haf? She is writing in phonetics? I have made sure that… about Princess Luna and what she used to do… oh. Oh no.” Luna turned her head to look at her flank. “I swear, one of these days I will look at my behind only to find out I’ve managed to acquire a more suitable mark depicting a shovel.”

“What did Rainbow do?” Applejack asked.

“She let word spread about Luna’s duties in the past,” Raegdan said. “You know, the monster slaying?”

“But that’s good! That will help, won’t it?”

“Oh sure, sure. Unless it turns out that in our first outing we run back shouting, “a Leviathan is coming. Run for your freaking lives. We can’t stop it”, etcetera, etcetera,” Raegdan said with an air of surrender. “So much for that. Let’s see what little pink has to say…”

A strong confectionary smell spread around as soon as Raegdan opened the scroll. His expression was one of bewilderment as he scanned the parchment.

“So?” Spike prompted.

Raegdan didn’t answer. He just turned the scroll around for them to see. There was nothing to be seen written on it. The scroll had been covered with a layer of pink frosting.

“It’s kind of comforting to know there’s someone like little pink out there,” Raegdan told them with a smile as he opened Celestia’s letter. “I thought I had problems in the head, but then she hops in the room and I feel absolutely normal.”

“What news of my sister? Is she asking after me?”

“Yep. Also after Spike. And Applejack. Let’s see… Rarity too, here’s the part where she hopes that Leaf Stream is not unreasonably stressed and hasn’t had her injuries worsened… She asks after the minotaurs too. Let me check something… Ah, there it is, she asks about me in the post script. Sneaky little princess is trying to have fun on my expense.”

“Anything else apart from social niceties and ribbing?”

“Give me a second,” Raegdan requested. A frown turned to a scowl as he read further. “She knows about the whirlpool. She knows it’s moving but they don’t know why. She wants to know if this is what the Thestrals wanted us to deal with. If it’s not, she asks that we look into it. She will wait for us to send a message back until tomorrow. After that we won’t have to bother since she will be here herself with the damned Solar Guard, damn it all to hell!” he screamed, crumpling the paper into a ball and throwing it away as hard as he could. Movement around them ceased as every Thestral around abandoned what they were doing and gazed wide eyed at the raging biped that was letting out a manic string of words in an unknown language.

Rarity made a valiant effort to run towards them while trying to keep a sedate expression. “Have we missed something important?” she asked. Leaf Stream, Cast Iron, and Solid Charge were walking along behind her.

“Princess Celestia is coming,” Applejack let them know.

“Oh. Good. I am certain with her help there will be no problem bypassing that creature’s defenses this time,” Rarity said, relieved.

“That’s not going to be an issue because she is not coming here,” Raegdan growled. “Little flame, I want you to send her a letter, right now. Tell her that we don’t know what caused that whirlpool. It turned back, far to the south, before we could look into it. It’s already gone.”

“But… that’s lying,” Spike said.

“Right. Then I’ll write it myself. Someone get me a pencil.”

Luna had used her magic to bring the crumpled letter back and read it herself. “Raegdan, when she arrives the first thing she is going to do is to attempt to pierce the Leviathan’s defenses with her own magic,” she said, her expression as immobile as stone.

“...I didn’t think of that. Damn it all, this is so much worse than I thought. There’s no way we can let her come here. It’s all going to blow up in our faces.”

“Hey there, think about this for a second ya big lug,” Applejack told Raegdan. “Luna said she doesn’t have the magic to get through to that thing, right? If two Alicorns work together they might make it. That’s exactly what you need.”

“No, what we need is for her, the Solar Guard, and everyone else to stay away.”

“Ah don’t believe this. Why? That thing’s gonna kill ponies if we don’t stop it. You have to at least let her know what it is so she can keep ships from sailing into it. They need to evacuate all ships from Horseshoe Bay and redirect everything away from it.”

“Applejack is correct Raegdan. There are too many lives at risk. We have to write back with the truth. We can’t keep this secret from Princess Celestia,” Rarity agreed.

“Sir, miss Rarity has a point. We don’t have the resources to deal with the Leviathan ourselves in any meaningful way,” Solid Charge said.

“You’d be surprised how easy it is to keep things secret from her nowadays. We will do this on our own! There will be no help.”

“And if ya can’t?” Applejack insisted. “You admitted it, you have no idea how to stop that thing. Baltimare is just around the corner. We have to warn them. Princess Celestia will be able to deal with that while you two try to deal with Charybdis if it means so much to ya.”

“Did I stutter? I said no. No messages telling the truth. No warnings to Baltimare or anyone.”

“This is wrong,” Applejack declared.

“Wrong is relative,” Raegdan countered.

Applejack stared right back at the tall figure, both of them refusing to budge. “What if that thing moves? What will happen if it heads straight for Horseshoe Bay tomorrow?”

“No. Messages. To. Celestia.”

“Ah’ll tell you what’s gonna happen. It will kill ponies. Scores of them. Whole ships will go down screaming. And that’s just the start. It’s going to destroy lives. Families. It will ruin and annihilate all the trade that the ponies there rely on. Ah know what’s going to happen even to ponies who have no family members on these ships. They’ll go destitute. They’ll starve. They will lose their homes. They will lose everything. And it will spread all around, all because you refused to send a piece of paper.” Applejack hit the ground with her hoof. “Well, ah’m not letting that happen. Pride’s all well and good, but you are playing with lives other than your own here. We’re telling Princess Celestia, and we ask for help.”

“Applejack,” Luna spoke up, gently. “What if I was the one asking you to keep the situation a secret for the time being?”

“Ah’m… ah’m sorry princess, ah really am, but this is too big.”

“Applejack. I am asking you to trust Raegdan. Trust me. We can find a way to stop it.”

“Ah don’t know if… Ah want to trust you princess, no, scratch that, ah do trust you well enough. But trust should go both ways, ain’t it? Why don’t ya want to tell your sister? Can ya tell us this at least? Can ya tell us anything that would explain why we’d risk so many lives?” Applejack asked, desperation in her voice.

“If I tell you no, would you do as I asked nonetheless?”

Applejack hesitated. She wanted to believe in Luna and Raegdan, she wanted to believe that they could stop Charybdis. But it was so big, it was so terrifying. On the other hoof, she considered those two her friends. Applejack always put her trust in her friends.

But there were lives on the line other than her own and Luna asked her to sacrifice these lives for… for what?

Silence reigned. Everypony hesitated and look downwards in shame. They had seen that titanic maelstrom. They knew how battles against Leviathans ended. Even the Thestrals, with all their vaunted trust in Princess Luna hesitated, holding their tongue a second too long. Applejack tried to force her lips to say yes, yes ah trust you, but every time she did she saw a ship sinking into that thing’s mouth and heard ponies scream, leaving her mouth paralyzed with fear.

“I do,” Spike shouted, shattering the silence. “If dad believes in you then I’ll believe in you too. If you say you can do it then you can. I’m not going to send any letters at all!” the young dragon declared around him.

“I’m- I’m honored, young drake,” Luna said with feeling. Raegdan was looking at the dragon child he had all but adopted with a smile that screamed to the world the pride he felt.

“No!” Rarity shouted, pushing herself to the front. “You can’t put such a weight on little Spike. What if you can’t stop Charybdis? I won’t have my little Spikey Wikey feel he has to blame himself so you can hold onto your stupid pride.”

“Rarity, they can do it-” Spike tried to plead.

“Enough!” Raegdan shouted. “This is not up for debate anymore. No one sends a message and anyone who tries… well, never say I didn’t warn you.”

“Oh?” Applejack challenged him, spurred on by the fact that he just threatened them. “Are ya saying that if ah were to try to save lives you’ll do… what? Hit me?”

Raegdan stepped closer to Applejack, crouched down, and looked her square in the eye. “I’d do what I’d have to do. I’ll hesitate, I might regret it, but I will do it. Don’t make me be that person again.”

“You will do no such thing Raegdan,” Luna said from somewhere behind him. “Let them send their warning, and let Celestia know.”

“What? Luna, we can’t-” Raegdan turned around to face Luna and saw she was sitting down as her magic brought the rusted, ancient remains of the shovel to her. “No. Luna, no! Don’t even think about this.”

“Raegdan…I can’t- we can’t repeat old mistakes. Not when we don’t have to. I don’t know if I can do this based on an if, not here, not now,” Luna said, contemplative.

“Luna… If you just let me… damn it, fine. Fine! Tell Celestia whatever you want,” he said to Applejack, waving his arm weakly towards her with a stance of utter defeat. “Then what are we going to do Luna? What will happen after Celestia arrives? She might be here as soon as the day after tomorrow.”

“Then what we must do is simple enough.” Luna forcibly steeled herself. “We will- we will kill Charybdis tomorrow.”

Raegdan tried to speak but all he could do was move his mouth with no sound coming out, and a series of disbelieving and shocked expressions interchanging across his features.

He pretty much looked like he was having a seizure while still standing up.

Applejack along with Rarity and the recruits of the Lunar Guard… she held off that particular thought. Was there still going to be a Lunar Guard? The moment they needed their support everypony just… just kept quiet. All of them. What kind of friend does that? What kind of a pony talks back to her princess and tries to set terms on her?

The kind that drives off her friends and diarch to kill themselves apparently.

She had kept awake almost all night, wondering. If that had been Princess Celestia there, asking her to trust her… would she have dared to think of saying anything apart from a resounding yes? She tried to deny the truth, and that single act shamed her greatly, adding more to the growing pile, but she wouldn’t have. She would have trusted Princess Celestia, no questions asked. Celestia had been a constant in Equestria for so long. A truth as solid as the earth beneath her hooves. Luna was still unknown, despite all these days spent at her side. But it wasn’t just that. Celestia, for all the friendliness she displayed, always felt like something bigger than life. Luna had been like a friend so far. Almost a normal mare like the rest of them, full of so many faults. She couldn’t see a normal mare facing off against a Leviathan. So when she had to treat her like the princess she was, an Alicorn equal to Princess Celestia… she didn’t do it. She couldn’t.

But that was not an excuse for what she had done. Of course, she wasn’t sure on what she had actually done with her inexcusable actions yet. That’s what they were about to find out.

“Ah see ya have gotten all prepared, but… what exactly are you going to do? What’s the plan?” Applejack asked.

“Remember when I joked about swimming over and whacking Charybdis with my hammer?” Raegdan asked.

“...yes…” Applejack hated the plan already, even if she hadn’t heard it yet.

“That’s the basic notion.”

Leaf Stream snorted. “Yeah, right. You have a plan, I know you do. No way you guys are seriously throwing your lives away on a hope and a prayer. You just try to make us feel worse for not standing up for you yesterday.”

“Alright.” Raegdan clapped his hands and walked towards them and away from the rowboat. “Here’s what we have we so far. The only thing that we believe has a solid chance of tearing a nice big chunk out of Charybdis are the explosives we made. I don’t care how big or strong you are. An explosion in your insides will hurt. Unfortunately, we can’t get them down there on their own. With me so far?”

“We follow.”

“So, the only way to make sure they don’t explode prematurely -don’t you smile like that- is to keep them stable with magic since we can’t afford the time or limbs to find another way. The spells fail too fast however, so to counter this we are going down there with them. Luna will keep them stable and carry them. I won’t be able to even touch them. If I do, I disrupt the spells and we… well, you can imagine what happens. I want to go on record here and tell you all how much I hate your stupid magic not working around me right now.”

“If it did you’d insist to go there on your own,” Luna said.

“I’m insisting now. If you let me blow some smoke up your sister’s ass I’d have some time I could use to make some kind of casing that would have a pretty good chance of not blowing me to pieces. Probably.”

Luna put out her tongue at him.

“Buck me,” Leaf Stream said, breathless. “You are going down there on a hope and a prayer. Are you insane? If you touch the explosives at the wrong moment or something stops Princess Luna from renewing the spells you will both die.” Leaf Stream lifted her head higher as if hit by something. “What am I even saying? You’re gonna let that thing eat you! You are insane. I knew it. I called it, I totally called it!” she cried out, lifting her hoof in a dazed, confused triumph, looking for somepony to hoof-bump.

“You won’t make it past the whirlpool! How are you going to even survive that?” Solid Charge asked.

“Hence the ropes,” Raegdan said, keeping a thick, looped cord in the air. “It will let us stay together. We have gotten our hands on some air tanks so we can, you know, not drown. We are banking on the hope that Charybdis swallows its prey whole and doesn’t chew until it gets to what it uses as a stomach. If it doesn’t do something cute like melt us in acid as soon as we are in...”

“Cast Iron, could you be a dear and pinch me please? There is no way I’m really hearing this,” Rarity said while fanning herself.

Raegdan continued on. “Once we are inside Charybdis we will, uh… Ok, this is as far as we’ve got. Go inside, find something important looking, blow it up.”

“Oh, swell, you’ve obviously got it all down to a tee,” Leaf Stream said. “Here’s another idea. It’s not as suicidal but I think of that as a plus myself. You wait for Princess Celestia and we try to fight that thing with an army, as we should, instead of throwing yourselves down its throat like hors d'oeuvres.”

“Not an option.”

“I swear, you are giving me the greatest headache ever known by ponykind. Why the buck not?” Leaf Stream screamed in frustration.

“You want an answer?”

“Buck yes.”

“Tough. You are not getting one. Not today.”

Leaf Stream let out a scream of utter frustration. Solid Charge was pulling at his mane while Cast Iron was simply listening with his mouth open wide. Applejack felt tempted to join in.

“Ok, let’s get serious for a moment here. I have some things for you to do.”

Applejack breathed out in relief. There was more to it than what he had just described, thank Celestia. “Ah knew that you were just pulling mah leg. What do ya need?”

Raegdan passed her a bunch of scrolls. “We wrote these yesterday. If we don’t make it back you will deliver them.”

“What?” Applejack whispered, her voice suddenly as weak as a newborn kitten.

Raegdan knelt in front of her. “The air will last us out an hour at best. Even if we kill it there’s a very good chance we won’t make it out.” He grabbed a scroll and showed it to her. “This is for Celestia from Luna and I both. This is for Twilight. Some of the answers she wanted are in here. This is for Spike. Make sure you let them both of them know that… nah, forget it. It’s all written in there. Twilight Velvet and Night Light. Shining Armor and Cadance. Little pink. And this one’s for you.”

“Me? Why me?” she asked weakly.

“There is something I thought you should know. Look, if we-”

“Can’t ya tell me now?” Applejack felt her voice break a bit. He wasn’t really believing they were gonna die, did they? This wasn’t the last time she saw them. It couldn’t be.

“...I’m sorry Applejack. I’m truly sorry. Leaf Stream,” he said, turning to the crippled pegasus.

“...yes commander?” For the first time ever there was no trace of sarcasm in the title.

Raegdan gave her a very thick package of papers. “This is for you.”

“What is it? It seems you have written your life’s story in here.”

Raegdan chuckled. “Sorry, it’s not that. It’s instructions. If we don’t make it you will take over where we left off. You will find recruits and finish forming the Lunar Guard. We have left you as much as we could in there. Everything you will have to do and how to do it. Ideas we have, designs for equipment, tactics, everything we could cram in the time we had. Celestia will support you as soon as she reads her own letter. You will also need what we have in the tower. Applejack will show you how to get in the room. Just remember to be careful. It’s trapped.”

Leaf Stream stared at the biped she so bitterly hated and Luna. “You- you can’t seriously- You are making me- you’re putting me in charge? You are trusting me with this?”

“We believe you might be able to understand further when the time comes,” Luna told her. “It will be hard, but we both believe you’re the only one we know who has a chance of doing so.”

Applejack and Rarity exchanged glances, both of them taking note of of each other’s wet eyes. This wasn’t turning out to be a joke. They were serious. Deadly serious.

“Raegdan, Luna, don’t-” Applejack gulped. Her throat was closing up. “Don’t, please don’t-” Applejack tried to start again.

“Oh, be silent. It’s not the first time we face long odds. Hold your head up high Applejack,” Luna ordered her. “This is not the way to send us off. You have a job to do. This is ours.”

Rarity blinked hard and wiped her eyes, sniffling.

“Oh come off it,” Raegdan said, with an air of fake disgust. “You thought this kind of business always ends in parties and celebrations? Sooner or later we were going to bite the dust. If not today then another day. Get over it for heaven’s sake. By the way, you don’t open these until you are sure we are dead, and if a miracle happens you are giving them back, unopened. Clear?”

“Luna, please. This is senseless,” Applejack tried to convince her one more time not to throw away her life and that of Raegdan.

“The Leviathan must be stopped and it must be stopped today. There are things you do not know Applejack, but I assure you that this is not senseless. Have some trust in us, at least in the end.” Luna gave them a comforting smile before turning her head to the distant, submerged Leviathan. “It’s a little bigger than what Raegdan or I have dealt with so far. So what?”

“Luna, can you pass me those hooks?” Raegdan asked as he tightened straps on his body and secured a rope on a metal ring on one of them. His smaller bombs were across his chest with a pair of daggers and a long, hacking blade on his belt.

“Here you go. We will be fine. In a few hours we could be laughing about how melodramatic we all were.”

Applejack made her decision. “Let me come with ya! I ain’t lettin ya go on your own- hurrk!” Applejack choked on her sentence as Raegdan’s hand wrapped around her throat. He pulled her close and looked at her with naked rage burning in his eyes.

“If you ever come closer to that thing than you already are I will come back from death and beat you down to the ground so hard that you will have no choice but to stay in a hospital for a year. That counts for Twilight and all of the rest of you. Not one of you comes near that thing! Ever! Do you understand me?”

“Y- yes,” Applejack choked out. The hand left her throat and patted her on the back as she urgently filled her lungs with sweet air again. Luna winked at her when she caught her eyes for a second as if what happened was normal or funny.

“Keep little flame safe,” Raegdan said to Applejack and Rarity. “Don’t tell him what’s going on unless we haven’t returned. Tell him this has nothing to do with last night. We were going to do it this way anyway. Don’t look at me like that. I know you like the truth, but here, on this, you will lie. You will lie as much as you have to spare him the worst. Goodbye.” With those last words Raegdan jumped into the boat and he pushed it away from the little pier. He started rowing towards the maelstrom with Luna sitting patiently on the other side of the boat.

Neither him nor Luna looked back.

Raegdan rowed until he felt they were close enough for the current to start pulling them in. He let go of the oars and cut the ropes that were holding them in place, letting them sink into the sea. He adjusted the air tanks on his back and made sure the breather was right in front of him. He checked Luna over, making sure hers were fine too. He examined the rope that connected them, testing it. When he was done he put his hands through the handles of the long hooks, one on each arm, and waited.

“Do you really think you will be able to get a grip with them?” Luna asked.

“If I get close enough to something meaty. Eh, chances are we'll just tumble inside and break our backs or get impaled where we land,” Raegdan said, turning for a moment to glance at the maelstrom.

“I’m… really sorry for ending up dragging you to your death so soon,” Luna apologized.

Raegdan laughed. “We almost wrestled each other because we both wanted to do this on our own. You didn’t drag me into anything.” He sighed. “It’s Celestia I’m worried about. She won’t take this well. Neither will Twilight and Spike.”

Luna let a hoof in the water. She noticed how their speed was steadily increasing. “They will be fine. We wrote them comforting lies. I’m more worried about what might happen if Leaf Stream discards our directions and explanations as a flight of madness. Maybe- maybe if there was no way for Celestia to banish me then we could have… I don’t know. More what-ifs.” Luna looked up at the gray, stormy sky. “What do you think we will be remembered as after today? Monsters? Heroes? Or Idiots?”

“What’s this? Do we care what the gravestones say now?” he teased.

“Hmm, well, it’s not like I’ll be able to get up and read it myself. I admit I am somewhat curious. Maybe I worry about nothing. We might make it.”

“What do you think the chances of that are?”

“With this meagre amount of explosives? About as much that this thing might be allergic to the likes of us and choke to death. Like peanuts,” she said, making Raegdan laugh.

“Maybe I should have killed one of the girls. Long before they ever came to us, when they were still in Ponyville. Go in, go out,” he said when the last echo of laughter faded away. “That would have given us so many more options.”

Luna snorted. “Which one would you even choose to remove now? I think you have taken too much of a liking to all of them. I’d choose Fluttershy, but that’s only because of the element she bears.”

“True. Well, certainly not Twilight, no question about that. I’ve sworn to never hurt Applejack or her family so she is out too unless there’s no other choice. I don’t think I could hurt little pink now either. She is too… I don’t even know what she is. One of the other three then. Depends on which one I could drag away unnoticed at the time.” Raegdan scratched his facial hair. “You know, if we make it, maybe we could arrange for Rarity to be tragically killed by a monster while on the road. I could make it look convincing.”

“I think I’d rather we give it a pass. If we make it out alive there won’t be such great need.”

“Until something similar happens. We didn’t expect this either and now look at us. It would help a lot if there were no stupid Elements of Harmony, even for a little while.”

“All the same, I’d rather they survive unscathed if possible. They’re not at fault. I don’t want any of them to die or get hurt at all, not if we can help it.”

Raegdan let out a strained sigh. “Yeah. Me too. I’d like for all of them to get some kind of happy end at least.” He looked behind him once more. “From the looks of it they will, on the short term at least.”

They let the current pull them in silence for a while.

“You never told me the tale of Odysseus before,” Luna remarked.

“I must have thousands of stories. They are one of the few things I reliably remember. It’s not that strange to share one you haven’t heard before. You already know all my favorites.”

“I know, I know. I would have thought that you’d do so anyway with the way it hits so close to heart.”

“Luna, I’ve caught glimpses of some titanic monsters, but I haven’t seen Charybdis before. I didn’t expect this to be real.”

Luna smiled, wide and honestly. “You can be so blind and stupid sometimes.”

“Are you blaming me for not seeing the future?”

“So blind,” Luna said with a loving smile.

“Whatever.”

More minutes passed.

Raegdan broke into a grin. “You know what I can’t help but think about? We never went for that bar crawl we were always talking about.”

Luna hit her forehead in exasperation. “Son of a- You’re right! Damn it all, we could have brought the girls along. It would make the perfect excuse for a night out in Canterlot.” Luna smirked. “They could help me carry you back when you’d get drunk just from a few glasses of wine.”

“Rub it in, rub it in. I tried to work on my liver’s endurance but you wouldn’t let me.”

“I had to put a stop to it. You are a pitiful sight. You either get mopey or you start pinching my flank and believe you are being suave and sophisticated.”

He laughed. “On second thought, good call on that. I doubt the girls would be letting us have a bar brawl as we wanted to though,”Raegdan remarked.

“I’d like to see them try to stop us,” Luna said, raising her muzzle up in a snooty manner. “If I want to break a chair over somepony’s back, I will. If I can’t find an excuse, I’m pretty sure I can make one up on the fly.”

“Celestia would get mad.”

“I can break a chair over her back too.”

They laughed together.

“Luna-”

“Raegdan-”

They smiled awkwardly. As one they leaned forward and hugged. Neither of them wanted to break the embrace, not until the whirlpool gripped them tight and the small boat started going in a tighter circle, rocking violently. Raegdan pulled back and Luna hastenedly renewed the spells on the explosives, keeping them dry and cancelling any vibration or shock from reaching them.

“Out of all of my regrets, it is that we didn’t have more simple times together that pains me most,” Luna shouted over the roaring water.

“Out of mine, it’s that you get all formal at the worst possible times. You’ll get out of this alive Luna. Trust me!” Raegdan yelled back in good spirits, holding tight as he could onto the boat’s side that threatened to turn them over any minute now.

“No. Together. One way or another.”

“...Alright. Together. Put on your breather, and get ready my princess. We’re going in.”

“This is so mind-numbingly stupid, what the tartarus were we thinking-”

The boat vanished into the maelstrom.

Back on the pier, everypony’s head sunk with despair as soon as they lost sight of the small boat. High over them, on the cliffs overlooking the sea, the Thestrals began wailing for their lost princess.

Ch.18 - Charybdis

We are swallowed by the water.

I lose sight of Raegdan in less than a second. I tumble and twist, losing sense of up and down as I am being ravaged from all sides, buffeted by fierce liquid winds and scratched by claws of cold. I do not try to swim or fight the powerful currents that are pounding down on me. I tuck my wings close to my body, tight as I can manage, denying the instincts that call on me to spread them and use them to swim. A wrong twist, a miscalculated push when I should have pulled, and they will break like twigs.

I feel a sharp tug. The rope. I am still connected to my companion. He is still here, still near. I hope the rope holds. That the metal ring holds. That the strap around my body holds.

The explosives! I renew the spells, not bothering to check if it’s needed or not and my horn lights up brightly as I feed my magic into the enchantments, keeping them strong.

The savage twirling goes on and on. At one point I think I see lights, weak ones, but large as houses, casting a faint glow that lets me witness for a brief second the green blurry shapes that surround me, the nearest one being perhaps a hundred meters away.. I fail to keep notice of the passage of time, as I always do in moments of great danger. I never know if events really took that long or that short to unfold, or if my mind was only playing tricks on me. Centuries of experience and I still can’t learn the trick of it.

The twisting movement mostly stops at one point. It is still there, but now it has been greatly replaced by the immeasurable pressure of water dragging us downwards, almost straight to the bottom. We must have have entered the beast by now, this Charybdis. It has swallowed us and we are pouring down its gullet.

There is nothing to hold on. All I see around me is water, foaming and raging, not allowing me to see far enough, not in this darkness. We have to act, somehow. I refuse to passively die as a snack.

I take hold of the rope with my hooves. It is drawn tight and it leads a little below me yet far to the side. I will have to gamble. I open my wings and fight the water. I can’t stop our descent but I can swim to the side, wherever that is. I choose a direction and frantically do my best to pull us both to it.

My left wing passes through something. It arrests my movement as if I go through thin tar. This however takes second place to the intense burning I feel. It is as if my wing has been lit on fire. The pain is almost overwhelming, but I can’t give in. I’m close to the edge, I can see the end of the cataract. I thank my luck that I was so extremely close to it. I get as close as I can before I grab the rope, and I use my magic and wings to rotate around myself.

I pull at the rope as I do so, forcing the other end to follow along. It is hard, but I persevere. The weight on the other side of the rope starts to move. He starts to orbit around me. We fall too quick, we can’t have enough time, maybe a single rotation at best-

The rope draws even tauter and now it leads upwards. Am I falling faster or… No, I’m not falling faster. I’m the only one falling now. Physics take over and I swing like a pendulum. The water feels like a gigantic hoof kicking me all over my body at once now that I no longer flow with it. I keep swinging ahead, to the side, somewhere.

Alicorn princess meets wall. I stop myself before I manage to bite through the breather when the impact sets off the agony on my wing again. I bang my forehead on the wall instead, trying to daze myself even a little to escape the pain.

Some kind of wall at least. I light up my horn and quickly feed magic into the spells before I cast a light spell. Mystery solved. I am now staring straight at the Leviathan’s flesh, from the inside. We’re inside and we’re both still alive. So far, so good. I take a deep breath and examine my wing. The feathers have been half melted and the flesh beneath is red and blistering. So much for being able to fly in the near future. I look up, following the rope where I hang from, like a worm at the end of a fishing line. Raegdan is up there, looking down at me. He managed to actually embed his hooks into that thing’s flesh and give us an anchor. It actually worked. He’s been hurt too. The lower part of his right leg looks as scorched as my wing.

I look behind me. A massive pillar of water runs like a waterfall so close to me. Close… it is meters away. The size, the scale of Charybdis, it- there are no words. I could give them a number, I could point at a field to compare sizes, but it is not the same. There are no words, not to describe this massive growth, this titan.

I- I can’t even tell if the “throat” we are in curves around us. The flesh wall we are hanging on stretches on seemingly straight until it’s lost to the darkness beyond my light.

Seawater runs from everywhere above us, drenching us and weighing us down. We only escaped the main mass of it.

Raegdan still waits for me. I take a deep breath from the air tank and remove the breather. I do not inhale the air inside the Leviathan. I use the air in my lungs to shout, doing my best to be heard over the roar, quickly returning my breather back to my mouth.

“We need to go lower. Throw me your blade. I’ll keep you in place long enough, so you anchor yourself further below.”

He nods in understanding. He lets go of one of the hooks and throws the thick blade to me. It is meant for hacking, but in a pinch it can impale pretty well. I use my magic to thrust it into the fleshy wall in front me. I use my functioning wing to push me forward and I wrap my front legs around the long hilt. I look up and nod. I’m as ready as I will be. I can’t use my wings to hover in place. Even if I tried I fear that at best I’ll end up back in the water and pull Raegdan back in there with me. This makeshift nail will have to do.

Raegdan adjusts his grip on the hooks, He pulls his legs in and bends his knees, putting his feet against the wall of flesh and his body. I can see his torso move as he takes a long breath first and then his legs push just as his arms force his body upwards. For a single moment he is levitating in the air. His weight is not on the curved pikes. He pulls them out.

And falls. Straight down.

He passes just a hoof reach away from me. The rope strains and stretches but I hold on just enough to make sure he is able to keep in reach. The blade slips out, and holding it in my magic I follow Raegdan in his fall, doing my best to slow myself down without hurting my wing any further.

Raegdan has sunk his hooks back in place. I fall next to him and as my light spell approaches and illuminates the area I see a look of panic spread across his face. His left hand releases the hook and he rushes to shorten the rope’s length by forcing it to get tied around his arm in rough loops while it is still slack, catching the furthest end he can in his fist.

He does an amazing job with the couple seconds he had. I hear him growl in pain, even over the water’s roar as my fall stops only two meters below him.

“What’s wrong?” I yell.

Both of his arms are busy keeping us from falling further into Charybdis throat or wherever we were now. His head turns and nods off to the side.

There is something… disgusting, like a line made of thick mucus, extending from the side into the water and, I guess, off to the other side across. It is large, like everything that has to do with this beast. It’s diameter has to be larger than Raegdan’s height.

I look below. There are shadows, but… I strengthen the light spell, forcing it to work like a short lived flare of strong light.

There must be hundreds of them. They are like… like a net. They must be incredibly enduring or elastic to withstand the continuous force that is being thrown on them. I frown with distaste. Mucus was probably too close on the bits. I wonder what function they serve. Could they be used to filter the water in someway or perhaps to break down the force it comes down with? Of course, it could be nothing but the beast having a cold, and this is it’s equivalent of a throat filled with-

Ok, I believe I just made myself puke into my mouth a little. Time to stop.

They get closer and closer together as they go on. I doubt I would be able to weave in between them even if I was able to or dared to fly in this limited space available to safely spread my wings. I look up and seem a couple of them above us. They thicken in density the lower we go apparently. Too bad that’s the only way we can continue.

“This won’t work. You need to carry us down. I’ll need to climb on your back.”

Raegdan nods and motions with his head for me to go to him. I start climbing the rope I am tethered on. I make sure I move the satchel of explosives behind me, tucked in between my wings, away from Raegdan’s touch and with their spells renewed once more.

Better safe than sorry, or rather pieces in this case.

I lock my hindlegs over his hips and around him. My front legs grasp him from the shoulders, after a minute adjustment to stop choking him.

“You can take the weight, right? We have no idea how long the descent is. If you get tired...”

“How is he?” the blonde man asks.

“Not good,” the young brunette answers. “Very bad, actually. He has sliced his hands to shreds on the rocks. He lost quite some blood. He can’t bend his right leg without help. He is getting dizzy, and… he’s getting frostbite. He’s going to lose fingers. A lot of them.”

The blonde man looks up at the gray clouds. A snowflake lands right in his eye and temporarily blinds him. He wipes the moisture off his face quickly. He needs more frost forming on his face like he needs a shot to the head. The weather doesn’t look good. They are not equipped to survive another night up here. At least that’s what he thinks. It’s not like any one of them has anything more than the slightest idea about mountain climbing. All they need is to cross another kilometer at most and then they can start to descent, reaching safety from this cold. He looks around at his ragtag company. Eight of them left out of the original fourteen and the way things looked that number might go even lower. Two of his own friends died already, horribly at that. He didn’t want to lose another one. Their first attempt to go home failed. They didn’t know why. But they had an idea or two to try. It wasn’t much, just a version of clap your hands and believe. Not much of a shot, but it beat just standing around. Now he found out that one more of them won’t make it there to try even that little. Unless…

“Hey,” he gently patted the shoulder of the tallest and strongest member of their group. “Do you think you can carry him?”

“What?”

“Can you carry him? On your back? He isn’t going to be able to climb on his own, and we need to find some shelter soon. I don’t want to be caught out here during the night and if-”

The dark haired man cut him off sharply. “No.”

“No? Look man, don’t be like that. You can carry him, I know you can. You’re the only one strong enough. We don’t have anything we can use to make a stretcher. We can’t leave him here.”

“Why not?” he asked, quietly.

The blonde man was stunned. “You- you don’t want to leave him behind, do you? After everything we’ve been through? Come on, you are better than that.”

The tall man snarled. “Exactly after everything we went through. Look, do you really want to die, here, now? After what we escaped? We are so close, we can be home in a week or two! You can feel it as much as I can! We either leave him here to die or we all die here with him.”

“That’s cold man.”

“That’s- that’s the only way to survive.” The tall man bent his head in shame. “I don’t like it either, but… I can’t carry him. I can’t! If I get tired, if I fall… I don’t want to risk it. I can’t.”

“He’s our friend! What are we even going to tell him? That we are leaving him behind to die alone because you are scared? We can’t get him down the mountain without you.”

“How the hell do you expect me to get down there with him on my back?” the tall man snarled. “Are you trying to get me killed?”

“No one is trying to get you killed. I’m trying to save everyone’s lives here. We’re going to be right next to you, we’ll help you as much as we can. You are the only hope he has. Come on.”

“...No. I’m not going to be able to do it. I’ll fall. I’ll die!”

“Have some fucking trust in yourself, huh?”

“I can’t be responsible for him, alright? I can’t!” the tall man yells, angrily. “I’m… I won’t be able to do it. I know it. I’m not doing it. I can’t- tell him whatever you want. I’m sorry.”

He nods and tries to smile, his lips warping funny around the breather. He removes one of the hooks from the wall of flesh. I get jostled as we now hang from only one hand. He forces the freed hook back in, this time lower, around the height of his shoulder. He does the same with his other hand and we lower down in a sudden motion. For a moment I think he will lose his grip, but Raegdan holds on, grunting. Little by little, we descent.

I call instructions to help him take us the proper route, avoiding the… glistening, gigantic ropes. He keeps a rhythm as we go down, focused only on repeating the same set of motions, and my instructions. He never looks up, down, or to the sides. Not until I tell him to stop while we are next to one of the huge, bridging membranes.

I use my magic and unsheath one of the daggers on me. I gently touch the membrane with it and watch with wonder as it easily pierces through… and hisses. I pull it out quick. I don’t need to look at the damage it caused on the metal. The little puff of smoke rising up tells me enough.

We don’t waste any more time than that. Raegdan’s stamina is not inexhaustible. He carries our combined weight and that of our gear, hanging on nothing but his arms with nowhere to support himself, even for a moment. I’m close enough to hear his laboured breath and feel his chest rise up and down. He’s getting tired and he draws deep breaths as he strives to-

Drat. He’s using too much air. We can’t afford this waste, but what else can we do?

I strengthen the light spell. I can make out some kind of bottom, finally! We can stop there and he can rest for a minute.

“Almost there. Just a few meters more,” I encourage him. He takes a deep breath and he continues. The muscles on his arms tremble, but the arms themselves work with the steadfastness of clockwork.

We make it down. I jump off Raegdan’s back, and as soon as I do, he collapses on his knees, trying to regain his breath and rubbing his arms and shoulders. He gently peels the cloth off his leg. The leg has been eaten down, but not enough to harm muscle or the larger veins. His thick shoe protected his foot. There is enough bleeding even so. Some of the skin on his left arm got shaved off by the rope when he stopped my fall before. He thrusts his wounds into the falling water for a moment to let the seawater soak the missing skin area. I almost warn him off in fear of infection from the Leviathan but I stop. How would he avoid something like it anyway?

I leave him to rest and bind his wounds with fabric he tears from his own clothes while I examine the space we are in. I cast a quick spell to help the blood clot on my wing, and another one to lessen the pain as I sit down next to him and wait for the spells to work. I wish I could do the same for him. He is fine with salves and ointments, but he refuses to digest anything that could lessen the pain apart from alcohol. Personally, even though he won’t admit it, I think he did try something once on his own and he didn’t enjoy the effects. It’s one of the few things he begs me not to ask more details about. I think he’s ashamed. I should have brought a flask of strong drink with us. I could do with some myself.

The water comes falling down from above, separated in a thousand small, unending waterfalls. It feels as if we are the size of motes of dust, trapped under a titanic showerhead. I can’t see very far at all. The little illumination I can provide is broken apart in white diamonds by the spray of water and silver curtains. It is… beautiful in a way.

The surface that we stand on is… strange. It feels soft and bouncy. There is a border to where we sit, like a hard protrusion, marking a large area of ten to fifteen meters of diameter. This area curves inwards and leads to a hole to the center, about three meters wide. The whole “floor” we are on must be divided in cells like that. A world made of drains.

I return to my companion. He looks marginally better now that he rested a while. My wing stopped bleeding too. Thankfully the feathers took the brunt of the damage much like Raegdan was protected by his clothing. The muscle and sinew hasn’t been hurt that much. It is still enough to ground me for a while. “We are inside. What now?”

He’s now able to copy me and remove his breather in short bursts to talk. “We need to find something vital. Its heart, its brain, a large area filled with veins. Anything.”

“That will be hard to do.”

“I’ve got an idea. I remember one of Twilight’s reports. Rarity had a spell to detect gems. Maybe you can do something similar. Nothing fancy, just figure out where the greatest concentrations of blood are. We can try bleeding it.” He looks at my hurt wing. “Return the favor.”

I give it some thought. Make up a spell on the fly… It was- well, it was our only option right now. I would have to make it work or we would have to come up with something else. The insights into the translation of magic would help. I don’t have to look for blood itself. I only have to look for massed quantities of a designated substance. “Alright. I will need a sample to focus on. It will make it easier.”

“No shortage of that.” Raegdan lifts the hooks and quickly examines them, turning them around. “Must have washed off. Here we go.” He hangs the hooks from his belt and unsheathes a knife. He stabs the “wall” behind him.

There is no blood coming out.

“Bigger cut,” I advise him. He nods. He slices deeper.

Something starts to drip out.

“That doesn’t look like blood,” Raegdan says after he carefully inspects the thick liquid oozing out.

“No. It’s different. It looks like pus.”

Raegdan collects some of it on the tip of one of his fingers. He waits a bit to see if it affects him somehow before rubbing it between his fingers, examining its consistency.

“It’s sticky,” he says after wiping his fingers on his trousers. “Like the thing that comes out of trees.”

“Sap?” I ask.

He nods. I expected a Leviathan to be different from everything else I’ve ever encountered so far. Their sheer size alone made it certain that there would be things about them that I’ve never thought of or seen, but… sap?

Raegdan keeps digging into the wound with his dagger. He grasps a piece of flesh and pulls. It tears sideways in a surprisingly straight line.

“It feels strange,” he notes. He leans close enough to almost touch his nose to it. “There are small tube things like... veins. But it also feels like… like…”

“Fiber?”

He looks at me questioningly.

I roll my eyes. He should know this word but I guess it doesn’t come up in conversations with him that often. “Like a plant,” I clarify. “It kind of peels like it has a grain, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, or wood. Not entirely, but near enough-”

We both freeze as the implications or what we just said sink in.

“If Charybdis doesn’t have blood like an animal but rather sap like a plant…” I think aloud.

Raegdan captures the train of my thought. “Oh crap. That would make some sense to explain the size…”

“Then that means that it might be close enough to a tree or something similar. If that’s true then-”

“Then it’s very possible that- there’s no brain or heart, is there?. There might be nothing for us to hurt.”

We look at each other. It takes a couple of seconds more to entirely understand what we just said and respond appropriately.

“Fuck!” we yell together in frustration inside the belly of the beast.

Applejack sat still on the small pier. She looked out towards the distant whirlpool every now and then, but the majority of the time her eyes had been preoccupied trying to focus on the scrolls in front of her. It is hard to do so when it’s something that you don’t care to ever see.

It was the seals that she mostly looked at, the ones that really attracted her attention. They hadn’t use ribbons to tie them closed. They had melted wax over them. Normal, yellow colored wax, probably from a candle they found. She called it a seal, but in truth they didn’t even bother with one. The only way you could tell these letters were from Luna and Raegdan was the oval shaped print left by one of Raegdan’s fingers from when he pressed down on the still warm wax. Applejack had examined one of them up close. The print wasn’t completely smooth. There were lines left on it, swirly lines of a strange pattern from his finger. She had never noticed that before. His fingers had looked completely smooth to her. If she was more like Twilight she could probably make a whole book out of it about how simple things are so complicated when you examine them closer.

The worst part, the one that weighed on her now though? What Twilight and Spike had told them. Right there, the first time Twilight ever told them about Raegdan. She did her best to tell them how Raegdan was, his violence and temper, but also the better side of him. The parental side. This tortured fella, this half-mad, violent individual -and Luna too, she had her share of that too- was being kind or caring in tiny ways every day despite it all, and- and everypony ignored it.

Applejack didn’t mean that being kind to a few ponies made up for what Raegdan… did, or his excesses. Neither did they for Luna. But because somepony has a bad side didn’t mean their good side didn’t count, did it? It was wrong to act as if it didn’t matter at all because it wasn’t big, because they weren’t making a show of it. Strange how neither of them had complained about the unfairness of it.

Probably because they didn’t believe in fair anymore. Applejack couldn’t say she blamed them right now. Boy, did she feel rotten for everypony else’s attitude. Hay, what if she had gone through half of what Raegdan or Luna did? How would she have fared in their place? She’s had it so easy compared to them.

Ya know what? The more she learned and suspected about their past, the less she wanted to play that game. She could see and understand the reasons that made them so focused on succeeding without help. But there’s a point where you have to put a stop to that.

Yes, those two were full of faults, she agreed fully to that. Faults that drove them to their dea- their probab- to risk their lives. What they were doing was stupid and needless, and Applejack should have done something to stop them instead of standing there. Because they could be better. She thought she was getting to them. She really did, but apparently all she did was act as a short lived cork. Well, when they got back she was gonna have to up her game, be more forceful. Talk in their tongue. They thought they were stubborn? Wait till they meet an Apple determined to force her own way. Her patience had ran dangerously thin.

None of her friends had ever seen her actually, and completely angry. But she was getting there.

Leaf Stream’s and Solid Charge’s loud hoofsteps on the wooden surface stopped right next to her. Both of them joined her, but Applejack didn’t acknowledge them and they didn’t say anything in turn. They sat silent for a time. Solid Charge was poking and shoving his thick finger beneath his cast.

“I’ve got the Thestrals ready with nets and ropes,” Leaf Stream finally said. “The moment one of them surfaces or Charybdis starts choking on its own blood they will swoop down there to get them out of the water.”

Applejack nodded absently.

Leaf Stream pointed at the scroll pile. “Quick question. Are you tempted to open your letter? Is that why you have them here?”

Applejack closed her eyes, letting out a troubled breath. “Ah’m tempted to burn ‘em,” she said. Solid Charge next to her nodded as if understanding perfectly. “But ah can’t do that because if, ah say if, they don’t… Ah’m supposed to give them back unopened. That’s what Raegdan asked. They’ll be back in a little while.”

“There’s still time,” Solid Charge’s voice rumbled. “They are both extremely experienced and crafty. If there’s somebody who can perform this insanity and come out alive, it’s them. Any of you see a short stick or something similar around? This cast itches like crazy.”

“Have you… have ya thought about reading the letter they left for you?” Applejack asked Leaf Stream.

Leaf Stream snorted. “Buck no. I don’t want to have to do this crazy stuff they piled on me! I’m not cut out to be a leader. When they get back here I’m giving it back and they can shove this crap to some other poor sap. Maybe Solid Charge over here.”

“I doubt I’d be eligible for that either,” Solid Charge answered, amused. “I’m not a pony. Not that many more would rush to join if a foreigner is in charge of the Lunar Guard.”

“See, this is what I’m talking about,” Leaf Stream pointed out. “The Lunar Guard. Seriously, this is madness. I keep repeating myself, over and over, but it is! Why the buck would they want to keep that going? No Princess Luna, no Lunar Guard. It’s simple. There’s no reason for it to exist without her.”

“Perhaps they consider it their legacy.” Solid Charge had returned to prodding his cast.

“Yeah, I’m totally convinced that’s what it is. This isn’t going to work, not if they keep secrets like this. We don’t even know what our job really is. They like to lie their flank off about everything.”

“Ya don’t know half of it,” Applejack said. “Only… ah don’t think they like it as much as they believe it necessary. Ah think they’re really scared.”

“It’d be hard to find something scarier than that. I can think of only three things equally bad.” Solid Charge pointed towards the Leviathan’s location. “And if that didn’t scare them enough, I don’t know what could do it.”

“Ah don’t know what. Luna’s scared of the Elements being used against her, though ah don’t know why she would think that. Raegdan’s scared of ponies learning some things about them both. There’s so much ah just don’t know. Sometimes ah even think he’s scared of me. Heck, he outright told me that once.”

“Well, if you want to we can go and open up my letter right now. I bet they got most of the answers in it,” Leaf Stream offered.

Applejack hesitated. “Ah’ll pass. Ah’ll wait for them to tell me. They will. No more lies after this. Ah had enough.”

Leaf Stream nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, good call. I don’t want to get yelled at anyway. There’s gonna be a lot of it coming my way soon enough, especially if you are serious about the secrets stopping.”

Solid Charge remained seemingly focused on ruining his cast. “I think that was a plea for someone to take something off their chest,” he casually said.

“That does sound like it,” Applejack agreed. “Something you wanna share sugarcube?”

Leaf Stream tapped her hoof on the wooden pier in a nervous fashion. “You guys got my back, right? Because, seriously, I didn’t mean any harm. I haven’t done any harm.”

“Ohoho,” Solid Charge laughed, finally turning to her. “What did you do?”

“I, uh, I may have agreed to, umm… inform a certain party of any activities or conversations I may be privy to that may be of interest to that particular party in mention…”

The rest, if there was going to be any more at all, had lost its opportunity to be said when a hoof smacked Leaf Stream right on the face.

“You were spying on them? They trusted you enough to turn their back to you and you backstabbed them?” Applejack seethed. Solid Charge was shaking his head, pursing his lips.

Leaf Stream brought her hooves in front of her head while ducking away from Applejack’s raised hoof. “Hey, hey, calm down! You’re not that perfect yourself, ok? I’m not deaf and I’m not an idiot. I gathered up enough on the way here to figure out that you and your friends have done the same thing, haven’t you?”

“That’s different,” Applejack shouted. “We didn’t intend to sell them off to ponies trying to kill them!”

“Neither did I. It’s Princess Celestia that I spy on them for. Not exactly spy, just keep tabs on them.”

The indignation vanished like fog under the sun. “What?”

“She just asked me to, I don’t know, keep an eye on them and let her know if there was anything she could do. She worries about them, that’s all,” Leaf Stream tried to explain. She saw how both Applejack and Solid Charge were still not understanding and continued. “Look, when I was still in the hospital, Princess Celestia came to visit me. Just a couple hours after Princess Luna and- and the commander left. It was… I was getting pretty heavily into the whole goddess thing for a long time by then. It’s… it’s very hard not to. But then I had this happen to me while the one I prayed to was right there.”

Leaf Stream moved the small stumps that were all she had left, looking sad at the twitching movement that was all she was capable of now. “Pro tip: that kind of stuff happening tends to be a deal breaker. I mean, I was assured that what I was ordered to do was for her glory and I was doing her holy work-”

“What you were ordered to do,” Applejack spat. “You were trying to kill Raegdan in that fight.”

“Duh!” Leaf Stream said. “We went for the kill right away while he tried to keep it down. We pushed, and pushed, until we finally pushed hard enough… I get that I’m the one mostly responsible for what happened. I’m not an idiot. But I was out of the fight, he had no reason to-”

“You tried to kill him and he didn’t, did he?” Solid Charge asked for validation.

“No, not at first. He went easy on us. Then he tore us apart in a minute.”

Solid Charge gently pulled at his braided beard. “How long do you think you can taunt a manticore before it cuts you down?”

Leaf Stream grimaced. “Thanks grandpa, but no thanks. I already learned that lesson by now. Try spreading that centuries old wisdom elsewhere.”

“Obviously ya didn’t learn it enough,” Applejack said. “You are spying on them!”

“And you are still taunting him,” Solid Charge added.

“It’s not spying! And it’s kind of hard to hold my tongue. It’s either say stuff like that or run away from him sometimes,” Leaf Stream defended herself, growing exasperated. She kicked a small empty barrel behind her. It landed hard on the shallow waters, spraying her with salty waterdrops.

“The point is, when Princess Celestia came to visit I wasn’t so sure I believed that crap anymore. Mostly out of spite. Then… we started talking. The topic moved from me to her, I didn’t want to talk about my own family. So in order to keep me talking she told me in parts about her sister, about her friend, about how she hoped they’d all be kind of a family together again. I realized then that she wasn’t the mighty goddess that I pictured her as. She was just-”

“Normal?” Applejack asked.

Leaf Stream scoffed. “There’s nothing normal about her. I’m starting to think there’s no such thing as normal anywhere. Look at you. An apple farmer that has saved the world twice so far and makes the scariest thing I ever saw bow before you. No. She was tired. Tired, lonely, and worried about so many ponies all at once. She kind of reminded me of my own grandmother, only on a more grand scale. Worst of all, she was feeling guilty. Guilty she let the fight go on as if it wasn’t my fault at all. Guilty that she somehow soured her relationship with her sister to the point that even now that she returned Princess Luna was not really talking to her. Guilty that she failed her friend turning back to something he was trying not to be. She takes it all upon herself. I’m… I’m not sure why, but I was thinking about their offer, I really meant what I said the other day, but what cinched it was… Before we left I went to Princess Celestia and told her I was going to keep an eye on them both, for her sake. She asked me to find out why they didn’t trust her anymore. She wants to fix this, that’s all, but those two-”

Solid Charge sighed. “Kind of hard to do so when they seem to be willing to commit suicide rather than let her- I’m still confused on that part. I haven’t been able to figure out why they went ahead with this.”

Applejack couldn’t blame Leaf Stream for anything. Her heart was in the right place. Nevermind that she was right before, Applejack herself didn’t have the most solid ground to stand on. “Pride… and the need to prove themselves. Remember? Same reason they didn’t want to tell her about the ambush or potential pursuit.”

“I don’t know… they seemed more upset that Princess Celestia would…”

“Would what?” Leaf Stream pushed.

“Learn something from the Leviathan. Who knows what.” Solid Charge waved his good arm.

“Ah really don’t think it talks,” Applejack said, letting off a chuckle she didn’t feel.

“Do you have any idea what the Lunar Guard is really supposed to be?” Leaf Stream asked.

“Ah don’t know. Ah might got a couple suspicions but ah can’t have ya going off even to Princess Celestia with them. Ah’m pretty sure that ah’m on mah last strike here as far as they’re concerned, if ah haven’t ruined it already,” Applejack explained.

“Personal curiosity. Scout Filly’s honor,” Leaf Stream said, bringing her hoof across her chest.

Applejack huffed. “Nothing that makes entire sense. Security and monster hunting sound logical, but ah really don’t think that’s what they entirely want ya for. Though they did admit they wanna get rid of the Elements of Harmony, even if it means destroying them. We figured they mean for the Lunar Guard to tackle what we are supposed to in our stead next time, so that’s a part of it at least.” Leaf Stream’s mouth was open wide enough to fit a chair in there. “What?”

“What? Are you serious? Did you just ask me what? They want to get rid of- are they- what am I saying, of course they are. I swear, I’ve turned into a broken record. They wanna do what?” Leaf Stream shouted.

Solid Charge in the meanwhile had been driven to tears by laughter. He was slapping the wooden boards next to his legs while trying to draw breath and trying to form words. The only one he had managed so far was “unbelievable”.

Applejack tried to calm her down. “Hey, hey, simmer down y’all, ok? We ain’t letting them do nothing like that. We’ll have a talk with them if they insist and change their mind. They’re not crazy enough to actually go ahead with something ridiculous like that.”

Leaf Stream ran to the end of the pier, pulling Applejack along, framed the distant maelstrom in between her hooves in Applejack’s line of sight, and screamed right into her ear. “Have you even been paying attention so far?”

“What do we do now?” Raegdan asks.

I shake my head. I have no idea. This suicide mission was based on two beliefs. That we would be able to survive entry, and that there was something in here we could strike, a weak point.

We got one out of two. We might as well have gotten none for all the good it does.

“We continue on. This is all conjecture. We might be wrong. We keep looking.” I automatically renew the spells. “If nothing else, we give it that indigestion we were talking about.”

Raegdan nods. He grabs hold of the long blade he carries and uses it like a stick to help him stand up. “It’s worth a sh-”

The blade barely sinks into the soft flesh of the floor, and like a reflexive muscle it contracts to the sides, disappearing from below us in an instant.

Buck this life of mine.

We plummet down through what I think might be a wide tunnel. I try my best to keep funneling magic into the enchantments as they are quickly drained at a spectacular rate. Every time I feel the sack jostle against something I wince, expecting a deafening thunder to be the last thing I sense. Judging from the pull of the rope, Raegdan must be somewhere right behind me. If he so much as touches them…

The thought remains unfinished, interrupted by the hideous passage we have found ourselves in. Slippery, yet rough feelers of some kind slow down our descent. Hundreds, no, thousands of jutting growths dampen our fall. I don’t see them, but I certainly feel them. I can picture them in my mind’s eye. Yielding pink branches covered with thousands of long hair-like bulges, all of them clumping next to each other to form a thick forest where we fall through, bending enough to allow us entry, going over us like a hairbrush. They bore everywhere and probe everything.

I feel violated, and I’ve never desired clothing, pants especially, with greater intensity than I do now. A void greets me. It goes on for a little bit too long. Another damn fall.

I finally land in shallow water that covers a soft, slimy, and very, very disgusting surface, almost as gross as what I just went through. I quickly push the explosives away from me, before-

Raegdan lands almost on top of me. The blade he held when we fell sinks point first just a hoof width away from my face.

Raegdan coughs hard and struggles to breath. I push his extremities off me in order to get up. I reignite the light spell to check him over. I momentarily freeze with panic at the sight.

He has lost his air tank. He coughs and breaths in unaided. He is covering his mouth and nose with one hand, while the other holds his throat. He had no way to soften his fall like I did, even with my barely functional wing. His left side is bruising right in front of me, and his head bleeds lightly.

I remove my breather and try to force it in his mouth. The stupid male pushes it off and waves me away. “Take it! We can share,” I cry, desperate.

“It’s ok,” he coughs. “I can breathe,” he says while he forces the breather into my own mouth. This idiotic, self-centered biped thinks he can sacrifice himself so eas- what?

“What?”

“I can breathe,” he says louder while tears run from his eyes. “There’s air, but… oh heavens, the smell! I’m going to die from the fucking smell. It’s like a dead fish farted in my mouth and then its family and friends joined in!”

This makes no sense! Why is there air in here? How in Tartarus could this happen? I take off my breather and take a tentative breath myself.

My life is a sea of pure regret, and I wade in the deep.

“Oh my stars!” I shout as the intense desire to retch out my intestines overtakes me.

“You just had to try it out for yourself, didn’t you?”

“It’s horrid!” I cry out. “Gaagh! I think it formed a crust over my teeth. I can taste that!”

“You don’t know shit about taste,” he yells back. “Some of that fucking slime got into my mouth and let me tell you, it tastes exactly like-”

I don’t hear the rest of it, thankfully. I’m too busy emptying my stomach. Rotten meat has nothing on this.

“As much as I hate myself for saying that… we should save the air we have left in the air tanks,” I say after I wipe the bile from my lips.

“No problem. I doubt I’ll ever be able to not smell that anymore, even if I have all eternity.”

“Don’t joke about that.”

“It will follow us in our nostrils, and on the tips of our tongues, forever and ever-”

“Please stop,” I beg.

“...Fine.”

I look around. We are in a cavernous area. It’s… I’m running out of words to describe sizes. Hundreds of meters wide at a guess. Let’s leave it at that. It’s not like I can see even a small part of it in this darkness, but it gives me a sense of openness, almost like as if I’m outside. I can’t see the ceiling or where we fell from. Water is pouring from all over, but it’s not the streams it was before. It falls like an intense rainstorm. I can barely see anything, even with the light I’ve cast. We splash in water that reaches almost up to Raegdan’s calves. It runs like a swift river. My guess is that it all drains somewhere.

“Do you think this is the stomach? Or what passes as one?” Raegdan asks.

“Maybe.” I think of the strange, mucus-like lines. I think of the strange drain type area we were before. The long, violating tunnel like thing we fell from. “Maybe it has more than one. Maybe it passes us through various ones till it finds one that can-”

“Digest us?”

“I sincerely hope there is not one filled with acid or something similar,” I say.

Raegdan looks thoughtful to the distance behind me. “Luna. How much of a chance is there that anything else was able to make it down here alive?” he asks.

I really, really don’t like the sound of that. It sounds too much like a set up. “Just considering that acidic net up there, not much. Why?” He points behind me.

Of course.

A creature of black, slimy, naked flesh stands erect a few meters from us, right at the ring edge of the illumination of my spell. The only reason I can easily see it is its intense, light sucking darkness, and the marking of its silhouette by the intense rainfall on its body. For a moment I believe it stands on legs, like Raegdan, but the glistening wetness beneath it moves in serpentine motions. Some kind of tentacles perhaps. A lot of them. More of them, lighter and thinner, emerge from what I would consider shoulders, provided I took a lot of liberties to call them that. There is no head. The mouth is located at the center of its orb-like mass. A splintered wound opens in more than one direction to reveal needle teeth. It is tall, taller even than Raegdan.

It lowers down. The thick tentacles beneath it mass together, and shift.

It launches straight for me, the coiled tentacles shooting it ahead like a loaded spring. I am caught completely unprepared by this sudden attack. I waste a second, a single lousy second, to gasp and half step back like a frightened filly. I prepare a concussive spell to send it back when my focus is shattered. Lost in instinct I had spread open my wings and something weakened got torn, shooting a sharp pain over my body.

It was a second that would decide my life or death. The teeth open wide to welcome my head in their embrace.

The young woman runs. She runs as hard as she can, screaming for help. Those things are right behind her. They are not as fast as her, not by a long shot, but they do not stop, won’t stop, not until they have her. She can hear the moans, feel their grasping hands reach for her.

She cries as she runs. The thunderstorm over her makes her pleas for help unheard. She has to get closer. She has to reach them.

She has thrown away her shoes. The thick soles which gave her those desirable few centimeters to her tiny height weren’t made for running. Her soft feet were bleeding and hurt so much. She ignored it the best she could, and pushed herself not to slow down.

She runs for the wire fence. If she can get behind the fence she will be safe, she will be able to get far away enough. She will be with her friends, with her boyfriend. She will be safe.

She sees him. He is there -right there!- behind the fence, piling everything heavy enough he can find in front of the door to block it. She screams his name, she begs for help. He turns and for a moment their eyes connect. He is bleeding on the left side of his face. One of them clawed him all the way from the bottom of his cheek to his neck, leaving three long gouges.

There is a hole on the asphalt of the road she runs on. She’d be fine if she just stepped into it or jumped over it. But she didn’t. She didn’t even notice it. She happened to place her foot just to the edge of it. The foot twists to the side, and her own weight breaks her ankle.

She falls down, screaming in pain.

Her boyfriend, her love, he is right there. He sees her fall, he sees the mob behind her. He rushes for the door… and he hesitates. He glances from the barricade to the fence, looking to see if he could climb over it instead of undoing work that could save the rest of them.

The world shines bright for a moment in the flash of lightning. The ruined, abandoned buildings become crispy clear and depressingly real. Deep shadows of a hundred long arms form on the tarmac beneath her.

He hesitates for only a few seconds. Not much. Five perhaps, at most. He pushes the pile away from the side, causing it to fall over, their friends and the rest of the bus passengers lending their help, making enough space for him to open the door enough for him to squeeze through.

He runs for her, shouting her name. She struggles to her knees and reaches out her hand for him to grasp, to pull her up. He will save her. He promised he would protect her. He promised. All he has to do is pull her up, and he can easily outrun them, even while carrying her. He is strong, strong and fast, and he loves her as much as she loves him. They’ve loved each other since they were kids. He promised. He’s always been there, every time she needed him. She needs him now more than she ever did. The tears stop flowing as he gets closer. She is saved!

He’s only a meter away. He reaches out and she struggles forward, reaching for his fingers.

Hands grab her hair and violently pull her back. Tufts of hair get unrooted along with pieces of her scalp. Nails dig into her calves, feet, and back. Teeth sink into her, tearing chunks of flesh off her. She shrieks with pain and terror. She is pulled back, deep into the mob. The last thing she saw was his screaming face, pale white in another flash of lightning.

Everything else was teeth, blood, and short lived screams.

Raegdan doesn’t hesitate, not even for a fraction of a second. He was behind me, but he covers the distance with a few swift steps and a jump. The multi hinged jaws close ineffectively as the black monster is pushed away from me. Raegdan assaulted it with his own body, hurling himself at it to push it back.

He kept his place at my side. He defended me when I was in danger. My horn lights with magic. That thing reaches for him with its long tentacles.

How does it dare? He is mine. My magic forms the proper shapes around my horn, my mind fills with detailed understanding of what I want done, and the searing beam of his kind is once again mine to command.

The forest and plains shake with the force of the unified howling. The timberwolves have grown wild. They have grown in numbers. They have grown in courage, or arrogance.

They have grown hungry… and they know where the meat is. Where it hides.

There is a small pony village just beyond the hill. Lines of gnarled wood-like creatures run to climb over it, driven by terrible hunger pangs and succulent smells. The ponies have grown fat and weak while their own numbers have grown strong, culling the wandering members of these pathetic herds. It would be the greatest and easiest meal of this humongous pack.

The first timberwolves crest the hill and pause. The ponies have formed a line of their own in front of their lair. They are waiting for them with fire, shaped tree flesh, and earth bone. They intend to fight.

The timberwolves paused, but it wasn’t fear. It was the view of the rich meal that waited for them. Some of their number might die. This was how life was.

Dead timberwolves meant more meat for the victorious survivors. Saliva was running from each jaw. Unthinkingly, they waited for all their insatiate members to mass together and howl their craving. The weak ponies below fell down on the ground and covered their ears, all except a large blue one.

What the timberwolves saw was a selection of offered, defenseless necks. They could no longer control themselves. The ground is trampled beneath the weight of their bodies and the air vibrates by the volume of their growls.

The ponies hold. Timberwolves burn in acrid smoke, their pained howls filling the battlefield. The ponies cheer as they taste victory.

But timberwolf wood doesn’t burn as fast as they thought. Their cries of victory turn to cries of dismay as teeth and fire leap for them, desperate for one last bite before they perish. Their weapons stop swinging as they back away from the walking flames.

Then the second line of timberwolves crashes like a wave upon them. The ponies break, and a gap appears. The weak members of their herd cry behind them, spurring the predators bloodthirst as they see the path open up for them to reach this easier prey.

A pony, blue and larger than the rest, moves to block their advance. She tries to bring unity to her pack with her words and her shouts.

The timberwolves are united by hunger and the smell of blood. Their shared desire to fill their bellies keeps them strong. The smell of fear rises from the ponies around the blue one and they fall behind to seek shelter among the mass of greater numbers, leaving her to protect the gap, alone and vulnerable.

The timberwolves want flesh. Hers will do just as fine.

An hour later every timberwolf has been killed or routed. Ponies lie dead, but not many. Ponies are crying out for aid as they have been savagely injured, and of them there are more. The young, the old, and the sick, are safe in their untouched shelters.

The blue one lies in a pool of her own blood, surrounded by a wall of broken branches that was dozens of timberwolves just minutes ago. Meat and fur that used to be part of her body is now buried under those same branches, caught in former teeth and stomachs.

Still, she won. She held the breach on her own. They didn’t make it a step further.

She fought for every breath and struggled for the next beat of her heart as she waited for somepony to finally reach her, and give her some much needed aid at last.

She was thirsty. So terribly thirsty.

Though he did manage to push it back and away from me, the creature is heavier and the snake-like, thick tentacles on its lower body didn’t allow it to fall like he did. Raegdan is on the ground, and before he has a chance to stand up again the thinner tentacles of the creature have coiled around him. He has been completely entangled, unable to move or escape.

For a moment at least. All I need is a one second burst. All the creature’s upper appendages are in one convenient row. I cut them all down, the short lived beam easily slicing through the thin flesh.

The second downside of this spell, apart from the increasing drain the stronger and longer I make it, is the fact that it mostly cauterizes the wounds it causes. I would enjoy to see the creature fall and bleed out its life at my hooves, whimpering for mercy it wouldn’t have.

I step forward, ready to finish the job. The creature wails and screams at the loss of its limbs. I chuckle menacingly at the sight. It sees me coming and a few of the thicker appendages on its base rise up, ready to fight. It spreads open its jaws, showing me its terrible teeth, and roaring a challenge that it cannot win.

A small metal object makes a perfect arc and plummets straight down its open jaws.

Before I have time to turn my head towards the only one who could have thrown that, I’m lying on the ground, covered by Raegdan’s body. There is a muffled explosion and black blood rains over us. Some pieces of meat too.

“I had that,” I tell Raegdan, pouting.

He gets off me, smiling in apology. “Oh come on. How could I resist that invitation? For all we know it could spit poison. I thought the faster we finished it, the better.” He spotted his lost air tank and moved for it.

I hate it when logic spoils my fun. I sniff in mock offense and instantly regret it.

“Gaah. It smells even worse now. I think this thing might have been the source,” I say, looking down at the offal with disgust. If this thing smells that much worse dead I would have made sure it stayed alive. It’s ghastly.

“Yeah, I noticed. Its foul.” He sniffs once more as he ties the air tank’s straps. “I bet it will smell even worse when it starts to rot.” He reaches for the blade and places it back on his belt.

Never let it be said that I’m not a glutton for punishment. I smell the air again and groan at my stupidity. “My stars, then it must rot amazingly fast. It smells much worse than it did seconds ago. I thought you were supposed to get used to a smell, not feel it get stronger and stronger.”

Raegdan steps next to me and draws breath through his nose. He chokes a bit. “Ugh, you are right. It’s much worse. It wasn’t like that not even ten seconds ago.”

I shake my head and turn away from it. “I hope there aren’t any more. The smell of more like it would be horrend-”

I am an idiot. My wayward tongue is smarter than me.

“Luna…” Raegdan says, warningly, overcome with apprehension.

I flare my light spell. I make it strong enough that despite the storm falling all around us we can see dozens of the creatures slithering on their thick appendages towards us. “Oh my stars…” I gasp.

Raegdan has something more efficient in mind. “Run!” he shouts as he grabs one of the straps around me and drags me to one of the few directions these things are not. I barely manage to remember the duffelbag of explosives as we begin our retreat.

Retreat to where? We are inside a stomach. Where are we going to go? This shallow lake we are in doesn’t help at all. It drags at us, making each step harder than the last, greedily sapping our strength as we struggle for each meter we cross, and to retain our balance on the slippery, uneven floor underneath. Raegdan must have it worse, standing on two legs as he is. The rapid flow of the water is pushing, making it harder to- to…

This water must drain somewhere, otherwise it would fill up this entire area in minutes. I don’t know where it may lead, but it can’t be worse than our current predicament. Unless of course it leads outside Charybdis, and we suddenly find ourselves get popped like cherries from the intense underwater pressure.

I change direction, following the water flow. Raegdan follows without asking, even though I can guess he’s wondering why. He trusts me, and follows my decision unquestioningly.

I love him for that.

We run, and run some more. The salt of the endless water drenching us stings our eyes. It burns our throat and it makes our thirst flare. It’s almost as if we are trying to move underwater. We cough and exhale forcefully to drive out the water that makes its way in our mouths and noses. We keep on running.

Until a tall figure on our way forces us to stop.

It’s another one of those creatures. Raegdan’s left hand whips to his chest to ready one of his bombs while the right one goes to the hilt of the blade. He hesitates when he sees the creature isn’t paying any attention to us. Instead, it is preoccupied with something else.

“Is that our boat?” he whispers.

It is! It has been broken, burnt, and shattered into pieces. The faceless creature reaches out and carefully removes a piece of long wood that had been stabbed erect at the bottom of the water. When it’s out its tentacles flex and twist. The wooden board cracks and disintegrates with unbelievable ease at the strength it commands.

Is that what would have happened to Raegdan if I hadn’t taken immediate action?

It turns its attention to the rest of the boat, taking its time to lift the pieces in the air and destroy them to fractions of what they were.

“Why is it doing that?” Raegdan asks.

“I don’t know,” I answer. “And we don’t have time to find out. The rest of them are right behind us. We have to run!”

We do so. We double our efforts. Stopping there, even for a second, was a mistake. We have no idea how long until we reach our goal or if there is even one. We will either need a miracle or a smart idea for once if we are to survive this one.

The rain stops.

“What the hell is happening no-” Raegdan doesn’t have time to finish his sentence.

Everything shakes and the world trembles. We choke. The air is gone and the water starts to rise.

“It’s moving again! Oh, this isn’t good at all! I thought that thing was supposed to stay there longer,” Leaf Stream cried out.

“Maybe it ran out of food, or they did something in there. Where do you think it’s heading?” Solid Charge asked.

Leaf Stream snorted. “Where else do you think it’s gonna head now? Didn’t you hear the commander? It’s gonna screw with us royally before it keels over.” She turned tail and headed for the Thestral village.

“Where ya going?” Applejack shouted behind her.

“We need to get to Baltimare right now, and bring the Thestrals with us. You sent a letter to Princess Celestia didn’t you?”

“Ah-” Applejack stuttered.

“Come on, hurry up! Yes or no?”

“Yes! We did. Luna said it was fine, remember? Princess Celestia said she’d send warning to Baltimare to moor their ships and she’s heading here to meet with us,” Applejack caught pace with Leaf Stream easily enough. Solid Charge was left behind, but he didn’t seem to hurry a lot himself.

“Good. You need to send another one. Tell the Princess the Leviathan is on the move. She will need to reiterate her orders, make sure no greedy flank tries to ignore her, and hurry up straight for Horseshoe Bay instead of wasting time coming all the way here.”

“What about you?” Applejack asked.

“I’m gonna send the fastest thestrals ahead to warn Baltimare in person, and make sure no ship or boat tries to sail. Then I’m getting as many of them as I can and we follow behind. Horseapples, I’ll need to get some thestrals to follow the Leviathan from above. The bosses might try to get out while it’s moving.”

“Ya know, for a mare claiming that ain’t made for this ya sure know how to take cha-”

“Shut up, and never, ever, tell that to anypony else!”

It’s been over an hour.

The Leviathan must be moving. It’s the only thing I can imagine for what is happening. Raegdan must be thinking the same, though I cannot ask him at the moment.

He has used the hooks as anchors and tied the rope around them. One of the hooks is reserved for the explosives that I still try to keep safe. The other for both of us. It’s the only thing that’s holding us in place. There are currents, savagely strong, that try to pull us back and forth. The outcome of the beast’s movement I presume.

We have been taking turns breathing from one of the tanks at the time, conserving as much air as possible. We hold each breath for as long as possible, keep our movement to the minimum.

One of them is empty already. The last one is running out.

Raegdan holds me in his arms, with my head leaning on his chest, right below his chin, just the way I like to lie when we sleep. It’s a consoling position. The way things look we might drown in here.

I lift my head and nudge him with the hoof, requesting the breather. He positions it at my lips and for a second I feel like a foal drinking from a bottle. I draw just enough air to quench the burning in my lungs. Seconds later, he tentatively breathes in turn.

I can’t see him of course. I don’t dare to use more magic than I have to for the explosives, which we will probably never have the chance to use. I can only tell what he’s doing from sensing his movements.

We drift in the cold, dark waters. The only sound I can hear is the rapid beat of his heart. We hug each other in the darkness, and wait for death to come, either by asphyxiation or teeth.

As we wait I can’t help but ponder. Do I want to die first and let him spend his last moments holding my dead body, or would I prefer to reserve this fate for myself?

Over an hour after the water rose there is a great turbulence. The water level drops, fast. The current is almost strong enough to tear the hooks off. Raegdan manages to unhook the long blade and drive it down, making another anchor point for us. He holds the handle with one hand, the other wrapped around me. I take a moment to drive a dagger down the same way and loop the strap of the bag of explosives around it.

Our lungs burn as we wait for the water to fall back to its previous level. I manage to grab the breather and take a precious breath, quickly passing it on to Raegdan’s lips so he can breath too. His hold had began to slacken, but it becomes strong again as he draws in deep.

The water is gone. We can hear hissing, like wind. We aren’t sure what to do anymore. Finally, Raegdan simply shrugs and breathes in. He holds it in for a timeless second and then exhales and nods. I start breathing freely myself.

We spend two minutes just lying down, inhaling great gulps of that smelly air.

The rain starts to fall again. Not just water. Fish of various sizes fall around us too. Most of them are half melted or entirely cut in parts. The head of a giant shark lands a few meters away from us.

“These things are still around, Luna. We have to get out of here.” He wheezes as he slowly makes his way to his hands and knees before he manages to stand upright with difficulty. He must be feeling as bad as I do. I have the mother of all headaches and I feel I’ll never be able to breath properly again. My whole body aches in a dull way. Still, he is right. We must move.

“Any… any ideas? I was going to take us where the water drains, but if we have some time we might try for something better.”

“I’m- I’m not sure… keep moving in the same direction? We must be reaching the edge by now. Let’s see what’s there.”

We walk ahead, no longer running. I’m not sure if we could even manage it now. We keep glancing behind us, and to the sides. If these creatures return to their pursuit we will be forced to find out.

The end of the… stomach is in sight. If that is even where we are. Perhaps we haven’t reached the true one yet. Honestly, I don’t care to. We are here to kill the Leviathan, not become part of its diet.

Even though we let ourselves be eaten to get in here. What was even my point?

The waterflow at my hooves -and Raegdan’s feet- is turning into a waterfall as it falls down a canyon that runs around the edge of the stomach wall like a moat. We follow the canyon for a few meters until we find a gap in it. A large bridge of flesh, five meters wide, connects the floor we stand on with the wall. Afterwards, the canyon continues again.

There is too little water for this to be the whole result of this constant rainfall. This must be how the stomach is all around. I bet if we turn the other way and keep walking we’ll reach a point, the center of this place, after which the water flows to every other direction.

I feel like there’s not enough air.

I don’t dare make my way to the edge. “What now? Do we fall down?” I ask Raegdan.

He is eyeing the flesh bridge instead. “I’m thinking no. Why don’t we go straight ahead instead of down?”

“You want us to cut through?”

“Why not? I doubt there’s anything we want down there. Let’s see if we can make it through.”

“We might just cut our way outside.”

“That would suck. Nah,I doubt it. Look, there’s either someplace there for us to reach or it’s just meters of… whatever Charybdis is made of and we’re safe. Let’s take a look.”

We cross the bridge and reach the wall. The rain stops midpoint of the bridge and we are left to breathe a little easier. The wall looks completely identical to the one we clinged on before. Raegdan draws the long blade, leans back, and stabs it straight in as hard as he can.

He makes it halfway in.

He leans on the handle and pushes it further in. The metal slowly sinks deeper and deeper until suddenly it’s thrust all the way in. He turns to me with his eyebrows raised.

Hollow. It is hollow and surprisingly thin. Now we are getting somewhere.

“We could use a stick of the explosives to make a hole,” Raegdan suggests.

I shake my head in disagreement. “I’d rather not waste what little we have for this. I can make a hole on my own. Could you move aside please?”

He takes a few steps back. “Try to make it as big as you can. We need to let air circulate in there,” he advises.

I ready the spell. “Don’t worry. It will be big enough.” The beam moves fast in a circle. I cannot hold it for long. I carve the wall as deep as I can in that short time.

Raegdan inspects the cut. “Almost, but not quite. No hole.”

“You can cut the rest of the way yourself,” I pant. Keeping yourself on the verge of asphyxiation for so long is not fun. Not fun at all. “I’m going to rest for a bit.”

I turn around so I can watch for anything approaching as I sit down. Behind me I can hear Raegdan slowly hacking with one of his daggers.

“Start at the bottom,” I say. “The weight hanging off it will pull the top part and make it easier for you to cut it down when you reach that point.”

“I knew that,” he says. There is a pause as the dagger stops to move to the bottom, making me unsuccessfully attempt to stifle a laugh.

A few minutes later a wet slurping noise alerts me to the completion of his task.

“Oh sweet heavens. Count yourself lucky you didn’t see that.”

“I thank my luck every night.” I make my way to him. “Anything?”

“That depends. Does a corridor count?”

“What?”

“Look for yourself. It’s like a corridor in there. I think we really lucked out for once.”

I climb through the hole, light spell above me. It is a corridor. The ceiling reaches about two meters over Raegdan’s head and it’s four meters wide, an almost perfect circle with a flat, straight floor. I walk ahead with Raegdan following behind me. As we move on and light further ahead we see that it makes a sharp ninety degree turn to the left. We stop and gaze in wonder.

“...this is freaky as hell,” Raegdan says after a minute of silence.

“This… this cannot be a vein or… what is this?”

“Maybe- maybe it moves something else.”

“Do you see something I don’t?”

“No. Air maybe? Or- or it’s something it makes use of when it moves?”

I look behind us. “It goes on the other direction too. Do we go back and try the other way or do we continue clockwise?”

Raegdan gulps. “This- this… I won’t lie. I’m feeling a little scared now.”

“It’s nothing but a passage. Why would you be scared?”

He doesn’t have an answer.

“So… go as we are?” I ask again.

“I- I guess so. Nothing else to do.”

We stand in place, terrified by a turn of this corridor, this passage. Neither of us wants to move. I’m not sure what has affected him so, but it has spread to me in turn.

“Are you going to walk or will you keep standing there?” I prod, hoping he will take the hint.

He looks at me and forcibly steels himself. He takes a deep breath, and deliberately takes a single step forward. He pauses for a moment, watching the dark turn ahead. He shakes his head, and while he didn’t while in the cold waters he shivers now. Still, he marches on.

I follow behind him, as close as I can.

We walk on the strangely perfectly shaped, organic corridor. It feels as if we left the beast behind us and we have now wandered into a building.

I honestly thought this couldn’t get weirder. Then we saw something neither of us wanted to believe possible.

An intersection. The corridor we followed connected to another one leading to the left.

“I vote we somehow get out of here, and never talk of this again,” Raegdan stammers. “I don’t know what, or how, or why, and I don’t care to find out. Fuck this, fuck Baltimare, fuck Equestria. I want to leave, now!”

“You need to calm down.”

“No! This- I want nothing to do with this Luna. Let’s leave. We can climb as high as we can, and when it starts to move we can force our way out. I don’t want to stay here a second longer. This thing makes no sense!”

I straighten myself and look him in the eyes. We are too close to run like cowards. “If you want to leave, be my guest. I have a job to do here. I’ll join you when I’m done,” I say, making sure that I inject all the disappointment I feel into my voice.

Raegdan bends his head in defeat. “I’m- I’m not leaving you. I’m with you all the way.”

“Then choose a direction and move,” I order him.

He glances between the available paths as if there could be a sign pointing at the right direction. “Let’s go this way,” he says, pointing at the passage turning to the left. “That one might just circle around.”

“Why do you think so?”

“I don’t! It’s just a guess. I said might, didn’t I? Come on.”

I half-believe him. He’s lying, but not to me. Whatever his mind is suspecting is enough to scare him almost senseless.

We follow the corridor for about ten meters until it also makes another turn to the right. The next section is long and on an incline downwards.

“We’re going down whether we want it or not,” I say.

“Definitely not want to.” He exhales and straightens his shoulders. “Alright. Let’s see what we can find.”

We descend gently down the slope until it straightens again for a few meters and we reach an arch. Beyond it is- is…

“You have to be kidding me,” Raegdan roars. “You have to be fucking kidding me! Why is there a room inside a monster? What’s next? Are we going to find a little hut and a guy reclining on a chair under an umbrella?”

“You need to calm down,” I repeat.

His fists are on top of his head, grabbing handfuls of his hair. “But- this- why the hell… Fuck!” he screams. He crouches down, balancing on his toes, panting.

I give him a few seconds. “Are you feeling better?”

He nods. “A bit. Yeah. I’m better now.”

“Good. Let’s see what’s the purpose of this.” I’m pretending to be calm, but in truth I am almost as vexed as he is.

The “room” is quite large. Nothing like the proportions of what we went through already. We can see where it begins, and where it ends. It is a tiny space where each fleshy wall stretches on only about twenty meters.

It’s all about perspective I suppose.

The only notable feature I can spot are two large bumps, located at the center of the room, each of them about a meter in diameter. We move closer to examine them in greater detail.

They look like… they greatly resemble… they have the shape of… of…

They look like a certain hole that has tightly puckered up. This beast has been too awfully repugnant so far to make it even worse by unneeded comparisons. They are like hatches that have been closed off by meat flaps. There.

Raegdan has walked off to the wall left of the entrance. I approach and notice there are similar… gates located on it too. Two of them.

“Any thoughts?” I ask.

“No. Not yet.” He goes back to the center of the room. “Can you think of a way to find out what’s in here?”

“We could force them open.”

“Hmmm. But what if we want them closed later?”

“Why do we suddenly care about causing damage to the Leviathan?”

“We don’t. Didn’t you notice what it looks like? What if we open it up and all that comes up is a geyser of s-”

“Thank you,” I interrupt loudly, “for the lovely image.”

“Pleasure. So, any ideas? All I can think of at the moment are exactly what I don’t want to do.”

I tap my hoof at the floor, making a thick “thwap-thwap” sound as I think. Perhaps this could be a vein system, or something likewise important. We do need to take a look inside. I guess this is a time where the only answer is magic.

“How thick do you think it is?” I ask him.

Raegdan bends down and touches it with his hands. He prods and hits it a few times, carefully listening to the sound. “Twenty, thirty centimeters? No more than half a meter, certainly.”

“Are you sure?”

He scoffs. “Hell no. How often do you think I try to guess how thick a slab of meat is?”

“Hmm. I’m going to try some scrying. Normally this kind of spell is tremendously draining and you get a very blurry image most of the time. I hope the short distance will help.”

“Can you blindly cast a light spell in there before you do that?”

“Why- oh right. Of course. Yes.” That would have been embarrassing. I cast the spells -in the right order- and my eyes go white as my sight is elsewhere. I hold the spell only for a few seconds. I repeat the process on the second doorway.

“So?” he asks.

“Nothing. They are almost empty. That was a waste of time and my magic.”

“Empty? What exactly did you see?”

“Nothing. It’s huge and empty. Each one is a lot bigger than this one, and much, much taller. Just empty rooms, with no other exits and nothing in them. Even the walls are completely smooth, as much as they can be in here. Though…”

“Yes?”

“There was something at the sides. They looked like carved lines, or flaps. They repeated themselves every few meters. That’s it.”

“Ok,” he says, trying not to sound disappointed. “Still… are you completely sure? Maybe there was something that you didn’t notice?”

“I’m not blind,” I defend myself. “There was nothing in there. Maybe some mist, or the room was too cold.”

“Maybe way down at the- Mist? Cold?”

“Not exactly. A sense in the air, like it was… I’m not sure how to explain it. Dense?”

“Hmm. Can you try to teleport some of it outside?”

“Teleport some air? Why?”

“Instinct. My gut tells me this is important. Just give it a shot.”

“I am a bit curious myself. Ok, fine. Here you go.”

I use my magic and cast a teleport spell. Normally doing this blindly is bad for whatever you are attempting to grab unless you are completely certain of the position of your target, but what do I care? All I’m trying to teleport is a bunch of empty air. I finish the second part of the spell and transfer the nothing I got hold off between us.

The sudden discharge of air knocks both of us back a step.

“What the hell was that?” Raegdan asks, bewildered.

“I- I don’t know!”

“Do it again.”

“I- alright.” I perform the spell again, with the same results. This time Raegdan is ready, and breathes deep as the same effect goes off. I try to breath in too whatever that is, in an attempt to recognize it.

“It doesn’t smell like anything,” Raegdan says. “And it just occured to me that this could be poisonous. Maybe we shouldn’t have done that,” he adds, looking ashamed of himself.

“I don’t think so. But it really…”

“What?”

I’m not sure how to put this. “The shortness of breath I had. The headache. It helped a bit.”

Raegdan puts his hand over his chest and inhales deeply, as do I. Whatever had briefly filled the room really helped. I feel somewhat better.

Raegdan stands in front of the floor… panel, door, whatever, and turns so he can see both it and the one on the wall.

“Straight line…” he murmurs.

“I’m sorry?” I ask.

The young boy stands at the side of the road, waving his arms at the passing cars, jumping up and down as each of them approaches only to zoom off to the distance again. He looks at every one of them leaving them behind with sadness and disappointment before he tries again, refusing to surrender his attempts.

“Why don’t you stop doing that and come help me instead?” a man, obviously the boy’s father, says. He is standing in front of a black car. The hood is popped up, and a few last puffs of smoke are still emerging from the engine.

“No one stops to help,” the boy says, saddened. “That’s not fair. We need help. Why don’t they help?”

The father’s arm grabs the boy’s shoulder and pulls him to his side in a one armed hug. He spends a few seconds ruffling the boy’s hair, smiling down at him.

“Sorry kid. Life’s not all that fair sometimes. Like now. I took the car to the mechanic last week and look at us! Stranded halfway home,” the man laughs. “I’ve got a small towel in the glove compartment. Can you get that for me? It’s too hot to touch this.”

“Sure!” the boy answers, and rushes into the car. He finds the towel -a very dirty one- his father told him to get, and a pack of gum -perfectly edible. He passes it off with the attitude of a child that completed a very difficult task and expects a treat, ice-cream perhaps, as his hard earned reward.

“Can you fix it?” the child asks, chewing ferociously.

The man reaches out with the cloth and starts unscrewing a tap. “What do you think?”

“I think you can fix it.”

The tap is taken off and some left over steam rises up. “Why do you think I can?”

“Because. You look like you know how to fix it.”

The man leans back and with a fake conspiratorial look checks for anyone overhearing them, making the boy giggle. He leans down to his son. “Want to know a secret?” he whispers

“Yes!” the boy shouts, excited.

“I have no idea what I’m doing.”

The boy laughs, disbelieving, and slaps his father’s thigh. “No, you don’t!”

“It’s true. I don’t know how to fix cars. I’m winging it as I go. But here’s something important to remember. Never let anyone know you don’t know what you are doing.”

“That’s lying,” the boy accuses, yet still laughing.

“Yeah, well, if your mom was here and I wasn’t doing that,” the man says, wincing, “she’d have me jump in the middle of the road so I could stop a car for help. But we both know we don’t need help, right?”

The boy thinks for a few seconds. “We do. We just don’t admit it because… we have to act like we know what we are doing?”

“Well… in general terms. It sounds silly when you put it like that.”

“But we don’t. So why are we?”

The man leans under the hood again. “We might get lucky. As long as we got some ideas of our own, no matter how stupid, let’s not call it quits until we try them out. You’ve got to learn to rely on yourself, and not run to others for help every time. We had a full water bottle, right?”

“Yes. I only took a sip. I wasn’t that thirsty.”

“Bring it here. I think that’s what the problem was.”

The boy obeys quickly and the man pours a large sized water bottle into the car’s radiator. The young child steps on the fender so he can look into the engine.

“It looks all random,” he observes.

“It’s not,” the man says with mock offense. “It all makes perfect sense if you take a moment to look. See how this part connects in a straight line to here? And how all the wires slowly make their way to one place? That’s the battery.”

“What is this here for? Or this?”

“I don’t know. I just pour oil into the engine every now and then. That’s all I know to do,” the man answers with an embarrassed smile. “Get back. I want to close the hood.”

“Was water all it needed?”

“I hope so.”

“In school we learned that water in chemistry is H2O.”

“Delightful. Do you know what that means?”

“Yes… but I forget.”

The man sighs. “It means that there are two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen in each molecule. You need to pay more attention to school. Read something else instead of fairy tales.”

“I like fairy tales,” the boy complains. “Uh, I remember that oxygen is what we breathe, right?”

“Yes,” the man answers while he opens the driver’s side door. The boy rushes in through it instead of getting in from the other side, leaving marks from his dirty shoes on the seat.

“What’s hydrogen?”

“It’s a lighter than air stuff. It can make things float.”

“Like balloons?”

“They don’t use it in balloons anymore. They use helium instead because… ok, have you seen those big airships, that look like stretched air balloons?”

“Yes! They were in a cartoon this weekend. The bad guys used them to try and bomb the good guys.”

“Right. Lovely. They used to fill those up with hydrogen so they can fly. Hydrogen is very dangerous though. One of them sparked a little on the inside once and it exploded.”

The boy gasps. “Does that mean if I drink water I can explode too?”

The man laughs hysterically. “Oh god help me, that was a good one. Oh, your face… No, you won’t. I’m just trying to make you interested. Science isn’t all that bad. There’s a lot of explosions and cool stuff in it.”

“I prefer stories where the hero is a knight in plate armor and saves the world.”

“Ah, it was worth a shot. Let’s see if we can be on our way now.”

Ten minutes later the car was still immobile on the side of the road. The boy had grown bored and kept bringing the window up and down on his side.

“Are we going yet?” The boy kicks at the mat at his feet. “I should have brought a book…” he mutters under his breath.

“Uh, no. I don’t think I fixed it after all. It’s ok. I’ve got another idea.”

“What?”

“I’m going on the road to get a car to stop and help us. I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Raegdan? What did you mean by that?” I ask him as I get closer. He looks to be lost in a daze.

“Huh?” Oh, I-” He shakes his head and blinks, rubbing his forehead. “I have no idea. I thought I had it but- crap, I can’t remember what I was thinking about. Something about roads maybe?” He returns to the center of the room, looking down on the circular closed holes.

“I think it’s full of oxygen in there. Compressed. Like our air tanks.”

“Really? How strange. Where did it get it from? Does it surface up sometimes you think?”

Raegdan shook his head. “No. I think this stupid things does drink the sea after all. Some of it at least. Then it breaks it down to this.”

“What’s the use? Why?”

Raegdan shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe it needs pure oxygen to breathe? Maybe it uses it to create the whirlpool? Movement? Energy? Digestion? Maybe it just stores it…”

“Why would it store it?”

“I’ve got no idea. I’m just guessing blindly here. Maybe it likes to blow bubbles when it’s bored. That makes as much sense as everything in here.”

Could this be the break we needed? “So, two… tanks full of oxygen right? Huge ones at that.”

Raegdan hesitates. “Actually…. this one is oxygen alright. I suspect that the other one might be filled with- with… ok, I don’t know the word for it. The other thingy water is made of?”

“The other thingy?” I ask, raising an eyebrow at this articulate explanation.

“Water’s made of oxygen and… something else. Now, this second part is volatile from what I know. Especially if there’s a lot of it, and with all that oxygen next to it… this place is dangerous. It’s a good thing we didn’t try to force these open.” Raegdan takes the air tank off his back and checks the gauge. "Though I guess you could try and teleport some of that oxygen in this to refill it. Can you do that?"

My curiosity is peaked and aroused. “Easily enough. Before that, tell me why is it so dangerous though?”

“It can explode. All it needs is a spark. With all that oxygen next to it, feeding it? It could… oh. Oh, hoho!” he laughs, understanding where I was getting at. “We’ll need to make sure it’s what I think it is first, but if it is…”

My own smile is threatening to tear my cheeks in half. Oh, this will be glorious!

“Why the tartarus wasn’t that ship tied down? Who let it sail off?” Leaf Stream was screaming at the cowed portmaster, shaking her hoof menacingly over him. The two scowling minotaurs at her side weren’t making the stallion feel any better, and neither did all these grim Thestrals that obeyed her.

“I- I relayed the order to have all ships moored, but- but the captain is a relative and he- he always ignores me. He claimed he could sail out and escape,” the pony stuttered out in fear.

“Seriously? You let him? And then you let others do the same?”

“What- what was I supposed to do?”

Leaf Stream’s voice reached new heights of volume and strength. “Get the guards to arrest them for disobeying royal orders, how about that?” She turned to the stumbling guards in question and pointed the portmaster. “Get that snivelling stallion away from here. Throw him in a cell, and for buck’s sake, hold him in there. He’s as much responsible for anypony’s death as the captains of these ships.” She turned around and headed for the thestrals.

“Silverwing!” she shouted.

“Yes, Lunar Guard? How may we be of assistance?” The old thestral was thriving in the panic and confusion, and he seemed extraordinarily happy to have somepony other than him calling the shots.

“Get as many of your thestrals as you can, recruit any pegasi that are standing around if you can, and get to these ships!”

“Lunar Guard, I beg your pardon, but we won’t be able to pull them away from the maelstrom-”

“That’s not what you’re doing. Just delay them from falling in as long as possible. These ships are filled with earth ponies, unicorns, minotaurs, donkeys, and who knows what else. The pegasi and griffins can fly off, but they can’t get the others off them, there are too few of them. You go in there and evacuate every ship, right now,” Leaf Stream ordered.

The thestrals, having taken their orders, flew off. The port was a disaster area. Everypony had panicked and there were loads of damage, even a few fires, from trampling crowds. The large docks were shaking and groaning as the ships that were tied on them were testing the strength of the ropes to their limit.

Despite all that, ponies were still trying to get on their ships. Some of them to carry off their merchandise, others determined to risk their lives and get their livelihoods away from the Leviathan.

The idiots that were claiming it would stand up any minute now to trample Baltimare didn’t help.

Applejack, Rarity, and Spike, came to stand with her. “Any news from Princess Celestia?” Leaf Stream asked anxiously.

She shouldn’t have taken charge. She totally shouldn’t have. Now everypony was looking to her for orders, and she had absolutely no idea if she was doing the right thing. What if she should have done something else? Something she forgot? Was she supposed to set up a field hospital? No, there were plenty of them in Baltimare, and they didn’t have to worry about wounded caused by the Leviathan, did they? The guards could take care of any accidents that happened due to panic. Or did they also expect orders from her? Should she go talk to their captain? What about the fires? Should she do something about them?

This was a load of horseapples! Where was a princess to take charge? There were three of them now, where the hay was a single one? Maybe they should hire more. This was way too stressful, all her muscles had tensed up, and now her stubs were absolutely killing her.

“The Princess says she’ll be here in an hour,” Rarity informed her.

Ponyfeathers! One more hour of this? She didn’t want a single minute more. What was she supposed to do until Princess Celestia arrived? She smirked when a thought came to her. Why, spread the misery around, what else?

“Alright. We wait, and while we wait… Solid Charge?”

“Yes sir?”

“Don’t call me that!”

“I’m sorry. I meant, yes ma’am.”

“That neither you stupid flank! Gaah, just… Ok, you asked for it. Go and take charge of the Royal Guard here. We aren’t doing any good unless we coordinate and this is the easiest way to do it. I want the port cleared of anypony who doesn’t have real business to be here. The ships are now off limits. Settle the injured too, get them straight to the hospitals. Got it?”

“Alright. I’ll have the guards to start patrols in the commercial districts too, in case anyone gets the craving to do some looting while there’s panic going on.”

“Yeah. Yeah, good idea. Go do that.” Ok, delegating. That’s the ticket. That’s one load off her. Now for the next one. “Cast Iron.”

“Oh, no.”

“Stand straight soldier,” she cackled, her good mood returning when she saw somepony hating what happened to him as much as she did. “I want these fires gone. Like now. When Princess Celestia gets here there shouldn’t even be a hint of smoke. Got it? After that you and whoever you can rope into it are on rescue detail, and you will take over settling the injured from the Royal Guard so they can focus on other stuff.”

“How am I even supposed to-”

“Go and throw your weight around. Pretend you are our charismatic, gentle commander and get the fire stations to work for you for starters. It worked for me. Now shoo.”

She turned back to Applejack and Rarity, sighing. “Ok, we got this. We actually got this. This is going much better that I fea-” She was interrupted by a young thestral mare landing in front of her.

“Lunar Guard, we have a problem.”

“Of course we do,” Leaf Stream said, defeated. She felt she was about ready to cry. Or kick somepony in the face till she fell over from exhaustion. “What is it?”

“The captain of the first ship and many of his sailors refuse to abandon it. They say either we get their cargo off too or they go down with it.”

Applejack gasped. “They can’t be that stupid, can they?”

“Nah. They are bluffing. They want us to agree to save their money from going down the drain. Ok, tell them we agree. We’re getting them out first, cargo immediately after.”

“We can’t,” the thestral protested. “That ship is going down in minutes! What about the rest of the ponies in the other ships? We’re barely managing so far.”

“Well, duh!” Leaf Stream said. “That’s what we are telling them. No way we risk anypony’s neck for somepony’s pocket.”

“Oh. Oh, ok. Yeah, that’s good. I’m going now.” The mare took off, heading back to the ships as fast as she could.

“You forgot to salute!” Leaf Stream shouted behind her, just for the fun of it.

“Nice bit of maneuvering there,” Applejack said, sounding unsure if she approved or not.

“Eh, Lunar Guard, Lying Guard… I’m just taking my cues from the bosses. Shining beacons of example and all that. Let’s go somewhere we can get a good view. I’ve never seen a monster eat a whole ship before.”

“I’ve got the spells all set, the explosives are in place… The hatches will pop first and then my spells will go off, making sure it fires up. This will be glorious!” I shout, excited.

“Yes, I heard you the first time. How much time will we have to get out?” Raegdan asks.

“I’ve set it to half an hour. It’s already ticking by the way.”

“Half a- Are you crazy Luna? How are we going to climb all the way up in half an hour? You can’t fly!” Raegdan yells.

“We won’t have to,” I tell him, completely calm. “We just need to make our distance away from it until it explodes. Then we will have a new, giant hole to get out from.”

“Oh. Nice plan.”

“Thank you,” I say, taking an exaggerated bow.

“Do you also have a plan to make it out of that new, giant hole while there’ll be tons of water rushing in through the new, giant hole?”

I freeze.

“Sounds like someone else got too cocky this time. Can you change the timer or whatever you used?”

I bite my lip. I screwed up, didn’t I? If I cancel the timing spell it will all go off, instantly. I tied everything on it.

“Should we be running?”

“...Yes…” I whisper, feeling extremely guilty.

“Fuck my life!” Raegan grabs the rope that connects us, and takes it in his arms so it won’t get in the way while we run. I quickly pick up the few sticks of explosives that were left. We might need them to make a hole in a hurry.

We make our way, running as fast as we can, through the bizarre corridor and out the circular hole I cut. Raegdan drops the refilled air tank we have left and delays a bit to pick it up again. I continue on ahead, getting back into the intense rainfall, the rope stretching between us.

“Don’t fall back!” I yell at him when I feel the rope reach its limit.

“I’m coming, I’m coming. Shit, we’ve got to figure out someway to get up there. I can’t even see the ceiling. Maybe we can make some kind of grapple with the- Luna, look out!”

I look up. Debris of wood is falling all around us. Raegdan runs towards me. A large piece of boards, nailed together, falls near me, but I easily avoid it as I do everything else that comes down around me.

Raegdan is too focused on me to pay attention around him. A piece of hull falls next to him barely missing him. It leans slowly, tipping at its side, falling towards him. Raegdan sees it and moves away in time. Pieces of wood and metal keep falling all around us.

The rope that was holding down a small barrel in place on that piece that Raegdan barely avoided is frayed too much. The shock and sudden tilt of its weight is all it takes to make it snap. The barrel falls and crashes right on the side of Raegdan’s head. He loses his balance, his coordination, and momentarily at least, his consciousness. He falls over the side, and slips down into the canyon.

The rope uncoils and straightens. It starts pulling me down with him. I try to resist, but the water flow, the slippery surface… I can’t! I slide backwards.

As I pass the debris that caused his fall I reach out and manage to hold on. The wood is weakened and cracks beneath my hooves. Having no other option, knowing that slipping even a few centimeters more would doom us, I bite down on a piece that seems to the sturdier than the rest. I bite as hard as I can. Splinters fill my mouth and I can feel my gums bleed. I pull myself up by my neck muscles and frantic motions of my legs, just for the little further reach that I need to get a proper hold. I make it and wrap my hooves around a protruding piece.

“Raegdan! Raegdan, you have to climb up!” I shout. He doesn’t answer back. I keep calling his name.

Through the curtains of water four headless figures approach menacingly. So bucking typical. I shout his name one last time, louder.

I barely make out his answer. He sounds confused and weak. “L-Luna?”

“Climb up! They are coming, climb up!” I shout, desperation making its claim on me. Four. I can’t fight four of them. I’m too tired, too spent. Too weak. I’m the only anchor for Raegdan. If I stop holding on we will fall! There isn’t enough time left. If we fall now we will both die in here.

“Drop the rope! Luna, drop the rope!”

I prepare myself. There will be no dodging, no escape. I will have to endure, and not die. Another day in the life of the Night Princess. “No. You make it up here and you help me.” The monstrosities creep closer, fixated on me.

“Luna, please! Drop the rope! Teleport up! You can escape!” Still, he climbs up. He knows I won’t give up, not on this.

“You get up here, and stop them from killing me,” I answer. “Together. One way or another.”

“Luna!”

I don’t answer back. They’re upon me. I prepare my spells and start casting. They answer back with savage strikes and needlepoint teeth.

We rip each other apart.

The man manages to climb up at last. It took him too long. The rope slipped and moved violently while Luna was fighting up there, and his arms still burned from the descent, but that was no excuse. It took him too long. He should have cut the rope himself, but he knew, he knew she would only jump after him.

He follows the rope. There is no light. It faded halfway through the sounds of combat, of monstrous screaming and- and-

Little by little he follows it, crawling on all fours and reaching ahead blindly with his hands, until he touches wet fur. His fingers reach further, and touch ravaged flesh.

Panicked now, he reaches upwards, searching for her neck, looking for a pulse. His princess responds before he manages to find it.

“R- R- Raegdan?” she croaks in pain.

“Luna. Luna, I need you to make a light. We must treat your wounds.”

“I- I just want to sleep. Let me sleep… I killed a Leviathan, isn’t this enough… just- just let me go to sleep, let me forget the pain… I’ve done enough, ha- haven't I? Can- can it stop being like this?”

“Luna, it’s no longer like that. I’m here with you,” he pleads. “Please. For me. Make a light.”

“...Ok. Ok…”

A small blue light flares weakly above her. It is enough to see what he needs to see. The corpses of the creatures lie around her, burnt and torn apart, slowly pushed away by the water. He doesn’t care about them, not as long as there are no more around to hurt her. She is still clinging on to a heavy piece of a crashed ship. One of the legs she did so with is broken, but that didn’t deter her. She is wounded. Heavily. There are gashes and tears on her flesh, as if she has been mercilessly repeatedly whipped with something thick and strong. A chunk of flesh has been bitten off from her left side, near her mark. There are more bites on her hind legs, but no large piece of flesh has been torn off from there like on her side.

He pulls a dagger off his belt. “Luna, you must heat this up. Come on now, stay with me.”

“I’m tired. I can’t cast another spell…”

“Yes you can. One last one. Come on. Heat it up. Don’t do this to me Luna. Please.”

She flickers one eye open, just long enough to see her target with an unfocused eye, and casts her spell. The effort exhausts her. Her breathing becomes even heavier. Her legs slack and she falls down, into the water. He grabs her and lifts her up to him, supporting her against his chest. The dagger is burning hot. He can smell his own flesh cooking around the handle, but he can’t feel any pain, not now. He carefully touches the point of the dagger to select spots, cauterizing veins that have been exposed.

He tears off most of his clothing, turning it to rudimentary bandages. He murmurs to himself constantly to be careful, to not cut off her blood flow. He does everything he can. It’s so pathetically little.

He pulls her further up, with such care as if she is a weave made of spidersilk, and cradles her to his chest. “Luna. Luna, listen to me. It’s straight up from here, and you can get out. All you have to do is teleport up. Teleport up, as high as you can go. Come on Luna, please. Teleport out.”

“I c-can’t,” she croaks.

“Yes you can,” he insists, kissing her forehead. “Yes you can. Come on, you can’t die in here. You have so much more to do. Just… just do the spell. Please… please, do the spell!” he whimpers.

“Not enough magic left…” she coughs and struggles to breath in. “Everything hurts. I’m- I’m completely exhausted, and- and… I can’t leave you here on your own,” she cries. “Together… one way or another…” Her last words are a soft whisper, and she faints.

He checks her pulse. Still going, but weak. She needs real help or she won’t last long. “No, no, no. I- I can’t… can’t save- What am I supposed to do now?” he whispers in the darkness, terrified.

“I promised I’d protect her! I promised!” the tall man wails.

The two women, and the blond man, try to soothe him, to calm him down. The others surround them, unsure of how to help besides offering their presence. “It’s not your fault. You tried your best,” the brunette woman whispers in his ear as she hugs him.

“She was right in front of me! She- she thought she was saved and- and I- I killed her. I killed her!”

“You didn’t do anything like that! You tried your best! No one could save her,” the blond man insists, trying to put some sense into him.

“I promised her, and I killed her instead!”

“You’re leaving me behind,” the blue faced young man stammered through his frozen lips. The wind howled around them, almost drowning his words.

“I- we don’t have a choice.”

“You don’t want to carry me.”

“They told you?”

“I could hear you. You could save me. But you won’t, will you?”

“I can’t. I can’t help you!”

“You promised me we’d go back home. All together.”

“I-”

“You- you promised. Please. Help me.”

“You-”

“I- I can’t feel my legs,” the young brunette cries.

“It’s ok! You’ll be fine, but you need to be quiet. They’ll find us. Please, be quiet.”

“I- I can’t! It hurts. It hurts so much,” she almost screams as she cries in pain. Her whimpers fill the air.

“Shh, shh… please. Be quiet!”

The woman keeps crying ever louder as she regains feeling in her shattered legs, and the true scale of the damage starts registering.

“Listen. Listen! I’ve got some- some painkillers left. You’ll be fine. Just quiet down for a second.”

“I- I thought it- it was all gone.”

“There’s some left. I’ll inject it to you now, ok? It will sting a little.”

“What- what is it? Where did you get a syringe?”

“It will stop the pain. Trust me. All you’ll feel is a little nick on your leg.”

“I’m scared. I want to go home already. It’s been years. Why can’t we go home? When will we find the right one?”

“We will be home before you know it. Last one, I promise you. I can feel it.”

“That’s what you always say. I feel sleepy… Will- will I be ok?”

“You’ll be fine. I promise. You’ll be fine.” The man closes the woman’s eyes. “You’re going home. You’re home…”

“-dead! Because of you!”

“They were going to stop us! Are you all blind? It was either them or us!”

“We promised them we meant them no harm. You promised them that yourself. For god’s sake, they had children with them!”

“We need food and water! There wasn’t enough for all of us if we’re to reach home. What was I supposed to do?”

“Not that! Never that! What the hell is wrong with you?”

“-promised-”

“Are we going to be home in time? I need to change clothes before I go out.”

“We’re going to be there before you know it. Here, wrap your arms around me so you don’t fall.”

“Don’t you have a helmet for me?”

“There’s not enough space on the motorcycle for me to store a spare. You’ll be fine, I promise you.”

“Just don’t cross any red lights. I will tell Mom if you do that and she will yell at you.”

“Don’t worry little sis. I’m careful.”

“You owe me. You… you owe me… keep her alive… keep her safe… Mom… mom would never forgive me if I let my sister… If I let her come to harm...”

“Hey, daddy?”

“Hmmm?”

“Are the houses at your home as big as that?”

“Bigger, and not ruined either. You’ll see them for yourself soon. I promise.”

“-me,-”

“You shouldn’t have left her…” the wizened old man says with deep sadness, standing over the disheartenedly small grave.

“She was supposed to be safe here.”

“She kept calling for you, you know. Saying you promised to show her your home. She loved you so much. I can’t understand how you could throw away such a gift... She kept saying it was an accident, claiming it was her fault.”

“She wasn’t supposed to die. She was supposed to make a life here, and I could go back to- to-”

“Not much of a life in the world anymore. Truth be told, there couldn’t be even that much for her, even without the raiders or the death swarms. The way you crushed her ankle, I doubt it would ever heal properly. This would happen sooner or later. You don’t live long if you can’t run. Someone like you who dares to wander alone should know that.”

“You were supposed to keep her alive…”

“We tried. But we all have our own children and families to take care of. No one noticed her missing until it was too late.”

“You were supposed to keep her alive…” The man growled with unspeakable hate, and lifted his rifle. The kind old man was the first to die. The killing continued for an extremely long time, even for the scarred man.

“You always break them. So… abominable of you.” The hand caresses him from cheek to throat.

“-remember?”

“Celestia order, me do. Me no hurt ponies. Agree.”

“I keep you safe little one. I never let hurt come you. Promise.”

“I’ll always be right next to you, little flame. I’m not abandoning you, ever.”

“You’ll get out of this alive Luna. Trust me!”

“...Not like the rest. No. No! I’m keeping my promise, I’ll manage to keep my word one fucking time, this time I’ll do it! I’m not failing again, not again! No more. Not one more. It’s over. I’ve lost too much, I’m not losing you too Luna, not now!”

He lifts the Alicorn up and puts her on some flat wooden debris, making sure it’s clear and stable enough to hold her out of the water. He walks around, making circles around himself, desperately searching for a way out.

“Think, think, for once in your forsaken life, think and do something right you moron! It will all blow up soon, and these fucking mutant squids will be here any second…” He looks around at all directions, trying to see through the haze of water and the piercing darkness.

“Where- where the hell are the rest of them? There were dozens of them…” He urgently checks himself, making sure he has all his weapons still on him, and that the grenades he and Luna made are still strapped on his chest. He sees the duffelbag that contained what remained of the dangerous, homemade dynamite he could barely make. He moves for it, unsure if he wants to use it or throw it away from them, away from his Luna.

He lifts a wooden board to free the bag’s strap, and stops. Slowly, he looks at the wood, and the debris around him, the sad remains of a ship that got swallowed. For a moment he remembers that there could be ponies on it, but he doesn’t care enough to waste time thinking about them.

He remembers the rowboat they sailed on instead.

He remembers the Odyssey.

He remembers what his little flame said, and his disappointment in not seeing Charybdis do her trick.

“It can’t be that easy…” He looks around again, and then below him. He stomps the ground with his uninjured foot. “It won’t be that easy, even if it works, will it? But it might work. It might fucking work! Oh, if there’s a god out there, a good one, hopefully one that doesn’t get his shits and giggles out of my torture, make this work. You took everything from me. I have nothing left. You took it all. Don’t you dare take anymore from me! I swear, if she dies… if she dies… Raegdan dies too. You won’t like who comes out next. I’ve got infinite time, I know how to cross worlds, and I can really keep a grudge. Just a warning. Make this work.”

He sees a piece of sail floating towards the canyon. He runs after it and takes it to Luna. It’s large enough to cover her in multiple layers. She will need the protection it offers. There’s even enough for… no. He can’t afford to hamper himself like this. He will need to to be able to swim and pull Luna to safety after they make it to surface. He will make it somehow. He will have to rely on a light covering that he’ll be able to dispose of easily, and his own resilience. Hopefully the change in speed will be enough. It’s one thing using gravity only, it’s another being launched forcefully… he hopes. He ties a loop of the rope around the small piece of deck, hoping it will stay above them and take the brunt, and carefully makes sure that Luna can breathe from the remaining air tank.

He stops for a few seconds to take one last look at Luna’s wounds. She wasn’t supposed to get hurt, not while he was around. What the hell was he doing? “You know,” he tells her, “I don’t think you’re supposed to threaten during a prayer, but it’s been too long since the last time I tried that. Just… be ok Luna. Please, don’t die.”

The question now was, one point of massive damage, or a lot of smaller ones? A big one, he decides. He doesn’t have time for anything else. He draws the long blade and pushes it into the flesh under his feet. He doesn’t stop until it’s down to the hilt, and when it is he grabs it and pushes the hilt back, forth, and to the sides, enlarging the wound as much as possible.

Deeper. Could he dig deeper? Yes, he could a little bit. He needed some more space too. He grabs two of the grenades on his chest and pulls the pins. He doesn’t hurry. As long he touches them the spells won’t work. It’s the only reason he dares wear them exposed on his torso like that in a world where one third of the population could pull the pins if it wasn’t for his disruption.

He lies down, holding his breath as the water envelops his face. He pushes his arm in, and even moves on his side so he can go a few centimeters deeper. He lets go of the grenades and jumps away.

Black water and pieces of alien flesh spray over him. He returns to inspect his handiwork. There was a tremor at the moment after the explosion, he was certain of it. He was on the right track. He just needed something with more bite.

He opens the duffelbag and very carefully, taking his time, makes sure he deposits each stick of dynamite at the bottom of the enlarged wound with utter care. He hopes the water doesn’t seep in and make them explode while he’s over them. He pulls the pin of another grenade and gets ready. He will need to run back to Luna’s side in seconds, and get ready. He doesn’t know how or when it will happen, but he’s certain it won’t be easy or soft.

He lets go of the grenade and runs to his princess.

“Throw up, you damned beast. Open wide, and throw up!”

Applejack tapped Leaf Stream on the shoulder. The broken pegasus was too busy yelling at ponies to go reinforce the docks somehow so that no more of Baltimare’s livelihood ends up in the Leviathan’s stomach.

She was forced to be more heavy hoofed in her approach. She grabbed Leaf Stream’s head, and turned her towards the Leviathan.

“Ow! Seriously, what is your problem now you crazy apple farmer?”

“The whirlpool is stopping,” Applejack told her.

“Ok, so what- wait, the whirlpool is stopping?” She threw off Applejack’s hooves from her ears, and ran to the end of the port where the stairs leading down to the piers started to descend. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“Ya weren’t listening!”

“Well, how could I listen with all these flanks tooting their song?” Leaf Stream answered back, waving her hoof at the suddenly embarrassed rows of ponies behind her. “I need a thestral, where is a darned thestral?”

“Here, ma’am.” A thin, underfed looking thestral stallion landed on the paved road and waited for orders.

“Don’t call me that! What are you and the rest still doing here? Go out there. The bosses might be coming out any moment no-”

“Whoo, ah think they’re on their way out now!” Applejack yelled.

“Oh, for buck’s sake, what did I miss no- Is the Leviathan blowing bubbles or am I seeing things?”

The water did bubble. The sea raged, rose and fell, small geysers formed only to vanish again, and water sprayed high into the sky. It was as if a volcano was about to erupt, only this one wouldn’t spew out lava.

It was like a hose of water turned on under the water. Huge swaths of white sea foam filled the sea over the Leviathan and the waters churned as if the whirlpool formed on the reverse, forming a hill made of water. They watched, frozen.

“Hey,” a voice shouted excited beneath them. Applejack saw Spike pointing at the spectacle. “It’s spitting out the sea, just like dad’s story said it would!”

Spitting out the-

“Why are y’all still standing around? Go and find them!” Applejack yelled at the poor thestral that had stood to watch. She was about ready to start chewing on her own hooves as thestrals massed together, carrying ropes, flotation devices, and nets.

“It’s been hours Applejack,” Rarity whispered. “They didn’t have that much air with them. What if- what if they don’t find them?”

“They will,” Applejack spoke with utter certainty. “They’ll be fine. They have to be.”

The thestrals separated in teams and flew over the raging sea, circling around, searching. Every second that passed where none of them flew lower, or gave any sign of finding anything, was like a vice tightened around her chest.

“Come on, you must have caused this. Get out already,” Leaf Stream mumbled to herself next to Applejack.

A team of thestrals suddenly swooped lower, catching something in a large net they were all holding together, and dragged their catch away from the Leviathan.

“Oh my Celestia,” Rarity gasped. “Is that them? Did they find Princess Luna and Raegdan?”

“I don’t know,” Leaf Stream answered, narrowing her eyes as she tried to see better. “It’s too far. I can’t see.”

“It’s gotta be them,” Applejack said.

The rest of the thestrals all gathered together and caught a section of the net in their hooves. Their leather bat wings beat as one in an incredible display of coordination, and they flew back towards Baltimare, carrying the net below them.

Leaf Stream yelled, exalted, when the thestrals got close enough for her to see. “That’s them! Both of them. They got them!”

“Whoo-wheee!” Applejack shouted, relief and enthusiasm breaking through. Rarity was laughing like a school filly, and before they knew it they had grabbed each other from the shoulders and jumping in place on their hind legs, shouting indistinctly. Spike ran up the stairs and joined them in their joyful yelping.

“Ok, ok, calm down,” Leaf Stream called out, laughing a little herself. “We still have a Leviathan to deal with-”

A thunder roared from the depths. An uproar that called of flames and quaking earth. The loudest crack that Applejack had ever heard, bar none, and as she turned towards the Leviathan it shocked her to see that it had been muffled by the water and still rocked her in place like that. The sea… blew up from the inside, and for a second or two, huge tongues of fire erupted upwards through the splitted, boiling sea.

Tartarus broke loose. More explosions roared their deafening song. One after the other, faster and faster, until there was no sound or color, only the vibrations in their bones, and the hope that this terror would end soon before it splintered the world.

Monstrously large chunks of something that Applejack couldn’t recognize made their way up, green, black, bulbous, and most of all, monstrous -she couldn’t underline that enough- the very sight of whatever that was, even so distant, was making her nauseous.

Huge waves rocked the ships and the docks. Wood was heard splintering, large parts of the dock collapsed, and some of the ships started listing on their sides. Many of the smaller ones were already sinking. Ponies wailed as they saw their fortunes lost, and others screamed as their homes and businesses were claimed by the fury that was released. Pegasi soared over the remains, calling for anypony unlucky enough to be caught in that.

The remains of the Leviathan surfaced, only to sink again. At first she thought it was a flower, or a lilypad, coming up, a truly titanic one. A green crystalline surface glimmered like a mirror in the sun on one of the- the petals that weren’t petals. She saw muscles and orifices. She saw gnarled tentacles and disfigured fins. She saw something else too, only for an instant, but her mind blanked it out of her memory the moment it went out of sight. There was nothing that looked even distantly like a face on that thing. There never was.

It sunk. Thank Celestia, it sunk below the waves again. The sea calmed down, and this time no whirlpool formed. A lake of yellow and brown sludge grew slowly over the surface, with pieces of the Leviathan’s remains floating amongst it.

When the ponies around them, the whole city of Baltimare that was watching, realized what they actually saw, that the unknown Leviathan that arrived on their doorstep was dead… there was an eruption of another kind. The cheers rivaled the immense chain of explosions in volume. Ponies, citizens, guards, and sailors, fell on the ground, crying in relief.

“I- uh… ok, then...” Leaf Stream gulped heavily before continuing, having difficulty to be heard over the din. “We have the corpse of a Leviathan to deal with, that’s what I meant… Just how strong are those explosives of his? They… they didn’t make that big of a boom before, did they?”

Spike pointed at the thestrals that were still carrying the net, and now heading into the city. “Hey, where are they going? We’re down here! Hey, down here you jerks!” Spike shouted, jumping and waving his little arms.

Silverwing made his appearance, looking exceedingly grim. “Lunar Guard, we’re taking the Princess and your commander to the nearest hospital. We will wait for you there.”

“Why? What happened to them?” Rarity screeched.

“We don’t know yet. Your commander is covered with some kind of burns. Princess Luna, she’s-” The old thestral took a shuddering breath before continuing. “She’s been exceedingly wounded. I’m sorry, I need to get there as fast as possible, and make sure they get the care they need. I don’t trust these soft ponies.” Silverwing flew off, his worry making him reach Rainbow Dash levels of speed.

“Oh. Oh, no…” Applejack whispered.

She didn’t waste any time. She threw a tearful Spike on her back and ran through the crowds.

Rarity and Leaf Stream were just a step behind.

Interlude 6 - Reactions

HEROIC PRINCESS IN HOSPITAL

Recently returned Princess Luna has been hospitalized after the unexpected, yet timely rescue of our beloved city of Baltimare from the unknown monster that assaulted it yesterday.

The princess’ condition had been declared critical on arrival and Baltimare’s best doctors rushed to provide the finest care available in an effort to show their appreciation for her valiant defense of our city. Princess Luna’s status was changed to serious but stable at this morning’s joint press conference of the city’s authorities and the hospital’s management.

Princess Celestia arrived shortly after Princess Luna’s transfer to the hospital. While the Solar Guard provided their aid to remove the monster’s corpse from our waters, the princess remained at the hospital, in vigil of her beloved sister and fellow diarch. Princess Celestia has been unavailable for comments so far.

There has been no word yet on what exactly was the cause of Princess Luna’s injuries, apart from speculation that she acquired them somehow while in the process of battling the monster that has been tentatively categorized as the fourth Leviathan. The only unofficial statement as to her injuries refers to them as “grisly”.

Princess Luna returned recently to Equestria after her one thousand year banishment following --------

The captain of the Zebrican merchant vessel “Striped Clean” has generously donated a part of his cargo of natural salves and healing remedies to help find a relief for the Lunar Guard’s commander, who is currently deeply suffering from chemical burns of unknown origin and composition he acquired while escorting Princess Luna---

Raegdan, the first member, and now Commander of the Lunar Guard, is a figure widely known to those who have had reason to visit Canterlot Castle often enough. Even so, he is an unknown entity to the rest of Equestria despite his status as the sole representative of his species. Of those ponies who have met him, repeated mention was made of his obsessive protection of Princess Celestia’s personal student (his previous post), and his extremely violent behavior.

This is in line with his first official appearance as a member of the Lunar Guard when Princess Luna announced the founding of this new Guard at the Solar Guard Tournament a few weeks ago. While his combat expertise was found adequate, many have condemned him for the savage treatment and borderline torture he put his opponents through. The Commander of the Lunar Guard took advantage of the fact that he faced initiate rank members of the Solar Guard. In his wake he left a pegasus guard crippled for life when he ruthlessly destroyed her wings in a deliberate manner, a unicorn guard in a state of comatose, and an earth pony guard gruesomely killed in front of his wife and foal, in what was supposed to be an exhibition match.

Rumors abound as to his origin and how he ended up taking residence in Canterlot Castle. Many claim that he is nothing else other than a unique monster that was partially tamed by Princess Celestia. There is great fear that his rising violent nature is a precursor of his return to his feral nature, and many prominent members of society call for a merciful disposal of the beast before we mourn more innocent victims.

“-simply no time to train any of them in any degree. To even consider for a moment that the only reason we haven’t had a massive loss of life isn’t due to the outstanding training the Solar Guard provides to its members is to spit in the eye of Equestria’s most revered guard regiment.

It makes one wonder to who exactly we rush to pay accolades to when even the Minos army training deserves more recognition than anything the Lunar Guard could possibly have provided.

Point of order, even the existence of this new regiment is nebulous at the moment. How can there be a Lunar Guard when the only truly recognized member is its own commander? None of the others have so far undergone any type of initiation or acknowledgment as of the writing of this article----”

-thestral efforts the final count is miraculously down to less than a hundred deceased so far. While everypony is glad that we don’t mourn hundreds or even thousands of victims as it would have happened without the warning or aid we received, this doesn’t detract from the tragedy. Even one pony dead would be one too much. Our hearts and prayers go to the families---

“-have to keep up a silence spell outside his room even though the Lunar Guard evacuated the whole floor. He’s unconscious most of the time, but the way he’s screaming when... It’s horrible. I saw him just once. We had to go in with soft sponges and gently scrub him, to remove the… the dead flesh… layer. I refused to go back there again. I can’t take it. You know what’s the worst? Even at the spots he hadn’t been… burned, he was covered in scars and...

I hope he dies. Celestia forgive me, but I really hope he dies. He’s had too much happen to him, it’s written right on him and now… Our painkiller spells don’t work on him. We hope some Zebrican and Minotaur salves can help but… How much can they do? He will have to live with that pain for months. Like being on fire, all over his body, for months or- or years. We can’t do much to help him, and if he gets an infection… we think the antibiotics will work on him, but the doctors don’t dare to put him on any yet unless they have no other option. We don’t know how he will react to them. I can’t take it going in there and see somepony suffer so much knowing I can’t do anything to help.

I know it’s not right for a nurse to say such things, I do. But every time I approach the other nurses or doctors, I pray I’ll hear one of them say that he stopped breathing in his sleep--”

R: What is your current opinion of Princess Luna?

IW: You kidding me? She straight up killed a Leviathan! My opinion? Heck, who cares about that? I’ve got a better question fool. When is Princess Awesome getting her group and coming up to Minos? My family has had to look over their shoulder to the north all their lives. We’d be mighty grateful to have her take care of our own Leviathan too, you know?

But what is a Leviathan? A Leviathan has always been defined by two things.

First, a Leviathan is a unique monster, of titanic size, whose power and endurance renders it unkillable by any means to our possession or that of any other nation.

Secondly, a Leviathan is a creature that is able, on its own, to bring forth untold destruction, able to render whole areas uninhabitable.

It is plain to see then that whatever that creature was, if there even was a creature, and what the good ponies of Baltimare witnessed wasn’t perhaps some kind of magical mishap or natural catastrophe, it wasn’t a Leviathan. By virtue of failing the first point it was nothing but a monster whose ilk the pony race has always been triumphant over, and no cause of further alarm.

The feeling of wholehearted relief and gratitude, towards whoever may claim is responsible for it, while natural, should not distract us from acknowledging the true heroes of this recent semi-crisis. The local regiment of Royal Guard and the ponies of this city, who valiantly defended our stores and warehouses from the malcontents who would have taken advantage of this distraction -and one wonders, could they have had earlier warning?- to drain the lifeblood of our economy and-----

-number of seven ships were lost in the maw of the Leviathan. Fourteen more ships were sunk at the docks, and at least two dozen will need costly repairs before even thinking of sailing them again. The seaport itself is in no shape to be used for the duration of the near future.

Princess Celestia has decreed, and given directions to make use of the smaller docks of villages in Horseshoe Bay until repairs are complete, and redirected merchant routes to northern ports. Despite all efforts, market prices will inevitably soar to unprecedented heights as various goods are expected to come in short supply with the decimation of--

The 8th Baltimare Primary School met with Princess Celestia and the active members of the Lunar Guard to deliver hoof crafted get well cards for Princess Luna and the commander of the Lunar Guard. Princess Celestia personally thanked each of the foals for their thoughtful gifts, and assured them her sister would carefully read each one when she awoke.

Two bearers of the Elements of Harmony were also present. They graciously offered to entertain the young foals in return of their gesture by sharing stories of the unknown race of Princess Luna’s bodyguard---

“Look, guys, seriously, I don’t have time for this. Both of my bosses are in there, and I have no idea what-

Yes, we did know about the Leviathan. What? No! Princess Luna and the commander tried to stop it before it got- How in tartarus could we have stopped it from coming here? Catch it with a fishing net? No, we did send warning. Yes, to Princess Celestia and- What do you mean not you? You as in you personally? Princess Celestia sent warning to the city- Ok, it’s not our fault you guys didn’t have enough “information”. You were given orders to buckle down and wait. If the princesses say something you should be doing that, and not-

You serious? You expected us to what, go over each house and warn all of you one by one? Yes? What do you mean yes?

We found out about it yesterday you moron! It was a freaking Leviathan, I like to think we didn’t do too shab- Some ponies don’t agree? Well, then in that case, you can go find those ponies, and tell them to get a big piece of that blown up Leviathan and shove it up their flank. All the way in. Sideways.

Are we done? We’re done. I need to head back up and- ok, repeat that please. Yes, you. Repeat that. Pay for the ships? Me? Oh, Princess Luna should pay for the ships. The ones that sailed despite being ordered not to? Are these the ones you- hold on, you’re one of them, ain’t ya? Don’t you shake your head at me, you should be in a prison cell, waiting for- Horseapples, somepony get him! Cast Iron, after him! Don’t be afraid to trample him.”

“How do we know that wasn’t another instance of Nightmare Moon trying to take over? You ask me, the way that thing blew up? It seems like something went wrong with her magic. She probably puffed up some poor critter and threw it our way to-”

This was as far as Mr. Craven Speech managed to get before the crowd erupted in two separate camps, resulting in a hoof-fight that lasted for over an hour, accumulating in dozens of injured---

“Yes. I am a trained soldier. I was part of the Minos Chargers, but I don’t have any experience as an officer.

Yes. Lunar guard Leaf Stream was trained by the Solar Guard.

Perhaps they do deserve the credit for the training they provided. On the same principle, perhaps they shouldn’t have kicked her off for being injured then. It wasn’t them that saw her value despite her loss. No. lf there is any credit to be given it’s all to her, I think.

My time with the Lunar Guard has been too short, but in the little while that I’ve known them? Yes. Yes, I believe that they did their best. I don’t believe they were capable of doing more.

This interview ends here. It’s time for my shift.”

-- An open letter --

By Sunny Skies

It is easy to let fear take you. To give in to it and lash out wildly, without real thought or concern of who you hurt. To find a target for your frustration and your panic. To knock down someone and claim control once again, to prove to yourself, to the world, that you are not weak or afraid.

It is also wrong.

We can’t let fear take us and allow it to drive us to hurt each other. We can’t choose the nearest available target and fall into a pretense of control through causing suffering. You are not showing strength. You are showing weakness. You have allowed fear to overtake you.

Today, I call for those reading these words to not let fear take them. To be brave and face it. To be strong and defeat it.

I have read so many words of what happened in Baltimare two days ago, and who is to blame. I suppose, if I wasn’t so thoroughly disappointed, I wouldn’t have written this letter in the first place.

Most of the best I could find were reports made by journalists who stayed true to their integrity and offered facts instead of rumors or shoving their own personal opinions down their reader’s throats. The worse? Ponies blaming those who saved lives and fortunes for not acting sooner, for not doing more, for not performing up to an unattainable perfection. This kind of behavior might be reasonable for a young foal crying out for more candy and privileges, but it is unfit for the ponies who adopted it, especially when some of them are the very ones whose job had to be carried out by the ones they criticize.

A very sad reality of what our society has fallen to, but it can get worse. I’ve read pieces by ponies who actually blame what happened on Princess Luna and her Lunar Guard. On the thestrals. On anypony they can blame without fear of reprisal, at least for the short-sighted future. Facts are ignored. The Leviathan, whose gigantic corpse is in plain view, isn’t a monumental victory, but something to explain away by mutterings of magic and fear mongering.

Luckily, the papers and other publications are not the distilled opinion of the public as I feared. I walked among the common ponies of Baltimare and listened to them. Yes, many were still shocked, many were still afraid. Still, many more of them were trying to find ways to express their gratitude. Others were desperate for news to the condition of the princess that bled for them. Questions were anxiously asked as to her health and that of the mysterious Lunar commander.

To the common pony, it isn’t the political or popularity clout that many are fighting over that matters. Instead, it’s their concern over those who fought for them while they were ignorant of the danger that was heading towards them. It’s their sorrow that they might lose something very important. The heroes who managed to save them from a Leviathan as fast as it appeared.

I say to you, who read these words, to learn from these ponies. Don’t let fear take over. Don’t try to blame somepony for the direction of the wind. There is no such pony. Some things just happen. We can’t control them, despite how much we try or wish to. What we can control is our reaction to these occasions. We can choose to respond with fear and hate, or understanding and kindness.

Let us not become our own Leviathans.

Ch.19 - If not stop then to slow down

Twilight and her friends sat impatiently in the waiting room at the hospital’s lobby, inhaling the familiar hospital scent of antiseptics and chlorine. All this hectic travelling, basically hanging on for their lives on the chariot as a blur of pegasi Royal guards were passing the reins to another team, and then another team, and then… There were a lot of pegasi, that’s what she was getting at. A lot of guards flying them to their distant destination, a lot of tying themselves on the rails every day so they wouldn’t fall off from sheer exhaustion, a lot of worrying, and only after regretfully learning that when Pinkie Pie says she can’t hold it in anymore she means it, a few bathroom breaks.

All that turmoil, and now they had to wait for somepony to come and let them up on the hospital’s last floor, where Raegdan and Princess Luna were being treated. It was kind of annoying, true. Actually, it was about to drive her stark raving mad, but at least, finally, it seemed Princess Luna and her step-dad got something they wanted. Somepony was actively looking out for their security. From what she got, Leaf Stream, Solid Charge, and Cast Iron were doing an outstanding job.

Maybe they should have stopped and rested a little on their way here. Arriving in the middle of the night wasn’t helping anypony. Not that they had been waiting long. It only felt that way. She had been watching Rainbow Dash flick her tail left and right, and she could almost swear it took minutes for the multi colored hair to settle before Rainbow moved her tail again.There was time enough to count each individual strand and sort them by length and color. Dandelion seeds were meteorites compared to what her tired eyes followed. How could such a fast pony have the perception of time altered so radically near her? Twilight pondered for a minute if perhaps this was how Rainbow Dash saw the world when she flew with her incredible speed, as if everything floated slowly, like a dream that bled into reality. This was either a glimpse into Rainbow’s pegasi magic or a misadvertisement of that so called “energy drink” at their latest stop.

Say what you will, but Rainbow Dash had been the calmness in the eye of the storm since they got the news. She was so absolutely certain that nothing tragic would happen. “If somepony like Princess Luna and Raegdan doesn’t buy the farm straight out then they won’t wait till they get to a hospital to kick the bucket. They’re gonna be fine. A little hurt maybe, but fine.” Coarse and rough, but it had the advantage of not feeling like empty words designed to make them feel better.

Pinkie Pie had been as worried as Twilight herself was, only she was keeping it under much better control. This control slipped a bit as soon as they arrived in Baltimare. They couldn’t see the Leviathan’s corpse, not during the night, but they did see the silhouette of what they had managed to drag off shore. It was only a few small pieces they told them, each of them as large as Ponyville’s square. There were more down the shoreline, gathered together like the remains of a village that had been birthed instead of built. The rest, almost the entirety of the Leviathan, had sunk beneath the sea. She wondered how it’s remains would affect the region. Pinkie had quieted up. No jokes, no smiles, not a single word. Twilight feared that Pinkie’s own stay at the hospital wing was making a re-emergence in her mind. Knowing Pinkie, she was really hurting that the one who helped her was here and she couldn’t return the favor.

Fluttershy had almost gone into tears by seeing the signs of destruction at the port and the mass of still injured ponies at the hospital. Lines were remaining unbroken in their staggering length as ponies were taken behind a small curtain, emerging with a small wad of cotton against their leg.

As for Twilight herself… A lot of things had happened. Many things were still unclear in her mind. Sometimes, she still got confused, though that was not the right word. She understood that suddenly finding out that Raegdan could really do such things, infinitely darker than what she had ever thought was possible, made its mark on her. Out of all of this, out of all the fear, the confusion, the sudden bouts of hate and tremors, the whispers at the end of her hearing, despite it all, she knew one thing for certain. She loved her step-dad, and she didn’t want to lose him. She hated what he had done, not him. She had to keep reminding herself constantly against the insidious doubts, but it worked so far. She still loved the biped who would stay up all night when she was sick, whispering songs and stories to her, holding her hoof.

So she waited. She waited and hoped Rainbow was right. That her last words to him weren’t a half-hearted goodbye he probably didn’t even hear.

Pinkie shook Twllight’s shoulder, pointing towards the stairs. Rarity was coming down to greet them. She looked… the best way Twilight could put it was that she looked distinctly un-Rarity. Her mane was, while not a mess, certainly not up to her usual standards. There was red in the white of her eyes, and the skin beneath them had gone saggy and dark. Twilight, Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Rainbow got up and walked to the end of the stairs to wait for her. A thestral was standing guard there, and she quickly raised her bat wing to block their passage.

“It’s ok dear. They’re with us. They can come up anytime,” Rarity told the thestral mare, her exhaustion apparent.

“Jeepers, Rarity! What happened to you?” Rainbow asked as they made their way up the stairs.

Rarity sighed. “I wish I could say it was the Leviathan, but that would be a lie. It’s the “aftershocks” that have exhausted me. I left Applejack sleeping by the way. Poor mare has been running herself ragged. In between the reporters, the “authorities” here, the populace, the guards, and everypony screaming for answers we don’t have… Thank Celestia for- Princess Celestia I suppose.” Rarity sparked a small smile at her little joke. “I don’t know how she’s doing it. Seemingly she’s spending as much time as she can at her sister’s side, but-”

Twilight interrupted her. “Rarity. How are they?”

Rarity coughed and stopped at the second floor. “I need some water. I’m awfully thirsty. Anypony want something? There’s a cafeteria right here, and there’s-”

“Rarity.”

“Oh, alright.” Rarity started moving up the steps again, almost dragging her hooves. “They’re alive and getting better. We don’t know what happened in that… thing. Luna’s been hurt badly. Broken bones, internal bleeding, lacerations, bites, you name it, she’s got it. Her magic was completely drained, and she’s also gotten a nasty infection on top of everything, courtesy of the monstrosity she killed. Some of her wounds were cauterized. Presumably Raegdan did that somehow while they were still in the Leviathan. It kept her from bleeding out, but left her even more vulnerable to whatever was running free in there. It almost killed her, even without the bodily harm she acquired.”

“That doesn’t sound good at all,” Twilight said.

“She’ll make it. It will just take time, Alicorn or not.”

“How’s dad?” Pinkie Pie asked anxiously.

Rarity stopped in her tracks and took a deep breath. She cleared her throat, hesitated, and coughed again. “I don’t know for sure.”

“You don’t know?” Twilight asked, incredulous.

“Somehow Raegdan got… burned by something like acid while in there. Luna’s fine however, so we don’t know what’s up with that. I myself will bet my bits that your former guardian shielded her with his own body. They kept rinsing him for a day to make sure it was all off. He was still sizzling in parts when they brought him-”

Twilight felt dizzy and had to support herself on Rainbow’s side for a second, lest she fall down the stairs. Rarity bit her lips hard enough to almost bleed as she panicked at the sight of what she caused.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry dear. I don’t know what I was thinking saying such a dreadful thing. I- I should stop.”

“No. No, I’m- I’m fine. How is he now?”

Rarity looked at her sadly. “Not good. On the bright side he hasn’t caught what Luna has so far. There are some salves they are pretty confident will help, and the antibiotics are based on his kind’s knowledge so Princess Celestia assured as that these at least will definitely work. It’s just that... I’m sorry Twilight, there’s nothing they can do, but-”

“But?” Pinkie asked in Twilight’s place. Twilight didn’t want to hear what she suspected ever since she heard he got burned.

“There are no painkillers for him. Nothing that works. Maybe the Zebrican salve will help, they say it mutes pain quite well for ponies at least, but… he will have to endure the pain for- for a long time. Twilight, I’m so sorry-”

“He’ll be fine.” Twilight stopped Rarity from going further into her condolences. She didn’t want to hear them. “He’s always been able to endure pain when he had to. Remember the wound at his side? He never uttered the smallest complaint or groan of pain… unless he got hit right there,” she tried to joke, mostly for her own benefit, with a sideways glance at Rainbow.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean- You know what? You’re totally right Twilight.” Rainbow spread her wings and hovered above her. “He’ll be totally fine when he’s up and about.”

They had reached the top floor of the hospital. Twilight had heard about the thestrals, she had read about them, and she always wanted to meet some of these rare ponies. Her wish was certainly getting fulfilled now. There were no guards here, only thestrals walking the corridors.

“Right,” Twilight agreed, choosing to ignore Rainbow’s covert glance to Rarity. She may have meant it as a morale boost, but that didn’t make it any less true. “Have these thestrals decided to join the Lunar Guard? Is that why they’re here?”

“No, the majority are only here until Luna is out of the hospital. There are too few of them you see. A couple of them will join up however, thanks to Spike.”

“Spike? What did the little guy do?” Rainbow asked.

Rarity’s tired face lit up with a small, but brilliant smile. “You’d be proud of him Rainbow. There was a moment when Luna asked for us to trust her and to our shame we did not. Not little Spike however. He stuck with them to the very end. Silverwing, that’s the thestral leader, felt so ashamed afterwards that he swore that Luna wouldn’t leave Baltimare without some of his ponies by her side.”

“Way to go for Spike!” Rainbow cheered along with Pinkie Pie and a smiling Fluttershy.

“Rarity, when can we visit Luna and Raegdan? In fact, is Princess Celestia here?” Twilight asked.

Rarity answered absentmindedly. “Hm? Yes, the princess is here. She’s been spending most of her time in Princess Luna’s room. I think she sleeps in there with her. Luna hasn’t gained consciousness yet for more than a minute or two, but she’s still having… nightmares. You know what I’m talking about.” Rarity stopped before a door. “We can go in and get some rest. Applejack and Spike are sleeping inside though, so we should finish up first and not wake them.”

“So, having her big sis around helps Luna with her nightmares?” Rainbow asked. “It’s so weird to think of somepony like Luna scared of dreams…” Rainbow muttered.

Rarity blushed and awkwardly scratched her shoulder. “Not really. She must have gotten used to having Raegdan around, so to help her with that little problem we, um, we threw most of his clothes on the bed with her.”

“Huh?”

“Well, you have to understand,” Rarity continued. “He wears them all the time, his smell is all over them, and it makes her think he is there with her… It was no fun at all explaining to Princess Celestia why this worked or how we knew it would.”

Rainbow chortled in amusement. Twilight was quick to cut her off. “That’s not funny Rainbow. Luna has a real problem and…” Twilight stopped, sighing deeply. She almost verbally attacked her friend to distract herself. “I’m sorry Rainbow. Can we visit them tomorrow morning Rarity?”

“I guess we can visit Luna, though she is still kept under sedatives. The doctors want her to get as much rest as possible. Princess Celestia will be glad to see you however. But I’m afraid that until Solid Charge gives permission we can’t visit Raegdan.”

Twilight frowned. “What do you mean?”

“He’s the only one who went in to see him so far, apart from the doctors and nurses,” Rarity explained. “He won’t allow anyone else to go in and see him. He even stood up to Princess Celestia to stop her from going inside.”

“Oh my,” Fluttershy whispered, amazed.

“He’s got no right to do that!” Twilight started yelling before quickly lowering her voice when Rarity made quieting gestures, pointing at the door through which Applejack and Spike slept. “We’re his family, and if I-”

“Twilight, please, listen to me,” Rarity soothed her. “Solid Charge is only trying to look after you. Raegdan’s hurt real bad, and honestly, going in to see him now won’t help anypony. I’m certain that when Raegdan is awake we’ll be able to visit. Until then, let’s wait, ok?”

“I- I guess you’re right. I’m just so… so worried. I want to see him, make sure he’s ok.”

“We all do Twilight. Now, let’s go inside and get some sleep, ok? Trust me, you will need it for tomorrow. Applejack can help me tell you the rest after breakfast.”

Twilight made a tremendous -if poor in choice- effort to swallow half of an unchewed bagel. The pastry got stuck in her throat, and she coughed to dislodge it. It came up again, bringing some friends it waved along from her stomach. Her cheeks bulged as she tasted the unholy dough, now drenched in stomach fluids. Knowing her only sane option was to spit it out, she swallowed once more. It went down easier this time, soaked in saliva as it was -among other things.

“Good mo-morning Princess,” Twilight greeted her mentor with barely a stutter. She did her best to not allow her voice to croak, or her wide smile to wither. She believed she did a good enough job. Inner Twilight hoofpumped in perceived victory.

“My goodness Twilight. Are you ok?” Princess Celestia asked with worry as she took a seat at the full table. Her friends scampered to make space for the large Alicorn.

“I’m fine, princess.” Twilight’s throat burned with regret. For the next few days she’d have to take small, dainty bites. She held back a shiver from running down her spine. Rarity would now believe she was dieting again, and she’d try to help once more. “How is Princess Luna?”

Celestia gave her a small, sad smile. “Better each day. At least that’s what the doctors tell me. She needed some surgery, but for now the greatest concern is the disease she picked up. Luckily, the antibiotics help immensely.” The princess half-lidded her eyes as she used her magic to stir her morning tea. “Bread mold. Who could have guessed?” she chuckled.

Twilight examined her mentor more carefully. Princess Celestia’s eyelids were drooping, her wings hung low, her feathers were disarrayed, and she didn’t seem to be able to hold her usual stance, neck straight and high.

“How about you? Are you alright Princess?” Twilight asked with increased worry.

“I must admit I haven’t slept well, or long enough lately. There’s so much to do, while what I want to do most is stay by Luna’s side,” Celestia said, scowling slightly as she thought of the work that was waiting for her. “Twilight, I know you are worried about Raegdan, but could you please look after my sister every now and-”

Interrupting her teacher was something she would never do under normal circumstances. She did so without thinking about it, which might have been the only reason Twilight managed it. “The girls and I are here for both of them Princess. We will look after Luna, we promise.”

“There never was a question about it.”

“Shoot, of course we will.”

“Can’t wait for her to get up and tell us all about her adventure!”

“Oh, we should head there immediately after and make sure she is comfortable…”

“I need dry macaroni to make cards! Glitter! Glue! Markers! Balloons! We need to stockpile candy for when she wakes up! She’s a fellow chocofiend, she needs chocolate to liiiiiive!”

“Hey, anything for dad’s marefriend.”

Twilight’s hoof dug into her ear. It was just an expression, she couldn’t have heard a record stopping like that. There wasn’t even any music. More importantly, why, how, and why, and let’s not forget, why did Spike just say that?

“Twilight,” Celestia said with a unusual smile. “Can I ask you a question?”

No, no, no, nonononononono, noooooooooooo-

“Yes, princess?”

Celestia took her time putting butter on a small croissant. “I may be Luna’s fellow diarch, but I also consider of some importance the fact that I am her sister. Her concerned, older sister.”

“I understand princess,” Twilight answered. She wished she had a notebook. She may have just made an outstanding discovery. Apparently, ponies were able to, on demand, force their sweat glands to suck back the treacherous drops when under the direst of pressures.

“Here’s my question then Twilight. I only ask that you answer honestly.”

Twilight’s legs couldn’t move her fast enough to put that incessant, half yelling, half whining, behind her, but they certainly tried. Oh, if only she wasn’t in a hospital, where she wasn’t allowed to perform any moderately powerful spells, she would have teleported out in an instant. She tried a silence spell first, but of course The-One-That-Hounds knew how to dispel that.

“Just really good friends? Friends? Darling, you had a chance there, a golden, jewel encrusted chance, and you threw it away!” Rarity’s piercing voice mercilessly drilled into Twilight’s ears. “How will romance be fashioned, how will love be allowed to blossom and bloom if I- I mean we, don’t step in to-”

Alright, she had enough. She turned around to face her pursuer. “Rarity?” Twilight said with as much sweetness as she could concentrate on every syllable. “You do realize that Raegdan, my step-dad, is in this hospital with horrific injuries? I don’t know if you have ever had a second or third degree burn. To be honest, neither have I. What I do know about them however is that they hurt. A lot. I also know that burns that cover a large area usually require specialized care. Care which Raegdan cannot receive in its entirety, not with magical means, which are what we mostly have. So maybe, love, and the blossoming and blooming of which, are not really my top priority at the moment. Now, if you understand this, maybe we can put romance plots on hold?”

Twilight’s breathing hastened as she talked. She was saying things she didn’t want to think about. Nopony wants to think like that when you sit in a waiting room or visit a hospital bed.

Rarity however stood dauntless before Twilight’s most menacing stare. “I’m afraid not.” Rarity tapped her chin with her hoof as she thought. “You know what I think? We should arrange for a celebration when they are up and about. Only we could make a reservation for them at a local restaurant, I hear magnificent things about the local cuisine, and encourage them to have a private “party” for themselves. Oh, we can pre-arrange the menu! A red wine that is a little too strong, scandalous, I know, but a small nudge might be due, and perhaps some-”

“Rarity, stop!” Twilight yelled. She ran her hoof down her face, trying to regain her calm. “Why? Why are you so insistent on this, now of all times?”

Rarity stood silent for a few seconds, looking sullen. “I should make some clothing for Raegdan. I have a few ideas of my own, of course, but some insight into what you know of his culture would be-”

“Rarity!”

The white unicorn huffed and turned her head, looking away from her friend. “Well, I thought you’d prefer this to go well rather than belly side-”

Twilight struck the floor with her hoof. “Rarity…”

Rarity turned her back on Twilight. “I saw them going in there you know. Down the maelstrom,” Rarity said.

And now she felt like a Twijerk. She was just thinking about this exact thing, but she only applied it to herself, as expected of this world’s most selfish pony. She moved to stand to Rarity’s side, closer to her friend.

“I counted the minutes while they were inside,” Rarity continued, sorrowful. “I didn’t panic at all. Not even when I started counting over sixty one minutes. Spike was there, and I couldn’t… All I could think of was what a sad pathetic life they’ve been living. How much of it they spent alone, and how much they glowed when they were together. I couldn’t help but think about it, and how wrong it felt that they looked so immeasurably happy sometimes only because they sat together, as if that’s the best they could ever get.”

Rarity inhaled deeply from her nostrils, regaining her usual regal stance as air filled her chest. “I know I’m getting tiresome, but honestly, I’d rather think of ways that might never work, or I never actually have the chance to try, to make them happier if possible. It’s far better than keep thinking that even if they lived, Luna will always have a scar under her coat where something ate a part of her, or how Raegdan will have even more scars now… They did something incredible, and while they may not have done it for the right reasons, I have no doubt they did it for each other, and-”

Rarity brought a handkerchief over her eyes. “Gracious, I am barely making sense,” she sniffled. “I’m so sorry darling. You have every reason to be upset. Here you are, worrying over your family, and I’m-”

“Black,” Twilight said, sighing in defeat.

“...I’m sorry?”

“Black. It’s what he likes, and what his kind often prefers on formal wear. Almost all black. I think dark blue works too, but Raegdan always fancied black more.”

“Oh. Oh!” Rarity dabbed carefully around her eyes one more time. “This could work I guess. Too sombre for me, but it would give him quite the striking appearance. Like his armor. A little white to accentuate, and a dash of color wouldn’t be amiss. Red perhaps?”

“It could work. On his tie I think, and I’d go for silver instead of white. Luna would enjoy that better too,” Twilight suggested, and Rarity clapped her hooves happily in agreement. “The wine wouldn’t work by the way. Raegdan doesn’t handle alcohol that well.”

“Hmm, yes. I can foresee trouble if that’s true. He might end up sleeping through his date, or even worse, get too… forward for a first date. Can you even imagine?”

“Yes, but I really, really don’t want to,” Twilight answered.

Twilight opened the door to Luna’s room. Inside, her friends were already gathered around the sleeping Alicorn. Twilight and Rarity joined them. Nopony was talking. She took a look around the room. She counted six beds, the rest of them empty, one of them blocked from view with a curtain. She wondered if that was the one where Princess Celestia slept.

It didn’t really make sense to Twilight. Luna looked so large and intimidating when she wanted to. Yet now, here on the hospital bed, covered with white sheets and IV tubes feeding her veins with fluids… Luna looked tiny. She had bandages wrapped all over her torso, legs, and even her head. Each of them hiding a stitched gash, as she knew. It wasn’t the first time she had been through similar. Twilight vividly remembered her story on that failed nighttime event. Especially how nonchalant she had been about her injuries, as if it was an occurrence as common or noteworthy as tripping on your own legs. Dear Celestia, this was what her so-called duty was? To go out there, fight alone, end up like this, and do it all over again, forever? The existence of Nightmare Moon was making more sense each day.

She spotted a strand of Luna’s mane laid over her eyes. She leaned forward to gently coax it back into place. As she got closer Twilight noticed once again how Luna’s coat grew. Swirly in places, in hypnotic zigs and zags, circular splotches, and curving lines. She had been amazed the first time she saw her up close. She remembered thinking how outstanding it was that even Luna’s coat growth was perplexing and filled with abstract designs, another reminder of Luna’s connection with the night sky.

She covertly facehoofed at her stupidity. There hadn’t been anything like that. She finally understood that it was merely the scars on Luna’s skin, under her coat, that made it grow in these patterns. She had as many scars as Raegdan did. Nopony ever noticed them though -no, they probably thought something stupidly poetic as Twilight did herself. If she had a pillow in her hooves she’d hide behind it.

She tried to imagine Luna, returning to her castle in the distant past, after another successful “adventure”, marred with another healed wound. Only, nopony would see it, or notice it for what it was. Did Luna know? Did she realize that almost nopony ever saw these marks for what they were? That none truly saw her wounds, but only thought that there was something… Alicorn-y about her midnight blue coat? Or did she live through her life believing that nopony had ever cared how many scars she got or how she earned them?

Rainbow Dash pulled her out of her grim line of thought. “So what happened Twilight? Is Solid Charge letting us visit Raegdan?”

“We didn’t find him,” Twilight answered. “We searched the whole floor. He’s not here.”

“He’s probably downstairs, doing “public relations” ah reckon,” Applejack told them, yawning. “Not really, but ya get mah drift y’all. Letting ponies see them, telling them everything is fine.”

“How’s the city holding up?” Twilight asked. “We didn’t manage to see much of anything when we arrived. What’s gonna happen with the Leviathan?”

“Welp,” Applejack said, stretching her neck with a pop, “Baltimare’s doing well enough for now. In the coming weeks… not so much. Neither will a lot of ponies around here. Ah sent the money Raegdan gave me back home, and warned Big Mac to stock up on things we might need in the coming months. We’re gonna feel the sting all the way to Ponyville in some way or another.”

“That bad?”

“The seaport is in ruins, darling. Thank goodness you didn’t get to see it. It’s a horrible mess,” Rarity said.

“Yep,” Applejack continued. “The Leviathan’s remains don’t help matters either. It left a green sludge behind it, it’s like tar in the water. Small boats actually get stuck in it.”

Rarity took her turn again. “That thing’s disgusting remains need to go too. They keep finding dead fish floating in the sea. They believe it’s poisoning the water around it, and it will only get worse as it… decomposes.” Rarity shivered with disgust.

“Oh, those poor fishies,” Fluttershy mourned. “Can’t they clean it up?”

Applejack snorted. “Good luck doing that anytime soon. It weighs thousand of tons and it’s down at the bottom.”

“I’d love to get a sample of it, see what’s it made of,” Twilight half muttered.

“If ya do, there’s plenty of it to go around. Ah wouldn’t recommend it though. Princess Celestia had some ponies go over it, and after the first ones got sick nopony is allowed to approach it without getting covered head to hoof with spells and special uniforms,” Applejack said.

“It’s spreading a disease? Is it airborne?”

“Not from what they tell us,” Applejack answered. “It’s easy to treat, which is a blessing since it’s in the water now. One of the first researchers to get it asked to be left unmedicated for a bit, see how dangerous it actually is. Really brave of her. Turns out it’s a woozy if you don’t take care of it immediately. Thankfully she’s ok, though barely.”

“In a few words,” Rarity said with deep sadness, “Horseshoe Bay is ruined. Baltimare won’t be able to operate as a trading hub for some time, and most the villages around the bay were sustained by the fishing trade with the griffins and the minotaurs.”

“Wait, so… it was all for nothing?” Rainbow asked.

“I doubt that,” Twilight said. “The Leviathan would have destroyed every ship and ravage the local ecosystem either way. At least now it can’t do the same to everywhere else. We got off easy. A free roaming Leviathan is one of the worst scenarios that can happen. Imagine the same happening all along the Equestrian coast.”

“It’s not over yet,” Rarity said. “Princess Celestia is very worried about what’s going to happen in the next few months. You weren’t there to see it, but trust me Twilight, the explosion that killed the Leviathan was like nothing you can imagine. Can you fathom what everypony will do if they believe that Luna is capable of doing that at will?”

“Is she?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“We don’t know! Nopony has any idea what they did yet. Maybe she is. Between that, and the fact that Luna and Raegdan have killed a Leviathan…” Rarity let the sentence hang for a second. “A lot of very important people are gonna be very nervous, and I don’t think they were seeing Luna with a good eye before.”

“That’s dumb,” Rainbow declared. “So what? She killed a Leviathan, she didn’t set fire to anypony.”

“At least most ponies here understand that,” Applejack said. She pointed at the sleeping Alicorn between them. “A few of them are utter boneheads though. They blame and accuse Luna for… Ah don’t even know what. Whatever idiocy decides to fly outta their mouths at the moment.”

“That isn’t fair!” Pinkie Pie protested, pouting and crossing her hooves across her chest. A series of knocks on the door stopped her from saying more. Twilight used her magic to open it, revealing Leaf Stream.

The dark green pony ran her eyes over the room before getting inside. “Princess Celestia ain’t here?”

“Hello Leaf Stream. Princess Celestia is in a meeting with the mayor I believe.” Twilight scooted on the bed she was sitting on to make space for Leaf Stream but the pegasus ignored it and stood next to the door instead.

“Yeah, hello. Good luck to the princess with that. Everypony’s busy pointing hooves while she does all the work. Seriously, I think Princess Celestia is the one who might have been shafted with the hardest part of the job,” Leaf Stream joked. “Are you looking after the heroine of the week in her stead?”

Twilight flashed her an angry look. “I would have thought you’d have stopped being like that by now.”

Leaf Stream was taken aback. “What? I’m serious. That’s what everypony calls her here now. You think I’m joking? Here, take a look at this.” She walked to the curtailed bed and pulled the sheet aside. Twilight, Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Rainbow, were left speechless at the sight.

The wall and the bed in front of it were covered with cards, letters, flowers, photographs, and various presents. They were stacked on each other, reaching almost ceiling high. Twilight approached and lifted a hoofmade plushie made in Luna’s likeness.

“These are all… gifts from ponies? All that?”

“Nope,” Applejack laughed. “That ain’t even half of what they sent so far. There’s more. We left the rest in another room. These are some of the more personal ones we chose.”

“We check everything before letting it in here,” Leaf Stream said. “If anything’s got even a bit of magic on it we leave it for Princess Celestia to look over. The other stuff we check for is ponies sending accusations and other mean stuff. There’s been some, but even that was surprisingly little. Besides, from what I hear, bad mouthing Princess Luna is a big no-no in Baltimare at the moment. There are some politicians who try to turn that around cause it’s easier to blame somepony most ponies didn’t like much rather than admit they got no idea what should be done now.”

“Oh, that is just cruel,” Fluttershy said.

Leaf Stream smirked. “Eh, it could be worse. Besides, they are simmering down. Turns out somepony might have been spilling the beans on who does that, and where they can be found. Mobs have been going after them because of that dastardly leak.” She took a moment to inspect her hoof with extreme self-satisfaction.

Twilight couldn’t stop staring. She could almost feel the gratitude wafting in waves from the piles in front of her. She put down the doll and disbelievingly picked up another one. Somepony had sent a Raegdan doll! It looked nothing like him, but who else could it be? Whoever made it had tried to do his or her best out of a description. It looked more like a thin minotaur painted black. She put them down, arranging them to sit side by side. There were drawings by colts and fillies, as well as letters. So many letters.

“Luna’s not going to believe this,” Twilight said, breathless.

Fluttershy had picked up the plush dolls and hugged them both close to her chest like a little filly. “Oh, these are adorable. I bet they will be so happy to see all this. Do you think Luna will let me keep these two if I ask her?”

“Oh my gosh, check this out!” Rainbow called. “She’s already got a fan club. Look at this picture.” Little fillies were running around with moon themed cutie marks taped over their own, while young colts were rushing behind them with wooden weapons in their hold and paper mache black helmets covering their heads almost to the point of blindness.

Behind them, Luna started stirring and making noise. Twilight and the rest of the girls instantly stopped fidgeting over the bundles of gifts.

“Is she waking up? Should we call a doctor?” Twilight asked.

“Nah,” Leaf Stream said. She moved to the other side of Luna’s bed and pushed a small pile of clothing nearer the Alicorn’s head. Luna turned her head, almost burying her face in the stack of Raegdan’s clothing and slowly went back to sleeping peacefully. Leaf Stream readjusted the covers over Luna before backing off.

“Now, I’m not trying to be a jerk, but that’s some pretty creepy behaviour,” Leaf Stream said as she went back to standing by the door.

“I, for one, think it’s romantic,” Rarity claimed.

“Yeah, if you are into stalking,” Leaf Stream countered. “I wonder if she’s tried to- what was that?”

There was a muffled shout from outside. Rainbow Dash headed for one of the windows while Leaf Stream slightly opened the door and carefully peeked outside before moving out into the corridor.

“This darn window doesn’t open,” Rainbow Dash complained.

“Princess Celestia blocked them off with magic,” Rarity informed her. “There’s no way to open them now.”

Rainbow pushed her muzzle to the glass, trying to get the bottom of the hospital in her line of sight. “Hey guys, there’s smoke coming out of some windows! That ain’t supposed to happen, does it?”

“Did you really just ask that question right now?” Leaf Stream yelled.

“Where’s the smoke coming from Rainbow?” Applejack asked.

“Uh… hard to see… Floor below us I thi- yep, I see flames coming out the windows. Definitely the floor below. Somewhere towards the stairs we climbed yesterday,” Rainbow said. Twilight could smell the smoke reaching them even now. An alarm started ringing from below.

“Horseapples,” Leaf Stream cried out, looking back at the unconscious Luna. “We could move the princess, but I’d really rather not do that if we can help it.” Leaf Stream sighed. “Right when I was gonna head for a nap…” She ran towards the stairwell. Twilight and her friends followed along.

It was a haven for chaos on the floor below. Doctors and nurses were rushing in and out of rooms, wheeling patients away from the smoke and fire. Guards and thestrals that tried to reach the fire kept having to back to the wall to let the gurneys and wheelchairs pass them by. A thick smoke cloud was already forming at the ceiling, burning their eyes and throats.

“Where is the fire?” Leaf Stream shouted over the commotion.

A guard answered her, pointing further along the corridor they were in. “A storeroom over there. It’s spreading already.”

“Why aren’t you taking it out? What are you waiting for, marshmallows?”

The guard ducked to avoid a IV stand that rolled next to a wheelchair from hitting her in the eye. “Pretty hard to do so when this is going on!”

“Then help them get done a minute sooner you idiots,” Leaf Stream ordered. She turned to Twilight. “Know any spells that can help with the fire?”

“I can contain the fire for some time at least,” Twilight answered. “Maybe even put it out if it’s not too large already.”

“Alright. You’re on. Get there and do what you-”

“We got this!” Rainbow shouted in excitement. Before Twilight knew what was happening, the agitated pegasus had her in her grip and flew her over the mass of ponies filling the corridor. The last she heard from Leaf Stream was her giving orders to organize the evacuation.

Rainbow was zipping left and right, avoiding hanging lights, IV posts, and the occasional flier who was heading the other way. The air heated up considerably as they neared their target, and Twilight could hear the crackling fire as they approached. Rainbow finally landed near the burning rooms. Red shadows were dancing in the corridor.

“Rainbow! Some warning first next time. I got smoke in my eyes,” Twilight griped, trying to blink the tears away.

Rainbow turned her blackened, sooted face towards the direction of her voice. “Yeah, I should probably have given that a little more thought,” she choked out, coughing. “Any chance you could push me towards a water cooler? I can’t see.”

“Later,” Twilight vaguely promised. The corridor at this point had become a fireplace. Twilight racked her brain, trying to think of the best way to put out this inferno. She didn’t have access to a large enough quantity of water, and there was a limit to how much water she could wring out of the surrounding humidity with a water spell.

The easiest way at this point would be by depriving the flames of oxygen. From Rainbow’s comment about flames coming out the windows however, she figured that she couldn’t just block the corridor and call it a day. She couldn’t see the windows either. She could try a larger shield that would contain the rooms in their entirety, but it might give the fire long enough to break her shield before it dies down. Damage to shields, especially continuous like that of a fire, drained the caster, bringing the spell down.

“So, um, Twilight, you gonna do anything?” Rainbow asked. “I don’t hear you doing anything, and it’s getting kinda hot, so, uh, maybe do something before the others come here only to find us roasted?”

Ego much, Twilight? She didn’t have to stop the fire on her own. She just needed to keep it from spreading. Leaf Stream and the guards would be here soon enough to help. She cast the spell and concentrated on holding the shield in place. Soon enough the smoke started lessening and the air cleared.

It wasn’t long before Leaf Stream and her friends appeared, along with a whole bunch of guards, thestrals, and orderlies, forming a bucket chain. Twilight let the shield spell fade with a relieved sigh. She could almost feel the fire burning at her own skin even through the weak feedback link. She tried not to think how it would actually feel in reality.

When the fire was extinguished at last Leaf Stream had Cast Iron, who made an appearance while Twilight was busy holding the fire back, check how the fire begun.

“Seems like a supply storeroom. Plenty to burn here,” the minotaur said, checking the remains with the handle of a spear. “It’s full of flammables. No wonder it flared up so fast.”

“But how did it start?” Twilight asked. She looked at the burned husk of a room. There was a large window. She wondered if it could have been a bottle or other glassware being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, working like a lens. She suggested the possibility to the others.

“Could be, could be,” Cast Iron agreed. “It’s just that… ah, here we go.” He pushed half melted glass and ashes around. “That’s where it started. See? I think these were bottles of ethanol.”

“And the rest?” Leaf Stream asked, reaching for the ashes herself.

“I don’t know. Sheets or gauze? Whatever it was it burned up completely.”

Fluttershy’s hesitant, quiet voice reached them in the momentary silence. “There are more bottles over here. Are they the same?”

Cast Iron approached her position at the far wall. “Oh yeah. I think so at least. Same shape, and it all burned quick. That must be the shelf where they stored them.”

“Wait, what did you say?” Leaf Stream asked, suddenly flustered. “That’s the side where they normally keep them?”

“I guess,” Cast Iron said, shrugging. “I don’t know how hospitals do it, but in my line of work at least I usually kept everything in order.”

Leaf Stream looked around her. “Did all of you come down here?” she asked Twilight.

Twilight glanced around her for a quick headcount. She knew that Rainbow was outside, still pouring water over her eyes, with Rarity bemoaning the condition of her multi hued mane over her, and trying to turn the eye-washing into a mane wash and styling. “Yes. Spike went back to bed soon after breakfast. Should I go wake him, or…”

Leaf Stream ran outside, and Twilight, feeling slightly panicked now, followed her. Leaf Stream seemed to have her eyes locked on the thestrals that were still there, waiting to see what would happen next. For half a minute it seemed she had lost the ability to blink and close her mouth.

“Hey, hey. Hey!” Leaf Stream yelled loudly, causing everypony to stop whatever they were doing. “Who’s guarding the princess if you’re all here?”

Nopony answered. Some tried to, but paused when they saw the one they were about to mention was also down there, often right next to them.

“Please tell me we’re not that stupid…” Leaf Stream moaned and ran for the stairs.

Princess Luna was gone. The bed was empty. Even the sheets were missing. IV tubes and needles were thrown astray, with tiny drops of blood hanging from their end. Leaf Stream was starting to panic, climbing on the bed itself, as if expecting to step on an invisible Alicorn, and even checking underneath the mattress.

“No, no, no. Oh, come on! Where the hay did she go?”

“You don’t think someone got up here and…” Cast Iron crossed his thumb across his neck.

Leaf Stream looked terrified for a few seconds before forcing herself to calm down. “No, somepony took her. It would be too much of a risk to kill her and then drag her body around just for… I don’t know, a trophy?”

“How did somepony manage to get her out though?” Applejack asked. “It’s the top floor. If anypony came down the stairs carrying Luna they would have been noticed.”

“Oh, this is a whole can of worms you opened up now,” Leaf Stream said, rubbing her forehead. “Let’s see. They could have taken her to the roof and flew her out, or they could have teleported her out. They could have used a spell to disguise her and carry her down along with the rest of the patients we were getting out. Horseapples, we might have escorted them out ourselves! I’m gonna get lynched when word gets out. They’re gonna string me up in the middle of Baltimare, and everypony will bring a large stick to have a go at the new public pinata...”

“We need to find her,” Rarity shrilled. “She’s wounded and sick.”

“Let me know if you have any idea where to start,” Leaf Stream said in a tone of surrender. “Damn it, this can’t get any worse.”

“Ya know, ah’ve been hearing variations of this a lot lately, and it turns out it’s not a smart thing to say,” Applejack commented.

Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rainbow, walked into the room. Solid Charge was walking behind them, the large minotaur appearing to be in pain.

“Welcome back sleepyhead. Had a nice rest? Join us in this new game we made. It’s called ‘peek-a-boo, where’s the princess? Not here’,” Leaf Stream mocked him.

“Raegdan is gone too.”

Leaf Stream glanced at Applejack accusingly. “Great. We have an extra player. They took him too?”

“Didn’t I just say that?” Solid Charge said, sitting down on the empty bed while rubbing the back of his head. “I was in his room, checking up on him before turning in. I was looking out the window when I heard something behind me. I didn’t have time to turn around. They hit me on the head. When I came to my senses I was tied up, gagged, and Raegdan was nowhere to be seen.”

“This is horrible!” Rarity wailed.

“No, this is great!” Twilight yelled, getting excited. The others looked at her as if she was insane. It occurred to her that she was getting that stare pretty often. “Don’t you see? They took Raegdan too. They can’t teleport him, they can’t disguise him with spells, and pegasi can’t fly carrying him unless they use something to carry him in-”

“-and if something like that had happened then somepony would have noticed them. But since they didn’t…” Leaf Stream continued in Twilight’s line of thought.

“Then they’d have to carry them out some other way. Something slower. I’ll get the thestrals to help us. They’re completely cuckoo about Princess Luna. No way somepony gets past them… you know, twice.”

“I’ll go find Princess Celestia,” Twilight volunteered. “We will get the local Royal Guard and the Solar Guard that came with her to lend a hoof.”

Leaf Stream stopped her from leaving with a hoof. “I’m not quite sure that’s the best idea.”

“Why?”

“Ok, see, if it was just Princess Luna I’d say it’s fine. I never got the why, but contrary to what you might think of them the Solar Guard is pretty adamant about not hurting her. They’ll not go out of their way for her in any way, unless ordered by Princess Celestia, but you get my drift.”

“Then what’s the problem here?”

Leaf Stream chewed on her lip for a few seconds. “Let’s say that if they get to them first we might get told something along the lines of saving Princess Luna but being too late to stop their captors from slicing Raegdan’s throat.” Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie gasped at the mere idea.

Twilight was ready to denounce the very thought before rethinking it. Leaf Stream was a Solar guard, even if only an initiate. She certainly knew more about her former colleagues that Twilight did. It was no secret that the Solar Guard abhorred Raegdan. Still, she wasn’t all that certain that they would do something like this, not now. It would be too obvious an opportunity for them to do that. Everypony would be suspicious. She had to admit though that it would indeed be their best chance yet to get rid of what they considered a dangerous pest, and without proof suspicions couldn’t really hurt them.

Solid Charge suddenly got up, silencing her inner debate. “It doesn’t matter. We’re calling on the Solar guards to help. Our first concern must be Princess Luna, not Raegdan, and if he was here he’d agree with me. We’re losing time. Find Princess Celestia and tell her everything. In the meanwhile we’ll start searching with the thestrals’ aid.”

Twilight looked out the window, towards the setting sun. A whole day of searching with nothing to show for it. Baltimare had half emptied as ponies took to the streets and the surrounding area, searching for the lost princess when news spread. Hundreds of ponies on the streets and the countryside, and not a single trace.

Princess Celestia herself had tried to coordinate the search at first. As the hours passed with no trace she couldn’t control her worry anymore, and went out to search herself, speeding across the sky faster than any other pegasus. She was like a daylight star, streaking through the blue with golden rays shooting out of her horn as she cast chains of spells, hoping to find one that could help her locate her sister and her friend.

Twilight had remained behind, along with her friends, and the three lone members of the Lunar Guard, trying to keep a semblance of control over a search that was growing more and more hectic as time passed. A map had been pinned next to the bed where Luna used to rest. Leaf Stream was sitting in front of it, morosely spending her time staring at the map or the bed. Solid Charge was sitting nearby, his eyes vacant, lost as he was in thought. Cast Iron was pacing, briefly stopping at periods to glare at the map. Black x’s had been drawn over every area that had been searched. Baltimare was almost entirely drawn in black by now.

Her friends were not doing much better. Rarity and Fluttershy were resolute on looking over Spike at first, only for the tables to turn around and the little dragon being the one having to keep their spirits up. Spike’s faith in Raegdan and Luna couldn’t be shaken, no matter what. Rainbow kept flying out, gathering the reports that said nothing of use before the ponies who committed the search had a chance to bring them here themselves. Applejack and Pinkie Pie were standing next to Twilight, like silent guardians.

It made no sense to her. Even if they couldn’t find Luna they should have found Raegdan by now. How did they manage to hide him and transport him without being seen from a hospital full of ponies situated right in the middle of Baltimare? There was no ship that sailed, even if they had been able to reach the port. There had been no flying carriage, balloon, or anything of the like. All the carts leaving Baltimare had become a priority. Pegasi and thestrals flew to the city’s limits and searched them all.

“Let’s try to take this from the start,” Twilight announced, rubbing her aching head. “Our kidnappers want to take Luna and Raegdan. So the first thing they do is set up a distraction.”

Solid Charge shook his head. A nurse had put a gauze on the back of his large skull. That, along with the cast on his broken arm, made him look like he should be resting in a bed as a patient here instead of standing around. “No, they took Raegdan first. I was tied in his room for some time. I even heard the fire alarm go off.”

“Do you know how long you were unconscious for?” Twilight asked.

Solid Charge shrugged. “A few minutes?”

“Ok, so then,” Twilight continued, thinking hard. “They take Raegdan first. Then they set up a distraction afterwards? Does that make sense to you?” she asked around her.

“It was six of us in Luna’s room,” Applejack reminded her. “Then, there were the thestrals in the corridors. Too few of them to get a decent chance of catching them in the act, but there were plenty scattered around even so.”

“I should have put them both in rooms side by side in a corner of the floor and cordon off the rest,” Leaf Stream criticized herself. She had been kicking herself all day long. “And how could I just leave the thestrals to wander around on their own instead of setting them up on guard rotations? I can’t believe how much I messed up…”

“They are not trained as guards. You did the best you could with what you had. What’s done is done,” Twilight tried to console her. “Let’s continue; One or more of them go downstairs and start the fire. We all go downstairs-”

“Like idiots,” Leaf Stream added.

“-leaving Luna alone-”

“Like idiots.”

“-yes, thank you. Like idiots, true. They take Luna and…” Twilight looked around her, begging for somepony to come up with something of use. “Come on! How did they get out?”

“Magic is out, right?” Rainbow asked.

“Maybe they disguised Raegdan somehow?” Rarity suggested. “Maybe they just put him in a sack?”

“Would have to be a pretty big sack,” Cast Iron said. “While there was a fire going on? How would they excuse that? Throwing out the trash or taking the laundry while the hospital was burning?”

“Somepony would have said something if they saw something weird like that,” Leaf Stream agreed.

“I can’t think of anything,” Fluttershy apologized.

Spike climbed on one of the empty beds to lie down. “Dad would have figured it out,” he said. “Hey Twilight, remember how he could go anywhere he wanted if he put his mind to it? Like Princess Celestia’s room?”

Twilight couldn’t help but snort at the memories Spike invoked, despite the severity of the situation. “Yeah. Nopony ever figured out how he could move around the castle without being seen, or get in there. I remember Princess Celestia dared him to try it once while she was ready for him.”

“Did he do it?” Rainbow asked.

“Yes. Princess Celestia waited for him almost all night. We were spending the night there with her too. Time was passing by, and he wasn’t making an appearance, so Princess Celestia decided he must have quit and went to bed. She laid down and almost reached the ceiling a second afterwards. Raegdan had gotten inside without anypony noticing, and hid beneath the bed. He was waiting for her to relax so he could give her a scare.”

“I can guess how he moved around the castle without being seen,” Rarity said. “He’s almost invisible in the dark with these dark, patterned cloaks of his. It’s easy to lose sight of him, even if you know he’s around.”

“Predator species,” Twilight said, thinking aloud. “His kind either pursued their prey to exhaustion, or set traps. It makes sense that they put some thinking into figuring out how to effectively camouflage themselves too. I don’t suppose I could see one of these cloaks?”

“You can help yourself anytime,” Cast Iron said. “There’s an empty small building in the hospital grounds. They use it as a warehouse for furniture and other stuff. We put the cart with all the gear they brought in there. We left the cloaks there as well. I, uh, took one of his armor sets into my room to examine in my spare time. You don’t think they’ll be angry, will they? I wanted to take a look at the steel it’s made from.”

“This is all delightful, but can we get back to work?” Leaf Stream complained. “Otherwise all we’ll have of them is memories and knick knacks while lamenting our lost kneecaps.”

“I really can’t think of anything,” Twilight admitted. “I’m trained in magic. All I can think of are ways involving magic, and they can’t have used any of them.” It irked her to no end how her area of expertise was now the one that limited her. Raegdan kept complaining about her dependence on magic, and now she finally saw how right he was.

“What about super magic?” Pinkie Pie asked, hopping towards the map. Leaf Stream shooed her away like a buzzing fly before she tried to draw all over it again.

Twilight sighed. “Pinkie, there’s no such thing like super magic.”

“Sure there is. Discord could do super magic,” Pinkie Pie argued.

“That’s an interesting suggestion,” Rarity added. “Could Discord’s magic affect Raegdan?”

“I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. Discord is a stone statue now.” It was interesting to think about, but she needed to concentrate. She had to focus on the matter at hoof. That’s what she did wrong when facing Discord. She let him get to her and she failed to realize his -obvious in hindsight- riddle. She went back to the map. If she couldn’t find how they took them, then perhaps she could figure out where. They had already searched everywhere however. They had expanded their search beyond the city, going further and further away, though they were still searching homes one by one. They had looked everywhere, except-

“Discord!” Twilight yelled, suddenly. Everypony turned to stare at her. “It’s obvious. It’s so obvious!” She approached the map with haste. “There’s one place we haven’t searched.”

“Probably quite a few,” Leaf Stream said, tired and disappointed. “There’s no shortage of basements and warehouses in Baltimare-”

“No,” Twilight interrupted her. “I know where they are hiding. It’s just like Discord. Back at the beginning! Remember girls?”

“Well, duh,” Rainbow said. “He hid the Elements in- no way!”

Twilight stabbed the map with her hoof. “The one place we haven’t searched, because we assumed they were gone. The hospital itself. They are still here!”

“Whoah, wait, wait, wait,” Leaf Stream shouted. “We did search the hospital. Every room. I searched this floor by myself.”

Twilight only had to think about it for a second. She already had the answer. “Did you search the old building that Cast Iron mentioned?”

Leaf Stream looked at the minotaurs for an answer. “Well guys? Did we check the proverbial shed in the back?”

Solid Charge scratched the back of his head, wincing as he touched the sore area. “Uh… I don’t think so.”

“Son of a bitch! We are a bunch of morons!”

“Hey, I can see that building from here,” Rainbow said. “I can go check it out in a jiffy.”

“Me first!” Pinkie Pie yelled as she opened the window in front of her and tried to jump through the opening. Fluttershy was the first one to reach her in time to stop Pinkie from becoming a stain on the stones below.

“Pinkie Pie, what were you thinking? You don’t have wings, remember? We’ve talked about this,” Rainbow Dash scolded the pink earth pony before stopping to look at the open window with wonder. “How did you open that? Hey, I thought the windows had spells on them,” Rainbow said.

“Maybe you’re just unclear on how windows work. I guess even Princess Celestia’s spells gotta run out sometime,” Leaf Stream suggested as she headed towards the nearest window. She tried to open it to no avail. The window remained stubbornly closed. “Or not. This one doesn’t open.”

“Neither does this one,” Applejack said from her place at the second window.

Curiosity peaked now, Twilight checked the windows for magic spells. The ones that were still closed were glowing with enchantments, still strong and a long way from fading. The one that Pinkie Pie opened… “There’s absolutely no trace of magic at the one Pinkie Pie opened. Pinkie, how did you do that?”

Pinkie Pie gasped loudly, looking at her own hooves. “It is happening! I can feel it. Raegdan’s blood runs in my veins, granting me his powers!” She started laughing maniacally. “Now no witch will be able to avoid the judgement of Inquisitor Pinkamena Diane de Pieda-”

“Should we be worried?” Solid Charge asked Twilight.

Twilight watched the spectacle that Pinkie Pie was putting on, unamused. “Just ignore her. Hopefully she’ll get bored of that soon.” She preferred to take a glance at the window instead. They didn’t have much time. Ok, they had an unknown amount of time, which meant it might have ran out already. A quick peek to satisfy her curiosity couldn’t hurt though, could it?

Nothing wrong with the window, unless you count the complete absence of magic on it. Nothing wrong with the glass. Burn marks on the sill and the iron bar that hung like an extension outside… hello!

“Take a look at this,” Twilight invited Leaf Stream to share in her findings. “Somepony burned something out here.”

“Somepony made a spy check?” Pinkie Pie shouted, astounded.

Leaf Stream examined the marks, and turned back to examine the room once more. “Did anypony else notice that all the sheets are gone?” she asked.

“Now that ya mention it…” Applejack drawled.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Rainbow asked.

“It’s how they got out,” Twilight said, excited. “They made a sheet rope to climb down. Then they burned it to erase their traces. Ethanol! They probably soaked them with a bottle from the storeroom before climbing down to burn it faster so it wouldn’t get noticed. That’s why there’s not even a small scrap left.”

Solid Charge examined the window. “Kind of improvised, don’t you think?”

“Raegdan’s magical immunity isn’t really something widely known,” Twilight explained. “Most ponies who saw spells fail on him often chalked it up to mere resistance or a fault of the caster. There isn’t anything else in the world apart from him that can do that after all.”

“She’s got a point,” Leaf Stream admitted. “Even in the Solar Guard most ponies consider the idea of him being immune ridiculous. The common consensus is that he simply hasn’t been hit by a strong enough spell yet.”

“So whoever did this got this far and found their plans derailed,” Solid Charge speculated. He looked out the window. “They’d probably have no choice but to hide at this point. Probably exactly where you said.” He pointed at the low separate building next to the one they were in that Rainbow spotted before.

“Everypony ready?” Leaf Stream whispered as she leaned on the wall next to the door. Solid Charge and Cast Iron nodded next to her and from the other side of the door respectively. There were two entrances. A large rolling door situated in front, probably installed when the hospital converted this building to a warehouse. They were going to attempt sneaking in through the side door.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t call for reinforcements?” Twilight asked, feeling extremely worried now that they were about to “bust in” as Rainbow called it.

“Yes!” Leaf Stream hissed, getting impatient. “I’m not gonna hinder the search when we have no idea if they’re still here. I’ve screwed up enough already. We’re enough. Just stay behind us, be quiet, and cast your freaking spell already.”

Twilight cast a silence spell over the door. One over all of them would be ideal, but a silence spell worked both ways. If somepony was outside the spell’s radius they wouldn’t hear them but those inside the spell couldn’t hear outside either. Leaf Stream settled for opening the door without noise.

Solid Charge nodded, and carefully opened the door to peek through. After a couple of seconds he strode through, his impressive bulk having difficulty making it through the doorway without touching the sides of the threshold. Leaf Stream followed immediately behind with Cast Iron coming behind her. Twilight and the girls, minus Spike who was under explicit orders to remain in his room, waited for a half minute before going through.

The silence unnerved Twilight. She wasn’t sure if she had to take it as a good sign or bad. The inside of the building had been converted into one large single space with corridors made of box stacks and tarp covered furniture at the sides. Twilight was in front of her friends, a shield spell burning ready in her mind. Fluttershy followed in the end of the line.

Solid Charge’s voice rang out from the dark ahead. “It’s clear.”

A light from a lantern flared out from their location, its source out of sight yet with the glow easily visible even from that distance despite being hidden by a corner. Leaf Stream’s order not to attempt any light spells made glaring sense now. Twilight had contested it at first, though Rarity had eagerly agreed.

They arrived at a cleared out space. A cart, laden with boxes, was situated right in the middle of it. Cast Iron had removed a tarp cover from a rusted, old hospital bed, and laid it over something in the corner. Solid Charge and Leaf Stream were watching from the sides.

“Nothing?” Twilight asked, feeling extremely disappointed. “I was certain they were here.”

Leaf Stream smiled bitterly at her. “Oh, you were right. They were here. We must have missed them by an hour, maybe even half that.” She pointed at the covered lump at the corner. “Too bad. Who knows where they’re now.”

“What’s this?” Twilight asked.

Fluttershy sniffed the air at her side. Her smooth puzzled features quickly changed to horrified. “Oh, oh no. I don’t want to see this. I’m sorry, please, excuse me.” She moved behind the cart and turned her back to what was hidden beneath the dusty, brown fabric.

Twilight smelled the air, in an attempt to make meaning out of her friend’s actions. She smelled mold, stale air, and something else. It made her think of basements and closed spaces. It reminded her of Raegdan. She tried again. It smelled so familiar, though weak. If it was stronger, a lot stronger, she would have thought she was in-

Oh dear Celestia. Please, don’t let it be either of them.

“Who’s that?” Twilight asked, feeling scared now.

“It’s a griffin,’ Leaf Stream said to Twilight’s immediate relief. “Haven’t seen her before, but I’ve got a pretty good idea why she was here.” At her signal Solid Charge lifted his arm towards Twilight, letting her and her friends get a good look at a griffin crossbow.

It was a small thing, meant to be used with one of the griffin’s clawed hands. From what Twilight knew Griffins favored them for their ease to reload them with their short lengthed bolts while airborne. It was broken, the bow in front missing almost in its entirety, and a large crack running down the length of the weapon.

“Did your friends tell you what happened after we left the train? The griffin there?” Leaf Stream asked Twilight.

Twilight nodded. Applejack and Rarity had shared everything that had happened, though in portions. The greatest part of the story was told while waiting in Luna’s room for news from the search parties.

Leaf Stream turned to the covered body. “Right then. The gal here had a rough ride. Broken wings, limbs, some cuts… I can’t tell how she died, maybe her injuries-”

“Broken neck,” Solid Charge answered her.

“Ok, now I do. Here’s what I think; The A-hole team found their target at last. Thing is, they found Princess Luna and Raegdan wounded and unconscious. They got greedy. Instead of killing them, if that was their goal at first, they decided to capture them alive. The plan goes whack thanks to mr. kill-o-magic, and they have to hide here. At some point one of their captives manages to get loose, at least for a little while-”

“Raegdan,” Applejack said with complete certainty.

“Have I ever told you guys how much I love interruptions? I adore them. Keep them coming. Yes, I think so too.” Leaf Stream pointed at the corpse once more. “He has quite the recognizable M.O. doesn’t he? He gets the drop on them and kills this one -eventually- before being subdued. Here’s hoping he broke some of the bones of the rest too.”

“And then what?” Rarity asked. “Where are they now?”

Leaf Stream shrugged. “Beats me. They probably decided to ditch this hideout. The search parties have mostly moved outwards so they felt confident enough to move.” Leaf Stream addressed Twilight. “I was hoping you’d have another bright idea. Where would they go next?”

Twilight drew a blank. If she had any ideas she would have offered them before. “I don’t know. Maybe- maybe now that they have a relatively clear field they’ll go back to their original plan?”

“Wasn’t the original plan to kill ’em? Or did we get that wrong?” Applejack asked.

“It might have been. However,” Rarity said, “if abducting Princess Luna and her bodyguard was a spur of the moment decision then it stands to reason that they don’t actually have a plan for what to do next.”

“Excuse me.” Fluttershy inserted herself in the conversation. “Um, if Princess Luna isn’t here then I think I should go get some antibiotics and first aid supplies.”

Leaf Stream swiveled her head between Fluttershy and the dead griffin, bewildered. “What, you’re afraid of germs?”

“Oh no. Well, um, a little. What I mean is, Luna is sick and hasn’t been with her meds all day, and Applejack said that-”

“Horseapples, I didn’t even think of that!” Leaf Stream urged Fluttershy towards the hospital. “Go, go. We’ll wait here for you. Get the doctors to give you some strong stuff.” She watched Fluttershy leave before droping on the floor. “I should have asked her to get some happy juice for me too. I’m feeling trapped in a spiraling nightmare.”

“What do we do now?” Applejack asked.

Twilight shrugged and dropped on her flank, letting herself lean tiredly on one of the wheels of the cart. “Find them… somehow.”

“Oooh, that should be easy!” Pinkie Pie said, hopping down from the cart she had climbed on.

Applejack breathed out a humorless snigger. “How is that easy sugarcube? They could be anywhere.”

“Nuh-uh.” Pinkie Pie shook her head in refusal like a double pink blur. “They are still hiding. If you want to win in hide-and-seek you gotta think how the other ponies think, and Pinkie Pie is the hide-and-seek champion.”

“You know where they are hiding then?” Twilight asked, hope blossoming anew.

“Yep.” Pinkie Pie leaned in, conspiratorially, and whispered. “They’re hiding where nopony will look. They don’t have to get back to base to win, which seems very cheaty to me.”

“This isn’t that helpful Pinkie,” Rarity told her.

Rarity was right. There was a whole city out there they could hide in, and if they were good enough to dodge them so easily so far, they had a good enough chance to escape capture entirely. Not to mention that if the griffins believed they couldn’t succeed they might decide to kill their captives and make a run for it.

Oh, and let’s not forget; Luna was dying of an untreated infection all the while. Another headache to consider. Twilight could appreciate Leaf Stream’s sentiments. How far had the infection progressed? How long could Luna stay healthy without medical care? What about her other injuries? She just made it out of surgery, plus she had broken bones. She doubted the griffin’s holding them would be very careful with her. What if she had broken ribs and they dropped her on the ground, causing one of the ribs to pierce her lungs? So much more to worry about, layered over the threat of a Leviathan borne disease…

...Where nopony will look…

“Ya got an idea, didn’t ya Twily?” Applejack asked, proudly.

“I believe so. Oh, you’re not going to like this,” Twilight announced.

Cast Iron barked out a small laugh and elbowed the older minotaur on the ribs. “Heh. It’s funny how she says that as if we’ve been having a good time so far.”

“Darling, I adore you, and I have complete faith in you. I must say however that if you drag me through tons of rotting carcass for nothing I will have a swift and terrible revenge on you.”

“What are you gonna do? Trim the ends of her mane by force?” Rainbow Dash egged Rarity on. “Cuz as far as revenges go that would be pretty terrible indeed.”

“Can you all, please, shut up?” Leaf Stream quietly requested, whispering. “We’re getting close, and it’s pretty quiet in the night. Do you have any idea how well sound travels during-”

A sharp scream coming from the direction they were heading interrupted her.

“Oooh, I know, I know. Ask me, ask me, I just learned it!” Pinkie Pie said, raising her hoof.

Solid Charge moved in front, holding a long handled axe. “Stay behind us. Keep one of your shield spells ready. Stay together.”

“Let’s go!” Leaf Stream ordered. “Solid Charge, you’re leading in front. Cast Iron, you’d better make good use of that bow.”

“I’ve never used one before,” Cast Iron said, now completely out of familiar territory.

“Learn fast.”

Greenie hooked her talon over the string and pulled it back in position before setting the bolt in place. Her muscles worked on their own, almost without any input from her. Her eyes were frantically searching the ground, looking for the creature. She couldn’t believe they lost it again. It was right there in front of them, and then it was gone. How could such a large target vanish like that, or so quietly? It was covered from head to paw in armor. She should be able to target it by sound alone. Instead, she was forced to randomly move in the air, hoping she wouldn’t get hit by the stolen crossbow.

She sped over one of the hideous carcasses in an arc, hoping to catch a glimpse of the creature in the act of lurking behind it. No luck. She hated this place they found themselves in. They were surrounded by hills of meat. It almost was a glutton’s dream come true, but it wasn’t. It was a nightmare. It smelled wrong. It felt weird to the touch. As she flew above she could almost see a foul mist rising, as if it rotted and polluted the air with its blasphemous miasma.

Ever since they came here this place felt… wrong. A threat loomed over, both figuratively and literally. She had heard about the disease spread by the Leviathan’s remains, but this was more. Was she still in Equestria or was she somewhere else? A place where the eyrie hunters were lower on the food chain?

The creature hunting them- no, the creature they hunted, made it all the worse. It didn’t fight like a pony or a griffin. It didn’t fight like a minotaur or a dragon. It fought like something else. It crept in the shadows, stalking its own predators, unbelievingly silent. Until it decided to attack. Then would come the explosion of violence, suddenly curtailed by a fake quiet before they had time to process what had happened .

Eighteen griffins against Nightmare Moon and her borrowed pet. She was weak, they told them. She’s still powerless, otherwise she’d have attacked by now. Then came the Leviathan, and its death, making them reevaluate what they were told. Miracle of miracles however, she was wounded, defenseless. That’s what they thought. Celestia’s former pet wasn’t considered a serious threat.

Six of them lied dead among the Leviathan’s gore because of it. Their stupid notion of underestimating the creature because it had no natural claws or other weapons was quickly dispatched.

It couldn’t be as strong as it made itself be. It was already wounded, everyone knew that, and he hadn’t taken the lives of her flightmates without repercussions. Armor or no armor, she saw bolts sink into it. Even now it must be bleeding. It must.

Movement.

A bolt flew towards Greenie. She moved out of the way, exuberant. Its aim was too far off! It couldn’t hold on for long. They’d put it down any minute now and force it to tell them where it hid the Nightmare-

Grosser fell dead. The bolt wasn’t aimed for her at all.

She screamed with rage, and unloaded her weapon. Ten crossbows fired in a united volley against the bastard that would simply not die. The majority of them failed to penetrate the metal, but not all. It had lifted its arms to protect its head, and she saw one bolt pierce through one of its palms. Another sunk into its thigh, and one more into its chest.

It moved slow this time. It wavered on its feet, and almost lost its balance.They had an opening for once. Granar ordered them to attack. Greenie was too far in the back to participate in time. That didn’t stop her from soaking in the view. Granar and three others collided with the creature, throwing it down on the ground. Greenie perched over them, on the Leviathan’s remains, to witness how her flightmates would rip everything they wanted from it, including its guts.

They held it down, one of them per arm, while Gird stood above holding the creature’s own hammer. Granar stood on its chest, his imposing physique holding it down. He was a giant among griffins. There was a reason he was the one who led them.

Granar leaned down, holding his sharp beak against the metal helmet, smirking in victory. Greenie copied him from above. Granar was in a mood to play with his food. This would be lovely. It would learn its place on the food chain before dying.

“Give me the Nightmare little pet. Give her to me, and I might decide to slit your throat before I open up your belly.”

The creature didn’t answer. Granar waited only for a few seconds before his smirk widened. He grabbed hold of the bolt on the creature’s arm, pushed it deeper and twisted. They all laughed at the small grunt it let out.

“Why make it harder on yourself? We have all night. We can find her even without your help. She can’t be far, but I’m not in the mood of smelling this crap all the while we search,” he said, thrusting the bolt deeper. “Do you have nothing to say to my generous offer?”

The helmet turned sideways as it took in its odds. It was outnumbered and surrounded. Greenie felt disappointment. She hoped to see it howl. She noticed with the edge of her eyes the look of relief in the faces of Garter and Gabbage. Weaklings. Always too afraid to celebrate a kill, even one of a thing like that.

“Have something to say,” its voice whispered from beneath the black metal.

“Then say it!” Granar growled, getting angry at the creature’s apathy for his painful ministrations.

The creature lifted its neck. The horned helmet almost kissed Granar’s beak.

“Spikes on knees were added with reason.”

Granar’s scream reverberated around them as his pride was devastated in a single blow when the creature’s leg bent in a way none of them expected, with unerring accuracy. The griffin holding down its right arm flinched back when he witnessed the savage attack on a male’s most vulnerable spot. The force that held down the armored creature’s arm lessened for an instant, and it took advantage. Its arm moved like a snake, and it slithered behind the griffin’s head. Blood leaked down the griffin’s feathers, a mix of the creature’s wound on its palm and the griffin’s own when the bolt head still embedded on the hand cut the skin beneath his plumage. The creature pulled the griffin’s head down as it itself rose up as much as it could, and whipped its armored skull forward.

The griffin fell back with a cracked beak, leaving the creature’s arm entirely free. The creature rolled over and targeted the griffin on its right, climbing over his back in one smooth impossible move, turning the hold of its arm into a grapple. Greenie’s crossbow was on its way up, aiming for the scene below, as did every griffins’ around her, but she was so slow. Every one of them was so too slow.

The creature rose up, its arms around the griffin’s neck forcing him to stand on his back legs in front of it.

Quarrels were left loose before they could be stopped.

The creature’s arms twisted his prisoner’s neck, even as six shafts sunk into its makeshift griffin shield.

Gird attacked with the creature’s weapon. He could have used the hooked side and finish it off quick, but the idiot just swung without checking how he held it. The armored creature tried to avoid it. Greenie noticed its stumble and the way it swayed. She could hear the deep wheezing even over this distance. It was exhausted. They had it, they had it! They had to kill it now!

The hammer side landed on its back, knocking it down. The creature tried to lift itself up on its arms. Gird, fool he may be, but he was persistent. He stood over the creature and brought the hammer down again. The creature fell down. Gird hit it again. She heard it groan loudly, followed by a wet cough. The hammer hit again.

It was delicious to watch justice served, but the creature had proven how dangerous it was. Even with the hammer it would take more than a few hits to kill it this way. “Gird, you moron. Use the hook side! Finish it off!” she yelled. Gird looked back at her, and nodded. He shifted his hold on the weapon and raised it over his head. Greenie hoped he was smart enough to aim for the head.

Lightning erupted from a cloud from the calm sky above them, zigzagging its way across the night sky for a place to strike. It found it on Gird. His legs and wings worked on his own and threw his away from his victim.

“Headshot!” A blue pegasus with- what kind of mane was that?- flew off the offensive cloud. Before Greenie had a chance to even figure out what had happened, a large minotaur stepped in view. A sharp axe gleamed in the starlight for a moment. Blood erupted from Gird’s body.

An arrow launched from another minotaur killed Garter.

Granar’s voice pierced through the confusion, filled with pain and determination. “She’s there! I saw her. She’s there. Kill the Nightmare- urk.” The creature had found the strength to lift itself around enough to grab Granar’s neck, sinking its clawless fingers in his windpipe. Granar tried to fight him off, but his talons scratched ineffectively against the thick armor.

Greenie left him to his luck. They all saw where he had pointed. She was in front of them all along. A dark shape was sheltered beneath an alcove of flesh. They all charged for their target. It was all that mattered.

Most of them had no more bolts to use. Only Gabbage did, as well as Gudder. They aimed for the Nightmare. The creature behind them screamed. Greenie closed her eyes for a moment, relishing the despair she could sense in that call. The pet was crying out for its doomed master.

A rainbow streak fell on Gudder, and then bounced on Gabbage, throwing off their aim. The meddling pegasus started flying circles around Gudder, kicking him whenever he tried to reload. Gabbage had a moment of peace before a screaming, terrified yellow pegasus clamped on her back. Gabbage fought to retain her height while the shrieking pegasus unleashed painful decibels into her ears.

A purple cloud of magic caught the griffin flying next to Greenie. It overpowered him and brought him down on the ground with force. A dark green pony was on him right away.

A hail of stones, driven by cerulean magic, fell on the griffin in front of her. The stones flew and danced, hitting soft tissue and joints with unnerving accuracy. Greenie couldn’t help, and she didn’t intend to. She had a job to do.

Two of them were left. They lowered to the ground to avoid the stone hail. A pink blur fell from somewhere above, and it landed on her sole remaining flightmate’s head, dropping him like a piledriver. Greenie could almost swear she heard an insane giggle.

It didn’t matter. The Nightmare was right in front of her. They hadn’t been able to stop her. It was going to end here, now. She raised her razor talons for a deadly blow. One slash across her throat. Greenie was the griffin who was going to save the world.

A trio of red apples appeared to the side of her vision. A sharp pain erupted like a volcano on her temple. Darkness took her.

Twilight didn’t stand and watch. She caught one of them in her magic and threw him on the ground. Leaf Stream, hungry for a target to work her frustration from the day off, took advantage of the unexpected gift.

Rarity might not have known a slew of spells, but her command of levitation was almost unparalleled when used as she was to orchestrate dozens of small items around her. She also had an outstanding aim. Another griffin fell under the continuous assault of a storm of stones.

She caught a glimpse of Pinkie Pie hopping from the top of a Leviathan piece, causing the griffin she landed on to fall like an anvil when he was suddenly burdened with the extra weight of a candy loving pony.

The last griffin was holding no weapons, brandishing her sharp talons instead. She landed in front of Luna and raised her claws, smirking wildly in the anticipated victory.

Applejack’s hooves wiped that smile off her face. She had headed straight for Luna and defended her with tree-shaking strength. The griffin never had a shot at standing upright after a single hit.

With the immediate threat to Luna resolved, Twilight turned her attention to the two griffins still wrestling with Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. Between Rarity’s magic and her own, along with a few kicks from Rainbow, they were able to get them down quick. Leaf Stream, Solid Charge, Cast Iron, and Applejack tied them down, perhaps giving a concussion or two to some of them in the process.

Fluttershy went to Luna’s side, dragging her out of her hiding hole with Pinkie Pie’s help. Twilight decided to check on her first before turning her attention to Raegdan, who was slowly dragging himself to them.

“Is she ok? Did she get hurt?”

“I don’t know,” Fluttershy said, her attention focused on the Alicorn. Her usual hesitation and awkwardness was gone. She swiftly ordered Pinkie Pie to hold one of Luna’s hooves straight, and Rarity to cast a light over her. Fluttershy stabbed a syringe into one of Luna’s veins and pressed steadily on the plunger. “I’ll do what I can, but we should get her back to the hospital. The casts are cracked, she’s bleeding, and I don’t think she can breathe easily. Rarity, bring your light closer please. I want to make sure nothing is obstructing her throat.”

“I can fly her there,” Rainbow offered.

Fluttershy refused the offer immediately. “She is hurt too bad. We need proper transportation. I’m sorry Rainbow, but throwing her on your back will only make it worse.”

“No biggie. I can go get help then,” Rainbow said, jumping in the air. “I’ll be right back.”

Twilight watched Rainbow Dash streak across the sky for a second before running to check on Raegdan, leaving Luna to Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie. Applejack stuck by her side. Raegdan was breathing heavily, barely able to make it to his knees even with Solid Charge’s help. Some of the wooden shafts had broken when he fell down. She hoped they didn’t get pushed any deeper.

“Luna… is she safe? Is she hurt?” He struggled to speak, barely forming the words. She could see how his chest heaved and shook, and how his body trembled. He must have been in agony. Twilight hadn’t forgotten about his injuries, even if she hadn’t seen the extent of them yet.

“We think so. Rainbow’s gone for help. We’ll be back in the hospital soon. What about you?”

Raegdan forcefully pulled his arm out of Cast Iron’s hand. “I’m fine. The arrows didn’t go deep, and I’ve been hit harder. You need to go. Get to the hospital. I’ll… I’ll take Luna myself and follow behind.” He almost fell flat on the ground again as soon as he finished his sentence.

Solid Charge scoffed. “Yeah right. A calf could outwrestle you right now. We need to get you out of your armor. It can’t be good for your burns, and we need to treat these puncture wounds. You must be bathing in blood in there.”

“When did you manage to find the chance to put it on?” Cast Iron asked.

A good question. There must have been quite the story behind it. He must have been able to get his hands on it when they were hiding in the warehouse. He probably regained his senses and…

He chose to don his armor instead of getting his hands on a weapon? Didn’t he have his explosives there? What stopped him from using them to escape while still on hospital grounds? He must have had time, heavy armor takes time to… That didn’t make sense. She must have missed a step. When was he able to put his armor on? How did he do so without being stopped?

Twilight’s gaze ran over the bodies and the captives. Griffins. Why did they burn the makeshift sheet rope? One of them could easily fly up and take it down- why use it at all? Only reason they’d need something like that would be to get Raegdan down to the ground, and they wouldn’t have done it by tying one end there like that. How did they beat Princess Celestia’s enchantments on the window? How did they lose control of Raegdan and Luna?

She must have been wrong. It couldn’t have happened like that. Maybe their assumptions had been entirely false. It was a wonder they managed to get to the right place in time if that was true. The only way the outcome could line up with the clues she had was…

...Was…

“You- you complete and utter idiot!” Twilight hissed, anger flooding her. Without exerting conscious control, her magic grabbed a large rock the size of a hoofball, and drove it to Raegdan’s side, throwing him down to the ground. She couldn’t believe that somepony could be so stupid.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Solid Charge and Cast Iron tried to stop her, but they were not immune to her magic like her target was. She easily pushed them aside.

“Twilight, what the hay are you doing? Didn’t you see what they did to him? It’s a wonder they didn’t break his spine, don’t go crazy yourself now!” Applejack yelled.

Raegdan weakly pushed himself up on his arms and lifted his covered face towards her. Twilight took advantage of the low position he was in to kick him. She got an intense sense of satisfaction from the metal clang, and even more from the groan that came from inside.

“This moron,” Twilight explained, “was never captured by anypony. He’s the one who started the fire! He’s the one who abducted Luna! What the tartarus were you-”

“He did what?” A familiar voice echoed loudly behind Twilight, filled with disbelief and shock. She turned around, almost growling as she tried to contain her anger, and saw Princess Celestia looking stunned with Rainbow Dash standing sheepily next to her.

“Hey guys,” Rainbow greeted them, feeling awkward. “Guess who I flew into. Pretty lucky, eh?”

“Twilight? Could you please tell me if I heard correctly? Did Raegdan kidnap my sick sister from the hospital and-” Celestia looked at the scene around her, her features getting harsher and her voice more threatening. “Delivered her right into the claws of these... assassins I presume?”

“Pretty much,” Twilight said, ruthlessly.

“Oh fuck me,” Raegdan whispered, exhausted, as he tried and failed to push himself up. Everypony had moved away from him, no longer in any hurry to help him, and unwilling to risk getting between him and the Sun Princess.

“Fluttershy,” Celestia addressed the yellow pegasus without taking her eyes off the crawling biped. “A medical team is on the way, along with my personal guard. Make sure the medics take Luna to the hospital immediately and tell the rest to wait until I’m done with this idiot here before they pick him up.”

“Y-yes princess.”

“Now, as for you…” Celestia took a deep breath that didn’t seem to help. “How hurt are you?”

“...Left shoulder blade might be broken. Ribs too. Some blood in lungs. Spine’s ok. I don’t think I lost too much blood. I’ll live.”

“As if you’d say otherwise. I’ll give you a chance to explain yourself. Make it count.”

“I was trying to help her. I had to get her away from here.”

Princess Celestia closed her eyes and took a few slow breaths through her nose. “Get her away? How would that help Luna?” she asked with abnormal calmness.

“I was supposed to keep her safe but I can’t do it, not this way. I’ve got to take her away, let me take her away.” Raegdan voice broke as he talked. If Twilight didn’t know any better she would think he was doing his best not to cry.

“How. Would that. Help.”

Raegdan gave up his attempts to lift his body off the ground. He remained as he was, the side of his head against the dirt, looking away from Celestia and Twilight. “It won’t work,” he whispered loudly. “She almost died and it was for nothing. They’ll blame everything on her again. They won’t care what she went through. Celestia, please, you can’t let her do this to herself. I have to get her out of here. You must let me take her away. I was wrong, I must have been wrong, there’s no reason to stay here-”

“Enough,” Princess Celestia ordered. “You had no idea what you were doing, did you? You just ran. I don’t even know where to start with you. The vast majority of the ponies don’t blame Luna for anything. On the contrary. Do you have any idea how many gifts ponies have sent her? How many ask about her each day?”

Raegdan turned his head with some effort to look at the white Alicorn. “Stop lying! You can’t tell her that. If she believes you it will destroy her when she finds out the truth,” he accused, vehemently.

Fluttershy landed near the Princess before she could retort. “Princess, your guards and the medics are here. They’re putting Princess Luna on a stretcher right now.”

“Thank you Fluttershy. Tell my guards to arrest these griffins. I want them interrogated immediately.”

“Um, should I tell them to come check on Raegdan? He got awfully hurt…”

The brief smile vanished from her lips as she turned back to the target of her ire. “No. He doesn’t mind being hurt. He thinks it gives him vindication, don’t you Raegdan? Tell me, when you tried to steal my sister from me, did you even glance around the room she was in? Did you not wonder what those letters and gifts were there for?”

“I- those could have been anything! You could have made them your-”

“That will be easy enough to settle later so let’s leave it aside for now,” she said, ignoring his outburst. “I’m actually looking forward to rubbing your pessimistic face in them. What about the IVs that dripped into Luna that you are so worried of getting hurt? Did you even spare a second to see what they were? To read the labels? Did you consider the fresh stitches on her as worthy of any concern?”

“It was more important to get her-”

“Killed? Because that’s what you would have done if not for these brave ponies and minotaurs,” Celestia shouted, now letting her anger show. She loomed threateningly over Raegdan, wings spread, looking ready to bring her hooves on his head at any moment. “She has broken bones and she had been hemorrhaging internally you idiot. She had just come out of surgery. She has been infected by whatever lurked in the Leviathan. Even if you had made it away from here, as you so brilliantly planned, she could be dead in a day!”

“No! Luna is tougher than that. You’re lying-” Raegdan stammered.

Angry tears were rolling down Celestia’s cheeks. The air around her crackled by her magic, like a furious, burning pyre. Twilight had never seen her mentor like that before, though she could empathise a little with how she felt. “Do I look like I’m lying? You almost killed Luna!”

“I- I would never- I’m not… I’d never hurt Luna-”

“Yet you did! You never mean to hurt, but you always do. You weren’t trying to save Luna from anything! Don’t try to give me any of your excuses. I’ve heard them before.” Celestia’s leg hit the ground so hard that Twilight thought she felt the earth shake. Raegdan flinched away. “You were scared so you did what you always do. You ran! You ran just like you ran from everything else that was too hard for you, that you were too afraid to face. Like a coward!”

“No… I swear, Celestia believe me, I’d never do anything to hurt Luna-”

“You almost killed my sister!”

“I’d never-”

“Just like you did everypony else you failed to care for!”

Celestia’s last screaming words echoed around them. Twilight didn’t know what the princess meant, but Raegdan understood her message all too well. His fingers clawed the earth. The iron point of the bolt on his right palm bent as it was impaled in the ground and dragged backwards until it violently snapped. His body started shaking. She had trouble telling what that noise he was making was, until it grew loud enough in the reigning silence.

Raegdan was crying. He was sobbing, not unlike a small foal that had been terribly hurt and needed a grown up to comfort it. The projected image of the intimidating, fearless warrior was torn apart, leaving behind the tortured being who would still pine for his mother in his quietest moments.

Twilight was assaulted by sudden guilt. Raegdan had lost control like this only once before to her knowledge. She had an urge to go to him, hug him, and tell him everything would be alright. She drowned the thought immediately. His actions almost killed Luna. Let him cry. He wasn’t getting a free pass out of this.

Celestia continued her assault, unmoved by his tears. “And what exactly was your plan? Take her through the rift, the one you evidently lied about when you told me you didn’t know where it was? Did you really want her to suffer through the same torment you did? A pariah, stumbling through infinity, unable to find her way back again? Steal her away from her family and home?”

“No! Oh heavens no, I just- I just- I wanted to… I thought I could… I’m sorry. I don’t- I’m not sure- I- I- I… I don’t know. I don’t know…”

“Raegdan, I’ve always been honest with you,” Celestia said after a few seconds of watching the increasingly sad display, using the break to calm herself down again. “I’ve done my best to help you. To be your friend. I thought you were my friend too. The last few weeks however I’ve been doubting whether you ever thought of me as such. Ponies have been hiding things from me. My guards are being bribed. Ponies who seek my aid are being unheard. It hurt me to realize how much I’ve been lax in my duties, accepting things at face value. How much I failed my little ponies. What hurt the most however was the realization that you knew this was happening. That you knew for years and you never told me.” Celestia’s voice broke.

“And now I learn that you hid even more from me. My sister is being tormented by nightmares. Assassins hound her. A Leviathan was heading straight for my ponies, and you wanted to hide it from me. You were going to make me lose two members of my family. You are lying to me. You and Luna both. Why, Raegdan? Why don’t you trust me? Why can’t you speak to me?” she pleaded.

“I can’t…” he whimpered.

“Why? Why not?” The pain in Princess Celestia’s voice was all too real. Raegdan, for all his faults, had been the closest friend she had these last years. Too often they reminded her of siblings that loved to tease one another. They were friends. Family.

“I can’t understand you!” he howled. “I can’t understand any of you! You- you let me live.” Raegdan’s tone was accusing through his cries. “You let your enemies live, you forgive them, you try to make them your friends… and it works! Why does it work? How can it work? Are you- I sometimes wonder if I’m just imagining you. You can’t be real. The world isn’t made like that. You don’t think properly! If someone hurts you, you should hurt them back, stop them from doing it ever again, put an end to it, and make sure everyone knows they shouldn’t try to mess with you. “

He rolled himself to his side with great effort and pointed at Leaf Stream. “Just like I did to her! I broke her, I loved every second of it, and she knows it. I was laughing in her ears as I hurt her as much as I could. I gave her a ton of chances to kill me! I kept turning my back to her while unarmed, and she never tried anything. Why? Why doesn’t she want to kill me?”

The dark eye slits turned to the two minotaurs. “I was going to kill them. I was going to beat them to death, taking my time to enjoy it. They had a chance to kill me, they even had an excuse no one would blame them for, and they did nothing!”

He tried to turn so he could see Twilight’s friends. He slipped and overdid his movement, causing more of the shafts to break between his torso and the ground. He grunted in pain, but apart from that didn’t give it any more attention.

“I’m a murderer and they know it. They saw me in the arena. They- they should have left running, but instead they- Why do you stay? Why are you still trying to help? How much more-” He pounded the ground with his bleeding fist in frustration. “I can’t understand how you think! You’re all going to die if you continue like this!”

“Everypony deserves a chance for forgiveness Raegdan.”

“Not everyone. Better to kill them and be done with it.” Twilight wondered if he was thinking about the ponies he killed when he said that. “What happens when it won’t work Celestia? What if I had arrived a couple years earlier?”

Celestia didn’t answer immediately. She chewed thoughtfully on her upper lip, mulling over the question. The Alicorn approached the alien and sat by his side. She offered him her hoof.

“Take it. Try to sit up.” Cast Iron tried to approach and help but Celestia gestured him to stay in place. Raegdan managed to sit on the ground with Celestia’s help. When he did so the white wings enveloped him in a hug.

“Are you happy with your ways Raegdan?” she asked, gently.

“I- I don’t understand-”

“Are you happy with your choices? The ones where you didn’t take risk. Where you took the easy way, where you lied, where you abandoned mercy?”

“...I’m alive because of them.”

“I’m not going to dispute that some times you were given no choice. What about the times you did however? What about the few times you risked? What about your children Raegdan? Were they worth it? Was your life here worth it? Me, Twilight, Spike, Cadence, Night Light, Twilight Velvet, Shining Armor, Blueblood, Luna?”

Raegdan’s shaking body tried to escape Celestia’s embrace, but he didn’t have the strength anymore. “Yes,” he answered, tears in his voice once more. “Yes, you were worth it. She was worth it.”

“So were you,” Celestia said. “You saved Twilight. You gave Spike a father. You treated me like family. You stood by Luna’s side, guarding her. Even now many of my subjects are alive because you were here. More will stay alive because you spent half an hour talking to me about your kind’s drugs. It would have been so easy to have you executed. I didn’t do it because I refuse to fall into the trap of sacrificing what is right in the name of fear.”

“You should have done so. You have a kingdom to look after. Your family.”

“I do. There’s more to being their princess than managing taxes and raising the sun however. I have to give an example, to show them the right way. Sometimes I fail, I am not perfect, but I always try to stand right by my beliefs as much as I can. I’ve been trying to show it to you for so long too. No, it doesn’t always work, but when it does… it’s always worth it Raegdan. Do you understand me?”

It took so long for Raegdan to answer that Twilight had started believing he had fallen unconscious from blood loss. When he did he was hesitant. “I’m not sure I do. I… I understand what you mean, but I can’t- I can’t understand how!”

Celestia sighed in disappointment and smiled sadly. “You’re still running. One day you’ll stop, and it will make sense to you then.”

She let him go and rose up on her long legs. “You have a special place in my heart Raegdan, and I believe I understand why you did everything today, even if you don’t. That doesn’t mean there won’t be any consequences. You know that.” She addressed the minotaur with the arm still in the cast. “Solid Charge, isn’t that right?”

“Yes princess,” he rumbled.

“Since my sister is indisposed I take it upon me to deal with the borderline treasonous acts of Raegdan. You are now in command of the Lunar Guard.” Leaf Stream looked like she could have fainted out of sheer relief. “Whether Raegdan remains a member at all, or even free, is something to be seen. I presume Luna won’t accept losing him. I will leave the decision whether I should fight her on this or not to you. Twilight, I want you and your friends to help Commander Solid Charge in this assignment. If Raegdan won’t speak to me then he will speak to all of you, or go back to Canterlot with me to stay in the dungeons for a very long time.”

“Excuse me Princess Celestia. If I understand correctly, you wish us to interrogate him?” Solid Charge asked.

Celestia shook her head. “No. I want you to decide if you can trust him or not. His freedom rests with you.” She looked at Raegdan for any signs of response, but he only stayed sitting as he was and watched silently. “You don’t have to tell me anything he shares with you, or what you asked of him. You have already earned my own trust, and I will accept your decision. Just as I have to accept that Raegdan and I can no longer trust each other.”

“I’m sorry, but you forced my hoof Raegdan. You have to make a choice now. You won’t be allowed to run this time. You have until tomorrow morning. I wish it hadn’t come to this.” Celestia left him behind and ordered the waiting medics in the distance to pick him up. She left along with the guards who were carrying the prisoners.

The medics put Raegdan on a stretcher carried by two earth pony guards. More guards arrived as they prepared to leave, preparing the bodies of the slain griffins for transport. One of them told Leaf Stream that they found Raegdan’s hammer. She asked them to bring it to her after they cleaned it up.

They walked some distance behind the stretcher as they returned to the hospital. Twilight felt her stomach getting queasy on the way. She wondered if the reason was the disease that emanated from the Leviathan’s remains. She didn’t really believe it.

Ch.20 - Raegdan's tale: Abandoned

The two doctors finally came out of the room. Three nurses followed along, the last in line pushing a small cart with various medical equipment on it, most of it obviously used. Twilight couldn’t help but notice the large bag underneath that had been stuffed with bloody bandages, or the red tipped sewing needles on top. They stopped in front of Solid Charge to give him their review as he had requested before they went inside to treat Raegdan.

“We did all that we could, though it wasn’t as much as we’d want to,” the older unicorn doctor said. “We’ve reapplied the salves for his burns, and replaced the bandages. He asked us to go a little overboard on them. He wishes for the young ladies to see as little as possible.”

Solid Charge nodded, looking pleased. “What about the rest?”

Twilight spoke up before the doctor could answer. “Is this really necessary? I’ve seen him injured before.”

“It is,” Solid Charge answered gruffly, making it plain this was not going to be debated any further. “I advise you to refrain from trying to sneak a peek. Can you continue please?”

The doctor went on with his report after he signalled for his colleague and the nurses to go on their way. “None of the arrows reached deep enough to cause internal damage thanks to his armor. There is some muscle damage, but the worst is the one that went through his hand. We are worried about the nerves there mostly.”

The minotaur inspected his own hand, opening and closing the burly fingers in a fist. “Will he be able to use it?”

“It’s too early to tell. The patient reported some numbness, but he could still move the fingers at least a little. I’m afraid there’s nopony who can help more. He believes he will be fine himself with some time.”

Solid Charge snorted. “Big surprise there. Anything else?”

“A few cracked ribs. His left shoulder blade and the collarbone in front are both seriously fractured. I suspect some damage on his legs too, though we haven’t been able to confirm. He’s having trouble telling the pain apart.” The doctor chewed on the inside of his cheek for a couple of seconds. “I also advise against your course of action. The best thing right now would be to let him rest.”

“I’m afraid he doesn’t have that luxury right now.”

The doctor harrumphed loudly, making his displeasure known. “I have left a few bottles of orange juice inside for him if he prefers it rather than water. Make sure he drinks as much as possible. If he needs to use the bathroom don’t let him walk on his own. And for Celestia’s sake, let him sleep as soon as you can.”

Solid Charge opened the door and waved for everypony to walk inside. The doctor stood to the side, his scowl deepening the more ponies went inside the room. Solid Charge, Cast Iron, Leaf Stream, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, and finally Twilight herself.

Raegdan was wrapped entirely in bandages, some of them turned slightly pink at points already. She couldn’t spot a single spot of uncovered flesh on him. The doctors really did a good job. All she could see was his eyes and his lips. She wasn’t sure, not without getting extremely close, but the edge of them looked cragged and cratered.

He wore nothing apart from a sheet they fashioned into a robe with some quick needlework, with another sheet thrown over him. A thin thread with a small blackened piece of metal hanging from it laid on the table next to him. Twilight recognized it. She only saw it once, but she never forgot it. She wondered where the other half is. She had a suspicion it was currently hanging around the neck of another bedridden patient.

“How are you?” Twilight asked quietly. He kept his eyes on her, not bothering to glance at anypony else.

“Tired,” he said simply. She believed him. She could hear it in his voice. She felt exhausted herself, and she didn’t have his injuries, both the past ones from a few days ago, or the fresh ones he received today. The defeat in his eyes extinguished the last vestiges of her previous anger. He had reached the pinnacle of stupidity as far as she was concerned, but she was no longer mad. The only thing she felt was a deep sadness welling from inside her.

“Are you in pain?” she asked. She didn’t expect an answer, not an honest one. Raegdan, as far as he was concerned, was never really hurt. Physical pain was always an inconvenience, or something to joke about. A funny gag, like a slip on a banana peel, only he kept it up even while bleeding everywhere.

“Yes. A lot. I can take it though.”

Twilight had trouble believing her ears. Did he really just admit- She looked at the door behind her. Did she enter some kind of bizzaro world?

“Mind telling us what in tarnation ya were thinking with that stunt you pulled today?” Applejack asked.

“...I don’t know. I just- Everything was screaming at me to run. I didn’t know what had happened, I was in pain, I- it doesn’t make sense to you, I know, but… it did at the moment. I was... all I could think of was to get out, get Luna and… all that made sense was the rift.” Raegdan stumbled through his sorry attempt of an explanation.

“The one that Princess Celestia mentioned? Would you mind explaining what this rift is, please?” Rarity asked civilly as she opened one of the bottles the doctor mentioned, and passed it to Raegdan.

He took a long sip. Some of it spilled out of his lips and over his bandaged chin. Fluttershy quickly wiped off the liquid with a cloth. He tried to place the half full bottle on the small bedside table and he lost his grip on it. Pinkie Pie caught it before it fell on the ground and left it near the edge for him to reach if needed.

The way he accepted their unrequested aid without the slightest sign of complaint caught Twilight off guard. Perhaps she should rip off the bandages from this stranger’s face and ask him where the real Raegdan was.

“It’s a long story. Very long.”

“Even if it is I’d like to hear it,” Solid Charge said. “I want to hear anything you have to say if I am to make a decision as Princess Celestia asked me to do.”

“Here’s the problem though,” Leaf Stream added. “We can’t be sure if he says the truth.”

“I will-” Raegdan tried to say.

“Yeah, right. You will say the truth, and I can fly,” Leaf Stream mocked.

“I have to,” Raegdan insisted, looking to be almost in pain from admitting that. “Celestia is right. I would have killed Luna tonight.” He looked out the window for a moment. “She’s right. I did the wrong thing again. I’m trying not to, but… What Celestia said. Does everyone really…” He let the sentence hang in a question.

“Oh yeah,” Leaf Stream vindictively. “Almost everypony in Baltimare considers you heroes. Too bad that the truth is that you at least are an utter piece of shit!”

“Leaf Stream!” Rarity shouted in offense.

“Oh, blow it out your flank.”

“I deserve that,” Raegdan admitted.

“And so much more,” Leaf Stream said, “but that’s all I can give at the moment. I’d say more, but the princess more or less covered it. I tried to think of something more stupid than what you did, but all I could come up with was somepony throwing himself in a monster’s mouth while going “wheee!” And guess what? You already did that one!”

Raegdan spent some time fidgeting with his bandaged fingers, thinking instead of answering. He pulled at each with his other hand until they made a cracking sound, slowly moving to the next, not really paying attention to what he was doing. Fluttershy obviously thought that he had been breaking his fingers, but a glance at Twilight watching calmly convinced her otherwise. He reached the second to last finger in his left hand, and then tried to take hold of the one that was no longer there, looking surprised for a second when he saw it wasn’t there.

He sighed and tried to scratch beneath his chin, quickly pulling his hand back when encountering more bandages there.

“I’m really not sure what to do,” he explained. He took the bottle back in his hands so he could drink. “There are things you should probably learn. Things I’d prefer not to tell you, but the way things ended up tonight maybe I should. Others I don’t-” He stopped. One of his fingers tapped fast at the short neck of the bottle.

Applejack walked forward. “Listen big guy, why don’t ya just tell us everything you can? We’ve stuck with ya so far, right? Start by trusting us a little first.”

“You don’t have a great record for me to trust you so far either,” Raegdan said, scowling under the white strips of cloth. He didn’t sound angry though. Sad perhaps.

Applejack smiled apologetically, waving her front hoof. “Ain’t gonna contest that. Truth is none of us done things right so far. So here.” Applejack opened a saddlebag she had brought with her. She removed a stack of letters from inside and left them at Raegdan’s side. “None of them open, including the one ya gave to Leaf Stream, just like ya asked. Before ah forget, ah also have a confession to make. Before we got on the train I overheard you and Luna talking. Ah had been there a little longer than ah made you believe. I’m deeply sorry for that. I should have left, but I stayed so I could listen instead like a bad mannered filly. Ah’m sorry. Didn’t tell nopony anything however. Ah promise ah won’t”

“You didn’t?” Raegdan asked, not believing what the earth pony told him.

“Nope!” Applejack said smiling. “And I still won’t. It was wrong of me to do that. Ya want trust? Alright, here’s mine. Ah trust you to do what ya believe is right. I’m not sure yer clear on what the right thing is however. Ah trust ya and Luna to do what you claim ya want to do regarding all them monsters. It’d sure be nice not to have to worry whether Big Mac or I get back home safe every time we get on the road. Ah trust that Twilight, Spike, the rest of us, and Luna are safe around ya.”

“Luna wasn’t safe tonight exactly because of me,” he reminded her bitterly

“No. She didn’t get hurt in the end though, did she?”

“Only because you-” Raegdan paused, perplexed by what he was about to say.

Applejack smiled even wider. “Were there to help? Gosh darnit, this is what ah’ve been trying to get in your thick skull for days. There’s nothing wrong with accepting some help from your friends. Ya shouldn’t have ended up wanting to talk to us because ya feel forced to. We’ve been here all this time, trying to help ya both. All ya need to do is let us in. We’re your friends. Why do you think ah run behind ya, doing my best? Because you paid me? You can have that back if that’s what ya think.”

Raegdan sighed deeply. “I’m… what you’re asking for is not easy. It’s not easy at all.”

“Ya told the princesses, right? Both of them.”

“Luna is different. I’ve told you before. She could understand. Celestia couldn’t, not really. She tried as much as she was able to, until I finally woke up enough to see how even listening to these things sickened her. I never told her more than what she needed to know.”

Applejack pointed at the door leading outside. “If that’s what you worry about the door’s right there. Ah promise ya, the moment one of us can’t stomach hearing more we can walk out. Even if ah were to do that we’ll still stick around though. We’re not abandoning ya because of a gritty story.”

Raegdan’s head followed the direction of Applejack’s leg. He kept staring at the door as he asked her. “And if you decide that… what I’ve done should be punished? That your morals cannot align with mine? That I don’t deserve what you offer?”

“Because of your past?” Rarity asked now. Raegdan nodded, not looking at her. Rarity daintily tapped at her chin thoughtfully. “Let us assume for the sake of the argument that whatever you did in your past was unforgivable. A crime beyond anything we can imagine. I presume that Princess Celestia knows about it?”

Raegdan nodded once more.

“Why didn’t Princess Celestia saw fit to punish you for it then?”

“I’m not sure. I didn’t have a good grasp on your language yet when she explained herself, and I never wanted to clear it out. Jurisdiction maybe, or perhaps she wasn’t sure if what I told her was true. I don’t think she was sure about how much she should believe. I was half mad when I talked to her.”

“As opposed to now?” Leaf Stream said sarcastically.

Rarity ignored her. “Then your fears should be assuaged. If neither Princess Celestia or Princess Luna believe you shouldn’t face judgment for your past, who are we to say otherwise?”

“Raegdan,” Twilight said, adding her own two bits in the conversation. “The hospital today was full of ponies that were here to help Luna and you. Princess Celestia, us, the thestrals, even the doctors and nurses. All you had to do was talk to one of them. You didn’t. You chose to knock out Solid Charge instead of asking him even a simple question first. You didn’t trust anypony, not even me,” she said with real pain in her voice. He had to have known she was there, but he didn’t even try to talk to her. She ran her hoof over her eyes before she continued. “Don’t make the same mistake twice in a day. I’m here, I’m still here, and I still want to help. Let me help. Please.”

“I’m… I promised a long time ago I wouldn’t hurt you. Telling you these things would break this promise Twilight.”

“You’ve already hurt me. You never trusted me,” she choked.

Raegdan let out a disappointed breath, muttering something in his own language. The only word Twilight recognized was his own name.

“I mean,” Twilight continued, “look around you. You almost threw away everything you did for nothing. What about Solid Charge, Cast Iron, and Leaf Stream? You told us time after time how much you believe Luna needs a Lunar Guard, and you have done nothing with them. Have you started training them as you said? Did you even talk to them, give them advice, shared your experience? When you left to kill the Leviathan did you leave them instructions on what to do? How to help the city, or be ready to get you out if you made it or what to do if you didn’t? To call for Princess Celestia, or how to make more of your explosives so they could do another attempt?”

“...No.”

“Me and my friends have been standing by your side, no matter what. We keep telling you we want to help and we do as much as we can, and you keep brushing us off while still asking us to trust you and do as you say. How long should we keep trying before we give up? Are we your friends or mindless servants you owe nothing to?”

“Twilight-”

“I’m not done,” she stopped him. “Princess Celestia has been giving you chance after chance. Even now, after what you did today. Does she mean so little to you that you’ll ignore her once more? You used to love her, though I don’t know how you feel about her now. Are you trying to break her heart? Is that it? Do you feel nothing but hate for her now? Because if you don’t… I have no idea what you are doing to her then.”

Twilight stood up to pace around. She had been working herself up and she needed to stay calm, but that was easier said than done. “You are working against your own goals. Even if you had hundreds of ponies rush to join you, you’d never make use of them. You scheme behind our backs while lamenting the lack of trust. You lie, hide, and promise everything will be right in the end when it’s obvious you can’t keep that promise. You won’t. Is your plan to distance everypony from you and Luna, and then get the both of you killed? Because this is what you are doing now. If there are more out there who want Luna dead then tonight is not the last time she will be in danger because of you. One day somepony might kill her, and the reason will be that you never let anypony else help you protect her.”

She walked up to him and stared him down, scowling. “If you keep like this, Luna will die. It might be a monster that overpowers the two of you, assassins who slipped through your guard, or even yourself in your stupidity. Whichever the reason however, her blood will be on you, because you told her you will protect her while not caring for her safety at all. You said you’d do anything for her. You lied. You are doing almost nothing. You’re doing nothing because you put yourself first. You must protect her your own way otherwise you are wrong, the world doesn’t work as you think it does, and you lose. In your mind only yourself is good enough. Only you can bear the load. Well, you can’t. That was made clear tonight. So here’s the question Raegdan. How much do you care about Luna’s wellbeing? Truly?”

“How do I start?” he asked rhetorically.

“I like starting from the middle because then I can make a flashback,” Pinkie Pie answered. “Most ponies prefer being boring and starting at the beginning though. I recommend a prologue if you do that.”

It left a bitter taste in Twilight’s mouth. Here was what she wanted, what she kept asking for. Only, it wasn’t, not really. Raegdan wouldn’t give her the answers she longed for because she had simply asked, or because he decided on his own that it was the right thing to do. He was going to talk to them because he felt coerced by circumstances and need. She would have the answers she wanted, but now she’d have another question that would never be answered.

Would he have talked to her otherwise?

“Raegdan? You had promised me we’d talk. I’m… wondering if you’d mind if we used the chance to-”

“I suppose… that would clear up a lot of things. A confession of my own. Go ahead Twilight. Ask your questions.”

Why did it hurt a little every time he used her normal name like everypony else? She was the one who told him to do that, wasn’t she? It shouldn’t smart like that. It was an achievement, a statement that she no longer was a small filly that needed to be protected.

She decided to start from the very beginning. It was the easiest way to make sense of everything. There was one question that had been nagging her ever since she met Honest Serenade. It was always a good starting point.

It shouldn’t be the kind of thing you would have to ask somepony who raised you.

“What is your name?”

He huffed, smiling a little. “Not a good start. I’m not sure I can help you there Twilight.”

“What do you mean? Just tell me your name! What is so important about it that you won’t?”

“I can’t,” he said genuinely sorry. He pointed at his head. “Stupid thing is not working right. I can’t remember it. I remember people calling out to me, but when I try to remember what they called me all I get is a blank. Though…” His head listed to the right, thinking. “Maybe… John? That one’s stuck in my head. Maybe that’s it.”

Twilight wondered now, how much of his refusal to share his past with her was the fact that he didn’t remember that much -if he was saying the truth- and how much was the fact that it wasn’t good at all. Maybe fifty-fifty?

“Ok. We will stick with Raegdan then- yes Rarity?”

“I have a question about his current name if you don’t mind me interrupting darling.” Twilight nodded to let her know she could continue. “When, ah, you had that unfortunate episode on the way here you reacted badly at the mention of your name. Why was that?”

Raegdan didn’t answer immediately. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t?” Rarity said, surprised. “It was so strange. Are you completely sure it doesn’t have any special meaning? I know you said it doesn’t, but perhaps you were mistaken?”

“No. It’s just a word in Sindarin. It’s meaningless,” he said quickly.

“Sinda- what?” Rainbow asked.

“The language a race speaks in a story. Next question.”

Twilight gulped, trying to untie the knot in her throat. This was it. The greatest mystery she could remember. She never got a clear answer. Only “far away,” as if that made it clear. Now she would know.

“Where are you from? How did you arrive to Equestria?”

“I suppose you want the full story.”

“I do.”

“It’s not good Twilight. I never wanted you to know because I hoped you would never have to find out how bad things can really get. There’s a lot of death in my story. Things worse than death. Are you sure-”

“Yes.”

He hesitated. “Alright. Then I will. Not everything, but enough. I’ll try to bypass the worst, for your sake. Before I begin… I don’t want Celestia to hear any of this. She knows almost all of it anyway, but you won’t tell her a thing. Not unless Luna or I give you permission. Do you understand me?”

“We won’t,” Twilight assured him. Princess Celestia probably expected something like this. She had already told them they didn’t have to tell her anything Raegdan told them. All she wanted was to hear if Solid Charge could trust him or not.

And that Raegdan finally confided to those who were supposed to aid them.

Raegdan turned his bandaged face away from her. Twilight waited. They all did. A minute passed. Then two.

Then Raegdan started to talk.

“I lived a normal life. I had my ups and downs -that’s what I think at least-, but there was nothing special about me. I lived with my immediate family. My father, my mother, my sister. My dad was a great guy. Always knew what to do, how to act, and when. My mom was… she was the axis upon which the world turned. Someone who no matter how bad things would get would always be there for me. As far as family goes, I’d hit the jackpot.

We had a few financial problems. My father had difficulties with his job so it fell on me to help with the income. I usually did simple labor, whatever I could find. Loading or unloading cargo, moving, working in construction sites, anywhere they would take me. I didn’t do too bad for myself all things considered. My only vice after all was stories. That and simple rides on… hmm.

How to describe this? Imagine a steel frame that supports two wheels, one on each end, and a seat in the middle. A steering wheel that works simply by virtue of turning the front wheel. Now strap an engine on it that makes it able to run much faster than any living thing, and for hours at end. Hundreds of kilometers covered in hours. It was dangerous of course, but it was fun. Although I never did it for the speed. I just enjoyed the ride. The sights. The sounds. The feel of the machine rumbling. That was what my life was like back home. I worked for my family, and I breathed in any wonders I could find.

You’d love my home Twilight. I know how much you like magic, but I think you’d love the science there even more. We have miracles there, so many of them that we don’t even think of them as special anymore. Celestia might be able to move a star, but we know how they are born and how they die. There were flying machines that could circle people around the world in a day. Devices that you could hold in your hand that let you talk to anyone in the world, and let you access almost the entirety of our knowledge. We were on our way to the stars. We had sent machines out to space to take pictures of planets. We went to the moon and back. Of course, it’s all gone for me now.

There is a mode of transportation that we used. Think of it like a cart, with seats for many people, able to speed across roads with ease and comfort. I was riding on one of these one day. I was with friends, my best friend, and my girlfriend.

I can’t remember her name. It kills me that I don’t. It feels like I’ve betrayed her somehow. I think it might have started with a V, but I can’t be sure. We met when we were twelve. We were friends for a long time, until we slowly became something more. She was amazing Twilight. She was perfect.

My best friend… we called him Scipio as a joke, or a nickname. Like a famous ancient general. He loved games of strategy. You’d think it was useless, but the way he thought got us out of quite a few tough spots later on. He knew me so well he used to be able to outright guess what I was thinking at any given time. I think he gave up on me the day he could never do that again.

We were going somewhere. I think it might have been up a mountain, so we could do some camping. I’m not quite sure. I think I wasn’t in the best of moods at the time. I think something had happened, but it can’t have been too bad. It’s not important anyway.

We never made it there. There are… holes in the world. Insidious bridges that connect one place to another. We called them rifts, though not until much later. Much, much later. You can’t see them you know. No one can. They can be anywhere, a patch of ground that seems normal and innocent, until you step on it and it steals you away. Your life, your dreams, all gone in a second because you were at the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was early in the day when we were on our way. We were talking I think. Making plans on how we’d spend the day. We were having fun. The guys were teasing and making fun of each other, and the girls were hitting us with everything they could get their hands on in a mock attempt to make us shut up. Other passengers were yelling at us to quiet down. It was the last time we were carefree for a very long time.

An instant later it was night and we crashed into the wall of a city we had never seen before.”

“You’re an alien. An actual alien…” Twilight said, breathlessly. Her magic grabbed one of the orange juice bottles and she drank it all in one go. Far away, he used to say. She expected- she wasn’t sure what she expected. Perhaps that he lived on the other side of the world, though sometimes she wondered if his tales of science meant that he was victim of a- a time spell or something similar that went wrong. Coming from the far distant future was more believable than what he just described.

“Oh my gosh, that is so cool!” Rainbow Dash yelled. “So you’re like from another planet?” She and Pinkie Pie were grinning ear to ear, their eyes gleaming. Everypony else was staring at him, too stunned for words. Solid Charge looked ready to have a heart attack.

“Maybe?” Raegdan speculated. “I still have almost no idea how they work. It could be possible they do that too, but in truth I think it’s got more to do with alternate realities.” He saw Rainbow’s confused look and explained further. “Think of all creation like a book. Each page is a world or a universe, stacked over each other. If you go into a rift you end up in a different page.”

“You’re serious?” Leaf Stream almost screamed. “You’re a- an alien from another dimension?”

“More like a dimensional vagabond,” Raegdan corrected her.

“What happened then?” Rainbow asked, filled with excitement.

Raegdan closed his eyes, going back into his tale. “We started to die.”

“We didn’t see the warnings signs. The decay around us, the stench of death, the unnatural silence. It took us a while to even pay notice to the fact that it was night. We were so blind in the beginning. We were too busy getting our bearings, taking our time. We asked each other if we were ok, and we wasted time trying to soothe mere flesh wounds. A couple of people had died in the crash, and like unwitted morons we started calling for help.

It’s a wonder half of us made it out. We should have all died there. I don’t know how we survived. There were too many screams, too much confusion. I think we might have made it through only because there was so much they could eat.

You have stories about zombies, heavens only know where you of all people got that idea. These… things that shambled our way weren’t that. They were worse. Most of the time they came your way, trying to catch up to you and pull you apart. It’s what they did that first time. Sometimes however, there was a cunning to them. It got worse the more of them there were. As if all together they could pool together what was left of their mind and think.

It took us a year to make it out of the city. My girlfriend died on the second day. It was my fault of course. I didn’t know then what I know now, but in truth I didn’t have to. I just needed to move fast and save her. I didn’t. Her death hurt like nothing I’ve had ever known. I kept waking up for months, praying it was a nightmare and that she was still there, sleeping next to me. I changed my tune years later. I was glad she died. She didn’t have to live through the rest. I only wish she hadn’t died like that.

She didn’t deserve to die like this. She was so innocent, so filled with good. I’m going to spare you the details. It would only give you nightmares. I wondered for so long, what kind of universe allows one like her to die like that?

It’s so obvious, isn’t it?

The city was a horror. We were the only living people in there, and we were being hunted, day and night. We hid like rats, always moving, trying to scavenge enough supplies to make it day after day, trying to save enough so one day we could use it when we got out. Over twenty of us had survived that first night. By the time we left there wasn’t even fifteen. It was a good thing so many died. We barely found enough food as it was.

We needed to find a place to go. Thankfully that wasn’t hard to choose. We had wasted a lot of time and people trying to contact help, as if there was a chance there was anybody left alive that could help us. We weren’t home anymore, we realized that much after enough time. There were differences. Subtle ones, but we noticed them. There were still newspapers around. At first we had the absurd idea that we went forward in time. The dates were wrong so we fell for it at first. Then we noticed names written in the articles we had never heard. Countries that didn’t exist. Events that never happened.

It wasn’t a good day when we comprehended the truth.

Still, we agreed in the end that it was better than the alternative. That meant there was a way to make it back. We all had a good idea where to head to. There was another rift in that world. There’s always at least one, we understood that later. If you go through one, or someone else comes through it, it closes behind you. A few hours later another one will open somewhere else. They are always there. They never close for long. They persist until something goes through, and then they move.

When we went through it we didn’t come out unchanged. We thought it was because of the crash at first. Then we blamed it on the stress and fear, but it never left, not even for a second. There was a pain in our heads. Think of the worst headache you ever had, throbbing at the edge of your skull. The rift is like that. I always know where there is one. The pain keeps pounding in my head like a compass, showing me which direction is it. The closer I get the harsher the pain gets, until I go through. Then for a few minutes there is nothing but peace. The pain is gone. Until the rift appears again. Then the pain returns and it starts pulling at me again.

We didn’t know that of course. What we did know was that something was pulling at us to head towards it. So we did. We avoided the cities. After the hell we went through, dealing with the few creatures spread in the countryside was easy. Although I think… someone lost an arm? Or was it a leg? He still lived though so it wasn’t important. We kept going, following the pain. It wasn’t easy. It was far, too far. We reached an ocean and we still were nowhere close enough. It took us weeks just to find a way to cross it. We spent a year in that city. It took us close to four or five years to reach what we were after.

...I can’t believe I never thought about my age before. Then again, none of us had ever mentioned birthdays or anything of the like. We didn’t want to think of that or how much time had passed. We were afraid of our own mortality. We just moved.

We finally reached the place we were looking for. We… were disappointed to say the least. There was nothing to see. It was an empty spot next to a tree in the middle of nowhere, but we all knew this is where we had been travelling to for so long. We weren’t sure what to expect. We decided to play it safe.

Heavens, did we really feel like idiots afterwards.

We caught a wild dog. We gave it something to eat, making it understand we were only interested in giving it food. It was on guard, but it slowly learned to come when we had food out for it. We held it in front of the tree. One of us went to the other side, circling around. He called for the dog, dropping food in front of him. The dog ran for him, and when it touched the spot that was calling us, it faded. A few seconds later it vanished.

It took us a couple years more to reach the rift where it reappeared.

Twilight waited patiently for Raegdan, making sure he had reached at least a temporary stop in his story. It was almost too much. She was starting to get the shape of how the rest of the tale would unfold. She watched the others’ reactions. On a whole, everypony had been captivated by the thought of other worlds, and the fact that they were actually listening to one who had been there.

She hoped nopony would ask what she suspected Raegdan had never dared to consider.

“Is this how the Leviathans ended up here? Are there rifts here too?” Solid Charge asked.

“I believe so,” Raegdan said. “There’s always at least one rift, like I said. Sometimes there are two. Rarely more.”

“How many rifts are there on our world?” Rarity asked with some hesitance. “Do you know? Has anything come through?”

Raegdan didn’t answer immediately. Twilight could tell that this was something he had meant to keep to himself if he could manage. He sighed in defeat.

“There are five rifts here.”

Solid Charge, Leaf Stream, Applejack, and Twilight got up in alarm. Five. Five rifts, invisible, and never able to close. This couldn’t be. How did something like that remain unnoticed-

Easily enough. If something like the Leviathans made their way through them, and they never thought of that possibility… Unseen rifts. Dear Celestia, they were probably undetectable by magic too. Of course they were, they probably weren’t magic anyway. Raegdan wouldn’t be able to pass through them otherwise. What were these things? What made them?

“Has anything come through?” Leaf Stream asked with fear in her eyes. “I mean, Charybdis must have gone through recently, but… apart from that?”

“I can’t tell if something comes or goes,” Raegdan explained tiredly. “I can only tell if they… blink away.” His empty hand reached out towards Rarity who quickly sent another filled bottle to him. He had some trouble opening it. He drank thirstily from it, as if he hadn’t just finished one. “In all the years I’ve been here they have been used six times.”

“Why didn’t you tell anypony?” Leaf Stream shouted. “What the Tartarus has come through? What if-”

“Calm down. It doesn’t mean something has come through, remember? It could just be an animal stepping on the wrong spot. One of them’s always ends up deep in the ocean, and I’m pretty certain another one is too high to be of danger. That one has never moved. Besides, only one sticks close enough for me to check. They’re spread around the planet. They tend to stay away from each other so one is always around here. I’ve been checking on that whenever it gets used. I took care of it.”

“Had something come through that one?” Applejack asked.

“Once.”

“What was it? What did ya do?”

“I took care of it. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. That’s all I’m saying about this.”

“That’s all?” Solid Charge roared. He leaned over Raegdan, spitting wildly on his bandaged face as he made his case. “This is exactly why I don’t believe you can be trusted. These things are dangerous, and you are doing nothing about them!”

“We’re doing something, aren’t we?” Raegdan said quietly. “What do you think part of your job will be?” Solid Charge backed off as he connected the dots. “Luna’s been doing this for centuries, even if she didn’t know. Where do you think the unique monsters she fought came from? The rifts are not just dangerous. They can end worlds. Sure, most the time so far it has been only dangerous critters at worst, but all it takes is one wrong thing to come through, and your world will die. Those zombies I told you about? I saw them two more times, at different worlds. Let me tell you, these things? I don’t worry about them that much. There are way worse out there, and for all you know one of them could have been here for years already.”

Solid Charge wasn’t satisfied yet. He challenged Raegdan’s answer again. “You’ve been here for years. Almost two decades. Tell me then, why did you wait so long until you got off your ass and told somebody? You didn’t tell Princess Celestia, did you? She sounded like she believed there’s only one of them, and you never told her you can find them.”

“Because I was scared,” Raegdan explained, looking terribly ashamed. “I was afraid she would force me to go through at first, and I wasn’t… I wasn’t ready to leave yet.” He locked eyes with Twilight, looking sadly at her. “Afterwards… I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t believe she would force me to go anymore because I hadn’t really understood how Celestia thinks. What I was scared of was- I was scared that she’d ask me to look for them for her. I didn’t want to go near them. I didn’t trust myself. I feared that if I got too close to one of them I’d go through on my own. I couldn’t risk it, not then.”

“She needs to know,” Leaf Stream insisted.

“No she doesn’t!” Raegdan said vehemently. “Luna and I will take care of this our own way. Luna’s a princess of her own, she is your princess now, and she doesn’t want Celestia to know!”

“Princess Luna or you?” Solid Charge asked. “You don’t trust her not to do it someday, do you? You don’t want to give her any options other than killing you if she changes her mind.”

Raegdan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, staring down Solid Charge. “She can’t do anything about them. I’m the only one who can find them. Tell her about them, and you’ll never know if something does come through again. I’m not even going to bother checking them myself.”

“Blackmail. How surprising,” Solid Charge said, looking anything but surprised. “I’ll ask for permission from Princess Luna. If she says no, then I won’t say a word. Only if she says so though.”

“You know, little soldiers like you always nauseated me. Go to a couple of fights, see a person or two die, and you think you figured out how harsh life is, or that you gained some rare wisdom. You are just a child that finally learned that if you play with matches you get burned, nothing more.”

“And people like you sicken me in turn,” Solid Charge answered back, returning Raegdan’s angry stare in equal force. “You use your suffering like a measuring stick, disregarding anyone else’s pain as nothing because it isn’t as great, and only counting on your own opinion because of it. Pain isn’t wisdom or knowledge. It’s only pain, no more, no less. You are not better than anyone else because of it!”

Twilight rose up, attracting everyone’s attention with how quick she moved, breaking the argument. “I need to use the bathroom,” she said quickly. “Do you mind waiting for me before you start punching each other?”

“Of course sugarcube,” Applejack said. “We’ll wait.” She gave a stern look to the two tallest individuals in the room. “Quietly,” she added.

As soon as she closed the bathroom door behind her, Twilight turned on the faucets on the sink as far as they’d go. She laid her forehead on the cool tiles of the wall, listening to the sound of running water. Her breathing had become a little too fast. She forced herself to breath slow and deep.

Five rifts pounding through his head nonstop, day and night, for years. He didn’t have a knack for ignoring pain. He simply had no choice. Hay, maybe getting hurt otherwise even gave him something else to focus on. It would explain his tendency to let himself get injured even while able to avoid it. She tried to imagine a headache lasting for decades with no way to stop it or even soften it. It would drive her mad. She hated strong headaches. She always felt as if she could no longer think when she had one.

How many years had he spent heading towards them? If it took almost seven years to leave that first one… how many times had he crossed them? Today’s events made a little sense now. If he felt he had to escape, where else would he try to head to? What else did he know that well? Old habits die hard.

How many times did he fight the urge to abandon them all for one more attempt to find his home?

She splashed her face with cold water. The rifts change position after they move. If the vehicle Raegdan was in when he crossed that first time was going through a road it must mean that it hadn’t been there for long at all. Days perhaps, or even hours. So it must have moved there recently. If it moved, it meant somepony else also unwillingly left his home… or something came through.

Should she tell him? No, it wouldn’t help at all. What could he do anyway? It would only add more to his burden. Besides, he might have already thought of it, and repressed it like he did with his age. He was good at that. Way too good.

Princess Celestia already knew that Raegdan was long lived at least, perhaps even near immortal. He had realized something was wrong with his age three times before. He always forgot after some time, that’s what Princess Celestia told her. Perhaps this time it would stick.

She wiped her face with a clean towel. She took her time folding it before putting it back. Ponies always wondered why Princess Celestia let Raegdan off the hook so easily. It wasn’t just because he had become her closest friend, the one who would never see her as Princess Celestia, instead of just Celestia. It was also because of what he had already gone through. How do you find the heart to punish someone who has already lost so much due to no fault of their own?

She halfway damned her curiosity already. She was watching his eyes as he talked about his girlfriend. He missed her. He missed her and it hurt to talk about her, to remember her, even if he did his best not to show it. Twilight already knew how much he missed his family, but like a fool she never entertained the notion that he lost even more. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear the rest, though she would. He came alone.

Oh Celestia, he came to Equestria alone.

She would let them deal with the rifts their own way. They didn’t have a choice either way. Perhaps she could get them to let her examine one. She wasn’t certain if she wanted to even risk going near one, but she had to give it a shot. Perhaps there was a way to close them for good. Luna. She’d have to talk to Luna. She’d listen to Twilight. Magic was her element. She was their best chance of closing them off using magic.

All in all however, she was starting to finally get a sense of who he really was, what was driving him. So what if she didn’t like much of what she heard? What did that have to do with anything? It’s how it was. She’d have to make her peace with everything she heard tonight. The rifts had been here forever as far as they knew. They knew of them now at least.

She took one last deep breath and twisted the faucets, turning them off. She left the bathroom and made her way back to her spot, near Raegdan.

“What happened after you went through the next time?”

“The next one was completely different, though no less dangerous. There was no great threat there, no ravenous monsters wandering around. It was also not home. We despaired, sure, but what else was there to do but follow the rift again? Someone raised the possibility that we could try and control where the rift take us through some kind of wishful thinking. That sounds so hilarious now, but at the moment we didn’t exactly have a lot of other ideas.

I still don’t have even the slightest clue how they really work. There must be a way, I know there is, but I can’t find it.

It took us a long time to reach the rift, even though it was considerably closer. From what we saw that world never had a civilization of any kind. Do you have any idea how dangerous nature, true wild nature, can be? I don’t mean the soft forests where people have been going in for centuries, cutting down trees, slowly changing it to their own comfort while unaware of what they’re doing. I mean true wild forests and mountains. Animals that never learned to fear something that didn’t have claws of its own.

It was a good thing we ended there on hindsight. We taught ourselves precious lessons on that world.

We had to scavenge before, but despite the danger that was comparably easy. There were stores that still had enough long lasting food left. There were gardens that still grew food. Not on this world though. We had to learn how to hunt, something we had no idea how to begin with.

We had to learn how to stop being hunted.

We had to learn how to protect ourselves from the elements.

We had to learn what was poisonous and what was not.

We had to learn how to find drinkable water.

We had to learn how to climb mountains.

...We had to learn how to put one of our own out of their misery.

Pinkie Pie was almost ready to cry. Fat tears were pooling at the edge of her eyes. “You- you had to… one of your friends?” she asked in a whisper.

Raegdan’s bandaged head moved left and right in a slow shake of denial. “Not me. Not that time. Scipio was the one who did it. It was the only time he did. I never let him do that again, when the need appeared. I was the one who… put them to sleep if we had to from that point onwards. He would never be able to do it again. The idiot acted as if there was a choice. He never had the stomach to do what was necessary unless he was pushed to his limit.”

“This is horrible,” Pinkie Pie wailed, now fully crying. “I- I don’t want to hear anymore if there’s more of this.” Fluttershy and Rarity moved to her sides trying to comfort her as much as they could.

“There is,” Raegdan told her frankly. “I’m sorry, but if I’m- I haven’t even started little pink. This is only the beginning. I’ve done horrible things. I’ve had horrible things done to me. I’ll spare you as much as I can, but some things are unavoidable. You can leave if you want. You don’t have to hear this. None of you do.”

Pinkie Pie looked at the door behind her with longing, sniffling all the while. She turned her back to the door and sat back down, her poofy mane now almost straight down, hiding half of her face. “I’ll stay. You lived through it. The least I can do is listen. It’s what friends do.”

“Pinkie Pie, we could tell you the rest after-” Rarity tried to say.

“I’ll stay,” Pinkie Pie said with pure determination. “Did you bury your friend?”

Raegdan visibly hurt to tell the truth to Pinkie. “No. We didn’t have the time. There was a blizzard coming. We left him there. He’s probably still there, his body almost perfectly preserved in that cold. We left that world a few weeks after.”

Raegdan looked around. “I suppose it shouldn’t surprise you that we didn’t make it home that time either. Or that we ended up somewhere worse.”

“Somewhere with people still alive.”

“The sight of a city bustling with people, real people, alive and well, after so long… Can you even imagine how we felt? We thought we were saved. We could rest, we could heal, we could get help. We cheered and we cried…

Morons. Each and every single one of us was a moron. We thought the worst was behind us.

There was a war going on. I don’t know the details, and frankly I didn’t care at all to find out. They were fighting for a long time. Decades perhaps. Who cares? What I do know is that they had all splintered into thousands of factions, each of them holding a city or a small area. They were forming alliances and dissolving them daily. I doubt they even cared what they were fighting for anymore. Everyone just wanted everyone else dead.

There were four types of people. Like castes. Those who commanded the soldiers, the top, the warlords. Those who had what the soldiers wanted and needed, the wealthy. The soldiers who obeyed either the warlords or the money. And those that had nothing that the first two wanted apart from their selves. Slaves that were forced to work or entertain. The rest of the masses that couldn’t fight.

We had rushed blindly for a convoy of people we saw, hoping they would help us. It was their lucky day. New merchandize hopped right into their hands. They beat us down and took us prisoners.

Heavens, I wish I could have a second shot at them now. They would find it a little harder to do the same.

Even among a faction, or that one at least, they weren’t unified. They were more like warbands operating under one leader, but each of them looked out for their own ass first. They wanted to make use of us, but we had a serious deficit. We didn’t know our place yet. They didn’t even entertain the notion that we could have been spies or enemies of any worth. Not if we didn’t have weapons of our own. Lack of a weapon meant you had no true worth. First thing they needed to do was break us before they could use us.

There was one person assigned to this task. A torturer. It was his job to make us subservient. To teach us our place. His discipline was turning people into obedient beasts of burden. He considered himself one of the best, not only because he got results faster than anyone, but also because he never damaged the wealth he was entrusted with unseemly.

He was given the men to work on. The women would be slowly broken by the soldiers. They liked taking the fight out of them on their own way.

If she had been there… Is it wrong that I’m glad she wasn’t? She’d be alive, and perhaps I’d have ended up otherwise, but I can’t help it. I’m glad she wasn’t there.

The one thing I felt most throughout my stay in that bastard’s hands was anger. Not for him or anyone else, but towards me. I should have done something. I could have. I didn’t do anything, like I didn’t any of the other times. My friends died because of me, she had died because of me, and the rest would die here because I was a sniveling wreck. I decided no more. I wouldn’t budge an inch. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. No one would get anything more from me. Not without a fight.

The torturer was surprised. He had difficulties with me he never had before. I wasn’t screaming like I was supposed to. I wasn’t begging him to stop. The razors, needles, nails and hooks weren’t working as they should. His attempts at humiliating me weren’t fazing me as he expected.

After a couple of days he was glad for something different, a challenge. He focused his time on me, getting as creative as he could, refusing to go beyond his standards of delicate workmanship. He left the others alone. It was a mistake on his part. As long as he didn’t hurt them so he could spend his time on me, I would outlast him.

A week after he was ecstatic. He claimed I would be the pinnacle of his work. His hardest earned achievement.

Two weeks later he was simply annoyed.

Three weeks later he decided he would do the worst he could do, and fuck his reputation or whatever worth I had. He only wanted me to finally scream and beg. He decided to go for the heavy handed approach.

And that’s when he finally did what I was waiting for. A mistake I could use.

I shake my head to throw the blood away from my eyes. He’s not the same today. The bastard was preparing tools I’ve never seen before, and if that was not enough he started today the way he normally ended each session. I need to-

He left the hammer on the table.

I slowly peek back. He’s used to me being almost spent after this. If I pretend I’m already at the end of my strength… yes, he doesn’t pay attention to me. He’s busy putting back his clothes while chuckling at his collection of toys.

Just don’t turn around you bastard. Keep your back turned a few seconds more. This time you didn’t exhaust me first. Bad move. I pull my arms up. The nails don’t move. I redouble my efforts. Something will give, and it ain’t gonna be me. Never again.

One of the nails comes out of the bloodstained wood. The other one doesn’t budge. My left arm’s flesh yields first. Who cares? I’m free. I’m free! I’m free… and now I have a hammer!

That wet mulching sound was the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard so far. I need to get out. I need to make my way to the rest and-

He’s breathing. Hmm. This will be a good day for once. I check the door. I can’t leave yet after all. Everyone here is used to hearing screams coming from this room for hours when we’re down here. I should make sure they don’t know I’m free yet. I pull the bastard to the chair and strap him down. I need to muffle him somehow. I search the tables. Maybe shove a rag down his mouth or… yes, this will do.

I don’t know if it’s custom made or a repurposed tool, but it fits my needs perfectly. These metals here must be used to keep the jaw open. There are small screws on the side to move them and lock them. The really lovable feature is the weird metal fixture in the middle. It must be used to trap the tongue. I grin. It even has small spikes for a good grip. Is it christmas already?

The pain of his lacerated tongue wakes him up. He quickly panics when he realizes where he is. He tries to call for help, but all he can do is moan meaningless sounds. He tries to calm down and he searches for a way out. I can see the awareness of how truly fucked he is dawn in his eyes. I’ve been wishing for this day for weeks. I’ve dreamed of so many things I could say to him when the time came. A list of his perverses against me. The name of my friends he had a round with. Pronounce judgement on him like a vengeful god. I don’t bother with any of them. I keep it simple.

“My turn.”

Where to start? He likes needles and nails, huh? There’s a load of them here. Long needles, ready to be used. I’m reminded of a movie. I laugh. Oh, this fits so well. I have to do it, it’s gonna be just perfect.

He needs to be bald first. I look around for scissors when I realize what an idiot I am being. What, am I gonna play barber? I don’t need to do a good job anyway. I’m not gonna be presenting him in front of class or something like that. His hair is long enough to get a good grip. I simply pull them all out, handful by handful.

It’s a mess when I’m done. There’s almost nothing of his scalp left. I accidentally removed almost all of his skin. He’s bleeding too much. Bright red blood is falling down his shoulders like a shower. I can’t have him fall dead from blood loss. I need to stop it, and I think I know just how. I remember a christmas movie, and there’s a blowtorch right there. And they said tv teaches you nothing. Here I come my little wet bandit.

I sigh with a feel of loss when I’m done. I miss the small barbecues we used to have back home.

I use the blowtorch to heat up the needles before I insert them all over his head. I put an extra one in his eye. The guy in the movie didn’t have one there, but we can call this my own personal touch. I push them in as hard as I can, making sure they pierce the bone.

My face is wet. Strange, only the front of it. There’s no sweat up my forehead. I look up, wondering if perhaps I’ve been standing beneath a leaking pipe. Huh, that’s weird, there’s nothing. I don’t pay attention to it. I need to keep the screams going. For cover. It seems so funny, I can’t stop laughing like a maniac.

What next, what next? I pull down tools and equipment. I want something good enough. This is going to be a one time thing. I need- yes, something like that. Power tools. In pretty good condition. I know how to use these. How many hours have I spent in a construction yard using one of these? My hands reach for a belt sander almost on their own. Oh, this is gonna sting.

I put a tourniquet high on the bastard’s left arm. I’ll have to let it loose every little while or he’ll lose feeling. We can’t have that, can we? An artist like him needs to get the full sensation. I use the heaviest grit available. I can’t afford to stay here all day, no matter how much I want to.

This is better than a mincemeat machine. Not as efficient, but who cares? The flesh on his fingers slowly vanishes like magic, bones break and muscles tear up.The rest of his arm starts to follow. It goes slow, so beautifully slow. My arms hurt from the pressure I need to press with, but it’s a burn that I enjoy. The bastard opens his mouth to scream so wide that the gag almost falls off. Hmm, I can’t believe I didn’t think to pull his teeth out first. Ah well, after I’m done with the arm I’ll get to it.

I should castrate him too. I want to see if his screams will rise in pitch. I worry about the blood loss though. What if he-

Never mind. I’ll just use the hammer.

I drop the bloody saw and check the bastard for a pulse. None. Damnit, I wasn’t done yet! He still had more to pay for. Calm down. Calm down and get to work. Time to get out. Scipio and the rest. They’re nearby. A couple of guards on the way, both of them armed. I can take one of these long knives with me, but will it be enough? All I’ve got is the element of surprise. It will have to do. All I need to do is kill one of them, and then I’ll have a gun. I wipe the blood and gore off me, before I get dressed. I didn’t even realize I was nude the whole time. My attention was directed elsewhere.

He’s got a loaded medical stash in here in case he ever went overboard. I’ve seen it more than once. I spend a few minutes to change all my bandages and go over everything he did to me again.

It dawns on me that I just killed a man. I killed someone. He may have deserved it, but… I rush to a corner away from the cadaver, and throw up. I tortured him and I laughed. I killed him, and now I plan to kill more. I empty my stomach until all that comes out is spit and stomach fluids. It takes me a while to slow down my breathing and stop my tears. I’m… I was forced to. I have to kill, or my friends are done for. I don’t have a choice. It needs to be done.

I watch the second guard bleed to death as he tries to breath through his sliced windpipe, and I still repeat that to myself. No choice. I’m only doing the absolutely necessary. I take his gun too as well as what ammo he has. The more of us armed the better the chances we have. I make my way to the cells.

Scipio rushes forward to the bars. “How did you escape?”

“Got lucky,” I answer. I don’t want to tell him what I did. I don’t want to tell him, like I never told him what that bastard did to me daily. It takes a lot of effort not to fall into dry heaves right there. “We need to get the girls and get out. Where are they?”

“Where do you think?” he says. He’s angry. He should be. His sister is there.

“We’ll get them and leave. Come on.” I open the cell doors.

“No.”

What? What the hell does no mean? “What are you talking about?”

“We’ve only got two weapons. We’re arming the rest of us first, then we’re getting them out. We won’t have time later.” He takes the weapon I hand to him.

“The longer we delay-”

“I know!” he yells. He’s gone into tears, the frustration of all those weeks of helplessness getting to him. “That’s my sister they’re raping! We need to do this right, we only have this one shot. First we get weapons and supplies. Then we save them and run.”

“Where the hell are we gonna get all this stuff?”

“You think I’ve been sitting here doing nothing? The guards don’t pay attention to us. They talk all the time, and I listened carefully. I goaded them into speaking to me. I know where we need to go, and I know where they keep the girls. I know where we must go.” He takes a deep breath. “Are you willing to kill to get out of here?”

“If I have to.”

“We lost two more on the way out, but we made it. We didn’t lose anymore, not for a very long time. I made sure of it. I picked up a little something from the armory before we left. A few tools to help us avoid any more confrontations. I never let the others know. I would leave them behind to scout ahead, and that’s what I did. Sometimes however I’d run into patrols or camps. As time went on I learned how to approach and how to separate one of them from the rest. Then I’d ask them questions. It was the safest way to figure out the best routes to follow.

I learned a lot on that world. About weapons, how to fight, how to hide. I learned how to maintain weaponry. Not all of my questions were about what laid ahead. It sounds horrible to you, but this was the only way to keep my friends alive.

We made it to the rift. Another world. This time we weren’t caught by surprise. We never were surprised like that again.

From that point on, the very first thing I did when finding people was ask questions.”

“Excuse me dears,” Rarity said in a daze. “I believe I need to visit the ladies room…”

“Me- me too,” Fluttershy whispered.

Raegdan watched them leave. Applejack, Rainbow and Rarity followed close behind. Twilight was glad she felt strong enough to control herself. It must be really cramped in there, and she doubted it would get any better. A few seconds after she was vindicated by muffled sounds.

Strangely, she hadn’t been upset too much. Maybe because she expected something like this. It felt like a story she had heard twice, only this time much tamer. She pursed her lips. She didn’t like the idea of getting so insensate to such atrocities.

“Too much?” Raegdan asked.

“Naah…” Leaf Stream said, looking pale herself. “You just told them you got viciously tortured for three weeks straight, and that you can give as good as you can take in vivid detail. I’m sure they’re fine. Nothing soul scarring about it.” She looked thoughtful for a minute. “I’m not sure what I’d have done in your place.”

They waited until the girls came back, looking ashen. Raegdan humphed. “That wasn’t even that bad. I thought you could stomach that much at least to get a sense of what I’m trying to explain. I tried to avoid it, but sometimes there’s no helping it. I’ve been imprisoned more times, and I’ve had way worse. That idiot wasn’t as good as he thought. There were others who knew how to break the rhythm to keep you from zoning out, and there are stuff at least as bad without actually hurting you. Stuff that can actually drive you insane. Nevermind the drugs or devices others have used. That was just my intro to it. I got lucky I was eased into it.”

“But you- you did the same later, didn’t you?” Rarity asked for confirmation. “Every time you…”

Raegdan tried to cross his arms. The sudden pain from his left upper side stopped him mid-move. “I didn’t keep someone tortured for weeks or months. Neither did I cross certain lines. I did what I had to until I got what I wanted.”

“Where did you end up after that?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“I don’t know. Some other hellhole. I’m not sure which. There were a lot of them. Some of them had people. Some of them didn’t. Most were with filled with what looked like my kind. Others… not so much. Yeah, there are more aliens. Deal with it. You’re one of them. After that one I kept at their front. I protected them as many times as I could, as much as I could. I kept them away from the work that was needed to be done if possible. They never got the nerve for it. Anyway, we went through… I don’t know how many. Enough.”

“And- and yer friends never knew what you were doing behind their backs?” Applejack asked.

“Eh, they found out after some time. They didn’t like it. They didn’t like a lot of things. They had the luxury not to. I was the one who did all the work to get them through each rift as quickly as possible. If I left it to them they’d rather stay and work for somebody to get enough funds to buy what we needed instead, or they’d risk our lives for stupid causes. None of them was our world. We didn’t have any business taking part in them and their troubles. They never understood the true cost of surviving despite all odds.”

Raegdan stopped to drink some more. He shook the bottle thoughtfully. “There were others too you know.”

“Others what?” Twilight asked.

“Others who were... who were going through worlds.”

“What did you do when you met them?” Rarity asked.

“Not much really. The first one ever we met when we neared a rift. He was heading there too, planning to go through it. He asked to join us.”

“Did you take him in?”

“I wasn’t an idiot to trust someone who survived the same kind of crap we did. He was too lively, and he kept telling stories about worlds that were peaceful and other nonsense. No, he didn’t get to come with us.”

“Ya never found any more? Someone who could help ya?” Applejack asked.

Raegdan laughed out loud. “Ah, no. Help from- that’s a good one. No. Trust me, if you see something intelligent pop out of thin air, don’t try and talk to him or her. Either kill them before they get their bearings or run as fast as you can. Preferably run, and don’t stop until you can run no more.”

“Are these folks dangerous?”

Raegdan stopped, and stared at Twilight, chewing at his lips. “Nah. I’m exaggerating a little. You don’t have to worry about them that much. They’re all just passing through in the end.”

“What happened to your friends? Why aren’t they here with you?” Please don’t say they’re dead, Twilight prayed fervently. She didn’t want to hear he had to watch them all die. It would be horrible. She didn’t want this to have happened.

Raegdan shrugged. “We lost a few more on the way. I did as much as I could, I pushed myself harder every time, but… there’s only so much I could do on my own when they weren’t willing to help themselves. Then we went our separate ways.”

“How did that go down?”

“It didn’t. Not really. I was… angry for a long time. Still am. But I think I might understand why it happened that way. You must understand, there were times we had to do things that are not easy on anyone. I was pushing them too hard, I had to. Perhaps they would have done what I forced them to do on their own if I wasn’t there. We had to resort to cannibalism more than once. We had to kill for the things we needed. We had to walk right by while people were begging for help.”

“Why- why would you do that?” Fluttershy asked, shaking.

“Because we couldn’t. If we helped anyone but ourselves we risked our lives for… for what? Strangers we would never meet again? No, we had to keep going, no matter what. They never saw it that way. They still clung to morals that would kill all of us. There wasn’t room for that, not if… or maybe there was. Maybe I… maybe I overdid it on occasion. But I had to. I had to. I couldn’t afford to budge. Because if I did I…”

“You what?” Twilight asked. “Why couldn’t you help somebody even once? What reason could you possibly have to turn your back to somepony asking you for help?”

“Because if I did and no one got hurt it would mean we’d have no excuse not to help the next time too. We’d risk our lives and one day someone would pay for it, and when that happened it would be my fault for allowing it.” Raegdan directed his gaze to the ceiling. “I never let them take such a risk. No matter what.”

He looked back at them. “Morals. They could afford them because I was the devil that pushed them. They had someone to blame, someone to hate when they slowly found out what exactly I’d been doing for all of us. They called me a monster more than once. They kept saying there were better ways. I told them they were blind idiots. We never agreed, but I thought they’d made their peace with it. They didn’t.” He stayed silent for a while. “If I ever see them again… I don’t know if I’d kill them or not. I miss them, but I’m still angry.”

“Raegdan,” Twilight asked softly. “What exactly happened?”

“It really wasn’t a big deal. Some things are meant to happen I guess.”

“Tell me. What exactly happened? Please?”

I stop. I have to stop. I need a minute, just a minute… I uncap the bottle I’ve managed to hold onto. I threw everything else away. I couldn’t carry it any more. It was too heavy, I was too tired. I almost drank greedily, but I force myself to stop after two sips. It’s all I have. It has to last me.

My back burns. I want to empty what’s left of the water on it to quench the fire that rages on it. Control. It’s only pain, and those that gave it to you are dead. You killed them, them and everyone around them. Control. Take a few breaths, and walk once more. You killed them all. They had their fun. Then it was your turn. The pain doesn’t matter anymore. Not now.

I’m not so sure about this. They hurt me badly. I think I could feel pieces of my back flap free. I don’t even know how much is left undamaged. Every movement is pure agony. I tied torn clothing around me, trying to form a bandage that can keep me from bleeding to death. I need to find the others. They can patch me up. I can’t reach behind me. I need someone to do it. I have to find them.

It’s been five days I’ve been running after them today. I can see their tracks. They travel too close together. They leave too obvious signs. I’ve warned them before. They’re going to make me repeat myself. I’m starting to get tired of these constant fights. Are they trying to get us all killed?

They’re not going to wait for me. They have no idea I made it. I haven’t slept for days. I’m too far. I won’t catch up if I waste time on sleep.

Why didn’t they come to rescue me?

They knew where they were holding me. Scipio even managed to talk to me. I told him where I hid the supplies I managed to acquire for us. I had stashed weapons I stole, food, and water. All they had to do was come during the night, start a fire at the granary, and then they could kill what guards were left at my prison and get me out. There wouldn’t even be a pursuit if they did as I asked. Everyone would be too busy trying to save what little food they had left.

Hell, all they had to do was get a weapon to me and I’d do it all on my own. It wouldn’t be the first time.

They never came back. I waited. I waited, and they never came back. I escaped on my own, but not before they had enough time to interrogate me. Bastards. Well, I had my turn. The rest will probably starve to death. Serves them right.

The supplies were no longer there. My friends probably didn’t get to them in time. They must have gotten hunted out. They probably had no other option but to leave me behind. I feel kind of proud. Maybe they finally learned to make real decisions.

I keep walking. I’m getting closer. They’re weak, they need me. They’ll go to sleep. I won’t. I’ll catch up. I smile. They’ll be so glad to see I’m fine. I’m always fine. I always end on top. I have to, I have to if I am to keep them safe. I can’t do that if i’m not-

I want to sleep, even for a few minutes. I’m so tired, and my back hurts so much...

I keep walking.

I see them. They’re almost at the rift. I was right to hurry. I almost lost them.

“I’m here. I’m here.” My voice is like the croak of a frog. Water. I need to wet my throat. I don’t even have any saliva left. There’s one last sip left. I drink it quick and throw the bottle aside.

“Scipio!” I shout, and I fight to stop the coughing fit I’m taken with. “I’m here! Wait! I’m coming.” They heard me. I see them pause and turn to each other. I start to slide down the slope. We’ll be together in minutes.

Something’s wrong. They were talking to each other, waiting, and now… they start running towards the rift. Why- what are they doing?

“Guys! Wait, it’s me! No one followed me, it’s safe. Wait. Wait!” I lift my arm in a wave, and the blood that has crusted on my back breaks. I feel a sharp pull of pain and fresh blood running down my spine.

They- they don’t stop. Why don’t they stop? I’m right here, I’m here, I found them, why do they keep running, if they go through, if they go through-

“Wait. Stop. Wait. Wait! Scipio! Wait for me.”

I run. I force my exhausted legs to work harder than they’ve worked before. My back starts oozing again, I can feel it. I don’t care. I need to- I’m not going to catch up to them. They’re too far. Stop, stop, they have to stop, this has to be a sick joke, they can’t be meaning to-

“No! No, please don’t go! Don’t leave me alone! Scipio! Please! Don’t go, don’t leave me behind, please!”

They step into the rift. They are starting to fade away. This is not real, this can’t be real, they wouldn’t do that, they’re not that cruel, please God help me, please don’t let them do this-

“No! No! Don’t leave me alone! Please don’t leave me alone! Wait for me, please, don’t, you need me, you won’t make it on your own, please, please, please, PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME!”

The pain in my head stops. The rift is gone. So are they. There’s nothing there. Just grass. Gone. They’re gone. They were right there, looking back at me, and they… they vanished like they were never there. Like there was nothing else they needed. Gone into the rift, gone into another world… and I’m still here.

They left me.

They abandoned me.

Why?

Someone’s screaming. It sounds like he’s being tortured, only worse than anything I’ve ever experienced before. I never heard such a painful sound before, never realized someone could suffer so much. Did anyone else stay back? I can’t see anyone. There’s… there’s rain or something. I can’t see, water is over my eyes, and that noise, that screaming and crying… When will he stop? Doesn’t he need to breathe? The screams go on and on, repeating words that make no sense. He’s asking for someone or for something, but I can’t tell what. Help? Who’s going to help him? There’s no one here who can help. I can’t help. No one helps. The screams die down after some time. It takes much longer for the crying to do the same.

I wait there. They’re not coming back. I- I don’t think they would even if they could. Still, I wait. I wait and I hope. I wait until I hope no more. I wait until the pain comes back. I can hear the rift sing to me. It says it will take me home. It’s what it always says. I never says when.

What else is there to do?

I don’t need to sleep anymore. I don’t want to rest at all. I should start moving. I’m only wasting precious time. The rift is so far away. I need to start moving. Who cares about sleep now?

They’re really gone. I’m alone now.

I’m alone.

I turn around to head back towards the slope so I can retrieve the empty bottle. I can’t afford to throw away a container as useful as that. I have a long road ahead of me. My hand searches my left pocket on its own, making sure my most precious belonging is still with me.

The road goes on and on… down from the door… where it begun… and far ahead the road goes on… and I must- I must...

I can’t remember the rest. Why can’t I remember the rest?

They left something back. A piece of paper is on the ground, filled with words. A last message for me perhaps, or simply something they dropped by mistake? I step over it and keep moving without picking it up. What does it matter? They’re gone forever. I don’t have time for this. I have to hurry.

I’m going home.

I’m going home.

I’m going home all alone.

Author's Note

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXWj0ayzNg0

Ch.21 - Raegdan's Tale: Little One

Author's Note

I have uploaded TWO chapters. Remember to press the next button when you get to the end if you want to read more.

Ch.21 - Raegdan's Tale: Little One

Twilight quietly opened the door and snuck in her head before going inside altogether. “How is she?” she asked, referring to the devastated pink pony that was snuggled between Fluttershy and Applejack, sobbing.

“She’s better… I think,” Rarity answered uncertainly. She pursed her lips in disapproval. “I can’t believe these so called friends of his left him like that.”

Rainbow Dash had seen Twilight come inside the room. She took the box of tissues Twilight gave her, passed it to Fluttershy, and came back her way. “Yeesh, talk about rotten friends, huh?”

“Yes,” Rarity agreed. “I mean, I can understand why they would want to distance themselves for the good of them all, but the way they did it was-”

“Whoah, whoah, hold on a second,” Rainbow Dash said, sounding upset. “You sound like you agree with what they did!”

Rarity leaned a little so she could see behind Rainbow Dash before answering, making sure Pinkie Pie wasn’t paying any attention to them at all. Their friend was soaking the pillow of the bed she was laid on with more tears, mostly silent apart from a few errant sobs.

“I don’t, but can you blame them? Raegdan was- was committing atrocities for their sake, or what he believed was for their benefit. I don’t know, maybe he’s right, and what he did was truly needed as he claims, and I think Princess Celestia might not judge him at all exactly for this reason. We can’t really know, no matter how much he tries to explain. All we have is his own word, and how much can you trust when he obviously can’t tell the difference anymore between need or not as far as these matters are concerned?”

Rainbow crossed her hooves in front of her chest as she sat down. “He was looking out for them, and they left him to rot.”

“Or perhaps they left him so he would stop,” Twilight said thoughtfully. She had a theory of why they left if they still cared for him. Perhaps they didn’t, not after what they went through, and she was totally in the wrong. “The ponies involved in my kidnapping,” she reminded them, “he did to them what he used to do for his friends. He saw a threat to somepony he cared about, and he took it out, brutally. If they weren’t there anymore for him to protect then he wouldn’t have to be so… severe in his actions. Maybe that’s what they thought. That if they were not around, he wouldn’t resort to such vicious methods.”

Rainbow turned her head aside, still angry. “Yeah, I don’t buy that, and it doesn’t excuse them at all. They left him to get hurt even more so they could run. And that letter they left was horseapples,” she proclaimed. “How did they even know if he would go all the way there to find it?”

Rarity had been looking strangely thoughtful at Twilight. She stopped her curious staring to answer Rainbow Dash. “Raegdan assumes he caught up to them moments before they went through. What if he didn’t?”

“I don’t follow,” Rainbow said, confused.

“I mean, what if they were waiting for him?” Rarity specified. “To make sure he would find the letter? If they went through too soon Raegdan wouldn’t be able to find the rift, am I correct?”

Rainbow scratched her mane with her hoof, making Rarity wince at the treatment she was subjecting it to. “I guess… I wish he had picked the stupid thing up. I wonder what they wrote to him.”

“I wish he had too,” Twilight said. “It might have changed how the rest turned out.” She considered her suspicions for the remainder of Raegdan’s story, keeping in mind Pinkie Pie’s reaction. The rest of the girls had been affected too of course, how could they not? They just reined in their own reactions in the face of Pinkie’s meltdown. No matter how Raegdan played it off as something he no longer cared that much for… They were his friends. His family for so long, the only people he had left, and they cast him off. Just thinking about them made her own blood boil. She wished she could have a word or two with them, and that they at least were not immune to magic.

“Rarity, Rainbow,” she whispered. “Do you think that maybe you should stop at this point?”

“I’m sorry dear, but stop what?” Rarity asked, pretending not to understand.

“Listening to Raegdan’s story,” Twilight explained further.

“Are you crazy? Why would we do that?” Rainbow Dash whispered back.

“Because,” Twilight said, “I think it is only going to get harsher from here on. I don’t think he would have taken being abandoned well. Do you really want to hear the rest, especially if it is worse than what we have already heard?”

“But you will listen to the rest yourself?” Rarity asked, raising an eyebrow critically.

“I have to. Princess Celestia asked me to help Solid Charge, and- and I’ve been waiting for the truth for too long. I’m staying.”

“Then so do we,” Rainbow Dash said loud and with determination. She put a hoof over her mouth and peeked quickly behind her before continuing in a whisper. “We’re not like these guys. We can at least listen to what he has to say. What kind of ponies would we be if we can’t even stay for that? Buck those friends of his. I’m staying, I’m listening, and I won’t hold whatever he did over his head, just like the princesses didn’t either.”

“That goes for all of us Twilight,” Rarity assured her. “Just give us a few more minutes for Pinkie Pie to calm down, and we will all go back together.”

“I was almost certain you wouldn’t be back,” Solid Charge said to all of them as they took their previous seats around Raegdan’s bed.

“You owe me five bits,” Leaf Stream said, stretching her hoof towards Solid Charge.

“I never agreed to the wager.”

“You never said you didn’t,” Leaf Stream sang.

Solid Charge snorted in amusement. “Fine. I’ll give them to you on payday.”

“Whoo boy, that’s another whole can of worms,” Leaf Stream with a bitter smile.

Raegdan was ignoring them. “How are you holding up little pink?” he asked. He sounded even more tired than before. Twilight wondered once more how remembering all this was affecting him.

“I’m ok now,” Pinkie said, trying to smile.

“You know you shouldn’t be upset about this, right? It happened a long time ago. I’m fine.”

“Liar,” Pinkie Pie said, wiping her nose.

“Ah, crap. She’s figured me out,” Raegdan joked. It did manage to bring a hint of a real smile back to Pinkie’s face, especially when Raegdan reached out and messed with her mane, restoring some of it’s usual fluffiness and Pinkie’s good cheer.

“Would you care to continue now that everyone’s here?” Solid Charge prodded Raegdan, quite more gentle in his behavior than before.

Raegdan busied himself with the needle driving the IV drip into his vein, delaying to answer. “I’m not quite sure where to go from there,” he admitted.

Leaf Stream was looking out the open window, enjoying the night breeze that was coming through. “What did you do after your pals left you? You went to the next rift I suppose, and then?”

Raegdan flinched as he tried to move his left shoulder. He rubbed the pained area with his right hand before speaking up. “Then the next one, and the next one, and on, and on. Don’t ask me how many. It could be three or three hundred. I have no idea. I remember only a few clear enough, and that’s mostly pieces. The rest is a blur. I remember certain things, often just glimpses, but I can’t tell if they happened before or after each other, or at the same place or not. Or if they really happened at all.” His lips pursed with distaste through the hole in the bandages. “There’s no way in hell I really saw a tyrant king lizard.”

“A what now?” Leaf Stream asked.

“Nothing. Anyway, I was on my own after that. On one hand… I was moving faster, and I had no one holding me back. Fat load of good that did to me, huh? On the other hand I had no one to help me either when I screwed up. For instance, I spent a lot of time in prisons, asylums, laboratories-”

“Wait, hold up,” Leaf Stream said, chuckling. “Asylums?”

Raegdan lifted his chin at her. “I bet you find the idea hilarious.”

“A tad.”

“You wouldn’t if you had spent even a week in one of them. Anyway-”

“What was that bit about laboratories?” Twilight asked. “You worked in one or did you trade scientific knowledge for…”She slowed down until the words died on her lips. Everypony was watching her with a pitying look, including Raegdan. “What?”

“Geez Twilight.” Rainbow Dash shook her head, torn between amusement and pity.

“What do ya say we move on instead? Anything else that comes to mind to share big fella?” Applejack said in a hurry.

“Not much that’s not basically the same. Different worlds, different disasters, different dangers. Monsters, diseases, war, technology that had gone out of control, magic or something similar going haywire... Jolly stuff. I guess I can just tell you about when I got here, and we can-”

“Wait,” Twilight called. She didn’t want to let him get to the end of his story yet. If he did, he might start pulling his old tricks again, and she’d lose this chance. “I have one question before that.”

Raegdan quickly searched through the expressions of her friends, hoping to get a hint of what she was going to ask, but to no avail. The girls didn’t know she was going to ask about this. Truth was, she hadn’t been planning to either, not until now. When else would she be able to ask him if not now however?

“When we looked through your things in your old room we found the box where you used to keep your ring.” Raegdan’s eyes darted to the half of the sorry husk at his side at Twilight’s mention. “There was more than that in there though. You kept another box in there.”

She couldn’t see enough of his face to judge what he was thinking. The line of his mouth was almost invisible.

“There was a braid of hair in there with a-”

“I know what’s in there,” Raegdan answered sharply without looking back at her.

His tone made Twilight stall, but she pressed on. “Can you tell us about it?”

“I can. I’d prefer you didn’t ask me to however.”

“Who did it belong to?” Twilight pressed him.

“Twilight… would you mind if we skipped this part? Please?”

“Why? Does Princess Celestia not know about it?”

“She does,” Raegdan told her. “So does Luna of course. Oh, and Twilight Velvet knows too.”

It took Twilight a moment of stunned daze to place the name she knew since forever. “Mom? Mom knows? What did she do?”

“What do you think she did? She beat the crap out of me. Your mom went freaking crazy after I told her. Don’t ask me why I did, I’m just a moron like that sometimes. Two seconds after I’m done she’s trying to kick me to death and breaks my arm, the minute after she cries her eyes out. I try to calm her down, she almost kills me again, and then she hugs me hard enough to suffocate me and finish the job. I don’t know. She’s crazy. All in all, I think she doesn’t put a lot of blame on me for what followed. Most of it, but not entirely all of it.”

He turned his gaze back to Twilight. “She said I turned back, and that’s important. That I tried. That the rest wasn’t... We agreed to disagree.”

“Can you tell us?”

He turned to Solid Charge instead. “What do you say? Do you think I should tell you about the absolute worst experience of my life? Is that what it would take for you to take my side when you talk to Celestia?”

Solid Charge ran his thick hand down his short beard a couple of times. “I think whether you speak of it or not will be more telling than anything it could be about.”

Raegdan paused, and what they could see of his face went blank and drained of color. His eyes flickered between Twilight and Pinkie Pie. Twilight had a moment of understanding. He didn’t expect to actually have to tell this part. He probably expected them to grant him his request to skip it because of their reaction to what he had told them so far.

“We’re waiting,” Solid Charge said with a restrained smile. The former soldier had probably come to the same conclusion as Twilight, and he wasn’t willing to be too soft towards Raegdan.

The alien among them started fidgeting once more, busying himself with minor details on his person. Twilight and the rest didn’t push him. They let him think and decide for himself what he wanted to do.

Raegdan took a deep breath, and his hand reached for the remainder of his ring. His fingers rubbed it, caressed it almost, with care before letting it dangle from the string. He lifted it up, letting everypony get a good look at it.

“That was a gift from my mother. It wasn’t something special before I got it. We were passing a trinket shop when I was young, it attracted my attention, and she had some spare money so she decided to buy it for me. It was a spur of the moment present. It was cheap, but I held onto it. For some reason it was always worth more than anything else I ever received in my life. It’s the only thing from home I have left, and it survived the journey about as well as I have.”

He slowly looped the string around his finger as he talked, shortening its length, and brought it in front of his eyes. “It means-” He stopped abruptly, momentarily closing his eyes in a flinch of pain. “ It meant so much to me, not only because it’s all I have left. It’s- It was a promise, that one day I’d go back. It was my burden, but it was also the source of my strength.” His lips twisted in the bitter facsimile of a smile. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised it turned into my doom.”

He closed his fist around it, hiding it from view. Rainbow Dash, who had been leaning closer as Raegdan talked, shook herself as she pulled herself back looking apologetically around her.

“I’ve come to realize, ever since I arrived here, that what I was doing during my... “travels” was wrong in many ways,” he confessed. “I still believe that what I did kept me alive. Even when I was being cruel when not needing to, it saved my life. All it would take to kill me was a moment of weakness at the wrong time. Especially mercy or kindness, to others or myself. That’s why I didn’t hold back from doing whatever I needed to get us, or just me, home as soon as possible. Not only because I wanted us to go back as soon as possible, but also because each day out there was another chance for us, or me, to die. I wanted to go home. That’s all I wanted. If it took leaving a road made of corpses behind me to get there… then I’d do it.”

His eyes met the eyes of everypony in the room one by one. “You can’t understand how someone would be willing to be so harsh, even for the sake of reaching of his home. Of course you can’t. Has any one of you ever felt real starvation? Hunger pangs so painful, the need to eat something so powerful, you’d gladly kill someone for the meat on his bones? Has any of you been so exhausted you honestly believe the effort for another step might kill you, yet still push on because to stop certainly would? Have you laid sick in a ditch, feverish and in agony, praying you won’t die there, cold and alone in a hole in the ground? No. You’ve got your homes. You’ve got your friends and families. You’ve never lost more than two meals in a row at most. You don’t know what it means to desperately want just one more breath, nor the depths you’d sink into for it. I wanted my home back. I wanted to stop knowing these things too.”

He turned towards Twilight, struggling for a few seconds before managing to ask his question. “How many people do you think I’ve killed Twilight?”

Twilight froze. What the- how do you answer something like that? She needed more data, and they didn’t even have a solid idea of how long he had been travelling, or the ratio of populated worlds to empty ones, or… Should she lowball or answer with brutal honesty? She tried to think rationally. She knew of eighteen ponies he had killed before today, add in the griffins today -this is the worst math ever- and…

“Dozens?” Twilight said, hiding behind what could be a technically right answer.

Raegdan shook his head softly, causing Twilight to gulp. She knew it couldn’t have been right. Nightmare Moon had killed thousands by her hooves alone, nevermind what her nightmares, and food shortages due to the uneven day and night cycle caused. Princess Celestia had told her enough to expect something similar. She had hoped she had been exaggerating, but-

“That hair belonged to a little girl that shouldn’t have died. She was mine, and I got her killed.”

Rarity interrupted him from saying anymore. “We don’t have to revisit these kind of personal memories. If you don’t mind I have some other questions of my own instead-”

“I want to hear this Rarity,” Twilight said. “Let him continue.”

Rarity brought her muzzle right on top of Twilight’s ear so she could whisper as low as possible. “He adopted a little girl and she died. What more could you possibly wish to know Twilight?”

Twilight whispered back to Rarity’s own white ear. “I wish to know what happened to a little girl that could have been a sister to me if she had lived.”

Rarity pulled back, looking sadly between Twilight and Raegdan. “Forgive me,” she backpedalled after a few moments of hesitation. “Perhaps I spoke too soon. Carry on.”

“No,” Raegdan said, shaking his linen covered head. He pointed towards the door with his right arm. “All of you, except Twilight and those three… out. Now.”

Applejack protested. “Hey big fella, no need for that. We told you we ain’t-”

“I’m not continuing with you five in the room. I don’t think Twilight will agree not to hear this part,” he stopped and looked hopefully at Twilight who shook her head negatively. “But I can spare the rest of you from this. Out. Now.”

“You do know they’re going to wait for me to tell them everything, right?” Twilight asked. She didn’t really see the point of this. She was going to tell the girls. She was more determined than ever to not let secrets get in between her and her friends.

“Your choice. Maybe you won’t be so determined when you have to tell this story to little pink yourself,” Raegdan answered, examining the remnant of his ring and avoiding looking at her once more.

“Not really. Pinkie Pie is a lot more durable than you think, and far more stubborn than you can imagine.” Twilight sat back on her short chair.

“I know,” Raegdan admitted. “She reminds me of her you know. So do you and Spike. Little flame reminds me of her a lot actually. Especially how he believes… Don’t tell him any of this, please. He’s too young, but even so I think it might be better if he never knew.”

“You’ll have to tell me the story before I can decide. Can you continue now?”

“Famous last words…” Raegdan said before doing as she asked. He took a deep breath first, and his eyes sunk into Twilight’s before letting the air escape. “I haven’t killed dozens. I’ve killed more. Way more. I don’t know how many. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t count them. Too many lost memories, too many things I don’t trust in my head. I think I know enough to make a good guess though. Not dozens. Not hundreds. Not thousands. I’m responsible for the death of millions, of my kind or others. Where are you going Twilight?”

The unicorn looked down at her legs. She was surprised to see she had gotten up from her seat and was retreating towards the door. She tried to remember when exactly she had moved, but all she could think of, all she could hear in her mind was the word “millions”, repeated over and over.

She forced herself to sit back down, choking back the bitter words she wanted to cry out. It shouldn’t be that many, it could never be that many, not unless… not unless…

He was trying to kill as many as possible…

“Go- go on,” Twilight managed to utter. She deliberately kept herself from giving even the slightest glance to everypony else in the room. She would lose the little control she kept herself under if she did, and run out. She was grateful the girls weren’t here after all. She didn’t want to see Pinkie Pie looking at Raegdan with betrayal in her face. She didn’t want to see Applejack doubting herself for looking after a- a- a… Fluttershy would be white as a sheet, she knew, as would Rarity. And Rainbow Dash, loyal Rainbow Dash, who only minutes ago declared to follow the princesses’ lead… how would she feel about her former attitude now?

She didn’t want to find out. She kept her eyes on the floor instead, like a coward.

“You don’t like what you heard, I get it. It’s natural I guess. Millions dead for the desire of one person. It sounds horrible,” the bodiless voice agreed. “It is. But it was my desire Twilight. It was my life. My life and those of my friends over that of strangers. It was an easy choice. I killed a few at the beginning. Then a few more. Then more. It became easier. Not only in how I learned to do it, but… When you have killed a hundred, what is one more? Then you have killed thousands, and these hundred people don’t matter that much. Then there’s a city, and thousands live in it, but how can you tell yourself to stop when you’ve killed far more? It would be… a waste. Just a bit more each day, justified by the multitude before. There were excuses at first of course. Need. Revenge. Not wanting to make all that death have been for nothing. Until I simply stopped bothering to do even that. You don’t need a reason to justify breathing. Either I killed them, or something else would some other day. They had their fair chance to stop me anyway. All it would take was to kill me first. It’s not my fault I was better at it. They were only pavestones on the road. Who counts how many of them you step on?”

“You didn’t care? Millions dead, and you didn’t care?” Twilight asked, overwhelmed.

“What for? Would that make them feel better? All warm inside? Ponies die every day. Do you care about every single one of them that dies?”

“That’s different! I’m not responsible for somepony’s death,” Twilight answered, becoming indignant.

“And I was? I didn’t choose this. What was I supposed to do? Abandon my home? Choose a world at random, and stay there, struggling each day to survive, alone and with no purpose? Or should I simply kill myself? Was that a better option? Was that the right, moral thing to do?”

“Why not?” Solid Charge retorted, getting in the way and giving Twilight a chance to absorb what she heard. “You stopped looking for your own world, and stayed here. You could have done that long before.”

Raegdan shook his head. “Never. It wasn’t possible back then. I wanted my home back, and nothing would change my mind. I had lost too much, and I don’t mean just my world, my family, and my friends.” He tapped at his head and then his heart. “I’m not completely unaware.”

“Not now perhaps,” Solid Charge said thoughtfully. He rubbed at his eyes with a huffed sound of annoyance. “Princess Celestia should have gotten someone trained for this, not a disgruntled grunt… Alright, see, I’m having trouble connecting even you with what you describe. First of all, you’ve never shown any inclination to leave from what I’ve seen and heard. Secondly, I can’t see you killing that many while you could avoid it. Mostly because even though I don’t think you’d feel particularly concerned about killing any number of ponies, or people, or whatever, I think that you’d know it was wrong to do so if it wasn’t to protect yourself or others.” Solid Charge nodded slightly towards Twilight. “The person you’re describing doesn’t. And yet you chose to stop here of all places. What happened?”

“The girl happened.”

“The one that died. She changed your mind?”

“She tried. She might have made it without me going off the deep end given some more time.”

“But you still-”

“Yes. Only barely, but I changed. It cost her life, it cost me what was left of my soul, and it cost others so much more, but I did change a sliver. She lived in a city full of people like me. They were trying to survive in a world that was trying to kill them, and they did, working all together. There were cities of them spread around and isolated from each other, citadels that kept them safe from the monsters outside. Until I got in.

She was six when I brought their city down. I destroyed their walls. I took away their defenses, and the monsters outside rushed in to devour them. I’m not sure how many lived there. Half a million at least I’d guess, but that number meant nothing. A water drop in a lake. I already knew the best way to completely destroy their city you see. I had done the same to two others before that one. I don’t know how many survived. In the long term, probably none. In the short term… It was her brother who saved her. He begged me to help the two of them while holding her in his arms. He was only a teenager himself. He said I owed him, and I did in some way. I didn’t want that, I didn’t want to owe anyone anything. So I told him to follow while their home burned around me. He carried his sister in his arms, and came along.

A few days later I beat him to near death and left him to die alone in the snow. His last words weren’t for me to spare him, but a plea to keep his sister alive.”

A chair screeched painfully in Twilight’s ears as its owner pushed it back and away from the greatest monster they had ever heard of.

The chair across Twilight creaked ominously. Her eyes darted up for an instant to see Solid Charge watch the thing on the bed skeptically. “Before you continue, I have a question,” the minotaur said. “These people… what was their crime? Why did you kill all of them?”

“I needed a diversion. There were monsters outside the walls. The fastest way to travel was to make sure the monsters wouldn’t bother with me, and they didn’t, not when they had a greater meal set out for them. I could have reached the rift through other means perhaps, but it would take me weeks or months to get ready, never mind how slow I’d be forced to travel.”

A low rumbling sounded from deep inside the minotaur’s throat. “Thousands dead to shave off time that didn’t matter. Huh. You know this was wrong. My question is; Did you know it was wrong then?” Seconds passed slowly with no answer. “I asked, did you-”

“I don’t know. If I did, I certainly didn’t care.”

“But you do know now.” The chair creaked once more, and the minotaur’s shadow on the floor shortened. Twilight speculated he had leaned towards Raegdan, but didn’t move her eyes upward to make sure. She kept her eyes on the floor, concentrating on her breathing. “So tell me, how did that change occur?”

“Simple. I became worse.”

I walk in a steady, constant pace. My legs know the right rhythm without any conscious control from me. It’s the perfect speed that allows me to watch around me without missing anything, walk for hours without tiring too much, and will make sure I cross as much distance as possible. I follow the singing in my head. This is the one, I can feel it. I’m almost home.

The child still hasn’t learned or doesn’t care. She drives me furious. She runs ahead, stops to smell flowers she has seen a thousand times before, or stays too far in the back if something catches her eye, too curious for her own good. She always has to hurry in a dead run to catch up. She will soon exhaust herself, and then I’ll have to carry her again. I’ll be forced to slow down. My teeth grind against each other as I fight against the urge to smack her. She hasn’t learned yet, despite being years with me.

I force my fist to unclench. She has rushed into a copse of trees, getting out my line of sight. I slow down. I don’t hear anything. I doubt there are animals of any danger nesting in there. I wait for a few minutes to make sure nothing attacks her, and I do a quick circle looking for anything dangerous. She’s safe. I carry on, leaving glaring tracks behind me.

She calls for me about half an hour later, looking ready to drop down from exhaustion as she runs towards me.

“Daddy!”

“I’m not your father,” I mumble through my unmoving lips. She refuses to learn almost everything of real importance I try to teach her, but nothing as much as this.

“You- you walk too fast,” she complains again, laughing. Always laughing, always smiling. She can barely breathe, and I see how she holds her side, but her giggles won’t stop. She’ll need to rest again. I shake my canteen next to her, reminding her to drink some water and cool down.

She takes my water in her small hands eagerly. “Thank you,” she says, and drinks. She almost gulps it all down in one go, but after a guilty look towards me she tilts it down and switches to small sips, spaced out evenly.

Look at that. She can be taught after all.

“I brought you something I found daddy,” she says. She opens her own backpack, and lets me see the berries she piled inside.

I frown, ready to get angry again. “Did you eat any of these?”

“Nope,” she says with a toothy smile. “I waited for you to say it’s ok. Is it ok dad?” She is so full of hope that she will get rewarded for following the most simple of directions. As if basic competency should be commended.

I give her none of this. I simply pat her on the head and mess her hair a bit to annoy her, but it doesn’t faze her. Her smile has gotten even wider if possible. What the hell is wrong with this kid? How can she feel happy out here? Just how fucked up has she become?

I take one of the berries and bring it in front of my nose. I’m not sure if they are edible or not. I can’t tell if I’ve seen them before, but I have figured ways to deal with a spotty memory. I inhale its scent, and keep it so close to my mouth I can almost taste it, and crush it among my fingers. I keep my eyes closed, letting my sense of smell flood me. I know with utmost certainty that the berry is safe to eat, and extremely sweet. When did I happen upon this berry before? I abandon the question as soon as it is formed. I won’t remember. I have more important things in my mind.

“It’s fine to eat. You did well. Can you keep walking?”

“Can we stop and rest?” she begs. “I’m hungry. Can we eat and have some of the berries?”

I search around. There are no people here from what I’ve seen, but I won’t risk it. It’s bad habit anyway. I feel like I’ve been operating solely through habits and routine since forever. There is a tree with enough thick and dense branches to disperse small traces of smoke and the ground dips down enough to hide the campfire from view. This will do. I take her in my arms and carry her there.

Another half hour later the girl is asleep with her head on my leg, too tired and her stomach too full to keep awake. I wanted us to cover more ground before stopping. I haven’t been satisfied with my progress ever since this stupid weight has climbed on my shoulders.

I could leave right now. I could leave, and I’d be home in mere days instead of babysitting this useless creature.

The girl shivers and scoots closer to me, trying to warm herself through my body heat. I throw more wood into the fire to quiet her down, and cover her with both our blankets.

The weather’s getting cold. I need to find something large and furry to kill. It looks like I’ll not be going home for a few weeks yet. She’ll need something to protect her from the weather, lest she gets sick again. I only stop to pick up one more berry before I head into the nearby forest to hunt for food and new clothing for her. Perhaps I should try to make a pair of moccasins too. Her feet must be getting cold in that rugged pair.

The berry is delicious. I wonder why she wastes so much time looking for them though. She barely touches them. I swear, sometimes I doubt whether she’s even capable of intelligent thought.

I jump down first, landing as softly as I can. I land on my feet and let my body fold till my hands reach the ground, absorbing some of the impact. My shotgun is back in my grip in seconds, and I wait, legs ready to launch me aside, for anything that might have heard me. I wait for two whole minutes, standing still while I search the ruins of the city around me for movement. It’s clear for now.

I let the gun hang from its strap and turn around. My tongue strikes against the roof of my mouth twice, making a barely perceptible sound. The girl recognizes the signal, and comes out from her hiding spot to walk to the edge of the fallen building. She jumps and I catch her. I don’t put her on the ground straight away.

“Are you ok little one?” I breathe.

“Yeah. Can we hurry up dad? This place scares me,” she answers back the same way. She doesn’t whisper, just like I taught her. Whispers carry too far. I nod and put her down gently.

I pause for a second before I turn around and get back on our way. Strange. She’s a liability. A weight. An anchor that should be dropped the instant she starts to delay me too much. Sometimes though… sometimes… I rub my chest with one hand. It feels warm. It has been doing that for a long time. I hope I haven’t picked up an infection. It’s the absolutely last thing I need.

She’s right though. We need to hurry. Coming here was a risk, but our find gave us a great opportunity. The sun is on its way to set, leaving long dark shadows of the tall collapsed buildings around us. I can see why she’s afraid, though she has no idea how bad it could really have been.

“Look around the rubble, search for any metal signs with words painted on them. We need to find out which street this was,” I tell her. She nods and carefully makes her way across the broken street while I keep guard. It’s too quiet. The wind died down an hour ago. I wish it will pick up again. It made it hard to hear anyone sneaking up to us, but it helped mask our presence, and frankly I’d rather go for a little more help at this area.

The little one runs up to me holding a battered blue rectangle. “Is this it?” she asks full of excitement.

I memorize the painted characters that I assume are the street’s name and I smile at her. I check the faded city map we found. We’re here so… I take my backpack off and take out the second find that brought us here. A phone book. I leaf through the pages until I find what I wanted. I don’t know the written language, but it’s easy enough to find and match the characters, and the advertisements help me find exactly what I want. There was a gun shop right on the street next to this one. A small one, but it might have ammo left.

“Almost there little one. Just around the corner.” I nod for her to follow behind me.

We climb over the remains of vehicles and fallen building walls. This was a small city -or so it would be on my own world. I hope it’s this way here too. It might not have been looted completely.

Noise. Voices. Shouts and threats. Pleading. Crying.

Someone around the corner is going to die. A child starts crying. I hear guns slide bullets into chambers. Both sides have weapons then. I look at my own weapon. I have eight shells left. I grin listening to this gift that has fallen in my lap. All I have to do is wait, kill the victors, and I’ll have not just ammo, but a spare gun or two. A little extra never hurt.

The girl pulls at my hand. I lean down so she can speak in my ear.

“They have little kids dad,” she says. I frown in confusion. So what? Even I have one of these.

“So?”

“Help them!” she says, urging me towards the escalating confrontation.

“Why?” I ask, genuinely flabbergasted.

“Because you can. Please.”

I shake my head at her. More stupid ideas. I wonder where she gets them from.

“Aragorn would have helped them,” she challenges.

“Go get him then.” Me. She gets them from me. Fantastic. What the hell was I thinking? I ignore her and return my attention to the situation beyond my sight. It isn’t going well for me. I have heard these begging tones before. The group with the kids probably offers to surrender their possessions in exchange for their lives. Damn it, I was hoping they could do most of the work for me. If I had more shells for the shotgun I might have tried to swoop in and kill all of them. Now we will have to hide and wait for this to blow over.

Something falls apart next to me in a loud cacophony. I turn and see the girl grinning up to me, a piece of the asphalt she was standing on now in pieces and far below the edge of where we stand. I drown the growl that rises up my throat. This stupid piece of-

Voices scream at us, and a warning shot is fired in the air. Footsteps start speeding towards our direction.

Fucking great. I roughly shove the girl towards a hiding place, and I jump over a broken wall. If I was alone I could lose them. Not an option now. I hope the other guys will be able to get a hold of their own weapons and know what’s good for them. I’ll need some covering fire when things really heat up. Let’s see if I can get the jump on one of them first. I keep a hand over my knife, getting ready. I’ll need every single shell.

The little leech falls down, bleeding from her mouth and nose. If she thinks I’m done she is far more of a moron she proved herself to be. I pull her up by the hair, only to give her another slap so hard she can’t help but fall down again.

I’m not done. Not even close. I kick her like a ball.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I shout. She just had to- I’m barely holding myself from choking the life out of her. “You promised you’d never do that again!”

“They had a baby with them,” she manages among her cries.

“So what? They had a baby, they were going to be eaten by monsters, they are defenseless… do you think this is a game? Do you think I’m in the mood to hear more of your fucking stupid excuses when you force me to endanger our lives? And for what? A baby? Now we’re defenseless. We have no ammo left. It’s all gone so you could pretend that we’re some kind of heroes!”

“But you saved them,” she cries, snot and blood all over her face. “You did it daddy. You saved them all.”

“Yeah. Look where that left us. They got out free and safe with all the loot, and what do we end up with? Even less than we started with.” I kick her in the stomach one more time. “So fucking stupid!”

She keeps talking even through her pain and tears. “We can go find the shop and get more bullets…”

I stand over her. She shields herself with her little arms as much as she can, but I don’t hit her this time. “You think this makes up for your stupidity? We don’t know if there will be any. What was the point of this? Can you explain this at least? What the hell were you fucking thinking?”

“They had a baby,” she screams frustrated at me.

“I don’t fucking care!” I roar back.

“Heroes in your stories care. I want my dad to be a hero!”

“This is not a story, and I’m not a hero!”

“Then what are you?”

I pause. “I’m definitely not your father, and you will stop calling me that.”

“If you’re not a monster then don’t act like one.” She clamps her mouth closed with her hands as soon as she utters these words. I don’t move. If I do, I might just hit her too hard this time, and I don’t have medical supplies to waste by breaking these pathetic limbs of hers.

“I’m sorry,” she begs, crying even harder now.

“I should have killed you right after I killed your brother,” I answer in a hiss.

She doesn’t like being reminded of that. Her hand catches a small piece of broken stone and throws it at me. Too close and too fast to avoid it. It hits me dead center in the chest. It doesn’t hurt that much.

But something breaks underneath my clothes.

I fish out the thread I had looped around my ring so I could keep it around my neck. There’s nothing hanging from it. I pull up my clothes and with a metal pinging sound two small pieces fall down.

I’m moving fast, as fast as I used to. I covered more distance in a few hours than I used to cover in a single day ever since I got saddled with that leech. No more however. No more. I’m free, and home is just days away.

Thank heavens for morons. I can’t believe they actually agreed to take her in. She had no idea how lucky she was of course. If they hadn’t agreed I might have just dragged her away from them and killed her. Maybe I should have. Piece of shit broke my ring. What am I going to tell my mom when I see her? What if she thinks I didn’t care enough to safeguard the only memento I had of her while I was gone?

Damn, did that little girl scream though. She held onto my hand like an vice, practically hanging herself from it. She was going to try and follow me if I hadn’t broken her ankle. That ought to keep her away from me long enough so I can get home without her. She still screamed as I left, as if I was stupid enough to go back and get her.

Still, something she said sounded familiar. What was it? Eh, she didn’t say much. She was just begging. I repeat the words in my mind, mockingly. Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t leave me alon-

Oh.

My legs lock and refuse to budge.

It doesn’t change things. She broke my ring. It was all-

“Don’t leave me alone! You’re all I have daddy! Please, don’t leave me alone!”

-I have.

I am all she has?

She- that can’t be right, she can’t have really- I remember when I first took her in, how scared she was of me, how she kept away from me. She hated me. She was terrified of me!

Until she wasn’t. She kept sleeping practically on top of me later on, didn’t she? Even when it wasn’t cold. Whenever I was injured… she cried. She cried while she was fine and unharmed, she cried because… because I was injured. She asked me for stories. Whenever we stopped to rest, she sat on my legs-

She called me dad.

I wanted to go back to my family.

She called me dad.

I wanted my family back. People who loved me.

I hit her. I hit her and she always-

I abandoned her.

Just like they did.

She kept trying to make me out some kind of hero. I wasn’t and despite her attempts I would never be. But she still believed in me for some reason. She hadn’t stopped. They had, but she didn’t.

She still… loves me.

She has no home. She isn’t just lost, her home is gone. I… destroyed it. I killed her family, and she… she loves me despite the misery I caused her.

I’m all she has.

She was the only one I had. The only one I had left, and I abandoned her. What did I do that for? A ring? A trinket? I left behind the only person I cared about for- for a-

...What the hell did I do?

I run back.

There’s a chair outside the room. I drag it in and I sit with my chest facing the back of the chair. I like it better this way. I like to have something to support my arms. I’ve left my backpack and my gun outside. I didn’t feel like carrying it. It’s safe in here for now anyway.

There’s a sheet on the floor.

I look outside the window. It’s closed, but like everything else here, it’s broken. I can see outside through the holes in the rotten wood. More ruins. Nothing but ruins. Everything is broken. Everything. The night sky is clear, and the shapes in the horizon as far as I can see have no signs of the swarms, but everything is still broken. There’s nothing left whole. Everything has broken.

There’s a sheet on the floor. One part of it is drenched in blood.

At the edge of the window I spot a tiny hole. Fresh. A pellet must have ended there. I think I can see something shining dully in there. She must have tried to head for the window. Go through it, and find a place to hide. Just like I told her to do so many times before.

Blonde hair mixed with blood, and fragments of brain and bone crawl from beneath the sheet.

I was one hour too late. Just one hour. I was too far. I had gone too far in too short a time. If I had been closer I might have realized they were being attacked. I wasn’t, and I didn’t. Now there’s nothing but a sheet on the floor.

Why did I even come back? What was the point? What did I expect? To take her back as if nothing happened after I betrayed her? That she would forgive me and-

She would have forgiven me. I know she would have. She always did.

I put my hand in one of my pockets and take out the ring pieces. Back to this again. All that remains in the end is this. This, and the voice in my head. It calls on me to stop delaying. If something else goes through I might lose my chance to go home forever.

I shut it out.

Perhaps I should have listened to her. Perhaps there really is no way back home. An eye for an eye. The world hurt you. Hurt it back. It was the only true justice that existed. There’s only one way to make it fair, just like she said.

There’s a sheet on the floor. It covers something very small. Too small. Was she really this small? I lean down without getting up from the chair and lift it up enough to get a look. There’s nothing to see. There’s nothing left. No pain I guess. Except for the one I caused her.

I let the sheet fall back on the floor.

Am I supposed to do something now? She’s dead. I’m supposed to mourn, am I not? I’m supposed to cry. To grieve. I should say something. A goodbye perhaps, but there’s nothing. I feel nothing. I know that I should, but there’s nothing to feel. I can feel the cold air, and I can smell the blood, but that’s it. I feel more annoyed that I don’t feel something, rather for her being dead. Though… why should I? What’s the point? There’s nothing left. It’s all gone. Shattered in pieces. Broken.

In the end of it all she had just been a nuisance. A constant delay, no more important than a round piece of metal. She was company, but that’s it. Our time together came and passed. She didn’t mean as much as I thought before. Old sentimentalities. They still have a small hold on me it seems. A weakness I’ve yet to rip out entirely.

She was a threat. A problem. I remember all the times she got in my way, the thousand ways she delayed me, the constant criticism of my ways of making sure she fucking survived! I might have shot her myself before very long if this continued.

I tap my fingers against the back of the chair. There should be something anyhow. Tell her corpse that I loved her? It is false, and I don’t want to say this. I don’t know why, but it would be wrong to tell this obvious lie. Something. There is something I have to do. I just need to figure it out.

There’s a sheet on the floor. It is my only audience as I do the only thing I can think of. She loved this one. Perhaps this will be enough to remove any feelings of owing anything to this cancer. I think someone said death is like sleep. It’s not, but I’m out of ideas.

“Once upon a time, there was a hole in the ground where a hobbit lived. It wasn’t a dirty hole, or a narrow hole, or a dark hole. It was a hobbit hole, and that meant it was clean, and full of light and comfort...”

It’s taking me hours to finish. I stop too often to take a deep breath. This place chokes me. The story ends at last. There’s something else to do, isn’t there? One more thing, and then I can be on my way at last. Right, of course. I saw someone holding a shovel outside. He’ll give it to me.

The old man falls dead. There’s something bubbling in my chest, something hard, something cruel, something full of rage. Something that wants to make this broken world hurt. Make everything hurt. Make it fair.

“You were supposed to keep her alive!” it roars again.

Save the bullets if you can. The three pieces of meat at the back looking at you have weapons. Shoot them before the shock fades and they fire back. This one wants to try to wrestle the rifle from you. Hit him with it, knock him back, then trip him. Kick hard right there, dig your heel in. Back broken. Let him watch. Laugh in his face. Leave him for last. Make him watch you burn everything he has known.

Men run to you and away from you. They die. Their hands shake. Yours don’t. Kill them. Kill them all. No one left. No. A lie. In the houses. These are not proper doors. They break easily. Broken remnants of a broken world. Women come every time. They hold clubs, knives, their hands, calls for mercy. No bullets. Save them for other targets. Use knife. Use hands. Smash heads against walls. Break necks. Strangle them. Women dead. Crying. Smaller meat pieces. Easy to find. Easier to kill.

Go outside. Search. Kick the last one until it stops crying, until it dies. Nothing left. No. No, you are not done yet. They were supposed to keep her alive. There are others. East. Away from singing. The others came from there. The ones that shot her.

Find them. Kill them. Kill them all. They killed her. Find them, bring them pain. Kill them slow. Make them scream, make them beg. You have time. You have all the time in the world. Give it to them. Give them as much as you can. Show them everything you’ve learned. Torture is too small a word for what will happen to them. They shot her. They killed her.

They were supposed to keep her alive.

Make it fair.

Keep one alive. Only long enough to ask questions. Killed so many, hard to find more now. Doesn’t know. Useless. Make him scream first. Make him scream hard. Another scream. Not his. Trapdoor beneath rug. Uncover. Meat begs no. Kick it, break jaw. Laugh at it. Make it fear. Make it know cruelty. Make it know how worlds work.

Women and smaller meat. They look up. They take small ones to chest, cover with own bodies. Wood. This is all made of wood. Don’t waste bullets. Not many left to kill here. Must go elsewhere. Follow singing now. Kick broken meat into room below. Push weight on it. A lot of weight. Fire always easy to start. Screams echo until you are too far to hear.

Go elsewhere. Don’t stop. Never stop.

Read texts. They don’t know how to read this anymore. You do. Takes long time to understand, time spent not killing. Worth it later on. Never used it. They wrote down code. Just in case. Idiots. Now you use it. Months spent to find and get in. Time where they got ready for you. Not ready enough. Timer programmed, keys turned. Push it outside. Carry it if you have to.

Give it to them. Weave lies, make it valuable. Make them take it, make them want it. Convince them the monster won’t come for them as long as they hold on to it. Digits count down where they don’t see. Don’t care to see. They got softer. Think you stopped. Wait until out of sight. Run. Run fast and don’t stop.

Days later. Hope far enough to make sure before going through. See flash coming from behind. Wait a second, then turn. Mushroom rises on the horizon. Not the first. Not the last. All dead. Two cities, last cities, last ones. Gone now. The first is gone in the flash. The other is close enough. They’ll die painfully, screaming.

This world is fair.

Go through. Go elsewhere. Don’t stop. You can’t stop. You won’t stop.

Another city. This one they built for you. They fear the monster that kills them. There are other monsters here too, but fear this more. This one hunts them down. This one they can’t stop. They had technology. You learned it. You used it. You killed them with it. You lead one side against another. They trusted the alien in their war. You promised them death of their enemies. You delivered. Not the way they wanted. All sides dead. Only this city left. Always one city left, always one last holdout, one last hope. Snuff it out like the rest.

They let you in. You look like them enough. Same shape. Hide under cloak, they don’t see. They always expect their end to be terror incarnate in form. Laughable. They click and squeak in fear. You are in. Many of them, but weak. Heart down in belly. Easy target. Soft skull. Die like babies. Now only you, now you work with hands. Fun part begins.

Heavy gates. Work with machines. First target. Wait until night, kill guards, break machines. Do same at every gate. Lock them in here with you. Could take months to kill all. Don’t care. They drink and eat. Lock them in. Destroy food. Poison water. Take their hope. Give fear. Sow panic. Ruin everything. Break it.

Watch them kill each other. Help them. Clear heads try to settle them, to stop them from doing your work. They die in the night. Corpses found at morning in pieces. Fear wins. They’re terrorized. They think each other is you. Once again they kill each other. Good. Wasted little time here in the end. Can go elsewhere now. No more farms left. No more villages. No more cities. Killed them all. Not enough. Never enough.

Won’t stop until it’s fair.

Place waste of time. Meat knew you were coming. Killed themselves. Feared you’d ask them if there are more. They’re afraid of questions. Were right. No one up. No one down. Still check rooms. One might still be alive, hiding. Can’t let it. Wouldn’t be fair. Check this room.

There’s a sheet on the floor.

Why is there a sheet on the floor? You didn’t… it’s small. It’s very small. Knew you were coming, killed themselves, covered one of them with sheet? Why? Doesn’t make sense. Doesn’t matter. No one alive here. Go next. Kill them all.

Blonde hair crawls from beneath the sheet.

No.

Stop. Don’t approach. Don’t kneel down. Don’t lift sheet. Dead. Shot on head. While trying to climb window. She couldn’t run fast enough. You broke her ankle. Left her alone. She died. You were all she had, she was all you had, and you killed her.

This isn’t her.

This is her. It’s always her. You killed her.

No, you didn’t. This isn’t her. This is another. You didn’t kill the other one. The little one. They did. They all did! They were supposed to keep her alive! They owed him. They killed him in the snow, left him there to die, and stole from his sister her world and family. They were supposed to-

You were.

I was.

I was supposed to keep her alive.

This isn’t her. This isn’t her. She’s dead. She cried for me, and I let her die. I abandoned her. She loved me. I let her die. I was supposed to keep her alive. I let her die. She was so little. She sat on my legs. I kept my arm around her waist to keep her steady and warm. She called me dad. I let her die.

Did I feel anything? Was she important to me? Did I love her back?

I…

I think I did. In some part I did. No. This is stupid. I couldn’t love her. I hated her, I despised her. I couldn’t love anyone. If you love them, then they die or... leave you… What did I do? I let her die thinking I never loved her because I was scared? What the hell did I-

There’s a sheet on the floor.

She’s small. So small. Small as her. She’s a little girl. A child. I didn’t kill this one, but I might as well have. I killed others. I killed so many others.

I killed children.

I was killing families.

Mothers.

Children.

Just like my little one.

I killed my little one.

I killed this one.

No.

No, no, no, no, no, nononononononononononono, NO!

Screaming. I can’t breathe, I can’t stop screaming, I keep screaming, there’s a sheet on the floor and I can’t stop screaming.

I killed her.

I killed all of them.

What the hell did I do?

I’m outside. I ran outside, still screaming, I don’t know when, but I did. I look around. Nothing but corpses. Everyone’s dead. How many did I kill? How long was I doing this? Children. I was killing children. I was killing families. Little girls playing in the sun. Little boys running after each other. I killed them. I killed them and I laughed. I enjoyed every second of it!

I was killing children before, wasn’t I? I always was. She was forcing me to stop and I… Children. They were innocent. What was I doing? Someone killed his young child rather than risk me getting near her. That child was killed by someone she loved, and the cause was me. I killed children. I let children die. I always let the children die. They were dying, and I didn’t care. No wonder they left me. No wonder she was trying to change me. She loved me. She loved me and she called me dad. She thought of me as her dad!

No child wants her dad to be a monster.

But I was.

I was a monster.

I’m a monster. I’ve always been a monster.

There’s something on my face. Something wrong with my eyes, something… It’s- it’s tears? I’m crying? I didn’t believe I could. I don’t know how long it has been, how many years have passed, but I’m crying at last. For her. I mourn for her. My chest feels like it’s being shredded. I thought I knew pain. I thought I knew agony. I knew nothing! I lost her. I lost her. She’s gone, and even if I search through infinity I’ll never find her again. She’s gone forever. There’s no rift to take me to her.

I want her back. I want her to sit on my legs and tell her a story. I want her to hug my neck, and hang on me while I put her next to the fire to sleep. I want her to ride on my shoulders like she did when she was too tired. I want to hear her laugh. I want her to ask me her endless questions. I want my little one back.

She’s never coming back. I’m never getting her back. I threw her away, and in her last moments she called for me. I wasn’t there. I abandoned her. She died believing I hated her. She died, and I turned her into a reason for more children to die.

I still have a gun. There’s one round in the chamber.

This time I’ll be a hero. For her.

Heroes kill monsters.

The metal of the gun tastes like absolution.

I loved you little one.

I’m sorry.

Ch.22 - Foregone conclusion

Twilight didn’t bother with a glass. She drank straight from the faucet, gurgled the water, and spit it back out. Some of the foul taste left her mouth. She repeated the process two more times. Her stomach quivered. It was still spasming, even though there was nothing left to throw up. Her eyes stung with tears, but she held them back. If she started crying she wouldn’t stop.

She had some questions, but she didn’t know if she wanted the answers. She didn’t want to go back into that room, not yet.

That poor girl.

Her poor brother.

These poor people.

Princess Celestia was right. Raegdan was a demon, but one that changed, right? She would never have suspected him being able to do these things, not even at his worst. Never mind the millions of dead… did they even happen or did he just imagine them in a state of madness? Could he really have gone on a murder spree of such proportions with no one to ever stop him?

Twilight couldn’t imagine Raegdan laying a hand on a foal, even less one that he cared about. Though… it made sense why now. The way he took care of her and Spike… was he trying to make it up for her? There was nothing he wouldn’t tolerate from either of them. Even if Twilight herself went in there and threw his precious ring away he would only look at her, tell her that what she did hurt him, and leave it at that. He only hit her once in her life, and that was so he could stop her from mistakenly killing Pinkie Pie. That little slap he gave her at the cafe didn’t count. It was barely a tap.

How do you… how do you handle something like this? Maybe you can’t. Maybe it’s impossible. All you can do is judge from what you know, what you’ve seen him do. There is nothing else to judge him with. Nothing. Just his word, and is that enough? Should she lay the blame of a million deaths on him when she could never know if they truly existed?

She couldn’t tell Princess Celestia about the ponies he killed. Not yet. Not if Solid Charge decided he can trust him. Luna needs him, and even if she didn’t, that Leviathan would still be alive without Raegdan there to help her. They needed him… or she was fishing for excuses. Anything to move that day even an hour further away.

This is so confusing. She laid down on the cold tiles of the bathroom. It was so much easier when all she had to do was find the Elements and use them on the bad guy. What are you supposed to do in this kind of situation? She doubted she’d find the answer in any book no matter how much she’d search. Who else had to figure out if a loved one, who is an alien, should be held responsible for genocide, that may or may not have occurred in other dimensions that are not accessible, while in an unstable state of mind that occured exactly because of the actions he undertook and the circumstances he found himself in that you are trying to judge him for?

Her head hurt.

Twilight gathered what remained of her courage and went back outside. The others were waiting for her. She didn’t return the nods of encouragement, or questioning glances. She sat down and waited for somepony else to speak.

Solid Charge waited to see if Twilight had something to say. When she didn’t, he took the initiative instead. “What stopped you from killing yourself?”

“Something I’d like to keep private no matter what. I’m not saying more about that. Don’t ask.” Something seemed awry about Raegdan. She watched him carefully until she noticed how he breathed. Slow inhales through his nose, with long exhales through his mouth. Controlled and strictly measured. He was almost completely focused on that simple act.

“Fine,” Solid Charge agreed. “Then what happened? More travelling?”

“In a sense. I arrived here afterwards. Celestia received news about a monster in a forest. She came after me and she beat me senseless. Pure magic might not work, but she’s strong, knows more spells than anyone, and has a horn as long as a spear,” Raegdan said, tapping his chest where she knew a large circular scar was. “She didn’t end me only because I opened my big mouth. She took me to Canterlot, and that’s it.”

“I’m getting the sense that you told us nowhere near everything,” Solid Charge rumbled, tapping a finger on his lips. “How did Princess Celestia hear about you?”

“A pony went to Canterlot and told her about a monster in a nearby forest.”

Solid Charge stood up. He paced a little, thinking. Strangely, he seemed to be watching Twilight far more than Raegdan.

“Do you need to know anything more?” Raegdan asked him in a sharp tone.

“No. No, that’s enough.”

“Got enough to make your decision?”

“Not yet. You mentioned things we should know anyway. What are these?”

“Right. I forgot about that. This is about the Leviathan,” Raegdan said.

Twilight’s head rose up. “What about it? Is it still alive or are there more of them?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s dead. I’m also pretty sure there are way more of them, but that’s not what I wanted to talk about. This has to do with the reason we had to kill the Leviathan before Celestia got to it,” Raegdan explained.

“Oh, this I got to hear,” Leaf Stream said. “It’s been driving me crazy. The only reason I could come up with was that you were afraid of getting robbed of your kill.”

“Really? Huh. You weren’t far off. That’s what I was worried about at first. Still, if we couldn’t stop her we’d settle with it. No, it was because-” Raegdan paused and looked at Twilight with a melancholic smirk twisting his lips. “On second thought… let’s do some of that training Twilight talked about. Why do you think we didn’t want Celestia to reach the Leviathan?”

Leaf Stream responded with a deadpan expression. “What, we’re doing a test now? Are we going to have homework too?”

“No, but we’ll be doing a lot of field trips if this pans out. Come on. Think.”

“Oh gee, you’re bucking serious. Let’s see, uh… Princess Luna didn’t want her sister to get hurt?”

Raegdan shook his head.

Cast Iron offered a second suggestion, which actually made Twilight jump. She had forgotten the second minotaur was even here, so silent he had been the whole time.

“The rifts. You didn’t want Princess Celestia to suspect the Leviathan had come from there.”

Leaf Stream shook her right hoof in a negative while her left tapped at her chin. “No, Princess Celestia probably suspects where the Leviathans came from ever since this guy popped in. That can’t be it, and Princess Celestia fighting the Leviathan wouldn’t actually tell her anything about the rifts. The explosion. You had better explosives than you told us and didn’t want Princess Celestia to see them before you got them inside the Leviathan.”

“You’re thinking the wrong way,” Raegdan said patiently. Twilight was reminded of the old days, when he would understand a concept before she did, and instead of giving her the answer outright he would make her work for it. She had a suspicion he was doing the same thing now not just to teach them, but to take Twilight’s mind off the story he just told them. It worked good enough admittedly. Twilight was slowly being taken in by the puzzle he offered.

“Instead of trying to come up with answers, ask simple questions,” he continued instructing. “Don’t waste your time trying to conjure up with grand theories, or get lost in a web of your own making. Keep it simple. One simple question, following it to the end.”

“Simple. Right,” Leaf Stream said, thoroughly unconvinced, and still seeing the whole idea as unnecessary. “Ok, let’s try it. A simple question, huh? Hmm. Hey, grandpa, what would happen if Princess Celestia managed to get to it before the Leviathan croaked?”

“She’d fight it of course,” the minotaur answered, thinking deeply. “She’s probably try to fight it on her own first, just like Princess Luna did… Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Princess Luna express worry about that exact thing happening?”

“Hey, yeah.” Cast Iron said. “That’s exactly what she said. That Princess Celestia would try to fight it. I don’t get it, so what if Princess Celestia tried the same thing?”

Twilight added her own thoughts, keeping Raegdan’s suggestion in mind. “There are a lot of outcomes we could come up with, but the most obvious and simple ones are; either Princess Celestia failed to hurt it, just like Luna did, or-”

“Or she managed to hurt it…” Leaf Stream finished. “That doesn’t make sense! Isn’t Princess Luna supposed to be almost as strong as Princess Celestia?”

“I don’t know,” Solid Charge said, scrunching his face. “You’re the pony.”

“They are,” Twilight said. “At least, they’re supposed to, but if Luna wasn’t able to do it, then that would mean… Raegdan, that- that can’t be true, right? You’re trying to make us believe… no, you wouldn’t dive into the Leviathan’s mouth for a simple misdirection…”

“As I said, we’d tell you someday soon anyway,” Raegdan answered. He took a deep breath, and pointed at Twilight. “Good job. That wasn’t so hard if you stopped dreaming up scenarios, was it? You got it right. Here’s the truth. Twilight can beat Luna’s magic without breaking a sweat.”

“What?” Twilight yelled in complete surprise. This was a vast difference from Luna being weaker than Princess Celestia. “That’s not true! Luna’s an Alicorn. Her magic is more powerful than mine.”

“It used to,” Raegdan said, now examining the remains of his bottled juice by his bedside. “She was more powerful than you before her banishment. She could beat Celestia in a fight easily enough if she wanted, if only because she had more experience in fights. Not anymore. She still has her spells, some even better than she used to, but she no longer has the magic. She can barely hold some of them up for seconds. She can still fly as fast as she used to, at least for a while, but she has to drain her unicorn magic to bolster her pegasus magic to keep it up. She’s not even as physically strong as she used to be either. It’s all gone, and it doesn’t look like it’s coming back anytime soon.”

This couldn’t be true. Luna… weaker than her? Twilight was stronger than an Alicorn? How-

“How did this happen?” Twilight asked in shock.

His eyes flickered to her horn for a moment. “I don’t know. Her stay on the moon perhaps? Perhaps she didn’t come down whole. Maybe when you blasted her you killed more than the Nightmare. Maybe summoning the Nightmare had cost her more than she realized. Of course it might just be a matter of waiting. Maybe she’ll be back to normal in a few years, but for now…”

Twilight understood. “That’s why you didn’t want Princess Celestia to get involved. Because if she tried to hurt the Leviathan with her magic, and she managed to pierce its defenses-”

“The jig would be up. Celestia would realize something was going on if she managed to do something her sister didn’t even get close to achieving. Yeah. Mouths zipped. Luna doesn’t want anyone to know, and she’s right. If those that want to hurt her find out she’s weakened so much…”

“Is this why she didn’t raise the moon?” Twilight asked. She balked a bit under Raegdan’s intense stare, and rushed to explain herself further. “While you were on your way to the Thestrals Rarity noticed the moon being raised without Princess Luna doing anything.”

Raegdan relaxed back to his pillow. “Hm. She’s got an eye for noticing- what am I saying, of course she has. Celestia has been raising and lowering the moon, like she has been doing since Luna was gone. Luna told her she doesn’t feel ready to take up all of her duties yet. The truth is that while she can raise it, it would drain her almost completely. If she took to raising and lowering the moon again, she would be forced to spend the rest of the night resting so she could barely be able to lower it down again at dawn. The stress would probably kill her after a while.”

“But why doesn’t she let Princess Celestia know? She might be able to-”

“Because Luna doesn’t want to let her know. End of discussion, you don’t have a say in it, not one of you does!” Raegdan said strictly. “It’s her call, and her call only. You won’t even discuss this among yourselves. For all intents and purposes, you never knew this. Understand?”

“It’s a reasonable precaution though taken too far,” Solid Charge said. “Agreed. Normally I’d say it might be best you don’t tell your friends either,” he told Twilight. “The less who know the better, but in this case it would be better if they did so they can help keep up the cover.” Twilight took special notice of the way Raegdan regarded the minotaur at this statement, as if truly noticing him for the first time.

Solid Charge rose up from his chair. “I think I have heard enough to make my decision about you.” He addressed everypony else in the room. “I’d like to talk with the rest of you before I notify Princess Celestia. In private. In another room,” he specified, and made his way out. Twilight and the other two members of the Lunar Guard followed him.

Twilight heard Raegdan chuckle behind them as she closed the door. “Letting me stew in my own juices. I think I’m starting to like him…”

“I’m not sure if I believe half the stuff he told us,” Solid Charge said with a heavy scowl as soon as Twilight put up a silence spell around the room. It was identical to the one they were before, though with more empty beds. Twilight wondered how many patients the hospital had to refuse or move elsewhere to keep this floor empty.

Leaf Stream glanced thoughtfully at the door. “Look, I’d seriously be right up there with you to pile some dirt on the guy under normal circumstances, but here’s the thing. He didn’t really make himself look good, did he?”

“I don’t think he likes himself enough to try,” Twilight said quietly. She was reminded of his confession back in the dungeons. He didn’t spare himself at all there either. Quite the opposite in fact.

“If he’s done even one tenth of what he claims, then that wouldn’t be that strange. That girl… I’m not going to believe that he went around committing genocide on whole populations though. There’s only one of him. No matter how good he is at fighting, he would end up dead before too long.” Solid Charge gave the wall next to him a good whack, and started pacing around the room.

“Yeah, about that,” Leaf Stream said as she lied on a sheetless bed with a sigh of relief. “I don’t think he’s that good at fighting at all.”

Solid Charge stopped in his tracks to look back at the dark green pony. “I think your lack of wings and my broken arm will disagree. So do the eight griffins he killed today.”

“Not what I mean,” Leaf Stream said with a painful moan as she rolled her shoulders. “When we fought him in the arena he was holding up well, but nowhere near as good as someone with his experiences should if he had any decent talent in it. Don’t get me wrong, he was scary good, but he might have lost anyway, even if we weren’t trying to kill him there. It was three on one, sooner or later we’d tag him. When he got serious though... “ Leaf Stream huffed. “See, I don’t think he got serious about fighting at that moment or… damnit, how to explain this?” She tapped her hooves together a couple of times, trying to come up with the words. “I don’t think he’s good at fighting. I think he’s exceedingly good at killing.”

“Ah,” Solid Charge said simply in understanding.

“What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t get it,” Cast Iron said.

“Me neither,” Twilight admitted. “There’s no difference, is there? How can he be good at killing somepony if he can’t fight as well?”

Solid Charge sat on the edge of a bed. “There’s a huge difference. Take Cast Iron and Leaf Stream for example. Get them to fight as practice, or simply spar, Cast Iron will win.” Leaf Stream protested with a sarcastic exhale. “Put them in a fight to the death however, and Cast Iron will die. No offense buddy. See, even if Cast Iron got the advantage he would hesitate too much to land the killing blow. Not just to thrust a spear into her, but in the fight itself as well. Almost everyone does. It’s why soldiers keep sparring with blunted weapons. We teach ourselves not to think too much of hitting our opponent in the middle of the fight. Even with all that, when the time comes to kill, almost everyone will hesitate for a moment at least. It’s often where you will see towering minotaurs fall dead before a scrawny runt. One good hit is all it takes in the end. Getting in the state of mind where you can hurt or kill someone with no pause is… very hard to put it simply.”

“It- it really makes that much of a difference?” Twilight asked in shock.

“Oh yeah,” Leaf Stream answered, smiling bitterly and gazing at her own stumps. “Your pops? He doesn’t hesitate at all when it comes to hurting or killing. Doesn’t matter if the other guy is faster, stronger, or plain better, he will connect first because he started swinging first. It puts a whole other spin on his attitude, doesn’t it?”

“Right. It takes far more than that to do what he claims he did though,” Solid Charge reiterated.

“Meh. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. Who knows what weapons he got his grabby hands on out there,” Leaf Stream said. “Don’t you remember what he said about his kind and their stuff?”

“They’d have the same to fight back with.”

Leaf Stream shrugged. “Well, if he managed it, he obviously found a way.”

“Does it matter if he did or not?” Cast Iron asked. The rest of them looked at him questioningly. “He honestly believes he did. We can’t find out if it’s true or not, but we know that it is for him. He believes that he’s capable at the very least of doing something like that.”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s not important either way. It wouldn’t make a difference anyway,” Solid Charge said, standing up once more. “I had made my decision as soon as Princess Celestia gave me the responsibility. I’m going to tell her that he should remain at Princess Luna’s side.”

“You are?” Twilight gasped in disbelief. “You did? Before you even talked to him?”

“Sure. He was attacked by seventeen griffins and managed to kill eight of them while wounded. You have no idea how bad off he was even before they did a number on him. Not only that, he is fiercely loyal to Princess Luna as well. If we can keep him from doing stuff like he tried to do today, where else would she get such a bodyguard? If it wasn’t for others trying to kill her I’d say good riddance, but things being what they are I have no choice. Princess Luna’s safety must come first despite my misgivings.”

“That… makes sense.” Twilight sat down, thinking. Solid Charge was right as far as the way he thought was concerned. Raegdan was the best person to guard over Luna, ignoring the fact that Luna didn’t trust anypony else.

“It’s not like Princess Luna wouldn’t get him back as soon as she wakes up,” Solid Charge continued. “If she forgives him for what he pulled that is, and I think she will. This was never about getting him imprisoned or not. Princess Luna would never let Princess Celestia do it. Princess Celestia doesn’t have any authority over Princess Luna’s guard the moment she is up and about again, and Princess Celestia knows it. This was about giving him a wake up call, and I agree with Princess Celestia’s reasoning. Today’s events proved that we don’t have the luxury to coax them out of their shell little by little. One of them needed a push for their own good.”

“I understand…” Twilight said, feeling out of sorts. She didn’t really know Solid Charge. She had met him for only minutes before. This was the largest amount of time she spent with him, with any of Luna’s guard, and she didn’t have a good grasp of their character yet. Solid Charge seemed like a fair, practical fellow however, so maybe…

She chewed on her lower lip, still unsure if this was the right call, but pushing on regardless. “Can I ask you a question?”

“I think I know what’s it going to be about.”

“How do you- if Raegdan really did what he claims, if he- how do you-” She fumbled with the words, trying desperately to make herself understood without making herself sound hateful.

Solid Charge bid her silent with a calming gesture of his arm. “You know I used to be in the minotaur army, right?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you know why I left?”

Twilight’s mind rummaged through everything Rarity had told her about the two minotaurs. “It hasn’t come up, no.”

“Let me tell you then,” Solid Charge said, sitting on a bed once more in front of Twilight. “Equestria isn’t the only place where monsters roam. Minos has its own share as well. The army usually keeps them at bay, but sometimes one of them tends to escape notice and roam close to towns or villages. When that happens it’s the closest unit’s responsibility to intervene and keep civilians safe. I was part of a team that responded to one of these occasions when a village reported sighting a Catoblepas.”

“A what?” Leaf Stream asked.

“Catoblepas,” Twilight answered, having read about the beasts in one of her books before. “Quadrupled beasts that look like a disfigured cross of a body of a buffalo and an oversized head of a boar. It releases a paralytic gas with every exhale.”

“Pretty much,” Solid Charge agreed. “Most books don’t mention how huge they can get, or the armored scales they develop over their body. It’s very dangerous, and very easy to underestimate. It’s head is too heavy and it’s neck too long, so it keeps it low to the ground. It makes it look slow. It’s not, and it can swing its head like a pendulum with lightning speed. It killed two of us, and gored another one in a second. We managed to drive it away, but all we did was briefly scare it away. We failed to kill it.”

“What did you do?” Twilight asked.

“We could have waited for reinforcements, but until they got there the Catoblepas would have free roam. We had no idea where it had gone, and we were near farmlands, filled with residences scattered around with no way to safeguard them. The officer in charge refused to let it kill anyone if we could stop it. So he formed a plan.”

“Good for him,” Leaf Stream said. “What was it?”

“Lay out a bait for an ambush, identify its weak spots while it was busy eating, and kill it.”

“Good plan! What went wrong?” Leaf Stream asked, characteristically sarcastic.

“Nothing, except for the fact that the bait was the soldier who was wounded before.”

Twilight felt her lungs empty on their own volition. Leaf Stream’s eyes went wide. “You’re shitting me!”

Solid Charge shook his head, eyes on the floor. “I wish I was. No, we used the wounded minotaur as a dangling piece of meat. He died of course. The Catoblepas ate him alive, but we killed the beast. It might have killed more minotaurs if we hadn’t done that, but…” Solid Charge let out a deep breath full of past frustrations,” but we have no idea if that’s true. At the moment we were convinced it was the right thing, the captain even managed to convince the wounded minotaur himself that it was the heroic thing to do, and he believed him, right up to the point the Catoblepas showed up and he realized how awful his death was going to be and started screaming for help. We let him make us go through with it because he was the one in charge. We didn’t stop him. I left the army a few weeks afterwards. I told myself I wasn’t going to let others push me into doing what was wrong again.”

He scowled, looking at his arm. “Turns out I didn’t learn my lesson that well. I was going to actually let Grunge rape miss Rarity because I was scared of him. I had never believed I could sink so low. I’m not going to let this happen a third time, even if it kills me. I’m actually grateful Raegdan stopped us. I’d be even if he had killed us, but he didn’t, thanks to miss Rarity. She gave us a chance we didn’t deserve.”

“What happened to the guy?” Leaf Stream asked. “The officer?”

“He insisted it was for the greater good. He insisted so much in fact, that he convinced every single one of the higher ups who questioned him. He wasn’t awarded or anything, but he didn’t face any punishment either. Turns out he didn’t convince himself half as well. He hung himself a week later.”

Solid Charge ran his thick fingers through his mane. “Now, you’re probably wondering what that has to do with your question. Two things actually. First of all, we all screw up, sometimes horribly, despite our best intentions. I learned -I hope so- my lesson. I doubt Raegdan has, but I believe he might have started reading the first lines. If that story with the girl was true…” The unflinching minotaur swiped his fingers across his eyes in a suspicious movement.

“And the second thing?” Twilight asked.

The minotaur put his arm on her shoulder in a comforting manner. “Punishment. Or justice. It isn’t always easy to figure out what’s the right one. My captain killed himself. He tied a noose around his neck and ended it all. It didn’t bring back the dead. It didn’t make me feel better for my part in it. Perhaps it was justice, but it didn’t feel that way to me. If Raegdan really did what he claims then there are only two punishments that I can think of that would fit the crime. The first one would make us just as bad, and as for the second one… Does one death make up for thousands? No. A death for a death only amounts to two deaths. As long as he’s not dangerous to innocents I say we let him attempt to make up for what he did. He’ll never be able to, it’s too much, but trying does count for something. It always does.”

“I’m… I’m not sure if he’s even going to try…” Twilight confessed.

“I heard from miss Rarity and Applejack about how he helped raise you. He kept you safe, he never hurt you, he kept you close to your family, he never let you doubt how he felt about you… am I correct?”

Twilight nodded, trying to block the memories Solid Charge summoned with his words lest she started tearing up. “Yes. Spike and me both.”

“He was trying to make up for the girl. He gave you two everything he never gave to her. That means he’s willing to make up for some of his actions, that he wants to.”

Solid Charge smiled apologetically to Twilight. “I don’t like him, not at all. He wouldn’t hesitate to use someone else as bait. He would call it the right thing to do, and believe it to his core. He didn’t however. He didn’t order us or anyone else to jump in the Leviathan’s throat. He went himself with no hesitation. Yes, he did so in order to protect Princess Luna, but he did it for someone other than himself. Remember what he said about killing? Little by little, until the tens became hundreds, and the hundreds became thousands. Who’s to say he won’t start caring for others this way too?”

“Do you really believe this?” Twilight asked.

Solid Charge’s hand on her shoulder tightened gently in a gesture of support. “I don’t know. But I don’t want to be the kind of person that would kill him and say it needed to be done.”

He huffed in half-amusement. “Just try not to get hurt, ok? I don’t want to find out I was wrong not to believe that part of his story.”

Twilight closed the door behind her as gently as possible. The girls had all fallen asleep and she didn’t want to wake them up. They probably had tried to wait for her, but their own fatigue must have overtaken them. It wasn’t entirely unexpected. The sun would come up in a few hours, and today had been exhausting.

She gave a shot at sleep herself but sweet unconsciousness was beyond her grasp. There was too much on her mind, almost literally. She could swear there was a voice at the edge of her hearing, shouting at her. It wasn’t saying nice things. It mostly spewed hate and anger, directed at its favourite target. She ignored it as much as possible. After everything she heard today, there was only one thing she was certain of, and that was that she didn’t want to give in to these kind of emotions.

Perhaps forgiveness wasn’t meant for the wrongdoer’s sake but for yours.

Speaking of which, it was where she was currently heading. She wanted to see Raegdan, perhaps talk to him if he hadn’t fallen asleep yet. It might not be the best decision, but she didn’t know where else to go.

It reminded her of being a little filly. Sometimes, very rarely, she would find it hard to sleep or have a nightmare and find it almost impossible to drift back to sleep. She never had the courage to go to Princess Celestia and wake her up for her own insignificant troubles, no matter how often Princess Celestia admonished her for not doing that. Raegdan was a different issue altogether. He slept too little, and he never had an issue losing what little sleep he got for her sake. He’d talk with her, or lull her to sleep with his stories, and when he felt that Twilight needed something more he would take her in his arms and knock on Princess Celestia’s doors until he woke her up while at the same time kicking away at the guards who were trying to stop him.

Raegdan welcomed her every time. Did he do the same for the girl? Did he grudgingly let her sleep next to him or did he send her away? She believed, or hoped, that he allowed her to lie next to him when she had nightmares. That he let his presence soothe her, and that she took this as a sign of love.

She stopped before Raegdan’s room and was about to cast a silence spell to open it without noise when she heard voices from inside. She recognised one of them as Leaf Stream. Her curiosity taking over, Twilight opened the door and stepped inside.

It wasn’t just Leaf Stream in the room. Solid Charge and Cast Iron also sat near Raegdan, listening to him. They both raised an arm in a quick greeting. Leaf Stream was too busy taking notes to even bother looking at the door.

“-of them to be with him at all times. Even in the bathroom. From now on he should be the only one tending to Luna.”

Leaf Stream finished scribbling on her notebook and spat the pencil she was holding in her mouth aside. “What about the nurses?”

“Don’t even allow them in the room,” Raegdan warned. “All it takes is one of them “checking” the IV’s and before you know it Luna has an air bubble in her veins. Just him.”

“Alright, got it,” Leaf Stream agreed. Her eyes ran over her notes. “Why do we need to have the thestrals and the guards use a combination of secret words, and why so many of them? Wouldn’t it be easier if we only used one?”

“If it’s just one then someone paying attention would notice it being used repeatedly. Better to have a choice of them,” Raegdan said with his eyes closed. He sounded so amazingly tired…

“Right. Makes sense. What if somepony forces them to give them one of the passwords though?”

“Easy enough. Select a password, say… cucumber. If someone forces them for a password they can give them this one.”

“Ooh. Then we can know exactly-”

“Yeah. Do you have any guards inside Luna’s room?”

“Uh, no. I got them stationed outside her door, and Princess Celestia reinforced her spells on the windows-”

“Put a couple of them inside. There are spells like teleportation, and a window that is enchanted to be almost unbreakable comes down to a window that can still break. In fact, have these windows built over. They can restore them when Luna’s out of here. Randomize the layout inside too, move the beds in the middle and stuff like that. It will remove the threat of teleporting.”

“Obstacles can stop unicorns from teleporting somewhere?”

Raegdan smirked evilly. “No.”

“Oh. Oh crap. Ok, that’s gonna be gruesome...” Leaf Stream mumbled with her lips around the pencil once more. “There. Anything else?”

“Not right now. Just instruct the guards to keep their posts no matter what. Even if they hear Celestia scream for help, they are to stand guard over Luna. You swallowed that diversion way too easily.”

“Yeah, don’t remind me,” Leaf Stream said, her cheeks glowing red. “We’re gonna get everything done now and leave you with your visit.” She nodded towards Twilight while letting out a wide yawn.

“Don’t keep him up too long,” Leaf Stream said as the three Lunar guards passed her on the way to the door. “That doctor came by a few minutes ago and for a moment I could swear he was going to bite my throat.” Twilight nodded but Leaf Stream didn’t even turn her head to see.

“Cast, you’ve been kinda quiet…” Solid Charge prompted his friend as they left.

“Sorry. Just thinking about that griffin I shot-” Twilight didn’t hear the rest as Solid Charge closed the door behind him.

Twilight walked towards Raegdan who was looking at her expectantly. “Sharing tips?” she asked.

“A simple lesson in security,” Raegdan answered. “Just like you told me I should be doing. I… have to admit, this might work. I’d rather guard over Luna myself, but this could work almost as well.”

“Better,” Twilight assured him. “She is much safer now than she ever was. I didn’t see any guards at your door however. What about you?”

“I don’t need them. Besides, this way I could work as a bait of sorts,” Raegdan answered with a nasty smile. “A less desirable but also less defended target. I doubt anyone’s going to try anything, but if they do that’s one less attempt on Luna.”

“You’re wounded and bedridden,” Twilight reminded him.

Raegdan lifted his covers. His hammer was at his side, as well as one of the griffin’s crossbows with a bundle of bolts.

“Oh. I see.”

“I’ve also got a dagger under my pillow, but I’m too tired to fish it out right now.”

“Isn’t that too much of a risk?” Twilight asked with concern.

“Not really. I’m prepared and on my guard. There’s always risk. At least now I know where it might come from,” he said, nodding towards the door. “I know that fidgeting. You want to ask something. Is that why you’re not sleeping?”

“Partly,” Twilight admitted. “Raegdan… was I a replacement?”

“No,” he answered immediately.

“I mean, it would only be natural if-”

“Listen to me!” he interrupted her with a severe tone. “You are not her replacement. She can’t be replaced. She was unique, and I miss her more than you can imagine, and I’ll never, ever forget her.”

Twilight felt her ears droop, the corners of her mouth bend downwards, and her eyes moisten. He was right of course, she was- she was his first, the one he thought of all the time, and-

“You can’t be her replacement,” Raegdan insisted,” just like she, or anyone else, couldn’t replace you. I love you for you Twilight. Yes, I admit, I came to save you because it’s what she would have wanted, but I didn’t force myself to love you for her sake. Not you or little flame.”

Twilight swiped a tear from her eyes that she failed to stop. “I’m- I’m sorry I doubted you. I- I know you love us, I just-”

“It’s alright. It’s late. Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

“Shouldn’t you?” Twilight retorted with a slight smile.

“I doubt I’ll be able to sleep. Too much on my mind.”

“Yeah,” Twilight agreed. “I feel the same way.”

Raegdan looked at her, fidgeting with his hands once more. “Would you… like to hear a story? A proper one? To help you sleep?”

Twilight smiled. Her magic took a hold of his hammer and moved it to the other side of the bed, making room for herself. She used her magic to turn off the lights and climbed on the wide bed. Raegdan pulled the covers over her and offered her his arm as a pillow. She settled on it, feeling a little guilty for putting pressure on his arm that surely hurt him, but she knew that he’d have it no other way. She felt like a little filly once more. Warm, safe, and loved.

“Twilight,” Raegdan began. “About what I’ve done, all of it, I-”

She shushed him quickly before he would have time to make her mind wander back to the same black thoughts. “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to think about it. I want to sleep. Story?”

“Story,” he said, holding her tight.

Twilight closed her eyes, feeling a warmth spread inside her as Raegdan started his tale. That little girl kept trying to make Raegdan into something better, despite what he had done to her. She didn’t give up. Twilight wouldn’t either. She could do that much for her, she thought as she let the words spoken by the tongue of an alien being wash over her, and carry her to sleep.

“Once upon a time, there was a hole in the ground where a hobbit lived. It wasn’t a dirty hole, or a narrow hole, or a dark hole. It was a hobbit hole, and that meant it was clean, and full of light and comfort...”

In the darkness of a hospital room away from home, listening to the alien tale of a traveller beyond this world, an adult Twilight Sparkle fell asleep, comforted by a recuperating killer.

My hand reaches down for the trigger. It doesn’t reach it fast enough. The gun is hoisted out of my mouth as soon as I pull the trigger. The bullet misses my skull and goes through my cheek instead, tearing a hole. The monster is still alive. It needs to die. It must die. I killed her. I killed my little one. I must die. My weapon. Where did my weapon go? Who could-

I open my eyes.

Two pillars of dark metal stand before me. My eyes glide up the gigantic armored form in dread. Not again. Not again, please.

The three jewels on the black crown almost blind me with their shimmering light. The way the darkness dances around the edge of the light is mesmerizing. It’s prowling around the luminescence like a predator, edging for the kill, waiting for the right moment to extinguish the light.

“You’re not real. You were never real. This isn’t happening.”

The god reaches down for me.

“You always break them. So... abominable of you.” A metal clad finger runs down my cheek to my throat. I believe I can feel the pressure, the burn, but it’s in my head, it’s all in my head. Please, make it all be in my head. I don’t know. I don’t know and that makes it worse.

“I’m done. No more. It stops here.” It’s all I can manage to say in the grips of terror. The sole defiance I can offer, but it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing there. Just a shadow in my mind. It’s not real… but if it isn’t… if it isn’t...

“No… no, you’re not done. You’re not quite ready yet. Almost, but not there. So close. Just a few more, perhaps as few as one. It’s about time I send another gift anyway. So many, so little time. Don’t worry my little slave. You will be fine. You know what to do. What you always do.”

I don’t want to keep going. I want to stop. I want to end.

I go through the rift.

Ch.23 - Luna wakes up

The comb ran through clusters of stars and comet showers, through hues of dark blue and deep purple. It straightened the path for meteors to follow, and shaped contrails where new constellations formed. A silver tooth passed over a star causing the light to dim and die, where another one burst into a supernova at the grazing touch. The flow and passage continued unabated in smooth trails until it met a malevolent tangle it could not conquer.

“Motherfucker!”

Bandaged fingers tried to undo the knot of hair without much success, hampered as they were in their trappings of gauze.

Rarity put down the pencil she was sketching with and looked at Raegdan with displeasure. “Language please. You’re in the presence of two princesses.”

Raegdan stopped his attempt to comb Luna’s hair as she lay still unconscious in order to peek behind him. Princess Celestia lay not so regally on the bed next to her sister, reading and notating on various parchments. She look tired, but completely at ease in the same moment. She had even absconded of her usual regalia, calling them too bothersome to wear when all she had to do was paperwork.

“She’s heard me say worse,” Raegdan stated.

“I’ve heard him say much worse,” Princess Celestia confirmed, exchanging one parchment for another. “Though you might want to cut back on the swearing Raegdan. Spike could have been on his way in or you might slip while he’s present nevertheless.”

“I know, I know,” Raegdan answered with the wind blown out of his sails. “It’s hard to start censoring myself again.” He slapped his chest over his hospital gown. “This fu- stupid salve doesn’t help matters either.”

Twilight had been reading a medical textbook. Not her first choice of reading material, but she had found out in the last few weeks how woefully lacking her knowledge on that field was. It was so awfully dry though and so far away from her usual interests that she found herself mostly watching Raegdan fuss over Luna as she slept.

“I thought the salve helped mitigate the pain from the burns,” Twilight observed.

Raegdan nodded. “It does a little bit, but it itches like crazy. It’s driving me mad.”

“Did you tell the doctors?” Celestia asked.

“Why? So they can change my prescription to the myriad of other choices I don’t have?”

“You don’t know that,” Twilight retorted. “They might have another salve they can try.”

Raegdan spit out a short piece of hair. He had been trying to undo the knot on Luna’s mane using his teeth. “With my luck I’ll end up swollen and blue. I’m fine. If the worst I have to deal with is an itch in return for some pain relief I’m all up for it.” He dug in his mouth with two fingers and pulled out another hair. “Luna needs a shower. I don’t think her mane is supposed to taste like that.”

Celestia answered without glancing up from her own reading material. “That would be the accumulation of a week’s natural oils and dirt, as well as the remains of the disinfectants they cleaned her up with when they brought her in.”

Leaf Stream chuckled from her armed position next to the door. “Should I tell the doctor to prepare the stomach pump for the mane muncher? Or is he just going to spit out a hairball?”

The sun princess spared a glance and a smile at Raegdan’s grimacing face. “He’s eaten worse.”

Twilight felt her throat constrict at the joke. Bad brain. Stop thinking about that.

Celestia let out a sigh and addressed Raegdan with a pleading tone. “It’s such a beautiful day outside. If you’d let me, I could have one of the windows restored in a few minutes-”

“Try it, and I’ll suplex you to next Sunday,” Raegdan warned her.

“Hmpf. Try it if you are so willing to hurt your back again as much as you did mine,” Princess Celestia said, but didn’t push the issue any further.

The door opened enough for a thestral to sneak his head in and whisper in Leaf Stream’s ear. She nodded and the thestral pulled back, opening the door for Rainbow Dash to come in.

“Hello Princess. Hello guys.”

“Good morning to you Rainbow Dash,” Rarity pointedly said. “I see that-”

Rainbow Dash interrupted her before she could finish. “Not coming.” She turned to Raegdan. “Same message as before big guy. They’re still cool with you but don’t really feel like hanging out with you yet. They got Spike and went out for breakfast.”

Twilight felt disappointed. She had honestly believed they would deign to stand in the same room as Raegdan today. If it wasn’t for Rarity and Rainbow she would have called sharing the fate of Raegdan’s previous adopted child a terrible mistake.

“Raegdan, I could go and talk to them…” Twilight had noticed him stalling for a second when Rainbow walked in, waiting to hear what Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy had said.

“No,” he answered. “Give them time.” He returned to his previous activity.

Rainbow Dash let out a surprised “ha” sound when she saw what he was doing. She approached him, looking at his hands as they worked for a few seconds before turning to glare at Rarity.

“I can’t believe you! You turned him into a hairdresser?” Rainbow flew to Twilight and pulled at her hoof. “Twilight, Rarity corrupted Raegdan,” she said in a whiny tone.

“I beg your pardon!” Rarity said loudly, offended beyond measure. “Just because some ponies are sensible and mature enough to understand that maintaining your appearance or that of those you care about does not make me-”

“You’re the corruptor!” Rainbow Dash yelled. “Perverter of all that is cool and awesome-”

Princess Celestia was watching the scene with her usual serenity- if you ignored the parchment she had placed in front of her muzzle and her eyes sparkling with amusement. Raegdan however put a stop to it quick enough.

“That’s enough. Quiet down,” he said in a severe voice, leaning his head pointedly towards Luna’s sleeping form.

“Sorry,” Rainbow Dash apologized as she approached the bed once more. She followed the ritual she always did when visiting Luna. Rainbow carefully inspected Luna’s burnt wing, then the cast of her broken leg, and the myriad of stitches and bandaged gashes for last. Her gaze lingered on Luna’s left side where a large piece of her had been bit off, now covered with a mound of gauze, and she shuddered.

Twilight knew how Rainbow Dash always admired ponies that could do what she saw as “awesome” or “cool, and the slaying of a Leviathan was certain to be near the top for the cyan pegasus. This time however she saw the price that was paid in order to fulfill this achievement, and Rainbow seemed intent on refreshing her memory of Luna’s wounds every single time. It made Twilight ask herself, if they were sent to ask the dragon to move after they had seen this, would Rainbow be so fast on assaulting the dragon on her own?

“Still, it’s pretty weird seeing you primping somepony up,” Rainbow Dash said, smiling mischievously. “You do hooficures too?”

“Yes.”

Rainbow Dash gawped at him before silently imploring Twilight for confirmation.

“He does,” Twilight said.

“Ah, right, right…” Rainbow Dash regained her composure. “Raising a filly and all that. I bet that’s a skill that doesn’t see a lot of use now though, huh?”

“You lose,” Raegdan said with his attention still focused on Luna’s mane.

“What?”

“Your bet. You lose.” He straightened up on his chair and poured water for himself from a pitcher. “Luna doesn’t have retainers.” Princess Celestia mumbled to herself behind Raegdan, looking unhappy and angry.

Rarity put down her pencil once more. “I do believe you mentioned something similar to this before, only I didn’t expect you to be her beauty consultant.”

“I’m not. I just do whatever I can. Someone has to mop, sweep, wash, unclog the toilets...”

“...Smooch the princess into oblivion,” Leaf Stream murmured, though not quietly enough.

Twilight lifted an eyebrow at Rarity’s acting as she yelped in fake indignation. Rarity kept daydreaming about this exact thing happening, but Celestia help you if someone else was crass enough to say it straightforward in mixed company.

Raegdan, for his part, seemed to find this funny. He moved on his chair so he could look sideways at Celestia. “Well, it had kind of become an unofficial service when there was only one princess in charge…” he drawled while Princess Celestia was putting down her documents, looking scared.

Deep in the recesses of Twilight’s mind, a smaller version of her was jumping up and down holding a red flag. She could make the words on the crimson cloth easily enough. She didn’t really have to. Her inner Twilight’s panicked movements were easy enough to decipher. “Danger! Incoming trauma.”

“Let me paint the picture,” Raegdan said mercilessly, delighting in the disbelieving stares of everypony, including the red faced Princess Celestia. “It’s late in the evening, the kids are asleep, and I’m sharing a couch with a certain princess. Suddenly she leans in, her face burning red, and her lips make contact with mine in desperate need as her hoof reaches down for-”

“That’s not how it happened!” Princess Celestia protested loudly and emphatically, and shifted from lying on the bet to sitting on it, looking panicked.

“Of course, you’re right,” Raegdan said sarcastically. “I was trying to be a bit more respectful and I didn’t want to reveal how you actually forced me down to my side of the couch, climbed over me and proceeded to have your way with-”

“You were drunk! I was drunk! We were both drunk, it was only one kiss, and then I puked on you!” Princess Celestia rushed out the words as fast as she could.

“Pardon?” Rarity asked as her worldview shattered around her with a pop.

Raegdan was laughing, as was Leaf Stream and Rainbow, though the two of them went mostly unnoticed by Princess Celestia as they had been viciously biting on their hooves to control themselves.

“She did, she really did,” Raegdan chuckled with a look of fond remembrance. “Right into my mouth actually. It must be the wings. She fed me like a baby bird.”

Princess Celestia straightened her papers in her magic. “You had your laugh. Let’s leave it at that then-”

“Fast forward a few months,” Raegdan continued with a smile that promised to spill everything, “and I wake up naked next to Celestia with no memory of-”

“We got drunk! Again! Nothing happened!”

“Then why do you make a tomato impression every time I ask you how I ended up naked in your bed with you?”

“Nothing happened,” Princess Celestia repeated. The entirety of her blood must have moved to her cheeks.

“You know what? I’ll let it slide once more,” Raegdan said graciously.

“Thank you,” Princess Celestia said, breathing easier.

“Fast forward a few more months. There is no alcohol in sight. I go into Celestia’s room and long story short we end up tasting each-”

A thin pillow blocked Raegdan’s bandaged head from view, driven by golden horseshoes. “I’ll kill you right here, right now!” she screamed.

Rarity whispered into Twilight’s ear. “Should we… do something?”

The spectacle had managed to make Twilight smile despite what she heard -and viciously buried somewhere it would be forever ignored. “No, they’re just playing around. Trust me, this is how they used to be most of the time.”

Raegdan managed to push the soft instrument of his death far enough to gasp. “Ask Twilight’s parents about the time with the moaning and all the shaking-”

“That doesn’t count and you know it!” Princess Celestia said, managing to overpower Raegdan once again and shut him up. The biped struggled for air. Celestia pushed even harder.

He managed to twist his head enough to spill out one last sentence. “Tell the world that my final act was to make Celestia scream one last time...” Celestia started to punch the pillow, and thus the head hidden behind it.

“Truly sister, you have turned into a rampant tramp in my absence…” a weak voice croaked from the side.

Raegdan and Celestia stopped their struggle at once. Princess Celestia quickly kneeled next to her sister’s bed, while Raegdan moved to the other side. Twilight, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash moved to the bottom of the bed, smiling up at the awakened alicorn.

“Luna, you’re awake!” Princess Celestia cried with joy and happy tears gleaming in her eyes. She quickly leaned in to muzzle her sister’s cheek.

“Apparently,” Luna said weakly after briefly returning the affection. “Since you’re here I take it to mean I’m not dead. What happened?” Her voice was incredibly hoarse.

“We got out,” Raegdan said. “I told you you’ll make it out alive, didn’t I?” Raegdan said with pride and immense relief in his eyes.

Luna’s eyes roamed over Raegdan. “What happened to you?”

“It’s nothing. Just scratches. How are you feeling?”

“Thirsty…”

Princess Celestia picked up the pitcher and a glass in her magic, filling it up. She levitated the glass in front of Luna and waited for her to take it. Luna glanced at Raegdan, a short rapid movement that Twilight almost missed. Raegdan put his left arm behind Luna’s head, helping her lean forward. He caught the glass in his hand, the magic field dissipating instantly, and held it in front of Luna’s lips.

“More,” Luna begged after she greedily drank it all. Princess Celestia refilled the glass Raegdan was holding and Luna drank almost half of it. She let out a sigh of content and Raegdan slowly leaned her back to her pillows, while Princess Celestia carefully held Luna’s cast and helped guide her down without jostling her healing wounds.

Luna looked around her with tired, half lidded eyes, taking in the beds and the tubes connected to her. She looked towards the door at Leaf Stream, who saluted her with a brief smile.

“Where are we?”

“A hospital in Baltimare,” Celestia answered. She wiped a drop of moisture from Luna’s chin.

“What happened to the Leviathan? Is it still alive? Did we fail?”

“It’s dead,” Rainbow Dash answered before anypony else had time to. She flew over Luna, gesturing wildly. “There was this huge, titanic explosion, like “krakow!” and ponies are still gathering bits and pieces of it, it even shattered the docks pretty good-”

“Rainbow, dear, you weren’t even there for that part,” Rarity reminded her.

“What was that about the docks?” Luna asked, looking worried. “What docks? Did it relocate and reach Baltimare?”

“A little bit, yeah,” Raegdan answered her. “It managed to trash the place enough. Remember the wooden rubble that was raining on us? They were ships that tried to sail away.”

Luna gawped at him. “Why are we still here?” she almost shrieked. “We must leave before they form a mob and- wh- why are the rest of you here? What did you come here to do?” she asked in the throes of panic, looking at Twilight and Rainbow.

“I think you are sorely underestimating our subjects Luna,” Princess Celestia said in a soothing manner. Her magic opened the curtains that hid the bed across Luna and the sentimental treasures piled upon it. “It’s been almost a week since then. The ponies of Baltimare sing your praises for the rescue of their families and city. Gifts and letters have been flowing in nonstop. They love you Luna.” She held an envelope in front of her sister, a smile of pure joy on her face.

Luna stared thoughtfully at the envelope floating in front of her and then at her older sister’s beaming expression. Her chin jutted out, and her hoof rose up and knocked the envelope away from her with as much strength as she could muster, ignoring the shocked silence around her.

“No.”

Princess Celestia’s eyes followed the envelope as it glided to the floor. “Luna? What do you mean no?”

“I mean,” Luna said with rising vehemence, “that I am not going to fall for the same trick again. Do you really think so little of me? You can take your “gifts” and your “letters” and throw them in a fire for all I care.”

“What are you talking about? What trick?”

Luna adopted a high pitched, mocking voice. “Oh Luna, the ponies adore your night. Look at all these books; poetry, constellations, stories.” She scowled at her sister and continued in her normal, yet angry, voice. “Then I go out and what do I find? A few drunks trying to rush to their home, and everypony else sloshing themselves in establishments where you have no hope of telling the difference between day or night, in the heart of the city. Should I even bother mentioning how I never found anything but the slightest mention in the most obscure texts for everything I’ve done? My greatest claim to fame in modern times is a holiday where I am used as a method to scare foals! So, no. Buck you, and your lies!”

Princess Celestia’s expression of pure shock slowly crumbled to reveal one of anger. She stood up. “Lies? You call me a liar? Fine then. Let’s talk about the lack of ponies honoring your contributions to our nation. Tell me Luna, who was supposed to write down your achievements and preserve your legacy? I’m your own sister and I never knew what exactly you were doing!”

“What I was doing? What do you think I was doing? I was keeping you safe!”

“How Luna? What exactly were you doing? You never gave me an answer, no matter how many times I asked you. I tried to follow your actions by asking ponies that saw you, and all I got were frightful stories of a mare recruiting ponies by force, ponies that were almost never seen again, or somepony arriving in the middle of the night to discard a body in the middle of the village. Most of the time all I got was horror stories. Sometimes I never even got this much. All I found was graves or empty houses!”

“I did what needed to be done, each and every time,” Luna said, sinking back into her bed, looking regretful.

“And what was that?” Princess Celestia asked loudly and impatiently. “You never explained anything to anypony, and you wonder why… What did you expect to happen Luna?”

“I expected my sister to support me,” Luna said sullenly.

“I did! Did you think that villages with no survivors, yet with all the dead buried in a mass grave by somepony, would escape my notice? Do you think the ponies that found their foal’s remains outside their doors didn’t come to me for answers? They did, and I had nothing to give but platitudes and assurances I wasn’t even certain of. I asked you though. I asked you, and every time you lied straight to my face. I believed you...”

“You still let them-”

“I let our ponies do nothing!” Princess Celestia shouted. “You did! You never talked to anypony, not even me, and then you summoned the Nightmare because the ponies you never bothered with did not understand you. It’s a miracle that I managed to turn Nightmare Night into a harmless holiday from the effigy burning and cries of damnation it had started as. I thought things would change, that you would trust ponies a little more now that you had friends,” she said, pointing at Raegdan and the girls, “but apparently, I was wrong. First thing you wanted to do as soon as you woke up was to leave. What would you have done if you hadn’t been injured Luna? Leave everypony in the dark, wondering what happened to them, and vanish once again?”

Tears sparkled at the corners of Luna’s eyes. “How dare you?” she hissed. “Do you have any idea what I have been forced to go through to ensure-”

“No,” Princess Celestia answered immediately, cutting Luna off. “I don’t. I don’t have the foggiest idea. You never told me anything, and I can’t help but ask myself why.”

“I am doing my best,” Luna said, striking her hoof against the mattress like a foal. “I always was.”

“Or were you doing only what you felt willing to do?”

“What did you say?” Luna spat. “Are you really going to judge me like that because I wasn’t explaining my every action to random ponies?” Luna asked, incredulous.

“These “random” ponies are exactly who we are doing everything for Luna. To whom did you expect to answer to if not them? Even so, again, you didn’t talk to me either, and I was no random pony, was I? All you need to do is talk Luna. Just talk every once in awhile. You can’t blame them for assuming things when you run and hide from them.” Princess Celestia levitated the unopened envelope back on Luna’s bed. “These are not lies. Ponies, random ponies you don’t care to explain yourself to, sent you these because they learned what you did and wanted to show their appreciation.”

Princess Celestia turned her back to them and gathered up her papers, her spine straight and her head held high, the very picture of determination if you ignored a small sniff that escaped her. She made her way to the door and stopped.

“It wasn’t your fault. It was mine. I should have stopped you, I should have forced you to speak to me, I should have… I should have done a lot of things.” She kept her eyes closed for a second. “Raegdan has a lot to tell you, including his own attempt to run. You also might want to consider what would have happened to Baltimare had you not brought anypony else with you. Now, if you’ll excuse me Luna, I have work to do. Somepony has to stay back after the monster is gone and make sure that the families here can still support and feed themselves a month down the line. I’m glad you’re awake. I love you.”

Leaf Stream ducked her head almost between her shoulders as the door slammed behind the princess almost hard enough to break it. She bit on her lip awkwardly as she looked around to Twilight and the others, trying to figure out if she should say something.

Luna was staring at the ceiling, motionless. After a minute of silence she called for the alien next to her.

“Raegdan.”

“Yes Luna?” Raegdan’s voice was kind but neutral.

Luna nudged the envelope on her bed. “Is this real?”

“It is. I didn’t believe it at first either.”

“Can you open it for me please?”

Raegdan ripped open one edge of the envelope. Two pieces of folded paper slipped out. Raegdan opened them and read them, his eyes quickly skimming over the contents.

“What does it say?” Luna asked, sadness coloring her voice.

“It’s from a colt. Very young from what I can make out. It says;”

“Dear Princess Luna,

Thank you for coming to Baltimare and stopping the big monster. My dad is a sailor on a big ship and and he says he never had been so scared before in his life. My dad is really brave so I know that the monster must have been really scary. Mom says if it wasn’t for you, dad would be hurt. Thank you for not letting my dad get hurt. Dad says you’re in the hospital because you got so tired from fighting the monster. I hope you sleep well and get rested. I asked mom and dad to let me come to the hospital and give you a hug ‘cause mum says my hugs are like magic, and always make her feel better, but he said little colts shouldn’t go bothering princesses in their sleep and I should send a letter instead. So I made you a drawing to make you feel better since I can’t hug you for real.

Love,

Calm Tide

P.S. I snuck half of my butterscotch candies in the envelope. They’re really good. I hope you like them.”

Luna took a deep, trembling breath. “Can I see the drawing?” Raegdan unfolded the second paper and turned it so she could see it. “I look like Celestia, only drawn in my colours… or Nightmare Moon. Not me.”

Rarity spoke up. “To be honest princess, you haven’t made yourself known to the public with any appearances.”

Luna nodded, subdued, looking up at the ceiling once more. “I never got anything of the like before. Celestia did. I read a few of them in secret a very long time ago. I expect she still receives them. She never told me about them. She probably didn’t want to make me feel… The best I ever got was quiet thanks they never truly meant. Even as they said it I could see in their eyes what they thought. “Why couldn’t the real princess be here instead? She would have done it better.” More often than not I got insults and curses behind my back. A few even dared to throw rocks at me. There are really more of them?”

“Piles of them,” Twilight answered.

“Why now?” Luna said with unexpected yearning. A small tear glistened in the artificial light of the room as it rolled down her cheek. “After all this time… Why not even once when I really-” She stopped a sob from escaping her, and waited until she calmed down, taking deep breaths. “I suppose Celestia just spelled it out for me, didn’t she?”

What could Twilight say in response? She just nodded quietly, along with Rarity and Rainbow Dash. She wished she had been somewhere else, anywhere, rather than be a spectator to the two sisters arguing.

“I’d… like to stay alone with Raegdan please,” Luna said quietly. “I want to know what happened while I was unconscious, and perhaps see some of the rest of what has been sent.”

Twilight lead the way to the door, but Luna stopped her before Leaf Stream could open the door for her. “Twilight… If you could, would you mind finding my sister?”

“Of course. Would you like me to tell her something?”

“Just… tell her that I love her too.”

“These gems are delicious. Thanks for the treat you guys,” Spike said, licking his lips after swallowing a small yellow stone. Some might consider the fact that Spike rarely actually chewed his gems bad for him, but Applejack really didn’t mind. The loud crunching always made her coat stand on end. She couldn’t for the life of her figure out how a gem could have taste. She gave one a lick once and it tasted the same as any other rock.

Not that she had any valid reason to know how rocks taste mind you. It’s just that farm accidents are prone to happen every now and then. A few tumbles and falls are not unheard of.

“No problem, Spiker-ino,” Pinkie Pie said, draining the remains of her chocolate milk through a twisty straw.

Applejack looked at the remains of her own, very small, sandwich. It really wasn’t a problem -at least as long as he didn’t ask for seconds. Note to self; Try to avoid buying gems in a city ready to go through financial crisis. Her wallet physically ached.

This wasn’t Ponyville with its wide spaces and open air, but Applejack enjoyed the outing all the same. Four days in a hospital, getting pumped full of antibiotics that made her go through what Rarity once called “natural detoxification” was all she could stand.

Baltimare was a pretty town, and certainly full of life and movement. What disturbed her was that there was a choke full of various establishments down this street, and ponies went up and down on it even now, but almost nopony was going into them. Owners stood at thresholds waiting for customers that wouldn’t come in, and those that did kept their orders small.

She watched the ponies that walked across the street from where they sat on one of the outdoor tables of a small cafe. Most of them looked worried, or lost in thought. Some of them looked uncertain, as if they weren’t sure where they were heading. Every couple of minutes one or more of them would stop to read one of the new posters that were posted everywhere and continue on their way in higher spirits.

Applejack hadn’t read one of them yet, but she saw enough from where she was. A light and dark silhouette of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna dominated the center, and she could barely make the large printed words on the top; “We’re here,” it said, like a promise. More text followed below, but there was no way for Applejack to read it without a set of binoculars from this distance. She could give a good guess to what it said. Princess Celestia wasn’t going to abandon these ponies on their own.

Fluttershy nudged her, softly as a butterfly’s touch. She probably had been doing so for a while. Applejack stopped her pony watching. “Yeah Fluttershy?”

The shy pegasus nervously rubbed her hooves together. “Um, do you want to visit Raegdan and Luna after we’re done here?”

“Ah’m not sure whether that’s the best idea yet,” Applejack said.

“Applejack,” Fluttershy said, putting her own hoof over her earth pony friend’s, “being mad at him and staying away won’t solve anything.”

“Yeah, yeah, ah know. Still, ah’d prefer to keep mah distance ‘till ah’m sure ah won’t try to kick his knees inwards.”

Spike hid his snout behind his claws in the most inconspicuous manner possible, and leaned towards Pinkie Pie. “Hey Pinkie,” he whispered, “why’s Applejack so mad with dad?”

Pinkie Pie stopped licking her glass, but left her tongue hanging out. “Jtheneroal thrinthifleth ah thunk.”

The dragon pushed her tongue back into her mouth and wiped the edge of his claw with a napkin. “Are you mad at him too?”

“Nuh-uh,” Pinkie said. She got hold of the napkin Spike used and started tearing pieces to make ammunition for her straw.

“Then how come you’re here and not with dad?”

Pinkie Pie’s cheeks puffed as she huffed through the bended straw. A small piece of paper, coated in saliva, landed with a wet thump on her own forehead. “Silly Spike. You gotta portion your Pinkie so they don’t get numbed to the supercalifragilisticexpialidociousness. You must make them yearn for more of that pink, fluffy goodness!”

“Oh. You want to make him miss you?” Spike asked.

The pink pony threw herself at the dragon, holding him desperately around his middle, and lamenting at his feet. “Please tell me that he misses me!” she howled, crying an actual river of tears.

“He does, he does,” Spike said in a panic. “Please don’t cry, I’m sure dad misses you loads!”

“Okie dokie lokie then,” Pinkie Pie said with a wide grin. There was no trace of tears on her face. “Hello!” she waved cheerily somewhere behind Spike’s back.

Applejack turned to see to whom Pinkie Pie was talking to now. Two ponies, a mare and a stallion so identical they were probably siblings, had approached them, smiling softly at them. “Can we help ya?” she asked.

“Excuse us,” the stallion said, “is it true that you are often in... Princess Luna’s presence?” he asked, drawing the n before Princess Luna a bit too much.

“Ah, right,” Applejack said, understanding what this was about. More fans. She hoped Luna could get out soon and meet some of them herself. “It’s true. Ah’m Applejack. Anything we can do for ya? Only, she’s still unavailable, you understand, so-”

“Oh no. Please. We only ask that you deliver her the message of our love.”

“Yes,” the mare said enthusiastically. She had a beautiful voice, Applejack noticed. “She is our princess and we really love her. She is the moon. Please, tell her that?”

“We will,” Applejack assured them. “Ah’m Applejack by the way. Who should ah say- hey, y’all didn’t introduce yourselves,” she yelled at their retreating backs. They weren’t even hurrying. They certainly heard her, but instead of turning around they whispered and giggled to each other like little foals. They grouped up with a few more ponies that Applejack hadn’t noticed down the corner, and they all left together, smiling widely.

Applejack rolled her eyes and turned back to her friends. “That’s the one thing ah really don’t like about big cities like this. Some ponies are just plain rude, running around all the time.”

“I’m sure they didn’t mean anything by that, Applejack. Maybe they had somewhere to be,” Fluttershy said.

“Maybe a party,” Pinkie Pie said excited. “There were enough of them for a pretty good extravaganza!”

Applejack pulled their check close to her to read how much they owed. She counted down the bits and made sure to leave a big tip for the mare who served them. There weren’t a lot of ponies eating out, and she seemed extremely relieved to see customers. She turned around, trying to see into the cafe and get the mare’s attention, but there was no sign of her.

“Spike, do ya mind going in and letting them know we want to pay?”

"Sure, no problem.” The little dragon jumped down from his chair. “Do you want me to pay straight away instead of dragging the waitress all the way back here again?”

“Good thinkin’ Spike. Yeah, you do that.” Applejack shoved the check and the bits on a small clean plate and Spike picked it up.

“Ok, just wait for me. I need to use the bathroom anyway.”

Pinkie Pie watched Spike leave, and as the young child distanced itself from them her smile fell more and more. She turned towards Applejack, serious and entirely unlike her usual self.

“You shouldn’t be doing that Applejack. Not while Spike is around.”

Applejack returned the look Pinkie Pie was giving her. “Ah know ah shouldn’t. But it’s kinda hard Pinkie. He plain abandoned his kid and killed so many… Tell you the truth, had ah known he had hurt children, ah’d never had helped him in any way.”

“He doesn’t hurt children now,” Fluttershy reminded her. “I don’t think he would even consider it.”

Applejack took off her hat and rubbed her forehead with a hoof. She put the hat over her head as if to protect it from the sun, though in reality she did it to hide. “Fluttershy, Pinkie… he already killed so many. What ah’m ah supposed to do? Pat him on the shoulder and say it’s fine?”

“Well duh,” Pinkie Pie said, popping her tongue out once more. “Of course it’s not fine. Being cranky doesn’t help either though. I mean, he had his friends, right? And they didn’t like what he did either, right? So what we gotta do, is what his friends didn’t, left?”

“Ya lost me.”

Pinkie Pie frowned. “But I gave you such clear directions! Maybe it was right, left, right?”

Fluttershy leaned forward, letting her face out of the cover of her pink mane. “What Pinkie means is we need to stay his friends, watch him, and not let him be mean again rather than leaving him to his fate. Neither him or Luna.”

“His previous friends didn’t manage that, and these folks knew him far longer than we did ya know,” Applejack reminded them.

“Indeedy do, my dear Applejack.” Pinkie Pie blew through her straw once more, this time scoring a direct hit right into her left nostril. “Gakh! Friends should try harder that that though,” she said as she tried to dig out the small wad of paper with a hoof that could never fit in there.

“Ah think they would have tried quite hard,” Applejack said, showing her doubts.

Fluttershy looked around her, before speaking up, almost ashamed. “Umm… I think that… If they wanted him… Maybe they didn’t dare let him, you know…”

“Spit it out Fluttershy,” Applejack said, knowing Spike would be back any moment now.

The pegasus took a deep breath, and let out what she wanted to say so fast it almost came out as a single word. “What if they didn’t really want him to stop because they wanted to go home too, because if they wanted him to stop all they had to do was stay in place and refuse to go through another rift if he didn’t stop doing bad stuff?” Fluttershy breathed in quickly and continued in a much quieter and slower voice. “I mean, maybe? I’m not saying they were bad people, but it sounds like they were scared too, and wanted to go home, and I’d be so awfully frightened in their place…”

Applejack hadn’t thought of that. It didn’t exonerate him of anything, but…

“Applejack…” Pinkie Pie said with a predatory smile. “Are you ever gonna let him do something really bad?”

It didn’t require any thinking to answer. “Nope.”

“Then everything’s fine and we can go all have fun together-”

“Doesn’t make up for what he did though,” Applejack said, still defiant.

Pinkie Pie patted her chin, poking her tongue out, and threw a long wink at the sky. She pointed accusatory at Applejack’s hat. “You got a stain on your hat!” The little paper flew out her nostril as she furiously breathed out.

“Uh, yeah Pinkie, ah know. It’s always been there.”

"Can’t ya wash it out?”

“Ah tried but- oh no, oh hay no. Ah ain’t falling for that,” Applejack said, shaking her head.

“Fall for what?” Pinkie Pie looked honestly lost.

“That.” Applejack took off her prized hat and waved it around. “Yer gonna use mah hat as an example. Raegdan is the hat, the stain is what he did, and you’re probably gonna make some moral parable about how ah can never completely clean it, but that doesn’t mean ah don’t keep it ‘cause ah still care for it and all that allegorical baloney.”

“Wow Applejack. That’s really smart,” Pinkie Pie said with admiration.

“No, it ain’t!” Applejack forced the hat back over her mane. “It’s a bunch of horseapples it’s what it is. Raegdan ain’t a hat or a piece of clothing.”

Pinkie Pie giggled. “Oh silly Applejack, of course he ain’t. Clothes you can throw away. Besides, trying to wear him sounds messy.” Her smile got wider as small claws clicking against stone approached them. “Hey Spikey, all done?”

“Yeah,” Spike said, nodding. “You guys have been talking about dad, haven’t you?” Twilight’s assistant was dour and melancholic.

Applejack looked at Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. Their smiles got a little bit wider and pressing. To heck with it, she decided. She’d keep going as she had said she would. She really didn’t like that person Twilight told her about, but that might not be the person she had been around. She’d make sure that the meaner guy would stay away. But…

What really got to her was how easily they were willing to ignore something this big. It’s like unless they deliberately kept it in mind, everything that Raegdan or Luna had done slipped their mind and was forgiven. Heck, Luna had threatened to hurt them to Twilight and they never mentioned it again.

Ah well. It’s not like being forgiving is not a virtue. Just- She forgot something. She drew her attention back to her surroundings and decided to lift Spike’s mood.

“We were,” Applejack admitted. “Ah’m thinkin that we could all play a boardgame together later on if he feels like it. Ah’m pretty good at Monopony and ah haven’t played for some time.”

Spike’s joy was worth any lingering doubts she had.

Twilight dug among the stacks of papers, trying to organize the harried mess while at the same time looking for documents that contained anything that pertained to land trade. She missed Spike, his calm demeanor in the face of rising towers of paperwork, and his helpful hands that could leaf through dossiers without losing his place. She hoped his scaly flank was having a good time right now because as soon as he got back he would get stuck helping her for days.

She got another report that might help her. “Princess, I found a survey detailing the findings of a search for mineral deposits near Baltimare.”

“Excellent work my student. This might be the little nudge we need. What does it say?” Princess Celestia asked from her own side. They were using a bed as a shelf to deposit the mounds of paper, while writing on two small bedside tables they appropriated. The doctors offered them their offices of course, but the princess even now refused to leave the floor where Luna resided if she could avoid it.

Twilight’s eyes rapidly descended down the sloppily written lines, taking in their content. “Uhh… nothing of importance found,” she said with an embarrassed smile.

“Ah,” Princess Celestia said, smacking her lips. “I suppose it was too much to hope for. If there were any they would have already been appropriated ages ago anyway. It might be a step in the right direction though. What natural resources are nearby that we could use to revitalize the local economy?”

Twilight dove into the paper world once more, coming out with a few results surprisingly quick. “Let’s see… This one here says that there is an abundance of natural gas and rock oil in the swamplands south of here.”

Princess Celestia bit her lower lip. “Harsh territory infested with monsters and dangers.”

“Maybe… If Princess Luna and the Lunar Guard could-”

“There are not enough Lunar guards yet,” Princess Celestia said. “Luna will need more ponies to help her if she is to keep the area safe enough, and time. We don’t have either of them, and this would be too a great risk for too small a reward. We could use the Royal Guard and the Solar Guard, but I don’t see what the use would be.”

“I suppose it isn’t worth it if all we can do with it is fill up some canisters for stoves,” Twilight agreed. “It’s not so precious or sought after anyway. How about… no, maybe… is there really nothing of value around here?”

“There is the bay,” Princess Celestia said slyly.

“There must be a way to move the Leviathan,” Twilight said in contemplation. “We can’t wait for it to decompose on its own or ruin the area more than it has.”

Princess Celestia’s smile was lost and her head sunk. “We don’t have a choice Twilight. We’re talking about thousands of tons. The best we can do is slowly cut it apart and bring it ashore piece by piece to be destroyed.”

“But this will take years!”

“It will. It will take even more for the bay to restore itself, but this is what we have to deal with. In the meantime, we will do the best we can with what we have.”

Twilight’s attempt to say more on the subject, even if self-admittedly it would be nothing more than whining, was stopped in its tracks by a polite, yet heavy knock on the door. She walked up to it and opened it, surprised to see who it was.

“Hello Solid Charge,” Twilight greeted the large minotaur.

“Hello miss Twilight,” Solid Charge greeted back. He leaned a little in an attempt to see further into the room. “I’m looking for Princess Celestia. Is she here?”

“She is here. Please, come in.”

“Thank you.” He walked into the room, stood in front of Princess Celestia, and bowed his head respectfully.

“Solid Charge, I did not expect to see you. Is there anything you need my help with?” Princess Celestia’s welcoming smile lost its lustre. “Is there something wrong with my sister?”

“There might be,” Solid Charge said, making the two ponies weary. “I visited Princess Luna when I heard she had awakened. She was with Raegdan and- I’m sorry, but I have to ask; Is there a reason she was whacking him with an IV stand while shouting “I’ll give you a few scratches, you lying piece of-” uh, I didn’t quite get the end of the sentence there,” the minotaur said, bravely attempting to hide the fact that Luna could have quite the potty mouth if she wanted to.

Princess Celestia crossed one of her front legs over the other as she lied on her belly on the bed. “I believe she might have had a good reason,” she said, chuckling. “Is that all?”

“No. What I actually wanted to tell you princess was… I didn’t get the chance to speak to either of them a lot. They were in the middle of something-” Princess Celestia chuckled again and the minotaur followed suit. “Ok, not just that. I believe Raegdan was in the middle of telling Princess Luna everything that occurred. What they did ask me however was… troubling.”

“What was it?”

“They wanted to know the train schedules for Manehattan, where their possessions are, and they wanted me to find out which thestrals will join after all.”

“They want to leave,” Twilight said, needlessly. “Already? But they are both-”

“Stupid,” Princess Celestia completed her sentence, though not in the way Twilight meant to. “Thank you for letting me know of this Solid Charge. You’re dismissed.”

The minotaur bowed his head once more and left with a newfound relief in his stride. Twilight let herself imagine Luna and Raegdan’s reaction if they learned of this. She imagined Solid Charge’s response. He probably wouldn’t care as long as he did what he believed was right. Good for him. Princess Celestia may have made a better choice than she knew, even if it was too brief.

Princess Celestia had a self satisfied smile on her.

“Princess?” Twilight asked. “What are you going to do?”

The princess didn’t answer immediately. She started separating their work first, and Twilight joined her, helping her finish much faster. “I don’t have to do anything,” Princess Celestia said among her humming. “I already did. I called upon a “specialist” to make sure they do get the treatment they need days ago. I’d really like to blame Raegdan for this, but Luna was always like that.”

“I doubt there’s any medical specialist they will listen to if they want to leave,” Twilight confessed. What she had were not doubts. More like certainties. Raegdan might currently be as apologetic or sorry as he could ever be, but the moment a pony he didn’t know tried to tell him what to do… She frowned as she just had a peculiar thought. Could it be that one reason Raegdan never revealed to anypony, or even made use of, that he had a large amount of bits to his name was that if ponies knew that -and he kept acting the way he did- he would be sued out of them in less than a week?

“She doesn’t have any medical degrees, but they will obey her. She’s arriving today. It might also teach him a lesson about opening his big mouth. Now, let’s see if it’s viable to arrange trade lines with Dodge City, Appleloosa, and other emerging communities to the southwest. Perhaps it is time to lay a railroad connecting Baltimare with Dodge City. Help me calculate the logistics Twilight.”

Twilight stumbled her way to Luna’s room. Figures, maps, and numbers danced in her head, making her dizzy. She had trouble thinking. This certainly wasn’t science or magic research. They kept jumping from one possible solution to another, only to return to a previous one with different numbers or a slight change. It was confusing, but also infuriating. No wonder Princess Celestia appeared so tired if that’s what she did every day on top of worrying about her sister. They had dozens of scenarios that could work, but no assurances that they would. Way too much relied on how ponies would react, and there was no way to calculate a pony’s reaction as a nice, reliant number.

Maybe she could if she used a larger sample, she contemplated. Perhaps if she used populations instead? If she could find enough examples of how ponies react as a species to various events and trends throughout history, she could quantify the results and-

She lost her train of thought when out of Luna’s room came her friends with Applejack leading the way. She had a Monopony board game box on her back and a surly expression on her face.

“Hello girls. What were you doing?” she asked.

“Gettin’ mugged in Monopony,” Applejack said gruffly.

“Ok…” Twilight said, looking to her other friends for better defined answers. Pinkie Pie was smiling widely, and Rainbow Dash seemed to be torn between being cross or amused. Rarity and Fluttershy were smiling pleasantly while Spike was barely holding his laughter from erupting from in between his hands in front of his snout. Even so, a few giggles escaped him every now and then.

Twilight asked the wrong question. “So… who won?”

“That depends,” Applejack answered. “Do ya mean who would have won if we all played fairly or who won because they cheated like they were playing against the death pony for their souls?”

She understood exactly what she meant. There was a reason Twilight disliked card games. “Ah. Yeah, you have to be explicit in what ways he isn’t allowed to cheat.”

Applejack sucked on her teeth and her eyes went a little cross as she stopped herself from expressing herself in the way she really wanted to. “He rolled nothing but doubles all game long and he didn’t land on the dungeons tile even once.”

“Oh. No wonder he won then,” Twilight said.

“He didn’t,” Spike said, giggling like a maniac. “He lost too.”

“Then who won?”

“Luna,” Rainbow Dash said, laughing too, making Applejack growl next to her. Rainbow opened the game’s case and threw one of the fake bits to Twilight. “Here, check this out.”

Twilight did so. It was a gold painted, wooden chip with the number five hundred embossed on it. Twilight never really liked Monopony this much, the game taking ages to finish, so she rarely played it, but something was off about this bit token.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Ah’ll tell ya what’s wrong with it,” Applejack said. “There are no five hundred bits tokens in the game. It goes up to two hundred tops. Surprisingly enough, we seem to be missing some of the one bit tokens now.”

That made sense. Luna may have lost most of her power but she certainly didn’t lose any of her skill. The change she had to do was so small she could manage it even drained as she still was, but to keep it hidden from everypony else…

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Ah did! She said, and I quote; Dear Applejack, you are obviously not as proficient in the game as you claim to be if you forget the game’s currency so easily. The token is here, thus it does exist. Now, if you don’t mind, you have to pay rent. You landed on my five star inn.”

“On the upside, the game lifted her mood tremendously, though at the expense of another,” Rarity noted, pointing at the snarling Applejack with a movement of her eyes. “Strange, I thought she would be glad for all these presents, but she seemed to barely be able to move to the next one and she didn’t smile once. I don’t think she went over more than a dozen of them.”

Leaf Stream walked up to them laughing, having heard the last part of Applejack’s loud grumbling but not Rarity. “Oh boy, Monopony. Nothing better to get a good rage going, huh? Let me guess. She also ended up having more inns than you remember her buying.”

Applejack grumbled and put the token back in the box.

Luna’s voice echoed from inside. “Applejack, is that Leaf Stream I heard out there?”

Applejack sighed. “Yes princess. It is.”

They heard Luna speak again, though not to the outside. “Go.”

“Come on Luna. I feel like I’m covered in flames and I have more holes than a cheese grater. Please don’t do this to me,” Raegdan begged.

“Go now. You deserve it and you know it.”

“But...”

“That’s an order. Leaf Stream deserves a reward for what she did, and though I am highly pleased you didn’t leave me behind, you deserve a punishment nonetheless for acting so vastly prematurely. Go.”

Raegdan came out, leaving the door half closed behind him and gesturing for the thestral guards to move further away. He let out a deep sigh that shook him from top to bottom and stood in front of Leaf Stream. He positioned himself with his legs wide open and put his arms behind him, looking straight ahead, higher than the top of their heads.

“Uh, what’s this about then?” Leaf Stream asked.

“Just… be gentle if you can,” Raegdan said through clenched teeth.

“Gentle with what?”

Luna shouted from inside, her voice loud, clear, and full of mirth. “Leaf Stream, as a reward for your actions during the arrival of the Leviathan in Baltimare, and considering Raegdan’s rushed actions during my period of healing, I recognize your claim to “dibs”. Enjoy thyself.”

“Oh heavens, please be ge- eeeeaanggh!”

Applejack smiled vindictively. “Well, look at that. There’s some justice after all.”

Raegdan had fallen on his flank, the wall being the only thing stopping him from falling all the way down, his hands clutching himself as he went from dry to sweating profusely in a second, staining his bandages in moments. He convulsed and Twilight barely managed to teleport a waste bin from across the corridor in front of him in time.

“This made everything worth it!” Leaf Stream said in a state of ecstasy, smiling brighter than Twilight had ever seen her. “Can I have another go? I want to try it with horseshoes on.”

The fallen alien retched in the waste bin once again. Rainbow Dash took to the air to avoid being splashed. “Heavens help me,” he said achingly. “I swear, if this becomes a trend I’m going to kill myself. Others may die also.” He pushed the bin away from him and settled on the floor, breathing heavily through his mouth. “The things I do for a smile… This can’t get any worse at least.”

“Oh, you poor little colt! Who hurt my baby?” The voice behind Twilight was intimately familiar and truly unexpected, though it shouldn’t have been. Princess Celestia said that she called for a “specialist”. One that could control Luna and Raegdan. She didn’t know about Luna, but there was only one pony that Raegdan always bowed to in fear of getting on her bad side. The only pony that he didn’t dare cross. The only pony that had come on top in their every confrontation.

Twilight’s mother hugged Raegdan and rubbed his back as if he was a little foal.

“Twilight Velvet?” Raegdan’s eyes were wide in disbelief. “What- what are you doing here?”

“Oh, you silly foal. Did you really think that I wouldn’t come immediately as soon as I found out one of my babies was hurt? Don’t you worry none, momma is here to make sure you get better.” She kissed the bandage over his cheek and checked him top to toe, making a tsk sound as she noticed how none of his skin showed through the bandages he was covered with. “What are you doing lying on the floor? It’s late. You should be in bed. Where is Princess Luna? Princess Celestia asked me to look after both of you foals.”

“Oh Celestia, you little bitch…” Raegdan whispered. Twilight Velvet ignored him.

Twilight moved up to hug her mother, with Spike following suit. Twilight Velvet gushed over Spike, telling him how much he had grown, and what a ferocious dragon he was becoming. Spike lapped it all up like usual.

“So, Princess Luna?” Twilight Velvet asked.

“In there mom,” Twilight said, pointing. “I’d like to introduce you to my friends-”

“In a minute my angel.” Twilight Velvet bowed her head apologetically to the ponies around her. “Excuse me, but the princess takes priority. I’ll be right back. This place needs a mother’s touch. I can’t believe these hacks allow their patients to stay awake at this hour. They need sleep in order to heal. Raegdan, come in and lie down as soon as you can please, ok honey?”

“Uh, sure, sure.”

“Perfect. I know you’re not silly enough to make me come get you,” Twilight Velvet said and marched into Luna’s room. The door didn’t close entirely behind her. Luna’s strong voice was easily heard, but Twilight Velvet’s soft tones were lost.

“Hello. Can I help you ma’am?”

“I… believe I have heard your name before but… Why did Raegdan let you in here?”

“Ma’am, I do not know what a “booboo” is, and I assure you that even if I knew, I wouldn’t want you to kiss it.”

“Please do not pucker your lips like that. Keep your distance. Ma’am, I have no desire to engage in coitus with you, stop petting me and stop trying to kiss me! Raegdan, help! I’m being fondled against my will!”

“This is highly inappropriate! Remove your- No, I do not need my pillows fluffed, who let you in here- I told you to remove your hooves from- I am not a foal to be- ma’am please stop, I assure you that I am comfortable enough alread- Stop snuggling me, I am the night!”

Raegdan climbed to his feet unsteadily, holding on the wall for support. “I gotta go in there and stop her,” he said.

“Which one?” Spike asked with a chortle.

“Either,” he answered, and lurched inside, bent double over his stomach, still reeling from the effects of Leaf Stream’s reward.

“Velvet, please, how about you stop and let us rest or-”

“You know this mare?”

“I do- Velvet, I don’t need to lie down. I’m fin-”

“Do not give orders to my Raegdan. Raegdan, show this mare out now. After you stop her from trying to rock me to sleep.”

“Come on Velvet, let’s just- No, I’m telling you, you have to leave. I’m fine, I don’t need rest. What are you talking about, I’m fine, there’s nothing wrong with my legs- aaargh!”

“Guards! Guards! We’re under attack! Leaf Stream, we need aid! Curse this cast and these infernal contraptions. How do these pulleys work- Why does my bed recline backwards, what’s even the use of this?”

“My knee! My freaking knee! You gimped me you crazy-”

“I’m going to make you pay for- uumph!”

“I can’t get on the bed you psychopath, you almost broke my-”

“Did she just feed me chocolate? Maybe this mare isn’t so bad… Raegdan, when you break that chokehold search her and see if she has more on her.”

“I don’t need help, I’m fine. I’m fine- no, Velvet no, it doesn’t twist like- aaargh! Ok, ok, I’m lying down. There, are you happy now?”

“No ma’am, this isn’t my “teddy”. I don’t have any “teddies” of any kind and- Yes, I know it looks like Raegdan, and yes, this does look like me- No, we don’t have matching “teddies” and this isn’t cute! Neither of us is cute or adorable, and will you please stop snuggling us already? Raegdan, just who is this- why did she turn off the light?”

“Oh no…”

“Raegdan, why is she singing a lullaby? What is going on- Ow. No, I will not stop talking, I am a princess and I am entitled to answers.”

“Just… roll with it Luna.”

“Who in Tartarus is she and why are you not- Wait. Twilight Velvet? That’s Twilight’s mother? The one you told me about? How did she even- ow! My ear! Raegdan, tell her to stop!”

“Ok Velvet, stop- What? You can’t make me sit in the corner... Can you? Oh heavens, you’re serious!”

“On second thought Raegdan, I believe I will lie down and sleep, and we can talk about this tomorrow with my sister. I can sense her hoof in this- I don’t need a lullaby to sleep, I am- mmph!”

“Velvet, can you just- mmpph!”

“Ma’am, if you give me the rest of Raegdan’s share I will allow you to finish that lullaby.”

Outside, Twilight was entertaining herself mostly by watching her friends’ jaws go lower with every exchange.

“That’s your mother?” Leaf Stream asked in amazement.

Twilight nodded.

“Why the tartarus did we even come here? We should have sent her against the Leviathan!”

Ch.24 - It's always more complicated than you think

Twilight slowly drifted to consciousness. A smooth, sweet awakening that felt like slowly finding herself on a puffy cloud, with no clear point where she stopped being asleep, her body completely relaxed and comfortable despite the awkward position she had assumed during her slumber. Her rest was troubled lately, plagued by nightmares she could not remember, but she was fine with that as long as they remained out of her memory. She kept her eyes closed, enjoying the pleasant sensation, and considering whether she should try to drift back to sleep again rather than completely wake up.

Voices made themselves known. They spoke quietly, almost murmuring to each other, a constant low buzzing. She lazily recognized them. Twilight pressed her cheeks deeper against the pillow, too comfortable to care that she fell asleep in the wrong room.

“Surely you could leave the hospital for a few hours,” Luna spoke quietly. “You did once already while carrying me, and during the day at that.”

Twilight was jerked an inch closer to a full awakening. They’d better not be planning something that would have the rest of them running around to save them again.

The familiar sounds of shuffling paper covered the short silence. “I’m not sure if it’s worth the trouble. There’s not much I can do, is there?”

“Some of the names we have might still be viable.”

“Our best chances will have left because this place no longer fits their sensibilities or your presence here unnerves them. I’m not sure how much importance is left on the others with the bay destroyed, and as for some of them… well, check this.”

Twilight opened one of her eyes just a smidgen, a small slit that barely allowed her to see. Luna held a newspaper in front of her, blocking her from view. Raegdan was sitting patiently next to her on the side of her bed.

She closed her eye again. The warm fog was starting to clear out of her head. She tried to cling to it with the same strength she clung to her pillow.

“Arrested,” Luna said, disappointed. “We’re not going to get a hold here, are we?”

“We could, but not while we’re trapped in here or we look half-dead. I don’t think being a mummy carries the same kind of dread, and everyone would know I was gone the moment my armor went missing.”

“The ponies here like me well enough. Couldn’t this be enough?” Luna asked.

“I don’t know. Right now? That’s a very cautious maybe. In a few months, when Celestia will have the place back in some working order? That’s a certain no.”

Luna sighed. “I suppose we could have ended up much worse. Though… what if we were the ones who fixed these troubles for them?”

“That would work if we could do that. We’d turn this back around to our advantage. You have an idea we can use?”

“No. Don’t you?”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just assume that I have the slightest idea where to start with rebuilding a city’s economy.”

Twilight drowsily chuckled in the pillow. Her sessions with Princess Celestia flashed in her mind, amusing her even further. They really had no idea what they wanted to get entangled with.

She groaned lightly in her half sleep. She had to go help again today. She really, really, really, really didn’t want to.

A hoof tapped at the newspaper. “Hmm… The creature’s corpse is the major obstacle for Baltimare to regain its past way of life according to this. Perhaps we could remove it.”

“Any thoughts on how? I’m telling you straight out, I have none.”

“...Hook it and drag it out?”

“Sure. We’d just need, what, a couple hundred dragons to pull? Do you want to stand behind them and crack the whip or should I?”

“There’s no need to be sarcastic.”

“Right. I forgot, that’s a princess privilege only.”

“Stop it. We could brainstorm both cases for a while at least. It beats just sitting here and counting the cracks at the ceiling. Get a piece of paper, and let’s see what we can come up with.”

“This will be loads of fun, I can already tell,” Raegdan said, completely devoid of any feeling.

“Maybe we can play with some dolls later to relieve your boredom. Will the widdle filly be happy then?”

“See? Damned princess privilege.”

“We could… Hmm... This is hard,” Luna complained. “Too bad the Leviathan’s flesh is not edible. We could trade it with the griffins.”

Raegdan snorted. “Prime rib. An endless supply. I’m pretty sure it’s starting to rot already. We’d have to sell it before it looks too bad.”

“Like it would matter. I do not know if they would fall dead from the disease first or the diarrhea. My stars, can you imagine it? Thousands of sick, flying griffins?” Luna said, starting to laugh. “A repeat of Discord’s chocolate rain of sorts.”

Raegdan burst laughing. “Oh heavens, that’s disgusting. I’d pay to see that. I think killing your clients is not good for business though, even if it’s hilarious.”

“Ah, but see, we could export antibiotics in mass quantities at the same time, and lo and behold; The profits have been doubled!” They started laughing together.

“You think they’d be stupid enough to actually try to eat it?” Raegdan asked, catching his breath.

“The griffins? I bet there are some who’re already thinking of trying a couple of bites. They like to boast about mighty beasts they ate. Oh stars, imagine if they started a plague on their own.” Luna cackled. “Celestia would go crazy trying to find those responsible!”

“To be honest, it won’t be that hard to find them,” Raegdan said.

“Oh? How so?”

“All she’d have to do was follow the brown trail.” They howled in laughter together, each other’s hysterical laugh pushing the other to new heights.

Twilight gave up on going back to sleep with all that ruckus. It wasn’t even that funny. She yawned wide enough that for a second she was certain her jaw would pop off. She climbed off the bed, scratching her mane with her hoof, making even a greater mess of it than her sleep did. She spotted a glass of milk and a large chocolate donut on the bedside table. Somepony had removed about half of the chocolate crust on top. The guilty party’s identity was no terrible mystery.

“Good morning littl- Twilight-” Raegdan said, wiping his eyes.

“Good morning Twilight,” Luna said immediately to cover Raegdan’s slip, even though Twilight didn’t mind at all in reality. “Your mother has left you some breakfast by your side.”

“Good morning. Thank you, I saw it. I hope the chocolate topping was up to your standards?”

Luna’s cheeks reddened. “I only desired to make sure you had nothing but the best.”

Twilight grabbed a brush in her magic and blindly threw it to Raegdan, taking a seat in front of him. Normally she wouldn’t do that, especially in front of others, but Luna did the exact same thing and she was completely unabashed about it. Raegdan started working on Twilight’s mane, taming it down while she yawned again, rubbing the sleep off her eyes.

“I have to say,” Luna continued. “While I was a little… reserved against your mother’s, ah, insistent methods, her tactics to gain my favor are working well enough.”

Twilight glanced back to Raegdan.

“Velvet bought her chocolate cereal for her breakfast,” he explained.

“Between Raegdan and her, I’ve never felt so pampered in my life. I think I like it,” Luna said, a small smile gracing her lips. She pulled the covers over her with a content purr.

Twilight waited until Raegdan was done, and then sat down to eat her own first meal of the day. “Do you have anything planned for today?”

“I’m still not allowed to leave my room, so no.” Luna wiggled the broken leg held aloft, and lightly flapped her bandaged wing.

“I’m not sure if there’s anything I can go out to do,” Raegdan admitted. “I already pestered Celestia to tell me what happened with the griffins, but apparently “investigations” are still ongoing. She didn’t take well to my suggestion to let me ask them a few questions myself.”

Twilight swiftly drank out of her glass to chase away the sudden sour taste in her throat. “No, I imagine she wouldn’t.”

“She kicked me out.”

Luna huffed. “You’d think she’d relax her precious rules when somepony tries to kill her sister.”

“You know what I think?” Raegdan asked, tapping at his lips with a finger. He rested one of his legs on Luna’s bed and his back against the head of the bed. Luna scooted over to the side to accommodate him. “I think she’s trying to bait out whoever sent them. Even if she doesn’t get answers out of the assassins, she might get something from the envoys from other nations that will soon show up to pretend they’re all outraged this happened and stuff.”

“Envoys? You think Princess Celestia believes the Griffin leaders sent them?” Twilight asked.

“I doubt it would be them,” Luna said. “Griffins sending griffins for an assassination? They’d have to be stupid to do something like this, which of course might be what they want us to believe and it’s truly them behind this. Celestia’s way might work though, especially if the prisoners have been fed with lies about their true employer.”

“Right,” Raegdan agreed. “It could be the Minotaurs, Zebras, Yaks, Dragons, Diamond Dogs.... uh… did I miss anyone? I think I missed some.”

“Plenty enough. It could be some other pony nation like Saddle Arabia, but they seem to worship the ground my sister steps- “ Luna frowned. “Ah, I forgot. I’m the evil one. How fun.”

“Let’s just say “everyone” and keep the headache to a minimum,” Raegdan proposed.

Twilight blinked. That’s how you keep a headache to a minimum? Oh hey, someponies want to kill me! I’ll just assume it’s everypony so I don’t have to keep count at least. That’s one worry less, now I will be able to pay more attention for venomous snakes in my bed. Oops, turned my eyes away from the teapot for a second, it’s probably poisoned by now, out it goes!

A part of her weeped that she never had any particular interest in psychology. It was like she stood in front of a treasure trove of knowledge, that only evaded her grasp because she left the key to it in her other saddlebags.

“My bits are on the Minotaurs,” Luna said. “They’ve always been quite proactive and it’s not the first time they had a go at my head. Their royal lineage might still keep a grudge.”

“But how will envoys from them help Princess Celestia find out who paid the griffin assassins? I really don’t think they’re gonna betray their own people, no matter how Princess Celestia asks.” Twilight said.

Luna looked at Twilight with wide eyes. “My stars, you are really sheltered, aren’t you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Spies, lit- Twilight. Spies. Even if her spies don’t uncover enough, just how the envoys act and what they say might be enough of a clue for Celestia to really start digging in the right direction,” Raegdan said, chuckling.

“Princess Celestia has spies?”

“You had no idea, did you?” Raegdan asked with a furiously condescending smile.

“Wait, how do you know about them?” Twilight asked. “Why did she tell you about them?”

“She didn’t. I’m not supposed to know anything, but I’m not gullible either. There was this one time where I set a cheese export report on fire. She got so mad that she lit my pants on fire in retaliation.”

Two golden doors bursting open. Raegdan running out, fanning the flames as he tried to douse them by kicking his legs in an impromptu dance. Twilight had tried to help using a wind spell, causing the flames to spread even more. Thankfully Cadance was there, and she knew a water spell. Raegdan was forced to change clothes multiple times that day.

There were bees too.

“I remember that,” Twilight said.

“Right. I hoped you wouldn’t. Well, it seemed weird to me after I thought about it. Sole Princess of the Realm, and she had things like dairy product import and exports on her desk, and various other stupidities like that, insisting on reading them while she had a griffin delegation waiting to meet with her in a day or two.”

“She has a lot of responsibilities,” Twilight reminded him.

“She also has a castle full of ponies to help her. Hell, they already do. She has scores of them that she delegates stuff to. Why was she the one reading these? So, this one time, I did a test to make sure. I went through her paperwork and separated it in piles according to what seemed to me to be more important. I told her I was trying to help, she didn’t buy it, but what was she going to do, throw it all away? She sits down to work, and the first thing she begins work on? A weather report from Vanhoover. She ignored stuff like a riot due to a water shortage in Dodge City for that.”

“What does this has to do with spies?”

Luna rolled her eyes, and huffed impatiently. “These were not “cheese export” or “weather” reports Twilight Sparkle. She was reading reports from her spy network. Reports that had been encoded and hidden in plain sight.”

Twilight went a bit cross eyed as what she knew tried to coalesce with what she just heard, her world once again becoming a little more complicated, and losing a little more of the innocent shine it had.

“Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction too when I figured it out,” Raegdan said, misinterpreting Twilight’s feelings on the matter. “Here I thought she was being nice to the point of being taken advantage, and the crazy mare can actually stand there reading up on whoever she’s investigating right in front of their face, and they never know. Hell, I’m pretty sure some of them have delivered their own doom to her thinking they were just passing on a boring document that would end up in a file cabinet. That cheeky mare. No wonder she’s smiling all the time.”

“I’m… that’s quite heavy. Really? Princess Celestia does that?”

“You don’t rule for over a thousand years without having a few aces in your bag of tricks,” Raegdan said, shrugging. “She’s got ways to make sure she knows as much as possible, and everyone assumes she’s too much of a goody shoes for a few of them. Problem is, she has been using most of her tricks for a very long time, and either there are holes forming or some ponies have gotten wise to them. She catches up eventually I bet, but they’re learning tricks of their own too at the same time.”

“Is this what you were talking about before I got up?” Twilight asked.

“In a manner of speaking,” Luna said. “We wish to have a few questions answered. Perhaps we should delegate this to others like my sister does,” Luna said to Raegdan. “Solid Charge and Leaf Stream have been competent far beyond my expectations so far, and Cast Iron, though quiet, seems to pay intense attention to his surroundings. We could send them in our stead.”

“You know, if you want to, my friends and I are always willing to help,” Twilight offered, encouraged by what Luna proposed.

“Something to think about when we confer with our guards.” Luna turned her head sideways and sniffed, frowning in distaste. “If you do not mind Twilight, I believe I would like to try and get some things out of the way so I can take a proper bath later. Sponge baths have been a most miserable revival of the past so far.”

“Of course princess,” Twilight said, recognizing the dismissal for what it was. She headed outside, saying a last farewell. “I’ll see you later today.”

She closed the door, hearing the last exchange between them with a smile.

“Raegdan, has Velvet provided us with an extra bubbly shampoo as I requested?”

“Well, I told her not to bother, so of course she did.”

Twilight shared a smile with the two thestrals guarding Luna’s door. Celestia only knew what the two of them made out of everything they could hear. “Not really what you expected, huh?” she asked, jokingly.

One of the thestrals’ eyes sparkled and his chest puffed with pride. His smile became far more assured. “She has slain a Leviathan. She is everything we expected.”

It suddenly hit Twilight how supportive and how much the thestrals adored Luna, practically hanging from her lips every time she addressed them. Baltimare’s ponies thoroughly appreciated Luna for what she managed to do, but even that was a mere candle next to the frenzied fire the thestrals held in their heart for Luna. She hadn’t made the thought before, but if the thestrals felt like this for Luna then there was something that didn’t really fit with what Luna said about her past.

“Can I ask you a question?” she asked, looking at both guards.

“Of course,” the both answered as one, exchanging a glance of amusement between them. They were young, probably even younger than Twilight, but had a certainty in their stance she couldn’t help but envy.

“How come Princess Luna was so alone before her banishment? Why weren’t the thestrals supporting her before?”

“We always supported our princess of the night,” the one on her left answered sharply.

“We did,” the other one added, speaking far more gently than his colleague. “In fact, the last Lunar Guard had been comprised entirely of thestrals.”

“Really? I’ve never heard this before.”

“You probably wouldn’t,” the thestral answered while his fellow guard harrumphed in displeasure. “There’s not much to know anyway. It was a very old story even before Princess Luna’s banishment. The story goes that Princess Luna came to the thestrals, asking for volunteers to form an elite guard to help her safeguard the night. There wasn’t a single thestral who wouldn’t wish to join her. The clans were in an uproar trying to gain her favor. Princess Luna chose twenty of the best, the most agile, strong, and cunning stallions and mares. She personally trained them for a year, turning them into indomitable warriors before she took them with her into the night to fight by her side.”

“So what happened? Why did she stop using a guard of her own?”

“You’d have to ask the princess herself,” the rude one said, shrugging. “According to the story, Princess Luna returned less than a week afterwards, bringing back a few of her guards’ personal items. She told our ancestors that they all died.”

“Less than a...? How? What happened?” Twilight asked, shocked.

“Nopony knows.” The second thestral waited for a nod from his companion before continuing. “She refused to say. She didn’t take well to being pushed for answers. She swore an oath right then. She said there would never be a Lunar Guard again. That the weight of her duty was hers alone to carry. Then she left. She was barely seen by our people from that point on.”

“Choice,” the first thestral said.

“Sorry?”

“You got it wrong. She said “the weight of her choice,” not “weight of her duty.” That’s how the story goes. Don’t get it wrong you foal, we’re supposed to tell the stories exactly as we heard them or not at all.”

“Right. My bad miss. It’s exactly as my friend said.”

“I for one,” the first thestral said, “am glad our princess has changed her mind. When I am part of her Lunar Guard I will serve her dutifully, and remove the stain of-”

“You? Sorry buddy, too few spots. I’ll tell you some stories if you want though when I come back-”

“If you think you are gonna be picked to serve Princess Luna you must be more delusional that I thought!”

“You wanna know what delusional really is? Go take a look in a mirror you-”

Twilight left the thestrals to their bickering. She went off to pace through the deserted corridors of the reserved floor, thinking over what she learnt. Perhaps Luna really had been tremendously shunned, in part because of her own actions or lack thereof. She had options however. She could have turned to Princess Celestia for aid, and now she learned she also had the thestrals as a source of help.

She accepted their help. More than that, she reached out for them. And then… she never reached out again. What kind of monster killed the entirety of her old guard, and why did it make Luna so opposed against anypony helping her ever again?

She heard Luna’s angry shout as the argument of the two thestrals got louder. “What the Tartarus is going on out there?” She spared a glance behind her, giggling at the two guards standing at attention as rigidly as they could despite the little shivers that ran all over them.

She walked through the corridors, taking turns at random, not really caring where she ended up, or if she was making circles. She wanted to walk, and think. It was better to do it here, where there was almost nopony but the patrolling thestrals rather than be a nuisance downstairs where it was crowded enough already. Losing a portion of their available space had been quite rough for the hospital staff, but after what happened who was going to complain about Princess Luna’s needs?

Twilight’s thoughts were cut short by Leaf Stream’s cry of distress coming from one of the many empty rooms.

“Oh buck me, buck me, it hurts, it hurts, it huuurts!”

Twilight opened the door at once, and rushed inside, spurred by the cries of pain. Leaf Stream was lying on a bed, trying to reach between her amputated wings. Her attempts failed as she kept her back completely straight, her hooves nowhere able to reach their target. She looked up at Twilight’s unexpected entrance.

“Leaf Stream? Are you ok? What happened?”

Leaf Stream was extremely relieved to see her. “Oh thank Celestia, somepony’s here. Quick, come help me! The wing muscles have cramped up and it hurts like a bitch!”

“I- what do you want me to do?” Twilight asked, coming closer.

The pegasus gnashed her teeth as a wave of pain made her shiver violently. “Just grab the stumps and force them to move down. Hurry!”

Twilight used her magic to do as she asked. She took hold of the wings’ remains, feeling nausea as she saw the damage up close once more, and forced them to go back to their resting position. They resisted at first, but the muscles slowly gave in and had completely relaxed by the time she had finished.

Leaf Stream let out a sigh of rested relief. “Oh Celestia… you have no idea how good it feels now that it’s over.”

“What happened?” Twilight asked, laying a blanket over Leaf Stream’s back so she could keep her punished muscles warm.

She looked around, spotting the haphazard nature of the room she was in. Leaf Stream must have claimed it as her own. What drew her attention, and made her feel pity for Leaf Stream, was the improvised hammock in a corner made from hospital sheets. She had obviously gone to great pains to raise it as high as possible.

“Eh, my fault,” Leaf Stream said, grinning in embarrassment. “The butcher that cut them off told me I had to keep the muscles exercised and not let them… what’s the word?”

“Atrophy?”

“Yeah. That. Or else this crap happens apparently.”

“You really should do as the doctors told you,” Twilight cautioned.

Leaf Stream snorted. “Yeah. Sure. Easy to say, isn’t it?”

“It should be. A few sets of repetitive motions per day ought to be enough for-”

Leaf Stream cut her off. “Yeah, exactly.” She put a pillow under her chin and closed her eyes. “That’s awesome. Get up everyday and flap these pathetic little stubs, just like I did when I had real wings. The same thing that got me in the air is now only good enough to make sure my back doesn’t lock up and I end up writhing on the ground like a worm. Oh, what fun that is.”

Twilight bit her lip, feeling awkward. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think of it like that.”

“Not your fault,” Leaf Stream said. “Though I appreciate the sentiment. Celestia knows the one who did that to me ain’t gonna be apologizing any eon soon.”

“You are still angry with Raegdan,” Twilight noted.

“Nooo,” Leaf Stream said, not sparing the sarcasm. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“You know… You never said you were sorry to him either.”

Leaf Stream’s eyes opened up in a flash. “I’m sorry, but what? Me, say sorry to him? About what?”

“You did try to kill him.”

“Try. I tried. He succeeded in getting my wings cut off. There was also the little matter of excruciating agony, you know, while he shattered the bones and forced them to slice through the muscles and sinew? I was screaming so hard my throat bled? Ring any bells? Are you having memory problems or something? Is it because you’re spending too much time around the bucker? Heck, is it contagious?”

“I don’t have any problems with my memory, but maybe you do. You tried to kill him. You were the one who started this,” Twilight countered.

“Now see here, you’re not seriously telling me-”

“And from what I hear and see,” Twilight continued, raising her voice over Leaf Stream’s, “you are being a total jerk to him. Granted, you are being kind of a jerk to everypony, but especially Raegdan.”

“He totally deserves it,” Leaf Stream spat. “Celestia, how come my cutie mark hasn’t changed to a gramophone already? He. Destroyed. My. Wings. He crippled me!”

“Maybe he deserves it,” Twilight seemingly relented. “But would you like to know something I’ve noticed?”

“Oh please, don’t leave me in suspense, my poor heart can't take it. Do tell.”

Twilight leaned towards Leaf Stream for maximum effect. “He hasn’t retaliated or complained about your behavior despite what you say or do. Not even once. He has outright threatened or attacked ponies for looking at him wrong, but not you.”

Leaf Stream backed off. Twilight waited for her retort. It didn’t come.

“Alright, see, now you make me sound like I’m the jerk.”

“You kind of are.”

“But he-”

“You tried to kill him,” Twilight reminded her once more. “In an exhibition fight. Where he tried to keep it clean.”

“Now, look, I didn’t kill him so, you know, it doesn’t count as much as-”

“If you want an apology,” Twilight said, “then perhaps you should make the first move. Again. Only with less trying to kill him. You can’t let this fester, not while you are supposed to work with him. You heard his story, same as I did. I’ve almost never heard him apologize to others, and I think you can understand why, but maybe he will to you. You have to do so first though. Even if he doesn’t… it will be good for you to leave this behind you.”

Leaf Stream’s eyes opened wide, making them glitter with hope somehow, and with the saccharine voice of a young filly said; “And when we both say sorry to each other will faeries come down from golden clouds and give me back my wings grandma Twilight? WIll everything be hunky-dory then?”

Twilight didn’t rise to the bait. “Saying sorry isn’t meant to fix anything. It’s how you’re supposed to start fixing it.”

“I’m going to lie down and rest,” Leaf Stream said with a sudden brooding expression, turning her back on Twilight. “Don’t you have somewhere else to go and be all preachy and wise?”

As a matter of fact, there was somepony else Twilight wanted to talk with. She had been avoiding it for days. Perhaps it was time for her to also make the first move.

“I do. I’ll leave you alone. Think about what I said, and don’t forget to do your exercises.”

“Ok, mom, I will.” Leaf Stream paused. “Thanks for the help.”

“You’re welcome.”

Twilight left. Whether Leaf Stream listened to her advice or not, it was still a victory for Twilight. She didn’t listen to that hate-spewing voice in her head, and every time she didn’t it was fading a little bit more. It had almost vanished soon after Luna awoke.

She was winning.

Twilight had been waiting for her mother to return to the hospital from her shopping trip for over an hour. She sat near the entrance on the edge of a step, watching as ponies came in and out. Ever since the doctors announced that Luna had woken up and was on the road to recovery there had been a resurgence of ponies wanting to meet her or leave something for her.

Twilight wasn’t sure if any of them would get their wish. It had become obvious by now that the gifts and letters they had been showering Luna with were not something she- no, it wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy them, but rather that they were not fulfilling the cause they were meant for.

Luna had been going very slowly through them in private, only keeping Raegdan at her side during the process. She had been separating them into two piles as she went, and hadn’t explained to anypony why yet. As for meeting the ponies flocking to see her, she refused, using her condition as an excuse not to be seen. Princess Celestia tried to change her mind. Twilight and her friends did the same. So did her three guards. Raegdan stayed silent on the matter, refusing to push her in either direction.

It had been a long couple of days since Luna awoke. Twilight had started to miss Ponyville.

She finally saw her mother- actually what she saw first was Cast Iron, laden with bags. Twilight Velvet became visible when they cleared the crowd, holding a couple of bags with her magic herself, as well as the saddlebags on her back.

Twilight rose up as they approached, greeting them. Her mother gave her a quick hug, and Cast Iron smiled quietly. The two minotaurs and Leaf Stream had taken a shining to Twilight Velvet. The thestrals seemed to fear her though. They considered somepony who could unnerve Luna and Raegdan a terrible force to be reckoned with. It was extremely funny in a way, especially how her mother took that fear in stride.

“How come you’re waiting out here for me honey? Why aren’t you with your friends?” Velvet asked as they entered back into the hospital.

“There’s something I’d like to talk with you mom. In private. Do you have time or-”

“Oh honey, I always have time for my little angel.” Twilight Velvet turned to Cast Iron. “Would you please be a dear and take the shopping bags to the kitchens? Leave it all there, I can manage it myself afterwards.”

“It’s really no trouble to-”

“Nonsense dear. You’ve already done too much. Now shoo, and remember, tell Solid Charge and Leaf Stream to be at dinner tonight. I’m making cream puffs drenched in chocolate sauce for dessert.”

The minotaur departed for the staircase with a childish smile on his broad face.

“You’re going to spoil them, aren’t you?” Twilight asked with a giggle. “He seems to be doing much better.”

Twilight Velvet adjusted her saddlebags, and hung the two bags she was still holding in her magic on a little hook on each. “He just needed a good talking to and we did talk a lot while we were out. We found this delightful little ice cream parlor, I must take Spike there one of these days. Such a silly thing to worry over. He believed that because he didn’t feel immediately guilty about killing that griffin, any remorse he felt later was “an emotion he subconsciously manifested in his mind to feel better about himself”. I swear, some ponies -or minotaurs- will reach for the stars before they even consider the simplest explanation. As if there weren’t other things to worry at the moment with all that ruckus and you foals running about, trying to save a princess. Where do you want to talk honey?”

Twilight led the way, her mother following behind, chattering about her shopping trip all the while. Velvet kept telling her daughter about all the “lovely young couples” she saw, along with all the “lovely little foals”, and what a shame it was that Twilight chose to spend all her day in the hospital while she could go outside for a walk and make “new acquaintances.”

Subtlety had never been Twilight Velvet’s strongest point.

Twilight waited for her mother to come inside the small, currently empty office she had secured for this reason, and locked the door, casting a silence spell as a precaution. There was a small table and three simple chairs kept aside. Twilight sat on one of them rather than the tall, high back chair behind the impressive looking desk.

“Ok dear, we’re alone. What is it you wanted to talk to me about?” Velvet asked before her face suddenly brightened with hope. “Oh, don’t tell me! You’ve found a nice stallion to date, haven’t you? Is it a doctor? Oh, tell me it’s a doctor! Is this his office? Am I meeting him?”

“What? No mom, that’s not what I want to talk about,” Twilight said urgently.

“Oh fiddlesticks,” Velvet carefully didn’t curse in exasperation. “But it’s not entirely off the table, is it?”

“Raegdan told me about his daughter,” Twilight said emphatically and distractedly.

Twilight Velvet blinked. She huffed and opened a package she had in of one of the bags she had brought with her, revealing a white sponge cake. She levitated two plastic plates, forks, and a knife out of her saddlebags.

“I think we might need this,” Velvet said, eyeing the cake. “Do you want a piece from the middle or are you old enough to entertain the notion of having one from the edge?”

“I don’t want any, thank you. Mom, he told me how she died. What he did. He told me everything,” Twilight said, feeling the sorrow and grief returning.

“If you think he gave you anything but the extremely censored version then you’re still a little filly. I’m having a piece, are you sure you don’t want one?”

Twilight’s tongue wanted to sing out its longing for that creamy goodness, but she regretfully held it at bay. “Yes. I mean no. I mean, I’m fine. Look, I wanted to talk with you, ask your opinion.”

“We’re talking honey,” Velvet said as the knife cut a corner piece. “Go ahead and ask your questions.”

“Do you think that… because of what happened to her he might had been taking my protection a bit too… thoroughly?”

The cake piece shook and landed haphazardly on the plate, only a smidgen away from splatting on the floor. “I’m… not sure where you’re going with that honey.”

Twilight did her best to fool her mother by adopting the stance and look of a pony that offered an idea that both parties knew was crazy. “Suppose he decided he had to go back to his old ways, because he didn’t trust anypony else to be able to do what he thought necessary. Do you think he would ever do something like it?”

Velvet took a bite out of her cake and searched her daughter’s eyes with a peculiar look. Twilight shifted under the intense stare, feeling drops of nervous sweat slowly soak into her coat.

Twilight Velvet put down her fork, shaking her head in disbelief. “Oh my sweet stars, he told you about the foalnappers, didn’t he?”

What?

What?

Twilight pulled at her mane, like it was the root of all this madness, and felt determined to rip it all off.

“What the fuck?”

Velvet frowned. “Twilight, watch your language.”

“I’m not gonna watch my language!” Twilight screamed, feeling at the end of her rope, the amounted stress she had piled up finally exploding. “Princess Luna has been facing assassination attempts for a year and it looks like she’s ready to crack under all that pressure and contempt she’s feeling, Raegdan is a fucking genocidal alien with suicidal tendencies who went into a killing spree right under our noses, my own mother knew about it and hasn’t told anypony, a Leviathan exploded all over Horseshoe Bay, Raegdan went insane and tried to foalnap a princess to another fucking dimension, a bunch of griffins almost killed both of them, we all got infected with an alien disease that we easily cured with what I just realized is fucking alien medicine, Princess Celestia got into a fight with her sister and we all know how that turned out last time, Princess Celestia doesn’t know even half of the horseapples that’s going on because you have all dragged me into hiding your secrets from her, I think Raegdan and Princess Celestia might have-” Twilight’s anger fought with her instinct to soften the mental blow of self-admittance as much as possible. “-copulated, and I’m almost certain by now, thanks to my wonderful friends, that he definitely did so with Princess Luna! What the Tartarus am I going to find out next? That dad really uses his telescope to peep at Princess Celestia? What else are you hiding from me? How the fuck did you know about that?”

“Sit back down honey,” Velvet said with a patient smile. “And maybe take a few breaths. That was quite the impressive rant.”

“No! Mom, how can you be so-”

“I said, take a seat Twilight Sparkle,” Velvet repeated, this time with all traces of joviality gone. She wore an expression of solemnity that could easily rival, and conquer, Luna’s. That look. The one that said everypony should do as they were told or terrible things would befall them, often at the end of a household item like a large wooden spoon. Sometimes, she would do worse, much worse. She would look them in the eye, tell them that it was her fault they grew up like that, that she was a terrible mother, and then cry.

Nopony ever stood a chance.

Twilight did as her mother asked. It was an explanation she wanted after all. Sitting quietly and refilling her lungs also sounded nice.

Velvet took her seat across her daughter again, looking her in the eye and standing straight on her chair. “Do you know which was the most horrifying moment of my life?” Velvet asked.

“My foalnapping?” Twilight guessed easily, certain of what was going to be said.

“No,” her mother said. “A very close second though. It was when Raegdan told me that he didn’t believe he was going to be able to keep you safe. That one day they’d manage to take you away from us.”

Twilight inhaled sharply through her teeth. “What was he playing at by lying like that to you?”

“Why do you think he was lying?” Velvet asked as she used her magic to pick up the fork and take another bite out of her cake, putting the simple utensil back down immediately after.

“Isn’t it obvious? Mom, he was right beside me almost every single moment there was nopony else around me like Princess Celestia, you and dad, Shining Armor, or Cadance. Half the time he slept on the corridor right outside my door. How was anypony supposed to be able to get to me?”

“By killing him first of course,” Velvet said, matter of factly.

“Oh, like it’s that easy-”

Twilight’s chair vibrated as a deep thunk sounded from the back of the chair. Twilight swiveled her head backwards and saw a letter opener that had been resting on the office before now embedded deep into the wood, its handle still trembling. She turned back to her mother, her mouth gaping open in astonishment. Velvet’s horn had been glowing with magic, but she would never have guessed…

“A simple levitation spell and there goes the most powerful unicorn of this generation. It is that easy,” Velvet said, smiling pleasantly. “Oh, of course you’d have to make sure you only needed one shot because Celestia help you otherwise, but he could die in a second, just like anypony, and he’s acutely aware of this. Do you think he likes keeping everypony scared of him just because it’s funny? Honey, he had been working out how the straps for an armor should fit for years. He just never had the opportunity or proper excuse to have one made until now.”

Twilight shook her head, trying to come back to the right track. “Ok, fine. It is possible, but why did he just tell you this out of the blue…” Twilight let the sentence hang, her brain finally catching up with her tongue.

It wasn’t possible. He would have spoken up, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t just let it slide… oh for Celestia’s sake, of course he wouldn’t say anything! Celestia forbid he actually helped himself.

“Somepony tried to kill him?”

Velvet nodded.

“When? Where?”

“In our very own home,” Velvet said with pure bitterness. “I had left one of the windows in the living room open because it was such a warm night and Raegdan slept on the couch. I only wanted him to be comfortable. They could see just enough to aim for him. He got lucky. He moved in his sleep, probably having another nightmare, the poor colt, and the knife ended in his arm instead of his throat or anywhere else.”

“What happened to those who attacked him? Why didn’t I ever hear about this?” Twilight asked bewildered.

Velvet chuckled, taking another bite of her cake. “Oh honey, I already told you. He didn’t give them a chance for a second shot, or even to shout. He didn’t want to wake you up, and the fools thought he was dead so they got close to him on their own. All he had to do was reach out.”

“He killed them?”

“Of course,” Velvet said with a self evident tone. “What did you expect?”

“But… Why didn’t Princess Celestia ever tell me about this?”

Velvet took another bite, chewing slowly. “Are you sure you don’t want a piece honey? It’s delicious,” she said through a mouthful.

“Mom!”

Velvet rolled her eyes at her daughter’s insistence. “She didn’t because we didn’t tell her. Why else?”

Twilight couldn’t believe her ears. “You… you didn’t tell Princess Celestia?”

“Nope!” Velvet answered with outstanding cheeriness. “Raegdan threw the bodies somewhere that they would be found, so whoever sent them would know they failed. A message, he called it. That happened later of course. First he told me there was only one way to keep you safe for certain and explained what he had found so far to me. He needed help to go any further.” Velvet scraped the plate with the edge of the fork to catch the remains of cream that had stuck on the plate. “He really didn’t want to screw this up.”

“You helped him?” Twilight blanched. “Mom, do you have any idea what he did to these ponies?”

“I didn’t ask for details,” Velvet answered, waving a hoof as if it was of no importance. “Frankly, I didn’t care. I don’t ask the garbage ponies where they take the trash, do I? Hmm, no, that’s a lie. I did ask him where he buried them. As long as I knew where the bodies were so I can take a good long piss on their graves whenever the mood takes me, I was content enough.”

“How can you say something so horrible?” Twilight couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She couldn’t believe who was saying these things! “You helped him torture and kill ponies! That’s what he did! Mom, there are laws and you walked all over them.”

Velvet pushed the plate away from her, her cake finished. She laid one hoof next to the other, and pursed her lips as she looked upon her progeny. She clicked her hooves together, thinking. Twilight waited.

She didn’t have to wait long. “Twilight, dear, would you like to hear about one of the times I helped?”

“No,” Twilight answered honestly.

“Too bad. I was only asking out of a semblance of courtesy,” Velvet said, her smile gone once more. “I wasn’t able to do as much as the rest, but I did whatever I could. Mostly that involved being a second pair of eyes, making sure nopony saw Raegdan when he grabbed them and took them to the castle where he could do his part. A lookout. One time however, he came out of this one house only to sneak me inside too. Do you know why he brought me there Twilight? What he found?”

Twilight closed her eyes, feeling an unexpected pang of guilt. “A filly?”

Velvet’s eyes watered but her expression and tone remained hard. “It was the most horrible thing I ever saw. A young filly, completely shattered inside,” she said, her hoof thumping at her chest, over her heart.

“I saw where they kept her, I saw the marks of what they did to her… I keep seeing her in my nightmares, only instead of her it’s-” Velvet’s voice broke despite her efforts. She took a deep breath before continuing. “Do you know what the worst part is? She wasn’t even hidden. She was kept in a room, locked by a simple deadbolt. Anypony in there could have taken her out of that house. Nopony did. They let this happen to her. They knew, and chose a monthly salary over their souls,” Velvet said, distraught.

“Mom, I’m- I’m sorry...”

“I had my doubts until then. Moments when I was almost about to go to the Princess and tell her everything, let her clean that mess the proper way. We didn’t let Raegdan go wild you understand. He wasn’t allowed to hurt anypony besides those who we knew were involved for certain, and even then, there were limits, but still...”

Twilight noticed her mother’s hooves were shaking. “Not anymore. Not after seeing that. I took the filly away from there. I took her home, took care of her, and brought her back to her family. I told them what had happened to her. I wish somepony of the others could do this, but I was the only one who could. We found more. Some of the poor dears had…” She sniffled and wiped her nose before continuing. ”Some of them didn’t have the strength left to go on. They… gave up. We didn’t manage to save all of them, but we helped some. We did.”

Velvet glowered at something Twilight could not see. She spoke through her teeth, burning with a reignited rage. “Before I did all that however, I told Raegdan to make sure nopony left that house alive!”

“Mom… I’m trying to understand, I really am-”

“But you can’t,” Velvet finished for her, nodding. “I pray you never will honey.”

“I’m… going to tell Princess Celestia,” Twilight confessed, feeling horrible for saying it. “Not now, not for some time yet, but she should know. It’s not right mom.”

“You go ahead and do that when you believe it’s time honey,” Velvet answered, smiling motherly once more.

Twilight reached for her mother’s hoof. “Mom, I’m serious.”

Velvet put her other hoof over her daughter’s. “So am I. Honey, always do what you think is right. I did. If I am to be punished for it I’ll do so with a smile on my face. I’m not going to cry over my choice, and you shouldn’t either. Don’t worry about me. That’s my job.”

Twilight cast her eyes down. “Mom, is it really that bad out there? Am I really so sheltered that this goes on in Equestria and I knew nothing? I’m learning things I never imagined in my worst nightmares.”

Velvet smiled, patting Twilight’s hoof. “There are bad spots. There always were, and some of them are really bad. It doesn’t mean it outweighs the good. It doesn’t even come close. You… are a bit sheltered honey. A lot of places are like Ponyville. Elsewhere they are not that great, and a few are pretty bad, I’ll admit that, but they’re not the pits of darkness Raegdan imagines. He focuses on the bad side too much, so remember that if he says anything. There are bad ponies, and sometimes they hurt a lot of good ponies, but they’re always stopped one way or another. This wasn’t that different honey. A small bunch of very evil ponies. There are more of them, I won’t lie, but Princess Celestia and her ponies do their job exceptionally well in almost every case.”

“But why didn’t you let them do their job in that case? Why did you have to… to resort to such horrible actions?”

“I was angry at first. I wanted the same thing Raegdan wanted, I’m not going to pretend I didn’t. Then we found the first filly and I decided I wanted this over as soon as possible. Right or wrong, Raegdan got results, fast. There also were other… complications,” Velvet said, hesitantly. “Some of those responsible were very powerful ponies, and letting this go public and to the courts would hurt someponies who didn’t deserve it.”

“So… Rich ponies? Is that how it goes? The rich and powerful are outside the law?”

Velvet tilted her head with an undecided expression. “Not always, but sometimes, yes, it happens. Of course, get outside the law, and some ponies might just decide to go out of it too to stop you. It’s... not a perfect world honey, but as you might have figured out from what Raegdan saw in his travels, it could be so much worse. He didn’t come from a paradise world either you know. I think they had even bigger problems. We’re trying though. It gets a little better each day.”

Twilight moved to the seat next to her mother’s so she could rest her head against her. Velvet nuzzled her and hugged her close.

“I used to think that the world only had big evils, like Nightmare Moon or Discord. I never saw anything really bad though, did I? Nightmare Moon was so broken she never really tried, and Discord was only playing around. What good am I if I can’t stop the real threats?” Twilight said, dejected.

Velvet caressed her daughter’s mane. “Oh honey, cheer up. You saved the world, you really did. Nightmare Moon was dangerous enough even so to take out Princess Celestia, and Discord wasn’t going to keep fooling around forever.”

“Maybe. All this however, all this plotting, all these threats, lies, and knives in the back, all these ponies that would hurt even foals like that… What am I supposed to do about them? How do you stop them?” Twilight asked, feeling deeply troubled.

Twilight’s mother hugged her even closer and rocked her like she used to do when Twilight was a filly. “I’m no princess Twilight, but it seems to me that you’d do it the same way you stopped everything else. You gather your friends around you, and do your best.”

Twilight nodded and pushed her muzzle against her mother’s coat, feeling not better, but comforted at least. “Thank you mom.”

Velvet let go of her daughter and stood up, striking her hooves on the floor in an attempt to remove the numbness that had grown in, and taking a deep, invigorating breath. “Now, it’s almost time for lunch. How about you come down to the hospital’s kitchen with me and help me organize everything I bought? It will be just like old times. Quit worrying your head over this. When it’s time you will tell Princess Celestia, and you will make sense out of this mess with her help.”

Twilight got up. It was… true. That didn’t make it less painful. It was hard enough when she dreaded the thought of- of betraying only one of her loved ones. Now… was she really going to be cold-hearted enough to- to...

“Mom,” Twilight said, halting her mother before leaving the room. “You said “we didn’t let Raegdan go wild.” There were others involved?”

Velvet sighed. “Twilight, you didn’t think just two ponies could pull this off without Princess Celestia realizing what was going on, did you?”

Twilight hesitated. “Was… was one of them dad? Or Shining Armor?”

Velvet chuckled. “Oh no. Those two? I kept them out of it. Your dad figured out that I was doing something dangerous, but I told him not to ask me anything. I’m sorry Twilight, but I don’t think I should say more on the matter. You’re upset enough as it is. It’s in the past, and you don’t need to worry about the future. Just focus on what you need to do right now, ok honey?”

“I… ok. Let’s go.”

“Though… “copulated?” I don’t like how you seem to be so wary of something as natural as sex. Perhaps you need a long awaited talk, one that is not just about the mechanics,” Velvet said as she opened the door.

“Oh my Celestia, mom no, please!” Twilight said, terrified.

“And I know exactly where you’re getting it from! Princess Luna and Raegdan, eh? Hmm. I might have grandfoals from that colt after all if they decide to adopt. They certainly weren’t fooling me by pretending that Raegdan keeps accidentally falling asleep while on her bed every night. Your friend Rarity is a fashion designer, right? What does she know about wedding dresses?”

“No mom, no. Don’t talk to Rarity about this, I’m serious! Mom, don’t laugh! You stay away from Rarity!”

“Ya know Rarity, ah wouldn’t say no to getting some more sleep in,” Applejack said, yawning. “Just sayin’, we should take advantage of the quiet and all.”

“I quite agree with you Applejack,” Rarity said as she walked next to Applejack, heading for the stairwell that would take them down and out of the hospital. “Which is exactly why we should use this opportunity to go out and relax a bit. See the sights, meet some ponies, remove the scent of disinfectant from our manes.”

“Ah was relaxing pretty fine on mah own bed, but fine. Who else’s coming along?”

“Rainbow went for some flying but she should be getting back any second now. Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Spike will join us later, and I saw Twilight sitting outside the entrance some time ago. We can pick her up as we leave.”

“Right,” Applejack said, making a small detour to avoid a pegasus stallion that was mopping the stairs, making his way upwards.

She let out another small yawn and pulled her hat lower, to stop the sun shining through the large windows lighting up the staircase from glaring into her eyes. Truth be told she had started to get bored a bit just lying around, though that didn’t mean she was up to another round of madness so soon.

“Excuse me, sir?” Rarity had stopped to address the janitor they passed. “I wanted to remind you that the guards don’t allow ponies without permission on the top floor. I wouldn’t want to see you dragging your heavy cart all the way up for no reason.”

The pegasus chuckled good naturedly at Rarity. “That’s ok miss, but thank you. Hey, at worst I’ll just bribe them to let me do my job with a cucumber sandwich.”

Applejack almost tripped on her own legs as she froze on spot when she heard him say “cucumber”, enunciating the word. Any drowsiness she still felt was gone when she heard the wrong password. Besides, janitors didn’t carry their carts up the stairs. There were cleaning supplies on every floor. She turned back, looking up at the stallion that wasn’t a janitor. His smile slowly faded as he realized their reactions were off.

“Alright mister, why don’t ya wait here a while and-”

The pegasus didn’t wait for her. He threw his mop and kicked the bucket towards them. The wooden handle hit Applejack in the forehead, and the bucket emptied its dirty contents on them, blinding them.

“My mane!” Rarity screamed, feeling the majority of the muddy water that hit them run down the tendrils of her destroyed coiffure, all the way to her back and chest. “Oh, I’m gonna pluck your eyes out for that,” she promised with a deep menacing growl.

“After him!” Applejack yelled. She cleared her eyes enough to see the stallion trying to pull his cart of janitorial supplies up the steps. Unfortunately for him, Applejack and Rarity’s shouts were enough to attract the attention of the thestrals guarding the corridor above.

The stallion abandoned his cart and ran up the stairs. Two thestrals blocked the top with their bodies while another two swooped above them, heading for the incoming pegasus.

In a flash of magic the stallion was gone. The thestrals looked around them, stunned. Applejack and Rarity were looking in the right direction to see him teleporting behind them, neatly avoiding the thestrals.

Applejack had no idea how a pegasus could do that, and she didn’t care. She squeezed through the thestrals who hadn’t had time to look behind them yet. They got wind of what happened fast enough, and were following right behind her. Their quarry ran down the corridor, unerringly heading towards Luna’s room.

He didn’t have a chance of course. Even if the thestrals in the entrance weren’t able to stop him, he would have to deal with Raegdan, and then Luna herself. He didn’t stand a chance, but Applejack wouldn’t let him even try anything. He was fast but she was much faster. Echoes of hooves striking the tiled floor, and of leather wings flapping, filled the corridors, advancing on their position. The thestrals were quick and spread strategically around the floor. They would catch him in less than a minute, unless he managed to avoid them with his teleporting trick again, and Celestia knows what damage he was planning to do until then.

Applejack’s solution was pragmatic enough. She would catch him now.

When she got close enough she jumped, pushing hard with every ounce of strength of her hind legs, gaining that little needed burst of speed. Her hooves reached for his back and her teeth clamped on his left wing. No matter how determined he was, the pain would stop him dead right then and there. It worked on Rainbow, it would work on-

Applejack landed on the floor, the stallion getting away from her. She closed her eyes as she struck the floor with her jaw. She had no idea how he escaped her. She was sure she had caught him. She opened her eyes. Yep, she totally did. She still had his wing in her teeth.

Her eyes crossed as she tried to make sense of what she saw. A whole pegasus wing was ripped out in front of her, the end of it caught in her mouth.

The thestrals following them caught up and flew for the stallion, screeching in fury. Applejack saw the disguised janitor stop and turn towards his pursuers. He pulled off his janitorial cap, revealing a unicorn’s horn beneath. Applejack finally understood. The sneaky bloke had disguised himself as a pegasus and what she had ripped off was a fake wing.

The thestrals weren’t prepared for this. They were expecting to fight against a pegasus, not a unicorn, They were too close together. A spell fired off the newly revealed unicorn horn. Magic took shape in front of him even as it rushed to meet the thestrals, forming a glob. It crashed on them, splashing them with a strange substance that brought them down, no longer able to move their wings or legs properly.

Applejack had been lying low enough to avoid it. She got up, and charged again, hoping he wouldn’t be able to fire off the spell again so soon.

He didn’t. Instead, he pulled a large dagger out of his uniform, slashing horizontally across him with his magical grip. Applejack barely managed to stop, breaking her run by pressing all four legs down. She leaned back as much as she could. The tip crossed close enough by her throat to feel the air move against her coat.

The unicorn pressed the attack. Applejack retreated, not having any way to fight back. The dagger did not relent. It swung downwards and it slashed across her shoulder and chest. She immediately felt blood running down her body.

She called out for help, desperately. “Somepony, help! He’s got a knife!” She backed again, her eyes locked on the bloodied weapon. The unicorn saw her move back and paused. Applejack knew this was her chance to get out, but if she did he would get away, and another pony might be hurt in her place. Granny Smith didn’t raise no coward pony. She’d stand her ground, to the bitter end if she had to.

The moment of trying to decide whether to kill the mare in front of him or try to reach his main target cost the attacker dearly. He hadn’t been paying attention to his surroundings. A cyan pegasus came flying down from the side, speeding down the corridor leading to them, her teeth grinding angrily against each other.

“Hey, jerk! Stay away from my friend!”

The stallion tried to turn, but he couldn’t possibly do so in time. Rainbow Dash was too fast. She kicked the stallion right on the ribs with all the force of her flying charge, launching him to the opposite side.

There were large glass panes in some walls, almost covering them top to bottom, to allow sunlight through and illuminate the hospital. Solid Charge had ordered them painted over, to stop anypony from spying through, and if somepony was thinking of teleporting inside he would have to do so blindly, risking his life.

The stallion crashed on one such glass pane. Sunlight burst through, lighting up the half darkened corridor. Glass fell outwards in large shards, following the stallion as he fell out of sight.

“Applejack, are you ok?” Rainbow Dash asked, caught in the panic of the moment.

“Yeah, ah’m fine,” Applejack answered quickly. “It’s mostly a scratch. Ah’m ok. Rainbow-”

Rainbow Dash breathed out in relief. “I’m glad. Look Applejack, I’m going to go after that pegasus before he flies off too far. Tell the guards to come find me, ok?”

“Rainbow, he wasn’t-”

Rainbow stood at the precipice of the broken window, looking down. Her expression was turning into one of full blown panic and horror. “Applejack… Applejack, why didn’t he fly? Why- why is he so still down there?”

The thestrals arrived at that moment, converging around them from all directions, only seconds too late.

Rainbow was shivering so hard that they had brought her a blanket to cover herself. It didn’t really help, but it did give her some little comfort as did the hot tea. She wasn’t drinking it, but she seemed content enough to hold it. Fluttershy had sat next to her childhood friend, and Rainbow rested her head in her friend’s lap like a scared filly. Rarity and Pinkie were also there, doing everything they could, even if it was nothing at all. The only ones missing were Applejack herself who had taken root next to the door of the surgery room, just a few meters away, and Twilight and Spike who were still up there, inspecting the cart the stallion had been so insistent on trying to pull up at first.

A nurse came running out of the operating room. Applejack tried to take hold of her to ask her what was going on, but she was ignored yet again. The stallion was obviously in bad straits, which made it all the worse for Rainbow.

“I’m a murderer,” Rainbow kept repeating. “I’m a murderer. I killed him. I- I didn’t mean to, I really didn’t, I thought he was a pegasus, I saw the wing, I didn’t notice the horn… I thought he was going to fly,” she choked, crying.

Fluttershy was stroking her friend’s mane like a mother trying to soothe her foal. Rarity kept trying to speak some sense into Rainbow. “Rainbow, sweetie, please. It’s not your fault. You couldn’t know.”

“I didn’t see the horn! He had a horn and I didn’t see it…”

“There was so much going on, and Applejack was in danger. Everything’s going to be fine. The doctors are fixing him up as we speak. The worst you did was hurt him a little bit, and nopony is blaming you for that.”

“I’m a murderer… I’m a murderer…” Rainbow kept saying, refusing to listen to Rarity.

Applejack heard hoofsteps behind her. She was so far on edge, everything had taken a crystal clear clarity. She would almost swear she could hear her own blood rushing through her veins. Twilight was finally coming to join them along with Twilight Velvet.

Velvet immediately headed for Rainbow Dash, gently pushing Fluttershy aside. She hugged Rainbow, and the pegasus in turn held on to the older pony like she was drowning, dropping the cup she was holding. It fell and shattered, splashing Rarity’s legs, who said nothing. Velvet started rocking Rainbow and whispering in her ear.

“Twilight,” Applejack said. “Everything’s ok? Where’s Spike?”

“He’s with Luna. Raegdan doesn’t want him to come down here. Are you ok?”

Applejack gently touched the gauzes the doctors had put over the shallow gash. “Ah’m fine. Barely more than a scratch really. Had worse happen to me on the farm. What happened? Found anything?”

Twilight let out a trembling breath. “It was a bomb.”

“Pardon?”

“The cart. He had hidden a rune matrix inside that was collecting magic in insane rates. He had even hidden nails in there, whole boxes of them, to act as shrapnel. He could blow up most of the floor with that. He almost did. It hadn’t stopped collecting magic. It was a matter of time until it blew up.”

“Oh mah Celestia,” Applejack whispered. She could scarcely believe how close they had come to ponies dying. If Rarity hadn’t stopped there to say anything… “That’s probably why he was running around. He must have wanted to make Luna or Raegdan come out, even get them near the cart if he could. You stopped it, right?”

“Yes,” Twilight said. “Normally we would try to take it away from everypony and let it explode on its own since the runes looked too complicated and we had no idea how much time we had. We’re lucky that Raegdan was able to stop it easily.”

“Really? How?”

“He just bled over the darned thing and then we scratched some of the runes off. It’s just a hunk of metal now. He’s coming down too, along with the others. How’s Rainbow?”

Applejack turned to watch her guilt-ridden friend. She had finally stopped her litany, but she was still trembling in Velvet’s hooves. “Not that good. She probably saved mah life there, but that isn’t what’s on her mind right now, ya know?” She explained Rainbow’s condition to Twilight as clearly as she understood it.

Twilight bit on her lower lip as she watched poor Rainbow. “What are the doctors saying? Is he going to make it?”

“Ah don’t know Twilight, Ah- oh hey, here’s Raegdan.” Raegdan joined them with Solid Charge and Leaf Stream by his side. He was walking barefoot, covered in nothing but his bandages and the short hospital dress, but he still looked intimidating, even next to the large, healthy minotaur. It was the way he stood, and the glare of his eyes. You didn’t have to know him at all to understand that there stood somepony shimmering with barely contained rage.

“Any word from inside yet?” he asked straight away.

“Not yet,” Applejack said. “Truth be told, ah don’t think he’ll make it. Ah saw him when they brought him in.”

“What do the doctors say?”

“They ain’t speaking to me.”

“They’ll speak to me,” Raegdan growled. He turned to Solid Charge. “Get in there, and find out everything. I want to know exactly what to expect. If they refuse to answer for any reason tell them that I am coming for answers next.” Solid Charge nodded and pushed the operating doors open. Ponies rushed to stop him. He was talking to them as the doors behind him swiveled shut on their hinges.

“Raegdan, how come that pony knew that password?” Applejack asked.

“Ponies found one of the thestrals out on the streets. Someone caught her and beat her almost to death, but not nearly enough. She was actually crawling to come warn us when they found her. She gave them the wrong password despite what they tried. Good girl. She’s gonna be fine after a few weeks. Cast Iron is staying with her to see if she can tell us anything more.” Raegdan had noticed the commotion nearby. “What’s wrong with your friend? I thought she wasn’t hurt.”

Applejack explained once more what was happening to Rainbow. Raegdan listened attentively without commenting. Leaf Stream sighed and spared Rainbow a sympathetic glance midway.

“Guilt?” Raegdan asked, dumbfounded. “She’s feeling guilt?”

“Yeah, hard to believe, ah know,” she said, sarcastically. “She probably saved mah life if that pony decided to jump me, but that doesn’t mean she’s taking it easy that a pony might die because of her. Someponies don’t like knowing they killed,” Applejack answered, feeling a little peeved.

“Hmm,” Raegdan grumbled, and crossed his arms. He stood with them waiting silently, but his eyes were on Rainbow Dash, watching Velvet cradle her, not the doors.

Solid Charge came out, looking grim. Rainbow spotted him, and starting quietly sobbing anew at his expression.

“It doesn’t look good,” the minotaur said quietly. “They’re still trying as much as they can, but that might not be enough. He split his head open, and lost a lot of blood. Broken bones, crushed organs, lacerations from the glass… There’s some chance, even considering all that damage, that he might make it alive. Whether that’s for good or just long enough to ask him a few questions, they cannot know. We will have to be fast.”

“There’s that at least,” Leaf Stream said. “She ain’t gonna take it well when he kicks the bucket.” She carefully avoided looking at Rainbow Dash, but her tone said it all.

“I’m going to go talk to Rainbow,” Twilight said. Raegdan just nodded, his eyes still on the pegasus. Twilight joined the others, but unlike what she just said she didn’t talk. She simply stood there, letting her presence say everything.

Raegdan tapped his fingers against his elbow as his arms lay crossed across his chest, thinking. “Come with me,” he told the two Lunar guards after a while, walking a few steps away from Applejack.

He started talking with them, arguing from the looks of it. Solid Charge and Leaf Stream didn’t seem to agree at first, but whatever Raegdan said quickly swayed them, though they didn’t look happy about it. Leaf Stream left the group and trotted away. The two biped beings came back to stand with Applejack once again.

“What was that all about?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Raegdan said. “Guard stuff. Don’t worry about it.”

It took a while until Leaf Stream returned. She was carrying Raegdan’s hammer with her. Applejack didn’t like that. She didn’t like it much at all. She liked it so little, it was heading speedily towards the opposite direction. In essence, she pretty much hated it.

Leaf Stream gave the weapon to the tall alien.

“She says go for it,” Leaf Stream said, reeling in surprise even as she said it.

Raegdan nodded and turned to Solid Charge. The minotaur nodded back and together they marched through the doors.

Twilight called out for Applejack. “Applejack, what’s going on? What are they doing?”

“Ah don’t know Twilight,” she answered, finally coming to sit with the rest of her friends. Rainbow Dash was watching the doors, as did Velvet. Where Rainbow’s expression was one of surprise, question, and dread, Velvet’s was harder to determine. Her mouth was straight, with just the ends curving up slightly in a tiny smile.

Shouts echoed all the way outside the surgery. Ponies were yelling. Solid Charge was yelling back. Silence. A few outraged cries that were quickly silenced. Raegdan roared for somepony to shut up. It all became quiet again, quiet enough to hear a mare crying inside. The doors slammed open and three nurses left running. They heard a lone voice, extremely loud and clear, that Applejack identified as Luna’s doctor.

“Please, don’t! We just got him stable! He’s going to live!”

A crashing, breaking sound made them jump in their seats.

They sat still, mostly silent apart their pounding hearts and swallowing with dry throats, waiting.

Raegdan casually walked back outside. He held his hammer in his right hand. Blood dripped from it, a thick, almost brown sludge, nothing like the bright red Applejack would have expected. Solid Charge came out next and Raegdan handed over his hammer to Leaf Stream.

“Get somebody to clean that up for me if you can, will you?”

He then walked towards them, stopping in front of Rainbow. Everypony but Velvet was looking at him with wide, scared eyes. He talked sternly to Rainbow with a cruel looking smile.

“Next time, do try to do something more serious than breaking a couple of legs and ribs. If they believe we are soft with them or that we will tolerate these kind of attacks they will only get worse.” He didn’t wait for Rainbow to answer, even if she could. She was looking at his back as he turned away, her mouth opening and closing like a fish.

Raegdan spoke, almost growling out each word, to Solid Charge. “They hurt one of our thestrals. They almost killed Applejack. They would have killed Twilight and her friends. Velvet. My little flame. They wanted to kill Luna. I want them found, and I want Celestia kept away from them. They are mine, and I’ll make good use of every second I have them in my hands!We are not letting them get away with it this time. It’s dead bodies they want? They’ll get them.” Solid Charge nodded grimly next to him, looking almost as furious as Raegdan. The two large creatures left with heavy steps, fists shaking with anger at their sides.

“But… but he- he didn’t-” Twilight stammered. Applejack put a hoof over her mouth, before Rainbow noticed her.

“Let it go Twilight. Just let it go,” she whispered.

Rainbow finally found her voice. “He- I didn’t kill him? But he fell from so high and he looked like…”

Rarity quickly grabbed the opportunity. “See? Like I told you. Honestly Rainbow, what did you expect? Ponies have survived worse. You were worrying over fantasies of guilt. I really don’t understand all that drama. There’s no chance you’d ever hurt anypony like that. You simply don’t have it in you.”

“Yeah,” Pinkie agreed. “Besides, I’ve fallen from roofs plenty of times and I didn’t get hurt at all!”

Rainbow snorted. “Yeah, but you’re practically made of candy floss,” she laughed with sudden relief. She immediately covered her mouth with a guilty look. “I- I shouldn’t be laughing, he still died, but I really thought I- I thought that I-”

“You did nothing sweetie,” Velvet said. “You heard them. You barely hurt him. He killed himself by trying to hurt Princess Luna. Now, what do you say we leave, drink something hot, and leave this tragedy behind us? Come, I’ll make hot cocoa for all of us.”

“Applejack,” Twilight whispered to her. “Should I- should I go speak to him? Should I go tell Princess Celestia what happened?”

“Just let it go Twilight,” Applejack answered again. “It’s better this way. It’s how it would have ended anyway, one way or another.”

“Was- was this the right thing to do? He would have died anyway, but- but what if...”

“And then Raegdan would get to ask him his questions. I don’t think he’d let him off anyway. All in all, he got lucky.”

“I…” Twilight looked back at Rainbow smiling tentatively at Pinkie’s antics, Velvet smiling along with her, still holding her. “Maybe you’re right. Don’t… don’t tell the others. Rainbow shouldn’t find out.”

“Ah won’t,” Applejack promised.

It was better this way, Applejack almost really believed that. It’s what annoyed her so greatly too. Things shouldn’t be better because somepony died. They shouldn’t. It didn’t feel right. It wasn’t, but at the same time it was. Would she have felt the same if it didn’t involve one of her friends? Would she rather somepony live a few hours longer in exchange for a lifetime of guilt for another? Did it matter?

Gosh darn it. She really thought she had life figured out by now.

Ch.25 - Inspection

As she walked through the corridors of life and death, a morbid fascination descended upon her. A torrent of desire to leave this ephemera behind, to move on, to transcend to other planes. To discover territories anew, where the grip of malevolence was not as firm. A portal came into view of her tortured eyes, inexistent colors marking it in shimmering hues as an escape, a release. A bastion to conceal herself. It was marked with symbols, promising if not freedom then rest, upon a plaque of polished wood.

Janitorial supplies, it read. Twilight Sparkle was confident she might buy herself an hour or two if she hid in there and breathed as quietly as possible.

“Yo Twilight. What’s up? You look all gloomy,” Rainbow Dash observed as she flew to the thoughtful unicorn’s side. So much for that plan.

“Oh gee, you think?” Twilight said, channeling Leaf Stream.

“Yea, totally. What happened? Anything serious?”

Twilight kept walking towards Luna’s room, going as slow as possible, while Rainbow Dash carelessly managed to fly as slow as Twilight walked, a feat which would have left pegasi with an affection for the technical aspects of flight in awe. Twilight held up a sealed envelope in her magic for Rainbow Dash to see.

“What’s that?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“A letter that my mother wrote for Raegdan. I’m doomed.”

“Why?”

Spike chose that moment to appear, running at them from a side corridor. “Hey Rainbow. Hey Twilight. What’s that letter? Want me to send it somewhere?”

“No Spike. Thank you anyways.”

“Who is it for?” the young dragon asked, his little legs easily matching Twilight’s turtle pace.

“That’s what I just asked,” Rainbow said. “Twilight’s mom wrote it for Raegdan apparently, but Twilight hasn’t told me- hey!”

Spike turned round at once and headed the opposite direction, walking much faster than Twilight did. “Sorry Twilight. Good luck,” he shouted in apology behind him.

“Did Spike just run out on you?” Rainbow Dash asked for confirmation, watching the little dragon disappear around a corner.

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“Because he is much smarter than he let’s on.” Twilight ran a critical eye up and down along her friend’s form, looking for signs of distress. “How are you? You’re not still upset over yesterday, are you?”

“Eh, not that much,” Rainbow Dash said, rubbing the back of her head with a hoof, feeling a little ashamed over her collapse yesterday. “I mean, it’s sad that the guy died, but I’m glad it wasn’t because of me. Velvet said that even if I had just knocked him out, Raegdan would have killed him on the spot anyway.” Rainbow Dash’s not-so-honest grin faded as she looked ahead.

Twilight took a turn to the left, heading for Luna’s room the long way. Apart from giving her more time until she met her gruesome fate, it also meant that they didn’t have to go past a certain broken window that had been hastily built over during the night.

“I was talking with Cast Iron this morning,” Rainbow Dash suddenly said.

“Really?” Twilight said, surprised.

“Yeah. He’s not a bad guy to hang out with. Turns out he’s had a bit of a hard time coming to terms with the griffin he killed. He’s been feeling pretty guilty about it.” Rainbow Dash spoke quietly, reserved actually. Respectfully. Thoughtfully. Twilight had never seen Rainbow act like that. She seemed to be paying more attention to what was inside her head rather than outside.

Twilight thought back to yesterday. What Rainbow Dash said rang a bell. Her mother had mentioned something about Cast Iron, hadn’t she? She did. She felt ashamed of the fact that she hadn’t been paying enough attention then. She didn’t give the minotaur’s troubles the importance they deserved, too caught up in her own.

“He talked about it with my mom too,” Twilight noted.

“Yeah, he told me about it. He hadn’t been meaning to do it you know.”

“Talk to my mom?”

“Kill that griffin,” Rainbow Dash explained, still looking forward. She flapped her wings harder for a second before folding them in the air and landing softly next to Twilight, walking alongside her. “He never used a bow before. He was actually trying to aim for a wing. It was blind luck he shot him.”

“I wonder if he can be a Lunar guard after all,” Twilight contemplated.

“He’s been asking that himself, but he says he wants to go through with it. Mostly, he really wants to do the training now. He says he wants to learn how to handle himself, how to use weapons, the whole thing.”

“That’s weird. I would have thought the whole experience would have turned him off.”

Rainbow nodded fervently, pointing at Twilight with her wing. “Right? I thought so too, but you know why he still wants to go through with it? So next time he can actually aim right or know where to hit, stuff like that. He doesn’t want to leave Solid Charge on his own, not when Solid Charge followed Cast Iron all the way to Equestria and they ended up poor on the streets trying to make a living because of him.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Twilight said, finally understanding his reasoning. “Proper training and practice would definitely reduce the potential for accidents.”

Rainbow Dash nodded again in agreement. They kept walking slowly, almost crawling, in amiable silence until Rainbow Dash broke it with a bang.

“I want to join them in as much of their training as I can,” she declared.

Twilight almost physically fell down due to Rainbow’s conversational trip. She had to force her tongue and jaw to cooperate. They seemed to be stalling quite a bit.

“What do you mean?” Twilight breathed out, still in shock.

“You know, when they go into the Everfree Forest and stuff like that. Look, Cast Iron’s got the right idea. I mean, I could have been the one who killed that stallion,” Rainbow said. Twilight forcefully closed her mouth and kept her expression neutral, careful not to reveal anything, but Rainbow Dash wasn’t paying attention luckily. She looked forward instead, gesturing wildly with hooves and wings.

“I’ve gotten into a few scuffles, and I think I’ve been doing well for myself. That’s not what worries me though. I mean, remember the tournament? Those two pegasi that fought before Raegdan came out? They were pros, they weren’t trying to kill each other, and one of them almost cut off the other’s wing. Do you know how many times I’ve kicked somepony? Plenty enough,” Rainbow Dash said, suddenly ashamed as she realized what that meant about herself. “Point is, I think I’m awfully lucky I haven’t broken anypony’s neck, poked out an eye, or sent anypony to the hospital yet.”

Rainbow Dash turned to face Twilight, worry and fear in her eyes. “I got hold of Raegdan after I talked with Cast Iron. I asked him if something could go wrong if you hit somepony on the head for example. Turns out it totally can if you don’t know how, or hit at the wrong spot, or too hard.” Rainbow Dash’s voice trembled with the heavy burden of knowledge and hindsight. “Did you know you can make somepony deaf if you hit their ears wrong? That they could try to dodge, and you might hit their throat and their windpipe could collapse, or their eye could actually dislocate, that if you hit hard enough you can damage their brain and- and- There is no end to what might happen to them then. They might end up unable to use or feel limbs, see, hear, they could have problems for life that you can’t even imagine!”

“He really got to you, didn’t he?” Twilight said, sympathetically.

Rainbow nodded wholeheartedly. “He gave me a few tips when he realized that I got sca- worried. He told me to avoid hitting soft tissue too hard or deep, or simply go for the limbs if I don’t want to kill anypony. Break somepony’s leg and the fight’s over. He told me to avoid hard hits on the chest near the heart, or the head and neck if I don’t actually want them dead. He told me however that if somepony actually tries to kill me and I can’t run, to forget all that stuff and go for the throat, joints, eyes, wings if they have them so I can have the advantage, and if I get a good chance to really kick their ribcage from the side I should take it. He said since I can fly I should try to hit their spine from above, stuff like that.”

“That’s what he told you?” Twilight said, aghast. “How to kill ponies? Rainbow, I’ll have a talk with him and-”

“No, no!” Rainbow said quickly. “That’s exactly what I need! I didn’t know this stuff and that was off the top of his head. Way I figure it, and Cast Iron says that’s what Solid Charge told him too, if you know what to do to kill somepony then you also know what to avoid doing. Some actual training wouldn’t be amiss either,” Rainbow admitted. “I should have taken a second to look at the guy instead of just charging in and kicking him like I always do. I know some martial arts, but all it amounted to is fancy kicking. They never told me all that stuff.”

“I don’t know what to say Rainbow. This isn’t really my field. If you think that’s a good idea…”

“I do!” Rainbow said instantly.

“Then go ahead. It sounds reasonable enough the way you explain it.”

“Thanks Twilight. That means a lot. Do you, uh, think you can help me convince Raegdan to let me tag along when they start their training?”

“I’ll… try. Sure. I’ll do everything I can,” Twilight promised.

“Thanks Twilight. You’re the best. Raegdan will probably agree if you tell him so. Speaking of which, what’s in that letter?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, come on. You can tell me.”

Twilight didn’t say anything else on the matter, despite Rainbow Dash’s insistence. It was hard, but she managed to resist the majestic siren call of “oh, come on, tell me,” repeated every five seconds. They finally reached Luna’s room, where Twilight believed there could a little peace for a few minutes.

It was a circus.

Hewn Laurel, the lone doctor allowed to treat Luna, was covered from horn to hoof in dust, and his chest and front hooves were smeared with a grey paste. He kept his eyes downcast and often enough he would turn to the side and take long, deep breaths, his eyes on the verge of tears. His lips trembled as he put his whole being into keeping his hooves steady. Luna’s cast on her leg had vanished, and the doctor pony was currently working on setting a new one.

Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Applejack stood aside, looking on thoroughly amused, yet trying to keep themselves quiet. Except for Pinkie Pie. She was rolling on the floor without the slightest sense of embarrassment.

Perhaps she should have understood something was going on when she spotted the thestral guards outside forcefully twist their own wings in an attempt to remain stoic.

Luna was lying on the bed. Her coat and mane were slightly damp and the sheets beneath her had taken a darker, wet tone. She was covered with a thin film of the same white paste the doctor was, only in her case she was drenched in the stuff. Her coat had taken a strange, blue-gray hue. She did not look happy, though the only hint was the furrow of her brows. Her mouth was busy clamping down on Raegdan’s wrist.

Raegdan was also wet and covered in the filth. He was talking to Luna, trying to calm her down. His attempts were not successful enough, going by the small lines of red that ran down his wrist.

“What did we miss?” Twilight asked. For some reason, extremely peculiar as it may be, she wasn’t that astounded from the sight that welcomed her in. As surprises go, she had bigger ones recently.

“This fool,” Luna said as clearly as possible while maintaining a toothy grip on Raegdan’s bleeding wrist, “allowed my cast to get wet and it dissolved in the water.” The reason the doctor had been covered in the stuff became clear as Luna’s hoof escaped his hold to point at Raegdan, spraying her surroundings with unsolidified plaster.

“I didn’t do anything of the kind,” Raegdan protested. “You are the one who let herself fall whole into the bathtub!”

“Dare not blame this on me. I was getting comfortable! It was your responsibility to look after me, was it not?”

“I thought your cast was either waterproof or, I don’t know, maybe it had a spell on it?”

“It- it did have a spell on it actually,” the doctor said, struggling to keep his voice even.

“See? Not my fault!” Raegdan said, feeling justified.

“I do see. Remind me, what happens when spells come into contact with your person?”

“I forgot, ok? I’m sorry, but I forgot. Please let go now?”

“No. If the bone’s setting gets displaced and I have to recommence my healing you shall accompany me at once,” Luna growled, her teeth biting into his flesh.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a real bitch sometimes?”

“Has anypony ever told thee thou whine like one?”

Twilight stopped paying attention to the bickering couple. “I suppose somepony spoke to the reporters? I haven’t seen any of them outside for a while.”

“Solid Charge. He told them a fan tried to sneak into Luna’s room and fell out of a window while running away from security,” Rarity said.

Twilight frowned. “What if the nurses or doctors say the truth?”

“They don’t mind.” Rarity carefully stepped back to make sure she was outside Luna’s splash zone. “Not as long as they have a day or two to have some results first instead of admitting they know absolutely nothing.”

The doctor tending Luna had a knowing smirk on his lips. “May I ask princess, how did your guard come into contact with the cast while it was in the water?”

Luna’s cheeks flamed, and Applejack put a hoof over her lips to choke her guffaws. “Just… an unfortunate mishap. A bad moment,” Luna said.

“Right, of course,” Hewn Laurel said at Luna’s declaration that voided all her previous claims. “Not my place to ask after all.” He coughed, glancing at Raegdan and openly winked at him. “Your cast is ready princess. May I suggest you hold off on any… extraneous activities until it has sufficiently dried at the very least?”

“What? No, you misunderstand, we didn’t-” Raegdan tried to say.

“Will you need stitches for that bite sir?” The doctor asked. “Or perhaps any others not in plain view?”

“Uh, no, but listen, we-”

“In that case there is no poundi- I mean pressing need for me to di- stick around. Princess, by your grace.” The poor pony didn’t actually wait for dismissal. Seeing the stunned look of realization on Luna’s face he opted for a quick getaway instead, biting on his lips all the while.

Luna sank back into her bed with a pained groan.

The door opened again almost immediately. Leaf Stream, Solid Charge, and Cast Iron walked inside with four thestrals behind them. Twilight and the girls backed up a bit. The room was large, meant for plenty of patients, but it was starting to get crowded nevertheless.

“So, is there a reason your doctor was choking on his own spit out there or are we better off not knowing?” Leaf Stream asked.

“The second one,” Raegdan answered. He was wrapping a new bandage over the one that Luna’s teeth had shredded. “You couldn’t wait until we got cleaned up a bit, could you? Are these the ones joining?”

“Yep,” Leaf Stream said, slapping one of the thestrals in the back. “Kind of green as thestrals go admittedly, but Silverwing says they’re good material nevertheless.” Raegdan and Luna answered her with blank stares. “I mean rookies. Green. Not very experienced. They’re still fresh, you know?”

“Ah. A modernism.”

“I’m... not that familiar with Equestrian military jargon.”

Leaf Stream cleared her throat, disguising a small laugh. “Ok then. We all learned something today. Let me introduce the kids. This is Echo,” she said, pointing at a youngest stallion. “This one’s Duskblade.” A young mare saluted, her mane uncharacteristically white. “This sweet thing here is Cutting Wind.” Another mare, this one had the dark grey-blue coat that almost all thestrals had, and a dark blue mane, with a self-assured smirk. “And last but not least, Skullcrusher. That name’s kinda weird to any of you or is it just me?” she asked, presenting a stallion with a small beard and red mane.

“Pretty sweet names I think,” Rainbow Dash piped up.

Raegdan was looking thoughtfully at the new recruits, especially Skullcrusher, with the back of his hand rubbing against his chin. He bent down to whisper in Luna’s ear, making her laugh. He addressed the thestrals in front of him.

“Alright, show of hooves. Which one of you gave your actual name?”

The thestrals glanced guiltily at each other. None of them raised their hoof. Leaf Stream glared at them, muttering about being made an idiot. The spectators in the back, meaning Twilight and her friends, laughed as silently as possible.

Minus Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie of course.

“Ok then. Real names?” Raegdan asked.

“Drum Beat,” the former Echo said.

“Night Lilly.”

“I’m, uh, Broken Gust…”

The ferociously named Skullcrusher bowed his head. “...My name’s Cradle Song…” he whispered.

Luna was snickering in her bed while Raegdan was rubbing the ridge of his nose, looking discouraged. “You will serve adequately,” Luna said, her words bringing a semblance of life back to the new recruits. “Due to current events,” Luna said while lifting her new cast a little higher, “real training will be delayed for a few weeks, but we will try to arrange something nevertheless. For the time being you will mostly serve under Solid Charge’s command.”

“Excuse me,” Night Lilly said, raising a hoof. “The, uh, this one is the commander right?” She pointed at Raegdan. “Does that make Solid Charge captain or…”

“That makes Solid Charge Commander of the Lunar Guard,” Luna cleared up. “You are dismissed for now. We shall have need of you later. Oh, and please, do not try something similar, even as amusing as it was.”

Properly chastised, and under the not-so-quiet snickers of a few ponies, the newest members of Luna’s guard marched out, looking hopeful once more and with eyes that played scenes of glory and worthy battles. Twilight hoped fervently it would turn out as they imagined in their dreams.

The memory of the last Lunar Guard’s fate was still fresh in her mind.

“How come you didn’t want to keep the thestrals Silverwing suggested?” Leaf Stream asked.

“I am not comfortable with taking their most experienced ponies at this time, and since you all will need training anyway, they shall do,” Luna answered.

“Ok princess. Oh, I forgot. I told Eventide we saved a spot for her.”

“How is she?” Luna asked, concerned.

“Like an anvil fell on her. Won’t let that slow her down though, I tell you that. Some cracked ribs, a little internal bleeding, a ton of bruises, and a couple painful gashes. She needs some time but we could take her with us to Manehattan as long as we don’t push her until she heals.”

“Good. I was impressed by her fortitude and strength of will. Yes Solid Charge? Do you have something to say?”

Solid Charge approached Luna. “I believed that by this point Raegdan would reassume the role of commander. How long am I supposed to continue to serve in this capacity?”

Luna smiled craftily in her moist bed. “How does “for the foreseeable future” sound? Don’t be so surprised. Now that our cards are a little more open you can see that Raegdan is not the best possible choice to lead, while you have proven yourself steady and resolute in your duties. You will be having some help of course. We do need a captain I guess. Leaf Stream will take this role.”

“Wait, what? No, no, no-”

“This is not negotiable,” Luna continued, smirking. “I’ve been told of your superb performance while the Leviathan attacked Baltimare-”

“I bucking knew that would bite me in the flank!”

“Quite. Raegdan and I will be giving our aid whenever possible of course. Any questions? Before you ask Leaf Stream, no, I won’t be changing my mind any time soon.”

Leaf Stream lowered her hoof, grumbling.

“I have two,” Solid Charge said, raising two digits of his thick fingers. “Why the change Princess Luna? You said before that Raegdan was going to be the commander.”

“True. I did. Considering that he has… hmm… how to put this?” Luna gazed upwards, scratching her chin.

Raegdan sighed. “Considering what has happened twice so far we decided it’s better this way, and you make a much better public face than I do.”

“I have no experience as an officer,” Solid Charge countered.

“Wing it. I did the same thing the first time I ordered an army around. We’re not going to be anything like the Royal or Solar Guard. We’ll be figuring out a lot of things as we go.”

“Your second question, my Commander?” Luna asked, playful.

“What is he going to do then?” Solid Charge asked, pointing at Raegdan.

“What he has done so far,” Luna said. “He will help train you, relay my own orders, defend me, take up his own tasks, but mostly stay by my side and serve me.”

Leaf Stream muttered something under her lips. Twilight heard a couple of words and it was easy enough to understand what she meant in context. She ignored it entirely, choosing to believe she only heard gibberish.

Solid Charge worked his jaw as if trying to dislodge something nasty that had stuck in his teeth. “I’d like to put it on record that while I understand the wisdom of this decision, I do not agree with my appointment in this position.”

“We don’t keep records, do we?” Luna asked Raegdan, confused. “Either way, to work. We have a number of tasks to undertake.”

Leaf Stream tilted her neck, working off a few kinks with a cracking sound. “About time. I’m so seriously sick of being stuck in here, and if that ain’t ironic I don’t know what is. What are we doing? Are we beating somepony up? Did we find who tried to mess with us yesterday?”

“In some capacity. Celestia did not refrain from aiding us in her own way. She has identified the culprit.” Raegdan gave a thin folder to Luna. The princess briefly opened it to take a short look. “She has also sent the Royal Guard to search his abode. Unfortunately there’s nothing to help us on both accounts. The attacker was a former Royal guard named Split Second. He served in the local regiment for six years. He was removed from the Guard and found an occupation as a dockworker a few years ago.”

“Why was he removed?” Twilight asked.

“I believe the cause was multiple counts of inebriation.” Luna opened the folder again, removing one of the sheets inside. “Yes, he repeated the offense eight times in the three months before his expulsion. Aside from that he served gallantly.”

“What about his family?” Applejack asked. “Don’t they know anything?”

“Divorced,” Raegdan said. “His ex-wife and two kids left for Fillydelphia couple of years back. No one else. Didn’t even have friends. So that’s a dead end. I doubt the family knows anything.”

Luna nodded along. “Indeed. The search of his belongings left us with almost no clue either. No letters or any signs of communication, no signs that he was planning anything, no hidden stash of bits. It was almost insulting in its lack of evidence of any wrongdoing. There was nothing incriminating in the slightest.”

“You want to explain that “almost no clue” bit a little?” Leaf Stream asked.

“It was too clean. To make a point; We know he was an alcoholic, yet there was not even a single bottle there. In our opinion somepony already went through there to make sure we would not find anything at all.” Luna glanced at her own coat. “Which reminds me, maybe we should have done this later. I must look like a quarry worker.”

“You’re fine,” Raegdan said. “We’ll clean up later before I go.”

“Too bad you killed the guy,” Rainbow Dash said. Twilight felt Applejack go rigid next to her, same as she did. “He could have told you everything.”

Raegdan shrugged. “That bomb would have killed him too. He was either a fanatic or an idiot. I’d never trust anything he said either way.”

Solid Charge brought them back to the matter at hoof. “I refuse to believe there is nothing we can follow through. The stallion, this… Split Second was obviously a tool, not the mind behind the attack. Someone cleared his house of all evidence, someone helped him subdue one of the thestrals, and someone supplied him with the bomb.”

“Right on all counts,” Raegdan congratulated him. “And normally we would really have nothing to follow on, but…” Raegdan knelt behind Luna’s bed and lifted up a large metal sphere, two times the size of his fist. He laid it at the bottom of Luna’s bed, where everypony could see it. The bed groaned at the added weight.

“...That’s the bomb, isn’t it?” Leaf Stream asked in an even tone. Fluttershy eeped and took cover behind Pinkie Pie.

“No need to worry everypony, it is safe,” Twilight said, trotting forward. She pointed at the runes that covered the entirety of the sphere. “I know it looks complicated, but these runes are a repeating pattern that collects and stores ambient magic. The repetitiveness of the runes is what made it gather magic so fast and store so much. The real danger comes from the fact that there is nothing shunting the magic off. The pattern forces the magic to keep collecting until it becomes too much. Fortunately we were able to identify the startup runes and remove them.”

“And this,” Luna said, pointing with her hoof, “is what we have left to find them with.”

Pinkie Pie quickly stepped up and grabbed the metal sphere in her hooves. “Oooh, I gotcha princess. Don’t worry, old Pinkie Pie knows exactly what to do. Ahem.” Pinkie Pie cleared her throat and set to shaking the sphere up and down. “Oh magic rune bomb, who tried to make Luna a jigsaw ghostie?”

Pinkie Pie looked at the top of the inert bomb. “All signs point to Ix-Crie Rune.”

“Ok little pink, enough playing around.” Raegdan took the sphere back and pushed her back towards the rest. Pinkie Pie happily rejoined her friends. Raegdan watched her go, suddenly looking quizzically at the sphere in his hands. “How did she know that rune is called- never mind. Anyway, we got this left. Someone made it, and whoever it was, was good. There can’t be many that can do this kind of work.”

“So if we can find who can craft this…” Twilight said.

“Then we can find those responsible,” Luna finished. “However, I do not hold hope that we will. In fact, I expect them gone already. We will give it a try nevertheless, but I have more in mind for you rather than set you all on hunting a ghost. Raegdan will take Cast Iron with him. The two of them will directly search for the bomb’s creator.”

“And the rest of us?” Solid Charge asked.

“I have a special task for you. You will take Leaf Stream with you. You are going to… audit a few ponies’ assets for me.”

Leaf Stream raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Oh, hey, I didn’t sign up to be a taxpony. There are some depths I refuse to sink to.”

“This is not a joking matter,” Luna said, suddenly stern. “We shall give you a list of names. You are to visit each one and put pressure on them. Search their homes. Intimidate them.”

“What exactly is our objective here?” Solid Charge asked.

“Information. Some of them are under our suspicion for having a connection to various attempts of my life. Some of them might be involved in the latest scheme. You will scrutinize them to the best of your ability. You should keep the exact reason you are there clouded. Keep it unclear whether we actually have something on them. Keep them guessing at all times while you look around.”

“Are they looking for things like poison ingredients?” Cast Iron asked, unexpectedly.

“Cast?” Solid Charge asked, turning to face his friend.

The minotaur lowered his eyes at the sudden attention. “Well, any poison that was used had to come from somewhere and Baltimare is one of the largest- was one of the largest trading hubs, so someone must have bought it from someone else…”

Luna brightened, her smile transforming into a far more sincere one. “Excellent catch Cast Iron. Indeed, that is one of the things I expect you to be looking for. Yes, I want copies of every transaction they have in their books, public or private. Some ponies have seemingly nothing to do with anything shady, but I want them to feel threatened nevertheless. I want them to worry, and I want them to worry their allies in turn. I seek to create ripples, and you will be my stone. If possible, I wish for Rarity to accompany you. Her knowledge of the Canterlot nobility might prove useful when you ransack through their homes in search of connections-”

“Not just Rarity,” Twilight said, stepping forward. “We’re all going along with both Solid Charge and Raegdan.”

“We are?” Applejack asked.

“Twilight? I don’t see the point in-”

Twilight cut Luna off before she could continue and manage to stop her from going forth with her plan. “Ten pairs of eyes are better than four. If this is important, then we should do our best right?”

“I do not see any reason why not to allow this Raegdan. Yes, that will work Twilight.” Raegdan passed Luna a notebook and she continued. “Let us proceed. The first one used to be the primary spice merchant in Baltimare-”

“-you will deliver these messages to those two. It is imperative you do not talk to them any further. We are putting up a show, understand? Look threatening, deliver the according envelope, leave. Any questions?”

“`Bout a few,” Applejack said. “What are we shaking ‘em all about? It seems you want us to just scare them.”

Raegdan leaned back on his chair to snatch an apple out of a fruit bowl behind him. “What happens when you shake an apple tree?” he asked.

“Apples fall down,” Applejack answered.

“Exactly.” He threw the apple in an underarm throw and Applejack caught it with her teeth. “That’s what we are doing. Shake tree, get results.”

Luna spoke up. “Celestia has the Royal Guard inspecting everypony coming and going out of Baltimare, keeping records. If they try to leave the city after your visit we shall know.”

“And if they don’t?” Leaf Stream asked.

“The apple might still fall, though not in Baltimare.”

Leaf Stream struck her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “See now, the little problem you have here is that you expect that apple to fall in Canterlot then. How does that help when all of us are here?”

“Eh, we’ll figure something out. It beats standing around,” Raegdan said, suspiciously nonchalant.

“It all seems pretty vague,” Twilight said, thoughtfully. “You haven’t given us anything explicit to do apart from delivering these two letters. What’s in them anyway?” Twilight lifted them up in her magic.

Raegdan grabbed the sealed envelopes mid-air, the faint purple glow bursting like a bubble at his touch, and gave them to Solid Charge. “A little something to frighten them. A made up ghost story, you can understand. Look, the reason we’re not telling you outright what to do is that we don’t know what you might find or what you see. You’re all smart and have a mind of your own. Use it. Do what you think you have to do. We won’t bog you down with orders.”

Applejack stopped chomping on her snack. “Not that we don’t appreciate the freedom y’all, but really? Just do what we want, all willy nilly?”

“I, for one, work better under unrestricted conditions,” Rarity said. “Though, this isn’t going to take a turn for the worst like last time, will it?”

Rainbow Dash flapped over her. “What are you talking abo-” She glanced at Solid Charge and Cast Iron, looking down in shame. “Oh, right. Gotcha. No worries Rarity, we’ll all stick together.”

“Actually, we can’t. Who’s going with whom?” Twilight asked.

“I think you should all go with Solid Charge,” Raegdan said. “Cast Iron and I will be fine on our own, and truth be told I intend to intimidate a lot of ponies for answers if I think they’re trying to hide anything. I’ll do much better if all I have with me is a minotaur instead of a few mares telling me to be nice all the time.” He turned towards Luna. “Perhaps I could take the new guys with me too if you don’t mind.”

Twilight had her doubts. “Do you really think that’s wise? Scaring ponies?”

Raegdan shrugged. “I could easily just bow my head and apologize for the intrusion every time someone tells me they don’t know anything, but you might not like that very much if they make another bomb and this time it works.”

He had a point. No matter how much Twilight wished he could convince him to try more civil ways, ways that would not reflect badly on him and Luna as this might do, they were pressed for time. As her mother had said, Raegdan’s ways got results, and she didn’t want to see a bomb go off successfully. Even if nopony had been near it, the explosion would have caused the collapse of walls and ceilings, causing harm on ponies -sick or wounded ponies- on the lower floors.

They tried to kill a princess. Luna could have easily forced martial law in Baltimare until the culprits were found if she wanted. Simply intimidating a few ponies seemed tame in comparison. Truth be told… they were taking it particularly tame. Princess Celestia spent an hour yesterday storming around and promising to bring swift retribution to those who attacked her sister. The only reason that Princess Celestia didn’t lock down the city itself was that Luna asked her to let her settle this personally.

“You’re only going to scare them, right?”

Raegdan chewed on his lip thoughtfully, pondering his answer. He sighed. “Ok, fine. I’m only going to scare them. Unless I find our guy. That one I’m going to beat to the ground. Then I’ll bring him over so Luna can have a turn.”

“I can live with that,” Twilight said, fairly satisfied.

“What about the griffin captures? Any word from them yet?” Solid Charge asked.

“Nothing. The only thing they say is that their leader knew everything and didn’t tell them much. Celestia is still grinding them. If they said that much, they might say more,” Raegdan said.

“Any further questions?” Luna asked. “If we’re done I need to take this filth off me-”

“Oh, wait, wait!” Rainbow Dash yelled. “Twilight here has a letter for Raegdan!”

Twilight covered her eyes with a hoof, wishing the floor would swallow her. She felt she was owed that much since it didn’t swallow Rainbow before she opened her mouth. “I. Hate. You. So. Much.”

“I don’t get it. What’s the big deal?”

“Letter? What kind of letter?” Raegdan asked with a hint of dread for what a part of him must have known was to come.

Twilight didn’t bother explaining. She took the letter out, and her magic surrendered it to her fellow victim. At least she’d always have company in her torments.

Raegdan read the front of the envelope. “Oh fuck me. That’s from Velvet.”

Luna frowned. “That is peculiar. Why did she not speak to you in person but sent you a letter instead?”

“Because she’s a demon from hell and enjoys seeing me rack myself over the coals by my own volition,” he said, ripping open the envelope. “Let’s see what the Lady of the Damned has in mind for me today…” Something white that wasn’t paper slipped out of the envelope. Raegdan instinctively grabbed it in his hand.

It was a small bar of soap.

“Twilight?” Raegdan asked quietly. “What exactly did you do?”

Twilight groaned, her hooves covering her face in despair. “I might have said a couple of words I shouldn’t have in front of her,” she admitted, understating only the tinsiest tiny bit, from the comforting enclosure of her legs where she didn’t have to see anypony’s reaction.

“Heh, that’s a pretty good gag,” Leaf Stream said. Raegdan was looking contemplatively at the soap in his hand. “Hey, you’re not seriously going to do it, are you?”

“Hmm?” Raegdan lifted his face to Leaf Stream. Twilight lowered her hooves away from her own face, feeling a small dash of hope.

“I mean, it’s all fine and dandy if a foal says something really terrible, my own ma did it to me a couple hundred times, but, you know, full grown mare here? Celestia, you’re not seriously-”

“No, no,” Raegdan said, throwing the bar away from him to an empty bed. “It was just a gag, as you said. She is a grown mare now. She’s… not that little anymore.” He glanced at Twilight, his eyes communicating an apology, and, strangely enough, sorrow. Twilight breathed a little easier. This was not as bad as she thought.

Raegdan unfolded the letter that she had not noticed he had taken out. “Let’s see what your mom wants me to do now. I swear, there is nothing worse than what she… already… has asked… oh, no. She’s outdone herself.”

“Am I going to enjoy this?” Luna asked, trying to get a glimpse of the letter’s contents.

Raegdan was struggling to keep his eyes on the page and not turn away in revulsion and shame. He sniffed the envelope theatrically. “I’m getting a whiff of Celestia in this, I swear. You will probably like that too. She wants me to talk to Twilight about -heavens help me- the natural joy of sex and sharing intimate pleasure with- you know what? I quit. I’m not doing this. Velvet can go “have the natural joy and intimate pleasure sharing” with someone else rather than keep exclusively riding my abused- hello Velvet, how are you?”

“Peachy,” Twilight Velvet said. Through the open door behind her the two thestral guards stood still as statues. “Since you said that you’re going to be busy all day out of the hospital today, I made you all an early lunch. I’m here to pick up your little lads so I can make sure they’ve eaten. You two keep running them around so much, I bet they don’t even have enough time to eat properly. You’re finished with them, aren’t you?”

“Yes Velvet,” Raegdan answered, quickly and obediently.

“Good. Twilight, honey, I know that you are going to be busy for a little while longer, but don’t your friends want to come eat with us?”

“Oooh, oooh, we want to stay and listen! Can we stay and listen, please?” Pinkie Pie begged. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were grinning like madmares as they were nodding along, and Rarity pretended not to be paying attention, though she had entrenched herself among them. Fluttershy was weakly trying to escape Rainbow’s hold and make it to the door, mewling for mercy.

Twilight herself wished Raegdan had never thought to brick over the windows. From the twisting of his lips, so did he.

“I’m a firm believer of encouraging learning if you haven’t guessed so already knowing my little angel,” Velvet said, smiling gently at Pinkie Pie. “Of course you can. Raegdan, Princess Luna, you don’t mind of course, do you?”

“No Velvet,” they chorused.

Velvet stepped aside to let Luna’s guards exit, all three of them hurrying out without looking back, like a bunch of traitors. “I’ve made lunch for you too. I’ll bring it over later. You are both too skinny by half. Especially you Princess Luna. At least your sister seems to eat properly.”

“Yes,” Luna mumbled with some resentment. “It is obvious enough from any angle. Especially from behind.”

“In Luna’s defense, she has lost weight without meaning to,” Raegdan said, pointing to her side where she had somehow lost a piece of flesh. Luna immediately slapped him with the side of her hoof.

“I’ll leave you to your teaching. Oh, and Raegdan?”

“Yes Velvet?”

“Is there something you’d like to tell me in person?”

“No Velvet.”

“Really? Nothing about telling somepony that loves you like a mother to go have something intimate with somepony? I must have imagined it. Oh well. I’ll see you later. Toodles.” The door closed quietly behind her. Twilight waited half a minute in silence before even allowing herself to breathe.

Rainbow Dash coughed, trying to clear her ravaged throat. She took deep breaths, slowly rising up from the floor. “Ok. Ok, I think I got it all out of my system. Hoo, oh Celestia, that look on your face. I thought your eyes would pop out,” she said, still laughing. She was the last one to make it up from the floor.

“It was priceless, I’m sure,” Raegdan said, deadpan. “If we’re done here, I think you should all go and eat. We have work to do afterwards.”

“But what about the loooove lesson?” Pinkie Pie whined.

“There’s not going to be one. This is stupid. I have no idea what Velvet was thinking. Even if I wanted to, and I don’t, I’m not the person to tell you about-” He shook Velvet’s letter. “-this!”

“Oh please, you underestimate yourself,” Rarity said in encouragement. “I bet a stallion like you has had, ah, plenty of occasions to absorb the subject.” Rainbow chortled behind Rarity.

Raegdan looked at her darkly. “What, sex? Oh, I’ve had loads of that. Would you like to take a guess how much of that was consented?”

The humor was ejected out of the room in an instant.

“Not so funny now, is it? Kinda soured the mood, didn’t I?”

“Er, you mean, you have…” Rainbow was more hesitant than anypony had ever seen her, regretting even starting the question.

“I have what?”

“Er, forced-”

Raegdan leaned back in genuine surprise. “What? No! At least, I’m pretty sure I haven’t... Have I? I’m certain that- Ok, what the hell am I doing? Forget all that. Look, the point is I never even really thought about it enough to care about that stuff. I had other things on my mind most of the time.”

Rainbow, and the rest of her friends were immediately relieved, as did Twilight herself. Rainbow Dash wasn’t giving up though and looked awkwardly around, trying to figure out a way to go back to teasing again.

“Ok, well… Uh, what about Princess Luna? I bet she knows a lot?”

“What exactly are you implying?” Luna asked, half lidding her eyes in anger.

“I just, uh, you’re, you know, all about the night…”

“Yes…” Luna prompted.

“And, uh… guys some help here? No? Really? You’ll just leave the Element of Loyalty high and dry? Very swell of you. I mean, that… You know, the whole night thing and… and what happens during that…”

“How is “that” the reason that I should know a lot?” Luna sternly asked, making Rainbow sweat. “Are you saying that I was, what? Watching ponies during their private moments? Is that what you mean? Or are you by any chance trying to insinuate that I was whoring myself?”

“No, no! I meant you got- that you- you had a lot of- I’m really hungry all of a sudden, see you guys later!” Rainbow Dash was out of the room before the words had even registered.

Luna burst in chuckles, joined by Raegdan, with no trace of the anger she had shown before.

“Ya were pulling her leg on purpose, weren’t ya?” Applejack asked, greatly amused.

“Indeed,” Luna answered, wiping her eyes, still laughing. “I have to ask, is that a belief that ponies could have about me?”

“Don’t rightly know,” Applejack said. “It hasn’t come up. Ah got no idea how Rainbow Dash came up with that notion.”

Luna moved her pillows so she could lie lower. “Hmm. An amusing presumption considering I’ve only ever laid once with anypony before my banishment.”

Rarity’s jaw slacked open. “Really?”

“To quote Raegdan; I had other things on my mind most of the time. You girls should really seek counsel elsewhere,” Luna said, mirthly.

The door opened again, and Rainbow Dash creeped back inside, her face a frozen rictus. “Velvet is outside,” she simply said.

Raegdan sighed in defeat and bent almost in half as he slouched on the chair. After a few seconds he slowly stood up in defeat, moving like a broken old pony, holding Velvet’s letter. “The natural joy of sex and-” He paused his mocking speech to glance at the letter on his hand. “-sharing intimate pleasure with your lover. Heavens have no mercy for me, do they?”

He brought his fist in front of his face and coughed, in parody of a lecturer. “Everyone does it, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, most of the time it’s pretty fun, when you love each other you should do each other with the purpose of making both of you feel good, and don’t be a selfish bastard. End of class. Now get the hell out before I demonstrate how to make a noose and then I hang my sorry ass.”

It was quite clear that somepony was reaching the end of his patience, at least temporarily. Twilight and the girls walked out, most of them still snickering, and with Rainbow and Applejack carrying Fluttershy who by this point resembled a cherry red wooden board.

“Ah really don’t get this mare sometimes,” Applejack muttered.

“Not everypony is as open to certain issues,” Rarity said behind them in Fluttershy’s behalf.

“Yeah, but have you been to her cottage?” Rainbow said, moving Fluttershy’s leg a little higher on her back. “Look out a window and you’ve got a pretty good chance of getting an eyeful of action.”

“That’s crude,” Rarity said with a grimace, opening the door for her three friends. Twilight followed behind everypony.

“But true!” Applejack laughed.

Twilight followed behind them until they were halfway to the stairwell. “Girls, I’m heading back to my room real quick. I’ll catch up to you in a little while, ok?”

“Sure Twili,” Applejack said. “Mind if we start without ya? Ah’m kinda starving.”

“It’s alright. Go ahead, I might be a while.”

Twilight waited a few minutes to make sure her friends wouldn’t come back. She quickly trotted back outside Luna’s room, walked between the two thestrals, and knocked before quickly entering.

“Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said with a welcoming, tired smile. “I hope for Raegdan’s mental health you did not return to ask for more in depth instructions.”

“Twilight?” Raegdan stepped out of the bathroom. Twilight heard rushing water for a moment before he closed the door. “Please tell me your mother didn’t send you back.”

“No, it’s not that,” Twilight said. “I wanted to speak with you in private. If, that is, you don’t mind princess-”

“Fine by me. You will have to do so elsewhere though. I am in no position to get up and leave the room.”

Raegdan opened the bathroom door. “We can speak in here Twilight. I’ll be right back Luna.”

“Please do. This itches like you wouldn’t believe.”

Twilight followed Raegdan into the bathroom, closing the door behind her to prevent Luna from overhearing. Water was running from the spout over the bathtub, echoing in the small tiled room. Raegdan sat on the edge of the tub, put his elbows over his knees and rested his weight on them. He looked not tired, but empty, drained of all effort.

“Are you ok?” Twilight asked, suddenly feeling very concerned. “The salves are still working, right?”

“Yeah,” Raegdan said. “About as much as they always did. Give me a minute, please?”

“Of course.” Twilight waited patiently. Raegdan didn’t do anything. He just sat there, looking at nothing, completely still. If it wasn’t for his open eyes and the slight movement of his chest she could almost think he was dead. He inhaled deeply after a couple of minutes and lifted his eyes.

“Ok Twilight. What do you need me for?”

“That can wait. You don’t look so well all of a sudden. You two have been acting like happy doofuses these last few days, and now…”

Raegdan put a finger inside the water collecting in the bathtub. He messed with the valves a little, increasing the hot water output. “Yeah. We have, haven’t we?”

“...Raegdan, what is going on?”

He massaged the back of his bandaged head. “Nothing. Not really. It’s just that… Luna isn’t doing that well. I’m worried. Tired too, but mostly worried.”

“She seems fine to me. She’s laughing and making jokes even.”

Raegdan nodded. “Yeah. She does.” He rubbed his eyes with the bottom of his palms. “It works for the most part too. Velvet helps a lot. She knows how to really shift the attention to silly things. Luna’s feeling trapped Twilight. She’s injured, helpless, and she feels useless. That fight with Celestia didn’t help, and neither did the bomb. She’s scared, and the fact that you and the rest know she’s no longer as powerful as she used to be scares her even more. All that silliness is-”

“You’re doing all that you do so you can keep her mind off everything, don’t you? That’s why you’re acting like that all too often. You didn’t get her cast dissolved by accident, did you?”

“It’s what friends do,” Raegdan answered.

“And what about you?” Twilight asked. “Don’t you need somepony to help you forget too?”

Raegdan grinned for an instant, a moment of genuine happiness on his face. “Trust me, she looks after me in her own way. There are moments where you want to forget, and moments where you want to wallow. She knows which is which.”

Twilight turned towards the closed door. “I’m surprised she hasn’t seen what you’re doing to be honest.”

“Who says she hasn’t? She knows exactly what I’m doing. She’s simply following along.”

“So… she’s pretending she’s fine then?”

Raegdan tilted his head to the side. “Not… the right wording exactly. Just do your best out there Twilight. She needs to feel there is some progress done.” He sunk lower, almost getting his head in between his knees. “Velvet or no Velvet, find them or not, we need to get out of here before another attempt. I didn’t expect a bomb. I did not expect a freaking bomb. This… is not the same as the others. What else am I going to miss?” he muttered. He raised his head again. “As soon as Luna can stand and walk we’re heading for Manehattan. Staying for so long in one place is not good at all.”

“What about you? Are you going to be ok?”

“I’m fine. Nothing wrong with me. The main concern is Luna. That’s all that’s in my mind now. As much as I pretend to know what I’m doing, this isn’t my field Twilight. I need your help.”

“I see… I’ll do what I can,” Twilight promised. “I won’t let you down.”

Raegdan finally smiled. “I know you won’t. Ah hell, you came to talk to me and I go on about my problems. What is it you wanted Twilight?”

“Nothing. No, that’s not true. I- I simply wanted to ask you… why did you kill that pony? Not that I’m- I’m not sure if…” She took a deep breath and started over.

No more a little filly. Grown mare, sheltered as buck, but grown. He tried to kill a princess. He brought it on himself. It was ugly, admitting that this was the only way was sick, but as long as she couldn’t think of another way, a way that kept everyone alive and healthy, she was going to… she didn’t know what she would do. Probably nurse that nausea in her stomach and the ache in her head.

“The point is that if you hadn’t, if he managed to survive his injuries, you might have had some idea on who is behind everything.” There. That- that was it.

Raegdan shook his head in understanding. He leaned sideways to check the water’s temperature again. “If he survived. If he knew. If Rainbow hadn’t pushed him off, if he was conscious enough to speak before I killed him, if Rainbow was able to stand the guilt, if, if, if, if.” She felt like she was almost being mocked by his tone.

“Most probably it was a huge mistake, I know it, Luna knows it. I sent Leaf Stream to ask permission first you know. We don’t… I’m not sure how to describe this. I do certain things that I believe have to be done when the time comes. It doesn’t… mean that I want you to do them in turn, or your friends. Because then… then...” His fingers tapped against the tub as he thought intensely. “I can’t quite explain it. Maybe Luna can. It’s just that- when… Some things shouldn’t break.”

“So… you and Luna threw your chance away and killed him so Rainbow Dash wouldn’t feel guilty? Just for that?”

“It’s what friends do.”

For more than one reason, this made Twilight shiver in alarm.

They stood across the street, watching the impressive set of doors that would allow them -or not- entry to their first name on their list. Ponies walking on the street slowed down to wave or nod jovially at them, easily determining who the minotaur and the wingless pegasus were. They were mostly ignored by the focused group, except by Pinkie Pie who waved back at all of them.

“Alright ponies- and minotaurs,” Leaf Stream said. “Game face on. We’re the biggest, meanest, most nasty ponies -and minotaurs- around and we gotta look the part- drop that ice cream and focus!”

“Okie dokie lokie!” Pinkie said, throwing the whole cone into her open mouth. “Hof’s thiss?” she asked through pyramidal cheeks.

“Not… better at all. Stay in the back, please, and try not to be seen. Ok boss, I think it’s all up to you. Show them what fear’s all about,” Leaf Stream said to Solid Charge.

The massive minotaur nodded. He lifted his arm, testing it. He had the cast taken off today, and had his forearm covered with a black cloth tied around it to hide the pale discoloration. He lead them up the short stairs leading to the entrance. His broad knuckles struck the door three times loudly, ignoring the brass knocker.

A white earth pony in servant attire opened one of the doors. “May I help you?”

“Lunar Guard. We wish to speak with Mr. Crimson Thread. Is he present?”

The brazen way Solid Charge talked shook the servant. “Ah, yes. I shall notify him immediately. What is the purpose of this-”

Solid Charge pushed him aside and walked in. Leaf Stream followed through immediately, and the girls rushed behind them.

“We will “notify” him personally. Would you be so kind as to lead us to him?”

The way Solid Charge spoke and acted made it clear that the pony had no other choice but complying. The way he noticeably kept his hand near his axe probably helped too.They were led through a side door and a corridor until they reached a door that had been left ajar. The shivering pony gestured for them to go through. Solid Charge pulled the door open all the way and marched inside, followed by the rest of the group.

A unicorn, dressed in finery and smoking a cigar, rose from behind a clean desk at their sudden invasion. “What is the meaning of-”

“Lunar Guard,” Solid Charge rumbled. “There have been rumors about your person and we are here to investigate them. We would welcome your cooperation.”

“What kind of rumors?” the spice merchant asked, aghast.

“That is not for me to say. We don’t spread rumors. I’m only here to perform my duties.”

“And if I don’t cooperate?”

“Your cooperation is welcome. However, it is not required. We will ask you a few questions,” Solid Charge said, taking a step towards the stammering pony. “We will question your staff.” Another menacing step. “We will search the premises.” He stood right in front of the low desk. He leaned downwards, bringing his face close to the pony’s muzzle, smiling wickedly. “We will also check your bussiness books. Have you been current with your taxes?”

Leaf Stream cringed behind him.

“I do have rights you know, you can’t just barge in here!”

“Yes ma’am, you do. So do we, and so does Princess Luna. It just so happens that she used her rights to give us the right to do this. Open the door.”

“I refuse.”

“Miss Sparkle, if you would be so kind as to blast this door open? Ma’am, for your own safety, I’d recommend that you step back.”

“What is this about then?” the unicorn asked, stepping out of his home.

Solid Charge presented one of the two envelopes. “Princess Luna has bid us to deliver this to you.”

“Princess- why? What is it for? Why me?”

Solid Charge shrugged and pushed the envelope against the pony, forcing him to take it. “I only obey the princess’ commands, and I advise you to do the same.”

The unicorn used his magic to open the envelope. They couldn’t see what it was he took out from it, but from the glimpse of a small, thick paper rectangle, Twilight figured it to be a photograph. The unicorns gray coat was not enough to hide the whitening of his skin underneath. His eyes bulged and he gasped in sudden fear.

“I’ll- yes, yes! I’ll do the same! Thank you, thank you. Oh Celestia, oh heavens…” He stepped back into his home and slammed the door in Solid Charge’s face.

“Well, that was bucking ominous,” Leaf Stream said.

“Hey, Twili, come check this out!” Applejack shouted.

“Found anything Applejack?”

“Maybe. Does this seem normal to ya?” Applejack held up a stack of ledgers.

“Yes… What’s wrong with them?”

Applejack put them on a table. “Not much at first glance. Ah mean, ah don’t have the head to go over all that’s written inside, but they seem kinda thin to me.”

“Thin?”

“Yeah. See, we gotta keep books for the farm too. We ain’t got anything like the trade deals this fella here is supposed to have -or had, ya know, on account of the bay- anyway. Thing is, mah own books of the year’s thicker than them all piled together, and they’re supposed to cover one year all said and done.”

Twilight opened one of them at random. She went back and forth around the ledger. Nothing seemed out of order at first glance. Of course, that’s because it was all written down in the most convoluted way possible, making Twilight very suspicious. She silently added numbers, breaking through the repeats and take backs that were spread throughout as she quickly flipped through the pages.

“What an amazing coincidence,” Twilight said sarcastically.

“What?”

“It’s the strangest thing. The profits always seem to be barely higher than the losses.” She made a few quick calculations in her head. “Only three percent in a quick glance from what I see. Every time.”

Applejack let her eyes wander around their opulent surroundings. “Now, ain’t that just dang weird?”

“Pinkie Pie, we’re leaving darling,” Rarity said. “What are you- oh my!”

“What? What? Do I have a booger?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“I’m sorry dear, it’s just that I wasn’t expecting to see you so dedicated to… reading a book,” Rarity said, getting over her surprise.

“Oh? It’s a cooking book. I like cooking books. This one’s kind of a puzzler though. Do you think that “two drops of arsenic, and a dash of mercury,” was a misprint or is this really how you make-” Pinkie flipped the page back. “-Essense of Liver Degradation?”

“I’m sure it’s wonderful Pinkie, but the rest are waiting for us- could you repeat that last part please?”

Fluttershy stood in the middle of the hall, looking up at a painting. Solid Charge approached her.

“Miss. Your friends have been looking for you.”

Fluttershy looked distractedly at Solid Charge, and immediately covered her face with her mane. “Oh, I’m sorry for putting you into the trouble of finding me.”

“It’s no trouble, really. So, found anything?”

“I- maybe. No. Yes. I was looking at the painting.”

“What about it?”

“N-nothing. It’s just that… the mare on it really looks like Honest Serenade.”

The minotaur frowned as he thought. “Isn’t that the one that…”

“Y-yes. That’s the one.”

Solid Charge turned to look at the painting too, attempting to make out the pony’s cutie mark. “Huh.”

“Rainbow? What are you doing in the library?”

The pegasus was flying high, searching between the stacks, shoving her hoof between the empty spaces. “I’m being an awesome detective. See, Applejack and Pinkie Pie found something while looking at books at some of the other places, right? So I figure, the libraries have to be full of clues.”

“Are you really going to read every book here? That doesn’t sound like you.”

“Huh? No! Don’t be such an egghead. I’m looking for secret books.”

“Rainbow you are not going to find secret books in-”

“Aha! Got one!”

Twilight mumbled to herself. “You’ve gotta be bucking kidding me…”

Rainbow opened the book she found, and started flipping through. She stopped at the very first page, blushed furiously, and slowly began to turn the rest of the pages after a few seconds.

“Well?” Twilight asked, impatiently.

“Uh, nothing. False alarm.”

“What do you mean nothing? You found something! What is it?”

Rainbow closed the book and kept it near her chest as she landed. “Yeah, it turns out it’s just a… porn stash.”

“What?”

“Here, look. Hey, do you think that’s real by the way? Look how bendy it is. It seems fake to me.”

“I don’t want to look. Put it back.”

“But it might be a clue. Oh my gosh, there are drawings too, or comics, whatever. Is that… There’s Princess Celestia porn? Is that a thing? I never saw any before.”

“Now I really don’t want to look. Why did you even have to tell me that? Put it back or burn it. In fact, let me burn it.”

“Let me show it to Leaf Stream first. I bet she’ll get a hoot out of this. Hay, she might let me keep it.”

“Rainbow, no. Put it back. Come back here!”

“That one’s a real cutie, ain’t he?” Leaf Stream said, shoving her head deep into the manticore’s mouth. “Hey, if I curl up I think I can fit all the way into his mouth. Yeah, that’s right bad boy. Eat me. Eat me whole.”

“I thought we were supposed to be the scariest ponies and minotaurs around,” Solid Charge said, deadpan.

“We are. See? I’m getting eaten by a manticore and I don’t give a buck. You don’t get any harder in your core than this.”

“It is very lifelike,” Twilight said, fascinated, walking closer to the large statue that Leaf Stream was playing around with. Pinkie had already climbed on top, claiming to be a beastmaster hunter, which sounded like an oxymoron to Twilight.

Rarity was infatuated with the artwork around her. “It is a masterpiece! Look at the amount of detail. The fur looks ready to move in the breeze, and the leathery wings, oh my Celestia, you can actually see the veins.”

Rainbow Dash bent down for a second to look beneath the statue. “Yep, he sculpted every little detail. Very vividly. I just wonder where he got the reference from.”

Applejack had only glanced at the statues for a few seconds before turning her eyes to the manor in front of them. “Fella seems to be doing well for himself. These statues must sell for a pretty bit.”

Fluttershy flapped her wings to gain some height and get a better look inside through the windows. “There are a lot of statues inside too. They’re all scary… doesn’t he make any nice things? Like bunnies?”

“Sharp Chisel is known widely as an artist that has devoted himself to exploring the darker, less known side of familiar territory,” Rarity said, making known her respect. “In the case of nature he prefers to create realistic portrayals of monsters. I remember I once saw a sculpture of a Wonderbolt. It was breathtaking. Seen from the right side it was a pegasus in the middle of a routine maneuver. Viewed from the left however transformed it. The grin became the face of fear, and you realized it was no mere maneuver, but a pony caught mid-fall. Inspiring!”

“I heard about that one,” Rainbow said. “Rapidfire of the Wonderbolts tried to smash it. He got grounded for half a season because of it. He broke his leg.”

“Does it seem weird to anypony else that all the ponies we have gone to so far have been rich or have political connections?” Twilight asked.

Leaf Stream carefully climbed out of the manticore’s mouth with Fluttershy’s help. “Why should it? Who else would try to off a princess or have the means?”

“Split Second was just a dock worker though.”

“That, my little idiot, is what we call a poor scrub. I bet you that they promised him a huge pile of bits for his ex and kids in return for a suicide attack.”

“Hold on,” Twilight said. “That means we do have a way to find the ponies responsible. We only have to watch the family.”

“Wait, you seriously believe they’ll do as promised? Hah, good luck on that. Anyway, are we getting in or not? I’m so bored, I’m this close to drawing a moustache on this thing.”

“Already ahead of you,” Pinkie Pie said, holding a pink marker.

“Nopony must be here either. We’ve been knocking for five minutes straight. That’s the third pony we can’t find,” Rainbow Dash said. “I can check through the upper windows if you want, see if somepony’s hiding.”

Solid Charge thought over Rainbow’s suggestion, looking calculatingly at the setting sun. “No. We’ve been at this for too long, and we’ve already gone through most of the list anyway. We still have a few more to check, but it’s getting late. Let’s head back. We will continue tomorrow.”

Ch.26 - A different view coming to sight

“So, all in all, that’s everything we found,” Twilight finished. “I’ve made a detailed list of all our findings in case you can make more sense of something we may have missed. It’s all compiled in that folder in front of you.”

Luna poked the extremely thick folder Twilight left on her bed. “...I can see that.”

“I had some time so I arranged it in alphabetical order,” Twilight said.

“Not a bad haul, huh?” Rainbow asked, proudly.

Twilight was also smiling along, feeling pretty good about how well they did. It had been an exhausting day, she had been feeling kinda bad for what they dragged ponies through at times, but in the end it had been worth it. At least, that’s what she thought until she saw the serious look that Luna and Raegdan exchanged.

“Don’t get us wrong Twilight Sparkle, you have performed admirably. Indeed, I doubt we could have done any better in twice the given time. But we still have too much work ahead of us to celebrate already.”

Raegdan was sitting next to Luna, holding parts of his armor and going over them with an oiled cloth. He continued Luna’s sentence. “We don’t really have anything solid in the end. You’ve done great, really, but don’t get excited too much.”

“Wait, what?” Leaf Stream asked, thunderstruck. “You kidding me? That guy was clearly pocketing money! Loads of it!”

“Tax evasion or embezzlement. That doesn’t really have anything to do with our situation, does it?”

“That other pony knew Honest Serenade! They even had a portrait of her.”

“So does all of Canterlot. She’s one of the most well connected ponies in Equestria. That’s not really strange. I bet through looking this bric- folder we will find that almost all of them know her or have connections to her in some form.”

“We found a book on how to make poisons!” Leaf Stream yelled.

“I think we know which one you are referring to,” Luna said. “We found a copy of it at the castle’s library. It has been quite helpful. Perhaps there’s a copy even in Ponyville’s library.”

“There is actually,” Twilight admitted. “But it’s not readily available to anypony who asks.”

“Well, we found a pervert!” Leaf Stream screamed, finally at the end of her rope.

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash agreed, fervently. “I have it all right here!”

“Ok, correction,” Leaf Stream said, glowering at Rainbow. “We found two.”

Solid Charge took a step forward, silencing the bickering that was about to start. “Be that as it may, you don’t seem too upset over this.”

“We are not,” Luna assured him. “These are still levers that we can use, and the main purpose was to upset them, hoping to push the ponies that are really behind the assassination attempts into moving more openly.”

Solid Charge grunted. “Which is useless because we’re not in Canterlot. I really don’t see the point of this. This is starting to feel like when my old sergeant had us carry rocks from one quarry to another.”

“We have a plan,” Luna said. “We prefer to keep it close to chest in case it doesn’t work out. Do not worry Solid Charge, we will let you all in the loop in due time, I promise, but some secrets are not readily shareable. We may see fruits come from your labors yet.”

“I imagine that your search was not successful either,” Solid Charge said to Raegdan.

“No,” Raegdan said, quickly turning sour. “We must have been to every magical artificer in Baltimare and then some. Nothing. Not even a hint. I saw some of the work the supposed best could do, and I really doubt any of them could whip this up in such a short notice. I think our guy skipped town or wasn’t a local to begin with. Maybe this had been planned long before and they just took the opportunity while we were here. More victims, but easier to get such a magic heavy object through a security based on thestrals.”

Any further discussion was interrupted by the knock on the door. Velvet stepped inside the crowded room, beaming.

“Hello darlings. It’s time for dinner. Are you all done with your secret meeting? At least take a break if not. You don’t want to let your meal get cold.”

“We’re done Velvet, thank you,” Luna said.

“You’re welcome princess. Come on colts and fillies, I’ve made dinner for everypony. I’ll bring yours up in a minute princess. I suppose Raegdan will be eating with you again?”

“Yes. In fact,” Luna said, stopping Velvet from turning around to leave, “could you please ask my sister if she’s available to dine with us?”

Twilight Velvet smiled happily. “Of course dear. This will make her so happy. I’ll be right back.”

“Actually,” Twilight said, stopping Velvet in her tracks once more, “do you mind if I stay and eat with you tonight please?”

Raegdan shrugged, looking at Luna for any objections. “Not a problem Twilight. We can have Spike come along too.”

“In that case, I’ll accompany you too. We can make this a family dinner,” Velvet said, winking at Luna to her great confusion.

It didn’t take long for Velvet to do as she said. She had thestrals move a small table into the room, close to Luna’s bed, setting chairs and sets of plates. She wheeled in a cart, laden with steaming plates, bringing Spike along who happily started to set the dinner plates and utensils for everypony. Velvet had to make him take them off again so they could lay the tablecloth first, and they repeated the process, this time together.

Princess Celestia arrived soon after, smiling widely, not the small, constant smile she often had. She took off her regalia and nuzzled her sister before taking a seat next to her bed. The small bags of exhaustion under her eyes seemed to vanish as they watched. The Princess of the Day looked at the company around her, beaming happily at each and every one of them. Her joy was almost palpable enough to touch.

“Luna,” she said after a while as they all ate peacefully. “I heard you have chosen some thestrals for your Guard.”

“Indeed. It is a shame, but training will have to delay for a few weeks. Truth be told, I’ve started to get bored lying on bed.”

Princess Celestia laughed, a happy, crystal like sound. “I would happily trade places with you. A couple of weeks, resting? I cannot remember ever enjoying such an occasion myself.”

“It is truly not as enjoyable as you believe. You would get bored too.”

“Probably,” Princess Celestia admitted. “Unfortunately, I wouldn’t get that much rest either. The paperwork alone would be enough to fill most of my day.”

“I would do even that if it meant alleviating my boredom even a little,” Luna said. She worked her jaw sideways, thinking, and, almost unnoticed by Twilight, glanced at Raegdan for the shortest of moments. “Hmm… I have a request now that I think about it.”

“Oh? I’ll be happy to help in any way I can Luna.”

“Would it be possible that you allow me to review the reports and papers that are delivered to you daily? I have not the faintest clue as to how a proper one should be composed, nor what should be contained in them, much less how to process them. It is time I tried my hoof at this.”

“Of course,” Princess Celestia said immediately. “I tend to go through them at noon, so I’ll have my guards deliver them to you each morning first. That way I’ll have an excuse to see you when I come over to pick them up.”

“That is acceptable sister, though you know there doesn’t have to be a reason to come see me.”

Velvet leaned towards Twilight. “Honey? Is there something wrong with your food? You’re not eating.”

“N-no mom,” Twilight said. She watched Luna smile at her sister as she told her stories she had missed while being banished, and Raegdan focusing on Spike as the little dragon told him about his day. “Just… getting kinda full already, that’s it.”

“I would prefer not to bring this up, but I fear I must ask nevertheless,” Princess Celestia said after a few minutes of small talk. “Any progress on the investigation of the recent attack?”

“Nothing yet,” Raegdan said, ripping apart a hunk of bread with his hands. “We’ve been trying to find who could have made the bomb. I personally visited every blacksmith or runecrafter, even jewelers, who could make something like this.”

“I see. Luna, are you sure you don’t want me to task the Royal Guard with this? They could at least double check your findings.”

Luna shook her unharmed hoof. “Go ahead. I am sure there’s no harm at this point.”

Twilight addressed Raegdan. “Are you sure you didn’t miss anything?”

“Pretty sure. They needed a metal sphere to act as a vessel so they could make the repeating pattern work. I searched the blacksmiths and forges. Nothing. They needed someone to carve the runes. Nothing again. No mage here did this.”

“How do runes work exactly?” Velvet asked. “I’ve never looked into them. They’re pretty obscure.”

Twilight took the lead in answering her mother’s question. “In their most simple execution, runes are simply instructions. Each of them performs a particular function and only that one. For instance, the Men’a rune is capable of storing a large amount of magic. It can only store magic however. It has no way of actually pulling magic into it to store at the first place. For that you would something like the Siph rune which can pull ambient magic but not store it.”

“Oh. I see. It sounds easy, but I guess it must be more difficult than that.”

“Quite,” Luna said. “You have to contend with the “proper grammar” so to speak, as well as positional and space constraints. These are not the most limiting factor of runes however.”

Princess Celestia lowered her glass. “There are two great difficulties that entail runes. One is the fact that there can be no magic involved in their creation. They must be carved by non-magical ways. Even holding the tools with magic can ruin them. The second one is that each and every rune must be perfect. A single rune carved even slightly wrong destroys the whole matrix. It’s the reason why they are not widely known. Enchantments are much simpler though not as potentially powerful.”

Velvet hummed, impressed. “It sounds like somepony who could actually make your bomb would be well known then. That metal sphere had dozens of little designs on it. It must have been tremendously hard to make.”

Princess Celestia thought deeply. “I cannot think of anything Raegdan might have missed. These were the obvious suspects. Who else could have forged a metal sphere and carved such delicate runes beyond a knowledgeable mage or a skilled magical blacksmith?”

“A sculptor?” Spike suggested. “If you don’t need magic to make them, they’d do fine. Earth ponies and Pegasi don’t use magic anyway.”

The tablecloth died a sad death as five forks fell as one, staining it forever or at least until its next wash.

“A… sculptor?” Raegdan asked, boggled from the simple answer to a simple question.

“Yeah. Twilight took me to a crafting workshop once. There was this mare there who made a small clay hollow and poured copper into it to make a small figure. They could make the sphere this way and carve it with their tools afterwards. You don’t even have to know runes to do them, right? From the sound of it you could just copy them and they still work. Right?”

“You know…” Twilight said, feeling dazed all the while, “Sharp Chisel wasn’t answering his door today.”

“The famed sculptor? Why were you visiting him?” Princess Celestia asked.

Luna answered before Twilight could. “We were exploring more than one avenue. I did not expect however… Twilight Sparkle, was he missing or was he not answering?”

“I don’t know. Nopony was answering the front door, but the main gate was open.”

“Raegdan-”

“I’m on it,” Raegdan said. He quickly got up, shoving a last bite of bread in his mouth. “I’m getting my gear and then getting Solid Charge and the rest.”

“I’m coming too,” Twilight said. “You have nopony that can cast spells with you.”

Raegdan paused. “Fine, but you’re staying in the back behind everyone, you hear me? You don’t try to play hero if something happens.”

“Can I come too?” Spike asked.

Raegdan knelt next to the dragon. “No. You little flame need to stay here and guard Luna while I’m gone. Anyone comes in here to mess with you, you scare them away with your fire.” Spike puffed his chest hearing his important post. Raegdan threw a covert glance full of meaning at Princess Celestia.

“I will stay here for a little while longer,” she said, casually. “Spike, do you think you mind taking over as my own guard as well?”

“No problem mom! Don’t worry dad, I’ll keep everypony safe.”

Raegdan patted Spike’s cheek. “I know you will little flame. Ok Twilight, let’s go.”

The sun had set some time ago. The Lunar Guard had now assembled, thematically enough, under the stars. It was a hodge podge of a guard, including an alien, minotaurs, thestrals, a pegasus with no wings, and with special guest stars, a timid animal carer, a weather pony, an apple farmer, a fashionista, a baker, and a librarian, explorer of the arcane mysteries, that was determined to talk off the alien’s ears for his poor choices.

“What I am saying is that you need to tell her!” Twilight said as strictly as she could. “Does this really seem right to you? Lying to her? She’d agree to help you anyway.”

“Twilight, I hear you, but this might not be the best time to have this discussion,” Raegdan said, nodding to the gate in front of them.

Solid Charge took the large padlock in his hand, the chains around the large iron gate clanking. “It wasn’t locked like this a couple of hours ago.”

“For some reason, I don’t think they locked it because they left,” Leaf Stream suggested.

Rainbow, staying in the back along with the rest of her friends and the four new thestrals, called out. “We can fly over it, no problem. We can try carrying the rest of you too.”

Raegdan checked the padlock and chain himself. He rattled the gates once. “No need. Cast Iron, you told me today you worked as a blacksmith. Can you break this chain?”

“With a proper tool, yes.”

Raegdan offered his hammer. “Will this work?”

“Easily.” Cast Iron gave a cursory examination to the chain links, chose one, and struck confidently with the blunt edge of the hammer. The chain broke soundlessly, the only noise coming from the rest of the chain and lock falling down.

The gate opened before them. The large manor stood in the middle of respectably maintained grounds. Raegdan’s dark helmet moved slowly from the left to the right as he took in the view, examining it with care.

“Alright Solid Charge. You’re the commander. What do you do?” Raegdan asked, serious.

“Is this really the time for a lesson?” the minotaur asked.

“Maybe not, but why waste the chance? What do you do? The clock is ticking, and we might have been seen already.”

Solid Charge turned backwards to look at the forces under his command. “The greatest worry is he might escape. We are not enough to cover every window and entrance, but we have six flyers. They can fly above and keep an eye out.”

“Good call, but one detail you might want to keep in mind. The thestrals can’t be spotted easily in the night, but Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are too bright colored. They’ll be the most obvious targets this way. We don’t risk them.”

Solid Charge thought quickly. “They stay out of sight then. If the thestrals spot someone fleeing they can try to capture them while miss Rainbow Dash warns us in the meantime. Miss Fluttershy can stay behind as a lookout in case we have a second runner or another emergency.”

Rainbow Dash, uncharacteristically enough did not protest at staying back or simply being a messenger, though considering what happened yesterday Twilight didn’t blame her that she preferred to distance herself from the action.

Raegdan’s helmet nodded. “Good. Who goes inside?”

“The rest of us. Normally I’d rather not take miss Rarity and her friends with us, but we’re going after a sculptor, and I think they’d follow us anyway.” Twilight and her friends smiled mischievously as one. “We might need to separate into teams inside to search if there’s no one there. Until we know that for sure however I’d prefer to have you on point.”

“Agreed.” Raegdan removed the shield from his back and strapped it on his arm. “Give the orders and let’s go.”

Twilight trotted next to him. “If you don’t tell Princess Celestia, I will,” she warned him.

“Are you kidding me? Get to the back Twilight.”

“But I-”

“Back. Now!” he ordered, sounding angry.

“Fine! But this isn’t over. What you did was awful, and not just because you lied. You took advantage of her.”

“Get to the back! Now!”

They reached the front door. Raegdan gave a small, up and down, examination at the manticore statue. In Twilight’s opinion it looked extremely vicious in the dark of the night. The fur effect and the small wings conspired to dress it in patterns of shadows, transforming it to a far more sinister version of what they saw under the daylight.

Shame about the pink moustache. It really spoiled the result.

“Are the thestrals in position?”

Solid Charge looked up. “I think I can see Cradle Song almost right above us. We’re good. How do we sneak in?”

“We don’t. Too many of us, none of you know how. Let’s try to flush whoever is here out instead. Stay back until I tell you to come in.”

Raegdan pulled his leg up close to his torso and kicked forward in that impressive way that only he was able to do. He struck the door right next to the lock, breaking it. Instead of opening the door normally, he kicked again almost instantly and slammed it open all the way. He quickly stepped inside, seemingly unafraid of anypony waiting for him in there, his shield held before his torso.

His loud voice echoed inside and outside the house. “Lunar Guard! By order of Princess Luna you are all under arrest.”

After a few seconds Raegdan told them to come in. Twilight and her friends, minus Rainbow and Fluttershy, followed behind the minotaurs and Leaf Stream. The house was richly decorated as expected, using different types of wood to play with the coloring and texture, creating a complicated, luxurious, and homely effect. Sculptures of different sizes and detail were spread around.

It was also completely dark.

Raegdan was standing in the middle of the room, his head tilted as if listening carefully.

“Something wrong?” Leaf Stream asked.

The armored giant changed the angle of his tilt twice more, like a bird of prey. He didn’t seem to be looking for anything in particular. The slits of his helmet stayed mostly on the furniture and the shadows.

“Someone is or was here. This place doesn’t feel empty. Cast Iron, you and Rarity stay here. If someone does show up, shout out a warning and then retreat outside so the others can help you. Eyes open. The rest of you, follow behind me.” Raegdan headed for a door. He opened it slightly, looking beyond it. He hesitated. His helmet turned towards a corridor at the east side that ran parallel to the outside, with windows viewing the grounds. He marched towards it instead.

“Why didn’t we go the other way?” Twilight asked.

“I prefer to have a way out until we know for sure what we’re dealing with. Worse comes to worst, there are the windows,” he said, pointing with a thumb.

Leaf Stream glanced at the exits of last resort. “Anypony ever told you what going through a glass window can do to somepony not wearing any kind of protection?”

“Is it worse than getting outright killed if something goes wrong?” Raegdan hooked the hammer back on his belt in the tight confines of the corridor and unsheathed a long dagger instead.

“Point.”

They followed behind Raegdan, down the corridor lined with sculptures on pedestals and paintings on the wall. Raegdan kept a few steps ahead of them, pausing before every door they met to their left, carefully listening before moving on ahead. Twilight couldn't help but compare how she and her friends would act instead if they were on their own, probably walking all together without even half the attention they currently paid to their surroundings.

Perhaps Rainbow Dash's idea to include herself in their training was far better than she first thought.

Raegdan stood still and Pinkie Pie shot forward. “Look! There’s a light at the end of the tunnel.” She pointed a little further ahead where they could see a small patch of warmer, yellow light shining on the floor, coming from an intersection of the corridor to the left, towards the center of the manor.

“This here’s a corridor sugarcube,” Applejack said. “But yer right. That ain’t moonlight there.”

Raegdan started creeping forward, signalling them to stay still. “Stay here, and stay on guard. Watch your behind.”

Leaf Stream gave a quick slap at the back of Pinkie Pie’s head who tried to take his instruction too literally.

Raegdan reached the intersection where the light was coming from. He stayed in the corner, almost hugging the wall. He lifted his shield up, positioning the edge of it at the end of his neck, ready to protect his head as he slowly leaned to see where the light was coming from.

He barely leaned over when he raised his shield. A metal clanging sound echoed in the corridor immediately. Raegdan pulled back.

“Raegdan,” Twilight yelled in concern, “are you alright? What happened?”

Something long was impaled on the shield. Raegdan pulled it out and examined it.

“A fucking chisel,” he growled. “At least we’re on the right track.” He edged his shield outwards. Another metal impact followed almost instantaneously. He ripped another chisel off his shield. “Great. He’s got a lot of these and he’s got a good aim. How the hell does he throw them anyway? I thought he was an earth pony.”

An old stallion’s voice, strong and steady, called out from the direction of the hurled tools. “Stand back spawn of her darkness. You won’t take me so easily.”

“Oh, now he wants to make this a challenge,” Raegdan mumbled.

Solid Charge stood next to Raegdan. “Can’t you rush him? You’re wearing armor.”

Raegdan silently exhibited the two very unsettling schisms the thrown chisels had left behind, one almost on top of the other adding new craters to the shield’s design.

Solid Charge huffed. “Great. Don’t risk it then.”

“What do we do?” Twilight asked.

“There’s no need to rush. None of us is going anywhere.” Raegdan looked around. He pointed towards a large mirror. “Get me that, will you?”

Twilight used her magic to lower the large mirror from the wall and bring it towards them. Raegdan pulled it in front of him. Carefully, he leaned it sideways, trying to see beyond the corner with it. Another chisel was thrown, hitting the edge of the mirror and cracking the glass, but Raegdan ignored it entirely, watching the mirror.

“It’s a large circular room. He’s alone. He’s standing in front of some pony’s statue, and I think there’s another similar corridor behind him.”

“I could circle around, make sure he doesn’t try to escape that way at least,” Solid Charge suggested.

“Do that. Take Applejack and little pink with you. Don’t try anything. He’s got excellent aim. He’ll drop you dead. Leave him to me.”

Solid Charge nodded and went back the way they came. Applejack stalled a little before leaving. “Don’t do anything rash Twilight. Let Raegdan handle this, ya’ hear?” Twilight assured her friends she would be alright, and watched them go until they vanished in the darkness.

“No worries sweetie. You lovebirds will see each other again. She’s only going a few meters away,” Leaf Stream said with an infuriating smirk.

“Jerk,” Twilight mumbled under her breath.

Raegdan was still watching the pony they speculated to be Sharp Chisel through the mirror. “He’s getting agitated,” he observed after a few minutes.

“What’s the plan then?” Leaf Stream asked.

You could almost hear the sadistic grin in his voice. “Agitate him some more.” He called out to the sculptor. “Sharp Chisel?”

“I will not listen to the rancid lies of your kind!” the pony shouted back.

Raegdan laughed, mocking him. “I understand that you are a sculptor. Got a thing for carving, huh?”

“You- You insolent, uneducated monstrosity!” Sharp Chisel shouted back, terribly offended. “My art brings forth the true, solid nature of reality. I use hammer and chisel to force the bones of the earth into revealing what is hidden inside everypony! Yes, I have a “thing” for carving!”

Raegdan nodded, though the sculptor could not see him. “Nice. We have that in common at least.” He leaned to the side, only enough for the edges of the horns on his helmet to appear in the pony’s view. “I like carving too. It does bring up the truth hidden inside, as well as other things.” Raegdan shouted, suddenly angry. “How long do you think you can stay there before I carve you open in turn you little worm? Surrender now, and you might live long enough to die of old age in a cell instead.”

“You don’t scare me! I know you, I know her! My art has shown me her face. My art has shown me how to kill you all!”

A metal rattling sound, mixed with the groaning of wood, approached them from the corridor, fast. Raegdan tilted his head, his stance suddenly worried. He sheathed the knife he was holding and hastily took his hammer back in his hand.

A metal sphere, covered in runes and crackling with barely contained magic, rolled into view.

“Twilight teleport away now-”

“The hay was that?” Applejack asked, her throat dry. She didn’t really need to ask. She had heard her share of explosions lately. She heard Raegdan’s shout. She knew they were looking for the pony who had made the bomb. It didn’t take much to connect the dots.

She didn’t want to believe there had been a second bomb nonetheless.

“Our chance,” Solid Charge said. He turned towards Applejack. “Miss Applejack, I’m going to try and rush him. I want you to follow along but stay behind me. Miss Pie, stay back. We need to stop him now. He may have more of them. If we wait we only give him time to use them.”

“What if he throws another chisel at us?”

“That’s why I said stay behind me. I’ll make sure you reach him- miss Pinkie Pie, wait, don’t!”

“Oh my goodness, Rainbow, what happened?” Fluttershy trembled in place as she saw a section of the house explode and rows of windows shatter, the glass fragments glinting in the moonlight as they showered across the open yard.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure, but finding out wasn’t that important to her as making sure her friends were safe. Her eyes scouted everything in view, until she spotted a welcome sight. She spread her wings open.

“I don’t know, but I see Twilight out there. Wait here Fluttershy. I’m going to check on her.”

Twilight was far, too far from the explosion. Almost at the fence surrounding the property. Rainbow guessed she must have used her fancy magic teleport thingy to get there. As she approached the ground she saw Twilight rise up from where she lied on top of Leaf Stream.

“Twilight, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash landed right next to her friend. “Are you ok? Should I get Fluttershy? A doctor? Do you need me to take you back to the hospital.”

“I’m ok. Rainbow did you see Raegdan? Did he make it out? He… he said he’d jump out the window if something happened, right?” Twilight’s voice was frantic, full of worry and panic.

“Twilight, calm down. I don’t see him. What happened?”

Twilight’s eyes filled with tears. She started crying. “I- I left him in there. I can’t teleport him, I got- I got Leaf Stream and got her out, I meant to go right back and- and- and do something, but it went off so fast, and- Rainbow, can you find him? You’ve got to find him, please!”

Leaf Stream’s legs trembled as she stood up weakly. One of the stumps on her side was quivering and she was gritting her teeth. “He was too close to the bomb. He dived for it to shield us from the blast. I’m sorry Twilight. I’m really sorry.”

Rainbow Dash caught Twilight as she collapsed in sobs. A few seconds later they heard a second explosion.

“Twitchy tail, jump to the left, itchy cheeky, lean to the right, numm liss, duck low.” Pinkie Pie sang out her body’s cues as she hopped her way to the mean pony up ahead.

She liked statues. They always made a great place to hide secret things or climb on. Her sister Maud never did. She believed sculptors ruined perfectly good rocks. She did keep chisels of her own around though. Some rocks were too big to take to her room so she only took pieces sometimes. This one certainly looked like one of the mean sculptors her sister warned her about though.

A sharp, perfectly even gray chisel flew a few centimeters in front of Pinkie Pie’s eyes. She gasped as she saw it almost scratch her muzzle. It was Maud’s favorite color! “Hey Mr. Chisel, can I keep that one for my sister? You have a lot of them after all.”

She obeyed the prompt she was given and hopped up. A hammer crossed where her head was just a second ago. Pinkie waited for another one, but nothing itched, twitched, numbed, felt cold or hot. Disappointing. As far as dodgeball games went this was pretty short.

“Mr. Chisel, are we done already?”

“I won’t allow her terror to reign again. Do you hear me? I won’t!”

“Solid Charge,” Pinkie Pie called out. “I’m done. It’s your turn to play with-” Pinkie Pie stopped, her eyes wide. She didn’t need to see the sphere start rolling towards her. She was already running for her friends as fast as she could, shouting out the terrible warning her body gave her.

“Super spicy burn, super spicy burn! Run, duck, and cover, run, duck, and cover!”

Twilight flicked her head sideways, shaking away the tears when she heard the deafening explosion. That pony in there tried to kill her. He was trying to kill her friends. He killed-

The bitter voice in her head had changed its tune, and for once she was in total agreement with it. You don’t mess with Twilight Sparkle’s friends or family. You don’t- You don’t- you don’t hurt-

An image flashed in her head. She was cold and scared in a dark basement where moments before she was surrounded by ponies that wanted to kill her or deliver her to a fate even worse. An alien, half dead and in agony, every breath sounding as it could be his last, had sat next to her and comforted her in the dark with his presence and soothing words she couldn’t understand.

She believed she had known anger before. Rage. No, these were mere annoyances, a child’s tantrums. What she felt now, that was rage, that was fury. Her blood ran cold in her veins, and her mind was as still as a frozen pond. She had a clarity of thought unlike anything she felt before, she saw everything through a crystal lens full of angles and sharpened edges. She had a purpose in mind, and a drive as solid as the coldest ice.

She was going to kill Sharp Chisel.

She teleported.

Everything was broken. Wood had splintered, stone had shattered, glass littered the cratered floor. It was a small miracle she hadn’t accidentally teleported into something else, ending her quest for revenge before it even began. The corridor was filled with rubble, mounds of walls that had fallen or sections of the ceiling that had collapsed. The sculptures had cracked and fractured, only pieces of them remaining in some cases.

She didn’t see Raegdan’s body anywhere. She felt a crack in her heart, and her resolve hardened even more. Hate festered and grew. Her dad was gone. Her dad was gone, and somepony was going to pay!

She was in her room in the castle. She had a nightmare and woke up screaming. Raegdan rushed into her room almost as soon as she had inarticulately called out for help. He was next to her in a second, holding her close, keeping her safe between his long arms and his wide, warm chest, the safest place she had ever known. He was running in the corridors, yet she barely felt any movement with the care he held her, bringing her to Princess Celestia and ease of mind.

Twilight heard hoofsteps coming her way from where the bomb had rolled from. A pony came into view. The sculptor. The one who had killed her dad.

The murdering earth pony was wearing saddlebags and holding a chisel in his mouth. The tool immediately turned into a thrown weapon. He threw the chisel up with a whipping motion of his head and swiftly turned around and kicked it with his hind leg. His speed was astounding and his aim almost impeccable.

Twilight’s magic caught the projectile with ease, despite its speed. She had never felt such focus in her life. It was unnerving in a way. The world had melted away, and all she could see was the pony that still dared to breathe in front of her. She could almost see the muscles under his coat move, and his eyes were a clear pathway to his thoughts. It was as if she gave the effort of an eyeblink she would peer straight into the pony’s soul, gaining perfect understanding of everything her opponent was, in and out.

She didn’t bother. She didn’t care to know anything about him. Her magic turned the chisel around. It now aimed for his right eye. She saw him squirm, and she smirked as a sudden sweat overtook him. It almost scratched his eyeball as she slowly pushed it forward. She saw the eye bulge and tremble. She visualized how she would use the chisel to rip the tiny muscles that held his eye aloft. She heard his screams in her mind, and she trembled with anticipation. She wanted him to scream. She wanted him to feel the pain she was going to be feeling for the rest of her life.

“You killed my dad.” She expected herself to sound angry. She really did, but there was no anger, no emotion in her voice. She felt a rage akin to that of an ice storm inside her, but none of it bubbled outside. She would rip him apart, limb from limb, and watch him bleed with nothing but a content smile on her face.

They were in a clearing in a forest. Twilight, Spike, Shining Armor and Cadance. They were playing with a ball, running up and down while Princess Celestia was dozing off a small distance away in a rare moment of relaxation and rest. Raegdan was there, keeping an eye on them, guarding them. Every time she managed a good block or kick she would turn to call out to Raegdan, to ask if he had seen what she did. She never had to do so. Every time she turned around she saw him watching already, with a proud smile beaming at her. She didn’t have Cadance’s talent, but she could almost physically feel the love radiating out of him.

“I rid the world of her spawn.”

“You. Killed. My dad.” The eye first. Then she would cut off his tendons. She would mock him as he squirmed on the ground like a worm. He would never be able to sculpt anything ever again after that, and she would make sure he understood that. Then, she would demonstrate her knowledge of pony anatomy. She would name every bone in his body as she broke them. She would-

Applejack appeared behind the pony that hadn’t realized he was already dead, covered with dust and looking worried. “Twilight? Is everypony ok-”

The sculptor’s countenance twisted with hate. “I will rid the world of her spawn. Of all of them!” He jerked slightly, and another metal sphere fell from the saddlebag on his right, glowing with magic. “My life is a small price to pay for the safety of us all.”

The sphere crackled. The runes glowed white, almost blinding her senses, exactly like they did before. Time slowed briefly for Twilight as she considered the options she had available. She could stay here and die. She could try to teleport to Applejack and get her out before the sphere exploded, something she didn’t have time for. She didn’t have enough time to save her friend.

She could teleport out instantly and save herself.

She gathered her magic and chose a spot right between the sculptor and Applejack, ready to grab them both and teleport them all out. She wasn’t letting more ponies she loved die without a fight, she wouldn’t lose another one tonight, and she wouldn’t let this murderer escape justice so easily. She didn’t have the time, but she would try anyway. She would do no less.

A hand with only four digits, the glove scorched and torn, covered with its own blood, shot out of the rubble and weakly caught the metal sphere. The magic on the runes started fading, the white glow briefly turning red by the blood covering the runes.

“No! No, the Nightmare must not w-” A thick piece of wood broke apart on Sharp Chisel’s head, silencing him.

“Oh shut yer yap already,” Applejack said, fed up with the whole thing.

Twilight didn’t care what happened to him. With an anguished cry she started digging through the rubble, lifting what she could. Her magic had difficulty working so close to Raegdan, and she didn’t want to risk losing her hold and dropping the load she carried on him again.

“Applejack, get the others, quickly, he’s-”

Solid Charge and Pinkie Pie were by her side before she could finish her sentence. Pinkie Pie was limping, one of her hind legs wrapped with the black cloth that was on Solid Charge’s arm before, and covered in scratches and small cuts. Applejack tied down their prisoner and joined them, moving bricks and stone. Raegdan was covered with various rubble, heavy pieces of lumber, stone and plaster. The four of them together were able to clear it all away soon enough.

“Dad? Dad, can you hear me? Are you hurt?” Twilight shouted, full of panic and eyes tearing anew. She had thought- she had really thought-

“Little one?” Raegdan said, weakly.

“Y-yes?” The fear returned. What if he was really hurt, what if she found him again only to lose him? What if, what if...

“Don’t shout, please. You’re making my ears ring.”

Twilight laughed, a short giggle, feeling amazingly relieved. He was ok. He was fine, just like always. Raegdan couldn’t die, he wouldn’t, her mother had been wrong. It was just a lie he had said to her. Raegdan was never going to die. He was going to live forever.

“Are ya ok big fella? Do we need to call for help?” Applejack asked.

“Just- leave me like this for a few seconds... That was- I haven’t been this close to an... explosion like that for a long time. I almost broke my skull... A metal helmet is... not so good against impacts. I’m lucky my spine didn’t snap in half- Oh heavens, it feels like it did anyway. Help me up.”

Rainbow Dash and Leaf Stream climbed through the large hole in the wall. Cast Iron, Rarity, and Fluttershy joined them from the entrance’s direction. Outside, the thestrals landed and watched through the broken windows.

Solid Charge helped Raegdan to his feet. He stumbled once, but quickly regained his balance with the minotaur’s aid. Twilight was amazed at how little hurt he looked. All he had was dents on his armor, and his left glove was torn, the skin on his hands split in a few places.

“How- I thought you- I thought you were dead!” Twilight said, still examining him up and down, making sure he wasn’t hurt, that he was still alive. She drank in the sight of him standing up and moving.

“Thought so too,” Raegdan admitted, sounding sick. “I’m not that sure what happened. There was a bomb I think, and I tried to reach it… I’m not sure if I did or not. I think I remember being thrown like a ragdoll. Did you catch the guy?”

Twilight couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it. “We did. The bomb collects pure magic, duh. I can’t believe- It shouldn’t even hurt you! But you-”

“That explains it,” Raegdan said. “There’s quite a large blast of explosive force it seems. I think it threw me away, I smashed my head, and then had a wall fall on me. I’m mostly a giant bruise under the armor, and I’m a little dizzy to be honest.” Despite his claims and attempt to sound healthy it was obvious he was in a far worse condition than only being a little disoriented. “Did you catch him?”

“Yep. He’s all trussed up. What do we do with him?” Applejack asked.

Raegdan looked around him. “Where are we?” he asked Applejack.

“Same corridor we were before. You ok big fella?”

“I’m- yeah. I’m fine. Just fine. What did you ask?”

“What do we do with Sharp Chisel?”

“Who?”

“The sculptor guy. Did ya forget his name?”

“Oh, right. Right. Yeah. Hospital. We want him close by so we can question him. Have the- the new guys keep watch over him, until we can interrogate him.”

“Raegdan-”

“Later Twilight.” Raegdan looked in Sharp Chisel’s saddlebags and then moved toward where Sharp Chisel had holed in before. “If there was one bomb there may be more. The rest of you stay here and keep an eye on him. Everyone behind me, and be ready to teleport again Twilight.” He almost tripped as he headed down the corridor, but Solid Charge caught him before he fell.

“You don’t seem that well,” Solid Charge said, the heavy features of his face frowning in concern. “You shouldn’t be going in front again.”

“You got anyone else who can stop the bombs or who could survive another blast? It’s only a small concussion at worst. It’s not that bad,” Raegdan assured them. Solid Charge kept a heavy hand on Raegdan’s armored shoulder, keeping him going straight, while Raegdan leaned towards the wall, keeping one arm on it. “Feeling like I’m going to throw up though.”

“You might want to take the helmet off then,” Rainbow Dash advised.

“I’m fine, I just need a little… rest. Oh. Fuck me.”

They had reached the spot where Sharp Chisel had taken cover, throwing his chisels and bombs from. An unfinished statue rose over them. The earth pony sculptor was nowhere near to finishing it. Most of it was just a rough approximate of an Alicorn’s body. She stood on her hind legs, wings spread wide, head held high and proud.

The head and some of the chest was the only part that had truly been worked on. The moon insignia had been deeply carved into the chestpiece. The mane had started taking form, rough hewn stone slowly coming down to fine hairs as they approached the Alicorn’s head. The statue’s face was an outstanding replica of Luna’s own, but... The smile on her face became a sneer the more you got near, and the half-lidded eyes full of contentment transformed into a look of utter hate. From afar, Luna’s face had an expression of contained joy and playfulness. Up close, you almost drowned into the loathing and hate she directed around her.

“Wow. That’s… that’s really…” Rainbow Dash said, lost for words.

“It certainly is his style, but this-”

Raegdan’s hammer swung in a large arc, the handle held in both of his hands. The hammer’s head met the statue. It didn’t chip it, or simply broke a piece apart. The stone almost exploded by the force of the blow. Raegdan swung the opposite way again, the weight of his body following the hammer’s orbit. What was left of the statue’s head became unidentifiable rubble, and Raegdan’s last swing threw him on the floor, his legs practically flying out under him.

“A little too much there fella?” Applejack asked.

The alien was breathing heavily in the confines of his armor as Solid Charge lifted him up. His arms shaked. His right hand was holding the hammer’s handle in an iron grip while the left one changed from a fist to a claw, opening and closing, longing to grasp something to hurt. He slouched aggressively, like one of the large jungle apes Twilight had read about. There was no sign of his previous loss of balance or of any pain.

“The fucker,” Raegdan growled, “believed his own hogwash. No one put him to it, they didn’t pay him, they didn’t try to convince him, he did the whole fucking work himself. He made up a lie, and believed it! He’s dead. He’s fucking dead. I’m killing him right here and now!”

Solid Charge immediately got in his way. “Hey, hey, you can’t do that.”

“Trust me, I can. He would have killed Twilight for his fucking delusions. He’s going to die screaming. I will skin him alive and rip out his muscles. I’ll make him eat his own eyes and then I’m gonna get fucking imaginative! He’ll spend the next few days screaming nonstop. I’ll fucking take him all the way to Mordor!”

Solid Charge pushed Raegdan against the wall. “You don’t know for sure if he worked alone or not. Don’t go overboard now. We’ve got to think long term. Even if he did all this alone, he might know other ponies who held similar views. This could be our break! Don’t screw this up.”

Raegdan pushed the minotaur off him. “Forgot the bomb at the hospital already you hairy bastard? Forgot that your friend and Rarity were at the entrance, right on this fucker’s path?”

“No, I didn’t forget all that, and I’d love to take a swing at him too,” Solid Charge admitted. “But my job as Commander of the Lunar Guard is to protect Princess Luna and her interests, not fulfill my own base desires and screw her in the process. Princess Luna put me in charge, and as the commander I am ordering you to stand the fuck down! Do you understand? Back down and stay away from him or this will get ugly.”

Raegdan lowered his hammer. “I could kill you, you know,” he said, almost friendly like.

“He said while putting all his effort on standing. Come on, try it. Screw it up entirely. Start killing Princess Luna’s guards for doing their job and let’s see who she will be left with. So go ahead. Try and kill me if killing that pony means so much to you.”

Twilight and the rest waited for Raegdan's reaction with baited breath. Finally, Raegdan sidestepped around Solid Charge and stumbled away. He stopped after two steps to hold the wall and stop himself from falling again. “You’re the commander for a reason. I’m standing down. He’s yours,” he grumbled.

Solid Charge caught Raegdan’s armored shoulder. “You are not killing him, you are not torturing him. Understand?”

“Understand. Let me go… sir.”

“Alright.” Solid Charge let him go. Raegdan headed back the way they came, walking slowly, step by step. The commander of the Lunar Guard sighed with relief when he vanished at the corner. He turned to the others who had followed, Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Applejack.

Solid Charge held his hand against his chest, looking grimly relieved. “We should search the place. We might find something. If one of you can go and bring the Royal Guard to help we could finish faster. The place is pretty big, and I want to make sure there are no nasty surprises left-”

They heard Sharp Chisel shout in pain. Solid Charge turned around and was about to run back to their prisoner before they heard Raegdan shout.

“I just kicked him. Nothing else!”

Twilight and Raegdan sat together on the grass at the edge of the grounds. Raegdan had decided not to risk the walk back until he felt more confident about staying upright. The girls had gone with Solid Cast and the thestrals, back to the hospital, escorting their prisoner with the aid of some Royal guards. Pinkie Pie was probably ok, but there was no reason not to get her looked at by a doctor. More Royal guards were in the manor, searching through everything under the direction of Solid Charge and Leaf Stream.

“Are you feeling better now?” Twilight asked, eyeing the small pool of puke that was cooling off in the cold night air next to Raegdan. He had taken off his helmet and rested it at his side.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand “A little. I’m having some trouble with my eyes and I keep forgetting where we are for some stupid reason. Not why, just where. It’s infuriating. I’ll be fine after a full night’s sleep. Heavens, I can’t wait to lie down on a bed.” He paused and let out a single bark of laughter. “Bed. I’ve started to take them for granted. This isn’t good.” Raegdan kept himself busy rebandaging his hands. He kept doing them wrong as he stopped paying attention to them after a few seconds and hard to start over. The gloves he wore before were completely ruined and thrown aside. Twilight pointed at them.

“You will have to make new ones.”

Raegdan nodded. The bandages on the left side of his head were stained red with blood. “I’ve got another pair I can use, but yeah. It will have to wait until we get back to Canterlot though.”

“What are they made of? They’re made of- of skin, right?”

“Leather,” Raegdan specified. “Wyvern leather specifically. Skinned, tanned, and sewed myself. It’s pretty difficult actually. It took me forever to learn to do gloves.”

“You killed a wyvern?” Twilight asked, surprised that he considered the sewing more noteworthy than the material’s origin.

“More than one. Luna’s been coming along to my hunts. We’ve gotten quite a few beasts down together.” He stopped, trying to remember while looking up at the stars. “Was I using a bow or a spear? Damnit, I can’t remember. Stupid bombs.”

“I’ve read wyvern venom is extremely lethal.”

“That’s what Luna said too. I wouldn’t know. They haven’t scratched us yet. We’re careful, I promise. Too bad their venom dries out almost instantly. It could have been useful.” He mumbled under his breath. “Bow, I remember pulling a string, it had to be with a bow…”

Twilight nodded. “Are you hunting together a lot?”

“When we can. Haven’t been able to for some time now. It’s fun.”

“You never took me or anypony else with you before.”

“It wouldn’t be fun for you. It’s dangerous and scary. We don’t go hunting in quiet places. Mostly the Everfree during the night.”

“I didn’t know there were wyverns in the Everfree forest.”

“There were a couple of nests. They’re gone now. You don’t have to worry about them.”

“Oh. That’s good. Are you… angry with Solid Charge?”

“Yes, but there’s more than one reason we decided he should be the Commander. He puts his hoof down, as you people say, and he was right. I shouldn’t be this angry. Why am I this angry? Anyway, I find him strange actually.”

“How so?”

“He’s scared of me, but he still…” Raegdan gazed towards the manor before shaking his head slowly. “I don’t get it. I really don’t. I don’t want to talk about him. How’s little pink?”

“She was the last one behind them when the second bomb went off. Solid Charge managed to pull her into cover but she got hit by a few splinters. She’s got a big gash on her leg. Apart from that she’s probably fine.”

“Hmm. Leaf Stream?”

“Fine too. She was very surprised by what you did.”

“A mess of things?”

“I don’t mean that and neither do you.”

“I do. I screw up way too much. I need to regain my focus. I wouldn’t survive a week out there with this kind of sloppiness. I’m seeing a chance to go off and I’m letting my vices control me. It’s why I’m waiting for your friends to lock… what’s-his-name up before I head back. I’m going to tell Luna that we should let Solid Charge handle everything.”

“Everything?”

“The questioning, finding out if there are more, arresting them, the whole deal. I’m done here. If he asks for my help, wants me to do anything at all I’ll do it, but… yeah, gonna stay as far away as possible. Neither of us is in the right frame of mind to get involved personally. Not Luna, not me.” He lifted his head and looked around him questioningly.

“We’re at Sharp Chisel’s home,” Twilight reminded him.

Raegdan relaxed immediately. “Shouldn’t you head back, see to your friends?”

“I thought we could go together,” Twilight said, quietly. She also wanted to make sure a doctor could see him, even though there was nothing they could probably do.

“We can. I’m sorry for disappointing you.”

“You didn’t-”

“Solid Charge shouldn’t need to do that. I’m sorry Twilight. I really let you all down.”

“It’s ok. It’s Solid Charge you should apologize to. You know, mom told me about an ice cream place she found. She wants to take Spike there.”

“She should. Little flame would like that. A dragon that loves ice cream. I still find that funny.”

“Do you want the two of us to go with them? Spike would love it if you came along.”

“...Alright. We’ll arrange it. Do you want to get your friends too?”

“I think I would prefer it if it was just us this time. A bowl of ice cream sounds really good right now, doesn’t it?”

“Tomorrow. We’re going tomorrow. Promise.”

“Thank you. ...Can I talk to you about something?”

“Of course. Anything you want Twilight.”

Twilight hesitated. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to say. She didn’t have time to understand, to think about what she had felt. It was something new, enthralling, liberating and addicting, and it horrified her that this was how she had felt.

“When- I thought you had died,” she confessed. “I thought you had died in the explosion, and I had left you behind, and then I heard the second one go off, and I knew Applejack and Pinkie Pie were there, and- and-” Raegdan’s arm went around her and he pulled her close to his body, not saying anything.

“I got angry,” Twilight almost whispered. “I- I wanted to kill him. I thought he had killed you, I feared he had killed my friends, and I could think of nothing else but killing him. I wanted to- I didn’t want to simply kill him though. I wanted to make him scared, I wanted to hurt him, as much as I was hurting, and- and I almost did, I almost used that chisel to rip out his eye-”

“There’s a vast difference between wanting and doing Twilight. You didn’t do any of that.”

“But I could have!” Twilight said. She took a trembling breath. She shivered without feeling cold. “I am certain I would have if- I wanted so much and the mere thought felt… Is that how you feel? Is that what’s it like? Wanting to hurt somepony so much that- that you stop caring about right and wrong and-”

“I think that’s quite enough Twilight,” Raegdan said, quietly. “You were angry and scared. No one would have blamed you if you had done anything, and I’m one hundred percent certain you wouldn’t have hurt him in the end. You’d probably scare the life out of him and then throw him unconscious. You wouldn’t have gone through with it. Trust me.”

“You don’t know that!” Twilight shouted. “You don’t know how close I was, how I almost- Is it that easy? A simple yes in your mind and... That’s all it takes to throw it all away and kill? Not just kill but- I wanted to make him scream. I’m… I didn’t even know for sure if anypony was actually hurt. I only thought so. You lost so much more, and I kept thinking about-”

“You’re nothing like me,” Raegdan said with utmost conviction. “You have nothing to worry about.”

“That’s not what I-”

“Yes it is,” Raegdan interrupted her. “You’re afraid you would have killed him. That it’s so easy once you decide to do it, and you would go ahead and kill. Wake up Twilight. It wasn’t easy at all. He had to make you believe he had killed people you loved to push you as much as he did, and look at you. Tearing over the thought of what you didn’t do in the end.”

“I was going to do it. I really was.”

He shook his head in refusal. “Do you still want to kill him? Even though in the end nobody got hurt?”

“...No. No, I don’t. I’m… I’m not feeling like that now. It’s gone.”

He hugged her closer, bringing her over his legs, cradling her like when she was a filly. “Then you are fine. You didn’t do anything. You wouldn’t have. You were angry, that’s all, and the anger is gone now. You’re still Twilight Sparkle. You’re ok Twilight. You’re ok.”

Twilight rested her head against his dusty breastplate, letting him calm her down. She would have to think; both about her own reaction and what it meant, but also the newfound perspective. Perhaps she had underestimated how hard it was to stop yourself when this kind of frigid emotion overtook you. She’d need to talk more about this, perhaps with both Princess Celestia and her mother, but she felt a little better already. Speaking of which…

She pulled her head back and looked Raegdan in the eyes. “We still need to talk about Princess Celestia. If she finds out what you and Luna did she’ll think you only invited her to dinner so you could get access to her reports. You need to tell her the truth and ask permission,” Twilight softly said.

“Oh for heaven’s sake… Fine! I’ll talk to Luna. But you’re coming with me and sitting in front of me when I tell Celestia. I’d like to go a day this month without getting mangled.” He sighed and blinked while looking around, lost once more.

Ch.27 - Lunar guards

Solid Charge sat in front of a desk, the wooden surface hidden underneath a respectable piles of paper, most of which he had no idea if he needed or not. He didn’t particularly care about finding out at that point. He was too busy supporting his head with his hands as he lamented his fate. He was lost. Completely and irrevocably lost.

He sat back straight and brought his clenched fist down on the table, hard enough to cause a small paperslide from the edge of the desk down to the floor. He got up tiredly and knelt back down to pick them up, using the opportunity to try and figure out what some of them were for. Reports, reports, reports… he was weary of the word itself. It corkscrewed into his mind and jumbled the contents inside, making his headache worse with each repeat of the thrice-damned concept.

Reports on every little knack Sharp Chisel had in his home that each inane guard felt the need to write a novel about. Reports on every pony he knew, every client. Reports on every transaction he made in the last six months. Reports on every pony that left Baltimare. Reports on every pony that came to Baltimare. Reports, reports, reports...

He struck the wall next to him, not wanting to have to kneel down before the paper kingdom again, glancing guiltily at the dent on the wall of the office that didn’t belong to him. Was he supposed to read and digest this information? This was impossible. He wasn’t trained for anything like this. He was never meant to do anything like this. His training involved putting on a thick armor and running forward, trampling everything in his path. That was it. He knew how to hit, use a couple of weapons, and some tactics he had picked up through years of service. The focus of his training had been to obey orders, which he, to his great shame, took to easily and enthusiastically. He certainly hadn’t been trained to force his way through a cacophony of writing, searching for hints to a conspiracy he wasn’t sure existed.

He wanted to flip the table and all its infuriating contents, and leave. Head back to Minos and find a simple, unassuming job or even none at all. A small hut somewhere far off from others, maybe near a river where he could fish, living off the land. He sighed and, rubbing the side of his face, pushed the chair back into place to sit back down. What you want to do is not what you need to do. He was given a taste of that lesson when he hid behind a tree trunk and watched a friend get eaten alive. He wanted to avoid that fate himself, the flat teeth of the Catoblepas. So he stayed silent when he needed to speak up.

He’d never forgive himself for that mistake. Especially since he failed to learn from it. Cast Iron was a constant reminder to that. He only wished he heeded that reminder more than he did. He might not be sitting here if he did.

He picked up a paper at random and started working through the jumble of packed words, trying to organize the chaotic piles to some semblance of order. This side containing everything about Sharp Chisel. This area here about Baltimare. This place reserved for other ponies he suspected were in the unknown conspiracy, completely empty so far. He wasn’t sure which ones to put there. He looked out the window, noting the bright day and noticing the tops of trees in the distance swaying gently in the wind. He placed paperweights over everything and got up to open the window, letting the breeze fill the doctor’s office he had taken over.

When he sat back down he placed every pony Sharp Chisel had interacted with for any reason in the suspicion pile. He didn’t have the luxury to assume anyone was innocent until proven guilty. Not with lives on the line. He wanted to, but he could not. He kept reading, just enough to place everything in its proper order, stopping often to re-arrange the stacks. Want over need was what happened with Miss Rarity too. He wanted to get the whole sordid affair over with and get out of there, hopefully with enough bits to not worry about starving for a while. He needed to stop what was happening, but...

His formerly broken arm shook and he clutched it instinctively with his left. Miss Rarity was as rare a gem as her name alluded. He wasn’t surprised when he later learned of her being a bearer of one of the ponies’ vaunted Elements. She had saved far more than their lives, and he didn’t mean that thanks to her they were finally off the streets. She kept talking to them so pleasantly, so fully interested in their well-being, that he had no doubt anymore that she had genuinely forgiven them for their role in—

He bowed his head. Better not to think of that anymore. He didn’t want this job, he didn’t want the responsibility. Who would? It was want however, and want no longer mattered as much as it used to. Want no longer had a say.

He would do what was needed.

What he needed to do right now was focus and do his job. With a heavy hearted grunt he started over. Sharp Chisel wanted to kill Princess Luna. What was his motive? His own work, the statue he carved? Could be. It could be that he was always teetering on the edge. Maybe that was the final push.

Solid Charge went back to the window, looking over Baltimare. He could see all the way to the ruined bay, its waters a glossy shade of diseased green. Sharp Chisel had probably seen the Leviathan’s coming and death as the end of his city. He was an old pony after all, and he probably wouldn’t live long enough to see Baltimare return to how it used to be. In his own mind… it could make sense.

The Leviathan… He shuddered as he thought of that monstrosity, of the rifts it came from. What else existed out there, able to pop in his world at any given moment? He didn’t even acknowledge them in his daily life, their existence too larger than life to contemplate. Who was sane enough to do so? What else could arrive one day? What if the Leviathan of Minos awoke? Other worlds. Other monsters. Other creatures that travel through them, some of them dangerous beyond comprehension. Raegdan himself was one of them. He said so himself to Princess Celestia, Solid Charge was close enough to listen.

“What if I had arrived a few years earlier?” He had asked.

What if indeed? Solid Charge stood up to him the day before, when he was calling for Sharp Chisel’s blood. For all the shouting and promises of pain however, Solid Charge reckoned that he hadn’t been angry. Not truly. He doubted there would be shouts when Raegdan’s rage really hit its peak. People like him… it’s when they are utterly calm that they’re most dangerous. When they’re silent.

He needed to do everything in his power to keep Princess Luna and Raegdan alive, and on their side. He had been forced to leave the ranks of the sane and think scenarios that only the insane would dare dream. If there was anything else like that murderous biped or the rest of the Leviathans out there...

The minotaur supported his arms on the ledge and leaned outwards, breathing in the salty air. He scrapped everything he suspected about Sharp Chisel’s motive. Until Leaf Stream had something to tell him, it was better to keep his mind off it. The reason was not that important. What he wanted to know was whether he had help or if anyone else was involved.

He suspected there was. Why would an earth pony sculptor know about runes? Why did he decide to work on a statue of Princess Luna? Was it commissioned, and if so, by whom? Did someone else push him into believing all that nonsense he had shouted?

He hoped Leaf Stream would finish up soon. He needed to have a starting point before trying to figure his way out of this maze.

“—and the doctors had to cut them off. I didn’t even get a say in the matter, you know. There wasn’t anything else they could do, sure, and I would say heck no anyway, but it stung, ya know?”

“I am deeply sorry for your loss,” Sharp Chisel said sympathetically, looking at the short stumps up close with saddened eyes. “I cannot even imagine the pain involved.”

Leaf Stream shrugged and sat back on her seat across from the elder pony. “It’s not the physical pain that I mind. Can you imagine how it would feel if you couldn’t sculpt anymore? Not lose the ability, but the means.” She eyed his front legs meaningfully.

Sharp Chisel dragged them closer to his torso. “I quite understand your point. What I do not understand is why you would even consider helping the Nightmare after your ordeal.” He scowled with disgust when he said the name. Leaf Stream scowled too, though for a different reason altogether. Did she also sound like such a complete, massive pillock a few weeks back?

“Friends close, enemies closer, you know?” Leaf Stream said, laying with her front half on top of the desk as she tilted her head, completely relaxed and unafraid of the chained sculptor in front of her. She had to show him she was on his side, that she trusted him. What she really wanted to do was knock a few teeth out. She’d never forget that rattle as a metal sphere rolled towards them.

She had been making quite the memories these last few weeks, each one better than the last. A year of this and she might try her hoof at publishing. What would she call the book? “Memoirs I Wrote Down Before I Drank Enough Cider to Kill a Dragon in an Attempt to Forget, Tell My Therapist That Last Cheque was Bad”? Pretty long, yeah, but accurate enough.

“I’m trying to get proof. Something to have to show to ponies, to convince them of the truth.”

“It should be self-evident,” Sharp Chisel said bitterly.

Leaf Stream nodded along to his words. “Should. It’s not. You must know something I don’t. I mean, you haven’t even met her yet here you are, trying to act. You got caught, and there’s jack shit I can do to help you, but you might still be able to help me.” Put you and the rest of your asinine friends behind bars, she added in her mind.

Sharp Chisel looked sideways at the wingless pegasus. “I thought this wasn’t a proper interrogation. You’ll fight against her? You really mean it?”

Leaf Stream forced her stumps to move erratically. “You tell me.” She enjoyed this. Best part? She hadn’t really lied so far, the idiot simply interpreted her words differently than what she meant. Ok, by a stricter definition she was lying her flank off. She loved this interrogation so far. She’d love it more when the charade was done, and she told him in his face what an idiot he was. Maybe she could make him cry.

She needed to look into buying a camera as soon as possible.

The elderly pony stayed silent, thinking. “I started working on a statue…” he said hesitantly.

“The one of Princess Luna, yeah.”

“The Nightmare,” the stallion corrected her sharply. “Always the Nightmare. There’s no ‘Princess Luna’ or anything of the like,” he said, speaking the princess’s name with utter contempt. “It has always been the Nightmare. Never let yourself fall into the trap of thinking of her otherwise,” he warned Leaf Stream with dread, starting to shiver and shake in his seat.

“Alright,” Leaf Stream conceded if only to keep him from preaching. She had enough of that in her life and it had benefited her as much as breaking rocks with her face would—less, actually. She might have led a happier life if she had brain damage. “But this isn’t helping my case at all. I can’t use a statue you made as evidence to convince nopony.”

“It wasn’t made to be,” Sharp Chisel said. “I released the shape out of the stone to make sure myself, to ascertain the truth beyond any doubt. It’s my talent you see, my whole reason of existence.”

“So what, you were able to deduce what she’s really like just by hitting a piece of rock without ever meeting her?” Leaf Stream said, standing up straighter on her simple chair.

“It… might not be as accurate if all I have to work from is a photo, but it was enough. I was completely convinced.”

Leaf Stream tapped the table with her hoof, thinking. “Convinced. What made you start… suspecting, let’s say,” she finished, waving her hoof in circles.

“A mare approached me. She told me of the danger Equestria faces. She told me how many ponies gather together to put a stop to the Nightmare, using our unique talents. She wanted to conscript me to the cause of saving ourselves from a second reign of Nightmare Moon. I refuted her claims at first, but the consequences of being wrong were too great. That’s when I decided to make the statue. I gave her my wholehearted aid at once.”

“Who was she?” Leaf Stream asked. “If I can find her I might be able to help her.” ‘Help’ was a relative term. Help her by locking her in a really deep dungeon so a couple of certain sparkling personalities didn’t tear her limb from limb was a legitimate form of help.

“I was not given a name so the Nightmare could not pull the secrets out of our very minds.” Sharp Chisel leaned as close to Leaf Stream as his chains allowed, a grimace of agonizing warning on his features. Leaf Stream barely kept herself from face-hoofing at the old stallion’s idiocy for buying that line. “Beware of the Nightmare. She will not shy from mucking with your mind as it fits her purpose. Keep away from her as much as you can, and do not let her cast a single spell on you for any reason.”

“Well, that’s a given. No worries, old colt. I’m careful. So, no way to contact her? Seriously?”

Sharp Chisel shook his head. “I was given a place where I could leave messages and receive them in turn. Nothing else. I doubt she or anypony else would approach it again after my failure, but keep vigilant, and she will come to you in time. They are probably wary of stepping too close to the Nightmare’s influence.” The aged stallion suddenly clammed up and retreated, pushing himself away from Leaf Stream.

“What’s wrong?” Leaf Stream asked as gently as she could.

“I- I have said enough. You are too close to the Nightmare. I shouldn’t say more to you. I’m sorry. All I have to say is… if you find a chance to kill her, do so. I tried, and failed. I only hope my renegade actions won’t inhibit the rest of those who, like us, know of her true intentions from saving us from her teeth.”

Leaf Stream walked backwards, smiling sweetly at Sharp Chisel, and being smiled back in return, until she closed the door in front of her face. The moment she was out of the pony’s sight, her smile was replaced by a tired frown.

“Anything?”

For one glorious moment she felt like she had her wings back as she touched the ceiling.

She didn’t scream or yelp in surprise, and Tartarus take anypony who claimed otherwise. She just… choked while breathing out a bit too forcefully. She turned towards the minotaur who she really could have beat the crap out of, she simply wasn’t in the mood right then, and gave him a nice, wholesome, glare of death, just like mom used to make them.

“You dirty mother—”

“Please watch your language. You’re supposed to be a captain of the Lunar Guard now,” Solid Charge warned her.

She pursed her lips, frowning, looking up and down the tall bastard. “Wow. She hasn’t even nailed you, yet you’re still thoroughly whipped by Rarity’s pu—”

Solid Charge coughed warningly: a loud, disgruntled noise. Still, point made. She smiled widely and innocently. Maybe not the last one. She wasn’t sure if she even had the capacity to achieve that anymore. Not since she hit puberty. She started walking, heading away from the door and towards the other end of the floor. The door was thick, and Twilight Sparkle had made sure to enchant the door so they couldn’t be overheard, but that didn’t mean they had to take risks.

She paused and went back for a second to grab the written notes of Sharp Chisel’s interrogation that a Royal guard kept while overhearing the “friendly” chat she had. She passed them to Solid Charge, letting him leaf through them as they walked.

“The old coot is a loon,” she said. “Somepony figured out they could use him and he took their bait hard.”

“He didn’t work alone then.”

She made a half-gesture with her head, not a yes but neither a no. “Kinda. I think the attack here was something he cooked up on his own. He mentioned a mare but refused to go into descriptions, no matter how much I pushed. There are limits to how much he’s willing to trust me. She’s supposedly recruiting ponies around to ‘save’ Equestria.”

“What did they need him for?”

“Beats me what their reason was. He ain’t saying. Look, check the last part, that’s where all the juice is, lacking as it is. He told me everything he believes he can tell me while—”

Solid Charge lifted an eyebrow in surprise of what he read. “He thinks we’re being mind controlled?”

“Loon. I thought we covered that.”

The minotaur closed the binder and put it under his arm. “Still, even I know that mind control is a fairy tale.”

Leaf Stream bit on her lip, wondering how to best break the news about reality to him.

He noticed her shifty expression. “It is, isn’t it?”

She decided to throw him a bone. “It is very, very, very hard.” She let a second go by. “To do properly.”

Solid Charge growled, exasperated. “More complications… Is it possible that Sharp Chisel is under mind control? How hard is it anyway? How many can do it?”

“I’m pretty sure that the only one I’ve ever heard of that could do it with complete success was Discord. Other than that you could get something that resembles what he could do if you’re very powerful or very skilled. Twilight Sparkle for instance could easily learn how to do it. As for how many…” She shrugged. “Who knows? I doubt anypony who knows how to do it right advertises it. Not many at any rate. We get the errant idiot who does one of the stupid versions every now and then. Most of them try to use it to make ponies do work for them. Some others…” She coughed meaningfully. “Well, let’s just say that Princess Celestia isn’t all smiles and sunshine with them.”

“And Sharp Chisel?”

She scowled. “Why bother with mind control in his case? The idiot thinks he can look at a photo of you and make a statue of your inner self. I’ve seen ‘professional’ psychics who claim less.”

She looked around, making sure nopony was around to hear her. Nopony was but she chose to whisper nevertheless, in case anypony had gotten creative. “He might not be saying more to me but… he might say more to a certain someone, if forced to.”

Solid Charge stopped for a second. He shook his head and started walking again. “No.”

“Raegdan might be able to pull something more out of him,” Leaf Stream noted.

“He’ll probably pull a lot out of him. No! We start this crap and we might not be able to stem it. The answer is no and it will stay no.”

“Gotta say though,” Leaf Stream insisted, “that if there’s a point where it could be excused, might be this.”

“I will not even entertain the mere idea,” Solid Charge said, harshly, “until we exhaust every last possible alternate route, and we are absolutely certain Sharp Chisel knows what we need. Got it?”

“Got it. I agree with you, just, you know, wanted to make sure we had all our bases covered. You ask me, I would say heck no, seriously, but you’re the boss now and you’ve gotta be aware of all the options. It’s your call.”

They reached the office that Solid Charge used. Leaf Stream gave him a friendly shove with her shoulder and turned around. “I’ll leave you to your reading. I’m gonna head and see if I can check on our poor widdle Raegdan for a minute,” she cooed, sarcastically. “I’ll be right back.”

“Try not to delay. We have work to do,” Solid Charge reminded her.

“Yeah, yeah, grandpa. I’ll not take candy from strangers either.” She headed for Princess Luna’s room.

Solid Charge walked into his temporary office, opening the binder again, ready to read it start to finish. His plans were derailed when he found Cast Iron waiting for him inside.

Cast Iron spent most of his day in Sharp Chisel’s manor, working with the Royal guards and helping them search through everything they deemed even slightly suspicious. He felt guilty while doing so, for he had an ulterior motive. He would have helped either way of course, it was his job, but this, this was for his love.

He finally got his chance and told the guards that he would take over investigating Sharp Chisel’s workshop. He had a background as a blacksmith and would be easier for him to identify something wrong in there. Thankfully, being part of Princess Luna’s guard was currently, in the here and now, a major advantage. The captain left here in charge agreed at once.

It was true. He didn’t lie. It was all true. He was a blacksmith, and he would probably have an easier time of finding out if anything was out of place. Having other reasons forefront in his mind didn’t make the other reasons any less true.

When he closed the door behind him his face lit up with a smile akin to a child waking up on his birthday that knew there was a bundle of gifts waiting for him at the end of his bed. His eyes travelled slowly over the lines of tools and workbenches, his smile getting wider with sheer joy. He stood in the workshop of a master. Different discipline, that was true, but Cast Iron believed that there was something you could learn about your own craft from everything and everyone.

He started walking slowly around the room, his hand reaching almost reverently for the tools, the works in progress, and the rejected remains of art long completed. He picked up the chisels, one by one, noticing the differences in size, admiring the ones whose edge was curved, with wonder over the skill needed to use them. He spotted the wear on them and the leftover grinding marks of a whetstone, used to bring them back to service. Sharp Chisel had the money and resources to have a new tool delivered to him when an old one showed the tiniest fault, but he didn’t do that. He kept working with them, spending as much time and effort on them as he did for his creations. Cast Iron couldn’t help but respect a craftsman who respected his tools. It showed care and appreciation for the work, the art itself.

A small sculpture of a pony caught mid-jump was waiting for the return of the sculptor on a table, still unfinished. Cast Iron carried a small selection of chisels with him and tried to identify the grooves. He placed the chisels’ ends over the marks, working out backwards how Sharp Chisel used them to carve this piece. The large heavy ones to cut the general shape, slowly grading down to smaller ones. Tiny details carved with the help of one whose end was almost needlelike. A small curved one, used for the eyes, and the ears’ interior.

He spotted a small hammer, almost toylike in size. Carefully, he placed the curved chisel in place and hit it lightly, curving its path even more with a slight movement of his wrist as he cut a tiny sliver of stone, almost paper thin in thickness. He gently blew the dust away and passed his thick finger over his attempt. He examined this one cut for over five minutes, pondering how it worked with the rest, if he should deepen in or cut in another direction. He asked himself how it would change if he had made the carving upwards instead. He placed the chisel in place, but hesitated to strike. He placed both tools down. He wouldn’t experiment on this piece any more than he already had, even if Sharp Chisel never finished it. He had already overstepped a boundary here.

Cast Iron turned to the remnants of past works instead, picking up the stones one by one, doing his best to identify their type and the spot where they had been separated from the main body. He spent some time on this, until he picked up a pebble he could have recognized just by weight and texture.

Copper.

A very small piece. He inspected it carefully. It was a thick drop that had been allowed to cool off on its own. Probably dropped on the floor or some other surface. He made a quick walk around the workshop.

There was no copper to be found. This was strange. There was a small foundry though. This was more his field. It could be used to smelt copper, but what for? Where was the metal first of all?

There was a wide door at one side that he suspected lead to a storeroom. Inside, he found pieces of marble and granite in various sizes. He found coal and wax. He found clay.

He didn’t find any copper. He wondered if Sharp Chisel had used all of it to construct the four bombs he had made. It was the obvious answer. He turned to leave the room—

—And walked back inside. Wax and clay. A lot of wax and clay. He hadn’t seen anything in the manor that would need them so far. Sharp Chisel wasn’t the type who made a small model from wax or clay before he set to making his real piece. He was too good for that, too experienced.

Wax and clay were used for molten metal casting too. Make a wax replica of the item you need, put it in a clay mold and fire it. The wax would melt off, leaving you with the perfect mold to pour the metal in. The process would heat up the clay and remove the water from it though, which was exactly what you wanted when planning to pour molten metal in it. It would destroy the clay though. So you needed enough of it if you wanted to make more castings. Every mold was a one-shot.

There was a huge pile of clay in here. Half of it was missing. It was easy to figure out how much by the empty space between it and the stones stacked up next to it. Way more than you would need to make four metal spheres.

A lot of clay. A lot of wax. No copper and… he found an empty spot in the storeroom. He bent down, inspecting the floor. Rectangular scratches, scratches that he recognized. Metal ingots. Lots of them.

Way more than those needed for a few metal spheres. The runes on the bombs were perfect. He had taken a close look at them, how could he resist? Sharp Chisel was probably the best of the best in his field and he had a great talent for it, but it’s not that what made him the best. The runes didn’t seem like something raw talent was enough. They were the result of practice and experience.

“Oh no…”

He rushed for the discarded remains he had seen in the workshop, digging among them for signs of dried up clay and metal trimmings.

Leaf Stream went on her way, humming a merry tune, silencing herself the instant somepony got in hearing range, choosing to visibly smolder in faked anger instead. It wouldn’t do to have ponies think she was fine. Then they would be all uppity about what reason she could be complaining for later on.

She felt like everypony was out to get her sometimes. She just wanted to have a little fun at everypony else’s expense. Was that wrong? Didn’t she deserve that?

Maybe she really was a jerk after all. Something to consider, another day though. Her brief introspective travels were cut short by something she hadn’t seen in days.

Princess Luna was outside her room.

“Princess.” Solid Charge might be making sure never to address without her title because he felt he had to show respect for her position. Leaf Stream instead made sure not to be amiss on how he addressed her in case she got pummeled for disrespecting her. Though it was a little easier to be respectful enough ever since the ‘princess’ managed to make her way out of a Leviathan’s stomach and not by the end she’d expected.

Princess Luna was positioned next to one of the large glass panels scattered on the floor. She had sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall, her head resting on the white border of the window. She was looking through a scratched out portion of the paint, gazing somewhere down below with a soft, content smile on her lips and an unexpected easiness in her eyes. A few thestrals were standing a few meters away from her, constantly scouting up and down the corridors, guarding her. Drum Beat and Night Lilly were standing prominent in front, the rest of their brethren behind them. The princess hadn’t noticed Leaf Stream coming near, though the thestrals obviously did, quieting down when she gave the right signal.

Leaf Stream took the chance to observe Luna quietly for a few moments. Celestia’s feathers, she really wanted to kick that little smile off the princess’s face. She would never forget how, when she lay sprawled on the dirt of the arena, spasming in agony she would never have believed was possible for a pony to feel, that the first thing she saw when she forced one of her eyes open was Princess Luna riding up on her monster’s shoulder, laughing over her and calling her an ass.

Not her specifically. It would be far better if she had, but she hadn’t been worthy of being insulted directly in her eyes. She was nothing more than an insect they stepped on. Leaf Stream examined the princess’s injuries, just like she did every time she saw her. The broken leg, the burnt wing, the torn flesh, and the part where something inside the Leviathan had gotten a bite out of her. It was always soothing to see them. What goes around, comes around. She hoped she really, really hurt when she got partially eaten. She hoped those burns Raegdan got would never heal.

She felt extremely guilty for these thoughts immediately after. She remembered the pain she felt herself all too well. Truth be told, under normal circumstances she wouldn’t want anypony else to end up anywhere like that, not even these two. They had though, and a part of her that she didn’t feel proud of, loved it.

Maybe she really, really was a jerk. The thought wasn’t that funny when she considered it might be the honest truth. She faked a cough.

Princess Luna tore her eyes away from her view, whatever it was she saw out there, and looked at Leaf Stream’s direction, blinking in surprise as if coming out of a daydream.

“Ah,” she intoned softly. “My captain. How does your investigation fare?”

“It is still... ongoing, Princess,” Leaf Stream answered. “I finished asking Sharp Chisel a few questions only minutes ago actually.”

“Hmm,” the princess said, turning back to her view as if she had lost interest. “Do we know if he worked alone?”

Leaf Stream answered hesitantly. “We believe the strike here was his own plan, but we have reason to believe he had been already part of something bigger.”

Princess Luna nodded, smiling, though probably not at what Leaf Stream said if she was any judge. “How much bigger?” She asked, still looking outside, shifting her head higher to get a better view.

“Still unknown, Princess,” Leaf Stream answered respectfully, but kind of creeped out by the Alicorn’s behavior. “We’ll get there. So, uh… did Raegdan get to read my get-well card?”

“I assume the one where you also apologized for kicking his genitals with such force?”

“Uh, yeah, that one. Did he say anything?”

“Yes. He said you’d better be sorry. He was urinating blood for two days—was that laughter?” Princess Luna asked, tearing her eyes away from her view to glare at Leaf Stream.

Leaf Stream did her best to control her treasonous lips, swallowing the giggles back down. “No, just—choked a bit,” she said, which was true. It was either choke on her own spit or go into full blown, manic laughter.

The Alicorn turned back to her gazing.

“Should you be out here?” Leaf Stream asked immediately. “I thought you weren’t ready to walk yet.”

“I’ve spent more time making splints for broken limbs than you have been alive. I desired to move a little, and a little walking won’t make my wounds any worse. It is pain, nothing more. It is preferable than lying on a bed for weeks. I had began to feel like a corpse.”

“So, is Raegdan any better at least?” she asked awkwardly after a few seconds.

“No. The concussion will take time to heal,” Princess Luna said. “He needs to rest, avoiding work of any kind for a few days. It is why I left him alone for a spell. Hopefully he’ll get bored enough laying on the bed on his own to go to sleep. The memory lapses have gone away, so that’s a blessing.”

“Right, right,” Leaf Stream said absently, regretting what she heard. She meant that piece of paper as an icebreaker, an attempt to breach the real issue she wanted to talk about, but as always, her timing sucked. Some help wouldn’t be amiss either. They were doing well so far when it was clear what they had to do. Talk to the guy, look over his place, ask questions… she feared however that when the time came for the real work to begin they wouldn’t be able to find their own flank.

“He has taken a liking to you.” Leaf Stream stood a little straighter, caught by complete surprise at what she just heard. Princess Luna turned to look her in the eye for a brief moment. “But he explicitly said that you shouldn’t expect an apology for your wings.”

… Right. Leaf Stream didn’t really expect one anyway. Why should she, anyway? She didn’t need one either way.

The Alicorn’s eyes stopped looking into hers. “He has mentioned however that he’ll make sure you don’t lose any more limbs if he can help it.”

Leaf Stream blinked. Now, what the Tartarus did that mean?

Solid Charge was suddenly upon them, putting a stop to her introspective, dragging a reluctant Cast Iron behind him. “We have a problem,” he announced.

“Totally,” Leaf Stream agreed, her mind still on personal matters. “Wait, what? What now?” Princess Luna huffed in dismay of being interrupted from her birdwatching or whatever that was she kept doing.

“The bombs weren’t a one time thing. This was exactly what the mystery mare recruited Sharp Chisel for. To make more of them for her,” Solid Charge said, a grimace of misery on his face. His nostrils had widened and pulsed as he breathed in and out loudly, filled with worry and anxiety.

“Really?” Leaf Stream said, her good mood unabated by the news. “Good thing we stopped him then. Talk about being lucky.”

Her newly appointed commander had to bring her mood crashing down of course. “We didn’t. He mentioned a drop-off point, didn’t he?”

“Oh. Right.” She withered slightly under Princess Luna’s and Solid Charge’s critical stare. “Doesn’t mean he—”

Solid Charge pulled Cast Iron next to him. “Cast searched his workshop. There was copper stored there recently, but he didn’t find a single scrap of it. Why do you think that is?” he asked.

Princess Luna cut through the growing panic speaking calmly, her facade—had to be, this was bad—steadying them. “How many did the sculptor make, Cast Iron?”

“I- I can’t know. I searched for receipts, but I couldn’t find where he bought the copper shipment from. I think he got it off the books. I don’t know how much he had,” Cast Iron said, keeping his eyes down to the floor.

“Best and worst case scenario then. Guess to the best of your abilities,” the Alicorn said, channeling some of her sister’s soothing demeanor.

“If- if we assume it was only the few ingots I found marks from… I would say ten or twelve.” Leaf Stream felt her coat pricking up. Four of those things down… did that mean there were six more at least around?

“But that wouldn’t make much sense now, would it?” Cast Iron said, mostly talking to himself now, overtaken by the logistics of blacksmithing. “Most of the scratches on the floor of the storeroom were a little old. The bomb he tried to use on Miss Twilight had recently carved runes. The carving was still fresh, I could tell,” he half said, half murmured, rubbing the side of his face absently, leaning one hand on the wall.

“I would wager that the one he tried to use here was carved on the same day or within a couple of days,” Cast Iron continued. “Take into account the time needed to prepare the copper sphere and the rune complexity, combined with the number he had with him… I think he’d be able to make one per day at best, amazingly fast really. The floor was granite and it hadn’t stained, so the metal couldn’t have been sitting there for long. I think… he could have made as many as thirty, forty at worst.” He finished off with a proud smile that stayed on his lips for only a couple of seconds until he figured out that this wasn’t good news at all, despite his great attempt at deduction.

“Forty…” Solid Charge said in a daze. He reached out for the wall and let his weight rest on it.

Leaf Stream let gravity take over. Her flank landed on the cold floor with a plop.

Luna simply hummed pleasantly in thought.

“We have to do something about this!” Solid Charge spoke loudly and grimly, rubbing his forehead with the palms of his large, burly hands.

“We have no clue who they are!” Leaf Stream reminded him in a growing panic.

“We have to do something,” Solid Charge insisted, breathing out forcefully through his nose, like a bull ready to attack.

“I disagree,” Princess Luna announced, getting everypony’s attention back to her. “There is only one action available to us. We shall stop and waste no more time on this.”

Leaf Stream rubbed her ears. Right one first, then the left one. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” she asked, pleasantly. The two minotaurs simply stared with mouths open.

“Forty bombs!” Solid Charge repeated loudly, still not willing to believe what Princess Luna just uttered. “We can’t let this—”

“Forty metal spheres, the width of a few centimeters, with no magical trace until activated,” Princess Luna said, still in a voice that approached a monotone. “They could be buried under a flower-bed right next to my tower until they were needed, and we would never know. How are you going to locate them, my commander?” she asked, not expecting an answer.

Solid Charge tried to give one, Celestia bless the little soldier’s soul. Leaf Stream saw him struggling to come up with something, anything. She could almost hear his brain whine and squeal as it tried its best, and came up short.

“They are going to use them to kill you,” he said, lamely.

“I doubt it,” the Alicorn said, fluttering her wings in a quick movement and triggering a short spasm of pain in Leaf Stream’s heart. “They are of minimal use as a weapon against me. I can potentially evade them by flying or teleporting, as well as nopony knows yet how vulnerable I truly am at the moment. Any attack using them would involve them using all or most of them to make sure,” she told them. “If they have gone into that much trouble, why not go a step further? They are not the real threat, but they will likely be used in a trap. Bait me somewhere the environment can be controlled, and use the bombs as part of the attack. Though I believe these bombs are not truly meant for me, at least not entirely.”

“Raegdan,” Solid Charge said, understanding immediately. “You don’t go anywhere without him, and he can’t avoid them or shield himself like you could.”

“Indeed,” Princess Luna said, nodding. “As well as any of you, now that you are part of my guard,” she added, making their eyes widen when they realized they were also included in the deal now. “If it was me planning this, I’d use them as the first stage of the attack stage. It would either kill me or leave me undefended and unsupported, laying the groundwork for the following attacks to come one after another in rapid succession until the objective is complete.”

“We are so dead,” Leaf Stream whispered.

Princess Luna paid her no attention. “We do have one advantage. Raegdan survived a point blank explosion, but nopony outside of us know that he was wounded by it.”

“What about the doctors?” Cast Iron pointed out.

“Neither he nor I notified them despite Twilight Sparkle’s insistence. Weakness should not be advertised,” the princess answered. “As far as the plotters should know, their precious weapon did not even manage to scratch him. Everypony saw him walking back here unaided.”

“They will doubt their weapon’s effectiveness and that of their plan,” Solid Charge said, thoughtfully.

“And they shall hesitate,” the night princess continued. “As long as they value their skin intact, nopony will enact a plan that would not kill both me and Raegdan with certainty. Raegdan will take measures when we go back to Canterlot to make sure everypony understands that he will be quite bitter if he were to suddenly find himself unemployed. We will reinforce the idea that my death could be confirming their own deaths in turn.”

“So… what do we do then?” Solid Charge asked, seeking guidance.

“You will give the reporters what they have been hungering for. You will give an official statement telling them exactly what happened, everything they wish to know, holding nothing back, with a small exception. You will tell them how one of the bombs exploded right on top of Raegdan, but you will have them believe it didn’t affect him at all. You will also point out that we’re stopping any further exploration into this case, turning everything, including Sharp Chisel, to the local Royal Guard as we do not believe it is worth our time.”

“But in reality we will…” Solid Charge prompted, hoping for something more.

Luna shrugged. “Ignore it. It is all we can do for now,” she repeated, making her Lunar Commander deflate. “They shall either try to kill me at one point or not. We can’t afford to stay holed up in fear. We will wait for another chance and keep our eyes open, buying as much time as we can.” She sighed, suddenly tired. “I’m heading back to my room. I’ll leave you to your work.”

She took one last look through the painted glass, sighing once more, and turned to leave. Leaf Stream, Solid Charge and Cast Iron watched her go, limping as she kept her broken leg aloft, and muscles trembling as she fought to bring the back leg that was closest to the bite forward to complete another step.

Broken Gust watched the throng of ponies surrounding Princess Celestia as the large Alicorn was bending down to accommodate the little filly she was talking to. The Sun Princess’s very own guards were standing at the ready, but she tried to keep an eye out herself, even from this distance. It gave her something to do, seeing as almost nopony tried to enter the hospital, too absorbed by their ruler’s presence to remember why they came here in the first place. When their medical need or pain finally overcame their curiosity and admiration, it was an easy task to perform a quick search on them, seeing how they barely dribbled in.

Hearing a bomb went off at a hospital tended to make ponies seek treatment elsewhere, even if they had to go to busier ones.

The blue maned thestral had heard about how Princess Celestia kept court back at Canterlot, listening to the poorest pony with the same attention she reserved for the greatest and richest. It must have become quite the habit for her, Broken Gust reasoned. That’s probably why she spent some time each day out here, in front of the hospital, speaking to ponies.

She turned to her fellow Lunar guard. Her heart skipped a beat with joy as she thought about that. Lunar guard. She was a Lunar guard. She was chosen to serve Princess Luna, just like their ancestors had been, so long ago. Even if she ended up dead in a week, it was an honor like no other. Let her fall, she thought, as long as she did so fighting to protect ponies, even if nopony ever knew how she died or why. She would die in defense of others, and that what’s important. Princess Luna would remember her when all others forgot.

Cradle Song was gently patting at his blackened eye. She hissed at him to lower his hoof and stand up straight.

“Sorry, sorry,” Cradle Song apologized, letting out a slight whimper as he tried to open his eye as much as he could. “It hurts.”

“Then you shouldn’t have lied about your name,” Broken Gust hissed back in reply.

The thestral stallion tightened his jaw. “You all did the same. Socking me for that wasn’t right.”

“You’re the one who started it. And thanks to you, we looked like idiots in front of Princess Luna!” Admittedly, ganging up on him, holding him, and blackening his eye was a bit too much. They shouldn’t have followed Cradle Song’s lead, but after what happened at that rich guy’s manor, and realizing they had been of as much use as a belt is the average pony, they needed to blow off some steam. Poor Cradle Song had become an acceptable target.

She’d make it up to him somehow later on.

“Would it kill you to act like a proper guard?” Broken Gust asked, exasperated.

“I am acting like a proper guard,” he answered with a huff, poking the bruised flesh around his eye once more. “The princess is fine, and there’s no way that anypony wanting to try anything is going to go through the front door.”

“We are here as a message,” she said, hissing again. She liked Cradle Song, everypony did, but he had about turned her into sounding like a deflating balloon all day long. If this kept on for too much longer she might be tempted to grab that little red beard he was so proud of and remove it, hair by single hair. “That the Lunar Guard is—”

“Guarding their princess, yada, yada, doo.” He flinched back with a grunt when he pressed his hard hoof too hard against his injury. “The only one I see that we should be worrying about is that photographer.”

Broken Gust’s head whipped around fervently, trying to spot the pony Cradle Song mentioned. “Who? Where? I don’t see anypony.”

Cradle Song motioned lightly with his head towards Princess Celestia. “She’s hiding behind the crowd,” he said, not even looking at the direction he pointed. “She pretends to take pictures of the princess, but you can see how she keeps looking up and around. If there weren’t so many ponies around she’d be trying to fly up there by now.”

“I don’t—”

“White mane, blue coat, pegasus mare. Probably just wants a picture of Princess Luna.”

She got a glimpse of the pony he described, if only for a second, through a brief opening in the crowd. Her head was pointed at the Sun Princess direction, but she thought her pupils were staring up to the last floor, although that might have been her imagination, spurred by what Cradle Song said. She didn’t have enough time, and the mare was too far. Cradle Song sounded sure enough however, and she would trust him on that point.

“Well, she ain’t getting inside then,” Broken Gust said, decisively. “Can you keep an eye on her?”

“It’s all I can spare,” he smirked back.

The Lunar Guard Commander—Broken Gust still couldn’t believe Princess Luna chose a minotaur—and the only other guard who currently held a rank walked through the open glass doors, standing beside them.

Captain Leaf Stream watched Princess Celestia for a second before taking a few steps forward, gazing up at the building, and huffing loudly. She then addressed the two of them.

“Anything going on? Did anypony try to come through riding a dragon and throwing spells around?”

“No,” Cradle Song replied before she had a chance to. “But there was a dragon riding a unicorn. Does that count?”

The captain pursed her lips in distaste, though Broken Gust managed to catch a moment of her lips twitching. “No, she doesn’t. So you’re the smartass of the bunch, right?” She approached Cradle Song, glaring at him. “You know, these eyes don’t really match. I’m a big proponent of harmony vibes, did you know that? You’re kinda wrecking my Mane Shui. We should even these out—”

“That’s for furniture,” Commander Solid Charge said, breaking off the captain’s rant.

“Well, what’s a good excuse for blackening his other eye then?”

“None.”

“You have no clue of how to have fun, do you, big guy?” Captain Leaf Stream wondered, smirking at him vindictively. “Must come with age.” She turned to Cradle Song instead of waiting for an answer. “Sorry about that. It was a joke, I’m kind of in a mood right now, and oh my Celestia I still want to punch you for that name crap you pulled on me!” She closed her eyes and took a big calming breath before shining a huge, nerve wrecking smile on them. “So, anything happen?”

“Not really, captain. All we have spotted so far is a photographer acting weird,” Broken Gust answered quickly before Cradle Song had the chance to say anything and get himself in a real hot spot.

“Weird?”

“Probably sticks around so she can attempt to take a picture of Princess Luna, captain. Not much else going on today.”

Broken Gust glanced at the commander at her side as he forcibly exhaled in amusement. Captain Leaf Stream plastered another fake smile over her face. “Picture. Yeah, don’t let him. It will probably bite us in the flank, like the other one.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cradle Song asked, slouching in his position.

The captain looked at him, frowning. Cradle Song clearly wasn’t making a good impression, and the idiot either didn’t realize or didn’t care. “Remember that stupid statue we had you smash the rest of the way down? The idiot we caught yesterday took a picture of Princess Luna and made that thing out of it. One photo, tons of trouble.”

“A photo of Princess Luna?” Broken Gust said, showing off how impressed she was with a long whistle. “Lucky guy.”

Commander Solid Charge looked down at her, frowning. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She’s one of those memorabilia collecting fans,” Cradle Song answered absently.

Broken Gust’s eyes widened in shock, and she felt her dark grey coat taking a crimson hue at her cheeks. “Shut up,” she hissed in a whisper.

“She has been flying daily to the closest village or city to get her hooves on newspapers and magazines for months now,” Cradle Song continued unabashed, explaining without malice, even though that wouldn’t excuse him from what Broken Gust planned to put him through for mouthing off like that.

“What, just to get more pictures of Princess Luna?” the captain asked her directly.

“Or any at all,” Broken Gust confessed. She pointed at Princess Celestia, who was still talking to ponies some distance away. “It’s not like Princess Celestia who has had thousands of pictures taken of her. All I’ve found so far are a few pictures from the first day of Princess Luna’s return, and now she doesn’t look anything like she did then.”

The commander addressed their captain. “You said he had a picture, right?”

“He did!”

“Well, where did he get it?”

Captain Leaf Stream scratched her disheveled brown mane in thought. “Our mystery mare?”

The minotaur’s chest rumbled. “She gave him a photo that pictured Princess Luna as she is now. A photo that’s not easy to find. I’ve never seen a recent photo of Princess Luna in any newspaper either.”

“Perhaps it’s a photo that she or somepony else took themselves in secret?” Captain Leaf Stream asked nopony in particular.

“A photo that I really want to see right now,” commander Solid Charge finished. “You two, find someone to replace you, and come find us at Sharp Chisel’s place.”

“There’s nothing here,” captain Leaf Stream screamed in frustration, throwing a chair at a wall.

“Calm down, keep searching, and stop breaking the furniture,” the commander advised, struggling for calm against his own frustration. “We will find it.”

“Are you absolutely sure it’s not lost somewhere in that paper mountain you told me about?” the captain asked, breathing hard. Broken Gust bent her head and kept going through the motions, searching through drawers they had searched through more than once already.

They kept returning to what they believed to be the rooms Sharp Chisel used the most out of the whole manor. It made Broken Gust bristle with indignation how some ponies lived like this, in houses with twenty rooms for a single pony while she and her people had to cluster up in their tiny wagons. They were homely, full of personality, and rich in their own history, but there was no way to get some privacy for… reasons in there. They had to stumble out in the woods and hope nopony else caught them in the act. More often than not, that “nopony” included things with fangs.

The room they were currently in was the bedroom, and she eyed the huge bed with jealousy. One pony, one single pony slept on that. Her own bedroom wasn’t as big as that bed, and she had to share.

“I would have seen it, I’m sure. Maybe you should go back and ask him instead of acting moody,” commander Solid Charge said, getting a little upset himself by that point.

The captain barked out a single laugh. “That guy won’t tell me what time is it anymore. He’s scared witless that I’ll get his secrets sucked out of my brain. Look, maybe he burned it,” she suggested.

“It’s a possibility,” the commander admitted, “but one I doubt. He probably didn’t have anyone else to talk to about what he was doing. He needed to remind himself he was right, that’s why he kept the statue around. If that’s true, he might have kept the photo too.”

“Well, I found crap so far,” captain Leaf Stream complained, exasperated. She kicked one of the cabinets, making one of the frames on it fall down, the glass cracking loudly. “There’s nothing here. Not even a dirty picture, much less a photo of Princess Luna. Maybe we should have brought Rainbow Dash along. She has a gift for finding a certain kind of item,” she said sarcastically.

Broken Gust looked at the fallen photo frame, thinking. The memories of her home, her previous line of thinking, and the current exchange brought something else to her mind. She had been travelling back and forth to cities often, that was an undisputed fact, and almost every thestral knew why, thanks to certain tactless ponies. What they didn’t know, because she would never tell anypony, was that sometimes she also bought an extra magazine or two.

She was a growing mare, she had needs, and when puberty hits you hard while you spend all your time watching and practising alongside lean, muscular stallions and mares, you need some release lest you do something you shouldn’t in such a close-knit community. Everypony did it, she was -almost- sure, it just so happened that she had many opportunities to get some visual aids.

She couldn’t keep them of course. Space and privacy were an issue that forbid her from keeping her Playmare issues. But, and that was a big but, there were certain photos that were simply too… delectable and too much of a favorite to throw away. So she kept them. Not many. Very, very few that she only now realized, biting her lip almost hard enough to bleed, had forgotten to take out of her hiding place before leaving her home behind. Somepony was bound to get a surprise sometime in the future. She wondered if they would know it was her or if one of her sisters would get saddled with the blame.

Broken Gust picked up the fallen frame and took out the picture. Nothing here. They had lots of frames and paintings back home too. Small ones mostly. She took another photo out of the frame, looking behind it. Neither of her parents had ever thought of checking to see if she had hidden extra photos behind the ones showing -at least, she hoped they didn’t. She took down another frame, took the photo out, and-

“Got it! I found it, commander, captain, I found the photo!” she yelled, excited.

“Let me see,” captain Leaf Stream yelled, scrambling to her side. She examined the picture for a couple of seconds before deflating in disappointment. “Well, that tells us crap.”

The commander gently took the photo in his hands, examining it himself. “No. Not yet. It’s obviously a personal photo. Princess Luna must know who took it. We will show it to her when we get back.” He smiled at Broken Gust. “Good job.” He gave the photo back to her to carry.

Broken Gust looked at the photo again, hoping she could keep it for herself. It was the best picture she would ever be able to find of Princess Luna, she knew, unless she managed to somehow entice the princess into letting her take another photo. Maybe if she did a good job she would be allowed to take a picture next to her. She examined the photo, the fanfilly in her screaming with joy.

Princess Luna was on a balcony, the night sky filled with brilliant stars behind her, merging with her flowing mane. She sat on a pillow and smiled softly at the camera, posing for the photo, almost blushing.

She looked incredibly sweet and innocent.

Night Lilly waited in the kitchen next to a small food trolley, trying to stand rock still as the terrifying mare in front of her whirled around her domain, knives, forks, and spoons flying around her in a dazzling display of magical skill. It didn’t take too long for somepony watching Twilight Velvet to understand where her daughter got the magical talent from.

“Dear, could you please take these trays off the counter?” Twilight Velvet asked, pleasantly. “Be careful, the soup is really hot.”

The white maned thestral didn’t let herself be fooled by the motherly tone or the playful smile. She loaded the trays of still steaming plates on the trolley, almost sweating with the intense effort of not fumbling and dropping the precious cargo. She let out a subconscious breath of relief when she was done.

A knife floated next to her head, the edge glinting malevolently in Night Lilly’s eyes. A gentle voice, filled with dark undertones -she would not be convinced otherwise-, spoke behind her, almost directly into her ear, too close and too personal for her liking. Twilight Velvet had creeped like an assassin behind her, almost killing her with a heart attack right there and then.

“You forgot the butter knives, dear. Oh, take this jar of strawberry jam along with some toast, and leave it there. They might want a light snack later on.” The knife moved away from her, and rested on the tray, along with a small glass container filled with a red, gooey concoction. Night Lilly could not help but imagine disturbing scenarios involving the terrible mare’s personal pantry, with an array of more sinister jars.

She got hold of the trolley handles with her wings and started pushing it, when the mare hit her with a hoof near her own cutie mark, a circle filled with a star-like web pattern and white feathers trailing beneath it. Night Lilly froze for an instant, but she forced herself to keep moving lest she reveal weakness.

“Run along now, dear,” Twilight Velvet said, turning her attention back to her cooking. “The princess must be getting hungry. It’s feeding time.” Night Lilly’s attention was overtaken by the last two words, hitting her brain like lightning.

The light sting on her flank seared across her mind as she made her way along the corridors, heading for Princess Luna’s room. She knew what that seemingly playful tap really meant. The mare had marked her, and tonight she was going to come for her. Feeding time. She had practically confessed.

She made the decision to crawl into Broken Gust’s bed tonight, probably holding a stout club. Her friend tended to get a little too touchy-feely when asleep, but she would gladly take molestation over opening her eyes to see the—superficially innocent—dual-colored maned mare grinning over her.

That freaky mare had cowed the Night Princess. Night Lilly didn’t know how she had managed that, nopony she had dared to talk to did, but she had no intention of personally finding out if she could help it. Thestrals knew one thing very well, and that was self-preservation. They knew they couldn’t attack or kill Twilight Velvet, but nopony had confirmed to them so far if Twilight Velvet had to follow the same rule.

She gave the guards, who were looking at her with obvious envy—oh if they knew what she had to endure—, a quick greeting containing one of the passwords, and motioned for them to open the door so she could roll the trolley through. A blunt wave of acoustic assault hit them the instant the door opened.

“—eak to me with respect!” Princess Luna shouted. Night Lilly panicked. She didn’t know what was happening, she didn’t know if she should stay out or go inside, but she did know that she couldn’t leave the door open and let everypony hear the princess yell.

Her fear over Twilight Velvet learning she served dinner cold won over her trepidations. She almost charged inside, dragging the small cart behind her, and rushed to close the door. She turned around, ready to face retribution for this kind of entrance.

Nopony even noticed her, apart from the strange biped that guarded the princess. The bandaged figure glanced at her for a moment before burying his covered face back into his palms, sitting on the edge of a bed and taking no part in what happened.

The minotaur who had been introduced as their commander was standing in front of Princess Luna’s bed, holding a piece of paper accusingly, looking very, very angry. She barely had time to notice three ponies behind him, their sole captain and two of her fellow thestrals, when the minotaur started bellowing in turn.

“If you tell us who could have taken this photo we could end this, but you refuse to—”

“Exactly!” the princess shouted, her features full of anger. “I refuse! This is my decision and you will abide by it. You will drop this, Solid Charge. There’s nothing to be gained by this line of enquiry.”

“They have all those runic bombs and—”

“What part of this simple order did you not understand?” Princess Luna shrieked. “This matter is closed. It’s over! That’s an order. Do you understand now? Is it simple enough?”

The minotaur took a step back. His lips twisted for a few seconds before he gained a look of utter calm. “Understood, princess.” He let the paper he held fall to the floor. “The matter is dropped. Permission to be excused?”

“You have it,” Princess Luna said, becoming calm herself with visible effort.

The minotaur sidestepped around Night Lilly, the other three following behind him. Before he had time to grasp the handle, the princess spoke again.

“Solid Charge. You will do as I have ordered. You’ve done a good job so far, but you need to learn that I have reasons for my actions I cannot share with you, not always. I still expect you to follow my orders nonetheless. Is this clear?” she spoke calmly, so unlike she did only moments before, from her position, laid upon on the bed.

The minotaur looked back, glancing at Raegdan. “Secrets… We are on your side, princess,” Solid Charge said, disappointed.

“I know,” the dark Alicorn said, austere. “ Take a couple of days off, have some fun of your own. You’ve earned it. We will be leaving Baltimare soon anyway.”

“Thank you, princess,” the minotaur said, still bitter, and left with the captain and the other two guards. Cradle Song exchanged a look with her, communicating all too clear his awkwardness at what he just witnessed.

The door closed, and Night Lilly was left alone with the irate princess and her… bodyguard, she guessed. The princess homed in on her almost instantly.

“And you are here for…” she asked, borderline hostile.

Night Lilly swallowed, wishing she had a glass of water available. “I- I brought your dinner, your highness. Twilight Velvet told me to bring it to you.”

“Ah,” Princess Luna intoned, softening in response. “Thank you. Night Lilly, wasn’t it? Could you serve it please?”

The change of attitude heartened her, erasing her fear she might get an earful due to another’s actions. “Certainly, princess.” She served her princess first, putting the dishes on a deployable tray that could stand on the bed, making it easier for her to eat.

She then moved the trolley towards the biped, thinking it might be easier for him to eat straight off it, being of a perfect height for him as he sat. The little wheels squeaked as they rolled along, and Night Lilly waited for the strange creature—Raegdan, she was almost certain that was his name—to acknowledge her.

He wasn’t moving. He sat there, elbows resting on his knees, his back bent, and his face resting in his open palms. She moved closer. She thought she heard something, but it couldn’t be what she thought it was. There was no possible way—

“Is he asleep?” Princess Luna asked behind Night Lilly.

Night Lilly could hear the light snoring. “Uh, yes, princess. He… is.”

The tinkling of silverware stopped. “It’s about time. You are excused, my guard. You can leave the trolley here. He shall dine when he wakes up.”

“Uh… thank you, princess,” Night Lilly said, not sure if that was the right answer or not, and left.

It looked to her that serving under Princess Luna as a Lunar guard was going to be quite different than what they expected or imagined. She didn’t think it was all going to be monster hunting and glory, not from what she was seeing. There was probably going to be a lot of adjustment for everypony involved.

Cradle Song wouldn’t mind, that stallion could shrug anything. Broken Gust hero-worshipped Princess Luna with an intensity that left the rest of them in shame. She had a certain image of the princess in mind, and who knew how meeting reality would leave her? Drum Beat… it was a matter of time until he got his face bashed into a wall. Too eager to prove himself. As Night Lilly was concerned, Eventide was a blessing. The older mare would prove invaluable as a support and a firm body to hide behind.

She froze, her thinking patterns obliterated by the realization of what she had allowed to happen. Raegdan was going to eat his dinner cold. Twilight Velvet was going to drink her blood and feast upon her soul, or what it was that dangerous mare was capable of, when she found out. What if she was one of those legendary necromancers? Or a poisoner perhaps, of untold capabilities, her knowledge of cooking nothing more than a disguise of her alchemical skills, and a way to bring her closer to her victim’s food and drink?

It didn’t matter. She was dead if that mare found out. Night Lilly ran down the corridors, searching for a heavy, blunt object, and a method to protect her chastity when she slept hugging Broken Gust for all she was worth tonight.

Drum Beat listened to Broken Gust and Cradle Song’s story, secretly wishing he had been there with them. He could have said something when the commander dared to challenge the princess’ orders, he could have shown how dependable and obedient he was. Instead, he got stuck guarding a door and checking saddlebags full of medicine or private property.

Eventide had listened without interrupting, lying still on her bed. The two thestrals had felt an urgent need to talk to somepony, but Cradle Song managed to convince Broken Gust to go to Eventide instead of Silverwing, citing they should keep all matters inside their new allegiances from now on as much as possible. The older, far more experienced mare was the logical candidate to unload their troubles on.

“I really don’t get why the princess doesn’t want the commander to find who gave that sculptor the photo,” Broken Gust said, looking back melancholically. Drum Beat and Cradle Song exchanged a knowing look. The obsessed mare was probably pining for the photo even while she kept seeing the object of her obsession in the flesh.

“Probably because she might know already,” Cradle Song said, playing with the IV tube feeding into Eventide.

The older mare reached out and pushed him away from there. “She might or might not. Why are you kids still concerned with this?” she asked with a hoarse throat. “Princess Luna ordered the matter over with.”

Drum Beat had waited patiently for this question. “Because that is our chance to show Princess Luna we—”

“Are a bunch of disobeying guards?” Eventide interrupted him, eyeing him through a blackened eye. “You make a mistake like this, she will kick you out. Scratch that, you disobey the princess like that and I’ll be the one to kick you. Understand?”

Drum Beat bowed his head in surrender. “Yes, aunty. I understand.” He felt his brief dreams shatter.

“Good,” the wounded mare said, and pushed her gray speckled mane out of her eyes. “Then go and make yourself useful. We’re supposed to go to Manehattan soon, aren’t we? Somepony could easily hide one of these things in the train. Help the commander figure out a way to make sure nopony tries anything like this.”

“But I thought we were supposed—”

“If I could stand, I would smack you,” Eventide said, pouting. “Drum Beat, you’re not trying to go against the princess’s wishes, you are trying to keep her safe. Go and do your job!”

“Yes, ma’am. Let’s go.” Drum Beat took the lead, rushing out the door, once again filled with purpose.

Eventide watched them leave silently.

She huffed as she laid alone on the single bed. What was the princess playing at?

Ch.28 - Manehattan

“Excuse me, miss? Can we have some more chips and a few more nuts, please?” Rainbow Dash called out to one of the waitresses as they passed by their table. “Thanks!”

Applejack emptied her mug and finished off the last of the chips before taking another good look around. She had been feeling a bit apprehensive when they first came in this bar. She didn’t have anything against them; it was a good place as any to relax in Manehattan, and this one kept its music down. Most of the ambience came from the loud mumble of the patrons talking, and the endless tinkling of glasses.

But it simply wasn’t the place you’d expect a princess to come and have fun in. Eh, she thought with a shrug, depends on the princess apparently. Luna seemed to like this kind of place, and she couldn’t really fault her. There were ponies all around yet they still had their privacy, had a nice selection of drinks, and they were with friends.

Applejack glanced at the deeper depths of the booth where Luna had sat. Once again, the area where she stood had become noticeably darker, but that fit her just fine, hiding her from view. What the other patrons saw was an indistinct figure of a pony, sitting next to the much more noticeable figure of Raegdan—who had to pay a little bit extra at the barkeep since his armor would probably scuff the furniture.

All in all however, they were such a big and diverse crowd that nopony would take much notice. They had piled more than one table together near the booth to accommodate all of them. There was Applejack herself, as well as the rest of her friends, Luna and Raegdan, Solid Charge, Eventide, Night Lilly and Drum Beat, though Eventide and Solid Charge were up at the bar and away from the rest of them. The rest of the Lunar guards had stayed behind at the hotel, holding down the fort.

Applejack pulled the fresh mug of pleasant cider the waitress brought her closer to her. Poor fellas. She hoped they made good use of room service at least. Rarity hadn’t been able to keep her tongue in when she found out in which hotel they would stay while in Manehattan. Applejack didn’t get most of it, on account of doing the old “nod and smile” trick—with some care though, she didn’t want to get roped into something she didn’t want to do—, but the one thing she heard was that they had very good chow.

The waitress brought a few more trays of snacks, and Applejack got hold of one for her very own personal use, thank ya kindly.

Raegdan leaned forward, examining the chips. “Are these made from actual potatoes or are they made from hay too?” he asked.

Pinkie Pie grabbed a hoofful and threw them in her mouth. “Hay,” she announced after laborious chewing and three more mouthfuls.

The alien pushed it away from him and got a tray of dried nuts instead. “I’ll never understand how you can possibly prefer substituting potatoes with hay.”

“Hay has less empty calories,” Rarity said. She leaned to the left and then to the right, examining Raegdan’s black cowl that covered his head. “Is that working well for you, darling? Are the holes large enough? I really wish you had let me take measurements without those ghastly bandages around your face.”

“It’s fine,” he said, downing some beer. He shook the little flap that covered his front lip. “Have a little problem with this when eating or drinking, but I’ll get used to it. Where were we?”

“You were going to tell us about little Spikey wikey.”

“Oh, yeah. Well, he’s going back with Celestia for now. Velvet wanted to take him in, but she was only going to spoil him. Not that Celestia won’t, but at least she’ll keep up his punishment for a couple of days at least.”

“Oh boy,” Rainbow laughed. “What did you have him do?”

“I didn’t have him do anything,” Raegdan said, taking one more swig. “I simply suggested to Celestia that if Spike wants to act like a baby in constant need of supervision then he should look the part.”

“Oh. My. Gosh,” Rainbow Dash mouthed in laughing disbelief. “You didn’t…”

“Do anything. It’s not my fault Spike will be helping Celestia around while wearing a baby bib and holding a rattle.”

“Oh my sweet stars, he’ll look adorable!” Rarity squeeked.

“Ah ain’t saying that ain’t funny, but isn’t it too much?”

Raegdan eyes sparked with anger. “He was going to follow behind us in the wilderness. In the dark. Without telling anyone. No, that isn’t too much. A day or two of humiliation is a very good trade if it makes sure he won’t try something like it anytime soon.” He breathed out his frustration. “Anyway, that’s it for little flame. What else were we talking about?”

“You still haven’t told us if you asked Princess Celestia about gaining access to her reports,” Twilight grumbled half-heartedly.

“Ah, right,” he breathed, glancing at Luna. “I did. We couldn’t break the code anyway, not fast enough.”

“A moment of honesty, if we may,” Luna added. “We couldn’t tell heads from tails.”

“Yeah, that too. So, I went and told her, there was a little argument, and afterwards she told me she’d let us know what we need or if anything popped up until she could teach Luna how to read them.”

Night Lilly was throwing nuts aimed at Drum Beat’s open mouth. He turned around to ask a question and a nut hit him in the eye instead. “What exactly was the argument about if we may ask, sir?” he said, rubbing the hurt eye.

“Nothing much, same old. Told me I should know better, I said some words, she said some words, I said more words, we punched each other, made up, argument over,” Raegdan said, shrugging nonchalantly and laying back on his seat.

Twilight frowned. “Punched each other?” she quoted.

Raegdan leaned forward again, towards Applejack. “How does my left eye look?”

Applejack peered carefully through the eyehole of the black cloth. “Swollen,” she said after a few seconds. She frowned in recollection. “Is that why Princess Celestia had her mane all over her eye? Did ya really sock the Princess?”

“Oh, like it’s the first time she or I did that. Did you forget all the times she set me on fire?” he said, lying back as much as his armor would allow him. “We get on each other’s nerves from time to time. It settles things between us faster, and we don’t hold a grudge about that at least.” He examined his drained beer and turned to Luna. “Should I get another one you think?”

“You should hold off. We’re supposed to go to another place after this, remember?”

“Just one sip, Dashie—Why? What’s wrong with this one?” Pinkie Pie asked, stopping her struggles to convince Rainbow Dash to let her drink some of her alcoholic beverage, rather than the lemonade she was sipping from with a straw.

“Nothing, but there are some rumors about more entertaining venues,” Luna said while using her magic to lift a bottle of whiskey away from Pinkie Pie’s hooves who whimpered in disappointment. “Alright, who’s up for another drinking contest—Raegdan, hand down. You’re not allowed to play. Pinkie Pie, neither are you.”

Applejack gently shook the loser of the previous round. She hadn’t checked if she was still breathing for a few minutes now. A roaring snore reverberated through the bar, signifying that Fluttershy was still very much alive.

“I really thought she could do better than a single shot,” Rainbow Dash excused herself, rubbing the back of her head. Applejack didn’t say anything. She just glowered at Rainbow Dash. “Hey, at least she’s getting a nice nap, huh?”

“I’ll play, Princess,” Drum Beat offered.

“Splendid!” White teeth glinted in the darkness in a predatory smile. “Let us make it more interesting this time and leave these little thimbles aside. Can somepony get me two tall water glasses instead?”

Drum Beat’s eyes filled with instant regret.

Night Lilly patted his back consolingly. “Not to worry. I know how to work a stomach pump.”

“Not helping,” he whispered, watching his glass get filled with whiskey. “Can I add some water?” he hopefully asked Luna.

“It spoils the taste, but suit yourself,” Luna said, downing her own glass in three swift gulps. “Your turn.”

As fun as watching a pony commit suicide by drinking was, Applejack switched her attention to Twilight and the rest of her friends. They talked mostly about what they intended to do if they managed to get the time. There were libraries and museums that Twilight wanted to visit, and fashion stores that Rarity wanted to browse. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie preferred to walk around and drink in the sights. Fluttershy would probably ask to visit animal shelters and the famous park in the middle of the city.

The conversation brought them around to the grand tour the mayor of Manehattan offered Princess Luna, and by extension the rest of them. They had shown them some grand sights that they all wanted to visit again in more relaxed conditions. They laughed at the memory of how the officials sweated seeing Luna’s seemingly indifferent look, urging them on to make even wilder proclamations for their city and the monuments they showed her.

Luna had kept responding with “that’s nice,” to everything she was shown. It drove them all kinds of crazy.

“This reminds me,” Twilight said, prodding her former guardian, “why were you looking everywhere but what they were showing us? Were you trying to get on their nerves?”

“Huh? Oh, that. No, I was simply looking around to spot what they didn’t want us to see,” Raegdan answered, trying to sneak the whiskey bottle away from Luna’s side.

“Ya think the ponies here are hiding something?” Applejack asked. Luna’s hard hoof unexpectedly came down with force on Raegdan’s fingers. The alien inhaled sharply through his teeth at the sharp burst of pain.

“You little... No. Yes. I mean—” He paused to shake his aching fingers. “They probably have things they want to keep out of sight. It’s why they might have wasted all our day like that. I don’t think it’s anything sinister. Probably didn’t want us to look into their dirt and all.”

“What did you mean about the buildings?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Raegdan’s little jump didn’t escape Applejack’s attention. “What buildings?” he asked innocently.

“You know,” Rainbow Dash continued without fail, “when you pointed at them and told Luna that it’s like that the further you go from Canterlot.”

“I didn’t hear that,” Twilight said.

Rainbow Dash put her hoof next to her mouth in a parody of keeping quiet. “He whispered,” she hissed loudly.

“It was nothing,” Raegdan assured them, giving up on the harder stuff and getting his watered down beer on hand again. “Just an observation.”

“Of what?” Twilight asked.

Raegdan looked into the remains of his drink. “It’s like a dream that fades at the ends. Like it frays apart. Or a web that isn’t wound as tight around the edges.” He looked up at the ceiling. “I think it’s a honeytrap, one that no one ever decided to build. A story that isn’t being told as loud out here.”

“That made zero sense,” Rainbow Dash said.

Raegdan shrugged. “I’m not sure it means anything at all. Not on its own—oh hey.” He lifted up an arm in a wave, welcoming back Solid Charge and Eventide. “Any luck?”

Solid Charge held out a seat for Eventide before he sat down himself. “It’s not far. I got directions and a password.”

Eventide grinned happily. “I wish I felt a little better. I’d like to take part if we’re going there.”

“Alright.” The cloth on Raegdan’s face shifted as he smiled. “Everybody finish up your drinks, and someone carry Drum Beat to the bathroom so he can puke. We’re leaving in a bit.”

Luna’s head swiveled away from her one sided contest, her face full of excitement. “We found one?”

“Found what?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Something fun,” Raegdan answered.

Solid Charge went into further detail. “There are a couple of places, all of them kept secret, that host underground—that is illegal—fights. We found where one of them is located.”

Applejack frowned. “So… Y’all want to shut them down?”

“Heck no,” Raegdan said. “And lose out on the fun? We’re going to take part!”

Rarity harrumphed, full of disappointment, and sipped on her wine. “How crude. That is no place for ladies, and certainly not a princess. I’m cross with you for even making the suggestion, darling.”

“Rip off his head! Momma needs a new silken shawl!” Rarity screamed over the chanting crowd, riding on top of Solid Charge. Bits were exchanging hooves rapidly, scuffles were igniting and ending in a moment, and the two contestants in the middle of the crowd-made ring were grappling against each other.

The brutish minotaur that Raegdan was facing managed to break his grip. He pushed Raegdan back and threw two savage punches, one on his chest and one on his right cheek, sending him stumbling sideways.

Raegdan wiped his bleeding mouth with the back of his hand and spat blood on the floor. “Alright,” he said loudly over the din. “Let’s try this again. I think I had enough.” He straightened up and beckoned for his opponent to attack.

Then he placed his hands behind his back and waited as smugly as he possibly could.

The minotaur, and the crowd betting for him, roared their anger at this display. The minotaur, a beast much larger even than Solid Charge, with bloody eyes, trampled forward, bringing his massive fist back for a punch that would break Raegdan’s neck.

Raegdan took a step towards his charging opponent, and, hands still behind him, looking relaxed as you please, kicked downwards in a casual manner.

The minotaur’s expression switched from one of fury to one of surprise and immediately after to one of exquisite pain. A dry snap echoed in everypony’s ears despite the shouts. The leg broke like a twig, and the lower half of the bone ripped through the flesh, exposing itself to the air.

The crowd ooh’ed in sympathetic pain before going wild, and large amounts of bits and other currency quickly moved from losers to winners. Raegdan was patted in the back by the suddenly richer spectators as he waded through them to reach the tables they had reserved for themselves, where half of them had decided to stay and keep an eye on their seats and Raegdan’s armor instead of watching the brutal matches.

Surprisingly enough for Applejack, Rainbow Dash was one of them.

Applejack sat next to Fluttershy who had leaned onto Drum Beat, both ponies switching between drunken awareness and unconsciousness. Still, it might have been better for Fluttershy not to have a recollection of this place. It was not a bar or a proper establishment of any kind. Hay, the oldest barn in her farm was in a much better condition than this old dingy basement they found themselves in, and she was willing to bet this place didn’t officially exist. She wasn’t sure about the drinks either. They were brought capped bottles, sure, but the amount of dust on them? That didn’t bode well. Beer is not renowned for aging well.

Raegdan fell on his seat with a dazed but content smile, and spat some more blood on the floor, making Twilight and Rarity frown. He mumbled a quick apology to both of them, and got hold of a napkin.

“How did you do?” Luna asked.

Raegdan showed six fingers using both hands, all four of his left and two on his right. “I managed to take six hits. Only needed one to take him down.”

“Darnation,” Luna said, striking the table with her hoof. “If my next opponent doesn’t fall on the first strike you might win.”

“Where’s your manager?” Rainbow Dash asked, chuckling.

Raegdan leaned back on his chair, trying to see around the crowd. “I think she’s—ok, she’s coming back.”

Rarity came back to their table with a number of filled pouches in her magic and a dazzling smile on her lips. “Wah haha! We made a killing, darlings. Oh, these poor ponies here have no concept of the art of business. Oh, Raegdan, I’m sorry but after the latest match there’s nopony willing to fight you. There’s an earth pony that wants to take on Lulu the batpony though.” Her smirk could make Discord proud.

Luna smiled wickedly. She couldn’t have taken part as an Alicorn, nopony would be crazy enough to try and take her on, so she used her magic to look like a Thestral instead. She simply had to stay away from Raegdan and his grabby fingers to keep the spell up. Applejack would have called it cheating, only it really wasn’t, was it? Not anymore.

The disguised princess headed for the makeshift ring. “I’ll be back in a minute,” she said full of confidence. Nopony, except for Rarity, Raegdan, and the three Thestrals who rushed ahead to make some last bets, followed.

Raegdan held back for a moment to crouch next to Rainbow Dash. “You haven’t watched a single match so far. You coming?”

Rainbow Dash tried to play it cool, waving her hoof like she didn’t care, even though her sudden jitters were visible to all. “Nah, I just got comfortable. I might come here some day on my own, show them a thing or two.”

The biped pursed his lips and glanced at Applejack and Twilight who tried to shrug back without making themselves obvious to Rainbow Dash. Raegdan didn’t force the issue. He ran his hand through Rainbow Dash’s colorful mane, who tried to push it away from her and pull away, and rushed to catch the show.

The crowd cheered. There was a cacophony of oohs and aahs as the match went on. Then the volume rose up and split in exultations of victory and the grumbling of the losers. Over everything else they could hear the happy shrieks of a richer Rarity.

Luna returned a couple of minutes after she left, grinning.

“So?” Applejack asked, curious of how their little contest ended.

She shrugged and blew her mane away from her face. “Raegdan won by a few points, but I still had fun.”

Raegdan nodded and started to put on his armor once more as soon as he sat down. Solid Charge started helping him, and the rest started slowly getting ready to leave, and convincing Rarity to abandon her new booking business venture.

The alien paused midway in the act of putting on his gloves. Applejack looked where his attention was, and noticed Luna was pouting. “Don’t tell me you’re upset you lost,” Raegdan said, stretching his fingers inside the creaking material.

“No. I am simply disappointed we didn’t have a chance to get in a proper bar fight.” Applejack and Rainbow chuckled while Twilight shook her head in exasperation. “No matter. It would not even be satisfying enough without good opponents anyway, so I should probably let it fade out of my mind.”

Raegdan hummed in thought and finished wearing his gear. He gave his weapons to Applejack and Twilight, and bid the girls to wait by the entrance. He caught Rainbow Dash by the tail and pulled her back next to him when she tried to follow them.

“You, young lady, are staying here with me. Don’t leave my side.”

“What are ya planning, big fella?” Applejack asked, full of suspicion.

“Me? Nothing. I’m just going to thank these lovely people for having us,” he said.

“You’re not gonna start anything, are you?” Rainbow Dash warily asked. “I’m not sure if I—”

“Ok, girl?” Raegdan grabbed Rainbow Dash by the cheeks and turned her face towards his. “Wake up and stop running away from your shadow. You’re staying right here, and getting these stupid ideas out of your head.”

“Bfut aih—”

“No buts. You either hit back or stay chicken scared for the rest of your life. Your choice. It takes two to fight, not one.” And with that proclamation he let Rainbow Dash drop, and jumped on the table, the wood creaking dangerously under the increased weight of Raegdan and all the heavy armor he wore.

The attention of everypony was instantly on him, a mix of ponies, griffins, and minotaurs. The din died down, and everypony waited while the last of the noise faded. Raegdan spoke up loud enough for all to hear, and everypony listened to the odd being with the crowned helmet they had heard so much of these last few days.

Applejack had a feeling that she should be pushing her friends as close to the door as possible, effective immediately. She had been near animal stampedes, and there was a feeling she got, right before it started. Like a kettle that was about ready to start screaming it was. She felt that way now.

“Ladies and gentlestallions,” he said with a sarcastic tone, making everypony who heard him laugh at the term. “Thank you all for the entertainment you have provided us with, as well as the gift of your company.” Some of the listeners cheered. “Also, thank you for your hard earned bits.” There were some grumbles, but mostly laughter. “Alas, we have to go and seek another form of entertainment. The sad fact of life is however that bits don’t grow on trees, so in the interest of finding the cheapest solution available—”

Solid Charge took a step back. “Oh crap. Oh crap, don’t tell me he—”

“—I have one question to ask of you.” He flipped a bit up in the air and caught it again. “Where can I find your mothers? I hear they’re the cheapest ones for miles around.”

The large basement was completely silent for one moment, a silence so deep it could deafen you. Then the crowd surged forward like a wave.

Raegdan jumped down laughing, while Solid Charge and the three Thestrals formed a defensive line. Applejack urgently shooed her stunned friends out, pushing them if need be. Raegdan pulled Rainbow Dash right next to him.

Last thing Applejack heard as they were running up the stairs was Raegdan shout. “Here’s your bar fight, Lulu! Grab a chair! That guy looks like he has a sturdy back!”

“Ow. Ow. Ow. Owowowowow!” Rainbow Dash complained in rapid sequence as Applejack dabbed her cut. The farmer spat out the reddish cloth and looked her friend up and down before slapping a small bandage on the side of her head.

“Ya’re acting like a little filly. It ain’t that bad.”

Rainbow Dash, in her usual fashion, couldn’t keep her hoof away from prodding the fresh wound. She pulled her hoof back as soon as it made contact, and hissed. “It stings!”

“Yeah, well, might have to do with ya trying to block a beer bottle with yer face.” Applejack closed the small medikit and gave it back to Eventide who stood a little apart, watching with a smiling face. “Thank ya kindly for this, Eventide. Good thing somepony thought of bringing one along.”

“Not a problem,” the older mare said, putting the medikit back in her saddlebags. “You should thank Captain Leaf Stream. She gave it to me. She said, no way that won’t be needed at one point.”

Applejack laughed, shaking her head, and lightly kicked Rainbow Dash right on the cutie mark. “Come on, get up you. It’s no good sitting on dirty pavements.”

“Dirty pavements? You sit on the ground all the time back home,” Rainbow Dash pointed out.

“That’s because that’s honest Ponyville dirt,” Applejack said proudly. “Steeped in tradition and history. It’s dirt where hard working earth ponies have shed their sweat.” She pointed towards Rainbow Dash’s flank. “Besides, ya sat down on gum.”

“Ah, ponyfeathers,” Rainbow Dash said, jumping up. She turned around herself like a dog hunting its own tail as she tried to check her coat in the darkness of the night. She quickly headed for one of the scarce lit lamps, flying funny on account of keeping her flank as still as possible.

Applejack turned to Rarity. “Ah’m surprised ya didn’t offer to cast one of yer fancy lights and help her.”

“Oh, she can deal with it on her own for once, and I don’t want to touch any yucky gum,” Rarity said, shivering in disgust. She smiled warmly immediately after. “It’s good to see old Rainbow Dash again though.”

“Yeah. Seems like she needed to see that not every kick leads to lifelong injuries,” Applejack said, walking next to Rarity. “Gonna have to thank Raegdan for that, though he kinda was the one who terrorized her like that.” She looked around and spotted Twilight.

“Hey, Twilight. Where are the rest? Are we calling it a night or is there anything else on the menu?” Applejack called out.

“They’re just around the corner on a bench. I was coming over to get you actually. I think we’re heading back to the hotel now.” Twilight lead them back where she came from, just around the street corner like she said.

The streets on this area were pretty deserted. Applejack had gotten the sense they were in one of the less reputable areas of Manehattan, proven by the entertainment they left behind. Even so, they barely had seen any ponies around all night. It wouldn’t be that unusual normally, but everypony talked about how Manehattan was alive day and night. Proved to be a soap bubble too, Applejack thought, at least for a large part of it. She could see the night sky light up at the northern side, from all the lighted districts that were brimming with life, tourist traps, clubs, bars, and everything else that could skin some bits off ya.

So she was pretty surprised when she saw a pretty, young, earth pony mare talking to the others. She had a light pink mane and a yellow green coat. Applejack noticed the very short skirt she wore that hid her cutie mark from view, a simple piece of clothing of bright pink.

“Oh,” Rarity said when she noticed her.

“Is something the matter?” Twilight asked.

Rarity’s cheeks blushed pink. “Oh, my apologies. I didn’t intend to demean anypony.”

“Huh?”

The skirted mare had been talking to Solid Charge who was trying to wave her away, all the while blushing way more ferociously than Rarity did. The young pony looked rejected for a second, and then, despite Solid Charge’s attempts, stepped up to Raegdan. She looked up to him and said something Applejack couldn’t hear, her stance full of agitation. Raegdan, for his part, seemed to be amused judging by the way he stood.

They reached them right on time to clearly hear Raegdan’s answer, almost laughing. “Girl, you’re barking the wrong tree. Sorry, not interested.”

“Oh,” the mare said, looking at the ponies around. She seemed to reach a decision and made two steps towards Applejack and the rest.

“Would any of you want to have some fun? My price is low, I’m willing to do anything you want, and I have a room if you don’t wish to go to a hotel.”

“Pardon?” Applejack said, completely flabbergasted. Did that pony just say—did she mean what she thought she meant?

Pinkie Pie hopped out of the darkness and into their midst. “Did anypony say fun? I want to have some fun!”

Rarity’s eyes widened and she lunged to hold off her pink friend. “Not this kind of fun, darling. I’m sorry, dear, but we’re not interested.” Rarity turned her head just so her face was out of sight of the young mare, and whispered. “She’s a Pink Skirt, girls. A working mare.”

Applejack blinked. Why was that wrong? She was a working mare too—oh. Oh! The sentences and hints she heard reluctantly clicked into place. She had heard of these mares, but as far as she knew they didn’t, uh, advertise as such in small communities. Supposedly, if you needed them you knew where to find them, if that was your liking, but in bigger cities there supposedly was… a buyers market, and there was a lot of competition, city folks being all weird and all, which meant they had to go and seek their… clientele. So, the Pink Skirt had become kind of known, at least as an euphemism, though Applejack, until this very moment, thought it was more of a joke than a real thing.

She wondered if there were any such... working ponies in Ponyville. She hadn’t heard or seen anything, but she had a nagging suspicion ponies wouldn’t rush to tell her if there was. She was known for being opinionated on certain topics, though she never gave real thought to this one.

To say Applejack felt extremely awkward was a vast understatement. She had a whole list of things that came to mind, ranging from “what would your folks think,” to “how can ya do this,” and she knew each and every single one was not getting outta her lips if she could help it. She was pretty sure this mare here didn’t need to be preached from her or asked questions she probably asked herself already. Would be nice to convince her brain of that fact too, and make it stop making up a whole sermon she would never utter.

The mare did not intend to let an, ahem, client get away from her that easily. “I’m sorry, miss, but if your friend wants to try me out you should let her.”

Try me out. Applejack rolled these words in her mind a couple of times, getting the full taste of them, and leaving a greasy stain behind. Yep, she wasn’t forgetting she heard that anytime soon. She looked at Twilight next to her, and realized, the moment she saw Twilight’s eyes be wide as saucers, that the poor purple unicorn had completely shut down. At least Fluttershy was asleep again. That was a small blessing.

The “negotiations” were cut short by a very young colt running towards them, and shouting. “Hey, sis, are you done with work yet? Did they pay you at the store?”

The mare’s expression showed intense fear for a second, and with incredible speed she moved behind Applejack, hiding her back half behind the larger mare. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be asleep, tomorrow’s a school day. Go away, I’m—I’m in the middle of an errand.”

The tiny colt wasn’t deterred by his older sister’s forbidding voice. “Tar says he really needs more of his medicine. He sent me to see if you had money for him.”

The mare’s eyes flashed with anger for a moment, before biting her lips apologetically. “Not yet, Stormdrain. I’ll be back when I do. Go home.”

“Oh. Um, do you have a bit or two for me at least, Mint? I’m hungry.”

The mare tried to dig beneath her skirt while keeping it out of sight of her brother. “I think I do. Hold on a—”

Raegdan came forward, hidden from view in the dark with his black armor until he was close enough. He crouched down, next to the small colt that looked up at the giant with his mouth open but speechless.

“You’re hungry, little kid?” he gently asked.

The colt slowly nodded.

“I think we can arrange something then.”

The mare, Mint, shook herself out of her surprise. “Hey. Hey! No, he doesn’t do that kind of stuff—”

Luna appeared next to Raegdan, cutting off Mint’s protests with her mere presence. “I have built up quite an appetite. I believe we can accommodate two guests. I noticed one of these “quick eat” establishments on our way here. Shall we?”

“It’s fast food,” Raegdan corrected her, standing up.

“Really? Do we have to catch it to earn our right to eat it?”

Raegdan was looking down at the hay fries that everypony else was eating with nothing less than complete hate and contempt. If hay fries had a neck, he’d be wringing it for all it’s worth. If not them, then he’d probably like to made do with whichever pony ever thought them up first.

“Can I have some of these?” little Stormdrain asked, pointing at them with his tiny muzzle. Raegdan pushed the bowl towards him and the colt happily started munching on them.

The little bell over the store’s entrance tinkled. Night Lilly walked inside and sat down next to Raegdan. Raegdan silently scooted aside to accommodate her.

“Where had you gone?” he asked with a hint of suspicion.

Night Lilly dropped a slightly greasy paper bag on the table in front of Raegdan. “There’s a little place around the corner that does potato fries. Thought I’d go and get you some.”

Raegdan opened the bag and peeked inside. “You did?” he asked, completely surprised. “... Why?”

The young thestral shrugged, smiling. “I like potato fries more too. Besides, it wasn’t fair for us to have fries and you not to.”

Raegdan kept staring at her and she shifted awkwardly under his intense stare. “So, uh… sorry, I thought you’d like it, I didn’t mean to—”

“Want to share?” Raegdan asked, taking a potato fry in his hand and passing it to her.

Night Lilly grinned, relieved. “Yeah! Sure.” She took the fry, and after Raegdan emptied the bag on an empty plate she quickly grabbed a couple more.

“Can I try some of them too?” Stormdrain asked, still chewing.

“Sure, kid. Here, have the rest of the bag.”

Mint managed to pull her eyes away from her brother at the table next to them long enough to meet Luna’s gaze. “Th-thank you for the meal, Princess Luna, but I… I need to go soon. I need to—”

“Find a pony in search of release and a full money pouch?” Luna said bluntly, swallowing her bite. She turned to Twilight, smiling. “These sandwiches are very tasty indeed. Thank you for the recommendation.” Twilight smiled back with ketchup stained lips and cheeks, pleased that Luna had liked her favorite as well. Rarity was doing her best to remove a small piece of bun that got stuck on Twilight’s coat without alerting Twilight to what she was doing.

“... Yes. I need the work you see—”

“Is it drugs?” Luna asked, and took a fresh bite without looking at Mint.

“Excuse me, Princess?”

“Your older sibling. Has he fallen prey under the addiction of drugs?”

Mint stared at the floor, the question making her blush when offering her body would not. “Yes. It’s not his fault. Tar tries to quit. He really does, he just… slides back.”

“Hmm…” Luna hummed in thought. She finished her sandwich and got up. The pony that was stationed at the nearby register straightened up in an almost military fashion when he saw the princess standing. Luna headed towards an empty corner of the shop and called for Raegdan to come along.

The biped stood up, ruffling the colt’s mane before leaving. Pinkie Pie jumped on his vacant seat and started amusing Stormdrain by putting hay fries in her nose, ears, and mane.

Applejack, not knowing what else to do, tried to strike up a conversation with Mint. She didn’t want to make the young mare think she was rude by ignoring her. “So, uh, ya live with your siblings? Take care of each other?”

The anger she had seen before made a return in the mare’s face before swiftly fading away. “Each? I do all of—Yeah. Yeah, we all do as much as we can,” she said bitterly. She glanced at her brother and her face softened. “We’re doing the best we can.”

“How about yer mum and pop?”

Mint shrugged. “Gone a long time ago. It’s been the three of us for a long time.” Applejack wondered what exactly that “gone” meant, but she knew better than asking. She took a look at the next table where Rainbow Dash was roaring in laughter along with Stormdrain at Pinkie Pie’s antics. If Rainbow Dash was sitting with them they would probably have found out by now.

“Illegal drugs statistically end up being the cause of death for 76 percent of users, which is a general figure of course, the actual number varies according to the exact drug and age group,” Twilight said, standing ramrod straight in lecture mode. “Depending on the extent of use and duration of addiction, there are a number of afflictions both of body and mind that plague—”

Rarity interrupted Twilight by gently shaking her shoulder. “Twilight, dear, I really think this is not the proper time for teaching us your little factoids.”

Poor Twilight tried to start again, not realizing how anypony couldn’t find the studies she had read about helpful at all. “But… If you pay attention to every study it becomes apparent how foolish it is to—”

Raegdan’s voice rose up from the corner where he was talking with Luna. “That’s not what we’re here for!”

Applejack, as well as all the rest, waited a moment in case they heard more, but the two of them had quieted their voices once more. They turned their attention back to their own conversation. The outburst had actually helped a bit. It pulled Twilight out of her mind enough to notice Mint’s rigid jaw as she stared at her.

“I’m… sorry,” Twilight said, “but according to—”

“Ever tried to convince an addict to quit?” Mint asked. “Do you have any idea how it is? To beg them to stop a thousand times and to hear them say they will try a thousand times in turn, only to- to-” Mint looked away. “It’s not easy. It’s not that easy at all.” She took a deep, trembling breath and returned Twilight’s hurt look. “I’m sorry. I know you mean well.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Twilight said quickly. She glanced towards Raegdan who was arguing quietly with Luna. “I kind of know how it is. I just never really thought of it like this.”

Applejack sniffed theatrically, and wiped a non-existent tear. “Ain’t it lovely how we can all come together through stupid?”

“Some decorum, Applejack, please. This is a serious issue for some,” Rarity scolded her. Mint, for her part, simply giggled.

“There is help you can get,” Twilight suggested. “There are programs and places that can help you stand up on your legs, initiated by Princess Celestia. I’ve read about them.”

“I know, but… they will have to do what they think is best, and- and I’m scared they’ll take Stormdrain away from us. I don’t want to lose my little brother,” she said under her breath.

“It might be the best thing for him if they think so,” Twilight proposed.

“Maybe,” Mint said, nodding. “Or it might not. We… do have our hard days, but we make sure he gets more than either of us, he goes to school, and- and we’re together. As family. I don’t have anything else. Just them.”

“Kinda hard to argue against that,” Applejack said, cutting off any interjections from her friends. She was certain there were none that would help either way.

The mare quieted down and went on finishing her own meal. “I’m really thankful for the invite, but I have to go. We’re short on income as it is and I can’t waste a working night.”

Luna approached Mint from behind, almost causing the mare to soil herself when she heard the princess’ voice behind her. “We’re not done yet, young Mint. I would like very much to have a meeting with your elder sibling.” Luna went around the table and sat back on her seat. “Right after I finish one more of these sandwiches.” She pointed at the menu on the wall and asked Twilight. “Tell me, does ‘chocolate milkshake’ mean what I think it does?”

Raegdan was leading them on, with Luna by his side. Stormdrain rode on his broad shoulder, giggling at the constant barrage of jokes thrown at him by Pinkie Pie who rode on Raegdan’s back. Mint followed behind, her eyes glued on her little brother, her whole body taut and ready to lunge forward if Stormdrain even looked like he might fall.

Rainbow Dash followed behind everypony else, carrying Fluttershy.

“Is your leg ok?” Raegdan asked Luna, inspecting the thick bandaged portion near her cutie mark as well as he could in the dark.

“It is negotiable. Is your residence nearby, young Mint?” Luna asked, looking around the deserted streets. She peered longer into the darkened alleys, making Applejack wonder what Luna could see in there with her much better vision.

“Yes, Princess Luna. Right on the next block.”

Maybe the streets were not as deserted as they looked. She didn’t know Manehattan well at all. She had only stayed here for a few weeks after all, when she stayed with her uncle and aunt, and that had been years and years ago. It had been some time after her parents’ death, she remembered. She had thought it strange then, how Granny Smith wanted her to come here. Heh, what a silly little filly she was. Her Granny always knew that Applejack would want to come back home. She had only sent her away to help her forget, and to make her remember she still had a lot left.

Like poor Mint. She must have been even younger than Applejack was, yet she was as hardened as her, and loved her young brother as much as Applejack loved Applebloom. Raising a young colt—or filly—like that, when there is nopony else to take up the role, you stop being the elder sister. That’s what ye call yerself, that’s how your sibling calls you, but in truth? You’re his or her mom. Even though neither says the word, it doesn’t make it less true. It was right there for all ponies to see, in the way Mint followed Stormdrain’s movement like a hawk.

And Applejack? She was an apple farmer from Ponyville, bearer of the Element of Honesty, and had been quite helpful to Equestria a couple of times. Next to her was a pink skirted pony that rented out her body for a few bits every night, and yet… she felt like a kindred spirit.

Funny how life can be. If she had thought before of how she would feel meeting a Pink Skirt, she’d probably say that she’d feel… unlike that. Maybe look down on her, probably.

Nah, scratch that. She had looked down on her at first. Applejack was real glad she hadn’t said anything then. Mint didn’t deserve that. She did the best she could with the cards life had dealt her, and Applejack was left with nothing but respect for the mare.

“We’re here,” Mint announced.

It was a dump.

Applejack felt bad for even thinking it, but that’s what it was. The living room and the kitchen were one and the same, and Applejack took a little peek into the cupboards. There wasn’t much in there. As in, at all. She did see a cockroach, but left it in peace. Poor thing would starve anyway. The chairs were all different from each other, probably salvaged from anyplace they could get them. All the furniture was like that.

In the smallest room there was a proper bed. She was certain that was reserved for Stormdrain. There were some small toys, all of them battered and old, under it. An aged mattress lied bare on the floor of the other one. The older brother and the sister must have been sharing.

Tar, the older sibling was lying on it in there. He was a grey coated earth pony, almost the spitting image of his younger brother, but where Stormdrain was happy and lively, he was gaunt and brooding. He laid on the old mattress shivering, despite the fact that it was a warm night. Applejack barely got a look at him through the door before Mint closed it and dragged Stormdrain into his own room, after serving a cup of water to Luna. She was awfully ashamed that this was the best she could offer to a princess.

Luna drank it in one go and thanked her.

“We’re here,” Raegdan said, spreading his arms around the small room, outside the bedroom where Tar was. “What do you want to do now?”

Luna hesitated. It was only her, Raegdan, Applejack, Twilight, and Solid Charge up here. The apartment was too small for any of the others to come, and Mint was doing her best to get Stormdrain to sleep.

“I am not sure,” she admitted. She walked around the small kitchen, examining everything. “So strange yet so familiar. To have so much, yet to choose to throw it all away like this…”

“They don’t really have that much,” Twilight said sadly, poking one of the weathered chairs. It creaked dangerously under the minor touch.

“There is always less than that,” Luna said, turning the faucet on and watching the water run. She turned it off. “Much less. There are individuals to whom these ponies are wealthier than dragons.”

“Drugs are a very appealing alternative to accepting reality,” Solid Charge said. “They can make a cruel life turn bearable for a while.”

“Have you attempted their consumption?” Luna asked.

“No. I’ve known minotaurs who have though.”

“How about you, Raegdan?”

Raegdan wasn’t shy about checking out anything at all. He started opening the cupboards one by one, and even looked into the fridge. “Oh, I’ve had my share of happy juice. I’ve also had a lot of bad juice. More often than not it was one and the same.”

“But you never attempted to take drugs of any kind as long as I’ve known you,” Twilight said, glancing around him into the fridge’s contents. “Not even medication.”

“Addiction is a bi—a bit hard to get over. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. I stay away from your drugs in case they work like that on me, not just because they might end up screwing me in other imaginary ways.” He shut the fridge. “Well, they’ve got plenty of ice at least. So, Luna, are you going to talk to the guy?”

“Do you believe I would be of any assistance?” Luna asked, eyeing the closed door. “Would he listen to me?”

Raegdan shrugged. “Meh. Don’t think so. You could try scaring him off the habit for a few days. Other than that I don’t think there’s a lot you can do.”

“I believe there is.” Luna pointed at the door. “You will go and talk to him yourself.”

Raegdan was taken aback. “Me? Why me?”

“I believe you will be able to make a better judgement than I could. You shall figure something out. Do it your own way. What you think best.”

“Why do you care so much about them?”

“I am not sure if I do. I am considering a few options that I believe may have been made available. I thought I could find an answer here.” Luna pointedly stared at the empty kitchen. “Family. Hard choices born by necessity. A mistake that is sinking its teeth deeper with every repeat. An unexpected hoof. I need to reflect on this. I know not what we can do or if we should do anything at all. This is not us. I would like to make an attempt even so however.”

“Alright, Luna. As you wish.” He opened the apartment’s door and walked outside. “Solid Charge, come with me.”

The minotaur had been watching the exchange with a pleased expression. “Where are we going?”

“To find some drugs. Let’s see what we can get our hands on if we rub two bits together in the alleys.”

Twilight wanted to be present. She wouldn’t take no for an answer, no matter how Raegdan threatened or cajoled or pleaded. She wanted to see, she claimed. She refused to keep hiding behind Raegdan and Princess Celestia forever. That’s what she claimed at least. Applejack didn’t see how the mare who went all up in Nightmare Moon’s and Discord’s face was hiding behind anypony.

“Raegdan, I can’t keep letting myself hide away from reality. There’s only—I can’t believe I’m saying this—only so much I can get from books. I learned that on my first day in Ponyville. Some things I need to see.”

“You don’t need to see anything.” He crouched in front of Twilight, and put one hand over her mane, the thumb running across her forehead. “Little one, I’ve seen a lot of things. You have no idea how much I want to never have done so. You can’t unsee them.”

“There’s a pony in need in there—”

“He put himself there!”

“—and if I stay ignorant, I won’t be able to help others like him. I’m coming inside with you.”

Raegdan stood up again, and placed his helmet on the kitchen’s table. “There’s no changing your mind, is there?”

“No,” Twilight said, grinning.

“That’s not always a compliment, Twilight. Alright. Come on. Let’s see what I can do. Not much probably.”

Mint had gone inside already while Raegdan and Solid Charge were gone. She woke Tar up from his feverish dreams, told him of the ponies outside. Applejack had the distinct idea that he hadn’t believed her. There had been shouting. A little bit of crying. She didn’t get the chance to pay attention to that. Somepony had to keep Stormdrain occupied until the shouting would fade.

When Raegdan stepped into Tar’s room, tall and dark in his armor, Tar either believed his sister or thought he was about to have the worst nightmare of his life.

“So, uh… Mint wasn’t lying, was she?” he stammered. His voice was weak and cracked. He didn’t just look sick, he sounded sick too. Sweat ran down his forehead and across his sunken ribs.

“No. She wasn’t.” Raegdan walked around the room, examining the almost bare walls, paying no attention to the stricken stallion. There was a small photo pinned on one of the walls. Applejack approached to see it better, as did Twilight.

It was Tar, younger and healthier. Mint was by his side, both of them smiling at the camera. A small foal was on her back, waving at the photographer. They were in the countryside, not Manehattan. The sky was clear blue, and Applejack could spot a building in the distance. It could be a barn or it could be a house. The photo was too creased to be able to tell with certainty.

Raegdan was still looking at the crinkled photograph. “You know what your sister is doing.” It was a statement, not a question.

“She… has to. We don’t have a choice.”

“Don’t you? She’s out there. You’re sitting in here.”

“I- I’m sick—”

Raegdan turned around, looking down at the stallion. “Don’t give me that crap.”

“I am!” the stallion shouted. Applejack and Twilight took a frightened step back. “Do you think I like this? Knowing what she has to do every night? Knowing my little brother has had to go to sleep hungry?” He pointed his hoof towards the door. “I’m trying but I can’t! I’m sick, and I’ll never get better.” He let his hoof drop to his side. “I won’t,” he whispered.

“You tried?”

“Every day,” Tar said, quietly, his sudden bout of anger evaporated. “I brought them here. I… I promised Mint there was a better life here. We came to Manehattan and- and I did everything wrong. I tried. I really did, but—” He shook himself in a small act of display. He tried, and that was the result, all there for them to see. “It’s all my fault.”

Applejack watched Raegdan sit down on the floor. He carefully folded his legs and rested his arms on the low circle they made.

They waited in silence.

A minute passed.

“I had a little girl with me.”

Tar looked up at him with tears amassing at the edge of his eyes. Twilight turned away, facing the wall.

“I had to make a choice. A choice that existed only in my own fool’s head. I lost her, and I’m never getting her back. Of all the things I’ve done, everything that happened to me, all the hells I’ve been through… if I could change only one thing, it would be her. I’d choose to keep her. No matter what.”

He reached around his belt and took a small paper package out, slowly opening it. “You will lose them. You will lose them and you will never get them back, and there is no pain like it. You will cry. You will threaten, you will plead, you will promise your soul to gods and demons… and they will still be gone.”

Raegdan unveiled a small hill of green dust. “Is this worth your family? A speck of sand? A fake, empty promise? You will trade them for this?”

“... No. No, it’s not worth it,” Tar stated in a whisper.

Raegdan nodded. Applejack and Twilight smiled encouragingly at the stallion. It warmed her heart to see him make the right choice. To stick by his family. That was easier than she had thought it would be.

Tar bent his head. “There’s… a free clinic for ponies like me. I could go there tomorrow. At least… Mint and Stormdrain won’t have to look after me, and when I get back on my hooves I could look for a proper job.”

Raegdan started folding the paper back to its previous shape.

“But, uh…”

Raegdan paused. “What?” he asked suspiciously.

“I… I can’t go like this. I’m- I can’t walk or even stand. I have the shakes, you know?”

The armored figure stayed silent, waiting.

“I’m ending it tonight. I swear. I just need to make the pain stop. Just one last time.”

Twilight spoke up, before Applejack could, voicing her own thoughts. “You don’t have to. Your family loves you and they will help—”

Raegdan lifted his arm, silencing her. He turned back to the trembling stallion. “Is that a promise?”

“Raegdan, you can’t—”

“Yes. Yes, I promise!” His eyes were glued to the drug his body craved.

Raegdan unpacked the dust again, the stallion shaking at the sight. “Twilight, Applejack, get out. There’s no need for you to be here.”

Applejack moved next to him. “Here now, are ya sure about this? Wouldn’t it be better to take him there ourselves right now?”

“He promised. I’m holding him to that promise.”

“Alright,” Applejack agreed after a few moments. “Ya know best. Come on, Twily. Let’s wait outside.”

Solid Charge had sat down on the floor rather than risk the chairs. Mint sat at the kitchen table along with Luna. The young mare looked tired. She’d probably heard what her brother had shouted. There were small, moist tracks on the coat under her eyes.

“So, what did he say?”

Twilight was triumphant. “He promised to get himself checked in for help at—”

“A clinic?” Mint guessed. “Yeah. He says that every few weeks. He means it too. It just… doesn’t last long enough.” She rubbed a stain on the table with her hoof. “I’m sorry for wasting your time with the likes of us.”

Luna had refilled her cup with water and was drinking it slowly, savoring it like Princess Celestia did her tea. “Are you any good with cooking?” she asked.

“Excuse me, Princess?”

“Cooking. How good are you with the modern day appliances?”

The smile full of sadness that was directed at herself made Applejack’s heart ache. “Not much, Princess. I can get by, but I don’t have much chance to practice.”

“Would you like to?”

“To what?”

“Practice,” Luna said. She put down the colored cup and looked the mare in the eyes. “I tire of this back and forth. I am offering you a job as a cook. When we return to Canterlot I will finally have guards of my own. These guards must be fed, and I intend to keep them separated from the rest of my sister’s guard as much as possible.” Luna pointedly looked around the small apartment. “You will also be provided with much better lodgings than these, as well as a salary.”

Mint looked pained instead of glad. “Thank you, Princess, but I can’t. I don’t know enough and I can’t leave my brothers,” she almost wailed.

“Then don’t,” Luna answered simply. “If you make do here, I don’t see why you couldn’t do so in Canterlot as well. Your younger brother can also aid with small chores if he wants to collect a small payment of his own. During the evenings only of course. I believe it is encouraged for young colts to prioritize their schooling in this day.”

“Tar—”

“Will have to face the outcome of his own choices. He’s a grown stallion. Your younger brother is not.”

Mint didn’t answer. She stared at the door that led to Stormdrain’s room. Applejack added her own two bits. “Mint, you gotta look after yer little brother first. He’s the one that needs you most.”

The mare nodded, hard enough to shake free the tears she had been able to keep back so far. “Thank you, Princess,” she whispered. “I… I accept.”

“Luna! Get in here!” Raegdan shouted.

Applejack moved as fast as she could yet still fell behind the dark Alicorn. Luna was further away from the door but somehow made it through first. Applejack rushed in right behind, wishing for a moment that she hadn’t.

The small package had been thrown aside, the green dust spread on the floor. Tar’s mouth was open, and his “bed” was filled with green-yellowish puke. Small, disgusting tendrils of acrid green and bright red ran down his muzzle. His mouth was open, and Raegdan’s fingers were digging inside while the stallion’s jaw was trying to clamp down, Raegdan’s gloves the only thing protecting his fingers from being bitten off. Tar’s limbs were flailing, hitting everything in range.

“What happened?” Luna asked, trotting to his side.

“Raegdan, take your hand out! He can’t breathe!” Twilight shouted in distress.

Raegdan didn’t even look up at them. “He’s choking. I’m trying to grab his tongue, he fucking bit it, and now he’s trying to—Fuck, his damned throat is blocked with all that—Solid Charge, Applejack, get them the fuck out!” he shouted pointing behind her at the door. “Where the hell are you supposed to push to force air out his lungs? Luna, try to pull out that sludge in his throat! I’ll try to force his lungs to work.”

What else could she do? She pushed at Twilight and Mint, driving them out with Solid Charge’s help. Mint didn’t want to go. She understood, she wouldn’t want to go either if that was Big Mac in there, but there was nothing they could do to help. They would only get in the way in here. So she pushed them out, forced them to leave, and muted her ears to Mint’s wailing pleas and cries. Raegdan and Luna would fix this. They wouldn’t let him die like that. They saved Pinkie, they would save Mint’s brother too. They were doing their best.

Tar didn’t make it.

Ch.29 - Blame

Luna called Solid Charge away from the Royal Guards and to her side. The minotaur was in a bad mood—they all were—and it had fallen to him to talk with the Royal Guards that escorted the medical ponies, and give them statements. There hadn’t been much left for any doctor to do. They simply had to take the body away, while the guards found out what happened.

“Have you answered their questions to their satisfaction?” Luna asked when Solid Charge stood in front of her. She and Raegdan stood apart from the rest, sitting against the wall of the building and as far away from light and company.

“Yes, Princess, as much as I felt it was necessary for them to know at least. I thought it prudent to downplay your involvement in the stallion’s death.”

“Are you trying to imply something, my commander?” Luna said, her facial expression blank.

“Princess?”

“You seem to be hinting at a certain notion. Am I incorrect?” Raegdan’s helmet moved to the side at Luna’s question while keeping Solid Charge in sight.

“No, Princess,” Solid Charge answered her bluntly. “You’re not. I will be the first to admit that this false idea is entirely founded on my distrust of Raegdan and nothing else. Forgive me.”

“It is already forgotten.” Applejack followed Luna’s head movement, and stared at the grieving siblings.

Stormdrain had barely fallen asleep for scant minutes. By the time he woke up, a devastating return to reality caused by his sister’s screams, he no longer had an older brother. Right now the young colt was all that was keeping Mint from falling apart. Brother and sister had asked to be left alone for a bit, and they had all complied with their request, watching them from afar as they sat together, hugging each other. When they had brought down Tar’s body Mint had turned Stormdrain’s head away while she stared at it with a ferocious intensity, as if trying to bring her brother back to life through sheer force of will.

The medi-ponies closed the ambulance doors and pulled it away. Mint didn’t speak or cry. She buried her hope that it was all a lie, accepted brutal reality, and held the only pony she had left.

Luna’s eyes softened as she watched them. “Solid Charge, I want Drum Beat and Night Lilly to escort the Bearers back to our hotel. It has been a long night and they should rest.”

Rarity interjected before Applejack had time to say what was on her mind. “We can stay and help, Princess.”

“Thank you, but there is no need. Go and sleep. The rest of us will stay here for a while and help Mint gather their meager belongings. We will be done in minutes. Solid Charge and Eventide will bring them to our hotel as well.”

“What about you and Raegdan, Princess?” Solid Charge asked immediately.

“I wish to take a walk. Raegdan will escort me. The rest of you can all go rest after we’re done.”

Twilight stood next to Raegdan. The way he sat down made it easy for her to look him in the eye, or at least Twilight could do so if he hadn’t worn his helmet once again. Applejack didn’t like how putting it on was the first thing he did after coming out of Tar’s room. It seemed to her he was trying to hide.

He kinda proved her right, then and there.

“I didn’t know drugs were—I mean, I knew, but I didn’t… I didn’t actually internalize how big of a problem they are.” Twilight said, sitting next to Raegdan.

Raegdan for his part shrugged. “In larger cities only. Not worth the trouble to transport to smaller areas. Lot of ponies in Manehattan. This is one of the poorer parts. Not everything sunshine and rainbows.”

“Are you ok?” Twilight asked worried, putting a hoof on his arm. “You don’t sound good.”

“Angry. That’s it.”

Twilight nodded. “Are you going to do anything to help?”

Luna’s head swivelled around. “To help with what, exactly?”

Twilight’s hoof made an arc encompassing everything around her. “This. The drugs. Stopping it, at least stemming it a little. Isn’t this why we came here?”

“No, Twilight Sparkle, this is not why we came here.”

“Then—”

Raegdan cut her off, speaking sharply and clipping the words as they left his mouth. “No. Not what we’re here for. We will stay for a day or two, then leave. That’s it.”

“So… you’re not going to do anything?” Applejack asked, making sure.

“Not our problem,” Raegdan insisted.

“Not your—Are you—” Applejack stopped herself from shouting, and glanced guiltily at Mint and Stormdrain. She elected to whisper with a snakelike hiss instead, too angry to talk calmly. “An innocent pony just died in your arms. His sister and brother are right there, crying, and you tell me that you don’t care—”

“Applejack,” Luna said forbiddingly, approaching the young mare. “I have offered the mare a new future, and we tried to help the deceased. What more would you have us do? Stay here and attempt to slay a hydra?”

“Ah would expect you to act like a princess and care for yer subjects,” Applejack countered, snarling.

“You will watch your tone!” Luna commanded. “My sister is already helping those ponies, and the Royal Guard is doing its job well enough I suppose. I have problems of my own that I have to address, and it is my prerogative to whether or not I’ll abandon my plans for a random errand. Is that understood?”

“Random errand? You are a princess! It’s your duty—”

“Do not presume to lecture me about duty!” Luna pointed accusingly at Applejack, then addressed Raegdan. “This! This is what I have been telling you. It is never enough. You need to do more. Still not enough. More, more, more, until I am nothing but a shrivelled husk. What I’ve done already is forgotten, already judged as ‘not good enough’ for them!”

“Ah’m thinkin’ you two have just done about enough if that’s the way you think you help,” Applejack spat. Luna’s head whipped back to her, but Applejack ignored her. She had a bone to pick with Raegdan now, not her. “What did ya do?” she asked the alien that didn’t even dare look at her.

“Applejack, stop this right now!” Twilight demanded.

“Did you kill him?” Applejack asked, straight to the core. Raegdan ignored her.

She took a threatening step towards him, though Celestia only knew what she had that she could threaten him with. “Ah asked you a question—”

“That is enough!” Luna barked. “Tar died through his own choices. Raegdan tried to save his—”

“Yeah, well, the problem is ah’m not sure if he did or that was just an act that he—”

“Applejack, that’s not fair!” Twilight interrupted, placing herself in front of her and trying to block her from Raegdan’s view.

“What ain’t fair is what happened to these two ponies,” Applejack pointed out, “because this... person here wants to play judge, jury, and executioner with ponies’ lives! They’re not ponies to him. They’re things!”

“Say ‘monster’, why don’t you?” Twilight said with a frown and misty eyes. “That’s what you wanted to say, wasn’t it?”

Rarity spoke up. “Applejack, dear, Stormdrain was up there with you. Raegdan wouldn’t do something like this when—”

Applejack turned to Rarity. She didn’t want to look at Twilight’s betrayed expression. “What, because it would hurt the colt?”

“You know he wouldn’t—”

“Newsflash, Rarity. Just ‘cause he doesn’t want to doesn’t mean he won’t. He doesn’t really have much of a good track record so far, has he? Killed Morning Dew’s dad right in front of her—”

“They were trying to kill him, Leaf Stream said—”

“—and let’s not forget what he did to his own daught—”

Twilight’s hoof was stopped from making contact with Applejack’s face at the last possible moment. Applejack’s eyes followed the hand that held off Twilight’s hoof up to his owner’s face, hidden behind the helmet as it was. Strange, it was a piece of metal, but Applejack could almost swear its expression had changed.

It looked furious, downright murderous.

“Girls, I think you should quiet down,” Rainbow Dash whispered. “Mint and Stormdrain might hear you. They don’t really need this right now.”

Pinkie Pie stood aside, looking sorrowful. “Applejack, Twilight, please stop fighting,” she said gently. “You’re friends. Please don’t fight.”

Applejack’s eyes veered away from Twilight and the one tear she had caused to run down her friend’s face. Raegdan let Twilight’s hoof go, and she put it down, trembling. That… wasn’t the way Applejack meant for it to go. She hadn’t meant to hurt her friends. She just, she wasn’t sure what she was trying to do. Something. Nothing.

Raegdan got up on his legs, stood high above Applejack, and looked down on her. He looked very angry, though Applejack would be hard pressed to say why she thought that. It wasn’t his stance, it certainly wasn’t his expression that she couldn’t see. It might have been the slight tilt of the helmet, the way the shadows played across it, or simply the fact that she couldn’t see his eyes, only the darkness of that long eye slit. It might have been something else entirely, radiating out of him.

“Want to know what happened?” Raegdan said unexpectedly. His voice was worrisome. He sounded like Rarity had described him the other time: barely making the words understood to her ears and the inflections are all wrong. Applejack realized he had been like this before, only less severe. She had poked a hornets’ nest and now, now she feared he might try something. She glanced at Luna, but her hopes of getting help from her were swiftly overturned.

“You want a reason,” He continued, not giving her time to answer. “Can’t have simply died. Not fair. World not like that.”

“Raegdan,” Twilight whispered. “You didn’t…”

Raegdan ignored her. The helmet stared unmoving at Applejack only. “Wanted drug. Would always want. Never change. Couldn’t change. Not until death came.”

Pinkie Pie gasped.

“Death came. Made his choices, and it killed him. I killed him. Applejack is right.” Raegdan turned from them and stepped away. He addressed Luna as he was passing her by. “Don’t expect they have suitcases. Going to find something for their things. Bags. Be back soon.”

Rainbow Dash gazed up at the starry sky as they walked. “Girls, I think I’ll go fly for a while. I need to clear my head. Can one of you carry Fluttershy?”

“Sure, sugarcube. Give her here,” Applejack offered. With a little help from Twilight’s magic they settled the asleep Fluttershy on Applejack’s back. Rarity used a small handkerchief to wipe off some drool running down her chin.

“Thanks,” Rainbow Dash said before she spread her wings. She lifted off slowly, “I’ll get back to the hotel when I’m done. Don’t wait up for me.” She flew up into the sky, her wing flaps slow and her head looking up and away from everypony else.

Applejack watched her fly until she lost her, hidden from her view by the tall buildings surrounding them. “She didn’t take it well,” she observed, quite unneededly.

“None of us did,” Rarity said with deep sadness. “We expected good news while we were waiting downstairs, not… this,” she finished vaguely. She slowed down so she could walk next to Applejack, and watched Fluttershy with eyes threatening to tear up, in her usual excess. “Poor Fluttershy will be devastated when she learns what happened.”

“Beats being awake and present though,” Night Lilly said. She was supporting Drum Beat as he walked. The young stallion had mostly recovered from the sudden drinking he did, but he still tended to trip every now and then.

“Mah stupid head trying to pick a fight didn’t help either,” Applejack apologized. “Ah ain’t sure what ah was trying to do anyway. It’s how he learned to act. There’s no turning his head around.”

“No, darling, there might not be, but I think it best we forget it altogether for now. We all make mistakes, I think this has become quite clear. We should have prevented—look at me go, ignoring my own advice. I’ll just stop.”

“Do you think Mint will still accept Luna’s offer after what happened?” Twilight asked, her voice a little tetchy.

“What choice does she have?” Applejack answered, though happy that Twilight wasn’t angry enough to stop talking at her. “Stay at the place where her brother died and keep doing what she did? Nah, she’ll take the job, if only for Stormdrain’s sake. At least them two will be ok from now on. That’s something at least.”

“Pinkie Pie, are you ok? You haven’t said a thing.” Twilight asked with some concern, her voice warming up. The pink earth pony hadn’t said a single thing actually, that was true. She had remained silent, and walked—not hopped—next to all of them quietly and sedately. She wasn’t smiling either.

“Just thinking,” Pinkie Pie muttered.

“About what, darling?”

“Stormdrain. I’m trying to figure out someway to cheer him up.” Her head lifted up with the light of sudden inspiration in her eyes. “Hey, Rarity, can you make a doll?”

“A doll? Yes, of course, but I don’t think a simple doll will be enough to—”

“Can you make one that looks like his brother? Like the one they sent to Luna of her and Raegdan?” Pinkie Pie pleaded. “Please? So that he can keep it with him and always have his brother watching over him?”

Rarity took a trembling breath and her handkerchief dabbed at her eyes. “Of course, darling. It will be my pleasure. That- that is very thoughtful of you. I’ll make the template before I lie down, and we can go buy the supplies for it together tomorrow morning. What do you say?”

“Okie dokie.” Pinkie Pie’s walk became a little more lively.

They walked in relative silence for a while. It fit Applejack just fine since she had some thinking to do. She kept seeing Tar choke and struggle to breath, his limbs flailing, his eyes white. She let it play across her mind, not trying to stop it. Better to get it over with here and now rather than when she tried to sleep.

I’m holding him to that promise. That’s what Raegdan asserted.

I’m ending it tonight, I swear. That’s what Tar, well, swore. Applejack shook her head. It made sense, and he admitted it. Her gut had been telling her he was hiding something, and she was right.

She remembered Raegdan’s hand running through Stormdrain’s mane and how he carried the colt on his shoulder. As much as she kept a shimmering resentment for Raegdan after hearing his story… Applejack closed her eyes and almost tripped on a discarded can. She mumbled some choice words about litterers and went back to working out her issues.

He doesn’t hurt kids, That’s what she told herself at one point. She never expected that he would hurt Stormdrain like that, not when the kid was right in the next room. She didn’t know what changed his mind and made him kill the stallion, but maybe—

She gave up. There was no understanding that fellow’s mind. She tried, but she simply couldn’t wrap her head around it. Sometimes, for no reason at all, he would show an unexpected mercy. Other times he would not. She didn’t think there was a pony around who could understand how that worked for him.

Except Luna. Maybe Discord would too. Wouldn’t that spirit of chaos have a field day with him?

“Twilight? Ah’m sorry about what happened. Talking like that to you.” She had to apologize to her friend at least, and the sooner said, the better.

“It’s ok,” Twilight accepted, her voice quiet.

“Ah mean it,” Applejack reiterated. “Ah- Ah know I overdid it back there, and ah’m really sorry. Ah was—”

“Angry. You were angry and you wanted to make him hurt,” Twilight said with certainty, her body shivering for whatever reason.

Applejack wanted to deny this. It didn’t sound like something she wanted to associate with herself, something that she was capable of doing. But… she had to be honest with herself: She wanted to hurt him. She trusted him to save that pony, and then there was anger, and that little bit of doubt and resentment that festered inside her ever since he told them his story flared up, and… and she ended up hurting her best friends instead.

What did she achieve? Tar was still dead, and Raegdan would hide behind the protection Luna provided him as a Lunar Guard. She got him to admit the truth, and now they couldn’t do anything with it. Not without burning down Luna too or hurting Mint and Stormdrain even more.

“Ah did. You’re right. Ah’m sorry.”

“It’s ok, I forgive you.” Twilight, well, forgave, her eyes down on the road as she walked. “It’s easy to get angry. I got angry too. I’m angry with him now as much as you are. I tried to hit you back there. I’m sorry.”

“That’s ok, sugarcube. Ah reckon ah rightly deserved it. Shoot, you might want to sock me one anyway. That was a low blow there, and I ain’t any proud of it. Just get me on the left side if you can because ah’m used to chewing from mah right side.”

Twilight and everypony else giggled at her, and for a few seconds everything was right once more. Twilight looked back at Applejack from her place up front, smiling, and Applejack gave back a big, shining grin of her own.

Yeah, they were good, for now at least. Not completely fixed, but on the way there. One “sorry” wasn’t gonna cut it, but it was a good start. She’d work up from there.

Too bad there was no such fixing for Mint and Stormdrain.

They walked in silence.

Then there was shouting.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Rarity grumbled tiredly. “What is going on?”

“I don’t know,” Twilight said, switching directions. “But it can’t be good. Come on, let’s go check it out.”

Night Lilly tried to get them to stop by raising her hoof, but almost everypony ignored her. “Hey, hold on. I’m—We’re,” she corrected herself, shaking Drum Beat with a scowl, “supposed to take you to the hotel!”

“You’re supposed to escort us, darling, nothing more, and you might want to hurry and catch up,” Rarity mouthed off quickly as she ran by her. “Toodles!”

Night Lilly’s face fell. “If they get lost or hurt, they’re going to kill me!”

“Both of us,” Drum Beat shakily said.

“I don’t care what they do to you, but more what they’ll do to me. They’ll feed me to that crazy mare! Run, you drunk idiot, run!”

Applejack did her best, and was the fastest of her friends, but she was also carrying Fluttershy on her back. Still, she did manage to catch up, and the reason for the commotion was flaring up right in front of her.

An apartment building was wreathed in flames, lighting up the street. Black smoke, darker than the night itself was rising up like a plume of death. Ponies had amassed on the street, with more of them descending from the buildings around, gazing at the burning building.

Twilight yelled over the crowd. “Has anypony called the fire department?”

“My husband is running there now,” a mare said without taking her eyes off the flames.

“Is everypony out? Is anypony trapped inside?”

“We don’t know,” another pony answered. “We woke up from the shouts, smelled the smoke, and ran down. I don’t know if there’s anypony else inside.”

Fluttershy stirred on Applejack’s back. “Make the noises go away,” she mumbled sleepily.

Applejack shook herself to help rouse Fluttershy faster, and nudged her. “Hey, sugarcube. As much as ah’m glad to know ah make a good bed, is there any chance of you waking up?”

“Applejack?” Fluttershy said drowsily, rubbing her eyes. “What are you doing in my house? Where is that breeze coming from? Did I leave the window open again?”

“We ain’t at your home, Fluttershy. Does the name ‘Manehattan’ ring any bells?” Applejack asked while poking her a bit harder. Fluttershy tried to avoid the prodding hoof by switching sides. Pavement ensued.

“My head hurts…” she whimpered.

Pinkie Pie helped Applejack pick Fluttershy up and get her steady, at least relatively, on her legs. “You ok, sugarcube? Can you stand?”

“I’d prefer to sit if that’s ok. Um… what is going o—Oh my!” Fluttershy gasped, spotting the burning building.

“Yeah. Big fire. We’re waiting for the firefighters to arrive,” Applejack summarized.

“The real tragedy is the complete lack of marshmallows,” Pinkie Pie complained. “That, and the complete destruction of all those ponies personal property, but marshmallows seem easier. So, really, why are we not fixing this first?”

They waited, gazing up at the flames, hypnotized by the destruction they saw being wrought before them. Smoke billowed and waved, curling around the apartment building like a cloak. Tongues of fire started leaping out of the windows, each one adding one more shadow and one more reddish hue to the play before them.

“How long until the firefighters arrive?” Rarity asked the mare who stood next to them. “Why does it take them so long to get here?”

The old mare looked sideways at the road to the east, took a deep, deep breath, and started gesturing as she launched into a not-epic telling.

“They closed down the Mareina fire station a couple months ago to cut on costs, the mayor’s councilors are up to something, I tell ya, it’s all about cost cutting lately but it’s all from public services, so the closest one right now is off behind Stableway. Dreadful how the ponies can live there, it’s a good thing it’s almost all commercial there, even if it wasn’t the rent would be prohibitive. It’s quite the prime estate there, you know?

“I have a cousin, she says she knows a mare whose friend had a small studio apartment there, practically a hole, and she made enough selling it to start her own business. They can’t come straight through though because it’s packed with pedestrians, I don’t know how they can stand staying up half the night, poor ponies working there have to endure shifts from tartarus, so they will have to swing around, but there was a problem around the Bridle Bridge, I heard there was an accident, something involving melons, terrible things melons, and—”

“I think I understand your point, ma’am, thank you,” Rarity said quickly, grinning with fear at her friends, silently conveying not to ask this mare anymore questions, and sidling away from her.

One of the windows of the building burst, throwing out shards of glass, the reflection of deep red turning them into molten metal. The crowd surged backwards even though nopony was close enough to get hurt by them. A cloud of fire bellowed out furiously before calming down and kept on burning like the rest of its brethren.

“Whoa nelly!” Applejack cried out.

“Um, girls?”

Drum Beat looked up, impressed, before his cheeks bulged. “Oh Celestia, I think I’m going to hurl again...”

“Girls…”

“Did any of you see something?” Pinkie Pie asked. “I thought I saw a shadow up there.”

“What?” Twilight asked immediately. “Pinkie, are you sure?”

“Um, no…” Pinkie Pie answered cautiously.

“Girls, I saw somepony up there,” Fluttershy said, loud enough to be heard—and noticed—this time.

“Are ya sure, Fluttershy?” Applejack asked doubtfully. “You can’t even stand. Maybe you thought you did—”

“Somepony threw something and broke the windows before the flames puffed up,” Fluttershy said with conviction. She immediately sunk into herself, her eyes wide. “Do- Do you think they’re ok? Did they get hurt?”

Twilight hissed in a breath. “That might not have been an explosion of some kind but rather a backdraft caused by the sudden intake of oxygen…” she said, staring up at the window. She looked down the street, where the firefighters failed to emerge. “Right. I’m going in. If there’s somepony trapped—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Whoa!” Night Lilly yelled, popping her leather wings to fly in front of Twilight and stop her from moving. “Nopony’s going anywhere. You can’t go in there!”

“There could be somepony trapped! We can’t leave them in there!” Twilight argued.

“Ooh, ooh~ I saw it too, I saw it too!” Pinkie Pie cried out, hopping next to her. “Twilight, somepony moved up there! I saw the shadow of a pony.”

“You can’t go up there!” Night Lilly insisted frantically. “I’m supposed to guard you all, not let you run into a fire and get cooked!”

“Are you going to let these ponies die then?” Twilight asked, looking Night Lilly sharply in the eye.

Night Lilly looked back up at the window Pinkie Pie pointed at. “Uh… I’ll go. You stay here. I’ll go get them and—”

“No,” Twilight refused. “I can help with my magic. I’m going too.”

“Ah’m comin too,” Applejack added. “The more of us, the faster we get this over with.”

“Me too.” Pinkie Pie hopped next to Twilight and Applejack.

“Oh, there’s going to be so much soot and ash in there… But I’m coming too.”

Fluttershy tried to get up and stop them. “Girls, you really shouldn’t—oh,” she moaned, trying to stand up in protest, and almost flattened herself up again. Night Lilly grabbed her to steady her, and stared at the row of mares standing decided to throw themselves into the fire.

Night Lilly sighed. “Drum Beat, you take care of Miss Fluttershy here. We’re going to go in and make sure nopony is still up there while we still have time. You all stay behind me, okay? If I say run out, you run out, no excuses or anything.”

“Fine, yes,” Twilight agreed impatiently. “Let’s go, the fire is only getting worse!”

“Girls, please don’t!” Fluttershy shouted behind them.

They all ran together, right behind a cursing Night Lilly who led the way, through the open doors and into the burning building. The air inside was sweltering and thick with smoke. They all kept their heads low, doing their best to see through the hovering ashes.

Pinkie Pie pointed at the stairwell, coughing. Night Lilly headed for them first, her leather wings flapping, trying futilely to blow the smoke away from her. Twilight followed right behind her as they climbed on.

“Fourth- Fourth floor I think,” Twilight reminded them. Her eyes were already tearing up, but she was able to see Night Lilly nodding.

“Can I ask you something very important?” Night Lilly asked Twilight as the group was reaching the first floor. A part of the ceiling had burned out and fallen off. They circled around it, and carefully climbed on the next stairwell, tongues of flame licking it as well.

“Of course.”

“What does your mother… do?”

Twilight stopped moving, caught in surprise, and Rarity had to prod her to keep climbing up the steps. “My mom? She’s a kindergarten teacher.”

“She’s… really? Kindergarten teacher?”

“She’s pretty good actually. The foals really love her,” Twilight praised. Applejack was bemused to see how Night Lilly’s jaw worked in disbelief.

Rarity started coughing harshly. The smoke was getting thicker as they climbed and it was pretty hard to breathe at this point. Seeing wasn’t easy either. They had started sweating profusely, dust and soot collecting on their matted coats. The crackling of fire in their ears was getting stronger, from the distant whisper it had started as, to the roar of crashing waves, filling them with fear.

“Twi, can’t you do a spell to clear up the air a bit?” Applejack asked, spitting on the ground. She grimaced in distaste when she saw her saliva was grey and thick.

“Uh… hold on, I think…” A violet dome of energy surrounded them. “There. It’s a shield spell that should work as a filter, but we have to move quick. I can’t hold it for long. Shield spells are meant to be static,” She explained, her voice straining with effort already.

“We should hurry either way,” Night Lilly said, eyeing the wall around them. They had reached the third floor, and there were flames everywhere.

They moved for the staircase, but their progress was cut short. A part of the ceiling had collapsed right in the middle of it, taking out a few of the steps.

“Can we jump up? Or is that too dangerous?” Rarity asked.

“Hold on, ah got another idea,” Applejack said. “Pinkie, come here and help me.” With Pinkie Pie’s help it was a matter of minutes to rip off an apartment door off its hinges and make a temporary bridge for them. “Here we go. The whole stairwell doesn’t look very steady though. We will have to go up one at a time.”

They reached the fourth floor. They all stared down in different directions to look for any sign of survivors. Pinkie Pie started yelling and the rest of them copied her.

They were answered as a young voice called for help. They rushed down a corridor surrounded by flames and smoke, Twilight’s barrier adding its own purple glow to the yellow and red colored shades around them. Applejack kicked down the door where the pleas for help were coming from.

A young earth pony colt, no more than fifteen at best, had covered an old unicorn in a blanket and was trying to drag him out of a collapsed room. “Help,” he yelled hoarsely, his young voice breaking in hacked coughs. “I can’t- I can’t pull Mr. Patter out!”

Applejack didn’t try to pull on the blanket. The old pony had a pretty big beam fallen on him. They would need to lift it up first. She knelt down beneath the edge of it, wary of the flames, and Pinkie Pie pushed to fit next to her. The two earth ponies were able to lift the large wooden beam off, and Night Lilly and Rarity dragged him out.

“Are there any more in here?” Twilight asked the colt.

“I don’t think so,” the colt answered, breathing the cleaner air of the shield with relief. “I haven’t heard anything.”

“Then let’s go!” Night Lilly shouted, anxious to leave.

“Wait, did you hear that?” Applejack said, standing in place. Her ears flicked, pinpointing the sound. Somepony was hitting on something. She pointed deeper into the corridor. “There’s somepony else still in there!”

“Son of a—” Night Lilly barely held herself from swearing, glancing at the colt. “Ok, you wait here. I’m going to check it out.” She rushed along, and paused, staring at a door.

“Anypony in there?” she shouted, leaning her face close to the door. The door thumped in answer. “Hold on, I’m coming to get you!” The thestral turned around and kicked the door, her well exercised muscles overpowering the frail hinges.

“Can you come—” Her sentence was cut short. A blue coated unicorn dashed out of the apartment as soon as it fell, crashing on her and throwing her down.

The unicorn looked around at the flames, gasping with fear. His pupils were pinpoint-sized and staring everywhere with terror. He ran for the stairs, screaming, not paying attention to the mares that came to aid him. Applejack noticed a small splatter on his head, but wasn’t able to see what exactly it was in the flickering lighting and the blur of the unicorn’s speed.

Twilight called out to the thestral. “Night Lilly, he’s out, come on! I can’t hold the shield forever.” The mare didn’t answer. She laid on the floor, her front legs moving erratically. “Night Lilly?”

“Twilight, ah think she’s hurt,” Applejack said, and she left Twilight back with Rarity. Pinkie came along with her as she ran to Night Lilly’s side.

“Lilly, come on, we hafta… oh Celestia, no!”

Blood pooled beneath Night Lilly, running like a river from her throat. Her white mane had turned red where it touched the floor, and her coat was swiftly turning a dark indigo. Her throat had been torn open in a gnarly fashion, oozing dark red. The mare was trying to stop the blood flow with her hooves, barely making a dent at the rate her life was draining from her.

“Hold on, Lilly, just hold on—Twilight, we need help!” She tried to use her own hooves to stop the bleeding. It was a large gash on her throat, that unicorn’s horn had accidentally ripped it open like a blade and her hooves just couldn’t enclose the savage wound enough.

Pinkie Pie tried to help too. Her hooves tried to fit in the tight space, an impossible task, hoping that her aid would be enough. Night Lilly gasped, trying to breathe and her lungs filling with her own blood instead. Her eyes locked on Pinkie Pie and her front legs pushed Pinkie Pie’s hooves away from the futile effort of helping her.

Pinkie Pie cried out. “Stop, please, let me help—ah.” Applejack glanced up. Night Lilly was crying silently. The young mare—She’s younger than me, Applejack thought in despair—had managed to move one of her front legs around Pinkie Pie’s neck and pulled her close with the last of her strength.

Night Lilly hugged Pinkie Pie, seeking comfort in her last moments.

Twilight arrived. It hadn’t taken her more than four or five seconds to cover the distance through the erratic flames since Applejack called for her.

Night Lilly died, still holding onto Pinkie Pie, before Twilight had time to do anything.

Applejack and Twilight had to rip Pinkie Pie away from Night Lilly’s body because she didn’t want to let it go, sobbing and hugging with surprising strength. Still crying, she clung onto Twilight who felt how weak her grip had become.

Night Lilly’s eyes were still open, staring at something 1,000 yards away. Applejack closed them, hating herself for the admission of giving up on her, no matter how nonsensical it was. There was nothing she could do. Maybe she could have. Maybe she should have gone for the door first, without saying anything. Maybe she should have gone along with her.

Maybe she could have done a lot of things differently that didn’t end with her closing Night Lilly’s eyes.

She heard Rarity cry out for a second, before choking it out. She had apparently realized what happened. Wouldn’t take a genius to do so.

Applejack looked at her front hooves. They were soaked.

“Girls? Girls, we have to get out, okay?” Twilight ordered, choking down her own tears. “We can’t stay here anymore. We’re in greater danger the longer we stay.”

“Ah’ll- Ah’ll bring Night Lilly,” Applejack said, swallowing her own sobs. “Ah’ll be right behind y’all.”

Twilight nodded. She pulled at Pinkie Pie and they turned towards Rarity and the exit.

This hellish building wasn’t done with them though, not yet. Manehattan buildings, for all their looks, relied on wood much more than the buildings in Canterlot did.

The wooden beams that supported the structure were thick. It would take the fire a long time to burn completely through them. Although, It wouldn’t take that long to burn through a portion of them. The weight bearing down on them did the rest.

More of the ceiling, the upper level’s floor, collapsed. It fell right on Rarity.

Applejack didn’t know how, but suddenly she was right there, her mind too overtaken by fear and shock to record the short distance she covered. The colt they had helped was already there, trying to pull Rarity out.

She was alive and breathing, as hard as it was to in the dense smoke. She had ducked and covered in instinct, and that was, miraculously, enough to save her. Wood and stone had piled on her, pressing her down almost hard enough to crush her, and fire was encroaching on her from all sides.

The violet dome around them vanished and remade itself around Rarity. The rubble groaned as the shield took their weight instead of the white unicorn’s body, and the flames gnashed their teeth on the magic construct instead of on Rarity’s coat.

Twilight grimaced with pain as if the fire was eating on her. “We- We gotta get her out. Can’t hold it for long…”

Applejack found a good place she could put her back against, and tried to move one of the wooden beams up like she did before. It didn’t budge. It was too heavy and was weighed by everything else that had piled together.

Pinkie Pie aided Applejack again. The colt tried to help as well, and the old unicorn had regained consciousness and his magic was wrapped around the beam, helping as much as he could.

The beam groaned. It lifted up for a second and got blocked by the wall, just scraping it enough to stop it from going any further. They couldn’t budge it any more than that.

“Just a little more!” Applejack encouraged them. “A little more and we can pull her out!” They tried again, but it was useless. They couldn’t lift it high enough, and every time they stopped the rubble plopped back on the shield. Twilight grunted as she had to endure the sudden return of the massive weight.

“Girls…” Rarity began, scared. “Girls, maybe you should go.”

“No way, sugarcube. We ain’t leaving without you. Come on, Pinkie, put your back into it!”

“Y- You might have to,” Rarity stuttered.

“We’re not leaving you,” Pinkie Pie grunted as she gave everything she had to one more attempt.

“Don’t try to be the brave pony, Rarity,” Twilight admonished. Her legs shifted and she whimpered in pain as the fire flared around the shield, but smiled encouragingly at her friend. “We’ll get you out.”

“I’m- I’m not being brave. In truth, I’m… I’m terrified, darling,” Rarity admitted, tears flowing freely now. Her lips were trembling and it was obvious she was doing everything she could not to start sobbing. “The firefighters must be on their way. Just… go out and get them. I’ll wait.” Her smile wavered, but she kept it on nevertheless.

“No way! We. Ain’t. Leaving!” Applejack insisted, pushing up again. The walls around them were entirely wreathed in flames now, the smoke thick enough to almost block their view from seeing each other, and breathing without coughing their lungs out was almost an impossibility. Applejack didn’t care. She wasn’t going to see another pony die tonight, and certainly not one of her best friends. Rarity was coming out with all of them them.

“You have to!” Rarity protested. “I love you all, and if you love me back you will leave right now! Please! I don’t want to be the reason my friends got hurt.” She looked at Twilight and whispered, “Please… go.”

“Rarity…” Twilight whispered, starting to cry. “Rarity, you—”

“You stupid fuckers!”

Applejack turned just in time to see Raegdan and Luna grab the large beam they had been trying to push. The helmet turned to her, the eyes in it glowing red with the fire’s reflection. “What the hell are you looking at me for? Push!” he ordered.

They did. Raegdan crouched beneath the edge of the wooden pillar, putting his shoulder against it. His legs pushed against the floor, rising slowly and inexorably. Luna pushed the colt aside and took his place, her superior height and strength making a vast difference. The beam rose up, reached the pinnacle they had barely been able to make it to before, and with the sound of breaking mortar, breached through the wall, the rubble shifting.

“Twilight Sparkle, pull her out, now!” Luna ordered.

She did. Rarity’s usually pristine white coat was now a heavy gray at best, and her side was already turning purple, but she was alive. Twilight went to hug her but Raegdan’s hand grabbed her by the mane and twisted her around to look at him.

“What the hell were you doing?” he roared at her face.

“There were ponies trapped in—”

“That’s what you were trying to do? Die like a hero again? Is that it?”

Twilight scowled. “I was trying to help—”

“You stupid—gaah,” Raegdan raged, letting Twilight go. “You think I care? You think that’s a good reason?” He grabbed her by the sides of the head. “What if you died? What was I supposed to do then? What am—” A weird sound, like he choked, came from the inside of his helmet.

He stabbed a finger at Rarity. Applejack was helping her stand up, supporting her, even brushing off some of the dirt on her as it seemed to calm her. “This,” Raegdan seethed, his arm shaking. “This is what happens to heroes. Is this what you want to happen to you? To your friends?”

“I couldn’t stand aside when I could help.”

“You should have! I am not going to lose—”

Twilight leaned on him, quieting him. “My sister would have agreed with me,” she stated in a low whisper.

“Your…?” Raegdan’s fingers touched the forehead of his helmet, trembling. “Yes. Yes, she would.” He looked around. “Where’s Night Lilly? Did she leave you in here?”

Twilight clung on his chest, knelt down as he was. Pinkie Pie joined her, both of them starting to sob into Raegdan’s steel breastplate. The biped’s head turned towards Rarity and Applejack, the movement relaying the question.

Applejack couldn’t say the words. She tried, but her tongue refused to move. She pointed instead. Luna’s eyes spotted the fallen mare, and her star-maned head fell.

“Another one to the flames,” Luna whispered, looking away.

“How did you know we needed help?” Applejack couldn’t help but ask, despite the trouble they were in.

“Fluttershy,” Luna said, raising her head up and staring at Night Lilly’s corpse at the end of the corridor. “She tried to find us. Rainbow Dash spotted her flying, and she was able to come warn us, though not fast enough. We saw the smoke and were heading here anyway to take a look. Raegdan, we have to get them out. The stairwell has collapsed. We can’t go back the way we came.”

“Yeah.” He pulled the two crying mares out of his arms. He patted them on the head, trying to calm them. “It’s going to be alright. Calm down, Twilight. You too, little pink. We’re here. Everything will be all right now. It’s over. Twilight, I need you to teleport them all out. Then—”

“I can’t,” Twilight said, hiccuping. “I don’t know if I have enough magic. I’m not sure if I could even teleport myself. I- I don’t think I could either way,” she said, shivering. “I can’t- I can’t focus.”

Raegdan held her cheek and pulled back into a quick hug. “Okay. OK, we can work through this,” he said, watching the flames come closer around them. “Luna, can you teleport them all out?”

Luna looked at all of them. There were seven of them, and she bit on her lip for a moment. “I... I can. It will drain me completely though, and I can’t teleport you. I won’t be able to return to—”

“You won’t have to. I can get out on my own easy enough, there’s no need to come back. Alright, everyone gather around Luna. Come on, little pink. Just hold on for a little while longer and this will be all over.”

Pinkie Pie did as told, literally. “No, no, come with—”

“I’m going to be fine, little pink. I’ll be out in minutes, I promise. Go next to Luna and wait. I’ll be right there.”

The colt and the old unicorn approached the Alicorn, staring at her with a mix of fear and awe. “Is everypony ready?” Luna asked when they had all gotten close enough. They nodded, and Luna’s horn glowed.

A moment later they were gone.

Raegdan looked around for an exit. He approached the fallen stairwell, estimating the distance he would have to fall and whether he could reach a solid piece of landing instead of falling to his death. He grabbed his hammer, turning it hook side out, weighing in his hand and staring at the wall, calculating. He crouched slightly, getting ready.

Then he looked back.

“There’s nothing there. Just a corpse,” he said to the emptiness. Flames had covered the corridor already. “Don’t mind it. Her. It.”

“Gone,” he stated, turning back to his goal. “Dead. Nothing there. Just meat.”

“Doesn’t matter. Never did. None of them does.”

He hung the hammer back on his belt with the small ring on its side, attached there just for this purpose.

“Damn it all to hell,” he whispered.

He ran back into the tunnel of flames.

Luna almost collapsed, her eyes rolling up her skull as soon as they teleported out on a side street, a corner away from the crowd and thus a safe landing.

“Twilight, what—”

“She drained most of her magic too fast,” Rarity explained. She blushed, and helped them pick up Luna who had fallen on her back and barely registering her surroundings. “I’ve gone a bit overboard a couple of times when the muse takes me. She’ll be up and about in a few minutes, but she needs to rest.”

“Here,” the old unicorn said, presenting the blanket he had still held on. “For the princess.” Twilight picked it up and covered Luna with it, Rarity using her magic to clean it up as much as possible.

“Should I go call for help?” the colt asked, looking frightened.

Applejack pointed towards the corner, behind which she could hear the crowd and fire sirens. The firefighters finally made their appearance. “There should be another thestral back there, along with two pegasi mares. Go tell them to come here,” she instructed the colt. The young stallion nodded and ran off to do as she asked.

The old stallion assured them that he was able to walk on his own and left as well, seeking a doctor to help him, stumbling through repeating thanks and bows. A few minutes later Rainbow Dash arrived, using her wings to hold two -still very dizzy- ponies.

“Thank Celestia, you are all ok,” she said. “What’s up with Luna?”

“Magical exhaustion, dear. She will be fine—ow.”

“Rarity? Are you ok?” Applejack immediately asked.

Rarity searched for a clean spot to sit, before giving up and setting her rump down right where she stood, wincing. “A little bit of bruising. I’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep. Oh wow, sleep. I don’t think it ever sounded like such a good idea to me before.”

Rainbow Dash whistled, impressed. “Wow, you guys really had an adventure in there, huh—Oh Celestia, Applejack, your hooves! Pinkie Pie, you—Hey, where’s… guys, where is Night Lilly?”

“Here,” a voice said behind her.

Raegdan walked up to them out of the alley. Applejack guessed he must have found a way out through the back somehow. He was limping a little, and his armor was covered in a thick layer of soot with the particular grunge of burnt metal at spots. In his arms he carried Night Lilly. Shards of glass gleamed on his shoulders and over Night Lilly’s body.

He gently laid the body on the ground, and moved to Luna’s side to check on her, speaking to her in a soundless whisper, while Pinkie Pie and Twilight sat next to Night Lilly, staring down at her face, sniffling. Drum Beat, stunned and moving very carefully, much more than he did before, joined them. A high pitched screech almost made it out of him before he clamped his mouth shut.

Raegdan addressed them, nodding towards Night Lilly. “Tell me what happened.”

They did. Applejack mostly. Twilight tried to help a couple of times, but she couldn’t control her voice. Applejack could. She had to. She told him about the disagreement, how Night Lilly tried to stop them from going in. How they got the colt and the old pony out. She told him about the trapped unicorn.

She told him how Night Lilly died.

Applejack looked down at her hooves. She had forgotten about the blood. The thought of washing up, of watching Night Lilly’s blood go down the drain, sickened her. It was a part of her, it was what kept her alive, and laughing, and her, and now it was just… dirt to wash off.

“Where did that unicorn ran off to?” Raegdan asked Drum Beat.

“I… I don’t know,” the thestral stallion answered, his eyes glued on his dead friend.

Raegdan’s hand closed around his neck, violently lifting him up. “You listen to me, you little piece of crap,” he hissed. “You let them go in there. You didn’t even try to get us, Fluttershy had to come on her own. The only reason I’m not ripping your throat out is because ultimately you’re not the moron whose fault this is. I asked you a question. Where. Did that unicorn. Go?”

The thestral struggled, flapping his wings to relieve some of the pressure on his throat. “I don’t know! I didn’t see him! I wasn’t paying attention!”

“You stupid—” Raegdan threw the stallion down and turned his back to him as if he was no more than a piece of trash. “Rainbow Dash, go get some of the others to come escort you and pick up Night Lilly. The rest of you, don’t try anything else as stupid. Luna, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Where are you going?” Applejack asked.

“Hunting.”

Tar was being choked.

It wasn’t his body conspiring against him, it wasn’t a seizure or anything like that. It was a hand, dressed in leather, squeezing his throat. The stallion’s irises had climbed up into his skull. There was no noise, apart from a painful wheeze and the dry crinkling of leather.

Applejack ran for him, attempting to save him, to hold off his killer somehow. She had almost reached him when a pony got in her way. They crashed, and Applejack fell down on the ground. She opened her eyes, shaking her head, and the first thing she saw was her bloodied hooves. Something tickled her eye as it trickled down from her forehead. She tried to wipe it out, and felt a bony protrusion on her head that shouldn’t have been there.

The mare across her opened her eyes. She struggled to breathe through a torn throat. Applejack rushed to her side to help, doing her best not to see the accusation in Night Lilly’s eyes.

The thestral was sobbing and crying. Her hooves reached for Applejack and pulled her close. Applejack hugged her, at a loss of what else she could do. She could feel Night Lilly’s heartbeat, each beat weaker than the last, and her own heart shattered for Pinkie Pie’s sake. Night Lilly’s lips went to her ear, and she whimpered, her every word a fear-filled struggle.

“I don’t want to die.”

Applejack woke up. She didn’t jump up from the couch she laid on, and neither did she make a noise. She was asleep, and then she was awake. She knew it was a dream. She thoroughly and completely knew it, but it didn’t make things any easier for her. She remembered the dream so vividly, but still not as vividly as the truth.

She remembered how her hooves slipped while trying to help in vain. The sticky feel of blood on her coat. She remembered Pinkie Pie’s crushed spirit in her eyes. She remember the faint rattle of Night Lilly’s last breath. The dream was horrible, but it had nothing on reality. Nothing.

It hadn’t been half a day yet, and the guilt was killing her. No wonder Rainbow Dash had been so quick to accept Raegdan’s show of killing that stallion himself. Heck, no wonder he was borderline proud of not feeling guilt himself.

Who would want to feel like that every second of his or her life? What kind of miserable life would that be?

She didn’t want hers to be like that.

Applejack had fallen asleep in Luna and Raegdan’s room in the hotel. On the living room’s couch to be exact. She had claimed to need to talk to Raegdan as soon as possible. Luna wordlessly let her stay there and wait, and Applejack kept quiet while Luna stayed in the bedroom. Applejack was almost certain that the Alicorn had forgotten her completely after a few minutes.

She didn’t lie to the princess, not exactly. A major reason she wanted to be here was because she couldn’t stand watching all that grief and misery. Mint and Stormdrain were given a room to rest in. In the silence of the night, they could hear all too clear Stormdrain crying, calling out for his brother. They could hear Mint trying to shush him, to get him to sleep. Applejack couldn’t keep listening to them for one second longer. She couldn’t.

She should have stayed inside that room. She shouldn’t have left when Raegdan told her to.

The thestrals were grieving too. They took Night Lilly’s body into their room, stoic and proud in the way they talked, grinning proudly for their sister who did her best.

They could hear the drowned wails and whimpers when they stood out of the closed door. They were proud, and they were not willing to share their pain. They tried to keep their grief personal, to hide it from the rest of them.

They were so young, all of them. Thank Celestia for Eventide. She was all that was holding the rest of the thestrals together. The older mare made herself an example to them, bearing the weight of their sorrow.

Applejack wondered what Eventide would say if she learned that Applejack let Night Lilly go to that door on her own. That when Night Lilly fell down, she didn’t immediately run to her to make sure she was alright. That she stayed where she stood, watching her struggle on the floor before realizing she was in trouble. That if she had gone there immediately she might have staved off her death long enough for Twilight to help somehow. Five seconds more, that’s all she might have needed. Applejack didn’t give her that.

Pinkie Pie was drowning herself in her own tears, as was Twilight. Rarity, brave Rarity, was doing her best despite what happened to her and having gone through the same experience. Rainbow Dash, and to her amazement, Fluttershy, were holding up better. Might be a pegasi thing. Might not. Maybe they just didn’t let themselves break when their friends needed them. Not loyalty, and certainly not kindness. Their friends needed a shoulder to cry on, and the two fliers wouldn’t shirk from what they considered their duty.

Applejack did. She didn’t feel herself worthy of giving any comfort or receiving any. Not when it was all her fault.

Solid Charge was prowling the corridors, lost. He considered Night Lilly’s death partly his own responsibility. Luna had named him Commander of the Lunar Guard, and the minotaur had taken that role seriously. He ordered everyone else to rest, and took to guarding the floor on his own. Cast Iron didn’t let him, not alone. Neither did Leaf Stream.

Applejack didn’t join them, even though she should have. She should have gone there, and told Solid Charge to go rest, that she should be the one staying up all night, that she was the one responsible. She didn’t.

She stayed in here instead, waiting, and in waiting she fell asleep. She did need to see Raegdan. She needed to talk to him, she needed to learn from him.

She needed to learn how to make the guilt go away, otherwise it would kill her. She couldn’t stand it. She didn’t want to spend her life watching Night Lilly die. She needed to find out how Raegdan did it, how he kept the nightmares away, how he managed to shake off everything horrible he had ever done. She needed to learn how to do the same, before she went home, before Granny Smith looked into her eyes and saw the guilt. She didn’t want to have to tell her family she let a pony down, that she got her killed because she didn’t think, because she didn’t walk a few meters with her.

So here she was: awake with one of her eyes slitted open very carefully. She realized what had woken her up. A door slamming shut. She heard heavy footsteps, angry ones, as if their owner was trying to hurt the floor. She barely got a blurry glimpse of Raegdan before he gone into the bedroom.

She decided to wait for him to come out. He didn’t feel… happy.

He left the door to the bedroom half open, letting Applejack see inside. Luna was sitting on the bed, looking out the window. She turned towards him as he sat down on the bed, next to her.

“You have not found him, have you?” Luna said after examining him for a moment.

Raegdan didn’t answer immediately. He got up again, stalking across the room. “No,” he answered after a while. “No, I didn’t,” he repeated, growling. He was suddenly a blur of motion. “Damn it!” An end table broke apart at his kick. “Damn it all!” He grabbed a dresser and threw it down, burying his hammer into the soft wood. “Fucking hell!” he roared.

The hammer came down on the piece of furniture again. He kicked and shouted, lost in the roars of his own language, angry and furious. Applejack flinched with every strike. His hammer came down on everything in range, as did his legs and fist. It went on for a while, and Applejack was amazed nopony came to check what was happening. She could only guess that Luna had managed to put up a spell over her room that accidentally included Applejack as well.

Raegdan more or less fell, rather than sat, on the ruins of the dresser, exhausted. “I liked her,” he said in surrender. “She… I couldn’t find him. I searched all night, no one saw him clearly enough. All I had was that he was a unicorn and had a blue coat. I don’t even know which direction he went,” he said in despair.

He took off his helmet and stared at the metal face for a moment. He threw it against the wall with another cry of anger. “She shouldn’t have died like that!”

“I know,” Luna said, her head bowed low and her voice sad. “I… failed the thestrals once more. I should have never accepted them. I promised myself, Raegdan. I would never hurt or kill another one of them. I failed, I—My actions killed Night—”

“Oh, shut your mouth,” Raegdan said, sounding sick. “Where the hell did you get the idea that you’re to blame?”

“I should have agreed with Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said, looking away in shame. “I should have considered her request at the very least. I did not. I believed myself to have done enough, that I owed no more. If I had listened to her for a few minutes more, if I had allowed her to convince me…”

“Oh, we’re playing the ‘if’ game? Alright, let’s do that, I can top you,” Raegdan spat, getting up and standing over Luna. “How about the fact that what you’re saying is crap? I’m the one who got her killed. You know it, and I know it.”

“You didn’t—”

“Oh, shut up.” He sat next to her again, his middle bent forward as much as his armor would allow him, supporting himself on his knees. “I fucked up all night long. I… I shouldn’t have killed that stallion.”

“You didn’t. We did our best to save him.”

Raegdan snorted in derision. “I was going to kill him. If that wasn’t enough to overdose him, then a little help from me would be. But then I thought, why not just take him to that clinic, throw him there, and let them sort him out after I let him have only some of his crap? Twilight would have liked it better that way, and… what was it going to cost me? A few minutes of dragging him across town?”

Luna stayed silent, and Applejack was glad for this. Her ears were straining to catch every last word, and it was hard enough the way Raegdan mumbled through his helmet. She felt a drop of sweat run across her cheek.

“Then, he starts choking. I—” He sighed, and took off his helmet from the ground. “First thing that went through my mind? Problem solved. So… I let him choke.”

“You called for help,” Luna reminded him.

Raegdan nodded. “Too late. I stood watching him die too long. Five seconds. Maybe six. He bit his tongue, almost swallowed it.” He threw his helmet behind his back and on the bed, the sharp spikes tearing up the sheet where it landed. “Same mistake. The exact same mistake. I hesitated for too long. So now there’s another kid that lost its family because of me. I’m starting to lose number of how many of them there are. So we split up because of that, and what happens? Night Lilly died because of me. She stood in front of a door, and a unicorn gored her. How fucked up is that? All because of me.”

“Raegdan—”

“Do you know what Twilight said while you were unconscious back in Baltimare? She asked me why did we even bother with the Lunar Guard when we didn’t even try to teach them anything. She was right, and I ignored her. So now Night Lilly is dead because I never told her or anyone else to never stand in front of a door when opening it. I didn’t teach them a single thing. Not even the basics. All they know is to charge and die.”

“These are as much my failures as they are yours,” Luna argued. “I should have joined you when you talked to Tar, and I should have trained my guards.”

Raegdan kicked at the wall half-heartedly. “She shouldn’t have died. She wasn’t supposed to die.” He ran his hand over his face and let stay there, hiding his eyes. “I heard the kid crying when I came in…” he whispered.

Luna gave him a little smile that went unnoticed. “I am waiting for him to fall asleep. His dreams will be restful, and he will have a chance to say goodbye. Are you perhaps rethinking your stance on the opinion that you and the rest of them are expendable?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not like I thought it would be. They’re…”

“You like them. I like them too.”

“We shouldn’t.”

“Raegdan,” Luna said hesitantly after a while. “Do you think that we might be making a huge mistake?”

Raegdan ran his palms over the top of his covered head. “...Yeah. I’ve been thinking something along those lines. A lot, lately. But what are we supposed to do?”

“Stop. Raegdan, I wish to put a pause to our plans.”

“What?”

Luna lift her head up and they looked at each other, instead of talking to the opposite wall. “Things are not as they used to be. Celestia might have been right. They… They sent me gifts in Baltimare!” she said with awe. “They welcomed me here! With you at my side, and with them… Perhaps I can do a better attempt. Perhaps I won’t break this time.”

“And what about the rest? What about our plan? What if it was real?”

Luna shrugged. “We do not know for certain. We will prepare. I will watch over you, as you shall watch over me.” She smiled. “You do play the if game, but only when it suits you.”

Raegdan stayed quiet for a while, thinking. “Fine. You’re the princess. But I’m delivering the rest of the letters at least. It won’t hurt to keep our options open.”

“Agreed.”

“Right,” he said. He opened the window, and Applejack could feel a light breeze reaching even her position. “Velvet liked to poke fun at her. She won’t like the news.”

“I know. I believe she had hinted to Night Lilly that she would be waiting for her in Canterlot.”

Raegdan laughed. “Oh, I saw that. Whispered it in her ear. She acted all sweet and it terrified her.” The laughter died off. “She’ll never find out Velvet was making fun of her though.”

“No. She won’t.”

“She got me fries. Just… out of her own as soon as she noticed the menu. She simply… did it.”

“I saw. She was quiet, but thoughtful. I remember when she served us our dinner. There was no judgement in her eyes, unlike everypony else.”

Applejack had heard more than enough. She carefully slipped off the couch and made her way to the door, careful to walk on the thick carpets and only with the utmost attention. There was nothing she could do here.

She had guessed at it before, but couldn’t be sure. She knew now how Raegdan and Luna could shrug off all these horrible things. Too bad it didn’t help her at all. She couldn’t do the same. She never had been a good liar.

She would never be able to lie to herself as well as they did.

Applejack reached the door, and stopped before opening it. She couldn’t leave, not yet, not like that. She closed her eyes and thought back to the whole night.

She could sneak out, and then… then what? No. No, she wasn’t leaving yet.

She turned back, unwary of the noise of her hoofsteps. She wanted them to hear her. She reached the bedroom’s entrance and knocked on the wall, announcing her presence.

“Applejack, my apologies,” Luna said. Applejack noticed that Raegdan was now wearing his helmet again. Her hoof reached for her own hat, and wondered if it made him feel safer by hiding behind it. “I forgot you were here. Did we wake you?”

“No, princess. Ah woke up a moment before Raegdan walked in.”

“Ah,” she said, sharing a sideways glance with Raegdan. “I suppose you have something to say.”

“Ah do.” She walked in, and stood in front of Raegdan. “Ah’m sorry for what happened. Ah shouldn’t have done that.”

Raegdan’s helmet tilted sideways. “What exactly do you mean?”

“Blaming you for Tar’s death. Ah shouldn’t have done that.”

“... Why?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious.

Applejack frowned. “Because it was wrong.” She lifted her hoof to stop him from interrupting her. “Ah heard what you said. Ya know, ah was thinking the exact same thing: that if ah had reacted a few seconds faster, then Night Lilly might have been alive. Ah’m starting to think that maybe we’re all blaming ourselves for something that ain’t really our fault.”

“The difference, little apple, is that I’ve made this mistake before. I’m older and far more experienced. What happened, happened because I chose for it to happen.”

Applejack shrugged. “Maybe. Rarity said earlier tonight that we all make mistakes. Sometimes they’re old ones. Solid Charge told us a story of how he made a mistake before. He was determined to not do it again, but he did. So now he tries harder.”

She put her hoof over his knee, mindful of the wicked spikes. “Ah made a mistake by accusing you without knowing what had really happened, even when what ah saw was you trying to help. Ah’m sorry.”

Raegdan kept looking at her for some time without answering, long enough to make her feel awkward. Finally, he got hold of her hoof and pulled it away from his knee. “There’s no need for an apology. I never blamed you for that. You never have to say this to me, for anything.”

“Ah’m still sorry,” she repeated. She turned towards Luna. “Princess. Luna. Ah wanted to say thank you.”

“For what?”

“For a lot of things. Coming to save us for starters, both of ya really, but what I really want to thank ya for is helping Mint and Stormdrain. Ye’re right. You helped a pony without knowing her, when none of us even thought to ask whether she needed help. You cared to find out and give help, and all ah did was demand of you to do more. Ah’m sorry.”

“I…” Luna was blushing and gapping, trying to form words. She looked at the room around her, as if unsure of where she was standing. “I’m… Thank you. For- For the apology. And… and everything else,” she finished awkwardly, drawing back and away from her.

“Ah suppose ah should be leaving to let you rest. Goodnight, both of ya.” She turned around to leave, determined to wait for Twilight to wake up and apologize to her too.

“I’ll head out again. Keep searching, might get lucky,” Raegdan said without hope, standing up and grabbing his weapon.

“Wait. Applejack, you too,” Luna called hesitantly, before they left the ruined bedroom.

“Yeah, princess?”

Luna stood up, stalling for a few moments before coming to a decision and continuing on. “Please inform your friends that we will be staying in Manehattan for a couple more days. If you do wish to leave earlier, you are welcome of course, but I believe there is one more thing I should do before that.”

“We are staying?” Raegdan asked, shocked. “Why?”

Luna pointed at him with her hoof with a stern and commanding expression. “You will cease your search. You have one day to make sure that our guards know how to storm a residence using the tactics you told me about. At least make certain they know how to cross a threshold and watch each other. We will do most of the work, but this will be a good experience for them.”

“Ah’m confused. What are we doing now?” Applejack asked.

“You asked me to do something about Manehattan’s drug addicts. Removing the problem entirely is out of our reach, but perhaps we can make an example to cow them back in my own way,” Luna said with a predatory smile. “A curious thing, dreams. All you need to do is nudge, and the mind surrenders all the information you seek of its own will, anxious to fill in the void. I believe I can make good use of this talent of mine for our purposes.”

Luna sat back down, smiling sadly. “I propose something to be done in Night Lilly's honor, so to let the ponies of Manehattan know that she lived and died here, at least for a while.”

Raegdan unhooked his hammer off his belt and hefted it in his arm, lost in thought. “I wouldn’t mind breaking a few bones. I’m in.”

Interlude 8 - Training

Leaf Stream watched, psyching up herself to be ready for anything, no matter how harsh, nefarious, or complicated their foe was. Solid Charge tilted the small mirror he held, carefully inspecting as much of the room as he could from his place at the side of the threshold. Carefully, but not slowly. They couldn’t afford to waste too much time, and they could waste even less time for that later on. If they ever managed to reach that part alive.

The first time they opened the door, Solid Charge stood in front of it. He died, then and there. They didn’t intend to repeat the painful experience, so this time they stood to the sides. Solid Charge to the right with Cradle Song behind him, Leaf Stream to the left with Broken Gust behind her.

Leaf Stream briefly gave her attention to Cradle Song. The bearded, red maned thestral had always been the single one of the bunch who said his thoughts out loud. If Leaf Stream wanted to know how Broken Gust—now tight-lipped and focused to the point of excess—truly was and not the facade she was giving out, it was him she would have to watch.

… When the heck did she turn into a bleeding heart councilor? What was she even going to say to these ponies? “Hey, at least we got her corpse back before it got all crispy fried”? She was seriously going to say something like that, she was certain, and then…

She counted her limbs. Shoot, she was going to end up gimped, wasn’t she?

“Clear,” Solid Charge whispered. He quickly stepped in and Leaf Stream followed right on his tail.

A solid club bounced off her head and onto Solid Charge’s thick skull, leaving them dazed, hurt, confused, and with one more egg-sized mark of shame.

Raegdan’s foot made contact—the hard kind—with her side, throwing her off to the wall, and his palm landed on Solid Charge’s face with a meaty thwack. The two thestrals tried to back off before getting a piece of the “dumb awards” he was freely giving away, but they were not as fast as they needed to be in the tight confines.

All four of them died.

“You morons!” Raegdan shouted. If he wasn’t wearing his helmet Leaf Stream was certain he’d be pulling his hair. “I was standing right by the wall and you... Are you blind? Get back in position, and this time actually sweep the whole room with the mirror. And don’t rely on what you saw on it when you’re in. Keep looking. Your heads can turn in case you didn’t know. Move it!”

Solid Charge crossed the threshold as fast as he could, moving and covering the right side as he did so, while Leaf Stream did the same with the left. Cradle Song and Broken Gust flowed through the open middle, ready to launch at any threat that appeared from any of the adjoining rooms.

Leaf Stream’s head swiveled and her eyes kept scanning the room repeatedly. There was nothing. The room was clear.

“Look at us go!” Leaf Stream said, smirking proudly. “We made it through the door. Ok grandpa, which way do we go n—”

Something wooden and increasingly familiar landed on her head. The others were greeted by Mr. Eggplanter as well.

Dead again. In theory. She doubted really dead ponies nurtured such headaches.

“You- You damned morons!” Raegdan roared in sheer disbelief and having appeared behind them somehow. She didn’t know how he did that, but at this point all she could think of was that he needed to learn some more insults. The only reason she didn’t give him any pointers was that he would be launching them right back at her.

“How?” Cradle Song asked, cradling his abused head.

“You didn’t check behind the door! A fucking eight year old would have checked behind the door first. Get back in position. We don’t stop until you get it right or you die for real. Get the fuck up!”

“Room’s clear,” Solid Charge reported with a hint of hope.

Leaf Stream moved into the room, into her position, and instead of checking behind the door she decided to return the favor in case he was hiding back there again. She kicked it so it slammed with force on the wall behind it.

He wasn’t there. Pity.

She didn’t mind. They were finally getting the hang of it. They would find out where he squirreled away, and this time they would be the one to pound his head—

Why was a chair flying for her face?

Leaf Stream dug herself out of the pile she had formed along with the others, kicking Broken Gust off her, and making it to the top, where the familiar stick greeted her head. She was really starting to hate that stick. When it was all over she was going to rest in front of a roaring fire fueled entirely by that stick and her unending hatred.

Solid Charge was getting up and spotted the dreaded stick coming for him. “OK, OK, we lo—”

The dead walked and moved back into position. Apparently standing still and all clamped together for too long is a big no-no. So is announcing your position by banging on doors.

Solid Charge weaved his way through the room and took position near the door frame, close enough to strike at anypony trying to pass through, but back enough to be able to dodge any blind strikes.

Cradle Song took position behind a couch that allowed him a good angle into the next room at Solid Charge’s blind spot. He nodded at the minotaur who quickly used his mirror to make sure the room was clear.

Solid Charge pulled back, and signalled at them. One hostile, his movements said. North east corner.

Raegdan had put them through enough on how to move. Now it was time to see how they would be able to take him down. Leaf Stream had an internal conflict; was it right to aim a kick for his baby maker after making a point of apologizing for the last time?

Her hoof passing over the hilly surface of her skull said yes. It was right. So right. If she could grab that stick she was going golfing.

“What’s the plan?” Leaf Stream whispered.

“I’ll go first. You follow behind me and—”

“No, scratch that,” Leaf Stream cut him off quickly. “He’ll just get you first.” She took command, apparently, without even realizing it. “You two, go in first. Don’t engage, just make him pay attention to you, you are faster than he is. Then we all close in together.”

The execution had been wonderful. Cradle Song and Broken Gust flew in at speed, dividing after going through the entrance, flying as high to the ceiling as they could. Solid Charge and Leaf Stream followed behind after allowing them two seconds to distract Raegdan’s attention and keep their entry safe.

Raegdan wouldn’t have stood a chance. Four against one, ready to surround him, and him armed with nothing but that despicable stick? It would have been over in seconds.

Would have. Another lesson learnt. They needed to have tactics planned beforehoof and be able to command each other into them in a second rather than discuss them right before a fight, wasting time and making that plan null and void. What did he call it? Shifting parameters?

He was a shifty bastard alright. He moved right against the wall again, ending right behind them when they rushed through.

Leaf Stream really, really, really hated that stick.

Raegdan stood over them as they laid on one of the couches, all of them holding packs of ice to their heads. He looked at the clock on the wall before turning back to them.

“Not bad this time, considering we’ve only been at it for a few hours.”

Cradle Song and Broken Gust broke into a weak smile and high hoofed each other. Solid Charge just nodded tiredly, while Leaf Stream attempted to fashion a pillow into a helmet using some string and her shattered dignity. She was damned sure they weren’t done yet.

“Of course, we will have to talk tactics at one point, covering every possible situation we can think of, how to meld what you can all do, stuff like that,” Raegdan said, sounding overwhelmed. “But for now, this will do. You will have one final go with just me, and then I have to do the same with the others while you rest. We might have some time today to have both teams work together later.”

“There are only three of us in the other team,” Solid Charge reminded him.

“Rainbow Dash volunteered to join in for this to round you up.”

“Well, of course she did,” Leaf Stream grumbled. “I bet she won’t be getting to know your eggbeater as well as we did.”

“At least it will be easier to get you if there are twice as many of us,” Cradle Song said, sounding relieved.

The bastard was smirking behind his helmet, Leaf Stream could actually smell the smugness wafting off him. “Oh, it won’t be just me then. You have to learn how to deal with more than one person against you. The girls will be joining in against you, except Rainbow of course.”

Cradle Song, dumb bitch that he was in Leaf Stream’s opinion, still struggled to see the light at the end of the tunnel. “Ah. Ok, eight against seven then, and we’ve had practice while they’re just civilians. Might not be that bad.”

“Eight against eight. Luna will be joining in too,” Raegdan said. Leaf Stream smiled vindictively as Drum Beat mentally waved goodbye to the light that just went poof.

“Oh stars. We’re screwed,” Broken Gust said, deflating.

“Are we doing that last exercise now?” Solid Charge asked, tired. “I’d like to get some rest before we’re slaughtered. I haven’t slept at all.”

“I wish Night Lilly was here,” Broken Gust whispered, looking sideways. “She’d be good at this.”

Raegdan has been heading for the windows. He paused for an instant when he heard her. He started closing off the curtains. “You’ll have to pick up the slack then, make up the difference. Crack a head or two for her,” he said, his voice kinder than usual. “Alright, we will be doing something a little different this time.”

“What’s. That.” Leaf Stream growled, knowing deep into her core that she was about to utterly hate what was coming next.

“Same idea basically,” Raegdan said, his hand reaching for a lamp. He switched it off. “Only we will be doing it in the dark this time.”

“Why don’t you just kill us already?” Leaf Stream screamed in the darkness.

Leaf Stream dragged herself towards a couch. The fluffy, soft pillows were singing a melody to her, and the ice packs on the table were a promise of serenity. Her strength waned, and she fell flat on her belly, unable to overcome her trauma.

“Drop the theatrics and come sit,” Eventide chastised her, holding an ice pack over her eye, product of another lesson learnt. Don’t flail blindly in the dark. Leaf Stream, instead of hitting her coveted target, she got Eventide right in the eye. She still hadn’t told her that it was her hoofprint she was sporting on her head, and as long as it was up to her she never would.

“Shut you, old hag up. I trying am,” Leaf Stream spoke through her gritted teeth.

“What?”

“She wants to pretend she’s concussed so we'll feel sorry for her,” Solid Charge said, lying back with his arm over his eyes in complete exhaustion. His cheeks were puffy. Raegdan, being on a similar enough level with the minotaur, had enjoyed slapping him when he got the chance.

“Pretend?” Leaf Stream was outraged. Her anger gave her new strength, enough to make it to the couch, sinking deep into the cushions. “Touch my head,” she ordered Eventide. “Touch it!”

She hissed as Eventide’s hoof ran roughly over her tormented scalp. “Wow. He really laid it on you.”

“I think he was on to me,” Leaf Stream mumbled.

“We all were onto you,” Solid Charge said, waving his other arm. “Staring like that towards your target tends to give you away. It was like you had other things in your mind.”

Leaf Stream blushed before becoming horrified. “Oh Celestia, now I’m going to have nightmares. Thanks, grandpa.”

“You’re welcome.”

Eventide removed her ice pack for a second, flashing them all with her impressive shiner, before putting it back with a wet, crunchy sound, hissing in a mix of pain and relief. “Speaking of nightmares and dreams,” Eventide said, suspiciously casual, “isn’t that how Princess Luna is going to find somepony for us to go after?”

Solid Charge shrugged as well as he could, laid on his back as he was. “From what I understand, all she needs is a point to start. From a buyer, to a dealer, to a provider, to the manufacturer, all the way to the top. Princess Luna is certain she’ll have results by tomorrow.”

“Useful skill to have,” Eventide noted.

“Makes you wonder how she hasn’t found the ponies trying to kill her yet,” Leaf Stream added sourly.

“It might not work that well if you know she can do that or you’re ready for her,” Solid Charge defended her. “There might be spells. Who knows.”

“Strange thing, dreams. Very strange indeed,” Eventide said as she laid on her side. “Silverwing had dreams too.”

“Your leader, right?” Leaf Stream asked to make sure. “What, prophetic kind of dreams? Did he have visions or was he munching on something?”

“No. He simply… had dreams a little before we found the Leviathan.”

“What kind of dreams?” Solid Charge asked immediately, peeking under his arm.

“Go south east. There’s something there. Search to the south east,” Eventide said in a monotone. “If it wasn’t for that, we would never have spotted it. We don’t usually go that far.”

“What an amazing coincidence,” Leaf Stream said through her teeth.

“I wondered if that had been a message from Princess Luna, but… she couldn’t have known it was there. I’m overthinking it,” Eventide said. Leaf Stream exchanged a quick glance with Solid Charge.

“I’m definitely certain she didn’t know it was a Leviathan there,” Leaf Stream assured her.

What an amazing coincidence, Leaf Stream repeated in her thoughts. They need ponies, and suddenly here come the Thestrals asking for help with something extremely dangerous. Something the princess couldn’t have known about unless she had a way of finding out if that something had popped in from another world. Now, who could have told her about that, only able to give her a generic direction and with no idea of what it could be, except that there was a good chance it was pretty dangerous?

Three tries, the first two don’t count.

“It ended well at least, that’s all we need to know,” Solid Charge said, looking at Leaf Stream reproachfully. Leaf Stream got the message and shut her muzzle. She changed the subject instead.

“How are your guys doing?”

Eventide took off the ice pack, and gazed up at the ceiling. The lines on her face became deeper, and her age, with all her experiences, was written all over her. “Better. As long as they keep busy at least, and they want to do as well as they can to honor their friend.” She turned her head sideways and threw the ice pack on the table, her serpentine pupils focusing at nothing. “I had to watch over her a few times when she was a filly.”

“I’m… sorry about that,” Leaf Stream said, regretfully.

“It’s alright. It happens. Not the first pony I know that died young.”

There was a sound they had all learned to recognize. A set of hoofsteps, making their way to them. It was strange how he sounded so obvious, yet when they were in the dark they couldn’t hear him moving at all unless they were completely silent. A show, Leaf Stream thought. Make everypony think he’s loud, so when he needs to…

Raegdan stepped in and headed for an empty chair. He let himself fall in it, looking tired as well.

“Everyone okay?” he asked after a while.

“We’re fine,” Solid Charge answered, ignoring Leaf Stream’s pointing at her own head. “Have we done well enough?”

Raegdan was silent for a few seconds. “Good enough for a day. You keep forgetting yourselves, you take your next breath for granted. You keep putting your guard down. We will fix that.”

“Yeah, can’t wait,” Leaf Stream said.

“Go and wake the others. I think they fell asleep,” Raegdan ordered.

“... What for?”

“We’re doing one more round. Or two.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me! Seriously? We’re exhausted,” Leaf Stream complained loudly.

“Tough break. You won’t be well rested or at full health every time. Almost never actually.”

“That’s torture!”

‘Welcome to training,” Raegdan laughed. “Eventide is doing fine despite being beat up and she’s not complaining, is she? Just wait until you see what I have planned for you in Everfree.”

“Oh gods, we’re really going to be trained in there,” Solid Charge breathed out with dread.

Leaf Stream bowed her head, presenting Raegdan with a nice mountain view. “You know what? Go ahead. Seriously. Give me a good hit and just finish me off now. Beats a slow death anytime.”

Crack!

Son of a… He really hit her!

Interlude 9 - Celestia

Celestia’s legs refused to work but she wouldn’t accept her body’s demands to rest. She supported herself by the wall on her left, waiting for the dizziness to leave her. She had been hit hard and her vision had gotten blurry, but her ears worked fine and were calling on her to pay attention.

She tried to focus through the blow she had received. Her head was aching, but it was nothing compared to the beat of her heart, screaming at her. Something was happening and if she didn’t hurry she was going to be too late.

It was dark, too dark. She shook her head, and more light filled the world, but everything was still an indistinct blur. Then she heard the cry of pain, and with the voice’s recognition came sharpness, like a knife cutting at her.

Luna. Her little sister was crying out in pain.

There. Luna was thrown on the ground, and Celestia’s heart skipped a beat when she saw the scores of wounds upon her beloved sister, her dark coat marred by blood. A tall figure, standing on two legs, was towering over her. A weapon rose over its head, still as a rock when it reached the pinnacle of its arc. There was a gleam of metal.

“No more your fools,” the figure stated.

Celestia rushed forward. Her magic wasn’t working, but she didn’t stop to wonder why. She pushed herself to go as fast as she could go, to block the blow or get in the way. She moved faster than she ever had before.

“Luna!” Celestia cried out.

The weapon came down on Luna’s head. Her sister’s eyes found hers a moment before the weapon crushed her skull. Blood and bone erupted in a fan-like arc, and the life behind her teal eyes was blown out like the flame of a candle. The world broke as Celestia lost her sister one more final time.

Celestia’s scream of pure anguish echoed around her, a pale expression of the fear in her soul.

She was too late.

Paisley Leaf, Celestia’s trusted old majordomo, walked next to her as she made her way to one of the myriad of meeting rooms in the castle. Celestia’s legs had slowed down to accommodate the old stallion without conscious thinking.

“As it is, Princess, I really don’t see why we can’t have Princess Luna’s personal guard share domiciles with the Royal Guards stationed here. There is ample room available, even if your royal sister has doubled or tripled the number of ponies she has recruited thus far.”

“Two reasons, Paisley:” Celestia said, though not completely kindly. “First, the Lunar Guard should have no less than what is afforded to the Solar Guard. Secondly, this is something you should pick up with Luna herself. It’s her decision to make, not mine.”

Paisley Leaf hummed in thought, making notes. “I simply intended to have everything ready for her arrival, Princess, like any good servant should. I do not need to be reminded I serve two equal princesses from now on,” he admonished her on the sly.

Celestia smiled at him, accepting the stab good naturedly. Paisley Leaf was indeed one of the few who accepted Luna as an equal Diarch, and she was well aware of the efforts he made to drill the same into everypony under his command.

She was well aware that even he hadn’t accepted Luna out of her own merits but simply because Celestia said so. Luna’s power as a Diarch was… shaky, as her sister had complained to her. Luna had been right. Almost nopony was accepting her authority as her own, but merely something granted by Celestia.

And even that was not enough in some cases. The tide was turning though. Her sister was out there once more, and this time ponies would pay attention to her. This time all would be done the right way. Luna would prove herself Celestia’s equal to their ponies when they saw the sacrifices she was willing to do for them.

“Are you alright, Princess? Your eyes seem slightly puffed up.”

“I didn’t sleep that well,” Celestia confessed. “I had a bad dream, though for the life of me I cannot remember what it was. I think it was important, but it slips away from memory every time I try to catch it.”

“Too much sugar in your tea, Princess. You should tone it down. We’re here. I’ll have your guests ushered in as soon as they arrive. Would you like me to bring you something? Some plain tea, perhaps?” Paisley Leaf asked, standing by the door. The two Solar guards escorting her took position next to it.

Celestia thought about the offer for a second. It was midday and she already had quite a number of cups. Frankly, a little more and she might find herself pulling a Twilight if she was poked hard enough. “No tea, thank you, Paisley. Some fruit wouldn’t be amiss though.”

“I’ll have it brought up immediately, Princess,” the aged stallion said, and rushed, in the slow way old ponies do, to perform the rest of his duties. Celestia opened the door, managing to get the handle before the guard next to it had time to, and went inside.

She made herself comfortable on the chair at the head of the table, and used her magic to open the windows, letting the slight breeze of the sunny day flow into the room. She placed the folder she had been carrying on the table, opened it, and started reading the report from Manehattan again. She didn’t know when she would get tired of it. She felt so proud for Luna.

She should be focusing her time on other things. Raegdan, foolish Raegdan, had given her enough tips without meaning to. Celestia believed he wasn’t evil, not anymore, simply mislead, but he did have a habit to monologue at times, even if he caught himself doing it pretty fast and stopped. It was endearing in a way, and very informative. Spending so much time with Twilight hadn’t helped him any on that respect.

Raegdan believed that Luna would become a lightning rod for everything foul that happened. He believed she would get blamed for current or past actions, and he believed that she wasn’t safe enough in Equestria. Celestia halted her train of thought, thinking of Raegdan’s armor instead. She wondered if he was trying to make himself a bigger target to that kind of thinking… or attacks.

The truth was this however; Somepony or someponies were trying to kill her little sister, her family. The griffins, locked in her deepest, coldest dungeon were only those they certainly knew of. Celestia was determined to find the rest or at least make everypony understand that what they were trying to do was a very bad idea. The griffins weren’t talking, and Celestia was this close to breaking her own rules on mind spells or torture. She considered letting Raegdan have a talk with them. Scare them a bit only of course. Nothing else.

Unless she happened to look sideways and didn’t have time to stop him from—no, this way of thinking would only lead to ruin. She couldn’t allow herself to do this, even if there was a good excuse. Good excuses, bad excuses… they’re all excuses in the end. She had options yet, and she trusted her sister’s safety with all those she had surrounded herself with. Raegdan, the guards, and Twilight would keep her safe.

She always did her best to keep to her rules, even if she broke them from time to time. Every time she did so it always came back to haunt her. The latest had been a year ago when she lied to Raegdan about Nightmare Moon’s return.

Her eyes skimmed over the after action report on the drug bust. From what she understood, reading between the lines, Luna’s guards didn’t do much more other than block the main exits of that horrid warehouse where the drug manufacture was taking place. That sounded easier than what it actually was though. Most of the arrests were theirs as they took down the ponies that were rushing to escape. It was a testament to them that there had been no serious injuries from either side. Though from what she read the thestrals had been a little too keen on… subjugating the prisoners, but the presence of Solid Charge and Leaf Stream worked good enough as a deterrent to any excesses.

Celestia flipped a page. Of course, that only referred to those captured that were trying to escape, and the reason they were so fast to get out of there. While the guards were waiting for them to run to them, Raegdan and Luna had taken the fight inside. She wasn’t sure how they did it, the reports were mysteriously unclear on what exactly they did, but from assembling the bits and pieces she figured that they suddenly appeared right in the midst of the warehouse, and…

Where was that page? Ah, yes. Nine ponies hospitalized. All of them would need a lot of physical therapy when they were healed, as well as the services of very good dentists. At least nopony got killed, though Celestia wondered what was the purpose of that powerful light and immense noise before the fight started.

This wasn’t what made Celestia proud however. No, what made her smile so fondly, and await anxiously to hug her sister on her return, was the report she got from the press conference Luna gave.

Luna. Giving a press conference. Celestia thought she might shed a tear.

She was very glad that her agent in Manehattan had decided to be so detailed in this one, giving her a description of what she saw and heard, instead of the sterile lines she so often read. Celestia had already decided that her agent was getting a good bonus, just for that.

The small amphitheater is packed to the brim. There are chairs placed in rows for every guest and every reporter, but they’re not enough. Too many ponies stand to the side, and photographers have packed together to what they expect will be the best possible angles for their photos.

A hint of starry mane drifts from beyond the side of the stage. The crowd goes quiet.

Princess Luna comes in view out of the right. She stops when she sees the crowd. Evidently she doesn’t have much experience with them, and for a moment she takes an almost unnoticed step back. She looks back, towards where she came, and a mare’s voice mumbles something behind her. The princess smiles, nods, and takes her place on the seat prepared for her.

Hushed whispers overtake the hall as the white bandage on her side is spotted. The word “Leviathan” is the one that can be made clearer over the others.

Surprisingly, nopony else comes out with her. Almost everypony expected to see the Commander of the Lunar Guard or at least her unique bodyguard. Instead, she sits alone.

The reporters stand up, pens, wings, and magic clamoring up for attention as questions are shouted. I am close enough to spot the doubt in the princess’ face. She looks to the side, not where she came from, but the opposite way. There is something hidden there in the shadows, and it moves at her gaze. The princess smiles confidently once more, and turns back to the reporters.

“I will take no questions,” she speaks loudly. “Please be quiet.”

Everypony does, though it takes some time, but Princess Luna stares down at them as if she would be content to wait forever.

Everypony waits to hear about her recent attack on the criminal underground of Manehattan. There have been speculations of what the princess would speak of. About more similar operations, boasting of her success, perhaps a detailed explanation of the reasons she has had two wealthy ponies arrested on the charge of drug trafficking with no solid evidence. Various rumors of her being seen in unsavory parts of the town.

Princess Luna speaks of none of these.

Instead, she tells everypony present of a pony. A Thestral. She speaks of a young pony who was raised, as all Thestrals were, to fight in defense of their fellow Equestrians despite the lack of acknowledgment of their struggles. She tells tales of her childhood, and shares jokes she has told. She details her fears and her hopes, and she uses her magic to create a stunning illusion that shows us a young mare with a white mane, smiling sweetly.

Princess Luna narrates how this mare died. Not fighting a monster, a war, or protecting innocents. She died when she opened a door to let a trapped pony out, and she was killed for her trouble.

The princess stops, and looks down sadly. Nopony dares raise their voice. We all wait.

“How do you define a hero?” Princess Luna asks rhetorically. “Are heroes defined by the odds they face? The threats they combat? Is a hero’s worth as much as that of what he fights and the multitudes he saves?”

Princess Luna takes a moment to glance at both sides. “Heroes… deserve our pity. They are driven by a selfless desire to offer everything they are, holding nothing back. They will rush to their deaths like fools, and carry on their backs weight that they cannot endure. They will die for a pony or a cause, and the tragedy of their death is that they are often forgotten. How many stood up against monsters and tyrants, refusing to bow down, to let them win? Where are their names, their deeds? Do we define them by their success then? Only those who triumphed are worthy of the title? Are those who fell, who died trying, fools and victims?”

“It was a fire. Fire has no malevolence, no spite. It simply burns. It was a pony trapped behind a door, terrified and seeking to escape. There was no fight, no threat extinguished, yet at the end of it a pony lay dying in return for the safety of others. Three ponies who wouldn’t have made it out of that burning building in return for this one. Night Lilly.”

“She deserves our pity. She died, and she died afraid. Nopony dies without fear. When the unknown comes, in the form of blade or teeth, fire or bleeding, we all seek comfort. Night Lilly did not want to go into that building. Night Lilly did not want to face the flames, and Night Lilly did not want to die. But she did.”

“What defines a hero? Fear. It is fear that defines them. They are afraid, like everypony is. When that fear rises, when death stares them in the face… they go on despite it. Like complete fools, they will march into the jaws of death. Heroes face one common enemy. All of them, known and unknown, remembered and forgotten, have faced this one. Night Lilly faced the enemy that heroes must defeat. She won, and went into that building.”

The princess stands up, raising a hoof to stop any comment or motion from the ponies listening to her. “You came here to listen about the drug den we took down yesterday. It had been planned. We were ready. We knew what to do, and we were certain of the outcome. There was no heroism there, there was no fear. It was a job, more akin to a chore.”

The princess spends some time staring everypony in the eyes. Her eyes seem to capture everypony at once. “You are reporters. Your job is to let our ponies know of everything important that has occurred. Do your jobs.”

Princess Luna leaves, exiting to the left. Nopony speaks for a while, muted by her words.

Celestia spent some time checking the newspapers clips she had been sent from Manehattan, smiling fondly at the memory of Night Lilly. She had met the young mare only briefly, a couple of minutes at most. She wished she had known her more than that.

So many ponies she had wished she had known more. She always tried to remember as many of them as she could, and her sister’s words only reinforced her determination to do so.

Almost every headline and front page was dedicated to her. Luna’s success in taking down the drug manufacturers was a distant second or even a third as many newspapers had decided to dedicate a few of their pages to Thestrals, their history and society. She nibbled on some grapes out of the fruit plates she had been brought while reading.

There was a knocking on the door, dragging Celestia out of her thoughts. She put the papers back in the folder and waited.

Paisley Leaf came in. “Princess, Lord Garand of the Griffin embassy has arrived.” Garand, an old griffin, short beaked and with a brown plume turning white, greeted her and sat on the table.

“Princess,” Garand greeted, after pointedly looking around. “I see the minotaur envoy has not arrived yet.”

It would only be the three of them today. Celestia was not expecting responses from others for a few days yet, and to be honest, it was these two that she was most concerned about.

Celestia’s ears had picked up the heavy hoofsteps, even through the closed doors. “Oh, I believe they’re on their way.” She knew who was coming, and she could recognize the synchronous march of his bodyguards any time.

The door opened again, and Paisley Leaf was pulled back, not allowed to announce their guest. “There’s no need for that,” a jolly voice said.

Garand stood up in surprise. “King Crucible!”

“You may be seated,” the Minotaur King said, smirking at the griffin. He hadn’t changed much since the last time Celestia had seen him. Tall as Raegdan himself, and with an impressive physique, even among minotaurs. Crucible liked to consider himself a warrior king, even though he never started any battles or wars. He liked to finish them though.

“Princess Celestia,” King Crucible said, barely bowing his head. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.” He took off his short cloak and threw it over an unused chair.

“Likewise, King Crucible. Please, be seated. Now, may we begin?”

Garand had reclaimed his calm. He expected an envoy like him, not the King himself. However, he was an old player at this game, and he didn’t let this deter him for long. “Very well,” he said, sitting straight. “The Griffin Coalition demands the return of the prisoners currently languishing in your dungeons.”

“Ah,” Celestia said, her eyes narrowing. “Return, you say? I presume that to mean that you were the ones to send them?”

Garand snorted. “Of course not. They are, however, griffin citizens, and we believe they should be extradited to us.”

“These ‘citizens’ as you call them tried to assassinate a Diarch of Equestria,” Celestia said, her tone severe.

King Crucible had half laid on his chair, making himself comfortable, and taken an apple from the table. “Diarch,” he snorted mockingly, taking a bite. Apple juice ran down his chin.

“And what is this supposed to mean, King Crucible?”

The minotaur king took his time chewing, looking thoughtfully towards the ceiling. “Everyone knows that your sister has no real power. Face facts. If she says something, and you say something else, who will everyone obey?”

“I am well aware that she hasn’t been accepted yet in the public consciousness, but I assure you, she is taking steps to correct the issue. As am I.”

“Really? Oh right. The Leviathan.” He took another bite, thinking. Swallowing, he addressed Celestia once more. “I would like to offer my support to the Griffin Coalition’s demand that the prisoners be delivered to them immediately.”

“Thank you, King Crucible,” Garand said, bowing his head.

“Their request is denied,” Celestia declared. “The investigation is still ongoing, and they will not leave my dungeons until they confess the name of their employers.”

“Princess Celestia, I assure you, the Griffin Coalition will continue the investigation and share every result.”

“Am I supposed to believe that?” Celestia challenged.

“Not really,” Kind Crucible answered her. “I certainly don’t, but I don’t care either way. Mostly I want to make it clear to anyone else who wants to try to kill your sister that there will be as few repercussions as possible.”

Celestia closed her eyes and held her breath, making herself completely still. For a moment her vision had been overtaken by a film of red. She tried to remember the last time she had felt such anger and came up with nothing. She cleared her mind, and brought a happier time to the forefront instead, seeing a smiling blue filly look up at her, the image calming her enough.

“King Crucible,” Celestia said, her voice dripping honey, “I would like to offer you a chance to detract that statement.”

The minotaur smiled at her. “Offer denied.”

“This is my sister you are talking about,” Celestia hissed.

“No, this is Nightmare Moon. If you think—”

Celestia’s hoof struck the table. “Nightmare Moon is gone!”

King Crucible stood up and struck his own fist on the table in turn. “That means nothing! Do you think we forget so easily? The Nightmare didn’t take her out of the blue. Your sister summoned it out of her own will. She cast the spell, she invited it in. What she did once she might do again.”

Celestia tried another route. “I have been on this throne for over a thousand years. I would think that after all this time you would have learned to trust me. I have offered you all nothing but friendship and aid through the centuries. I believed I had your trust! That you were my friend, King Crucible.”

“I am, and you do have my trust. The trust of everyone,” the king said, standing up and crossing his arms. “Why do you think none of us ever raised the issue of you being the only person in the world that controls the sun? Which is exactly why we don’t want to see you slain and replaced by this abomination—”

“Tread lightly,” Celestia warned, her voice shaking with fury.

King Crucible paused. “I am your friend, but as far as I am concerned, the Kingdom of Minos won’t shed a tear to see her go. In fact, we might even have a parade. It would be in your own best interests too, Celestia. It would have been far better if she had never returned or if you had killed her. Failing that, it would be better if… someone else does so if you can’t.”

Garand stood up, shaking a little. “The- The Griffin Coalition agrees with King Crucible.”

“I see,” Celestia said. She smiled, and raised her head once more. “I suppose this is how it has to be. Would you mind following me, please? I believe there is something you should know before making such a rash decision.”

King Crucible glanced at Garand, and picked up his cloak off the chair. “Certainly, Princess Celestia. Please, lead the way.”

“Thank you,” Celestia said pleasantly, still smiling. She lead them out the door, and bid her guards to wait. King Crucible did the same with his, and the Royal guards assigned to Garand stayed behind as well.

Celestia lead them out of the castle, taking the shortest route possible. The midday sun greeted them, and Celestia kept walking towards the gardens, where she knew a perfect spot with admirable view, and away from sight. They passed by various statues, some of them pure art, others memorials of long gone heroes. She made a point of taking them past Discord’s form, encased in stone.

Her coat shone white under her sun. Celestia raised her head and looked straight at it, unaffected by the pain it would have brought to anypony else. Seconds passed with Celestia saying nothing. She could hear the two leaders shift awkwardly behind her.

“Princess Celestia, what are we—” Garand started before he was interjected by Celestia.

“Please, look at the sun,” she requested conversationally.

She noticed them trying for a few moments, squinting and averting their eyes almost instantly.

“Neither of us has the connection you have with it,” King Crucible pointed out. “Is there a point to this?”

“It is a pity that you don’t. It’s beautiful, and I do not mean that just in the literal sense. There’s the sun, high above us, giving off its ample light and warmth with no distinction between powerful and weak, rich or poor. We all receive its sunlight,” Celestia said, still staring right into the heart of the sun.

“Some choose to stand in the shade,” King Crucible reminded her. “Or the dark.”

“Can you blame them?” Celestia asked. “Too much of it would be as catastrophic as its absence. We need our rest away from it, and the night always embraces us all, giving everypony the chance for rest. Day and night… they work together.”

The minotaur king huffed, amused. “Well, be that as it may, you have been doing perfectly well so far on your own. This little lecture will not change our mind, Princess Celestia.”

“Perhaps… perhaps not. This is not what was meant to change your mind. This is;” Celestia stopped staring and turned back to them. Celestia had never done this before. She did have her values and her rules, but she also had those she treasured even more. Her sister was one of them. It was time to make a point how much she treasured her to the rest of the world.

Both King Crucible and Garand were startled. They didn’t see eyes, but a pure white glow, scalding in its brilliance.

“Hurt or threaten my sister again and you will beg for the soothing coolness of the night.”

Ch. 30 - The return of harmony

The train, carrying the light load of only a few carriages, was crossing miles with insurmountable speed. Nearby trees were a furious blur, distant hills and mountains were slowly but steadily presenting a moving profile, and a certain city clinging on the side of a mountain was becoming larger by the minute.

Those carried by this contraption of metal and wood were currently seated on thick, cushioned seats that strived to absorb the unending vibrations and shocks offered by their ride. Everypony, except a small foal that had recently lost half of its remaining family. It was temporarily forgotten now, as tragedy tends to do in the minds of the young, by a much more immediate concern.

“Higher! Higher!”

Raegdan half groaned, but his leg, with the knee draped over the arm of a red seat, kicked harder. Stormdrain was clutching a small, dark doll under his chin and was riding the plated shin. With every kick of the leg his little body flew in the air, laughing in childish delight, his front hooves barely able to hold on the ankle of the armored giant, landing back on the soft blanket placed over the steel armor to protect his soft parts from any errant sharp edges.

Twilight turned around so she could look over the back of her seat. Stormdrain’s laughter filled the carriage, joined by Pinkie Pie’s who took position in front of him and hopped along in sync. Luna had laid down on her seat and placed another blanket over Raegdan’s other leg, using it as a cushion for her head. Celestia only knew how she found that comfortable. It must have been like lying on a mossy rock full of sharp corners.

“Higher!” Stormdrain giggled. “I want to reach the stars.”

“So, a backflip over me and have you land right on Princess Luna then?” Raegdan teased.

“Noooo!” Stormdrain laughed. “A little higher, no backflips.”

She spent a few moments watching Stormdrain play. Spike used to do the same, she remembered. Raegdan would sit on a chair or a couch, often paying attention to something else entirely, and Spike would climb on his leg where Raegdan would start bouncing him without even noticing at first.

She was certain, absolutely and utterly convinced, that Raegdan liked playing with foals, giving them attention or being around them. She had a new insight on why now, and perhaps it had indeed only started as a desire to act better for his girl’s sake, but somewhere on the way he found true enjoyment in that. She liked to think that Spike and she deserved most of the praise for that real change in him. On the same way however, she was almost certain that he liked hurting ponies, people, anypony, as much as he liked spending time with foals. Maybe… maybe even more in some ways.

She wondered if violence could be an addiction as much as any drug could be. No, she refuted that idea, she couldn’t believe that’s what it was. It was too simple an explanation. It was a formless idea, but Twilight had asked herself a couple of times if perhaps Raegdan, for all his talk of how cruel and unfair life was, liked…

If he liked that it was so, or wanted it to be this way. If there was something reaffirming for him in the belief that nothing ended well, despite how he seemed to fight and struggle against it, despite how he clearly enjoyed some of the things his beliefs mocked.

It was a strange dichotomy. One she wasn’t sure if she was even reading right.

What Twilight was interested in right now though was what kept stealing Raegdan’s attention. Her adopted father kept staring at the wall, away from everypony or everything else that he could possibly be looking at, his head slowly swiveling as if keeping something in sight. Rarity had whispered to her that he had been doing the same thing when they were leaving Canterlot.

“Is it a rift?” Twilight asked.

Raegdan’s helmet whirled to her direction, sounding distracted. “What?”

“What you are staring at,” Twilight defined. “Is there a rift nearby?”

Raegdan nodded. His leg had almost stopped moving. Stormdrain shook the armored foot he was holding onto in frustration and Raegdan started kicking again, eliciting another round of laughs from the young colt.

“We should take some protective measures until we can properly research them. What if somepony accidentally steps into it?” Twilight asked, feeling concerned.

“It’s fine,” Raegdan assured her. “This one’s in a cave. It’s a whole network of tunnels down there, and I’ve hidden the entrance anyway. Placed some traps too, in case something pops in. It’s safe enough.”

“What if somepony innocent accidentally comes through?”

Raegdan shrugged.

Rainbow Dash climbed over her own seat from the other side of the carriage. “Wouldn’t it be easier to simply block it? Collapse the entrance or… hey, idea! What if you placed a giant rock right on top of it? Then nothing could go through.”

“If that works. And how am I supposed to move a rock huge enough to cover it? Besides, you get too close you go through, remember?” Raegdan pointed out, absent minded.

“I could do it with my magic,” Twilight offered.

“No,” Raegdan said quietly. “Getting your magic close might be enough for it to grab you. Best plan is to stay away from them. Nothing else. I doubt it would work. I’ve never happened to see one in the ground or blocked by… huh. That’s weird. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?”

“Ah well,” Rainbow conceded, sitting back on her seat. “At least you could bring the cave entrance down, right? That would work.”

Raegdan gave a non-committal grunt. Twilight frowned at him.

“Raegdan…” she warned.

“We’re almost back in Canterlot,” he tried to topic-change. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready?”

Twilight’s plan to break into a small tirade was supplanted by Mint’s shy appearance. “Um, excuse me, Princess Luna? Am I disturbing you?”

“No,” Luna answered as she laid on her side with her eyes kept closed. “Is there something you require?”

“No, I, uh, simply… wanted to thank you again. For the job and- and for helping me pay for the funeral,” Mint said, speaking softly. “Thank you for extending your stay. It would have been awful if it was just Stormdrain and I there.”

“It was no trouble,” Luna dismissed, sounding tired. “We had to stay longer for Night Lilly’s funeral too, as well as other complications that arose.” Luna huffed in dismay. “I haven’t been able to get a smidgen on sleep in this noisy contraption.”

“Still, thank you, Princess. For everything.”

“Alright, that is enough. You are welcome, Mint.” Luna waved the earth pony away with her hoof, but Twilight could easily see her blush. “Please, let me get a few minutes of rest now.”

Raegdan lowered his leg, allowing Stormdrain to dismount. “Off with you, kid. One minute longer of this and my leg will fall off. Go sit with your sister, we will be arriving soon.”

“Ok, mister,” Stormdrain said obediently. As he passed next to Twilight and Rarity’s seats he stopped to address the white unicorn. “Miss Rarity?”

“Yes, my little darling?”

“Thank you for the doll,” Stormdrain said, presenting the large, felt likeness of his brother that Rarity made for him. He pulled it back to him, and unexpectedly rushed up, climbing the seat, to pop a quick kiss on Rarity’s cheek.

“Oh, you are just precious!” Rarity squealed, hugging the little colt. “But you should thank Pinkie Pie too. It was her idea.”

Pinkie Pie quickly hopped right in, giggling. “Ooh, I want a kissy too! Kiss, kiss!” she shouted and presented her own cheek for its own merits award. “Eeeeeee!” she chirped, holding a hoof on her damp cheek, almost reaching the ceiling with her jumps.

Twilight spotted Solid Charge leaning towards Cast Iron. “Not even ten and he’s got them melting on his hooves.” The minotaurs laughed together.

“Princess Luna?” Mint asked once more, hesitating.

“Yes?”

“Stormdrain has been telling me how he plays with Tar in his dreams, and I’ve also been—”

“Go and let me rest, Mint. Just go,” Luna groaned.

Mint did as asked, mouthing a heartfelt thank you at the unaware princess first, taking her brother away from the two mares that had been taking turns on nuzzling sessions, and sat in the front of the carriage.

“Princess Luna?” Twilight gently called out. The Alicorn grunted affirmatively that she was listening. “Pinkie Pie is also doing a lot better than we would have expected. Have you been interjecting in her dreams?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Thank—”

“As well as Applejack’s, Rarity’s, Fluttershy’s, Rainbow’s, and yours.”

“Wha—Mine? But I haven’t had any dreams at all!”

“You simply don’t remember them,” Luna casually said. “Can I get a few minutes of rest, please? It takes a toll on me now. The body rests but the mind does not. I would appreciate some peace.”

Twilight nodded. “I’m really sorry.” She almost turned away before remembering herself. “Thank you.” She sat back down, going back into her thoughts.

Luna was a different riddle of her own, Twilight thought as she took one more glance at the Alicorn dozing off with a slight smile on her lips. She didn’t dare ask her questions outright, mostly because she wasn’t sure what the right questions were yet. Luna was nothing like Princess Celestia, not when you looked a little deeper than the surface she presented most of the time.

Princess Celestia always had a grace, a way of standing that defined what royal poise was. Luna was like that, though a more severe, austere version, at least at first glance. But when she thawed enough, felt comfortable enough with her surroundings, the grandstanding was mostly abandoned with no second thought, and then…

She acted like this, Twilight told herself in wonder, looking back at the princess sprawled on a row of seats in a way that reminded her of Rainbow Dash. It wasn’t much the way she spoke, but her body language. Especially when Raegdan was around.

Not with other ponies though, which was another issue that puzzled Twilight altogether. Luna… she was very definite of her notion to protect ponies in the abstract, but at the same time she was too cold about their wellbeing, changing her outlook once more at the opposite direction for those really close to her. It was confusing, to say the least.

Duty, that’s what she always called it. A strange word to make a point of using. Was there a specific meaning behind it? Twilight would describe her own role as the bearer of the Element of Magic or her own talent as an honor, a calling, her charge, her role in life, and yes, her duty as well. Luna though, always and only called it her duty—

No, that was… that was wrong, wasn’t it? The story those Thestrals had told her, back at the hospital. When Luna returned to them back before her banishment, bringing the remains of her last attempt at a Lunar Guard, she had called it her choice not her duty. She couldn’t remember an occasion where Luna had done this in her presence, but the Thestrals guarding Luna’s door had been adamant about that. The weight of her choice. Huh.

Twilight got deeper into her thoughts, circling around words and their meaning. She completely forgot to ask more about the rift as she had been planning to.

“Last stop: Canterlot. Please exit the train in a calm and orderly fashion.”

Twilight fastened her saddlebags on her back and got up on her legs, covertly shaking her rear to shake off the metaphorical pins n’ needles. “I can scarcely believe we’re back. It feels like we’ve been gone forever.”

“It has been a stressful few weeks, darling,” Rarity pointed out. “It’s only natural it feels so. I, for one, can’t wait until we get back to Ponyville. I’ve missed my boutique.” She paused for a beat. “And the spa.”

Cast Iron walked up to Rarity, his steps a little unbalanced after such a long trip on the train. “Miss Rarity, where would you like us to unload your bags?”

“Oh, just have the baggage carriers take them to the station’s warehouse. I’ll be loading them up again very soon, hopefully.” It was a good thing that there was somepony else to load Rarity’s baggage this time and they didn’t have to rely on Raegdan’s help or for him to carry them through the countryside. Otherwise Rarity would have been wailing nonstop on the way back, mourning for her lost purchases.

Twilight went up to open the train doors, but somepony else got to them first. A pink blur charged through and Twilight fell on the floor with a startled “eep”. Light pink hooves settled next to Twilight head, soft wings unfurled, and she found herself looking at a reflection of herself in purple eyes.

“Welcome back, Twilight! I’ve missed you so much!”

“Cadance!” Twilight joyfully shouted and hugged her former foalsitter with enough strength to break Cadance’s neck if it wasn’t for her Alicorn strength. Cadance for her part seemed to revel in the strong hug. “Oh, I’ve missed you too!”

They both let go, allowing Cadance to stand up and help Twilight to her hooves. “Aunt Celestia told me you were back and that you were fixing everything back to normal,” Cadance said, glowing with joy.

Twilight’s smile faded a little. “I wouldn’t exactly say that…”

“Oh come on,” Cadance urged her, nuzzling her for good measure. “You have no idea how bad things had gotten by the time—”

Raegdan had half laid on his seat during the last minutes of their trip. He rose, swaying a little. Luna, looking drowsy enough, got up at his side. “What’s all that shouting for—”

“You’re back!” Cadance screamed in sheer joy, her voice shrill enough to make glass rattle. The Alicorn slammed with impressive speed onto Raegdan’s upper body, latching on him, and almost forcing him to the floor.

“Hey, Twilight, who’s that?” Applejack asked, curious.

“Oh, right. That’s Princess Cadance, she used to foalsit me.” Twilight went on to explain her relationship with the high-spirited Alicorn, all the time keeping an eye on what was happening.

“Oh sweet heavens,” Raegdan exasperatedly said though his helmet. One of his hands coiled around Cadance to hold her steady and to keep her from falling. “You’re the one who keeps going away on ‘lessons’ and stuff, how am I the one who’s back? Where have you been anyway?”

“Here and there. Aunt Celestia has been sending me to discourse and mingle with various dignitaries, and preside in her place on some aggressive negotiations.” Cadance fluttered her wings with pride, puffing her chest. “I had to use my skills as a mediator, show poise and dignity—”

Raegdan’s fingertips danced on her ribs and she fell on the floor, screaming in sudden laughter and twisting to protect herself. Raegdan crouched over her, his hands finding every undefended angle and tickling mercilessly.

“S- Stop! For—hahaha—Celestia’s sake, st—hahaha—stop!”

“Come on,” Raegdan dared her. “Where is that rumored poise and dignity?”

“Nooo! Twilight, help!”

Twilight made a step forward. Then she took two back. Raegdan had two hands. Tickle attacks were, as Spike had ordained them, serious business, and the rules had been established in ancient times, over mattress battlefields and carpeted graveyards of the fallen: Everypony for themselves.

His assault was cut short a minute afterwards as Cadance, breathless and helpless, in one of her twitching moves managed to accidentally kick Raegdan’s armored head with her back hoof.

“Ow,” he said in a monotone, pulling back.

“Are you hurt?” Twilight worried.

Raegdan re-adjusted his helmet. “Making this bucket was one of my best ideas. I’m fine. Cadance, still with us?”

Cadance huffed as she stood up breathing heavily, though the smile never left her. “So, no more hating aunt Celestia?”

“I never hated—”

“Tut, tut!” Cadance interrupted with a hoof, bonking his helm. “You can’t lie about love and hate to me, not even you, remember?”

“You know, it might not hurt, but it rings in my ears. Wearing this doesn’t mean it grants you permission to turn me deaf.”

“Speaking of which, that is one gloomy helmet you made. Take it off, come on, let me see you,” Cadance grinned.

Raegdan’s carefully removed the helmet, revealing the tight cloth hood he wore underneath. “The helmet gets off but not this. I have a few new scars, I’d prefer not to show my face until they heal enough,” he said in answer to Cadance’s questioning look.

“I don’t mind the scars. None of us ever did.”

“You will mind these ones. They ooze. The hood stays on, you little minx.”

“I’ve really missed you,” Cadance laughed.

Raegdan shuffled on his feet, looking down at Cadance. “Thanks,” he coughed. After a beat—and an intense, expecting stare from the pink Alicorn—he continued in a much lower voice. “I’ve missed you too.”

“Now that we’re done with that…” Cadance smiled slyly as she turned her head to her next target. “Hello, aunt Luna.” Luna took a step back and turned her head sideways, suddenly interested to look out one of the windows.

“Welcome back,” the pink Alicorn said to the darker one, stalking towards her.

“Greetings, niece,” Luna greeted coldly, taking a step back for each step forward of Cadance’s.

Cadance smirked. “Distance is futile, aunt Luna. I will hug you,” she proclaimed, and pounced.

Raegdan managed to yank her back by the tail before she crashed muzzle-first into Luna’s hastily erected shield. “I quite think that is enough,” Luna declared, still looking away. “Your concern has been noted and is appreciated.” Luna moved around Cadance, taking care to keep some distance, and headed for the exit.

“OK, what was that about?” Twilight asked as she approached Raegdan and Cadance, having observed the whole exchange.

“I don’t think aunt Luna likes me much,” Cadance noted sadly.

“She likes you just fine,” Raegdan defended quickly. “It’s just that… She doesn’t have anything against you at all. It’s complicated.”

“Oh, care to explain it in simple terms then? Five words or less,” Cadance challenged. “Why does she act so cold towards me?”

Raegdan hesitated for a moment. He lifted his right hand and started counting on his fingers. “She… does… not… like… you?” He shook his hand at Cadance and Twilight’s deadpan look. He turned, and picked up a small satchel he had been keeping close to him the last couple of days. “She likes you, but she doesn’t like that you are you while she is—don’t look at me like that, I told you that it’s complicated. Give her some time, okay, Cadance? Please?”

Cadance breathed out in surrender. “I suppose there’s not much else that I can do.” She regained her smile and turned to Twilight and her friends. “In the meantime, there are some ponies waiting for you. Let’s go.”

They followed her. It was a short trip. Cadance took them out of the train and inside the station’s waiting room. Twilight noticed how empty all of the station was, not surprising though since their train had been unscheduled, ordered by Luna herself, now bolstered by her recent victories enough to feel comfortable making such an order without fear of being disobeyed.

They pushed open the door, and Twilight was among the first to step in. The waiting room was not empty. There were ponies there. Some of them looked very familiar, and at the forefront—

“Oh, my little angel…” her mother said, her eyes full of sorrow.

Twilight broke. The horrible things she had seen and felt; Night Lilly’s gruesome death, her terror when Rarity got trapped, the heat of the flames. The anger, the fear, the sheer pain she had witnessed, Stormdrain’s loss, the understanding of what kind of life some ponies like Mint were forced to live. It all came back in a torrent, hitting her hard, and leaving her unable to contain her feelings.

Her mother, Twilight Velvet, who had once ordered Raegdan to kill. The very same mare that birthed her had told her this mere hours before Twilight felt for herself how powerful and vindictive rage can be. She had never realized, never cared to connect the dots, that her mother had gone through the exact same thing. But unlike Twilight she had accepted it and made no excuses to hide behind, even if she chose to give in. Her mother, who had a far better idea than Twilight ever did of how hard life can be, was here, waiting for her.

How cruel.

Strange. Twilight didn’t feel like this a moment ago. She was certain she had been able to rise above everything she had witnessed, that she wasn’t… hurt. She was wrong apparently. She was hurt, and she didn’t care how much it made her look like a little filly again, this was exactly what she needed. She needed her mother to hold her and tell her everything was going to be alright. That it was all over, even if it was a lie.

Her father was there too. Night Light put a hoof over her back and joined in the family hug. Twilight cried, but with each tear shed she felt better, like a load she didn’t know she was carrying was being taken off her back. For a few minutes all she knew was the warmth of her parents and their reassuring words.

“I didn’t know you were going to be here,” Twilight slowly said when she felt ready to speak again.

“Oh, honey… Where else would we be? Are you feeling better? Want to take a seat?” her mother asked, already guiding her towards a wooden bench set against the wall.

“Thank you,” Twilight said as she sat. “Did you hear about Night Lilly?”

“We did. Princess Luna and Raegdan sent me a letter. They wrote what you and your friends went through. I managed to get ahold of some of your friend’s relatives too.”

“Huh?” Twilight looked around, finally noticing who the other ponies in the room were. Applejack was sitting next to Granny Smith, the ancient mare quietly listening to Applejack’s murmurs. Rarity was among her own parents, seemingly talking about fashion and her purchases from Manehattan, but Twilight noticed how Rarity’s hoof never left her mother’s. Pinkie Pie, impossibly quiet, was clinging onto a bored looking, grey colored mare that showed no sign of being discomforted by the tight hold. A stallion sporting the same multicolored mane as Rainbow Dash was doing his best to get a proper hold of his suddenly shy daughter, and a kind looking pegasus presented Fluttershy with her favorite pet, Angel Bunny.

Luna and Raegdan watched them all for a few minutes before leaving them alone.

“That is one big crowd,” Rainbow Dash said, peeking carefully through the windows.

“Eeyup,” Applejack agreed.

“Is it like that all the way to the castle?” Twilight asked.

“Eeyup,” Cadance parroted with a smile. Applejack glanced uncertainly at her.

Twilight looked out the window again. Beyond the station, out on the streets, she could see a huge crowd had massed up. Pegasi were flying above, a lot of them using small white clouds as seats, while some unicorns and earth ponies had even climbed on any high places they could reach. Banners were hovering above them, many of them with something written on them, the rest of them depicting either Princess Celestia’s cutie mark or Luna’s. A few of them, especially those nearest, seemed to have them both, side by side. She could hear the crowd muttering, but apart from that they were all relatively silent, as if waiting for something.

Right by the station’s exit there were chariots, waiting to bring them to the castle through roads lined with welcoming ponies. It was a validation of sorts. A few weeks ago nopony would come near Luna even with written invitations. Literally. Now they were all massing outside of their own volition.

It was a shame that Luna didn’t see it like that.

“They can all go to Tartarus for all I care!” Luna almost shouted. She had a frown of disgust as if forced to bite on something nasty.

“Come on, Luna. No one asked you to talk to them. All you have to do is wave every now and then,” Raegdan reasoned.

“Did you forget how we were treated here only weeks ago?” Luna asked, showing a more offended outlook on past events. “I will not perform like a monkey for their amusement on their demand!”

Raegdan loosely moved his arms and legs in a short jig. “You’ve had me dance a couple of tunes before. Should I be offended by that or…?”

Luna’s lips trembled as she wrestled to stop her mouth from smiling. “Stop that. You know exactly what I mean.”

“I do, and I think you should still climb on that chariot, and ape the good little princess for—”

“No.”

Raegdan made an incredibly good imitation of angry monkey sounds at her.

Luna put her hoof under her chin. “Fascinating. I cannot believe I never noted the resemblance,” she snarked.

Raegdan laid an open palm over his chest. “Oh heavens. Did you just call me a monkey? A massive blow to my delicate soul. How ever will I cope? Look, Twinklystars, you were the one who was all for doing it this way now.”

“I was and I still am, but we have no need of them! Do you think our latest attempt had been the first time they shunned me? They have acted thus ever since I touched my hoof on this accursed city.”

“I was there,” Raegdan said wearily. “I saw. We seem to be kind of low on unicorns if you have noticed though. We need a few of them, and what better place to get some?”

Luna spat on the floor, Rarity grimacing at the inappropriate act. “Then we simply recruit them elsewhere. Equestria is full of towns and villages. We don’t need to constrain ourselves here.”

“Yeah, great idea. We can go on a grand village tour, begging for unicorns that are capable of casting more than a couple of spells instead of looking for them in the city that has the best school for them. Hey, maybe we can pack some boxes of laundry detergent and make a few bits on the side since we’ll be going from door to door anyway,” Raegdan said sarcastically. “Would you like to join the Lunar Guard? No? Then how about Lunar Tide, a new exciting product to help you remove these stubborn stains—Ow!” He gently threw Luna’s metal shoe back to her, rubbing his forehead over the black fabric.

“Princess Luna, I believe you should rethink your position,” Rarity negotiated, putting every little trick of accommodating her most “difficult” clients she had ever learned in her speech and movements. “Isn’t this kind of behavior, the exact opposite of what you have faced so far in Canterlot, what you have been wishing for?” Rarity’s hoof moved as if to encircle all of the ponies waiting outside.

Luna blew a raspberry.

Raegdan laughed, then tried again. “Ok, Luna. Jokes aside, it would be—”

“No.”

“All I’m saying is that—”

“No.”

Raegdan’s expression matched Luna’s in sullenness. “You don’t even let me finish—”

“No.”

He chortled, lifting his arms in surrender. “Well, if you don’t want to, you don’t want to,” He nodded towards Cadance. “No point in wasting this chance though. Cadance could hopefully pass as you with some spells and a cloak. We can send her off in your place, and we can wait here until nightfall. Then we will sneak to the castle on our own without anyone noticing us.”

“An excellent plan,” Luna agreed, looking satisfied. “We shall proceed as thus. I doubt these nincompoops will be able to tell the difference anyway.” She turned around, but stopped in place when Raegdan continued speaking.

“Of course,” he said with a note of disappointment that was obviously faked, “that means we will get back late. Really late. By the time we get back, check the tower, get everything in order… Heavens, this is going to take so very, very long.”

He rotated his right shoulder, a “crack” sounding faintly from deep inside his bones. “Too bad you don’t want to do it the easy way. If we went with the parade instead, and finished up with all our other work quickly enough, we could have some time to relax before we go to sleep. Maybe... take a bath, you know?”

Luna gazed up at Raegdan with a heavy pout. “Thou art the foul, beating heart of darkness, and the duplicitous begetter of blackmail.”

“Thanks.”

“Let us get this over with. Solid Charge, you are riding in front with me and Raegdan. Thestrals in the air, Leaf Stream and Cast Iron will keep an eye in the back. The girls and Princess Cadance will ride the chariots in the middle, keep an eye on them,” Luna ordered quickly as she stormed outside. Her magic opened the door with such force that the windows rattled when it hit the wall.

Solid Charge hurried behind Princess Luna. “Princess, wouldn’t it be better if you took a place in the middle where you would be safer—”

“Chariot. Now. I wish to end this farce as soon as possible!”

Twilight hurried back to Twilight Velvet for one last—temporary—goodbye. “I’ll see you later, mom. I’ll try to visit tomorrow when I have the time.”

“Aren’t you going to go back to Ponyville with your friends tomorrow?”

“I wish,” Twilight grinned. “But I don’t think I should leave just yet. The girls have their jobs to get back to, but the library can afford to stay closed for another week or more.”

Twilight shared the same chariot with Cadance, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash was busy waving at anypony who even glanced at her direction. Fluttershy was acting weird though.

She still had Angel Bunny with her, and despite the animal’s attempts to stay out of sight of Raegdan, even from this distance, Fluttershy made no conscious move to calm her beloved pet. She seemed to have eyes only for the chariot up front, and the road ahead. Twilight would have expected her to duck and hide behind the chariot’s screen, but Fluttershy was standing out in the open, staring straight ahead with a strange intensity that only grew as they drew closer to the castle.

No matter how Twilight tried to make Fluttershy tell her what was wrong, the pegasus refused to answer, mostly by changing the subject with no subtlety at all until Twilight had no other option than to give up. The positive side of that was that it meant that she could talk with Cadance freely and without interruptions.

“Twilight, I’m not sure if that’s a good topic to talk about after all you’ve been through.” Cadance worried.

“Cadance, I really need to know, trust me. I do not mean that just for my own curiosity, though I won’t deny it is a factor, but… The point is that I can’t help when I don’t know half of what is going on or why they do what they do.”

“I’m not saying this doesn’t make sense—”

“And what did you mean by saying Raegdan can’t lie about love or hate to you?”

“Oh, right.” Cadance put a hoof over her mouth. “I forgot you don’t know about that.”

“A little less mystery if you please? I have had my fill of them lately,” Twilight griped.

“Ok, you know how Raegdan is immune to every kind of pure magic?”

“I have been privy to the notion, yes.”

Cadance dropped the bomb on her. “That’s not true.”

Twilight didn’t speak or gasp because she simply couldn’t. Her mind had screeched to a halt. Brain output was reduced to absolute zero. Thankfully, heart and lungs were independent contractors.

The belief that Raegdan was immune to magic had been a staple of how she thought of him since… forever. It was an inherent part of describing him. Tall, two arms, two legs, immune to magic, black hair, lots of scars. There simply wasn’t any magic that ever affected him, from the most paltry of spells to the most powerful magic that Princess Celestia could conjure.

There had been a cursed, mind scrambling book that would drive mad everypony that glanced its contents. Raegdan read it to see what it was about before destroying it. The worst it did was throw some sparks at him while he burned it. Later on he told her it did hurt his brain. Whoever authored it tried to use poetic meters, and failed spectacularly.

Magic of any kind did not affect him, that was it! Nothing that could affect his body or mind worked. He literally shut down magic when in contact with it. There was… there was… hold on...

“Don’t tell me…” she whispered, her eyes still viewing the landscape of her mind. This made as much sense as it didn’t.

“You seem to have figured it out, so I won’t,” Cadance said, amused.

“So… So what can you do exactly?” Twilight stammered, still feeling out of it.

Cadance shook her head sideways with an expression of uncertainty. “I’m not sure. Probably anything, I suspect my magic is more potent on him than even on ponies, but the most I’ve done is take a peek a few times. He really hates it when I’m doing it so I try not to. I think he feels it, unlike everypony else.”

“What did you see?”

“Oh. The usual stuff. It’s like a web you know. There are strands that connect you, in the middle, with everypony else, and I can see by the strands how you feel for them,” Cadance explained.

“Keep going!” Twilight pleaded in excitement.

“There’s not much to say. I see who he loves mostly. That’s it.”

“So… He hates Princess Celestia then? Is that it?” The idea troubled her. Raegdan and Princess Celestia used to be so close. He couldn’t—

Was this Twilight’s fault? Did she start all this?

“Not exactly. You see, there’s—” Somepony in the crowd was throwing small bouquets of flowers. One of them almost landed on Cadance, but she managed to grab it with her magic before it could bounce off on her head. She held it up, smiling sweetly, and blew a kiss at the pony who threw her the gift. There was an increase in noise from that section.

“I hope aunt Luna is doing as well up front,” Cadance said. They both looked forward. Indeed, Luna had managed to grab a couple of flower bouquets as well. She was using one of them as a snack to the merriment of her companions by her side. She offered the other one to the alien and the minotaur, both of them lifting their arms up in a synchronized negative gesture.

“At least it’s going well so far,” Twilight smiled, feeling glad that nothing bad was happening.

A young stallion was positioned right on the edge of the cordon. A small drum was around his neck, and he was using his magic to wildly beat on it with a couple of drumsticks. He paused for a moment, plainly tired.

A much younger filly was by his side. In the sudden—relatively—quieter atmosphere without the acoustic bombardement, the filly’s words in her nasal, sharp voice were perfectly audible from that distance.

“Don’t stop playing! If she thinks we don’t like her this time either she might try to gobble us up again.”

I had to jinx it, didn’t I?

“Oh dear,” Fluttershy gasped from Twilight’s side.

“They didn’t hear that, did they?” Rainbow Dash winced.

Luna had let the bouquets fall off her grip and on the road, where they were trampled by the Royal Guards pulling the chariots behind her own. Raegdan’s hands were clenching the railing, and Twilight was certain that if it was a little thinner he would have broken it or warped it. Solid Charge’s stance was radiating a foul mood and concern.

“They did,” Twilight answered.

“It’s only one filly,” Cadance said quickly. “They won’t let this one occurrence sour the welcome they have received so far.”

Twilight sighed. Sweet naivety, how I miss you. She looked around, doing her best to see beyond the majority of cheers and friendly waves. There were small clusters and wells of ponies looking at the procession with sour expressions, muttering in between them, or gazing up at the banners with distaste. It was a minority that she saw, but she feared it wouldn’t seem that way to Luna.

There was nothing she could do at the moment. “What did you mean by saying not exactly?”

“Huh? Oh. Oh, right. See, there are some cases, extremely rare ones, where I have happened to see somepony hating somepony while loving them at the same time. It…” Cadance rubbed her forehead. “It looks awful. Like an infected vein. It’s pretty painful to sense too. I have no idea how some ponies can possibly do that.”

“Then you mean that Raegdan… hates Princess Celestia but still loves her? At the same time?” Don’t look, don’t look, please don’t look…

Cadance shrugged. “It’s not that weird coming from him.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Well…” Cadance hesitated, biting her lip. “I’m not sure if I should tell you this, but since I don’t know who they are… It’s almost the norm with him. There are too many ‘connections’ that he has that are exactly like that. I really don’t like to see that because it makes my head hurt horribly. The way it works on Raegdan, I see even more, a lot more, but I have no idea what they are.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Cadance agreed, staring ahead at the armored figure. “Oh. It didn’t use to be like that, and it hasn’t gone back to normal yet. I took a little peek while he was arguing with aunt Luna. Hopefully he was too busy to notice.”

“What about Princess Luna?” Twilight asked, curious.

“Oh, I’ve done my best not to look.”

“Why?”

“Aside from the fact that I don’t think she’d appreciate it? What do I do if she’s feeling angry or doesn’t love aunt Celestia as much as she does? It was bad enough telling aunt Celestia about Raegdan.”

Twilight wavered as she pondered how to breach the subject. She decided to plow straight through it, like pulling a band-aid. “I know what he did. How he attacked Princess Celestia, trying to make her kill him. This is why, isn’t it?”

Cadance let out a breath, shaking her head. “They told you, huh? If it was just that then he would have forgiven aunt Celestia eventually. No, it was because of Nightmare Moon.”

Cadance loitered in front of the window, staring at the night sky, her breakfast grown cold on the table behind her. Her eyes flashed momentarily to the ticking clock on the wall. It had been less than a minute since she last checked it.

The sun was supposed to be up half an hour ago.

There were delays sometimes. Like it or not, aunt Celestia was overworking herself, and the sunrise’s timing tended to slant every now and then as she happened to oversleep for a minute or two. Only for a minute or two though. Never this long, not in living memory.

She had started to fear something was wrong fifteen minutes ago. She was certain of it now, and she had no idea of what to do. Looking up at the night sky, praying that the next second would reveal a hint of light at the horizon, was the best she could think of at the moment.

The door slammed shut behind her, bringing her out of her trance. She turned around with her heart stuttering in fear, calming slightly when she realized it was just Raegdan.

Cadance took an unintended step back as he approached her. There was something off in the way he moved and the meticulousness with which his eyes swept his surroundings. Her eyes flickered to his right hand, spotting the long dagger before he hid it behind his back and beneath his shaggy shirt. His eyes met hers and she felt scared once more by the coldness in them.

He was at her side faster than she would have expected, his hand pushing her toward the door by the back of her neck. “We’re leaving. Now. Hurry up.”

Cadance didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to leave a place she thought of as safe, not at a moment like this, not without knowing what happened to her aunt, but her body subconsciously obeyed the instructions given by somepony knowing what to do and giving instructions.

“Raegdan, what is going on? Where are we going, did something happen to—” His palm covered her muzzle, swiftly silencing her. He glanced up and down the corridor, lingering on two guards a little further away.

“Don’t talk,” he ordered. “Act like everything’s normal and you know exactly what is going on. If anyone talks to you tell them everything will be back to normal in a little while and that we have to go. We mustn’t raise a panic. It will only slow us down.”

They kept traversing the castle’s corridors and halls, his hand not far from her back as it guided her and urged her on in a swift pace, but not fast enough to attract anypony’s attention. They came out of the castle, and walked toward the exit. A few ponies had indeed stopped them and asked her if she knew why the sun was not up yet, but she did as Raegdan told her to. She lied.

They were entirely out of the castle and into Canterlot while the stars shone on them well after morning. Raegdan reached behind a bush and pulled out a threadbare cloak that he threw on Cadance.

“Wear this. Cover your wings at least.”

The shock was starting to wane by now. “Raegdan, are you… foalnapping me? What is this, what are we doing? What is happening?”

Raegdan pulled her at the side of the road. Nopony was in sight, everypony still in their houses, wary of this unnatural morning. Raegdan pointed with one of his fingers. He pointed upwards, towards the moon. She didn’t notice it at first. It was just the moon, she never put any effort in identifying any changes on it. It was the moon and it was always up there, eternal and unchanging. Until now.

The Mare on the Moon was gone.

She knew what that meant. Cadance had read the stories, even those that were not meant for her age when she did so. To see it happen though, to know that something you never expected to see in your lifetime was actually happening right now…

“She- She’s… She’s back…”

Raegdan was scowling angrily. “Yeah. Earlier than she was meant to. We were supposed to have another year, and I can’t find Celestia anywhere. The fucking guards either don’t know or won’t talk to me—”

“She’s at Ponyville,” Cadance said, unthinkingly. “It’s where they have the Summer Sun Celebration this year.”

Raegdan’s head whipped towards her. “Why? Celestia always has it here, why… Wait.” With unerring accuracy he swiveled exactly south, towards Ponyville. Cadance knew that if they were standing somewhere high enough they could see the lights from the little town.

“That’s where the little one and little flame went. She sent…”

Cadance didn’t need her magic to spot the sheer hate in Raegdan’s voice. “She- She lied to me. She- She sent my little ones… I’ve got to go!”

“Raegdan, where are you going?” Cadance shouted.

Raegdan halted. He had dashed forward, ready to run, but stopped at the sound of her voice. His shoulders shivered, and he started moving away from her again.

“What am I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to go? Raegdan, I’m scared...”

He stopped once more and frantically looked back and forth, horribly torn. His nails dug at his scalp as he stared south towards where he knew Twilight and Spike were. He turned back with a growl, his teeth grinding hard against each other. He pushed her, forcing her to trot to keep up with him.

“We have to hurry up.”

“Where are you taking me?” Cadance asked, still puzzled as to his intentions.

“What do you think will happen if Celestia loses? You will be the next target. I’m taking you somewhere you can hide.”

She looked back. She could see the towers of the castle over the rooftops of the buildings, the golden rooftops painted blue under the moonlight. “What about the guards? Wouldn’t I be safer with them?”

“Fuck the guards,” Raegdan spat. “Safest place is being away from where she will come to find you.” He pulled at her roughly, taking a left turn and speeding up. “This way.”

“Where are we going?”

“Save your breath and run. I don’t have time! I won’t be late again, I’m not losing another one!” He glanced at her through narrowed eyes, his lips twisting in distaste. “I should never have cared for you,” he mumbled.

That hurt.

Nothing else she said got another peep out of him. He put all his energy into running, and Cadance was doing her best to keep up as he jumped over obstacles or quickly slipped through them, turning his body sideways to fit through spaces she would deem too tight even for her. He kept glancing south, an angry word in his language making it out of his lips every time, pushing both of them to move even faster. Cadance was soon lost in the twisting path he took through the darkness.

He stopped in front of the door of a modest house, and loudly knocked on the door with urgency. After a few seconds of waiting the door unlocked, but before the occupant could open it by himself Raegdan pushed Cadance inside, following suit immediately after.

Cadance saw who the pony was and realized immediately where Raegdan had brought her. “Twilight Velvet?”

“Raegdan, honey, what is going on? Has something happened to the Princess?”

“Velvet, shut up and listen to me,” Raegdan urged, uncharacteristically harsh to the mare. “It’s Nightmare Moon—don’t fucking gasp, just listen! Celestia is at Ponyville and that’s where—”

“My little angel! Spike!” Velvet shouted, distraught.

“Exactly. Velvet, we don’t have time. I have to get there as fast as I can. I’m getting them back if I can, but there’s a chance I might be too late.” Velvet blocked a whimper with a hoof, and nodded for him to continue.

“Raegdan, what- what if Nightmare Moon won?” Cadance asked before he had time to continue, becoming more scared by the second.

He froze for a moment. His face changed in a grimace of pure hate. “If she hurt Celestia or the kids… she’s dead.”

“You can’t!” Cadance yelled. “Raegdan, if aunt Celestia is gone, even if you had a shot against Nightmare Moon, you can’t do that! She’s the only one who can move the sun and moon. If aunt Celestia is gone—”

Raegdan’s palm struck the wall. A portrait depicting the family fell down and the glass broke, spreading little shards over the floor. “If that thing hurt them then it’s dead! I’ll drive a knife up its brain even if it’s the last thing I do.” He headed for the door.

“Raegdan, if you managed to kill her and aunt Celestia is gone then the rest of us will freeze or burn to death!” Cadance screamed out in panic.

His hand fell off the doorknob. “Velvet. Wait two days. If the sun comes up don’t trust it. Wait for Celestia, Twilight and Spike, or me. If none of us show up or you know for certain what happened, then go. It’s still there. Do you remember all the traps I warned you about?”

“I can’t leave my children!” Velvet wailed.

“You will if they’re dead!” Raegdan shouted back. “Get Night Light, Shining Armor, Cadance, as many others as you safely can, and take them through! She’s going to come for Cadance, and possibly the rest of you. You will run. Do you understand me, Velvet? You will run for your lives.”

“We don’t even know where we will end up!”

“Someplace you are not hunted. That will have to be enough.”

Velvet wiped her eyes and stood straight before the giant. “No. You go there and get my babies back to me. Do you understand me, Raegdan? You will get them back.”

“I’ll try my—”

“No. No trying. You failed once, you won’t do it again, do you hear me? You will do it! Now go!” Raegdan hesitated. Velvet struck the floor with her hoof, shouting as loud as she could. “Go! Run as fast as you can, and bring my children back to me! Don’t be late this time. Please, don’t be late.”

Raegdan opened the door and vanished in the darkness. Velvet quietly closed it, and stood there for a moment before she sat on the living room’s couch. Cadance sat next to her and they held each other.

“They’re going to be fine,” Cadance assured her. “Aunt Celestia and Raegdan won’t let them get hurt.”

Velvet nodded, but didn’t answer otherwise. She got hold of an old picture frame off the small table in front of her, the golden metal lightly warped at its sides. The picture in it was relatively new, unlike the dented frame. It was a picture of a lot of ponies, two Alicorns, and a non-pony trying to fit in a single photograph. Cadance remembered this photo. She was in it as well.

Night Light and Shining Armor came by a few minutes later.

Cadance watched the sunset with newfound appreciation, admiring the last playful rays sweep across her view and change colors rapidly before vanishing. It had ended well, better than anypony could have wished for. Aunt Celestia was unhurt, saved by Twilight and her new friends. Even better, the Nightmare was no more, and aunt Celestia’s sister had returned.

Her aunt stepped in, finally ready to talk to her.

“How is your sister, aunt Celestia?” Cadance asked, fairly concerned.

Celestia smiled, though with a note of sourness on her lips. “Better than could be expected. If I knew that some ponies would shout such horrible things at her I would have made the two of us stay in Ponyville instead of returning to Canterlot immediately. She is resting now.”

“I’m happy for you. It must be so good to have her back again.”

The sweetest smile graced Celestia’s face. Her eyes were twinkling with true happiness. She lead the way to her own room. “It is. She’s been away for so long. Much longer than you’d guess. We never really—”

A blurred shadow fell on Celestia, jumping on her from one of the darkened corners. Cadence’s aunt was pushed into the darkness, and the shadow followed suit. Cadance heard them land on the floor, and then came the sounds of flesh striking flesh along with Celestia’s grunts.

Cadance’s magic went for the lights, almost without her guidance. The blackness was routed off Celestia’s chambers, revealing the white and gold room as it was meant to be.

Celestia was down on her back. Raegdan was straddling her chest and was cocking his arm back for another blow. Celestia’s left hoof struck the arm holding her horn and Raegdan lost his grip for a couple of seconds, more than enough time for Celestia to telekinetically shoot a heavy chair at him.

The white Alicorn was not as fast on getting herself back on her hooves as Raegdan was, but unlike him that didn’t make her helpless. The chair slammed into him once more. Celestia’s telekinetic grip on the chair evaporated the moment it made contact with his body, but there was more than enough momentum to slam him against the wall. He fell down again, smashing the chair beneath his body weight.

He slowly lifted himself to his hands and knees.

“Raegdan, what are you doing?” Cadance shouted. No response.

His hand darted for a large piece of splintered wood resembling a large spike. He threw it at Celestia, who swatted it aside with her magic. Raegdan was already running for her, a glint of something under his fist.

Celestia help us, he’s holding a knife!

Cadance made to jump in the way to block him off and stop him, but her aunt’s golden magic formed around her entire being, freezing her midstep. All she could do now was watch as the scarred biped, with a roar, tackled the Princess of the Sun. He scrambled to a kneeling position and clenched her horn with his free hand. The golden aura around Cadance fizzled out, yet the pink alicorn took not a step closer, now frozen with terror.

Raegdan pressed her horn—and her face by extension—to the floor. His other hand was raised to drive the weapon through her exposed neck. The Princess of Love saw not a piece of metal, but a shark’s wicked tooth, starved of blood.

Celestia didn’t even glance at the knife. Her eyes never left Raegdan’s snarling face. She even went as far as to crane her neck out, as if goading him. The clopping of multiple hooves approached from outside.

“The guards will be here in moments.” Celestia alerted him.

“Not before I slit your throat.” Raegdan growled with contempt.

“Cadance,” she spoke calmly. “Would you please go and ask the guards to leave?” The dagger-hand lowered in surprise.

“But aunt—”

“Please, do as I say,” Celestia frowned with disappointment at Raegdan.

Cadance slowly backed up, trying to keep the scene in her view as much as possible, afraid in some part that the moment she stopped watching… she had to look away however. She opened the door to aunt Celestia’s rooms, and assured the massed Solar Guards outside that everything was fine. They almost didn’t believe her, but she managed it somehow.

She ran back with her heart hammering in her chest. They hadn’t moved in the least. “They’re gone. Raegdan, please, drop the—”

“That is enough, Cadance,” Celestia reprimanded her. “Do you want to kill me, Raegdan?”

“I should.” His voice said, but his face said, “Should I?”

Cadance finally registered how he looked. His clothes were musky, drenched in old and fresh sweat. Little holes had been torn all over them, and a wild gash revealed a wound covered with dried blood on his stomach. A few small thorns were still attached on him. Most of all he looked tired. His arms weren’t as steady as she had thought them to be as the muscles were trembling in little spasms.

Celestia examined him as well. “You ran all the way to Ponyville and back, didn’t you?” Her eyes brushed over the brown flakes. Some of them had cracked and drops of blood were dripping through. “No, you went through the Everfree Forest as well.”

“I did,” he admitted. “Reached the castle just as you got free. Late! If Twilight hadn’t won, she would be dead! Because of you!”

Celestia’s expression hardened. “Twilight found the Elements and saved my sister, just like I expected her to if I failed.”

“She could have died!”

“What would you have me do, Raegdan? Lock her in a tower in order to keep her safe forever? Alone and devoid of any contact, just the way you’d like it? Would that satisfy you? Twilight is destined for great things, no matter if you like it or not. I didn’t ask her to fight Nightmare Moon. She decided that on her own, because that is who she is, and she managed something I never could. I simply made sure she was where she would have the greatest chance of succeeding if it came to that.”

“You have no idea what’s it like to lose—”

“How dare you?” Celestia’s booming Royal Canterlot Voice and reaction stunned him enough to enable her to kick him off her. She stood, huffed, then resumed in her normal voice, “One thousand years! Did you forget that?”

“You didn’t lose her! She didn’t die!” Raegdan retorted viciously while picking himself up.

“Do you know how many ponies I’ve lost throughout my life? How many friends died while I live on? Do you think you’re the only one who’s lost those he loves?”

Raegdan’s fist struck his chest. “They were never your fault!” He let go of the knife. It clinked loudly on the marble like it was emphasizing what he said. “You never were the one to kill them,” his voice cracked and his eyes started to glisten.

“My sister was my fault.” Raegdan’s head jerked weirdly, a strange spasm overtaking him at her words.

Celestia had approached him, closing the distance slowly. Raegdan’s face filled with disgust and he shoved her, pushing her away. “Twilight and Spike would have been your fault!” he accused her.

The Alicorn went rigid once more. “I trust Twilight. She is capable, intelligent, and wise beyond her years, and she has proven it. You should trust her a little more. She is not a little filly anymore and neither does she need your constant protection. She’s perfectly able to look after herself.”

Raegdan looked down. Cadance shivered when she saw it was the dagger he was looking at. After a few tension-filled seconds he turned his back on Celestia and headed out of the room, passing Cadance without glancing at her.

“We’re not done, Celestia. You will pay for this. You shouldn’t have risked my little one.”

“Go to the infirmary, Raegdan,” Celestia requested, exhausted. “And then get some rest.”

“Fuck you!” Raegdan shouted back with pure vehemence, and slammed the door behind him.

Celestia headed for a seat, and let herself fall into it with the complete absence of her usual grace. Cadance stayed where she was, unsure what to do or say. Then, after a few uncomfortable seconds, Celestia brought her front leg over her eyes, covering them, and a sob escaped her. Cadance knew what to do then. Her much-loved aunt needed her.

Cadance’s hoof ran over her aunt’s ethereal mane. She had to stand up to reach her easier, and she took advantage of the position to hug her, using her wings to cover as much of the larger Alicorn as she could.

“It’s okay, aunt Celestia. It’s okay. Nothing bad happened. It will all be okay.”

“I just—” Celestia whimpered. Her breath hitched and she started over. Tears were making her way down her face, escaping the hold of her hoof. “I just wanted all of us to be okay. I did my best. I- I really tried my best.”

“It’s okay, auntie. I know. I believe you.”

“I want us to be a family, all of us, to- together. I want the- the best for all of us.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

The procession had reached the entrance to the castle. The grounds were large, and the physical entry into the guarded territory of Canterlot’s castle was far from the large gates into the castle itself. It was even further from where he stood, staring out through one of the many windows.

The distance was great, and his eyes still burned, even days after the incident. He could see well enough even so. The Night Bringer was unmistakeable, her dark colors betraying her in the midday sun where the shadows could not hide her.

It was the two figures at her sides that warranted his attention now. He could not make them out, but his two bodyguards could, and they described what they saw. One of them was a minotaur, one of his own people, his horns visible enough. But the other one…

Stood on two legs. Taller than the minotaur at the other side of the Night Bringer. No horns. They described his armor as much as they could. There wasn’t much they could say from this distance yet. Only that he was completely encased in it. He mentally shrugged. There was no need for more detail. He had heard enough. He knew who that was, and he would see him up close soon enough.

He hefted his own axe. Sharpened and treated with oils, immaculate despite the times it had been used. His bodyguards had their own axes, two handed monstrosities that dwarfed his. Greater sized weapons attempting to make up for lesser skill.

He wondered how his hammer would fare against his axe.

He turned away from the window. He would not gain what he wanted watching from up here like an old hag. He needed to go down there.

“Bring me my armor,” King Crucible ordered his bodyguards. He smiled, anticipating the next act in this play. He slid his thumb across the edge and a little blood smeared the steel.

It’s not what he came to Canterlot for, but it would have to do.

Ch.31 - Making friends... of sorts

She insisted so fiercely. It was almost unlike her.

To be fair, it was probably because Fluttershy was going to depart with the rest of the girls tomorrow, finally heading back to their normal lives in Ponyville. Twilight blamed Fluttershy’s nerves. Her very sensitive, almost monomolecular nerves. She must have been itching with anxiousness and worry that everything would turn sour in the last possible moment.

Now why would she ever think that?

Twilight mused that she was turning into a bitter, cold, sarcastic cynic about twenty years too early. At least.

She had real trouble nailing Fluttershy as either an optimist or a pessimist even after all this time. She chuckled inwardly. Raegdan would probably call her a realist.

She might mention it to him later on, when they finally found him. In between helping Mint and her little brother settle, and assisting Princess Celestia’s old majordomo to get the members of the Lunar Guard to their temporary rooms, then being asked a hundred questions about them and their health, as well as being worried over in general by the old stallion, they kinda… lost track of a few important details.

Namely, where Princess Luna, Raegdan, Solid Charge, and Leaf Stream were. No biggie. They had to be around the castle somewhere. What was the worst that could happen?

Twilight fervently wished she hadn’t thought of these specific words in that specific order. Damnit, she was supposed to be smart!

Cadance walked along with Twilight, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash, telling stories as they wandered around the castle. Rainbow Dash was already infatuated with the charming Alicorn’s tales, if that madmare grin was anything to judge by.

“Then, after we made sure he was sound asleep we hid out of sight in the forest. Aunt Celestia then made this amazing combination of spells that allowed her to mirror Twilight’s image and voice at the location of her choice,” Cadance said, setting up the scene.

Rainbow’s grin grew two sizes hearing that sentence. “The pranks I could set up with that! What did you do then?”

“Set up a prank,” Cadance chortled. “There was this very tall tree with branches so thin they couldn’t even hope to support a filly’s weight. Aunt Celestia projected the mirror image right up on the top.” Cadance’s hoof pointed at the tip of an imaginary tree, and Rainbow’s eyes followed the movement.

“And then?”

“Then Twilight started screaming her head off to wake him up,” Cadance laughed.

“Oh gosh!”

“Oh Celestia, I had completely forgotten that.” Twilight didn’t know whether to grin or hide her face in shame.

“It was amazing!” Cadance kept interrupting herself as she tried to keep her giggling in check long enough to tell the story. “We couldn’t see him because we kept away so he wouldn’t notice us, but we could hear him very clearly. He made sure of that. First, he kept calling for aunt Celestia and me, and when we didn’t appear we heard him shouting colorful words about pegasi and everypony featherly inclined.”

“I didn’t hear any of that,” Twilight said as she craned her head to look down a passage. “You covered my ears with your hooves.”

“It was very colorful. A double rainbow of epithets.” Cadance grinned unapologetically. “A few moments later we no longer heard him shout. Instead, we hear breaking branches followed by a heavy landing. And then more branches breaking. Another painful landing. And again. And again…”

Fluttershy was frowning at Cadance’s and Rainbow’s nonstop giggling. “That sounds like a mean prank.”

Cadance brushed her watery eyes. “He likes mean. You don’t get much of a response out of him otherwise, and trust me, there were times he did much, much worse.” Some of the mirth left Cadance as she reminisced about those few but special occasions.

“Does that have anything to do with those rumors I heard that the wails of the haunting banshee was in reality you screaming?” Twilight casually asked.

“I admit to nothing,” Cadance declared. Rainbow Dash burst into another row of laughter.

“What happened then? Did you tell him he was being pranked? What did he do?” Rainbow Dash asked impatiently.

“We were going to,” Cadance admitted. They turned left, heading to the center of the castle where the throne room and many administrative functions were located. “We wasted too much time laughing though. Our bad. Aunt Celestia was about to end the spell when we saw Raegdan impossibly emerge over the treeline, climbing up the tree. He had wrapped his shirt around the tree trunk and made some weird jumping motions to climb even higher, holding himself up by pulling at the shirt. The tree was starting to bend by his weight and the shirt finally ripped, but not before he managed to hold on and almost reach fake Twilight.”

“Oh no,” Fluttershy breathed out, distressed even by the old story. Angel Bunny, nesting in her mane, seemed to find it funny instead. This bunny was way smarter than it had any right to be, and possessed a surprisingly mean streak.

“Now, at this point we could only watch as we realized how much we goofed. He made it all the way up to the top, reached out for Twilight… and poof!” Cadance’s wings popped out startlingly fast. “He stood there, staring at where the image was for all of two seconds before I had to cover Twilight’s ears again.”

“How did you get him down?” Rainbow Dash asked after her laughter subsided. “I mean, you can’t magic him down, you can’t carry him down without crashing yourself—”

“We had to gather up a lot of leaves,” Twilight informed her.

“And when he got down, and could stand up again, he pleasantly asked who came up with the idea. He had a gift to give.”

Rainbow Dash’s brows went up. “He didn’t hit you, did he? It was just a prank.”

“Please, Raegdan never hit me, Twilight, or Spike. He did slap Shining Armor a few times, but those were mostly playful, for stallions at least. Besides, it was aunt Celestia’s idea.”

“Yeah, he gave his ‘gift’ to her,” Twilight added.

“Which… was?”

“A second cutie mark,” Twilight said.

Cadance chortled. “A big, bright red imprint of his palm right next to her sun.”

They kept wandering, checking rooms in random, when their search was interrupted by the loud clanging of metal. They all turned as one at the direction of the sound.

“Ten bits says that’s—”

Twilight sighed wearily. “No bet, Rainbow.”

They found two out of four. They were in a waiting hall that had been furnished with many chairs and couches for the convenience of those that awaited outside the doors that lead into one of Princess Celestia’s most favored conference rooms. Two Solar guards were standing on the sides of the double doors, almost statuesque in their rigidity of their perfect, text-book definition guarding position.

The two Lunar guards that waited outside were instead giving their all into being as crass as possible. Raegdan was sprawled on a couch, one hand holding the small, brown satchel. An opened folder was laid across his chest. His gaze was locked on a small wooden box he held on the other hand.

Leaf Stream had been the source of the noise. Even as they watched she was trying to spin Raegdan’s shield like a top. It briefly made a few spins around itself before it got snagged on one of the many carpets and fell down with another loud metal crash. One of the Solars was glaring at her reproachfully, but the mare stared back tauntingly as she gave it another try and let the ruckus echo around them with no sign of attempting to stop it.

“Are you trying to start a fight?” Rainbow asked, having the time of her life so far today.

“I would say ‘no’,” Leaf Stream responded, “but subtlety is too… subtle for the likes of these dumbos. Heck yeah, I mean you. Especially you!” She pointed her hoof at the Solar guard on the right of the door, and fakely whispered at Rainbow while making her voice pierce through every eardrum in range.

“I used to have a thing going with that guy. Greatest waste of my life, let me tell you. Seriously, who gets an invitation for coffee and brings his own coffee? Who even thinks coffee is actually involved in any shape or form?” The Solar guard in question was standing firm and resolute, seemingly paying no attention to Leaf Stream’s rant as he kept partially turning into a lobster. “All that trouble, and you know what I got in the end? Here’s a tip; Cute doesn’t mean crap, and I don’t simply say that because he’s an idiot. He has the smallest, tiniest—”

Nope. Not registering the rest of that. Twilight followed Fluttershy’s example and gave all her attention to Raegdan. Rainbow Dash’s cackling helped. It covered most of what Leaf Stream was saying, letting only the most innocuous words make it through.

Belts and cucumbers sounded safe enough. She could live with knowing only that much.

Twilight pointed at the small box with some consideration. It reminded her too much of others she had seen. “Can you tell us what’s in that?”

Raegdan’s eyes could barely be seen through the helmet’s slit. “Yes.”

Twilight waited. Cadance giggled after a few moments. “Will you?”

Twilight brought her hoof against her face. Raegdan sat up properly and opened the box. He tilted it so Twilight, Cadance, and Fluttershy could look.

Inside was a lock of white hair, held together by a dark blue ribbon.

“Is that…” Twilight’s mouth went dry.

“I thought it would be nice to have something to put in a monument of some kind. Pressed between two panes of glass with an inscription maybe. Deeply carved. Luna liked the idea.”

“Morbid,” Rainbow Dash said as she walked over. Leaf Stream placed the shield on the couch and then sat down on the same couch, keeping the round piece of metal between her and Raegdan.

“I think it’s a delightful foreshadowing,” Leaf Stream said, after making herself comfortable. “First thing that has been planned for our headquarters here isn’t where we will bunk or eat or keep our armory. No, the first thing we have planned is our freaking graveyard. I’m so excited for what’s to come! I’m going to save me a nice spot, right in the middle.”

Cadance blinked in fascination. “I’m sorry, I don’t think we have been introduced…”

Twilight pointed at Cadance. “Leaf Stream, this is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. Prefers to go by Cadance. She’s an Alicorn, and the Princess of Love. Cadance, this is Leaf Stream, member of the Lunar Guard. She’s a jerk.”

“Excuse you,” Leaf Stream snarled. “I’m a jerk captain of the Lunar Guard.”

“Is… everypony like this?” Cadance covertly whispered.

“They are all… characters,” was the best that Twilight could come up with.

Cadance’s eyes glimmered. “This is going to be fun!”

“Speaking of which, where is the commander and the princess?” Rainbow asked.

Raegdan pointed with his thumb at the guarded doors.

“Is something going on?” Twilight asked, worried.

“Nah. Celestia wants to go over some things with Luna. Mostly budget concerns, plans for the future, new rules, that kind of bore. Solid Charge is in there with her since most of it involves the Lunar Guard. I think Celestia is going about this so formally because she is trying to get Luna introduced in politics and administration. ”

As if waiting for this exact prompt, Luna’s voice thundered from inside, barely muted by the doors at her massive volume.

“I have less than ten guards at the moment! Why all these papers and math? What is this madness that you have wrought upon the realm and ourselves, sister?”

“Best of luck to both of them,” Raegdan said, putting a hand over the helmet as if to cover himself.

“How come you’re not in there?” Rainbow Dash asked, peering towards the closed doors as if she could see through them.

“Yes,” Leaf Stream said with the grin of a hungry wolf. “How come you’re not in there?”

Raegdan huffed, removed his helmet, and placed the box back into the satchel. The black material hid it very well, but Twilight spotted some glistening on a part of the cloth mask he wore. Was it caused by sweat or the ‘oozing’ he had mentioned?

“Because technically I don’t hold any actual rank -yes, you outrank me, grow up-, and besides that, Luna needs to start making her own decisions, without me.”

“Aw, is that graveyard talk?” Leaf Stream cooed.

“Not necessarily. I’m considering a vacation away from you specifically. Frankly, you smell. I think your stubs have started to rot, much like your humor. Why are you of all people sticking around me? Shouldn’t you have stayed with the others?”

“I was wondering that myself,” Twilight said.

Leaf Stream lifted her chin higher. “OK, Mister common guard, first point; Princess Luna needs to have guards—notice the plural—following her. I came along so that the prestige of my rank would offset your plebeianism, not because we are bff’s.”

“Uh-huh. And the real reason?” Raegdan asked.

“I’ve done that part before.” Leaf Stream pointed at Twilight. “I bet the others are breaking their backs moving bunks from one end of the castle to another, right?”

“Well, she’s not wrong,” Twilight admitted with a shrug.

“Yeah, I bet they even have to take them up stairs too. Super surprising how that always happens. Too bad I’m so busy guarding our princess to help. Oh how I long to help my fellows, but alas. Duty.”

Raegdan picked up the folder that had fallen off him and slipped to the side, and threw it at Leaf Stream, making pages float everywhere as the paper cover smacked the pegasus’ muzzle. “At least go through some of these instead of lazing around, miss captain.”

Twilight helped Leaf Stream gather everything up again. She used her magic to bring it all together, and with an instinct forged out of a lifetime doing so, she pulled everything in front of her to make sure they were stacked neatly. A name jumped out at her as she did so, and she read the first paragraph instead of giving up the pages to the expecting pegasus.

She put the pages down. “Sharp Chisel is dead?”

Leaf Stream bit on the reports quick as lighting and pulled them away from her. “I really don’t think you’re supposed to be reading these.”

“But… he died. How? Why?” Her eyes turned to Raegdan out of their own accord. “Did you…”

“Twilight!” Cadance yelled forbiddingly, and then turned disappointed. “This is sad news indeed. I visited an exhibit of his a few months back. It was…” Cadance sighed, shaking her head at the loss. One of her closed eyes peeked open at Raegdan. “I really wish you hadn’t broken his last work. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you for that.”

“For a stupid statue? Really?” Raegdan sounded shocked.

“No, for a work of art. No matter how he turned in the end, Sharp Chisel’s work was to be admired. Why did you have to break it?” Cadance lamented. “It was a piece of Aunt Luna as well. I wish I was as lucky as her.”

“Why are you getting so hung up about it? It was a carved piece of stone.”

“It was art, Raegdan. Art. Does your kind hate it? Do you gather all together and burn paintings and books on holidays maybe?” Cadance said sarcastically.

Raegdan looked offended. “No, of course not! Come on, what do you take my kind for? The only ones who did that were—” He stopped abruptly, his finger hovering in midair in front of Cadance. He slowly lowered it, looking chastened and thoughtful.

“Can we get back to the point, please?” Twilight requested pretty tamely considering she was bubbling with anxiety on the inside.

“Meh. No need to get all twisted up for no reason,” Leaf Stream answered her. She was still scanning over the document, unperturbed. “According to this he had a heart attack while he was being brought here. Not that surprising, the guy was old, and paranoid enough that he had refused to sleep for days. What did he expect?”

“Then it’s—”

“My problem,” Raegdan emphasized absent-mindedly. His thoughts were obviously still elsewhere. He pulled the page out of Leaf Stream’s weak hold and ripped it in shreds. He balled them up and started throwing them at the Solar Guards who tried to endure it stoically.

“Stop that,” one of them barked after the third one hit him straight in the eye.

“Come here and make me, sunny boy.”

“Our problem,” Leaf Stream corrected him after a few moments chuckling, and a couple of throws herself. She turned to Twilight. “Listen, I can see where you’re coming from and that you’re concerned, but let us worry about this particular angle instead, alright? That’s what our job is supposed to be. We might not know who has the bombs, the griffins might not be talking, and we have no idea who is hiding behind the scenes, but...”

Leaf Stream stalled. Her hoof beckoned for Raegdan to jump in. “But, uh… some help here?”

“I don’t know. No one’s dead yet?” Raegdan shrugged.

“Not directly at least. There appear to be some leads in here,” Leaf Stream quickly pointed out before Twilight could say anything, quickly poring through the folder. “Wow, Princess Celestia hasn’t been sitting around. Lots of names here. Seems the apple shaking actually worked. We can take a look and see what pops up. Heck, Princess Luna can try her dream magic too. Nothing about the griffins though. All they do is claim that they decided to try and kill Princess Luna on their own.”

“Could that be true?” Twilight asked. Was this really it? A few individuals who chose to act on their own or some ponies like Sharp Chisel who were hooked or paid by an unknown pony?

“Aunt Celestia doubts that,” Cadance said. “All their equipment was brand new and very expensive. They were financed by somepony at the very least.”

“Yeah, all these pointy arrows add up fast,” Leaf Stream chuckled.

“Worst comes to worst, I could interrogate the griffins myself,” Raegdan offered.

“I, uh, don’t think that idea will fly well with Princess Celestia,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Solid Charge is saying no as well, and I’ve got to agree with him,” Leaf Stream added, frowning in disapproval.

Raegdan let the couch support his back once more. There was a small ripping sound as he moved his leg and one of the sharp edges snagged on the cloth. He shook his head in disappointment. “You all drive me up the wall sometimes. A few hours, that’s all I need. Is that so hard?”

Twilight answered quickly. “No. That’s the problem. Don’t go near them, Raegdan. Let Solid Charge deal with them. If he wants your ‘help’ he will ask for it.” If it was up to Twilight, Solid Charge never would do so. She heavily doubted the minotaur would ever allow it either.

“Honestly, why shouldn’t Raegdan try to ask them? Who knows, he might be able to trick them into talking to him somehow,” Cadance asked innocently. “You guys make it sound like he’s going to torture them.”

Her jesting smile faded as everypony looked away. Raegdan chuckled at the lack of support.

“I was kidding! Raegdan? You’re- You’re not actually going to do something like this, are you?” Cadance’s voice trembled.

“Apparently not,” Raegdan answered. “I hope they’re doing something better than just keeping them in a cell. Starvation and keeping them awake at all times works well enough sometimes. Isolation too. That would break them.”

Cadance put a hoof in front of her mouth and burped. She wavered a little as she stood. “That’s definitely not allowed by aunt Celestia either, not after seeing for herself what it did to you. She knew it was bad, but she didn’t expect that much. She would never forgive herself if you hadn’t made it out ok in the end. You will have to take it up with her. I don’t believe you will be able to convince her.”

“Eh, I kinda gave her wrong assurances at the time. It wasn’t her fault. Anyway, the griffins are not that important at the moment. I’ll get to it in a day or two. We’re going to try and take advantage of the current climate and get some more people to join.”

Rainbow Dash leaped in the air, suddenly excited. “Oh, that reminds me! There are a few ponies I’ve been talking to that want to join. Some of them were interested even before the Baltimare thingy.”

“It’s really nice to see that killing a Leviathan has been demoted to ‘thingy’ now. Any unicorns?” Raegdan asked, pleased.

“One or two. Smoke Ring for instance. He tried to join the Solar Guard, but they turned him down because he didn’t have proper combat talents. That’s what they said at least. I promised you’d give him a chance anyway.”

Raegdan’s finger tapped at his chin. “Smoke Ring? Smoke Ring, Smoke Ring… Wait, is that a guy who has an actual smoke ring on his ass?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Raegdan, it’s called a cutie mark.” It was like he was determined to never call cutie marks by their proper name.

“Yeah.” Rainbow Dash nodded fervently. “You’ve met him?”

“My foot has. I think I made a joke about low visibility at the time, or was it a fart joke? I don’t think he appreciated it either way. So he doesn’t hold a grudge, huh?”

Cadance huffed, amused once more. “Your feet have met almost every guard in the castle.”

“Not my fault. Celestia refuses to give me a complete list so I’ve missed some. They never liked me anyway, and I didn’t like them back. I don’t do well with guards of any kind.” He looked up at Rainbow who was hovering over him. “Hold on a second. You mentioned that before. In that… letter, you sent.”

“Oh yeah. I forgot about that.”

“I think I never really will. You also said there was a rumor going on about me eating ponies and that you took care of it.”

“Of course I did,” Rainbow Dash said in her usual cocky way, doing a somersault around herself. “I said I would, didn’t I?”

“What did you do?”

“It’s simple!” Rainbow Dash explained slowly, as if talking to a group of learning-deficient foals. “Everypony half-believes rumors because they think there might be a nugget of truth in them, right? So, if I wanted ponies not to believe that one I had to make sure it was too stupid to believe. That’s why I blew it up a tad.”

“How?” Twilight asked. She hadn’t known about this either.

“According to current rumors you prefer Alicorn meat.” Rainbow Dash smirked devilishly. “Get it? As in, you took a bite out of Princess Celestia? How stupid does that sound? Who’s going to believe that?”

Raegdan hid his face in his palms, letting out a small groan. Twilight rested her hoof on her own forehead for a second, determined not to say anything.

“What? Too cool?”

“And then aunt Luna walked into the castle with a big chunk missing from her side,” Cadance chortled.

“Oops. I’m so sorry! In my defense, how was I supposed to know this was going to happen? I couldn’t know!” Rainbow Dash hovered in front of Raegdan, begging with her hooves for forgiveness.

“It’s fine,” Raegdan said, sounding amused himself. “As you said, only the idiots will believe that. Hopefully. No real damage done.”

“Umm, has everything been okay then? Nothing else happened while we were gone?” Fluttershy asked Raegdan.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know, nothing. Just in… general.” Fluttershy turned her head away, hiding behind her long mane, but revealing something stirring inside it at the same time.

Raegdan reached out with his hand. “You’ve got something in ther— hey, it tried to bite me!” He shook his gloved hand and stared at Fluttershy suspiciously, saying a strange word. “Meedhusha?”

Angel Bunny popped out of Fluttershy’s mane and hopped on the crown of her head, gesturing wildly at the biped before it, and hissed like a snake.

“Angel Bunny, please be nice,” Fluttershy pleaded softly.

“That’s your pet?” Raegdan sounded amazed.

“Yes. Umm… He didn’t mean it. He’s very nice when you get to know him.”

“Look! He’s shaking his fist at me.”

Fluttershy quickly grabbed Angel Bunny and cradled him against her cheek, trying to keep him out of Raegdan’s sight. The biped wouldn’t have it though. He got up, and bending at the waist, kept following Fluttershy around, watching the little bunny.

“Raegdan, he’s just a little rude. Don’t hurt him,” Twilight said.

“I’m not going to hurt him,” Raegdan reached tentatively for the small pet. “Does he know any other gestures like that?”

Fluttershy and Angel Bunny looked at each other in surprise. “Well…” Fluttershy said quietly before depositing her pet on the couch. Angel Bunny seemed a little put out before it finally hit him that the spotlight was on him. He coughed theatrically and bowed.

Then he jumped around himself, slapped his tail, and started wiggling his bottom while pointing at it with both arms, right towards Raegdan’s covered face. Fluttershy winced and covered her eyes with her hooves, fearful over Raegdan’s response.

Cadance whispered in Twilight’s ear, highly amused. “Aaand… he just fell in love with it.”

Raegdan was laughing with delight at Angel Bunny’s ‘antics’. His reaction was stirring Fluttershy’s pet to greater heights, showing off his complete repertoire, from blowing his tongue, to imitating the slitting of a throat.

“I swear, if I thought I’d have the time to take care of him I would offer to buy him from you.” Raegdan’s laughing proposal urged Angel Bunny to look anxiously at his owner.

“H- He’s not for sale. He’s mine…” Fluttershy weakly said.

“You don’t mind if I…” Raegdan asked, making a vague gesture towards the bunny.

“Oh, no. Please, go ahead.” Fluttershy smiled, much more at ease with where the conversation was heading. “You can pet him as much as—”

Raegdan picked up the bunny and placed him higher on the back of the couch, and stood up himself. “Ok, little guy. I noticed you were missing some good ones. Know how to do the groin thrust?”

Twilight lied down on the floor and covered her face with her front legs. Fluttershy bit her lips and became ripe. Cadance and Rainbow Dash giggled with anticipation. Leaf Stream simply said “Nope,” and turned one hundred and eighty degrees around her axis.

Twilight peeked. She couldn’t help herself and her damned curiosity that damned her every single day.

Okay, yeah, alien and bunny had synchronized their thrusts, switching from left to right as one. That was a thing now. She went back under her forelegs and pretended it was a warm, cozy grave. The two guards behind them were staring. Why did Raegdan have to be like that out in public? Her mother was exactly the same! She wondered who gave this habit to whom.

“Right, this next one is pretty simple but effective. First, you grab your b—”

“No!” Fluttershy shouted. Every eye turned on her and she squatted down. “I- I meant to say that you can’t teach them too many tricks at once. He has to rest now.” Angel Bunny squeaked questioningly, placing a paw against his chest.

Raegdan shrugged, though Twilight could tell by the silent sigh that he was a little disappointed that his fun got interrupted. He picked up Angel Bunny and placed him back on Fluttershy’s head. A white paw lifted up in the air, and when Raegdan disbelievingly placed his open palm near him the bunny slapped his paw against his palm with excitement.

“This little guy is amazing! Luna has to meet him. Has little flame seen him?”

Rainbow almost choked. “Oh, they’ve met, don’t worry.”

“I guess I’ll show you some new moves when I see you again, little guy,” Raegdan said, sitting back on the couch.

Angel Bunny saluted back, and then started thrusting with gusto towards a heavily irritated Leaf Stream from his place atop Fluttershy’s head.

“Oh my. I’ll have to keep you in the house for a few days, Angel Bunny.”

Raegdan leaned forward, staring down the corridors. “Now that I mentioned it, has any of you seen little flame? He wasn’t at the station so I thought he’d meet us here. I’ve been looking for him.”

Right. Twilight had dreaded this moment, but it was a decision she had made after careful thinking, weighing the pros and cons, and being brutally honest with herself all the time. It was time to rip that band aid.

“Spike is not here. Raegdan, there is something we need to talk about. The two of us, alone if you don’t mind.”

Raegdan faced her with suspicion. He didn’t refuse however. He picked up his shield and helmet from his side, and rose up again, wearing the helmet once more rather than carrying it.

“I should probably go and check the tower anyway before Luna comes out and insists on helping. We can talk on the way. You’re not coming in though, just to be clear, not until I finish up.”

“Wait, you’re seriously going to leave me alone? With those guys?” Leaf Stream asked loudly, her hoof pointing behind her at the Solar Guards. “What if they try to take advantage of my supple body? Do you understand the disappointment I’m in for?”

Cadance tittered behind her hoof, evidently enjoying Leaf Stream’s banter. “I’ll stay with you while Rainbow Dash goes to get one of your fellows to join you. It will give us some time to talk.”

Rainbow Dash puffed up, ready to show off. “Ha. Not as much time as you’d want to. I’ll be back in ten seconds flat.” And with that she zoomed off in the wrong direction.

Leaf Stream smirked at Cadance and turned her back to Raegdan and Twilight, heading back to one of the couches with her. “Princess of Love, huh? That must be fun. Does this extend to both stallions and mares or do you swing one way only?”

Cadance hummed, doubtful of her poor choice.

“Have fun, Cadance,” Raegdan yelled behind him as he left. Twilight trotted to catch up with him.

Fluttershy ran along behind them, reddening when Twilight glanced back at her. “Um, can I come along, please? I’ll stay behind and won’t bother you. I’ll let you talk.”

Twilight nodded, allowing this courtesy to her friend and Raegdan not caring at all. She walked side by side with Raegdan, following a twisting path that would take them to the inner entrance of Luna’s tower.

It felt like old times in a way. At least as long as she let herself forget how Raegdan was currently dressed. The two of them walking in the corridors of the castle, ponies smiling at her and greeting her while nervously glancing at the protector next to her who chuckled in dark amusement. It was like she was a filly again.

Much of it was due to how the last couple of days had been. After taking down those ponies in Manehattan Raegdan seemed to relax, to the point that today it actually felt as if she had the old Raegdan back. The one who would crack jokes every now and then, and would be mostly antagonistic rather than properly hostile.

The old her, the one from less than a month back, would see that as a sign of progress. The new and experienced Twilight 2.0 knew otherwise. He hadn’t gotten better and neither would he ever, not in so little of time. He was weighed down by too much to even consider—what a fool she had been—that he would be fine after a few weeks. Princess Celestia had the right idea, being immensely patient and taking her time. She simply had to continue like that, watching him as much as she could and keeping him from sliding back.

What an easy thing to do with current events being what they were~

The tilde at the end of a sentence means sarcasm.

Little steps, where she would have to make sure nopony innocent got hurt while making them, that was the ticket. Including those who could be hurt by other than his bouts of violence. Which was what she needed to get her flank moving and start doing.

“Where is little flame if he’s not here, then?” Raegdan finally asked, tired of waiting.

“Home. With my parents,” Twilight specified.

“Huh. Why didn’t Velvet bring him along at the station then?”

“She didn’t because you weren’t the only one who sent a letter a few days ago.”

Raegdan chuckled, but Twilight could feel he was starting to become tense. “Are you going to make me pull it out of you word by word, littl—Twilight?”

Twilight shook her head, both to tell him no, but to also clear her head. Rip that band aid, Twilight. Rip it. “A few years ago, a few months before I went to Ponyville actually, Princess Celestia had her role as Spike’s guardian transferred to me. As far as the law is concerned I am responsible for him like a parent would be.”

“You’re a little too young to have this thrust upon you, aren’t you? Celestia should have asked me instead. Little flame would have liked that.”

“Princess Celestia didn’t have me appointed as Spike’s guardian because she minded the responsibility or anything like that. She did it because as the adult pony who kept Spike under her supervision almost constantly I was the most appropriate one to make decisions for his welfare. She asked me, and I accepted.”

They walked in silence for a little while. A small part of Twilight hoped he would understand, that he wouldn’t push, but of course he would. Even if he didn’t she would have to explain further anyway.

“Twilight, what are you trying to say to me?” Raegdan spoke very carefully, keeping his voice painfully level.

Twilight sighed. “I told mom to keep Spike away from you until we had this discussion. You are no longer allowed in Spike’s presence unless I’m also there or someone else that I have appointed, like mom or Princess Celestia. You will—”

Raegdan stopped in place. There was a barely audible gasp from Fluttershy behind them, but true to her word she stayed otherwise silent. Twilight kept an eye on his hands. The fingers were completely still, suspiciously so. “Little flame is like… You can’t do this!”

“I can, and I have.” She spoke gently, and placed a placating hoof on his leg. “This doesn’t mean that you’re forbidden from seeing him or spending time with him at all. It just means that there are some rules in place for Spike’s protection.”

“Protection from what?” Raegdan shouted. Twilight pulled back, frowning pointedly, and he took a deep breath, the faintest whistle coming from the air holes in his helmet.

“From you.” She continued quickly, to explain herself before he could interrupt her. “Raegdan, Spike sees you as his dad, but the problem is that you… you simply can’t be one right now. I don’t mean that just because of the problems you have, but they are a significant factor. You held a knife to his neck, remember?”

“That wasn’t my—”

“Maybe it wasn’t, and I neither believe it was nor do I blame you, but you did. Even if that hadn’t happened, I still would have made the same decision.” There was a window to the right. She hopped on her hind legs and looked outside, away from him and the hurt she was inflicting.

“You simply can’t be what Spike wants from you, especially now. When Night Lilly died I… I was hurt. I needed somepony to sit with me, to help me through what I saw happen, not just to her but Rarity and... My friends did so for me, even though they were hurting themselves. I stayed up half the night trying not to cry and failing, and where were you? You had stalked off to find a pony to hurt, somepony who was so scared that he didn’t realize what he had done. You didn’t even think twice. That was your priority. How then can I entrust you alone with Spike? He believes in you so much. I simply don’t want to—”

“Burst his bubble?” Raegdan almost growled.

“Let him lose that faith in you. If something similar happens, and recent events lead me to believe it is very possible, then I can’t in good conscience allow you to be alone with Spike when I can’t be certain that his safety, physical or emotional, won’t be your primary concern. This is for the best of both of you, and it will only be for as long as I think it’s necessary. I promise.”

“This isn’t fair, Twilight.”

“No it isn’t!” Twilight snapped. She was doing her best out of an impossible task and he dared to whine like a petulant colt? “It is not fair to me that I have to make such decisions, because you know what? I am too young, but here I am. It is not fair to Spike because all he wants is a parent that will focus on him, and he can’t have that! But you? Think of everything you’ve done, Raegdan, and then tell me. Would you of all people entrust Spike to somepony like you? As far as you are concerned, this is extremely lenient. You have no grounds to complain. I’ve been bending over for you!”

Twilight twisted around to finally look at him. His fingers were trembling: wanting to make a fist but forcing not to, and she noticed he retreated a couple steps from her. His helmet she had started to abhor was aimed straight at her. Twilight glared back, equally fuming. He had no possible retort, and no action he could take against her. Her decision would stand.

He never got to agree because they were interrupted. Four large minotaurs appeared, each of them dressed in armor and wielding a gigantic, two headed axe. Two of them approached from behind them, Fluttershy backing away from them until her behind smacked into Twilight, the other two in front, boxing them in. Raegdan surreptitiously moved in front of the ponies, lightly pushing them towards the window.

Twilight had the very sudden notion that if the minotaurs got too close he would throw them out the window.

“Can we help you?” Twilight asked pleasantly, though a little haltingly.

The minotaurs kept a respectable distance from them, but didn’t leave them any space to go through. One of them spoke up. “King Crucible, ruler of Minos, demands this Lunar Guard’s presence.”

“Well, you can tell old Crucy that he can demand on one hand and shi—”

“Raegdan!” Twilight stopped him, horrified. “Forgive us. We will be glad to accept his invitation,”

“King Crucible has not asked for your presence,” the same minotaur stated.

“He is getting us as a freebie, then,” Twilight flared, tired of all the dancing around. Celestia, was everything connected with the castle and royalty so frustrating? No wonder Princess Celestia kept reiterating how much she loved her letters from Ponyville. They must have been like a breath of fresh air.

Twilight and Fluttershy stood next to Raegdan. “Shall we, then?”

Rarity wasn’t sure. Not yet.

She walked to the entrance and stared down the long room from the threshold. She humphed, annoyed to find herself right, and walked to the end of the room, trying to get a better sense of the space. She didn’t have to, the voice inside her head was screaming at her, roaring to be heard, demanding that the wrong be made right. She ignored it for as long as she could. She needed a complete view first.

She was sure now. This was wrong. Completely, utterly, irrevocably, thoroughly, and unconditionally wrong.

“I’m sorry, darlings, but we must move the beds perpendicular to this wall. Hup-hup, now. Here are some good lads. Cradle Song, please, there is no need for such crude displays. All you’re accomplishing is staining the wall. I’ll have you clean all of it if you don’t stop.”

Cradle Song stopped beating his forehead against the wall, and stumbled in defeat back to the bunk beds, ready to drag them to a new position once more.

“Since we’re making changes,” Broken Gust grunted, “is it ok if I put a sheet around my bed?” Her dark blue mane was plastered on her head, filled with sweat.

“Why?” Cradle Song asked innocently.

Broken Gust was already flustered from the tiring work, so it was hard to gauge if she blushed or not. “For, uh… privacy. So you don’t hear me. I mean, I snore. A lot.”

“Is that what they call it now?” Eventide was sitting comfortably on a chair, excused from the backbreaking labor and lording over them like a spider queen while her nefarious vizier set them all to work on pointless tasks, designed to simply drain them so they could feast on them.

At least that’s how Applejack put it. With three of their small number vanished, and then losing Drum Beat when Rainbow Dash came and told them he had guard duty to do, the strong earth pony was conscripted for her talents as was Rarity for her own.

So, they pushed and Rarity told them where.

“Anyone have some wax I can borrow for my ears tonight?” Cast Iron asked with a grimace of understanding.

Cradle Song gagged, his face full of disgust and awkwardness. “I’ll go into town and buy earplugs. I’ll get a set for you too.”

“Really classy, you guys. Is this really what you think of me?” Broken Gust moaned, breathing heavily.

“Does that mean I don’t have to buy earplugs then?” Cradle Song asked. Sweat was dripping by the end of his red beard, and he attempted to lay on the bed he just positioned before Rarity stopped him with an authoritative click of her tongue.

“You know what? Screw you guys. Spread the word and buy earplugs for everypony. I’ve got a lot of stress, and if I want to deal with it by rubbing my—”

Rarity frowned. “Broken Gust, please. Your behavior doesn’t befit a lady. No more of this crass talk.”

“You’re lucky you have a sweet flank,” Broken Gust grumbled beneath her breath, pushing again.

“I’m sorry?”

“Sweet, I’m almost done. Here, right?”

Rarity took a few steps back, and measured everything with a critical eye. “Not bad. Oh, but the floor,” she lamented. “We need carpets. Some drapes too. I’m going to ask Paisley Leaf if—”

“Okay, that does it!” Applejack yelled. She wasn’t as sweaty or tired as the others were, but that wasn’t because she had worked any less hard than the rest of them. “First of all, this is a dormitory. A temporary one for guards. They don’t need carpets, and even if they did we already put the bunk beds in place. Second, there are no windows to put drapes on.”

“Applejack, a homely place to rest will be good for the state of their morale.”

“You’ve already broken my morale,” Broken Gust mumbled.

“Pardon?”

“My morale is unbroken. Turn back around.”

“Point is, ah’m tired and ah’m hungry, and if ah have to change everything again because your ‘muse’ tells you to ah’m gonna have a stroke. We’ve been at this for hours.”

Rarity rolled her eyes. Leave it to Applejack to be overly dramatic over nothing at all. Making a mountain out of a molehill like a small, spoiled foal. “I suppose we can take a small break if you are going to be so difficult. I could nibble something myself. You should eat something hearty too, Applejack. Your stamina is sorely lacking today.”

Applejack’s jaw trembled, and her right eyelid spasmed a couple of times. She took a deep breath, held it for a second, and deflated like a balloon. “Why, thank ya kindly for being so thoughtful and considerate, Rarity. Ah’d like that.”

Was that sarcasm?

“It is no problem,” Rarity said charitably, leading her friend out. “Would you like to have a bath first? You look like… There is an aroma… You don’t portray your possible best at the moment.”

“Chow first,” Applejack insisted.

“Of course.” Rarity switched directions. She had been intending to dine at one of the fine establishments in Canterlot, but due to her current predicament—vis a vis a stubborn, sweaty, earth pony mare—it would have to be the castle’s mess hall instead. Maybe even the actual kitchens if she could manage it.

“Where’s Pinkie Pie? Still exploring the castle with Stormdrain?”

“Most possibly. I prefer not to know lest I have to share in the responsibility of her shenanigans myself.”

They chanced on a lot of ponies as they walked, and all of them were talking in low voices, most of them whispering to each other. Feeling particularly self aware Rarity was trying to stand a little further from her farmer friend. Applejack, of course, simply altered her course to walk right next to her again.

“I mean, I don’t even like him, but I would never wish that to happen to him.”

“Rarity, hold on. Did ya hear that?” Applejack said, putting a hoof on her, and staring back at two Royal guards conversing.

Rarity quickly wiped her coat before the suspicious moisture had time to stain her. “Applejack, dear, it’s not proper to eavesdrop.”

“Shhh! Listen,” Applejack ordered.

“Is he going to live?”

“Which one? That was a lot of damage. I mean, just the eye alone…” The guard shivered.

“What did he think he was doing picking a fight?”

The other guard sighed. “I don’t know. I hope Princess Celestia can deal with her sister. She’ll go on the warpath when she finds out, I bet. Best we can hope for is that everypony makes it out alive.”

Rarity and Applejack turned to each other, their thoughts reaching the same conclusion at the same time, and running together as one. They had to find Twilight!

Twilight had been in this room before.

It wasn’t like this last time. It was a drawing room for ponies to sit and enjoy the garden view through the open balcony in spring, summer, or even warm autumn days. The room now lay almost barren of all furniture. All that remained was a small round table over a blue carpet, where a bowl of oranges was laid on, and two simple chairs. One of them was empty. On the other sat a king.

King Crucible was wearing full armor. Gold and brushed steel hugged his body, practical in form, and surprisingly plain with only gold accents decorating it. He wore an open faced helm with spikes rising upwards in lieu of a crown. It reminded Twilight of Raegdan’s own helm. An axe lay at his side, one handed and small compared to the ones his bodyguards held, but still large and heavy for a pony.

His bodyguards entered behind Twilight and Raegdan, and took places by the door and the balcony, saying nothing at all. The king of Minos was currently focused on peeling an orange. He didn’t even look up as they entered.

The bodyguards bowed their heads and left with a single, silent gesture by the king, leaving the three of them alone with him.

Raegdan motioned for Twilight and Fluttershy to wait by the wall. Twilight decided not to push it, and did as he asked. It was obvious that King Crucible only meant to speak to one of them, and that wasn’t her or Fluttershy. Better to stay aside in here than be forced outside. She made sure to take a bow first, even if King Crucible pretended not to pay attention to them.

Raegdan picked up the chair and turned it sideways before he sat down so he would have to turn his head to speak to the minotaur king. Raegdan’s back was now turned against the wall rather than the door. King Crucible choked a single bark of laughter when he did that.

“Here I am,” Raegdan announced, rude as you please against royalty.

“Here you are,” King Crucible agreed, nodding slowly. He offered the naked orange in his hand. “Would you like a slice?”

“I’m good,” Raegdan refused.

The king huffed, amused. “I believe a lot of ponies would disagree.” He grabbed two oranges and threw them towards Twilight and Fluttershy. Twilight caught the gently thrown fruits in her magic easily.

“Thank you,” she called out, passing one to Fluttershy.

“Why am I here?” Raegdan asked.

“A question that all of us ask at one point in our lives,” King Crucible joked.

“Ah. You’re going to be cute.”

The armored minotaur started peeling another orange. “I’ve got questions. You’ve got answers.” All signs of joviality left him as he scrutinized Raegdan’s armor, his mouth becoming a thin line at every crescent moon. “I never would have expected you to wear her sigils,” he said darkly, popping a piece of fruit in his mouth.

“So this is what it’s all about. You don’t like Princess Luna.”

The king shrugged, carefully separating the juicy pieces one by one. “I don’t know her. For all I know I might like her... as a pony. What I don’t like is her past and the chance for another Nightmare Moon incident.”

Raegdan huffed. “Dear heavens. Get a few thousands killed and they never let you live it down.”

“Outrageous, right? Do you know what a king does, Raegdan?”

“Sit on a throne?”

“You’re going to be cute yourself, I see. He protects his people. Looks after them, and their welfare. This is what I am trying to do. The Night Bringer actually looked for, found, and then allowed a demon to take her over. This is not the kind of pony I trust with any kind of power that can potentially harm my subjects. So no, I don’t like her. ”

Raegdan stayed silent. His head swivelled, pausing at every corner of the empty room for a second before returning to the king. “I hope you’re not getting any ideas.”

“About killing her you mean?” King Crucible leaned his body back. “I had this very discussion with Celestia. This option is currently… off the table,” he rubbed his eyes. “I could push the issue perhaps. I have some very good leverage now, especially with the mess in Baltimare, or I could even marshall my armies, but I won’t. For Celestia’s sake mostly. In the chance she’s right to hope. She knows what she’s doing more often than not. I will trust her on this if she’s so firm in her belief.”

Raegdan stood. “I have work to do. I’m glad that’s settled—”

“Sit back down!” King Crucible ordered harshly, his hands steepled beneath his chin. “We are not done.”

Raegdan stayed standing. “I like you, but if you think you can order me around you have another thing coming,” he warned.

“Leave then, and I’ll take any following actions under the consideration that you and your new master are hostile,” King Crucible threatened.

Raegdan sat down slowly, chuckling. “And here I thought that we were friends.”

King Crucible’s guffaw shook the room. “I always did like your style. So unlike Celestia, it made me wonder how she put up with you. At least you didn’t flinch from doing what needed to be done.” King Crucible put a hand against his chest. “You’ll always have my approval for saving Twilight Sparkle as you did.”

“Thanks.”

“But I can’t help but wonder, why did you flinch on the Night Bringer?”

Raegdan crossed his arms and put one foot over the other. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“Fine. Princess Luna then. I kept expecting to hear that you killed her or tried to.”

The steel helmet shook left and right in disappointment. “Why does everyone always expect this to be my go to reaction for everything?”

“Not that important, I guess,” King Crucible said, abandoning this line of questioning. He gathered up the orange peels, reaching to the floor to gather one or two that fell off, and threw them back into the bowl. “Maybe you can tell me a thing or two about the Leviathan then?”

Raegdan’s head moved slyly towards the king. “I suppose you’re going to humbly ask us to take care of yours?”

King Crucible laughed again. “Ah, I already know how that will go. A promise that you will, only to be delayed over and over. Please, you’d never actually go against the Mountain, not when you could dangle the promise of its death like a carrot in front of my face forever. You’re no Celestia, Raegdan, and neither is the princess you serve.”

Raegdan’s thumbs circled each other on his lap. Twilight almost denied the accusation, but held her tongue at the last possible moment, in no small part thanks to Fluttershy’s hoof on her shoulder. She kept silent.

King Crucible had always been a level, pragmatic, and reasonable figure. If he held a grudge against Luna then it was better to do as Raegdan did. Let him vent, say what he wanted to say, and say as little as possible in return, making sure not to give him anything that he could take as validation to what he thought or misconstrued.

She just hoped that Raegdan was up to the task.

“But the one in Baltimare, that is the one I’m interested in,” the heavily armored minotaur king continued, his hand stroking his jaw. “Especially the massive explosion. What exactly did you do?”

“I farted,” Raegdan deadpanned. Twilight choked on the orange. It obviously had been the wrong time to try and swallow. “I was a bomb loaded with beans.”

The king chuckled. “Funny, but no. Did… Princess Luna do something? I would like to hear the truth.”

“Fine, you got me,” Raegdan raised his hands in surrender. “It was Luna. She farted. I was just there to light the match. Way to be an ass and call out a lady like that.”

King Crucible leaned back on his seat. His right hand was under his chin, lightly scratching it, while the left one tapped rhythmically on the table. His gaze was locked on Raegdan who withstood it with no apparent complaint at all.

Twilight felt like squirming under that penetrating stare, and it wasn’t even directed at her. It wasn’t a vacant stare or simply a watchful eye. King Crucible’s glare was like a physical presence, an immense weight beyond anything she had ever witnessed, somehow similar yet radically different to Princess Celestia’s.

Raegdan stared back, unmoved.

A wolfish grin, revealing large, flat teeth, spread over King Crucible’s face. “You can’t do it again. Whatever it was, however you did it, you can’t. I don’t know if it was a fluke, random chance, or a one-use spell or weapon, and I don’t care. You can’t.” The king stood up, slowly. The room was filled with his presence. He was so large, tall as Raegdan, but wider, more massive.

“That only leaves me one final question.”

“I’m all ears. The sooner we’re done, the bett—”

They both moved as one. Raegdan kicked the table towards King Crucible and fell sideways, rolling away immediately, even as the axe swished past where his head was a moment before.

Solid Charge tried to keep notes. He didn’t see any particular reason to do so, he wasn’t even sure what everything he wrote down was or how important it was, but he thought it was better to be safe than sorry. It also kept him busy, letting him pretend that he was able to ignore what was happening.

“Luna, if you could please pay attention rather than keep destroying the curtains, I’d be much obliged,” Princess Celestia pleaded. Solid Charge was immensely impressed. The ancient princess had more patience than a mountain.

“Your words wound me, sister. I am not demolishing thy drapes. I am simply dismantling them so they may be of use.” Luna rubbed her chest over her heart. “I think something I ate gave me heartburn…”

“You are making nooses!” Princess Celestia pointed out. “Luna, please. We need to go over jurisdiction rules after we sign off on this quarter’s equipment budget.” Solid Charge perked up. At least this next part was something he actually needed to pay attention to and would come of use.

“All the more reason to hurry up. Worry not, sister, I am making one for you too. We shall find release from this torment together.” Princess Luna stopped tying knots for a moment. “My commander, would you like a noose of your own?”

“Erm, no. Thank you nonetheless, Princess.” At times he felt as if he had put one around his neck on a certain night in a certain alley anyway.

“You have been spending too much time with Raegdan!” Princess Celestia accused her sister with a hoof pointing straight at her. She gave Solid Charge a thankful smile. “Thank you for not encouraging her.”

Princess Celestia’s hoof reached forward to grasp one of the dozens of pages spread on the table. Instead it booped Twilight Sparkle’s nose who appeared in a flash.

“Twilight? Is something wrong?” Princess Celestia immediately asked. Princess Luna abandoned her hoofwork to the floor and paid close attention to the young mare.

The purple unicorn was breathing hard, and for a few seconds she seemed unsure of where she was. Solid Charge managed to get a glimpse of her eyes, and he didn’t like what he saw. The pupils were contracted so much that her irises were almost the new pupils, filled with fear.

“Raegdan! West Rose View in the castle grounds! Won’t stop! It was the filly, and he got hit, and then he was down, and he hit me, he’s got him and he won’t stop, he doesn’t listen—”

“Twilight, calm down! I’m going there right now, follow me.” It took Twilight Sparkle, normally one of the smartest persons he had known, a second or two to register what the princess said to her. She nodded fervently, and the two vanished in the flash of magic.

Princess Luna’s eyes went wide, and she jumped towards them, just as they teleported. “Wait! Where is—”

Solid Charge doubted they ever heard her.

The Alicorn he now served was turning in place like a lost child, trying to find its bearings. “West Rose View? Which place is that supposed to be? Where is it? Where is it?”

“I don’t know,” Solid Charge said. “Don’t you? It’s your home, princess.”

“This castle is not my home!” Princess Luna shouted. She bit her bottom lip, ferociously. A drop of blood welled out and dripped down her chin. “The tower. He’ll go to my tower. He’ll be fine. He won’t leave me alone. He’ll go to the tower!”

“Princess Luna, wait—”

“Find him, and get him to the tower if he isn’t there already! I’ll go there now!”

“Wait, we—” Too late. The princess teleported away, too lost in her anxiety and personal fears.

“—can ask the guards,” Solid Charge finished saying to no one. He looked around him. No time to worry about papers. He had to find where exactly west rose view was.

Twilight could never get the hang of fighting. True, most— alright, all physical activities eluded her grasp, but nothing more than martial activity, unless she relied heavily on her magic. It required something more than thought, no matter how fast your mind was. In fact, thinking could be a downside.

It was more about actions and reactions. A balance of will and motion, and actual balance of course. The ability to move and shift while retaining a proper stance, and yet still be able to dodge or block, without ever losing the ability to attack and counterattack. You had to know everything your body was doing without paying attention to it, and at the same time pay close attention to everything your opponent’s body was doing.

One tip that always stayed with her, that Twilight was certain almost everypony had heard of, was to watch your opponent’s eyes. She scoffed inwardly. Like that was a nugget of wisdom that could change the outcome of a fight. It wasn’t. You could watch your opponent’s eyes all you wanted, but it meant nothing if you couldn’t understand what you were seeing, and that took experience, time, and learning your current foe. That meant you had to survive until you could get a read on him.

The other thing was that the other side of the fight might know that little, very-well-known tip too. At best it meant that the opponent would try to read you too. Worse, he might try to trick you.

The worst option was that he could do what King Crucible did: Give away nothing at all.

Raegdan’s hammer swung from the right, in a low curve. The minotaur king blocked it with his own weapon, looking terribly at ease as he did so, as he did every time he blocked so far. The hammer’s haft met the axe’s. King Crucible rotated his grip and savagely pulled it back. The hammer’s haft slipped under the axe’s heel of the head, and got trapped in its grip like a hooked fish. The handle escaped Raegdan’s grasp and his weapon flew up and away from him. Raegdan swore heavily, in a mix of his own language and Equestrian.

King Crucible took two steps back and caught it deftly in his left hand.

Twilight had seen Raegdan fight. She knew he was good, and she had been assured so as well by others who were more experienced than her.

How many times had he fought like this though, with his metal shield and a war hammer? Once in the arena, once against the griffins, once in Manehattan… He had practiced, obviously. But practice was one thing, fighting was another.

King Crucible had been fighting for years, at the forefront of any battle he could find, seeking out monsters on his own as a hobby if he could find no opponents. Nopony ever said that King Crucible was good. They all agreed that he was the best. Unbeatable.

The king stepped forward, wary of Raegdan’s legs. He had already tried to kick him once, but the minotaur managed to step away from his attempt, and now he was prepared for it. Every trick that Raegdan attempted wouldn’t work if he tried it a second time.

The axe cut through the air first. The king followed the pull of his arm and performed a move that looked unique to bipeds, pirouetting around his hoof in a stunning display of balance almost unheard of from a minotaur. The hammer’s head followed quickly in succession.

Raegdan’s shield blocked the axe strike, and was able to retreat from the following hammer blow. There was a tiny amount of space and time, and he took advantage to try another thing the king had never seen before. He rushed forward and punched with the shield, the curved edge at point. His whole body coordinated in the strike. Legs pushed against the floor, the waist turned and shoulder and arm moved as one. The shield’s edge struck the minotaur cleanly on the chest.

King Crucible was pushed back by the blow, but he regained his balance at once, the weapons ready in front of him before Raegdan could push his momentary advantage. The hit had been hard, driven by all of Raegdan’s strength, but his opponent was tougher, as well as armored. It probably gave nothing more than a slight bruise.

Twilight’s former guard didn’t try to attack again. He rapidly retreated. There was a snapping noise, and a leather strap was thrown away. Raegdan was now holding the shield with both hands. She knew that the shield had two anchors. A grip at the edge of his shield, and a half hook for his forearm where he could wear it by strapping it on. He was now using both of these as handheld grips.

King Crucible attacked, an avalanche of blows, seemingly without stop, coming from all directions. Raegdan’s shield blocked them all. He was able to easily twist and turn towards each hit. When the attacks ceased he tried to counterattack.

The shield pushed forward like a battering ram. King Crucible stepped back, but Raegdan followed along and copied King Crucible’s previous attack. He rotated around his heel, gaining ground and momentum. His shield’s edge rushed from the side, causing the king to dodge awkwardly, breaking his serenity for the first time.

“Nice one,” King Crucible acknowledged, sounding genuinely impressed.

“Thanks. It’s all in the hips,” Raegdan spat back as caustically as possible.

He tried to follow with another rushing attack, but the king sidestepped. Then, in the fraction of a second, the axe was left to fall to the ground. King Crucible’s strong hand gripped the shield and ripped it away from Raegdan, throwing it behind him with no concern.

Raegdan carried daggers on his belt. He unsheathed one of them, the blade hissing a steel whisper as it left its scabbard. King Crucible scoffed, and approached, now wielding only Raegdan’s hammer. Raegdan knelt to the ground. He grabbed the carpet and pulled.

It didn’t budge much, not with its size and the weight it bore, but it was enough. King Crucible stumbled, and Raegdan rushed to use the opportunity.

It might have worked if it hadn’t been a ruse.

Suddenly stable again, Crucible whipped the hammer down. Raegdan’s left forearm rose. There was a grunt of pain, and Twilight saw the thick vambrace fold, painfully pressing the flesh beneath.

The king chuckled. He gave Raegdan a moment’s rest before he swung again. Raegdan moved back, but he was considerably slower this time. Much slower. What was a blow meant to make him retreat struck his thigh.

There was a long, dark purple cloth that hung down from Raegdan’s belt all the way to his knees, containing a peculiar weaving of metal rings she had never seen before, but very flexible. It was meant to add some extra protection to the joints, as well as hide their vulnerability from view. Raegdan’s arm went behind it, cradling his thigh as he backed off half-crouching from the advancing minotaur. Crucible smiled victoriously.

Twilight had let this go on long enough. She finally obeyed the quiet, rapid urgings of Fluttershy to stop what was happening.

She teleported right between them, just as King Crucible was raising the hammer. She stared up at him and followed the example of one of her mentors.

She coughed, disapprovingly, just like her mom did, staring right into the king’s eyes. Then swivelled her head around, and repeated the same at Raegdan.

Both combatants stopped in their tracks, lowering their heads like unruly foals.

“Are you done?” she asked forbiddingly, injecting as much of her mother’s patented ‘I’m at the end of my patience’ tone in her voice. It worked. No idea how it kept working, but there you have it.

Twilight made a mental note to make a study on the connection between violence seeking individuals and their upbringing, mainly their mothers. She had a good starting point so far, she felt.

King Crucible threw the hammer next to Raegdan. “I suppose,” he said. He passed next to her and offered Raegdan a hand. He waited for a few seconds until it was obvious his offer would not be accepted, but Raegdan thrust his arm up and caught it.

He rose up with the king’s help, still clutching his thigh under the armored cloth. King Crucible in the meantime went around the room, picking up his own axe and Raegdan’s shield, surrendering the large piece of metal to Raegdan.

“I have what I wanted anyway,” the king continued. “I am done here.”

“That attack was completely unprovoked!” Twilight shouted, bristling with outrage.

The minotaur king grunted, deeply amused. “Not entirely, young miss Sparkle. I know that you and your friends have the capacity to take down Nightmare Moon. I know that Princess Celestia will try to contain her. I know that there are armies ready to stand against her if she tries anything, mine foremost of all.” He pointed at Raegdan. “What I didn’t know is him. He was the only unknown left that worried me, especially since he joined her.”

“What is that supposed to mean? You started a fight and now it’s over?” Twilight demanded to know.

“Indeed.” He smiled widely. “I can take him in a fair fight easy enough. Intimidation can take you only so far,” he said to Raegdan, chuckling. “There always comes a time when you need to back your claims. He’s just a guard after all. I worried over nothing.”

King Crucible took his axe in hand, and briefly lowered his head respectfully at Twilight. She couldn’t help but feel bashful at the gesture. “Miss Twilight, I once again thank you for all your contributions. I wish I could spend some time conversing with you, but I need to make preparations to get back to my own home. Goodbye.”

“Careful not to trip, break your legs, smash your head open, and get your crotch infected on your way to shit country!” Raegdan shouted at his back as the king left, roaring with laughter, leaving the three of them alone.

“Raegdan, are you okay? Do you need medical assistance?” Twilight asked, trotting to his side.

“I don’t know. Is there anyone who can mend a broken pride?” He stood up, groaning slightly. “He fucking destroyed me and he wasn’t even serious.”

Fluttershy was trembling all over as she ran to them. A long strand of her pink mane had become a thick, salivated mess, as she had been chewing on it in her distress. “Oh, thank goodness you’re alright. I was worried that he was going to really hurt you or cripple you. I thought it was going to be awful!”

“What?” Raegdan said loudly. “Really? What gave you that idea? The axe going for my neck?”

“You don’t have to be sarcastic,” Twilight reprimanded him. “Fluttershy is worried about you.”

Raegdan lifted up his arms in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. I’m sorry, Fluttershy. I’m fine, no need to worry. Just have to take this off.” He shook his right arm, grunting.

The armor protecting his forearm was completely ruined. He undid the straps, and after quite some pull, he managed to take it off. The padding within had been excavated too, straps of it dragged away along with the metal, and the skin beneath had been scratched deeply and bled.

“Do you need to get this looked at?”

“It’s nothing but a scratch, Twilight. Not even worth mentioning.”

Fluttershy let out a relieved breath, sagging in place so much that Twilight feared for a moment that she was going to faint. “I’m so glad that… I’m, um, I’m going to go. I need to lie down for a bit now that nothing happened.”

“Day’s not over yet,” Raegdan said, finding his humor again.

“Oh, please don’t say that. Twilight, I’ll see you all later.”

“It’s fine, Fluttershy, go rest.” She waited for the yellow pegasus to leave. Raegdan was standing up just as she turned back to him. “Can you walk?”

Raegdan seemed to be taken aback by the question. “Uh, yeah. I’m not tired, it didn’t last long anyway.”

“I mean your leg!” Twilight reminded him, worried. Oh Celestia, did he hit his head again? Did the short memory lapses return?

“My… oh. Oh!” He exclaimed, his palm striking the metal forehead. His hand went back behind the armored cloth and came back out holding a cylindrical piece of metal, his fingers firmly on the protruding stick along the length of it. There were holes covering its surface.

She had seen a few like it weeks ago in the secret workshop that he and Luna had. Rarity had described the exact same one. Her mouth went dry at once.

“You are hiding explosives under your dress?”

“It’s... a combat skirt at worst. And no, this isn’t an explosive one. I’m not keeping one of them near my junk, no matter how sure I am they won’t go off. This one only does a loud bang and flashes light.”

He weighed it in his hand. He took a few steps towards the balcony and opened the glass door. “Too bad I pulled the safety pin already. I only have this one on me.” He threw it out, high up, the stick popping off and clinking on the floor as it left his hand, and closed the door.

Five seconds later there was a brief flash, almost blinding even though it wasn’t in view, and an extraordinary loud noise that rattled the glass. She caught a glimpse of two pegasi Royal guards falling from their flight, holding their eyes.

“You’re not hurt then? You were pretending?”

Raegdan gathered up his shield and hammer. He tried to get the strap back in place but gave up after a couple of tries. “It was either that or pretend to really need to scratch if I wanted to get a hold of it without letting him know.” The eyes behind the helmet’s slit turned sideways to look at her, glinting impishly. “As he said, I can’t take him in a fair fight.”

“You could win?”

He shrugged. “Maybe? Depends on too many things. Not fighting him like this mostly. I probably would have jumped off the balcony after he was blinded. I don’t like battles I can’t win, and he would never hurt you.” He bend down to gather a couple of oranges. “Gotta go check the tower.”

Twilight stepped along, naturally moving back by his side. “You know, Princess Celestia has had Shining Armor make sure nopony even approached it. You do trust Shining Armor, don’t you?”

“Still gonna check.” He looked both ways with care after crossing the door, waiting for a few seconds before getting back on the path to Luna’s tower. Twilight tried to follow but he stopped. “I’m going to be busy for a while. Go back to your friends or go rest or something.”

“I… wanted us to talk a little more about Spike,”

“No need. We will do as you said. I’ll see you both before you leave if you let me.” He headed off, not waiting for a reply. He left her alone in the middle of the corridor, running back to something familiar that whispered a promise she couldn’t give.

Author's Note

This is actually half of a chapter that was meant as whole. The next part (plus a very small Interlude) is going to be published as soon as it is edited. And I draw some art(hah!) of course. Thank you all for your understanding and patience.

Ch.32 - Oft Evil Will Shall Evil Mar

Twilight’s slow walk was interrupted by the sight of a lone rose, bent and broken. All the other blooms of the rose bush were lovely raised, a few drops of rare, sparkling moisture still clinging to the soft petals of some. All of them stood proud and beautiful, except this one.

It must have been an accident, she thought. Somepony tried to smell one of them and brushed against it too harshly or a careless gardener did not do his job properly. Simple happenstance at best. A harsh wind, a stem that had grown weak, disease even?

She approached closer, and it was none of these things. The stem was thick, and filled with thorns. The rose had almost withered away, and it had lost a great number of its precious petals. Somepony had deliberately broken it, bending it in half. It was still clinging on by the barest thread. A soft gust of wind would complete what maliciousness had started.

Twilight examined it carefully. There was nothing she could do. She tugged at the rose softly using her magic, and pulled it off, away from the rest. She brought it close to her nose, and sniffed with care. It may have been broken, and it looked ruined beyond repair compared to the others, but if you cared to give it a chance it smelled as beautiful as any of them.

She carried it with her as she sat on a bench, opposite from the rose bush. There wasn’t much of a view from here. It was simply a place where many paths branched together, and a few benches had been placed not for the beauty of this area but for rest.

Did she do the right thing?

He didn’t fight it. Not the way she expected him to. She expected resistance, more than what he had shown. She was ready to make arguments, to defend her position. He offered no offense to her position, and now that her arguments were uncontested, they felt… more like laws.

She knew they were lax ones. Spike would ask and need more than what Raegdan could provide. She wanted to believe that if it came to a choice he would make the one that ensured Spike’s well being. But she wasn’t sure. She simply wasn’t sure.

There was a stillness back in his voice during his last words. Was it resentment? Anger? Disappointment? She couldn’t tell. She didn’t mean to hurt him.

Did she?

She thought deeply, inhaling the aroma of the rose as she did so. She loved him, she knew that. For better or for worse he had stood like a third parent to her, but she had never known him, not entirely. Only a part of him, a single side. That was no longer the case. She knew him better. The coin had revealed its other side, even if that side was still blurry. She knew more now, and the knowledge made her realize something.

She loved him, but she didn’t like him.

It wasn’t a nice realization. Twilight thought about what Cadance had said, of ponies who somehow could love and hate somepony at the same time. Cadance claimed she couldn’t understand them, but Twilight felt that she could. There were moments when that dislike became hate.

She brought her hoof to her forehead. It became even more confusing when you took into account that there were so many times she enjoyed his company immensely. Did that mean she liked him then? Were her emotions truly so unstable? She wasn’t sure. She just knew that she didn’t like what he did, how he did it, nor the dark enjoyments he took. It was one thing for him to chuckle when he purposefully annoyed or got into a physical fight with a guard, it was another to do the same when he stood over its corpse.

She felt similarly enough for Luna. At times it felt that the only reason she didn’t decide to drop everything and go back to her library when they were being awful was the sheer amount of pity she felt for them. Celestia, she pitied them both so much. Not only for what they had gone through, horrid as it was, but everything they could not see.

They were surrounded by friends and ponies striving to help them, yet to their eyes they stood alone on a barren island, ravaged by the elements. They were blind, and she wasn’t sure how she could make them see. Perhaps she never would, and she would be stuck to be their seeing dog forever, tugging fruitlessly on a leash.

She twirled the rose in her magic, looking at it from all views. She concentrated, and with her magic she changed its hue, running through a gamut of colors. Yellow, black, white, green, blue… She let the magic dissipate, and went back to how it really was. A fading red that was slowly blackening.

She carried it back to the rose bush. There was no magic that could heal the rose, not now, but there were other ways. She dug a deep, thin hole a small distance from the rest of the flowers, and placed the rose’s stem in it, gently patting the dirt back. She searched the trash bins until she found a thrown soda can and used it to carry water to the flower from a nearby fountain.

Twilight had done all that she could. It was up to the flower now. It was a tiny chance, but it was the best it had. It shed another petal as she watched.

The sun was rapidly approaching its noon position. Her stomach started to rumble. She had been so lost in thought she hadn’t even realized how long she had spent walking around the grounds. She hadn’t even felt how tired her legs had gotten.

She was on her way back to the castle’s entrance when a familiar voice called her.

“Twilight, honey, wait up!”

Twilight turned back, pleasantly surprised. “Mom, hello! I didn’t know you were coming here.” An unknown stallion pegasus stood next to her mother, nervously jumping in place. He kept turning his head around, biting his lips, inspecting everypony in sight rapidly. Dark blue mane with a dark purple coat, almost black, and a cutie mark of a waterfall, she was certain that she had never seen him before.

Twilight wanted to ask who her mom’s very young friend was, but wasn’t given time to.

“Honey, we’re looking for Raegdan. Can you tell us where he is?” her mother asked.

“Sure,” Twilight answered immediately. “He’s at Luna’s tower. I can take you there if you don’t know the way.”

Twilight lead the way, trying to make inquiries all the while, but every attempt was waylaid and left in a ditch by her mother. All that Twilight Velvet cared for at the moment was reaching Raegdan as fast as possible. Twilight wondered if something was going on that they were going to try to keep her in the dark about. If that’s what it was, they were going to be sorely disappointed. She was going to cling on them like a barnacle on a ship!

They climbed up the stairwell, nearing the top level by level, their hooves echoing softly in the empty tower. When they reached the night emblazoned doors that lead into Luna’s row of chambers Twilight bid her mother and her friend to wait as she knocked on the door and then opened it just a fraction, enough to allow her voice to be heard inside.

“Raegdan? It’s me. May I come in?”

She heard him shout back right away, sounding surprised. “Yes, come in. It’s clear!”

“See that, Twilight?” her mother pointed out as she passed her, a hint of smugness in her voice. “Proper hosts make sure they keep their place clean at all times to accept visitors.”

Twilight tried to ignore the barb. “I don’t think he meant clear of stains and dirt…” she muttered under her breath, stomping with her legs a bit harder than she should. They sat on a couch to wait, the stallion looking around and brimming with nervousness at the low light of the room.

A very short number of minutes later Raegdan made his way out of a room holding a large, steaming, wooden spoon. Twilight had to hold her breath to keep the laughter from exploding out of her. He had kept on the armor, helmet and all, but above it all he was wearing a white apron too small for him, already stained. He had also tied a white cloth around the top of his helmet in imitation of many cooks she had seen. He had used ink to write amateurishly on the apron the phrase ‘I can’t believe they let me play with fire’.

He stopped dead on his tracks when he stepped in, with the sudden embarrassment he felt plain to see on his body language for all the two seconds it took him to shrug it off. “You are not alone, huh? You know, you could have said…” He pulled the useless bandana off his helmet and threw it down.

The unknown stallion pushed his way forward, hastily jumping off the couch. Raegdan’s eyes narrowed in the darkness of his visor as the pegasus shoved and made Twilight Velvet stumble momentarily.

“Are you Raegdan?” the stallion asked anxiously. He sounded like he was on the verge of crying.

“No, totally different person. You want the other tall guy in armor,” Raegdan snarked with hostility. Velvet walked closer and slapped him on the thigh in admonishment, scowling heavily. So Raegdan did try again, “Yes. Can I help you?”

The honey in his voice was as thick as it was fake.

“I’m Springfall, Silver Tallow’s fiancé!” the newly named pegasus said with urgency.

The helmet swiveled instantaneously towards Twilight Velvet. The mare nodded, as if he had asked a question, and returned his gaze to Springfall, now paying real attention.

Raegdan’s shoulders squared, with his hands helds to his side but away from his belt, and relaxed. “Why are you here?”

Springfall did his best to explain quickly, and it was a feat to understand him in his agitated state. The pegasus kept jumping back and forth, saying one sentence and then backing up his story to add some detail that he forgot to mention previously, all without warning. He stuttered and kept going over the same parts, restarting them again when his tongue betrayed him.

From what Twilight understood, even though he and his marefriend, Silver Tallow, were only engaged they lived together, quite happily and with no problems other than what couples normally faced. Until today that is.

Six ponies broke down their door and forced their way into their house. In all the panic, fear, and surprise, it took a while for Springfall to realize that the ponies who had assaulted them in their own home were Solar Guards. The couple was forced to wait, kept under guard by two of them, while the rest ransacked their house. Whatever was going on, it soon became obvious that their target was solely Silver Tallow.

It didn’t take long for the other four to find what they were looking for. One of them carried out a metal sphere, about as big as a large orange, covered with symbols. They claimed they had what they needed, and right there and then accused Silver Tallow of conspiring against the Crown.

Silver Tallow denied it of course. Tears were running down her face, she was pleading frantically that she had never seen that metal sphere, that she didn’t know what was going on, that she was innocent! The Solar Guards did not heed her pleads, even if they believed her, which they did not. Springfall had no idea what was going on. He was confused, and was left back as the Solar dragged Silver Tallow away, the mare screaming nonstop at them to stop touching her.

He tried to get to her when he recovered his frozen state. Of course he did. He tried so hard, but he was a simple weatherpony. What could he do against highly trained guards? He didn’t know, but still… he tried. He did manage to get close enough to Silver Tallow for a few seconds. Enough for her to tell him to find Raegdan. She told him an address, and begged him to go there.

The address led him to Twilight’s parents. Night Light, summoned by the frantic banging, opened the door and Springfall made a whole mess of things, sounding like a crazy pony to Twilight’s father. He kept saying he needed to see Raegdan, and Night Light kept trying to send him away. Until Springfall said that it was important to find Raegdan, whoever that pony was.

Her father realized that the pony in front of him didn’t actually know who Raegdan was or what he was. Springfall felt stupid for not having realized sooner, but he never paid much attention to newspapers, and he was always bad with names. Whatever the reason was, Night Light had decided to call for his wife.

All it took was saying Silver Tallow’s name for Twilight Velvet to listen to the pony carefully. She didn’t wait to hear the entire story. As soon as she realized how dire the situation was she dragged Springfall behind her, and came to the castle, leaving her husband behind to wait.

And now Raegdan was in front of them.

“Raegdan, honey, if Princess Luna could lend her help we might clear this up right away,” Velvet said.

The helmet turned towards the core of the castle, as if its owner could penetrate the walls and see all the way in. “She’s with Celestia. We can’t, not now.”

“Both of them then,” Velvet said, unmoved.

Raegdan’s head didn’t move, but the eyes swivelled towards her. “Oh? And what do we say if Celestia asks how the two of us know Silver Tallow?”

“We tell her the truth. I’m not letting the poor mare end up in a dungeon for my sake, and you shouldn’t either.” Twilight Velvet tilted her chin up.

Raegdan scoffed with a derisive, rude exhale of air. “No need for that.” He went back to the kitchen, and Twilight heard kitchenware clang against each other. He came back out without the apron and holding his shield instead, trying to tie the broken strap on his arm.

“Damned, stupid strap, fine, can do without,” he mumbled angrily, giving up.

Twilight didn’t comment. She chose to stare instead. His left vambrace was still gone of course, but so had the thick clothing he wore beneath, seemingly torn away. He had covered his forearm with bandages, but a small portion, a sliver of skin was left to the air. She managed to get a glance.

It barely looked like his skin anymore. It was mottled and cragged, parts of it a pinkish red, and others a dark brown that looked almost healed, if that was what you called healed. Something popped or split, and thick white pus dribbled out like molten wax as the metal hook of the shield brushed roughly against the tortured flesh.

She swallowed, her suddenly dry throat convulsing painfully. Half her mind was trying to calculate how often she saw him wearing anything else but his armor, the heavy, constricting, rough metal armor. The other half already had a general gist of how often that was and tried desperately to suppress any questions about how the rest of his body looked or how it possibly felt.

“What are you planning?” Twilight asked, doing her best to avert her eyes.

Raegdan craned his head, the neck cracking loudly. “Find someone in charge, have a civil discussion with them, and then humbly request they turn the suspect over to us.”

“Oh, that could actually work. Commander Steadfast Ray would be our best chance. I can talk with him.”

“No. I will. You just sit here and wait.”

Twilight rolled her eyes, undecided if she should be honoring his “request” with an answer. She quickly hurried to catch up as Raegdan headed out the large door and down the stairwell, setting off for the castle grounds with large, hurried strides.

“I really don’t think that this would help! You two are not on the best of terms, have you forgotten?” she hissed loudly as she tried to walk alongside him without resorting to half-jogging. Springfall and Velvet had no such compunctions, and neither did they try to walk next to him, but rather followed from an increasing distance. Twilight wasn’t surprised that they too had ignored Raegdan’s order.

“So?”

“So it would be better if I went to talk to him rather than you, and end up threatening to- to hang him by the tail or something equally ludicrous!”

“That’s a little unfair.”

“This is the exact opposite of unfair! This is an exact synopsis of your problem solving skills!” Twilight looked around her. They were in the gardens.

Why were they in the gardens?

“Why are we in the gardens? The Solar Guard offices are in the castle.” she asked.

Raegdan directed their attention up. “It’s near noon, the sky is clear, and it’s a weekday. Steadfast will be out here, it’s the closest open space near his office.”

Twilight’s eyebrows scrunched in suspicion. “Wait, how do you know?”

“I paid some attention all these years. A little mental checklist. It never hurts to know the schedule or habits of some people.” He leaned sideways, lowering his torso as much as possible without tipping over. “Do you want to know how often Paisley Leaf goes to the bathroom?”

As bad mental images go, this one would never make it to her new and improved top ten, but it didn’t bear lingering on either. She shook her head.

She looked around her as they approached the part of the palace gardens that had been unofficially named West Rose View. Short rose bushes surrounded the area, their fragrance permeating the air. It was a popular spot for many ponies that worked in the castle to spend their break or have a quick snack. There were benches placed around, as well as a few, highly coveted, tables and chairs. With such great weather, sunny yet not too hot, it had as many ponies crowding it as ever.

She spotted Commander Steadfast’s platinum, polished armor easily enough. There was a terrace that allowed a great view even over the walls in the distance. He was talking to a white coated pony, but all she could see was that pony’s back, the rest of its features, even the mane hidden by the sun’s glare as she looked up.

Commander Steadfast’s horn lit up in a short magic burst, making Twilight frown. She was too far to get a proper sense, but she believed had seen that spell before. If she was right that was a message spell. She guessed that for some ponies work never really ended.

The Commander of the Solar Guard raised his head and looked straight at them. He momentarily turned away to speak at the unicorn he was conferring with, and then took his time walking down the ramp, donning his cape with his magic.

“Missus Velvet and miss Sparkle, such a pleasant surprise,” he greeted them warmly, ignoring the two males. “Would you care to join me? I have some time before I need to return to my duty, and my companion has brought the most exquisite chilled wine. Diluted with crystal water, of course. It’s too early for pure wine, agreed?”

“Where is the girl?” Raegdan asked immediately, his voice almost completely emotionless.

Steadfast Ray raised an eyebrow. “The girl? I’m afraid I do not follow.”

“The girl,” Raegdan repeated. Velvet was holding a hoof over Springfall’s back, urging him to remain silent. “The one you had arrested today, the one that supposedly had one of the bombs.”

“Oh. Is that who you meant? I am actually waiting for her first questioning to end, upon where I shall escort her to the dungeons myself. It really is cut and dry, there is no questioning her involvement.”

Springfall whimpered, and Twilight overheard a blur of her mother’s hushed whispers to his ears.

“She’s going to have to come with me, right now,” Raegdan insisted.

The pleasant, comforting smile faded slowly from Commander Steadfast’s face. “What makes you think you have any authority to make that request?” he demanded in a clipped tone.

“If you haven’t noticed, I—”

“What I have noticed is that you are now a guard, same as I, in the employ of the Crown, and that you haven’t even saluted me, a superior officer. What I have noticed is that you say “I” which means you haven’t been given leave or orders to make such requests of me, neither by your own superior officer or one of the princesses.”

Raegdan took a threatening step. “Did you notice that this mess is the Lunar Guard’s problem or did that escape you?”

“No,” Steadfast answered immediately. “Because it is not. This could evolve to threaten both princesses, and even if it didn’t I know my duty. I was made to serve the princesses, not make demands or harass them like you do. I will personally look into the matter, ascertain how deep that mare’s betrayal go, report my findings to her Grace, and then lock that mare in a cell for the rest of her pathetic life. You are not involved at all. You are unneeded.”

Raegdan’s body was making small spasms, and a grinding noise came from within his helmet. His right hand kept grasping the hammer’s handle and leaving it.

Steadfast turned his head sideways, smiling bitterly. “Ladies, if you will excuse me… Duty calls.” He walked away from them, towards a pair of Solar guards who held a chained unicorn mare between them.

“I’m getting Luna, and let’s see if he tries that shit with her…” Raegdan growled angrily.

It must have been Silver Tallow. Her mane was silver, just like her name, and her coat a light blue so pale it was almost white. Her mane was a mess, more akin to a ravaged bird nest. She lifted her face, and it was in an equally bad shape, stained with tears and snot, and a blackened eye so swollen it almost forced it entirely closed.

Springfall gasped when he saw his fiancé in such a state. Twilight gasped as well, though for a different reason. She had suspected, but to see it and know she was right was another matter altogether. She had seen that mare before, though she was younger then. Much younger. In a photo pinned on a dusty crate across from where an alien used to sleep.

The Solar guards pulled at her to keep walking. One of them, the pegasus, pushed her back with his wing. The young mare completely freaked out. She started screaming her head off, loud inarticulate cries filled with terror and anguish.

“Don’t touch me,” she managed to yell, finding her ability to form proper words again. “Stop it! Stop it!”

“She doesn’t like being touched by strangers! She panics!” Springfall told them, almost in tears himself as he saw his fiance struggle. His body was spasming as he barely held himself from lunging to her defence.

Twilight Velvet’s face twisted with anger. There was a coldness in her eyes and her voice, a hate that Twilight had witnessed briefly when her mother told her about the first filly they found. “Take your hooves off her right—”

She had marched in front of Raegdan, but only for a second. The alien grabbed her and shoved her behind him, uncharacteristically rough. He violently ripped the hammer off his belt, the little hook pinging on the ground, and pursued Steadfast Ray. The hammer’s end shook as his hand flexed the handle as hard as it could.

“Do not get involved!” Raegdan stressed at them with a guttural growl.

The pegasus Solar Guard saw him approach. He gave a warning cry, his left wing pointing toward the advancing Lunar Guard. The unicorn next to him was smirking coldly, and Steadfast Ray turned around, his stance rock steady to intercept Raegdan.

“I am warning you, Raegdan. I will not allow your unlawful attempt to free this prisoner. You are forcing my hoof! Please, stay back!” the Solar Commander declared loudly. Everypony’s eyes were switching from one actor of the play taking place in front of them to the other. They all heard him.

Twilight wasn’t sure what to do. Should she stop him? Would he let her? Now that Silver Tallow was suffering right in front of him, would he listen to reason? She didn’t know. He rarely ever did when he was like this, and she had seen him as angry as he currently was only a rare few times. She feared that he wouldn’t stop, especially if Twilight herself got involved. Kicking off his protective instincts was the worst possible thing she could do. He would lose all sense of reason.

Her mother. He would listen to Velvet or at the very least stop if both of them got in his way.

Steadfast Ray’s horn glowed lime-green. Twilight wasn’t sure what he was doing, but it didn’t bode well for him if he would try direct spells against Raegdan. Even those few that Steadfast Ray might be able to conjure to hurt him, Raegdan could potentially power through despite the pain or injuries.

She caught movement from the edge of her eyes. Up from the terrace she saw two metal spheres wrapped in a lime-green glow rise and head for Steadfast Ray and Raegdan, picking up speed as they flew. They were as large as melons, and stubby spikes were pointing outwards like the rays of a star. The perfect tool to crack open a suit of armor.

She whipped her head back around to tell her mother to come with her. The words were on the tip of her tongue, and died there in a flood of ashes. She saw a white pony stand on the edge of the terrace, looking down at the coming fight, holding a glass of wine in her magic and the most pleased, content smile she had ever seen.

Honest Serenade.

The mare saw Twilight looking up at her. There was a sparkle of mirth in her eyes as she took in Twilight’s surprise, and she raised her glass in a greeting. Velvet followed Twilight’s wide eyed stare, and saw the wicked mare as well.

“Serenade?” Velvet whispered breathlessly.

It… It couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? Honest Serenade would claim it was, it was extremely easy for a pony like her to have an alibi for being in the castle, but would it be true? It all had been set up so perfectly, a chain of events that was certain to infuriate Raegdan, that would make him go on the attack. Just like every other time somepony he cared for was even in the risk of being hurt.

All the while being in public view and seen by ponies who would truthfully give their account of how Steadfast Ray was completely dutiful and lawful in the exchange. How he gave warning to the beast that tried to free a pony that conspired against the Crown.

The spheres, wrapped in Steadfast Ray’s magic, kept rushing for Raegdan, aiming for his chest.

Raegdan had stopped, alarmed by the use of magic by his opponent but no apparent effect. He turned to look around him and saw them coming. He only had enough time to quickly glance back at the Solar Commander as if either congratulating him or sneering at him.

He bowed down, bending at the waist, and the spheres flew over and past him.

Raegdan rose up slowly and menacingly, turning back to his target. Steadfast spread his legs, attaining a better balance as he focused all his magic once more. The walking iron pillar ignored his attempts. Raegdan kept walking in a sedate space, not hurrying in the least.

The spheres returned. They aimed for him again, this time from the back left and heading lower. Closer. Closer. Raegdan never turned around.

He hopped aside and dodged them at the very last moment.

The thorned weapons kept coming. Steadfast tried other avenues of attack, even splitting them or attacking from different sides at once. Raegdan somehow always knew however. One of them came from his left and the shield rose up at an angle to deflect it instead of a straight block. The moment that one of the spikes grazed against the shield it lost the magic glow around it and glided on the metal surface by its momentum before falling to the ground and staying there, at least until Steadfast Ray got hold of it again. The other came from his right, and the hammer viciously beat it back, the loud clang of steel on steel sounding discordant in the normally peaceful gardens. One of the spikes broke off and Raegdan kicked it away from him in a show of contempt before continuing on his way.

Again and again came Steadfast’s attacks. All of them seemingly headed unerringly for their mark without fail.

All of them failing to hit their target.

Twilight was stunned. How was he doing it? She remembered the fight at the arena, how Luna told them that he followed Leaf Stream’s flight by her shadow on the ground, but that tactic couldn’t possibly work now as it was high noon. Any possible warning from the shadows he could get would be too late, and he wasn’t even looking down to spot them!

She tried to follow Steadfast Ray’s movements instead, and watch his eyes. Raegdan was approaching him slowly but steadily, yet the stallion didn’t so much as twitch. His eyes would occasionally flick, this way or that, but after a few attempts to connect them with the attacks Twilight came to the conclusion that Steadfast Ray was trying to trick Raegdan. He was too experienced to telegraph his attacks anyway.

Had Raegdan been hiding more facts about himself from her? Was he able to sense magic somehow? How else could he possibly follow the path of the spheres that Steadfast employed if not like this? He could already do something similar with the way he knew where the gates were located, he had told them so.

Twilight quickly looked aside to ask her mother if she knew of this ability Raegdan had that she herself had never even suspected. Both Velvet and Springfall were watching openmouthed the spheres arc in the sky and return for another attempt.

It all clicked into place.

She looked around. Really looked, and listened. No wonder Raegdan kept walking slowly and doing as little as possible to attract the eye. Steadfast Ray was giving no hint of where his next attack was going to come from, but Raegdan didn’t need him to. There were ponies all around doing it for him, many of them behind where Steadfast Ray stood. Raegdan didn’t even have to move his head.

The crowd’s eyes followed the levitated spheres as they came down, their voices rising in volume as they neared their target.

Raegdan dodged aside, and when the action was over he kept walking apathetically, the eyes turned back to the only other moving objects, tracking them faithfully.

It was risky, and Twilight was struggling to figure out why he would endanger himself like that. She noticed the two Solar guards in the background, staring as openmouthed as everypony else, a glint of rising fear in their eyes. Raegdan’s theatrics suddenly made more sense.

It felt like an eternity, but it couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds, not even a minute for Raegdan to cross the distance despite Steadfast Ray’s best attempts to fend him off.

You had to admire Commander Steadfast’s discipline. He didn’t even flinch as Raegdan raised his hammer high and slightly behind him, ready for an attack that would end with the attacker in trouble, no matter what. No wonder Honest Serenade seemed so content. Whether Raegdan or Steadfast won, she would get what she wanted.

The hammer reached the pinnacle of its arc. It stood there for a moment. Then a moment longer. It trembled, and lowered down a fraction.

Raegdan didn’t strike.

Then one of the spheres scored a glancing hit at the handle, barely missing his fingers, and the hammer cluttered to the ground. The other sphere followed suit, hitting Raegdan on the outside of his knee. The biped barely held itself up as it took a sudden step aside to regain his balance, grunting loudly with pain. The spheres had lost their connection to Steadfast’s magic the moment they touched Raegdan, but the white unicorn picked them up once again, and resumed the attack.

Raegdan tried to lift his shield to defend himself. A sphere came unseen from the opposite direction and struck the inside of the shield, the unexpected momentum taking it off his grip. She saw the bandages tear and blood gush out as the half hook on his unprotected forearm cut into his flesh. The shield was gone, and Raegdan was left with nothing to defend himself.

Then the second sphere returned, crashing on his still raised left arm. She didn’t hear the sound of the bone as it broke, even if she could have sworn she did, but she saw the arm bend where it was not supposed to bend. She saw the blood erupt, and she saw the white of his bone as it pierced through the battered flesh. Everypony did. Some of the ponies watching screamed at the sight. The sphere fell on the ground covered in blood, and didn’t rise again.

Twilight was sick and horrified. This was nothing like the fight with King Crucible. No matter how outclassed Raegdan was he fought on, he persisted and pushed back. There was no defiance now and this was no longer a fight. She watched, a cry in her throat, as he tried to hobble away and the remaining sphere crushed on his lower back. He fell on one knee with a shout, the right hand instinctively trying to massage his lower spine, and agonizingly made his way up again.

He kept trying to distance himself, but Steadfast Ray wouldn’t let him. The crowd had gone silent with shock. The only sounds were a few ponies starting to sob as the cruelty of violence unfolded before them, the sound of metal against metal, Raegdan’s weakening cries of pain, and a faint giggling that accompanied hooves clapping against each other.

She wanted to jump in, try to shield him with her magic. She should have done so already, but… she didn’t! Why didn’t she? Why did she let it escalate to this, why was she still holding back? Because he told her to? Because of a lifetime’s experience of staying out of his fights? She had to do something! Raegdan was practically crawling away from—

He wasn’t trying to get away from Steadfast Ray. He wasn’t even looking at the direction of the grinning unicorn! No, he was looking at the growing crowd, ponies who heard the commotion and came to see. It swelled even as she watched with ponies trying to push their way in front and see what was happening.

Twilight caught a glimpse of pale green and golden yellow. A small filly was standing in the second row, peering through the gap larger ponies left in front of her. A Royal Guard was standing next to her, and she was pressing her tiny body against his leg as she watched with an expression of heartache. The guard, which Twilight was certain now was her uncle, was simply watching without paying attention to his niece, his only reaction to close his eyes and avert his head before every hit Raegdan suffered.

Morning Dew. Her father fought Raegdan in the arena along with Leaf Stream. He wasn’t as lucky as Leaf Stream had been.

“You killed my daddy! Why? He was the best daddy in the world! Why did you do that? Why did you kill my dad?”

“Twilight… Twilight, do something…” Raegdan whispered pleadingly.

“He didn’t want her to see her father’s death again…” Twilight whispered to nopony. It was like a bubble burst, and she realized that her mother had been shaking her all the while, speaking urgently to her.

“Twilight, you have to stop them! He isn’t even fighting back. Raegdan will die if this keeps on!”

“I… I know. I know why!” She didn’t waste time to explain herself to her mother, no matter how her statement confused Velvet. Her magic coalesced around her horn and her focus shaped it into a familiar spell. She mentally jumped, and the magic brought her body along.

A few ponies jumped in surprise. She ignored them. They weren’t important right now. The guard was, Strong Hoof’s brother and Morning Dew’s uncle. The one the fatherless filly had clung onto after the loss of her dad.

“What are you doing?” Twilight almost yelled, her heart battering in her chest. She didn’t have to fake the outrage she felt. He was supposed to care for Morning Dew and he hadn’t even noticed how the filly suffered at the sight of the one-sided fight. Twilight pointed her hoof at her, her magic forcing the earth pony guard to turn his head and look.

“Get her out of here! Are you trying to make her relive ‘that’?” The stallion stared back at her, confused for a second, trying to stammer. A pony next to him was faster on the uptake and gently pushed the filly to turn away.

The unknown stallion’s kind act opened the floodgates. Everypony that heard the exchange either placed themselves a little forward to block the filly’s view or urged the Royal guard to move along, to care for his niece. The guard’s eyes cleared of their bewilderment, and the anguish on Morning Dew’s face chased away the remained shreds of confusion, replacing them with determination. He pushed Morning Dew away, talking comfortingly at her, murmuring his thanks and apologies to everypony around him.

The two ponies left. She exhaled a sigh of relief. It all took a few seconds. She simply had to point out the filly’s absence to Raegdan and he would find a way to dig himself out of the hole he put himself into.

“Raegdan! Raegdan, I…” The words faded. She didn’t know what she meant to say.

Whatever it had been it was meant for Raegdan. Not… not what stood there in an aura of sadness as it returned her gaze. The left arm was a mess. Even the pauldron barely clung in place, and the shoulder it was supposed to protect was hanging lifelessly, no longer having even the strength to hold his shattered arm against him. One of the horns on his helmet had broken off, and the side of it was dented inwards. She saw trails of blood thread their way under his helmet, unbelievingly red against the sudden darkness of the day. One of his knees bent inward in a manner that it shouldn’t. His chest, his torso…

It had been only a few seconds. How… how many times did he get hit? How was he still standing?

“Little one…” She wasn’t sure if he whispered or if she misinterpreted his ragged breath.

The sphere fell down from a great height. It crashed on his shoulder, and beneath the din of metal there was a series of breaking snaps. Raegdan’s shoulder fell lower, far lower than Raegdan was supposedly able to bring it. He didn’t make a sound.

The sphere fell to the ground, its spikes lightly cracking the stone beneath.

Raegdan’s knees followed suit. They both bent together and he fell on them, his body shaking like a ragdoll, his right arm on the floor the only thing preventing him from falling on the ground. He swayed there, defeated, staring straight at her, and the only thing that Twilight could do was think how the cruel, bright sun didn’t let her see his eyes.

Nopony was talking or making a sound. The sweet illusion that it was only him and her in the world cracked with the clopping of hooves as the victorious Solar Guard Commander walked to the front of the fallen Lunar Guardsman. The latter’s helmet turned slowly to face the former. There was no sign of joy on the white stallion’s face or eyes, only the tired satisfaction of a long chore finally ending.

All Solar Guards were armed with more than a spear, evident by the narrow bladed dagger floating from its sheath on the commander’s belt. It hovered tip-first in front of Reagdan’s eyes.

Twilight opened her mouth to speak, to yell, but her voice didn’t come. This isn’t happening. It was as simple as that. This isn’t happening.

Poor, poor Morning Dew…

“I should have done this years ago,” Steadfast Ray said with a strange tinge of sadness and relief.

The dagger shot through the helmet’s slit.

Raegdan’s head was pushed back from the force and his torso less so. The world held its breath as the armored giant knelt there, his face facing the sky, blood dripping down his neck. Then he started falling sideways, slowly, like the tallest, crumbling tower that ever existed. It was as if time had become a swamp, and every second had to trudge through it. He crashed on his arm first, then his helm impacted the stone ground. The last of his strength was used to barely tilt towards Twilight, and for a spellbound moment she believed he was going to get back up and laugh, “I’m fine!”

He twitched, then stilled.

Green. Burning my eyes. It’s all I can see. Green!

Green, green, green, green…

I see it. I’m fast, but I see it clearly. It’s green. Hands grab me from behind, hard enough to feel the nails through the leather. I can hear a muffled shout. It’s the wind. The wind doesn’t let me hear, doesn’t let me see clear enough.

I blink.

It’s red.

This isn’t fair.

She’s screaming. The ghouls, zombies, monsters, whatever they are called, they are almost on her. I got her. I almost got her. She screams.

She’s gone. Hands grab me hard enough to feel their nails through my clothes and pull me back, away from the wet crunching sounds and fading pleas for help. I try to fight them off, to rush in, to get her out, but I’m too weak, weak and afraid. I left her there. I left her to die.

I did that.

The wind is back. Cold. So cold and tired. I look at the broken body and back at him. I can’t do it. I’m too afraid. I won’t be strong enough. I say no. I leave them no choice. They won’t let him die alone in the cold. A swift end. I go away, I don’t want to see, I don’t want to hear. I stay alone in the cold and feel the wind. It takes the sounds away. I don’t hear the crying. I don’t want to hear it.

I can’t be weak. I can’t be afraid. I have to do something or… or…

It will be my fault.

The soldier was almost a kid. I didn’t want to, but I had no choice. Not him, not the rest. Not anyone else. No choice. They left me no choice.

I needed answers. I had to know what was waiting for us here. It’s hard to get a good grip on the teeth with the pliers, but I have to, there’s no other choice.

Too little food, too little water, and they trust us as much as I trust them. The rest are fools. If they have kids it only means that they will value them above us. It’s an old rope bridge. So easy to cut. It had to be done. The stragglers are easy to kill. Most of them are young. Too young…

I had to...

She won’t walk again, and she’s in so much pain. Something inside me wants to stop looking at her. She won’t stop screaming. They’ll find us, and they’ll do worse to both of us. I don’t want to do this. Dear heavens, please don’t make me do this!

I close her eyes when she’s gone, and I weep silently. I had to. I had to.

I find her on the way. We talk. I tell her everything. I trade her a story. I have nothing else to give, but it buys me what I need. I… I don’t know what. I don’t remember.

I have to push.

I have to lie.

I have to force them.

I have to kill.

I have to hurt.

I have to starve, to get hurt, to maim, to burn, to get burned. I have to, I have to. There’s no other choice. If there was I wouldn’t have to do those things, but I need to. Otherwise someone would stop me or convince me otherwise.

Right?

They left. They took the reins for once. Did what they had to. I hope they made it home. They should have been like this ages ago. I miss him. I hope he’s ok, that they are all ok. I hope I’ll see them again. I hope we all make it home somehow.

It’s not real. I did what I had to. I did what I had to. I did what I had to. I did what I had to. It’s not real. I did what I had to. I did what I had to. I did what I had to.

I wish I hadn’t killed the boy.

I wish he hadn’t died alone in the cold, in that deafening wind. I wish I hadn’t done that. He’s gone. Dead, and covered under a sheet of snow.

A white sheet. A white sheet. A white sheet on the floor.

It’s not real.

The wind returned. I hear nothing over it. Not for a very long time. It’s peaceful. I simply enjoy the ride, take in the sights and smells. You barely have to think when you ride. You just do what you have to do, and get lost in the wind. There’s nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I blink.

A white sheet. A blinding light. No escape. It’s not real.

They scream, afraid. Proof. Hurt them in the worst way possible. I don’t want to. I have to. Not this, anything but this, no one deserves this. I don’t want to do this to them. Please.

I do it. It buys me what I need. It leaves.

It’s not real.

She shatters me. Almost kills me. I open my stupid mouth to thank her. I didn’t need to do that. I shouldn’t have done that. I should have died.

Do what you have to do. Die a hero. Save the girl. Make it right, make it fair. End it.

Failed. Again.

I give promises. I try to keep them.

I try. I try. I promise. I try. I fail. I lie. Hate. I’m used to hate. I choose to be hated, it’s the better option.

She leaves. He goes with her. I lose my little ones.

I try. I move as fast as I can, but I’m not fast enough. I never was fast enough. If I was she wouldn’t be eaten alive. I fail, yet she lives. They all live.

I meet her. She understands. She’s like me. Almost. I promise. I try. I try. I try. I lie.

I try. I keep trying. I try to do what I have to do. They are the same. Insist I don’t have to, but they don’t stop me. I fail.

I try, and I don’t lie, not this time. I try to save the brother. I fail again. I keep trying. She dies, she was kind and she died. I wasn’t fast enough.

My fault.

It’s my fault.

She cries for him to stop. I try, but I fail once more, and I witness the pain in her eyes as the blade approaches. I can’t even do this much without hurting them. I just wanted them to be ok. That’s all I ever wanted. That’s all.

I’m sorry.

I shouldn’t have killed that little girl’s father.

I’m tired, so tired. I’m tired of losing, of failing. Have I ever won? Even once? Ever?

I wish I hadn’t failed them. I wish I was home. I wish I had died in the crash.

I blink.

Red. A perfect circle, like a ring. A senseless circle of fire that serves no purpose other than burn. A flash of pain.

Then nothing.

Only the wind.

I deserve this.

Twilight couldn’t move. This didn’t happen. Raegdan would get up. He wasn’t hurt. He was never hurt.

A pained scream of loss and rage tore the silence apart. Twilight Velvet was galloping towards Steadfast Ray, tears flying behind her, the glow of her horn reflecting brightly against them. A missile of pure magic, comprised of nothing else but the intent to harm, flew in front of her, and she followed behind it.

Steadfast Ray easily dodged the obvious attack, but he missed the fact that Velvet’s horn kept glowing. Her magic forced Raegdan’s hammer to spin in the air and attempt to smash Steadfast Ray’s head. The Solar Commander barely managed to wrestle Velvet’s magic for control with his own in time. The hammer came to a stop only inches from his skull.

Velvet could never overpower Steadfast Ray’s magic. She didn’t have the training or the magical strength. She did have a mean right hoof though. She let her magic go, and in that second of surprise managed to bloody the stallion’s jaw.

The Solar Commander’s magic countered, pushing her away. Twilight’s mother fell on the ground and pushed aside like a toy. She tried to stand again, shouting obscenities all the while, but the pegasus Solar guard landed behind her and held her back. Velvet turned and started hitting him instead, but the armored pegasus endured every single hit, trying to get through to Velvet all the while and shouting at his comrade to stay back and don’t try to hurt the mare.

Twilight’s crystal focus, the one that she had felt so recently, returned. A mental step, and she was behind Steadfast Ray.

The Solar Commander heard the pop of her teleportation. Twilight was certain he would spin to face her, and that’s why she missed when Steadfast instantly jumped aside instead. She tried again, but the opposing unicorn deflected her.

The counter was perfect in every way. Twilight could recognize the result of long, hard practice when she saw it. She had enough power to keep trying for longer than he could keep deflecting though. She cast her spells again. A fire spell. A stun. A magic bolt. A rope spell. They all got deflected, and in an ironic echo of events Steadfast kept approaching her all the while.

Twilight mentally focused on the other side of the area. She was ready to make the step when Steadfast’s hoof hit her hard right below the left eye. She fell down, her teleportation spell fizzling to nothingness.

There’s a sheet on the floor. One part of it is drenched in blood.

Dark purple hair crawls from beneath the sheet.

…

No.

No more.

“Miss Sparkle, I’m sorry for your loss,” Steadfast Ray said with genuine sounding grief. “But it was forced upon me. He was nothing but a rabid beast that would one day bite the hoof that fed him. It’s for the best, trust me.”

Twilight didn’t try to get up. There was no reason to. She kept her head down.

“You shouldn’t have done that. It’s against the rule.” She tentatively touched her cheek. It stinged. There would be a bruise.

Steadfast Ray offered her his hoof to help her up, an act that Twilight pointedly refused. His expression portrayed the purest regret. “I gave a warning, miss Sparkle. I tried to stop it, I did, but as his record shows he would not. I merely defended myself and didn’t allow him to endanger the life of the princesses by setting a dangerous suspect free. I broke no law.”

“I didn’t say law. I said rule. A very important one,” Twilight cleared up, still staring down on the ground.

Steadfast Ray frowned. “What rule is that, miss Sparkle?”

Twilight looked up. He brought this on himself. This had been all a trap, she was convinced. Raegdan didn’t start this. He didn’t deserve this.

She hissed her answer between her clenched teeth. “You never, ever hurt me in front of Raegdan!”

A tower of steel stood behind Steadfast Ray like a menacing shadow.

It delayed only long enough to force the protruding bone back into its flesh with a sickening crunch. It was Steadfast’s only other warning. He tried to jump aside, magic gathering around his horn.

A hand stained in its own blood grabbed his horn and forced his head to the ground. The bone threatened to tear through the flesh in a spurt of blood once more, but the arm held strong nevertheless, forced by muscle, sinew, and pure will. The other arm descended like a claw over Steadfast’s eye.

The dagger’s hilt was still there, buried in Raegdan’s helmet. The bones were still broken, the wounds still bleeding, the organs still struggling to work, the lungs forcing themselves to keep drawing in breath. None of that mattered to the one that wasn’t entirely the Raegdan that Twilight knew. Only one thing did.

“My turn,”

It took your eye. Hurt it. This piece of meat will suffer, though not as much as he will for what he tried. He tried to take her from you. They all try to take everything from you. Don’t let them. You can’t let them. Take everything from them first.

Take his eye. Hear him scream. Laugh. Fingers, so much more useful that their silly hooves. Show them what else they can do. Claw at his face, his snout, find something to grab. He fights back. He is strong, and you are damaged, but it minds pain. You don’t. Not now. You’re more interested in his.

His nostrils. That will do. One finger in one, the other in the next. Give him a second, let him understand. See the waking terror in his eye. Savor it.

Now pull. Rip. Tear.

The meat around wails and cries. They puke. Two other pieces of meat try to save this one. You don’t even have to stand. Simply look at them. Let them see you, let them understand the promise. You take the eye, and crush it in your fist as they watch. They hesitate, and you no longer concern yourselves with them. Their fear and your contempt will hold them back. It always does. They are weak and afraid. Useless. They let you do what you want on it so you won’t do it to them.

It tries to fight back again. You don’t have the energy for this. You might not last long. Kill it and leave, find shelter, heal, then keep hurting everything else. It’s in shock, and flailing. So easy to grab hold of the legs and bend the other way the right moment. They snap like dry twigs. Set it on fire next? No flames here. Shame. Would love to see it burn. There’s no pain like fire. Almost.

It screams. You no longer want to hear it scream. It makes the throb where your eye was grow. Silence it. Force its mouth open and grab its tongue. It tries to bite. Let it. It’s only pain.

You don’t make it. Something strong pulls you away. The fighter, the one you fought before. The one that beat you. It speaks like you care what it says. Tells you to stop. Stupid. You cannot stop. You won’t stop. You stumble and flail, pretend to be weak. It tries to hold you up. You grab its shoulder.

It wears armor. You can’t use your knife, this meat is fast, but you don’t have to. There are gaps, and it keeps its legs still to keep both of you stable. It’s so easy to aim. It’s only a leg, but the spikes on your knee hurt it enough. It doesn’t kill it, but it distracts it. Your hand is close enough to its face. You go for the eyes, and if you can reach it the brain behind.

It’s fast, and you are damaged. It grabs your wrist and stops you. You push back. It’s strong, but not strong enough. It’s weak. It could end it with a strike on the dagger in your eye, but it’s weak and uncertain. It won’t do what it has to do. Your broken arm is not worth it’s attention. You reach for the flashbang. This will end quickly. Kill. Them. All.

A flash of light from your right. The meat drops your arm and hastens back.

The white one. The one who thinks wrong. The one who succeeded everywhere you didn’t. She speaks, says words you don’t recognize. She looks at the piece of meat on the ground with horror and shock. You turn and look as well, you want to see if it died and missed the moment you craved.

The little one isn’t there. You don’t see her.

Where is she? Where is she?

No. No, no, nononononononono, no!

Bring her back, bring her back! You can’t lose her, I won’t lose her, not again, not again, I can’t lose another one. No more, please heavens, no more!

Celestia, you…

You were supposed to keep—

He was terrifying. He was covered with blood, a lot of it his own, but guessing by the red stains she spotted on the fallen stallion—careful not to look too closely—a lot of it was Steadfast’s, because Twilight took too long to warn Princess Celestia. The dagger was still embedded in his eye or… wherever it had managed to stab him, and blood was trickling along the visible part of the blade. His left arm dangled lifeless, the bloody bone visible once more, and the right hand was covered in gore and viscous juices. His breathing… dear Celestia, his breathing! It sounded like a death rattle.

By all accounts he should have fallen on the ground half-dead, but he stood, his working hand shifting from fist to claw. She would never have guessed that this was Raegdan if she didn’t know. The way he stood, the mechanical way his head tilted, the clipped movements. This wasn’t him. It couldn’t be. This was a stranger, one that she was terribly afraid of.

The princess tried to soothe Raegdan’s rage with words, as she always did, as if she spoke to a frightened foal. Sometimes she was forced to employ violence, usually just enough to forcefully bring him down to the ground and hold him there.

Her head had turned to see what he had done to Steadfast Ray, and Raegdan’s gaze followed hers. She saw him stand straight, his right arm shaking with sudden rage. King Crucible saw it too. The fearless minotaur tried to stop him, but he was one step too far.

“Raegdan, no!” Twilight ran to him. She had teleported too far away from where she should be, wary of where the crowd could be. Princess Celestia had no such qualms, able to teleport in the air and softly land afterwards.

Raegdan’s fist struck Celestia straight on the mouth. The crowed gasped in horror.

The sun princess staggered from the unexpected blow. She stepped back, speechless and wounded, her lips bleeding. His hand was reaching for her throat and Twilight shouted at him to stop, just as King Crucible was harshly grabbing him by the shoulders from behind. The king’s bodyguards were approaching as well, ready to aid their liege despite his commands to stay back.

“Lih- Little one?” he said in disbelief when he heard her cry out.

Twilight stopped, her mind working overtime, trying to understand what he was seeing. “Raegdan, it’s me, Twilight. I’m okay. I’m unhurt. Do you know where you are?” she said calmly. King Crucible relaxed his grip on Raegdan, and Twilight ordered—yes, ordered—the king to move back with a wave of her head.

“I’m… You—The window…” He was confused, but at least he sounded as if he realized it himself. He saw Celestia, and his body froze.

“Celestia, I didn’t—” He turned away, and hobbled away, his left leg threatening to bend sideways at every step. Everypony rushed to get away from him, almost climbing over each other.

“Raegdan? Raegdan, you need medical attention! Raegdan!” Princess Celestia shouted, but her pleas empowered the biped to move even faster. “Raegdan, your eye, the knife! Please, wait, let me help you! Raegdan, you might...” The words died.

Princess Celestia gave up, and shook her head at King Crucible’s silent question. Raegdan wouldn’t listen. He would go off to lick his wounds alone, and be miserable. The more they insisted the more he’d refuse and thus delay to seek help.

“What happened here?” Princess Celestia asked, sounding furious. She didn’t wait for a reply, but headed for Steadfast Ray, a few ponies rushing to get medics for him, if they weren’t already on their way.

The Solar Commander was a mess. Twilight barely glanced at him before she looked away. It was as if he had been mauled by an animal. There was a gaping hole where an eye used to be, and his face looked as if it had been split in two, his muzzle literally torn apart, blood, mucus, and other fluids running freely. The legs were bent in different directions, in places that had no joints. The sight would haunt her dreams.

“Go- Grace… Blee- bleeding…” he managed to say, gasping to speak through the blood pooling in his mouth.

“You are. The medics are on their way. They will take care of you, I promise.” The princess cast a few complex spells and the bleeding slowed considerably. She beckoned at a random pony to approach. “Please, tell me what happened here.”

The pony did as his princess asked. He told her everything, as he saw and understood what happened. Exactly as Twilight feared. It painted a horrible, wrong, yet completely in character, at least superficially, image of Raegdan being entirely the one in the wrong.

The Princess stood over one of the spheres Steadfast Ray had used as weapons. “So this is what the commander of my Guard used?”

“Not the worst choice for a weapon,” King Crucible observed, standing next to her. “Reliable against armored opponents, at his complete control, reusable, and able to strike from every possible angle against an opponent who wears a vision limiting helmet. It could stand to be more effective. As it is, it looks like it would take a lot of hits to kill your target unless you aimed for the head. I don’t believe I have seen something like this before though. It must be custom made.”

“Yes,” Princess Celestia agreed thoughtfully. “And he happened to have it around while on break. How... lucky for him.”

“I’m not sure what is more insulting,” King Crucible grumbled. “That he tried to pull this off or that he thought you were blind enough for it to work.”

Springfall made his way in front of Princess Celestia, one dark wing laid protectively over Silver Tallow who kept her head bowed and was crying. “Your Majesty, please, Silver never did anything of these horrible things they accuse her! She’s innocent, I swear.”

Princess Celestia rubbed her forehead, trying to prevent a coming headache. “Fear not, my little pony, I shall get to the bottom of this. Could you tell me how Raegdan got involved?”

Springfall bowed his head next to Silver Tallow’s ear and spoke gently. “Silver? Silver, could you please tell us why? Why did you send me to him?”

Silver Tallow raised her head, only to quickly glance at Twilight’s direction and lower it again, tears running nonstop. She shook her head, a few tears spraying in the sun the sun like dew. “I don’t know,” she whimpered. “I… was mugged once and he chased them away. I read his name recently and I— I thought he would know better than the guards that I didn’t know anything. I didn’t do anything, why is it always me? I didn’t do anything…”

“It’s ok, my little pony,” Princess Celestia said quickly, as softly and gently as she could to the sobbing young mare. “My guards will take you to the hospital wing to be checked over and we will talk further when you are better.” She turned to one of the guards gathering around her. “Bring Shining Armor here.”

“Bleeding… Bleeding!” Steadfast Ray was screaming as the medics tried to pick him up and get him to the medical wing. One of the medics finally used a spell to sedate him, and they took him away, still mumbling about his wounds.

“Ah well,” King Crucible laughed. “It’s a good day for whoever gets that promotion though, right? Lucky him. What are you going to do?”

“Luna is giving all her attention to her own guard. Perhaps it is time I paid some attention to my own.”

“Wise. You might need them. You don’t want to have none while your sister does.” King Crucible ignored the pointed look and took a napkin left on a table and passed it to Celestia, finger pointing at his own lips. “You are bleeding.”

“Thank you,” Celestia dabbed her cut lip. She eyed his wounded leg, “So are you,”

“A mere flesh wound. I’ll have it checked in a moment. What worries me more is how he managed to get me in his condition or the way he hit you.”

“It wasn’t his fault. Not entirely. He lost control.”

King Crucible snorted. “Did he? He knew exactly what he was doing. Who and where he struck to how he breathed and what he looked at. You should keep an eye on him or someday he might do more than bleed your lip.”

“That wasn’t him,” was the clipped response.

The minotaur king scratched his jaw thoughtfully. “I’m inclined to believe that.”

“Twilight, honey?” Velvet called from behind Twilight, giving her a scare. Velvet had a few scratches on her cheek, but apart from that she seemed fine. She guessed that the pegasus Solar Guard chose to take the hits rather than strike back in any form.

“I’m going to look after Raegdan. He was terribly hurt. Are you going to be okay? Do you need to visit the hospital foot?” Velvet continued, full of worry, her eyes darting at Twilight’s cheek where Steadfast, most probably former Commander of the Solar Guard if she could help it, had slapped her.

“No, Mom. I’m fine, really. I’m coming with you, I want to make sure he’s alright as well.” She could see Rainbow Dash flying toward the quelling chaos and using her as a marker she spotted her friends running besides Luna’s guards.

She didn’t want to relive this experience so soon. She ran after her mother, heading for Luna’s tower.

They climbed up the steps, following the thin trail of blood drops. Why did they let him go? He had a knife in his head! He could be bleeding internally in his brain for all they knew, he… he might have lost his eye! He should be laid on a hospital bed with doctors over him, not trying to climb up stairs with his broken body.

He had been doing his theatrics of being impossible to keep down for so long that they actually believed them.

Twilight could hear a voice as they climbed. It was distorted, the echoes of the tower not letting her understand what Raegdan said. At least until they climbed up higher, almost reaching the last level. The voice sounded clearer up here, though nowhere as loud as the acoustics made it below. It wasn’t Raegdan’s voice talking to himself as she had thought. This was a mare’s voice. She knew who it was.

“That’s Honest Serenade,” her mother said, still uttering the name with disbelief. Twilight nodded. Who else could it be? She could hear the mocking tone if not the words themselves.

Velvet was bewildered. “But it can’t be. Why would she do that? They’re friends!”

Twilight could scarcely believe what she heard. “What? Mom, where did you get that idea from? She hates him!”

They climbed the last few steps, and there they were. A dozen or more meters away from them, near the end of the corridor that would take them to Luna’s doors. Raegdan supported himself on the wall, his legs bent almost double and shaking. They could hear the wheezing of his breath even from this distance, short intakes through his mouth, exhaling quickly with a harsh, wet rasp.

Honest Serenade stood next to him, awfully close, almost dancing with glee. “Oh, please fall and crawl,” she begged, giddily. “This was almost everything I wished for, give me a happy ending!”

“Fuck… you…”

Twilight jerked forward, only to be held back by her mother’s magic. She felt a silence spell covering them. Her mother’s face was grim. “Wait. I want to see this for myself.”

“He’s hurt!” Twilight retorted.

“I know. But I think there’s something worse here. Let me see, my angel. This isn’t how it should be.”

Honest Serenade laughed like a schoolfilly being naughty and delighting in it. She reached out with her leg and slid her hoof down Raegdan’s leg almost provocatively. “I love it when you talk dirty to me. Especially when I can hear you spitting blood to do so. Tell me, have any of your ribs pierced through your lungs yet? I wonder, will I hear them pop like a balloon? Pop, pop!”

Raegdan forced himself to take another step without answering her. It was painful to watch. He didn’t walk as much as lunge forward, supporting himself with his left leg, and then dragging the right one behind him. If it wasn’t for the wall he would have surely fallen. He barely managed to stay upright even so.

“You know what my favorite part was?” Honest Serenade asked, as if sharing her thoughts on a play she just watched. “The part where you realized you really hit Princess Celestia. If only you didn’t wear your helmet, I would have loved to see your face.” She sighed in disappointment. “The only way it could have been better would be if that was Magic instead.”

“Never… hurt… Twilight…”

“D'aww,” Honest Serenade cooed. “It believes that! How cute. I know you’ve said the same about the princess as well. Of course, I never believe that. You are a liar after all. Forgot that?”

“No…”

“No? No, you didn’t forget that or do you deny it? You know what, don’t bother. You might spit your lungs out if you try. I can’t wait for the next one! I’m almost sad I got Steadfast in trouble if that’s the kind of show he was able to give me. Who are you going to reveal your colors to next? Magic? The dragon? Your bitch? So many optio—”

Raegdan’s right hand left the wall and lunged for Honest Serenade’s horn. He violently pulled her in front of him, throwing her on her back even as he fell on his knee over her. “Maybe you…” he growled.

She laughed again, but harder than ever. “Like- Like you could do that! What could you possibly do to me, hmm? Slap me around a few times? Go ahead. Give me something hard to remember this day.”

His hand dived between her legs, and Honest Serenade gasped in pain and surprise. “As you wish,” he breathed.

“Stop! Let me go!” Honest Serenade cried out, a hint of fear creeping into her for the first time.

The dark, horned helmet came closer to her face, allowing the sole remaining eye to look straight into hers. “What’s wrong?” Raegdan whispered. “Must have grown used to having this done to you. Wakes up memories, doesn’t it?” Honest Serenade choked a scream from erupting out of her when a bloodstained finger dug painfully into her. “Squirming under someone while he has his fun. Nothing like it, is there? Everything comes into focus so clearly.”

“Let me go! Let me go, you monster. Don’t touch me, stop it, let me go!” Honest Serenade half-shrieked while desperately holding on to her former attitude.

The black, steel face in front of her tilted to the side as if considering her request. “No. I’m not finished yet. I’m not even close to done.” He leaned even closer, their foreheads now touching.

Honest Serenade spat at him. Her saliva run down the metal surface, mixing with the blood on it. “Do your worst. Come on, think you can pile something more on me? You’ve got nothing to hurt me with!”

Cruel chuckles echoed in the hallway. Raegdan’s voice became stronger but harsher on the ears. More difficult to understand. “You think you know, that’s all. In truth, you know nothing, because you haven’t thought about what you really know, what you keep saying.” He pulled her even closer to his body. “Here’s a little something you never, ever, really thought about…”

The metal plate above his mouth moved to her ear. His hand left her horn, and almost sensually slid down her cheek and to her throat, his fingers petting the bottom of her chin in their cusp.

“I… always… lie.”

He let her go.

The mare stayed down while the iron pillar stood above her on unsteady legs, bent and broken, watching her. She finally rose up on trembling legs as well, and raised her head up to look at him. Her eyes were shining with wetness.

“Wh- what?” she stuttered.

“Isn’t what you preach to anyone who will hear you out? That I am a liar? You never really understood what this word meant, did you? Tell me, Honest Serenade.” He towered over her. “How is this for hurt? How’s the taste of uncertain hope that’s beyond your reach forever?”

He turned around and walked down the end of the corridor, laughing with whatever breath he had left all the way. Nopony moved, not Serenade, not Velvet, not Twilight, until they heard the heavy black doors close behind him, the cruel laughter finally fading into silence.

Tears flowed down Honest Serenade’s face. She shivered. A keen wail finally broke out of her chest with eardrum bursting force and she ran to follow, Velvet and Twilight close behind her and watching as she threw herself on the night engraved doors, crying and screaming. Her hooves pummeled the metal doors strong enough to crack the strong keratin of one of them. Grief, rage, and need warred for supremacy in her cries, and the screams subsequently gave way to words no less terrible than her inarticulate despair.

“Where is my foal? Give me my foal. Give me my child, you near-dead abomination!” she raged. “I want my foal… please…please. I need to see my foal, even once, please...”

She slid down the doors, weakly hitting them with her hoof. “Where? Where? Give me back my baby,” Serenade sobbed, drained and exhausted. “They didn’t even let me hold my baby… I want to hold my baby…”

Velvet approached the weeping mare. “Serenade? Serenade, what did you do? It’s over. Why do you—”

Honest Serenade’s teeth snapped near the hoof reaching for her like a rabid dog’s. “It’s not over! He lied to me! It’s not over until I say it is!” she barked, hateful foam spreading from her mouth. The sobbing had stopped and she had her old self back, but tears still flowed nonstop.

“Serenade, please. He tried. He doesn’t know.”

“It’s not over,” Serenade declared decisively. “Not while I breathe. I’ll make him pay! All of them!” She turned away and left, casting one last hateful glance at Twilight herself, snarling and grinding her teeth all the while.

“Twilight, make sure Raegdan is treated, please. I have to talk to Serenade,” Velvet ran after the pink maned mare, yelling for her to wait, voice full of genuine worry.

Twilight was lost. She had lost all understanding of what was going on, her perceptions switching around themselves once more. She was drowning in the now familiar feeling of the world shedding a false layer for no other reason than to mock her preconceptions.

She knocked on the dark doors, her voice pitched higher in panic as she called out. “Raegdan, it’s me! Let me in, now!”

The doors glowed blue, then opened.

She rushed in, and saw Raegdan on his back. Luna was dragging him further in the room and near the fireplace with her mouth, her wings flapping to strengthen her tugs. A streak of blood on the floor showed her progress thus far.

Luna’s head shot up, “Twilight Sparkle, you must go bring help. I need my guards, I need Cast Iron here immediately. We need to get him out of the armor and remove the dagger! I fear he’s bleeding into his brain.” Twilight watched Luna’s magic grab the fire poker and shape it into a rounded off, thinner end before throwing it in the fire. “Hurry!”

Twilight teleported in search of the aid Luna called for. She did love him after all.

Yet she hated him all the same.

The Element Bearers waited in a room as Luna ordered them to while she, Cast Iron, and Solid Charge were struggling to do what they could for the wounded alien. They had heard Solid Charge yell and beg for Luna to allow a proper doctor to see him, but the princess refused vehemently, distrusting everypony to come near him, deeming him too vulnerable to lay at an unknown’s mercy.

Solid Charge tried his best to make her see reason. He made every argument possible, he told her that Raegdan might die because of her… and it availed him nothing. Luna would not budge.

Twilight and her friends could do nothing but listen in when they could, whether it was the crunch of metal as Cast Iron used his talents to remove the broken armor or the dispute between commander and princess, and talk between themselves when they could not, comparing notes and trying to find a semblance of sanity. The only one who remained stoically apart and silent was Fluttershy. She was staring vacantly at the corner while clutching a golden covered book to her chest. Even Bunny Angel was distressed as he worried both over his owner and his newest friend.

Princess Luna walked in, looking like exhaustion incarnate. She sat heavily on a chair, ignoring the frantic questions around her. Her eyes bore into Twilight’s, anger simmering beneath them.

“Twilight Sparkle. Tell me what happened. All of it,” she ordered grimly.

Twilight told her everything, her suspicions about the trap, and how it ended. She told her about what she heard, and what Raegdan did. She told her about Honest Serenade demanding her foal back from Raegdan.

And then she asked the Alicorn to tell her what the tartarus was up with that.

Luna shook her head, looking more tired by the second. “I am not sure what you expect, Twilight Sparkle.”

“I expect the truth! You have to know what is going on, what Serenade was about. Raegdan tells you everything. You are the only one he really speaks to,” she said bitterly.

“Am I?” Luna quietly questioned. She stayed silent, staring into Twilight’s eyes, and Twilight stared back, clenching her jaw. Luna averted her eyes, sighing heavily. She pointed at a cabinet behind Twilight.

“In there. All of you, look,” She looked away from them.

Twilight moved and stood before the closed cabinet at the other end of the room. She examined it for a moment. It was plain, and the wooden hinged doors had no lock. It was completely unassuming and unnoticeable. She took a deep breath, feeling her friends all gather behind her, waiting to see what was inside. Twilight wasn’t sure if she wanted to. She wasn’t sure how much more horribleness she could stomach today.

She opened the cabinet. All she saw were a few glasses, most of them dusty. “There’s nothing here,” she exclaimed.

“No, there is not,” Luna confessed sorrowfully, her magic fading from her horn. She slowly stood and walked around them to stand next to Twilight Sparkle, and examine the blank expression on her face. All six of them stood like her, their mouths slacking open and their eyes wide and staring at nothing. “I simply needed you to look and focus away from me. You are well taught, but only in matters of magic.”

Luna’s hoof carefully caressed the bruise on Twilight’s face. Her magic flared and a jar of ointment was levitated into the room. The Alicorn applied some of it to the bruise with tender care.

“You… I believe in you. I trust you. If we told you everything, I believe you might possibly understand. And as long as it is up to me, you won’t. I’ll spare you all of you from as much as I can. I won’t allow you to be forced to make a choice, even if the answer is predetermined.”

“I’m sorry. About all this,” Luna whispered as she set the jar aside. “You will stay here for a little longer. You will have forgotten some details you would be better off without, you will stop worrying about more, and then you will all decide you want to get back to your homes at the break of dawn.”

She smiled wistfully. “A place where you can rest, and be safe, and welcomed. You are so fortunate, all of you. It will help you forget.” Luna’s hoof pushed a stray hair back into Applejack’s mane.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Luna whispered, gazing at Pinkie Pie’s face. “It is hurting you, and it hurts me too. At least you don’t know what I’m doing to you, but the knowledge will always remain with me. I wish I didn’t have to. You must go away or it will tear my heart in pieces if I have to keep doing this any more. I need to stop, at least for a little while. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, but it will be worth it, I promise. I will not let you throw your lives away.”

Luna wiped her eyes, and breathed deeply a few times to regain control. “I’m sorry,” she said one final time, and left. “Go home. Be happy. Don’t go into the dark and cold. You deserve better.”

Solid Charge looked up as Luna entered. The princess stared at the straps that had appeared over Raegdan’s body during her absence, and the minotaur rushed to explain. “He has broken many of his ribs, Princess. They’re there to simply make sure he doesn’t try to move too much. He’s lucky he didn’t perforate his lungs completely.”

Luna silently accepted the excuse, even as she knew it was only half the truth. She didn’t need to force the rest out of her Commander. Solid Charge wanted to be certain that Raegdan wouldn’t attempt anything when he regained consciousness, still leery of past transgressions. Luna let him be, not bothering to explain once more she was perfectly safe despite their concerns.

“How is his eye?” Luna asked, sitting next to her guardsman and watching his sleeping, heavily scarred face. She didn’t mind it. She never cared for his looks. They always were alien and strange to her. They simply had changed after Charybdis, it didn’t become worse or better for her. They were his, and that was all that mattered.

“Cast Iron’s hands are steady as a rock, but we should get a doctor, Princess. He’s used to working with tools and metal, not veins and blood. It might be better to have it removed entirely for all we know. It’s not like he will be able to see with it again. Or there might still be bleeding in his skull if we missed something. We don’t know what damage the blade did in there.”

“He’s fine,” Luna assured him fervently. “He made it this far. He’s fine. He’s fine.”

Solid Charge fumbled for something else to say. “I think I set his bones properly, but I can’t be certain. We will have to wait for him to tell us if we did it right, and he will need a cast. More than one. The collarbones need to be binded somehow as well, but I don’t know how.”

“I will take a look myself. I know his physiology well enough. You may go.”

“... Princess, perhaps the doctor from Baltimare? What if we sent for him? He’s proven to be trustworthy.”

“Leave, Solid Charge. Leave us alone. I will watch over him. You go and do what you have to do. Make sure that Silver Tallow is set free no matter what you need to do or say, and make arrangements for the girls to return to their homes in the morning as they asked me to,” Luna said in a clipped tone.

Solid Charge stood up. “As you command, princess. I will make arrangements for the doctor as well if possible.”

Luna was left alone, watching Raegdan breathe after she checked Solid Charge’s work and setted splints on Raegdan’s limbs. The candles burned and reached their end one by one, the wicks hissing as the flames died and slowly left her in the black. She didn’t mind her lack of sight. The day passed, and night came. The moon asked to be raised, and Luna ignored its call once more as well as her sister’s question whether she would raise it, letting her do it instead. She waited, thinking as little as possible.

Raegdan’s breathing changed. It was almost imperceptible, but she was waiting and watching for it.

“You lied to me,”

“... Didn’t…” he croaked dryly.

Luna sighed. She used her magic, which lightly lit the room blue, to pour water in a cup, and held it to his lips with her hooves. He only drank a few sips.

“You did,” Luna said, leaving the half-empty cup aside. Blackness swallowed the room again. “You didn’t tell me about Serenade. I can guess what you did, and why. You didn’t tell me.”

“Not… not lying.” He kept his eye closed. The left one remained open under the gauze, she knew, because there was no eyelid to close. “I just didn’t say everything.”

“Did you lie to me about anything else as well?” Luna asked with hurt in her voice.

“Luna, I’m… I’m trying. Nothing else, I swear. Nothing else.”

Luna sniffed, and wiped her nose. “Will you tell her where her foal is?”

“No.”

Luna nodded, even if he couldn’t see her, feeling relieved for more reasons than one. “Good. Go to sleep. You need to heal, please. I need you.” She laid next to him, wary of his broken body.

“Are they… Twilight… Velvet… Celestia, is… is she hurt?”

“Everypony’s okay, Raegdan. Nopony’s hurt.”

“Morning Dew, Silver Tallow, what about them?”

“They’re fine. It’s all fine. Rest.” She carefully ran her hoof over his head and the remains of his hair.

“The others… Vivian, is she here? She gets scared and cries easily, is she alright? I… I had a dream she got hurt. Alex… Alex was cold, we stopped, and Mary hurt her legs. Scipio, get Scipio to help, he knows... he always knows what to do...” Raegdan mumbled feverishly, reaching to someone who wasn’t there.

Luna shut her eyes as hard as possible in an effort to keep her grief out of her face and voice. In her mind she saw flames, and betrayed voices calling for her. They never stopped, she thought. The dead are never gone.

“Rest. They’re no longer hurt. I promise.”

“I didn’t mean to. I tried. I tried to go back. I ran, but it was too far. She tried to run too. Almost made it to the window.”

“I know. Don’t die, Raegdan. Please, don’t.”

“I couldn’t stop… I tried, but I couldn’t...” he mumbled, sinking back into a healing sleep or unconsciousness. “... I was… It was too fast…”

“I know. It’s okay, I know.”

The alien rested, still as the dead. The Alicorn did not, could not. She had to stay awake and make sure he wouldn’t aggravate his wounds while she waited for the nightmares to come and claim him. He would need her soon. He had gotten lost again, and the dead girls would come find him once more. It was her turn to return the favor and chase the shadows of his sins away.

The Princess of the Night ignored the lullabies her body sang, forcing the windows to her soul to stay open until the morn.

The train sped its way down the plain the next morning, carrying the bearers of the Elements of Harmony back to their homes. In a satchel, buried underneath everything else lay a book with a golden cover, forgotten and undelivered to the Princess of the Night.

Fluttershy would not remember what the book was, what she did to get it, and she won’t care to find out. It was a worry she no longer had.

Interlude 10 - Solar and Lunar

“We didn’t know where to go. Everypony was running scared, and the village was already burning. Wyverns don’t start fires, it must have been some scared pony running in the dark and dropping a lamp or something similar. I think it might have been more than one. I remember them screaming, calling for help, their loved ones, and for light. Light to drive away the monsters and the dark.

“My brother was scared as everypony else, but the difference was that he kept his head straight. No matter what, Sunny made sure to keep me next to him while he tried to find our parents.

“It was impossible to do so. I don’t even remember any faces that night. They were all shadows, and cries, and wings flapping above us like thunder. It was pure chaos. Everypony was trying to cast a light if they had the magic or a torch if they did not, but the monsters and the night swallowed them as quick as they emerged.

“One of the guards saw us and he yelled at us to leave, to run. ‘Go east,’ he shouted, ‘hide in the forest.’ A pair of wings descended then, right on top of us. I looked up the guard later, much later. Crop Rotation. He was an old earth pony, older than I remembered him being according to his record. He had no family except a few distant relatives, the closest being in Ponyville. He should have been retired, but instead he asked to continue serving in some capacity, and he was placed in our village where he mostly made sure colts and fillies didn’t break anything they shouldn’t.

“He ordered us to run, and he… he attacked the wyvern face on. He got killed straight away of course, but… he kept it busy long enough for me and Sunny to live through that horrible night. Because then you came, your Grace.

“It was… forgive me. It was as if the sun itself descended on our midst, bathing us in light. The wyvern tried to attack you and you didn’t even glance at it. You were only looking at us, while your guards killed it effortlessly while it was being blinded by your immense light. You saved us.

“When we found out that there had been only two wyverns we… I don’t know. We were angry. We were sure we had been attacked by dozens, hundreds of the beasts. During the night, in the dark, all those shadows… Well, they didn’t last long when you arrived, Princess. You dispelled the dark and cold.

“I think that was the moment that Sunny decided he was going to devote his life to your service. When he saw your Radiance flying above us like the goddess that you are. I needed some more time to see what he saw, but I did. I have.

“He gave everything for your service. There was a mare, he loved her so much, but his duty came first. He had no family except me. He didn’t have any friends outside of his colleagues in the rest of the Solar Guard. He had no other joys but serving what is good and true in the world. Making sure the sun would ever rise. He taught me so much. He taught all of us.

“Sunny is dead, but he’s at a better place. He… I’m ashamed to say that he had a crisis of faith at the end. He was worried. Where he was going to go, if our family would be there, if he did well enough. I told him the truth of course. That his beliefs were true, and he had been a devout pony. That he would be in the light forever. He smiled then. His pain was gone, and he died happy, knowing he would be blessed in the end. I’m glad I was here to see his death if it meant he didn’t die afraid. That he died knowing it was all worth it.

“... It was worth it, wasn’t it, Princess? He’s in a better place now, right?”

How could she tell him no?

It seemed she denied being a goddess almost daily. She told them the truth. She was an Alicorn, and her talent let her guide the sun. If she had any other qualities, they came from who she was, not what. She strived to be as good, gentle, and caring as possible every day.

Choose to do good, and you will. A conscious choice made every day. Nopony was made great by his talent or his skills, not even she. You made yourself so.

But Sunny Ray had chosen to dedicate his life to her to the end. He died for her, blocking a spell meant for her. She had seen it already, she was ready to shield herself, and then that brave, selfless pony died for…

For what? What was she supposed to say? That Steadfast’s brother died needlessly, that she was never in danger? That she had no idea where ponies go after death? That the last words he said to his brother were lies?

If she did, then Steadfast Ray would…? What would he think of his brother’s life then? His sacrifices? Did dying for a wrong belief made his actions any less noble or selfless? Sunny Ray had saved so many of her ponies throughout his service. He was loved by everypony and with good reason. He may have been wrong about her, but his actions, his charity, his concern for everypony he met, these were all well renowned and true.

Would Steadfast Ray accept that? His brother was his world. Could she let him suffer more so soon after losing his brother? He was a strong pony, but now, as he sat in front of her, clutching the golden covered diary of his brother he looked so fragile. Celestia closed her eyes.

“Yes. He’s in a better place.”

“Princess Celestia, are you alright? We can always continue tomorrow if you are tired.”

Celestia blinked rapidly as she came out of her thoughts. She had forgotten where she was, so deep had she been in the past. She was in her personal office, a private sanctum that almost no ponies ever saw, where chaos and bad filing ruled unprohibited. Paisley Leaf sat on a worn, comfortable chair with worry written all over his wrinkled face.

“Forgive me, Paisley. I was lost in memories, nothing else. Where were we?”

Paisley Leaf looked back at his notes, taking his time in getting back on track. “Let’s see, Princess… Did you pay attention to what I told you about Silver Tallow?”

Celestia smiled guiltily. “I must have missed that part.”

“Hrm,” the old stallion grumbled, pointedly glancing at the clock. Her majordomo was always worried over her sleeping schedule. He always did his best to ensure she slept early, seeing as it was the impossibility of her sleeping in.

“Princess Luna has been insisting that all charges are dropped and Silver Tallow be set free. Lunar Commander Solid Charge claims that all evidence is circumstantial at best and highly suspect at worst, and both Princess Luna and Lunar guard Raegdan give personal references of her character.” Paisley Leaf was chewing on the end of his quill.

“Personal references? Raegdan talked to you? He’s alright?”

“We do not know, Princess. Your sister refuses to allow any doctors to see him.”

Celestia stood up. “This is idiotic. He needs professional care! He might have survived so far without, but he could be dead tomorrow without medical help. I’m not going to stand aside like this anymore. Luna has to let me see him!”

“Princess, wait,” Paisley Leaf asked quietly. “It’s been almost two days. If he lasted this long then he can last a little more, he’s always been hardy. It’s not worth getting into a fight. I do not know Princess Luna that well, but I do not believe that a direct confrontation is the best way to resolve the matter.”

Celestia’s eyebrow lifted. She recognised the crafty tone. “I assume you know something I don’t?”

The papers ruffled, and one presented itself to her. She didn’t bother reading it. Paisley Leaf would tell her everything she needed to know. “The Lunar Commander had sent an offer to a certain doctor in Baltimare by the name of Hewn Laurel to work in the castle. I took the initiative to meddle and doubled the salary offer as to ensure his acceptance. At the very least he is a medical professional that your sister trusts. I have made sure all will be in order so he can begin work at once when he arrives tomorrow.”

“Good work, Paisley,” Celestia praised as she sat behind her overwhelmed desk once more. “Now, if only Twilight had been able to stay a little longer…”

“What about Silver Tallow, Princess?”

Celestia fluttered her wings. “It’s obvious they’re feeding me lies, but Silver Tallow is only an innocent victim in this. She will go back to her home with our most sincere apologies.”

“Very good, Princess,” Paisley Leaf said proudly, jotting a note. “I will have them escorted back to their residence in the morning. No need to trample through the night. Now, in the case of your Solar Guard?”

Celestia’s face darkened. “Steadfast Ray has been removed from his position. I will allow him his freedom and a pension for the sake of his spotless past service and the grievous injuries he received, but I want it to be made clear to him that if he dares step the tip of his hoof out of line or even think of approaching Luna or any of hers again then he will spend his retirement in the dungeons. Not even Raegdan ever dared to make such a fool of me and disguise murder behind my back in such a cold, calculating manner in my own home, and he’s... him. Steadfast should have known better, but I should also have taken the cue from the tournament and stop it before.”

“A sad case, Princess, but that’s how life is at times. It will be done. There was nothing you could have done.”

“Two ponies lost so far in a senseless, one sided feud. I daresay there were plenty I could have done. It always pains me to see the trust I’ve given thrown away.”

Celestia laid her head against the chair’s tall back. “At least this praising me bussiness in my Solar Guard will come to an end without him. It always left a foul taste on my tongue.”

“We could always issue an order to forbid them from doing so, Princess.”

“No.” Celestia shook her head for emphasis. “Refusal always incites them, makes them think it’s a secret test of character or something equally ludicrous. It will fade to nothing soon enough. It always does.”

“It always comes back though.”

“Yes,” she answered sadly. “It’s very cyclical in a way. Just how they like their gods.” She laughed, even though she didn’t find any good humor in her thoughts. “The sun will rise… Luna is lucky she never had to deal with this harrowed business.”

Their business concluded, and with the day’s work finally finished, Paisley Leaf gathered his own share of notes and was ready to leave. Celestia knew that the hard working pony would first go to his own office to finish up before going to bed, only to wake up at the same time Celestia herself did.

Celestia didn’t bother with that as much. Her personal preferences were to leave everything hanging around in reach. She had become extremely proficient in using her magic to clear through them and find what she needed, and she did a clean up every week to get rid of stuff that could trickle down the chain to other ponies that could finish up once she had a general look.

As soon as she entered her bedroom she removed her chest piece and crown with a sigh of relief. She was afraid that these badges of her office had permanently etched lines on her skin, shaping her flesh beneath them to accommodate them, but she never was able to keep them off her long enough to find out if these could go away.

Her mattress was as soft as ever, and the covers featherlight and warm, yet sleep did not come. The last couple of days were hard, and not only because she failed a pony that looked up to her. She was worried. She felt as if every time her sister and her friend took a step forward they took another back, and she had immense trouble telling which stride was larger.

Luna was first in her thoughts. Her, and Raegdan a close second. After Luna’s return, and Raegdan’s reaction, she was certain the best thing she could do was to keep him away from Luna. To find they became such friends, so close, was one of the greatest surprises of her life. Then she realised that neither of them really controlled the excesses of the other. Worse, they fed on each other.

She kept a wary eye on them, but was hesitant to do anything more. How could she deny her loved sister the only friend she seemed to ever have? How could she allow Raegdan to wallow alone after Twilight’s and Spike’s loss now that he kept her at arm’s distance?

“You allow him too much, Princess.” How often had she heard that, from how many ponies? Even loyal, trusting Paisley Leaf. None of them knew.

Celestia’s eyes went to her closed balcony door, and her magic pulled the curtain apart. She could see the moon from her bed.

She was looking up at the moon from her seat on the balcony. Celestia was now the only living being in Equestria that remembered how it really looked before the worst time of her long life. Now, all she could really see was the silhouette of an Alicorn. One thousand years had passed, and she still wasn’t sure. Was it her sister looking down at her or the demon mocking her?

The glass behind her rattled as knuckles struck the surface. She opened the door using her magic, not even looking behind her as the biped entered. She pointed at a chair beside her for him to sit.

Only when he was seated did she look at him. Another one that she wasn’t entirely certain about. True, he had done as told, serving as Twilight Sparkle’s guardian in great, if overeager, capacity. There had been fights, and Celestia had heard plenty of complaints, but knowing what she did of the murderous being next to her she would take a few bruises as a sign of astonishing progress.

She only hoped she was right, and didn’t wake up one day to find out how completely wrong she was. For all she knew, this was all a scheme so far. He could be biding his time, learning as much as he could. It was a terrifying prospect, but her only other option was completely unavailable to her.

What if he wasn’t pretending? It was almost as frightening, though for entirely different reasons. Could she really help him? Should she?

“Little one sleep. Guards guard her. Must go back fast, not safe,” Raegdan said, his speech still broken. He knew more words, learning more every day, but this was the best he could do so far. At least he understood better than he talked.

“Twilight will be fine for now. You are not getting out of our weekly meetings,” Celestia warned him.

Raegdan nodded. “Not trying. Want go back still.”

“You will when we are done.” The moon kept pulling at her eyes. She couldn’t resist glancing at it, feeling the pain flare in her heart every time, no less than it was a thousand years ago.

The atrocious evil she had allowed to live noticed what she was doing. He looked up at the moon as well. “Strange moon. You do this?” His hands drew an imaginary copy of the silhouette of the Mare on the Moon in the air.

“No.” She looked back at her greatest failure. “That… was somepony else.”

Raegdan’s eyes locked on her long horn. “Like you?”

“Yes,” she almost whispered, unsure why exactly she was answering him. “My sister.”

He frowned contemplatively. “Not seen her.”

She stopped looking at him and turned her full attention to her sister’s prison. “You wouldn’t have. She’s up there, a prisoner. She… An evil creature took over her. She fought against me. Killed and hurt so many of my ponies, and many others. I tried to stop her, but she was stronger than she had ever been and… my baby sister was in there. In the end I had no other choice but to banish her. I sent her there. She’s been there for a thousand years. Because of me.”

Raegdan stayed silent. Minutes passed like this, the awkward silence slowly becoming companionable. She wondered why she told him this. Thoughts drifted by her head, the alien’s explanations of his losses and the horrible acts he had performed, and she understood what her subconscious had long before. Here was a being that had lost family, and done regretful things, who had failed his flesh and blood and friends.

“Did what had to,” he announced after a while. Celestia was unsure if he was referring to her or him.

“Maybe. Maybe I could have done something else instead.”

“Kill her.”

She was taken aback. “No. No, I could never do that. Never. She’s my sister. At least this way I might have a chance of getting her back someday.”

Raegdan looked fixedly at her. “Comes back. Better than dead.” He bent his head to glare at his hands. “Better than most.”

The Sun Princess stared at his target, then at his face. His eyes were hazy, seeing not his scarred hands, but something different and painful with his mind.

In truth, it wasn’t the first time Celestia had ever breached the topic of her banished sister with somepony, though it always had been a pony and never an alien. She always got disappointed and refused to do so again for decades or even centuries until she tried again, desperate for sympathy and understanding.

She had done so for the first time soon after Luna’s banishment. It hadn’t even been a month. There she was, on a couch, suddenly talking about her sister to three maids that had come to clean her chamber. They listened to her quietly and obediently, not saying a word. Celestia felt she was being cleansed as the words left her. She told them about the moment the Elements struck her sister, the expression she saw and that she revisited every night so far in her dreams. The surprise, fear, and betrayal, etched so clearly on the hated visage that had overtaken her sweet sister’s face. Celestia was so absorbed in the vivid memory as it concluded that she almost missed the vitriolic whispers between them.

“I hope it hurt...”

She send them away at once, and never knew where she found the strength to not rage against them. But she did slam the door on their flanks, at least. For all she knew they had lost family or friends to Nightmare Moon’s rampage… but so had she. She cried bitterly for her lost sister. She was the only one who did.

She tried again, and again, but the same sentiments prevailed. Hate slowly gave way to fear down the centuries, but sympathy and understanding never came despite her yearning. To her ponies the threat of Nightmare Moon reigned supreme, and Luna laid forgotten, uncherished, and unmourned.

Is she coming back? Can you stop her? Can’t you banish her again? And others. Celestia and Nightmare Moon. The good and the bad. Sister against Sister. When she was presented with the first iteration of the Solar Guard, when she was told what their reason for being was, she almost lost her mind.

She allowed it nevertheless, to her great shame. She was also afraid of Nightmare Moon, of allowing her little ponies to remain undefended. But she never forgot Luna.

The last time had been decades ago, with the previous Captain of the Royal Guard of Canterlot. Captain Stampede had immediately focused on defenses and plans. Too late he noticed her crestfallen reaction, and he tried -and she appreciated it later- to remember the loss it was to her, but it was too late. Far too late. She stayed silent once more, and the years passed.

The biped’s head rose, and he stared at the moon, thinking. His mouth opened, and Celestia felt weary of answering the old questions again.

“Can get her back? Truth?” he asked, surprising her.

“I… I don’t know. There’s a small chance,” she answered truthfully after a while, getting over her initial hesitation.

“Need help?”

He had killed more than he could count, even if he had cared to. He was worse than everything she could ever have imagined, than any demon or creature she had ever heard of in myths or stories. He chose to be what he was, and when he lost the people he became a monster to protect, he remained the same. He was rotten almost to the core.

“Why?”

He reached into his pocket, and took out a small wooden box she had given him. He didn’t open it, but traced his fingers over the words he had carved on it. He placed it on his knee, and took out the other one, placing it next to the other.

“Lost them. Failed. Tried and failed. Burn. Hurt.” His eyes met hers. “Don’t have box. Don’t get one. Get her back, do what need and get her back,” he said, his fingers hitting the boxes to illustrate his point. “Need me? Got me. Will help if want. Promise.”

They returned to their silence, watching the moon slowly move, and as it rose on its apex Celestia recognised a change. The dread and uncertainty of her beloved sister’s approaching return was gone for the first time in forever.

“You should go back to Twilight,” Celestia said gently.

“Meeting questions? Warnings?” Raegdan asked, caught by surprise.

Celestia rose and opened the balcony door with her magic, showing him the way out. “I think we’re done with those. I’m sure there will be more, but we can attend to them per individual basis from now on.” She smiled.

Raegdan glanced at her sister’s moon one last time, and nodded encouragingly at her before he left. No questions about what Luna had done or her blame in unleashing Nightmare Moon. As if it didn’t matter. It didn’t. Not to him. Why should it? He had done worse. Nothing that Luna or Nightmare Moon did mattered or registered as far as he cared. Even to one as him, all that he believed was important was…

Celestia stayed awake that night, out on her balcony. She stayed awake and watched the moon with a feeling of tentative hope for the first time.

Ch.33 - Zug-zug

Rainbow Dash tightened the tent rope around the wooden spike, forming the best knot ever. It would hold this tent upright through raging storms, fierce winds, and painful hail. The sun would lower and rise again a thousand and another thousand times yet her tent would stand, an immutable monument to the tent erector that was Rainbow Dash.

As long as nopony actually prodded it too much that was. A bunch of loops technically might not count as a knot, but it was the best she could do at the moment and it wasn’t like she was the one who would sleep in it if her architecture failed. She was running behind as it was.

She also wasn’t quite sure about the ‘tent erector’ title. Better to keep that one stuffed somewhere private or it would end up poking her in the wrong place and time.

One triumphant round of walking around her achievement, a jolt of surprise that she accidentally had the entrance face the opposite way than the rest of the tents, and some quick work with a knife after shutting the now-obsolete previous entrance with some rope—everypony knows they put some surplus in the tent package, right?—and she was all done!

“All done in ten seconds flat! Who’s the champ?” Rainbow Dash announced with a smug smile, raising her hooves over her head like the champion she was.

Blank Slate, a white coated pegasus, wiped the sweat off his forehead caused by the sun beating down on them in the plains northeast of Ponyville. The stallion shook his steel gray mane, casting drops of sweat aside, and the mare in the Royal guard armor beside him stepped away with a look of disgust.

The pony looked up at the sun for a moment. “That took you over half an hour,” he finally concluded. He ducked down and continued unpacking another tent.

“Yeah, well, the rest of it was spent making adjustments for maximal comfort. Optimum stuff, you know. I was giving my prime game,” Rainbow Dash lied through her teeth.

The mare in the armor fluttered her wings in annoyance, the feathers the same color as her faded red brick coat. “Blank Page,” Snared Wish said, standing in attention as she almost always did, “would you mind not doing that again? Take off that vest if you can’t stand the heat.” She pointed at the woolen article of clothing that hid almost all of Blank Slate’s torso, including his wings.

“It’s Blank Slate, and I’m fine,” he replied, his face as blank as his name and with beads of sweat running down on it. “You still have your armor on, don’t you?”

“Pegasi Royal Guard armor is made to be extremely light, comfortable, and breathable.” Snared Wish took off her helmet as she talked. Her black mane fell in clumps around her head, a byproduct not of the heat but the worst case of helmet mane Rainbow Dash ever witnessed.

“I always wondered about that,” Rainbow Dash said, sitting down and making herself comfortable . “How do they make armor that protects that well if it’s light enough to fly with?”

“They don’t,” Snared Wish answered. She tapped the armor with her hoof to make her point. “It’s good against scratches, slashes, and claws if what claws at you is small enough. Not… not much else really. Magic can only do so much.” She gazed south, her lips whitening despite her biting on them.

Everypony present stopped what they were doing, except for Rainbow Dash who had already gotten a headstart on slacking off, to follow her lead. The Everfree Forest lay some distance away from them, the treeline ominous and dreary in the bright day, as if the sunrays shied away from it. It was dark, as if the shadows beneath its branches were a living smoke that slowly drifted upwards, covering the air above it. Rainbow Dash had never seen it lit, she had never seen bright green leaves swaying in the breeze. Only dark, muted green caught in an everlasting gloom, and naked branches clawing at the air.

A tall pegasus with a red light coat and white mane approached Snared Wish, presenting her with a canteen of water and a clean cloth. “Here, something to wash yourself with, Wish.”

Snared Wish eagerly accepted the offer as long as it meant it took her attention away from the threatening forest. “Thank you, Red Dawn. You’re a real sweetheart.”

“No problem,” Red Dawn responded with an easy, boyish smile. “You know, you shouldn’t wear your helmet when there’s no need to. It’s obvious how much care you give into your mane, this just damages it for no reason.” His hoof, long and filled with enough wiry muscle to be noticeable, stroked one of Snared Wish’s silky clumps of mane.

“... Thank you.” Snared Wish stood even straighter and turned away with a blush to work on the tent she was setting up.

Rainbow Dash’s leg wrapped around Red Dawn’s neck and pulled him back. She hissed quite audibly in his ear, the concept of discretion raising a questioning hand only to be swiftly smacked down and sent back to the corner. “Ok, Casanova, not cool. Knock it down a notch. You do remember she’s married, right?”

“I know,” Red Dawn answered. “Shaded Swirl, I remember. Nice guy.”

“A nice guy who will shove your wings somewhere dark and claustrophobic,” Blank Slate snorted. His weirdly tufted ears twitched in amusement.

“What? Why?” There was genuine puzzlement and worry on Red Dawn’s face. He thrashed around the tent he was working on. “This can’t be his tent, can it? Did I mess it up somehow?”

Rainbow Dash blinked and hastily turned back to Snared Wish. “So, uh, your hubby’s coming along soon. That’s awesome. Excited?”

Snared Wish was absent-mindedly scrutinizing her helmet. “Yeah. Just… wish we all had some good armor. Shaded Swirl doesn’t even have this much.” She tapped dejectedly on her armor once more.

“Aww, the Everfree isn’t that bad,” Rainbow Dash claimed, dismissing Snared Wish’s fear with an absent wave of her hoof.

“Really?” Snared Wish’s mane whipped her face as she turned to Rainbow Dash with hope in her eyes.

“Sure. Besides, why do you worry? You were a guard and your husband is here to cheer you on!”

Snared Wish’s legs moved back and forth as if unsure of what to do with them or where to place them. “I was a guard. That’s what I did. Just… guarding. Posturing for nobles and rich ponies so they could feel important. Ungrateful, pompous, snobbish... anyway. I haven’t been in a fight actually. Ever,” she admitted, lowering her head. “And Shaded Swirl isn’t here to cheer me on. He’s joining the Lunar Guard as well. I asked him to.”

Blank Slate frowned. “But he’s been in quite some fights, hasn’t he? He said as much.”

“Sure. I mean, he’s—was a barpony, even a bouncer sometimes, and when ponies got drunk…”

“Oooh.” Rainbow Dash nodded. Yeah, it made some sense now. Half of the ponies—or nonponies—joining in the Lunar Guard didn’t quite have much experience considering what they were going to be doing. Funny thing how that turned out. She had heard some rumors that quite a few cutthroats had asked to join in. Even saw a couple, and they were the hair-raising type. Two weeks ago she started meeting the Lunar Guard initiates in order to get some much needed pointers and what she found instead… Heck, Red Dawn was a server, and Blank Slate travelled across Equestria from Vanhoover to Baltimare doing any menial job he found.

She never caught sight of those hard ponies she had seen, again. It was as if they vanished, and replaced by much more tame ones.

Rainbow Dash’s eyes were pulled by the forest again. They were supposed to venture in there tonight. It seemed a bit darker than before, didn’t it? Nah, that was because, you know, the sun lowered and stuff. Clouds. She had been there plenty of times. She knew what was in there already and there was no need to worry. Just Timberwolves, regular wolves, manticores, cragadiles, hydras, poisonous and magical plants, Ursa Majors and Minors, wyverns, cockatrices, dark spaces confined by trees that seemed to reach for you, monsters that nopony ever described because they never escaped from them—

She gulped as the list went on and on, only limited by her ignorance. “You two don’t have any kids, do you?” she asked Snared Wish.

The mare looked at her in surprise.

“Because both of you going in would be just cruel to them,” Rainbow Dash finished her loud thoughts, still staring at the distant forest.

Snared Wish’s jaw almost touched the grass.

Rainbow Dash was knocked out of her deep thoughts. Literally.

A wrapped up tent, poles, ropes, light hammer and every other tool included, made solid contact with her skull. She misstepped to the side as she grunted in welcome of her newest head knob, and her hoof scraped the most recently tied up spike she had set for the tent she had worked on. The rope untied and Rainbow, despite her dizziness, instinctively tried to catch it with her teeth. The collapsing tent’s weight pulled her, helped by her loss of balance. She crashed on the roof of the tent that by that point had become one with the floor. The rest of the spikes were unearthed from their shallow holes with enough momentum to fly across the fallen pegasus, strapping her down, and Rainbow Dash found herself covered up quite snuggly in fact.

Three sets of Thestral legs surrounded Rainbow Dash in her moment of humiliation, random gear equally snuggling and poking her. Vertical pupils judged her harshly.

“I thought you said you’ve gone camping before and know how to set up a tent,” Cradle Song deadpanned.

“Looks like somepony lied,” Broken Gust sang, her head tilting left and right in sync.

Rainbow Dash scowled. “I didn’t lie, okay? These tents are super cheap. The spikes don’t even have a hole for the rope to go through and tie them.” Rainbow Dash had done plenty of camping. It was just that she had specifically bought one of the easiest tents to set up with plenty of conveniences. The tents she was forced to work with now were basically long strips of dark blue cloth with unpolished long strips of wood and spikes that were nothing more than a sharp piece of rough wood.

“We were on a budget. You do realize we’re not here for actual camping, right?” Cradle Song asked.

Drum Beat was counting the raised tents. “Guys, we only have eight tents up so far. We need twenty eight.”

“What’s the deal? When the others get here they can put up their own tents,” Rainbow Dash grumbled. “I thought the flyers were supposed to arrive first to scout, not this.”

“Scout and start setting up a base camp for when the grounders arrive,” Broken Gust reminded her. “We’re not doing that good of a job so far, are we? Princess Luna is going to be so disappointed in us when she gets here!”

“We’re going as fast as we can,” Blank Slate said, his hooves appeasing for calm. “Each tent takes twenty to thirty minutes to unpack and set up. We started only a little over an hour ago.”

“Can’t you go any faster?”

Blank Slate’s hoof showcased the ponies around him. “There’s just the four of us. It’s a matter of numbers.”

Drum Beat huffed and his hoof struck the ground. “Well, then what?”

Three packaged tents struck each Thestral’s head one by one, knocking them down like bowling pins. Eventide walked forward, another pack caught in her mouth, and she threw it to Rainbow Dash who managed a successful catch with her cheek. “Then we increase the numbers of ponies working. Get up, you three, and get to work. There’s more to a base camp than setting up a couple of tents.”

Rainbow Dash had been making trips to Canterlot and back during the last month. It was how she met up with quite a few of the Lunar Guard initiates. She had taken part in a few training exercises as well. Mostly they consisted of Luna showing them the pokey sides of weapons by way of poking, and then defining the meaning of sarcasm by putting mercy in mercilessly as she beat them down to the ground.

It seemed pointless, it was not painless, and it drove everypony’s hopes that they could do the job they were hoping for so down to the ground that they couldn’t spot them even with Luna squashing them down with her hoof on the back of their skull. Until they overheard Luna speak to Solid Charge and mention that she was quite satisfied with their progress. Apparently, the Alicorn intended to get them used to getting hit and dodging first and foremost. So the thrashing continued, but this time they knew their flanks hurt for a reason. Not that… it didn’t really help.

Luna wasn’t a fan of holding back. Or one hundred percent functioning spines for that matter either.

As nice as being in the gentle embrace of the most enthusiastic, deepest massage was, it wasn’t teaching them how to actually fight back. Luna herself told them that she wasn’t sure she would be the best teacher to get them up to speed from scratch, nor did she have the time. Not everypony needed weapon lessons, but she was going to give them all the same treatment. They were starting with the basics, and she had found the pony for the job.

He was a legend. A pony that everypony knew. If the Royal Guard had an avatar to represent them it would be him. The former Royal Guard Captain of Canterlot. A guard that had served Princess Celestia and Equestria for a century as a Captain, a record of service that no pony could ever hope to match. Captain Stampede had a list of accomplishments that not many ever bothered to read on account of how long it was. He was hailed as the greatest earth pony fighter alive, and Princess Celestia herself had said she would be hard pressed to think of anypony in her memory to match him. He. Was. Awesome.

Rainbow Dash almost dislocated her jaw when she saw him in person. In retrospect, she shouldn’t have been so surprised. He had been a Captain for a century! It made sense. It was natural.

Nope, it wasn’t. No way. It couldn’t be. Old ponies have wrinkles, yeah. But he had enough to match two Granny Smiths. Three, even!

Celestia, how old was that guy? Did he used to tuck filly Celestia in bed or something?

Rainbow Dash never found out, but she did discover two other things. First, the stories were all true, and just because former Captain Stampede was old—super old—it didn’t mean he had slowed down much or hit any less hard.

Translation; They were getting their flanks kicked by two ancient ponies now.

Second thing she discovered? Well… to put it lightly, the geezer was ecstatic to be back on top and have a bunch of ponies to torment again.

Wooooo...

They had finished up with the tents just in time. The rest of the Lunar Guard and initiates had arrived. The only ones missing yet was Luna and Raegdan. Rainbow Dash watched as the rest of the initiates unloaded the wagons of supplies, and were sent off to do their share of work.

A pony walked next to Rainbow Dash. Her eyes flickered to the pony’s cutie mark and she barely held in a groan when she saw a hoofprint with cracks around it. What did it stand for? Was it literal? Did he have a talent for putting exact duplicates of his cutie mark in the exact same position of other ponies?

“Private Rainbow Dash,” the old fossil said mischievously. “Nothing to do?” He should be trembling with the effort of standing up. Applejack’s grandmother had difficulties walking at times and there was no way he was younger than her, but no. His skin hung on him, but the muscles beneath were still going strong.

“Uh, no. And I’m, I’m not a private anything,” Rainbow Dash reminded him for what felt like the hundredth time. Senility. She was sure of it. “I just volunteered to join in so I can help and learn, you know?”

“Volunteeped?” Stampede scratched his hanging cheek. Yep. Senility.

“Yeah. Offer to do something for free? Ring any bells?” You old, slave-driving geezer. Go away, go away, go away.

Comprehension flashed across the face of a billion wrinkles. “Oh, volunteer. I see. My goodness. I am so sorry. I keep failing to remember that. Why, that is commendable. You must be quite the pony to volunteer for such worthy causes.”

Rainbow Dash puffed like a peacock at the praise. “Yeah, I’m cool like that. I like to volunteer and help out with everything I can, you know?”

“My gosh, what a remarkable mare!” Stampede said passionately and with an expression of pride. Rainbow Dash stood straighter. Yeah, she was, wasn’t she? She was super cool, and remarkable, and- “And how fortunate for me.”

Wait, what?

“I was just looking for volunteers to dig up the latrines, and behold my luck! A pony that loves to volunteer, and she obviously has free time on her hooves seeing how she just sits and watches my men work.”

What now?

“Latrines?”

Stampede nodded and pompously presented her with a shovel. “Thank you, volunteer Private Dash. I know you won’t fail this camp and the ponies’ need to—”

“Poop!” Rainbow Dash swore as she slipped on the loose dirt once more.

Red Dawn helped her stand up. “Careful. You don’t want to get hurt like this of all things,” the tall pegasus laughed. His sleek wings set to work dusting the dirt off her. Rainbow Dash shivered in surprise when she felt his feathertips carelessly go over her flank.

The sole griffin initiate—and wasn’t he a surprise—snorted in amusement. “Wouldn’t that make for a humorous reason to return to your home,” he mumbled.

Rainbow Dash huffed. Her only solace was that the feet long, perpendicular holes they had been digging were… unused. Knowing what they were digging them for however made her feel disgusted at the remaining brown stains on her fur.

She also hoped somepony was planning to put some sheets in front of them or something. She didn’t want to spend her days mostly trying to hold it in.

She watched the brown-feathered griffin for a moment. His claws let him get a much better hold of the shovel and he had a far easier time impaling the edge into the earth and depositing the soil to the side than either Rainbow Dash or Red Dawn had with their hooves and mouths. He was scrawny as far as most griffins went, but he looked to be well in shape, working quickly and efficiently.

There was just one little thing that bugged Rainbow Dash.

“How come you didn’t fly here with us, uh…. you?” she asked, suspicious. Maybe Solid Charge had a reason he kept the guy close. He was a griffin, she reminded herself, giving him a sideways glance. Griffins tried to kill Luna. Therefore—

“Gobrend. Due to an unfortunate incident I will be unable to join you in any flying you may do.” Gobrend spread his wings. His right one was unable to open completely, and the muscle there looked atrophied. “One call too close with the Everfree’s denizens. I’m afraid that I didn’t have five other friends with me to make sure a manticore didn’t maul me too much.”

Rainbow Dash scratched the back of her head while grimacing in apology. “Oops. Sorry, I didn’t know about that. So, you heard that story, huh?”

Gobrend used his hind lion paw to push the shovel deeper into the earth. “I have. As I heard the tale of Discord, of your Sonic Rainboom, of the dragon, and quite a lot more tales that have been driven into my ears without consent during your time with us, if I may remark.” He rested his elbow on the shovel’s handle and turned to look at Rainbow for a moment.

“And kindly keep in mind that you are a pegasus, not a parrot. There is far more to a vocabulary than ‘awesome’ and ‘cool’.”

“What, you don’t like my stories?” Rainbow Dash said, irritated.

Gobrend took a step forward to extend the hole he was working on. “Stories are a wondrous thing. They teach and warn, they enable us to share and live experiences we may never get to live in our own lives. But one experience I do not enjoy is hearing the same story retold three times in an hour with more blandness than the abridged history of the number two.” He waved at the latrines they were digging. “You may take this as a pun or not.” Red Dawn choked a laugh, and Rainbow Dash glared a severe warning to him.

“Oh yeah? Then why don’t you try telling one if you can do better?” Rainbow Dash challenged, crossing her hooves.

“Gladly.” Gobrend stuck his shovel in the pile of dirt he had amassed, and leant on it for support. “Watch closely as I fail to erratically move my claws in circles and make whooshing noises,” he said with a tiny smirk on his beak.

“Gobrend?” Red Dawn interrupted. His eyebrows were slanted downwards. “You could make your point splendidly, but nopony will heed it if they don’t care to listen to you anymore, will they? Thank you for understanding.”

The griffin raised an eyebrow and nodded somewhat reluctantly. “This is a tale of caution. I’ve been a vagabond for the best part of a decade, travelling across Equestria in my search for the odd job and the coin it would afford me. Even a griffin living off the land has expenses. As much as I’d love to, not even this place—” A single talon pointed towards the dreaded forest. “—has monsters made of ink and paper I could hunt for my needs. In between these trips of flexible business and aimless fortune, I found myself always returning to the edge and shallows of the Everfree Forest.”

“Why? I keep hearing how that place is dangerous. Why live there?” Red Dawn asked.

“In part it was because of my desire to find the strength or will to continue a research and finish a book I fear shall forever elude me. In some other form it was because it was the closest thing I had left to a residence or home. But mostly is was pure spite. The Everfree Forest robbed me of my life’s work, my possessions, hope, and days I should have better spent with loved ones. I was daring it to try to take more of me, and I found some small measure of mirth each time I left it behind unscathed and whole.”

“What happened then?” Rainbow Dash asked softly, lost in the Griffin’s words. Damn, that guy was actually good at telling a story! She couldn’t wait for the action part!

Gobrend showcased his lame wing again. “Then came the time I left the forest in search of work with another loss to this forest. The end.”

Rainbow Dash was earnestly disappointed. “That’s it? Where’s the fight with the manticore? Where’s the- the caution thing in your story?”

The yellow beak smiled condescendingly. “Who ever said there was a fight? I fled for my life after it swept me down, nothing more, and the reason I called this a tale of caution is this; You may dare danger ten, twenty, a hundred times, and remain unharmed. Until you don’t.” He returned his eyes to the forest, and Rainbow felt relief to escape the intense stare he had kept on her. “How many times have you braved that forest, Rainbow Dash? How much longer will your luck continue, and how lucky will we be ourselves?”

Rainbow shook her head, as if to shake a spell. “Okay, if you’re trying to scare me… you failed.”

Gobrend sighed. “Caution, not fear, remember? Which reminds me.” He picked up his shovel. “That I should be cautious not to be caught slacking off.”

She couldn’t help but chuckle. Gobrend was quite interesting at the very least, and he seemed to know what he was talking about. She turned to her other comrade-in-’duty’.

“Hey, Red. You got any good stories to share? Anything to make me forget what my hooves are working at?”

“Working,” Gobrend scoffed almost silently as he kept digging, unlike Rainbow.

Red Dawn’s head was bowed, and he was lost in thought. Rainbow Dash had to repeat herself two more times until he snapped out of it, apologizing.

“I’m afraid not,” he said, blushing. “I was born in a small village, left as soon as I could, and I…” he shuffled his hooves on the ground, hesitating. “I became a waiter in a restaurant in Canterlot. Nothing exciting, I’m afraid.”

Rainbow examined Red Dawn’s cutie mark again. A crossed fork and knife. Something told her it didn’t stand for serving, but she decided to skip on asking.

Gobrend didn’t. “What does your mark stand for? The symbology of them makes erratic sense at best in my experience.”

“I’m good with… manners, I guess. Etiquette. I know how to talk to ponies, ease things up.”

“Hmm. A fork and a knife meant to portray bids for peace and calm. A… sharp contrast to the imagery itself.” Gobrend scratched his beak, the claws making a sound like a hoof running down a blackboard. “You’d think a talent like that would be better used in something more substantial than a waiter’s menial position.”

“Maybe. Thing is I find myself getting into trouble anyway without meaning to, and… sometimes my patience runs thin.”

“Are you on the run from some crime done in one of those moments then?” Gobrend bluntly asked.

“What? No!” Red Dawn said vehemently. “I’ve lashed out a few times, said a few things I shouldn’t or broke a thing or two. I haven’t actually hurt anypony!”

“Yet,” Gobrend pointed out, smiling smugly. “Perhaps there is not as much contrast as I thought.”

“Hey. Cut that out,” Rainbow Dash warned him.

Red Dawn let out a sad sigh. “Yeah. Yet. But hey, we’re heroic monster hunters now, right? I can lash out freely on them.” He forced a smile.

“Oh yes,” Gobrend mumbled sarcastically, unheard by Red Dawn. “Outcasts, glory hounds, and daydreamers. All armed and away from civilization, what better place to feel free to lash out?”

They kept working in silence, the only sounds between them the scrape of metal as they bit into the ground, and the rankling of pebbles and dirt as they slowly built up a mound of spare earth. Gobrend’s eyes communicated his exasperation to Rainbow Dash as Red Dawn opened his mouth to speak and chose to halt instead for the fourth time in a row.

Rainbow blew a puff of air to brush away some of her mane that had fallen in front of her eyes. “I’d love to tell a story, braggart as I am,” she mocked her mocker, “but I’ve no idea which...” She let the bait jingle for a few seconds.

Red Dawn’s rested his shovel, and spoke hesitantly. “I’ve been wondering about… about this guy, Raegdan?”

Rainbow Dash pursed her lips unsure, regretting her plot. She didn’t want to get into a position where she might blow something foul out of it and get into somepony’s nose. Raegdan’s especially. She was sure he wouldn’t appreciate it.

“We haven’t even seen him so far. I wondered, is he really as savage as I heard?”

“Oh, don’t worry.” Rainbow Dash breathed easier. “He’s mostly threats. You’ve got to do something really bad to get him actually mad to really get him going. But, uh, try not to annoy him either way. He’s got no issue with giving bruises. Or broken bones.”

The white maned pegasus dug out a rock, his hoof tapping nervously against it. “Is that what happened with the previous Solar Guard Commander?”

“Ah. Heard about that, huh?”

Gobrend leant on his shovel again, resting his chin on his arms. “At this point? Who hasn’t?”

Both griffin and pegasus were now entirely focused on Rainbow Dash, and the realization that attention wasn’t always a good thing struck her again, like it had done plenty of times before, like in the Young Flyers competition.

“Look, guys, it was basically just a repeat of what had happened at the arena, okay? Steadfast wanted to have a match against Raegdan when he suddenly upped the ante and turned it into a fight to the death. He almost killed Raegdan. Then, if that wasn’t enough, he hit Twilight. He’s lucky that Princess Celestia arrived in time, but he should have known what he was getting into.”

“Did he really pluck out his eye?” Red Dawn asked, mesmerized. “I heard that he broke all his limbs one by one, then took his eye out and ate it! And at the arena, he tore out a pegasus’ wings!”

“What? No! But Leaf Stream’s the peg—”

“—He beat a pony that tried to assassinate Princess Luna to near death, and then threw him out a window—”

“The window was me—”

“—And he caught the leader of those griffins and bit off his genitals—”

Gobrend’s looks of disgust turned into outright retching, and a severe case of clenching and grimacing.

A baritone voice interrupted Red Dawn’s gushing, the owner dropping the spears he was carrying. Cast Iron was half impressed and half repulsed. “Whoa. I thought the rumors about him eating ponies were bad!”

“Oh, hey, Cast. How’s it going?” Rainbow Dash couldn’t manage anything better than a queasy smile.

“Not bad.” Cast Iron bend down to gather up the spears under his arms with a sigh of resignation. “Though I would be much happier to stay back and keep forging,” he said with longing.

The few times she saw him he had done little more than talk about tensile strength, flexibility, hardness, and other words that Rainbow Dash remembered by grace of hearing them so often. He was a minotaur in love with whatever new steel he had been working with.

“I’ve actually been busy with preliminary work for our armors and weapons, but I was forced to come along with all of you.”

“Cool!” Rainbow crowed loudly, already imagining herself covered up in black metal, looking all wicked, mysterious, and pointy. She jumped in place, giddy with excitement. “That’s awesome! When are we getting them?”

Cast Iron killed her enthusiasm, pronto. “You’re not. Princess Luna has been very clear on the subject that you are here to learn just in case only, but she’ll have your flank if you ever try anything on your own without going through her or the rest of us first.” His thumb pointed at the other two. “And everyone else is getting suited for one when they prove they can handle the job. I can’t afford the time to waste. Do they really say that all that about Raegdan?” he asked Red Dawn.

The pony in question mumbled his answer, embarrassed to have been caught with wrong beliefs. “That’s what I’ve heard. It’s not true then?”

“Not really,” Rainbow Dash said, feeling awkward. In Red Dawn’s defense and Raegdan’s detriment there was quite the huge nugget of truth in there. The mistakes were in the details which made everything more… gruesome than it really was. Not much though. She felt vexed enough to drag her hoof down her face, and give herself a smack for good measure. Because, let’s face it, in essence this was all true.

Dear Celestia, it was so easy to forget this stuff after you sat down with the guy and he told you how he used to drive Cadance to the brink of madness with a carefully worded innuendo about himself and Princess Celestia.

“Right,” she said, working her wing shoulders loose as she charged headfirst into the impossible. “It’s quite simple. Twilight has been telling us this a lot, but it takes some time until you actually get it. He’s not a pony or a minotaur or anything, and he’s lived a hard life. He’s not putting up with anything that might hurt those he cares for. He’s not what I’d call a good guy either. When Steadfast hit Twilight he got mad. More mad than I’ve ever seen him. The girls and I didn’t believe our eyes when we saw him get up and march right behind—”

Cluttering sounds of metal and wood interrupted her as Cast Iron dropped his spears again. “Hey, are you ok?” she asked, worried.

Cast Iron wiped his palms against his own fur, leaving sweaty stains behind. “Yeah. Sure, I’m… I’m fine. Fine. You said, ‘you and the girls’?”

“Oh, yeah. You weren’t there,” Rainbow Dash remembered. Cast Iron had arrived much later on with Rarity and—no, wait, Rarity was there with them. Dang, the whole thing was almost like a nightmare. She wasn’t sure what she saw or not at times. Even the rest of the girls had the same problem. Twilight insisted that she saw Honest Serenade there, watching and laughing, but none of the other girls, Rainbow Dash included, remembered spotting her.

“No. No I wasn’t,” Cast Iron said emphatically. He bent down, but pulled his arm back from gathering up the fallen spears and stood up again. “But, uh, you were?”

“Yes…” Rainbow Dash said, drawing out the word and feeling concern for her minotaur friend. She turned back to Red Dawn who was waiting with the expression of a thirsty pony. “Raegdan did break Steadfast’s legs, and… ugh, that was disgusting, he took out his eye, but the guy did the same to him!”

Red Dawn’s mouth formed a circle so perfect that would make Twilight weep.

Gobrend spoke up with a contemplating tone, his talons clicking against the shovel’s handle in a beat.“I don’t see the need or reason to defend him. Both of them played a game defined by the oldest of rules, and the victor took his spoils. This is how it works. I confess, I’m surprised that he was allowed to. Letting him hold down a defeated opponent and perform such acts of torture, not just him but either of the two—Lunar or Solar—is uncharacteristic for you ponies.”

Rainbow Dash blushed, feeling unreasonably peeved. The griffin did have a point. Steadfast had been an utter jerk, and he did deserve getting his flank seriously kicked, but Rainbow Dash acknowledged that Raegdan went overboard. He stopped Steadfast from hurting Twilight or anypony else, including himself, and then went on to methodically tear him apart while he was down. Yes, Steadfast almost did the same thing the way he walked up to him and pushed a dagger up…

The memory made her cringe. It sure felt like Steadfast deserved it, no question about it. He tried to kill him, but Raegdan went on to try to torture him and kill him slowly. Most importantly, it… It wasn’t a fantasy. It wasn’t a ‘what if’ or ‘wouldn’t it be cool to’ or anything of the kind. He did that. Actually did that. He held him down, and was cold and efficient in what little time he had before the Princess arrived.. Was there even a difference between them then, at least one large enough? Was it even worth it to try and split them on different sides of right and wrong?

She had realized that Raegdan truly wasn’t a good person, but she simply thought of it as just that. She only thought of him as angry and half-crazy when he got mad. She didn’t check him out as bad or evil, but maybe, just maybe, he was. At least part of the time.

“It’s… Look, it’s different when you actually see it happen in front of you, okay?” she attempted to explain. “It’s easy to say you would stop that from happening, that you’d jump in and do something, but it’s… it’s a shock. You freeze. It’s like you don’t want to believe this is really happening, that you don’t see it. And it’s scary as Tartarus to see, you have no idea. It was worse than… I swear, it’s worse than standing in front of an angry dragon or even Nightmare Moon or Discord. They threatened and all, but Raegdan… it was like he was giving a show, you could almost see yourself there in his hands instead of... I don’t know. I really don’t. We couldn’t even imagine getting in his way. We were more worried for Twilight anyway, and then we waited for her to bring Princess Celestia.”

Gobrend carefully listened to her and considered her words. “Self-preservation. You were wary of attracting the predator’s attention.”

“Okay, listen, buddy, I know what it sounds like, but he does have lines he doesn’t cross. I didn’t think he would take a bite out of me if I tried to stop him or anything.”

The griffin waved her admonishment off. “I meant it as a defense mechanism. The little animal voice is still alive in us, and it tells us not to get involved. It’s why you don’t see animals rush to the rescue of a member of their herd when it is attacked by a predator.”

It made some kind of sense. It wouldn’t surprise her if that was true. Neither would it if a certain alien knew it or banked on it.

“Hey, Cast, when will Raegdan and Luna be—… Cast?” The minotaur was nowhere in sight. “Where did he go?”

Red Dawn pointed towards the main area of the camp. “He muttered something about needing to talk to the Lunar Commander and ran off a few seconds ago.”

Gobrend shook his head. “It is quite possible that he was running late on his errands.” His gaze ran down their own half-finished work. “As do we. May I receive some assistance or am I expected to finish this on my own?”

They kept working, digging and gathering the soil they dug up on a single pile using the single bucket they had been given for the job. They were almost done when one more distraction came their way to interrupt them.

Two very brown colored earth pony mares with chocolate manes, who looked too much alike not to be related, were chatting up a storm with—or at—a wolf-like Diamond Dog, the tall canine trying, and failing, to get a word in. The Diamond Dog was carrying two buckets of water, the contents sloshing and dripping from the sides due to his tilting, unsteady bipedal gait. The mares were carrying one half-filled bucket between them. Every time one of them finished talking, the other one would pass her the bucket in a quick throw so she could have a turn. Small wonder most of the bucket these two were carrying had been emptied.

“—So the whole net breaks, and there are barrels rolling everywhere—” One mare with a white muzzle and a blue circle for a cutie mark started.

“—and we were smack in the middle of the whole bunch coming for us,” her twin with white ‘socks’ and a red ‘X’ for a cutie mark continued,

“And we’re like, ‘Finally, some proper, speedy unloading!’ We get in position and—”

“ ‘Position’.” The socked mare chuckled derisively. “You were ready to collide with them in an effort to stop them, Tick.”

“Hey, I hadn’t noticed those hay stacks we could use, Tack,” the white-muzzle mare defended herself. “Anyway, we wait for them to come and start kicking them over—”

“—We didn’t manage the steadiest rows, but it was good enough. Then—”

Gobrend laughed at the sight of the sieged Diamond Dog. A malicious grin spread on his beak and his eyes shone with malice. “Doing physical work and tormented by your own acute senses, dog? Perhaps there is a shred of justice in the world.”

The Diamond Dog was black, with silver streaks starting to run down his back before they were hidden underneath his rugged and dirty shirt that must have been white in a past life, and a single silver splotch on his forehead. His blue eyes connected with the griffin in a silent duel, and his paws let the buckets fall, drenching his dark blue trousers. His black, craggy lips separated, revealing two rows of sharp teeth.

“You looking for trouble, furry chicken?” He growled.

Gobrend took a good hold of the shovel as if readying himself for a fight, and glanced at it with disgust. “Someone holding a shovel and a mutt growling and snarling. It makes for a familiar image, doesn’t it?” Gobrend threw the shovel in front of him with the air of a challenge. “Too bad we’re not in one of your tunnels now.”

“What did you call me?” The long muzzle ridged and the eyes balked as if their owner could not believe his own ears. The Diamond Dog’s hair rose and saliva ran between gritting teeth, glistening and forming foam as the Diamond Dog was overtaken by rage. Gobrend’s throat swelled with an unfettered keen cry, low in volume but sharp on the ears.

Rainbow Dash left her shovel fall from her grip and was about to jump right in the middle and stop this with her hooves if she had to, but another pony got to it first.

“I’m sorry,” Tack said sarcastically. She was suddenly standing between the Diamond Dog and the griffin, her back turned to the furious canine, and glowering at the bristling half-lion. “What’s your name?”

“Gobrend Grasstalon.” The griffin managed to swallow his sudden anger enough to introduce himself, even making himself capable of a slight bow of his head and upper body, swivelling his working wing around him. His sharp eyes remained glued to his opponent.

“Alright, Goobread Asstalon? You’re rude. Very, very rude. Veryfically rude. Much rude. We were talking to Raven and having a good time. Stop butting in, you butt. Now, where was I?” Tack asked her sister.

Tick grinned. “I’m not sure. Let’s start over.” They both turned to their prey, filled with an excitement he didn’t share. “We were on the third pier from the east side in Baltimare’s port, working as dockhooves—”

The griffin mouthed ‘goobread?’ with a look of utter bewilderment. Rainbow Dash poked Red Dawn with her elbow and mouthed ‘asstalon’, making both of them fall into silent giggles.

The Diamond Dog, Raven as the certain twins called him, covered his ears with his paws in distress. He snarled aggressively and his jaws suddenly snapped a mere inch from Tick’s face. The mare patted him on the cheek and kept chattering on, ignoring the attack that failed to touch her or be followed by any other violence or strike.

Meanwhile, Red Dawn and Rainbow Dash got on opposite sides of Gobrend and pulled him back. He half-heartedly tried to fight back and move against Raven again, so Rainbow Dash knocked these thoughts out of his mind with a hoof.

“What did you think you were doing?” Red Dawn whispered fiercely.

The griffin shrugged their hooves and wings off him and retrieved his shovel. He threw a glance over his shoulder at Raven, cowering behind the twins’ onslaught of meaningless, repetitive stories that were told in such a breaking manner that almost none could follow.

“Why is he even here? Dogs keep mine slaves, you fool. Don’t you know anything?”

“Yes, I know that,” Red Dawn admitted with a nod. “Same way I know that Griffin clans keep buying the ore and gems they dig up, maintaining the demand.”

“Not every clan,” Gobrend weakly protested, his head lowering between his shoulders.

“I also know, as you would as well if you cared to ask or meet the guy before,” Red Dawn continued, speaking without reproach but with the merest hint of disappointment, “that he doesn’t like his kind either, nor does his kind like him back. He’s a wolf breed. Do you know what they do to them?”

“... Not sure.”

“They don’t accept them in their inner packs to say the least. But most of them have nowhere to go so they stick around. Can you guess what kind of work they’re given, if any? If you need some help, just know that he probably knows exactly what it’s like to hold a shovel and hear growling over you.”

“So do I,” Gobrend said, his expression hard and unyielding. “What you are telling me is that he didn’t get to hold the whip.”

Red Dawn sighed, defeated. “If you insist on clinging to your hate I doubt I can change your mind. One question though. Do you know how Diamond Dogs feel about Nightmare Moon?”

Gobrend sniggered. “Well, that’s easy. They’re absolutely terrified of her—” his eyebrows lowered in puzzlement as he thought over what he said.

“What’s the point of that?” Rainbow Dash tried to whisper from Red Dawn’s side but Gobrend apparently had sharper hearing that she gave him credit for.

“It means that the dog preferred to come work for its kind’s terror figure rather than stay where he was.” The griffin attempted to return to digging but he was sidelined by the sight of mud in front of him, caused by the fallen pails.

Gobrend walked over with a tired gait, and bent down to pick up the metal buckets. He looked at the remains inside and sniffed the water. “Where exactly did you get this from?” he asked at large.

Raven gave him a sour look, but seeing no more antagonism coming from the griffin might have led him to not pursue the matter between them either. He pointed behind him with a look of resignation, and the twins rushed in to give more detail. “There’s a deep water hole just a few paces over there. You can’t see it here because the ground hills up in between and there are these bushes in the way,” Tack said, pointing.

Red Dawn stood next to Gobrend, his eyes shifting from the water buckets to the point Tack pinpointed, and back to the latrines they had been painstakingly digging up. “Is digging these holes so close to the water we’re supposed to be drinking hygienic?”

Rainbow Dash groaned, kicking the shovel away. She knew the answer to that.

“Why did Stampede tell you to dig them here then?” Gobrend demanded.

The tall pegasus blinked. “He didn’t tell me anything of sorts! He just sent me to you. I saw you guys standing here, and I thought this was where we were supposed to dig them.”

Gobrend turned to Rainbow Dash with a glare of accusation. “I was just standing here when he gave me the shovel,” Rainbow Dash defended herself. “When you two came along I thought you knew better.”

The griffin’s claw smacked himself over his eyes.

“Wow. Sucks to be you,” Tick observed dryly. There was a certain amount of satisfaction.

“I need a drink,” Gobrend murmured, and Raven’s throat unheedingly let out a whine of agreement.

The twins perked up. “We can help with that. Here.” Tick offered the bucket she had been holding to the griffin and the Diamond Dog.

“That’s not a drink,” Raven muttered, sounding at the end of his rope.

“If you just—”

Raven kicked the bucket just as his patience did, wetting the two mares. “I had enough of the two of you! I’m going to do the job and carry the water on my own. All you do is drive me crazy. Don’t come near me again or I’ll have you for morsels before dinner!” He bared his teeth at the mares’ faces, spitting saliva over them as he barked out in anger, hungry for the slightest excuse.

Tack wiped her face with her white coated hoof. “Why is everypony so rude today? I’ve met sailors who spent six months at sea and were nicer to me! Of course, they had just spent six months at sea so it made sense they were being extra nice to me...” she said to her sister rhetorically, ignoring Raven’s threats. Tick just shrugged as she wiped her white muzzle with a nauseated expression.

“... Does your cutie mark being an ‘X’ have anything to do with that?” Rainbow dared to ask.

The Diamond Dog picked up the two remaining buckets and almost ran off, muttering threats, insults, and prayers to finally go into the Everfree and die, under his breath.

Tick picked up the fallen bucket and shook it, watching a last few sips of water still slosh inside it. She offered it to Gobrend, Red Dawn, and Rainbow Dash who shook their head as one.

“Whatever,” Tick said, pulling out a small, silvery flask. “I was trying to be nice, but if you insist, alright then. This is too stiff to drink without getting some water in you, so sucks to be you, Goobread… again.” She pushed her head back and chugged.

“Not to rain on your parade, but what do you think will happen if you’re spotted drinking alcohol?” Red Dawn asked in disbelief of the sight.

Tick flipped the flask upside down, showcasing its emptiness. “Well, m’nah zrinking anymore. M’on, Tack. Lez go heep grumy Ravine some company.” She turned towards the direction the Diamond Dog ran off and drunkenly stumbled after him.

Tack paused for a moment before following her sister. “You might want to refill these holes first or somepony might trip and get hurt, you know? I don’t think Stampede will be happy with you if that happens. Work, work, Gobrend. Sucks to be you.”

She pointed at Rainbow Dash and Red Dawn. “And you. And you.” Then she was off.

The green coated unicorn in Royal Guard armor put down a large pot with enough force to make the metal clang even though the ground was covered with short grass. “It’s about time you got here, private. Get to work.”

Rainbow Dash was tired, but mostly she was sick of the taste of dirt, sweat, and shovel on her tongue. She also didn’t like how today left her with the understanding that this was not a kind of life filled with adventure, but one of tedium, routine, and backbreaking exercise and chores.

“Excuse me?” She couldn’t handle more than a lifeless monotone.

She took the opportunity to examine the old pony in front of her. He was old, yeah, but nowhere near the relic Stampede, the Geezer of Labor and Personal Persecution, was. His seafoam blue mane and tail were both cut short, as if attacked -or tended- by a barber with a ruler fetish, but it made the gray hairs easier to see. He was muscled for a unicorn, especially for an old guard like he was, but the most striking characteristic on him was the eyepatch over his right eye. The coat around the socket was marred and the scar was extremely easy to see, long lines that carved and gouged deeper as they approached his eye from both directions. Rainbow Dash had seen Luna’s side where the still unexplained and unknown thing in the Leviathan had bit a good sized chunk off her, and this resembled it way too much.

“You look like you have woken up from a nap, private. Well, shake the sleep off your pretty eyes and get to work. You have been volunteered,” he barked, pointing towards some sacks where three other ponies were already busy peeling potatoes, trimming vegetables, or washing various foodstuff.

Oh Celestia, somepony did one of those wacky time spells she had read in comics and she now had to deal with a younger Stampede. And what exactly did he mean by pretty eyes? Was he coming on to her?

Gosh darn it, one pony and he was as old as her dad. How’s that for luck?

“I’m pretty sure I didn’t volunteer for anything. I’m pretty sure I never will again,” Rainbow Dash said, taking a step back.

“Well, too bad, private. You have been volunteered—”

“Exactly whose privates are we?” she asked, huffing, but her question was ignored.

“—By Training Instructor Stampede.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes in dull surprise; she didn’t feel. “Get to work. You’ve got a lot of skins in front of you.”

“Skins? Wait, who are you? What are we doing?” Rainbow Dash was finally getting some feeling back into her voice, and it was outrage, impatience, and a sudden case of wanting to get out of here.

A threatening step brought the scarred unicorn face to face with Rainbow Dash who gulped at the sparks flying off the remaining unicorn’s eye. “My name is Short Order, I volunteered as the company’s cook, and we—” Short Order brought his hoof down, almost stomping on Rainbow Dash. “—are making dinner. Get. To. Work.”

“Can I wash my hooves and mouth first?”

“Permission granted. Make sure to use soap.”

The peeler was one of those annoying knives that were meant to be used by unicorns with their schmancy, fancy, almighty gripping magic, not earth pony or pegasi hooves. The stupid, short, tiny handle kept slipping off her hoof as she dragged it over the rough potato skin and she had to keep stopping to pick it up and wash the dirt off it.

“Just how many of these are we supposed to peel off?” Rainbow Dash asked aloud, aiming her question at nopony in particular.

Stalwart Shield, one of those schmancy, fancy, magical unicorns, took off the helmet of his Royal guard armor. The stallion was pretty much… colorless with a silver-like mane and a gray coat, and he seemed to favor the kind of cropping on his mane that Short Order did, though not to that great a degree.

Next to him sat what Rainbow Dash occasionally called ‘the mystery mare’ out loud, and ‘the weirdo in the cloak’ in her head almost always. Rainbow didn’t know much about her other than she was a unicorn, had a soft blue coat, and a speech impediment.

“I imagine we have to peel every single one of them,” Stalwart Shield said, carelessly nodding at the ripped sacks spilling their humble bounty in their midst.

Shaded Swirl, Snared Wish’s husband was sitting next to Rainbow Dash. The earth pony should have had the same issue with the peel knives that Rainbow Dash had, but he somehow made it work for him. He worked efficiently and with a playful smile on his lips.

“This is going to take us hours!” Rainbow Dash groaned and let her forehead crash and burn on the milky white coat of the stallion next to her.

Shaded Swirl pushed her as to stand straight. “Twenty more minutes at worst.” He flashed her a smile of encouragement, and cracked his neck, working off any kinks. “Take it easy, and relax. Enjoy the quiet and the work. You know what’s coming next.”

“But I’m so bored!” Rainbow Dash swore loudly as she dropped her ‘freaking’ knife again. She swirled it in a pitcher filled with water to clean it up. “Why do we need so many potatoes?”

Short Order heard her as he went back and forth on the space he had designated as his kitchen, setting up large pots in rows over fires and heating up water. “Twenty eight mouths to feed, private. Unless of course you want to want to skip on dinner and lessen my workload.”

Stalwart Shield stopped humming. “I wonder what’s for lunch and dinner tomorrow,” he asked, not expecting an answer.

Short Order however was pleasant and nice enough to provide an answer. He tapped Stalwart Shield’s shoulder, and when he had the stallion’s complete and utter attention he diverted it to the large piles of potato sacks at the other end of the ‘kitchen’ area, the rest of them looking back as well.

“We’re going to have potatoes coming out of our—”

“Shaded Swirl, there are ladies present.” Stalwart Shield glared at the stallion.

“... Nostrils.”

The weirdo in the cloak spoke up, her cerulean magic handling the peel knife without seemingly any input from her. “Tr- I don’t mind it at all. Everything’s better than dining on—” She shuddered. “—rock soup.”

Why was that voice so familiar?

“I’ve had some of that,” Short Order noted. “It rolled easy enough when it got in the stomach, but it was a pretty rocky ride until then. Consider yourselves lucky. You normally have much worse while in the Royal Guard. Lucky for you soft bastards, that won’t be an issue with me here.” The old stallion turned away and left, carrying a basket of cleaned out potatoes with him and back to a flat boulder that he used as a table to chop and dice.

Rainbow Dash was falling far behind from the others, her small stack of peels barely growing while everypony else’s was turning into a respectable mound. She tried to go faster and all she managed to achieve was managing to wash her knife so many times that the paint on the handle was starting to fade.

She was losing a speed contest, and she couldn’t find it in her to care. At least when she flew over to Canterlot so she could do some martial training with the rest of the ponies joining in, it was a little interesting. Repetitive, but you felt that you were getting ready for action. This here was… potato peeling!

When she was told they were going to go to the Everfree Forest she had been exultant. Finally, some action. And then there was… this. Tents, latrines, potatoes, and ponies pushing her around and volunteering her.

“Has Luna and Raegdan arrived yet?” She felt like she was going to fall asleep as she sat.

“Tr- I heard Drum Beat say he spotted them on their way. Tr- I think they’ll be here soon,” the cloaked mare said. “Perhaps Tr- I will finally glean some secrets of import.”

“Ok, you know what?” Rainbow Dash stood up, feeling utterly fed up. “Take this stupid cloak off.” The mare barely had any time to process what Rainbow Dash said before the cloak was pulled off her. “Finally! There we g- Trixie?”

The travelling magician tore off her cloak from Rainbow Dash’s mouth. She flapped it angrily, turning it inside out and pulled it over her back, revealing that the other side was purple with studded, colored stars.

“What are you doing here?” Rainbow Dash demanded.

Trixie returned Rainbow’s glare. “The great and powerful Trixie saw the chance to increase her prestigious and powerful knowledge by learning at the hoof of a princess, and she took it.”

“Is this some kinda attempt to get back at—”

“Twilight Sparkle will rue the day she dared—”

“Yeah, it is. And... you’re ignoring me.” Rainbow Dash let her drone on. “I’m not quite sure what I expected to be honest. Did you guys know about this?”

“We knew she didn’t want you to recognize her, but we didn’t know why. I take it you’re not friends?” Shaded Swirl asked.

“Yeah, you could say that.”

Stalwart Shield looked on as Trixie kept proclaiming Twilight’s fate, his face slowly crumbling as if he was watching a sack filled with kitties slowly vanish underwater. “You mean by Twilight Sparkle she actually means Twilight Sparkle?”

“Take a guess.”

“—shoved deeper than she ever imagined!” Trixie finished, breathing hard. She noticed how Stalwart Shield was looking at her with fear and grief. “What?”

“Nothing, just… You might want to rethink all that.” Stalwart Shield sniffed and turned away from her as if he couldn’t bear to look at her any more.

“Huh?”

Stalwart Shield turned his gaze heavenwards, his hoof against his heart. “I was a guard in the castle you know. I’ve heard things. I’ve seen things. I’ve watched ponies rushed to the infirmary. I’ve encountered their imprints on the walls, and the puddles of blood and urine they left behind. I saw what he did last month. He once came after me, and I didn’t even do anything -except a new puddle afterwards.” He wiped his eyes. “You’re a dead mare.”

“Trixie does not understand—”

A voice interrupted Stalwart Shield’s attempt to rescue poor, doomed Trixie. “Oh boy. Is my meal coming out of your sweat and tears? Best dinner ever!”

“Hello, Leaf Stream,” Rainbow Dash said, not even bothering to glance at the sarcastic mare standing somewhere behind her.

Stalwart Shield stood up and saluted. “Captain Leaf Stream.”

“Yeah, yeah, ease up. So, how are you colts and fillies doing today? Everypony playing nice? Anypony been bad? Do you fillies need any juice?” Leaf Stream asked, making baby noises.

“Oh, haha,” Rainbow Dash said. “You’re such a barrel of laughs.”

“Yeah, I’m hilarious. Seriously though, just checking up on you all. I’ve been going through everypony, taking their last rites.” Leaf Stream walked around and into view of Rainbow Dash.

“Well, you’re just in time then,” Rainbow Dash said, and pointed to Trixie. “Trixie here wants to learn as much as she can from Luna so she can one up Twilight. Publicly. Make her cry if she can.”

Leaf Stream blinked. “What?”

“You heard me.”

Leaf Stream turned to look at Trixie, who was now fidgeting uncomfortably under the intense stare of Royal and Lunar guards. Then Leaf Stream broke into hysterical laughter, actual tears running down her cheeks and she pummeled the ground with her hoof in abandon.

“Is Trixie missing a joke?” Trixie shouted.

Leaf Stream sounded like an asthmatic stallion who tried to suck in a fart. “You wanna—Oh Celestia, I’m going to die, I’m going to bucking die! Oh, I want to be there. Please promise me you’ll let me watch when you ‘show up’ that gal.”

Trixie pulled her cape tight around her and her hoof tried to lower the hat she wasn’t wearing. “Trixie will welcome any spectators to Twilight Sparkle’s humiliation.”

“Oh Celestia, thank you. Thank you for letting me know there are even stupider ponies than me,” Leaf Stream gasped as she wrestled back on her legs. “In that case, oh great and powerful Trixie…” She held a pair of scissors on her hooves and snapped them threateningly.

“What are you doing with these?” Rainbow Dash asked, willing to play along with Leaf Stream’s game.

“I’m running around with them, what does it look like? Hey, can I ask you a favor?” Leaf Stream rummaged inside a small burlap pouch around her waist.

“Sure. What do you need?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Leaf Stream pointed towards the Everfree. “There. Can you look that way?”

“Okay, yeah. What am I looking at?”

The scissors snipped, the silken sound a cut too close to Rainbow’s ear. “Nothing, got what I wanted, thanks!” Leaf Stream danced away, uncaring of the eye daggers Rainbow Dash was returning with interest as she stored a rainbow array of mane hair in her pouch, and then snipped more hairs from everypony around, ignored their protests in her usual way, and made sure she got a long strand from Trixie’s head.

“You know, Trixie, I’m really looking forward to what you’ve got planned. I think it will be really fun. Almost as fun as when Steadfast Ray broke both of Raegdan’s legs last month,” Leaf Stream said, looking at Rainbow Dash with the edge of her eyes. “Remember that, little Dashie?”

Both legs? Rainbow frowned. Didn’t one of the spike thingamajigs crash on his knee and—ah right, yes. She had forgotten, though Celestia only knew how she could forget the sound of Raegdan’s legs snapping like twigs. She remembered how she gasped in horror, and how the bone creaked while grinding against the interior of his armor.

“Yeah. Yeesh. Fun? That was horrible!”

Leaf Stream’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah. It is, isn’t it?” she growled through grinding teeth.

“Excuse me, Captain, are we really supposed to go in the Everfree Forest? Tonight? In the dark? Or are you all having a lark with us?” Stalwart Shield asked.

Leaf Stream patted the stallion’s head, her sudden bad mood forgotten, and dropping the helmet low enough to cover his eyes. “Stalwart Shield, wasn’t it? Well, buddy, I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but yeah, we’re totally screwed. Just like Trixie over there.”

“What are you not telling Trixie?”

“Oh,” Stalwart Shield said, looking towards the distant forest with foggy eyes. “Permission to bring my own gravestone?”

Leaf Stream shook the small pouch in front of him, smiling maniacally. “No need. I got ya covered, all of you! This job’s idea of a health plan. Now come along, I need somepony to help me trim a puppy. I think it bites, and you’re my stalwart, meat shield. Hey, Short Order! I’m taking one of your guys!”

Short Order came back, gauging the work they had already done. “Go ahead,” he said after a moment. “I won’t need him any more.”

Rainbow Dash sprang up like a wound up coil. “Great! If we’re done then we can all go—” She paused as soon as she noticed Short Order’s smirk. “I volunteered for more, didn’t I?”

Short Order nodded, the satisfied twist of his lips refusing to leave.

“And here’s your bread. May you all choke on it.”

“Not the best service I’ve ever had, but we’ll take it,” Sunrise Storm said. She took off her helmet, letting her short, brown mane out of its confines to sway on the gentle, evening breeze. She was quite big, even for an earth pony, but the way she kept herself standing on the sides and watching, she was pretty easy to dismiss. Rainbow Dash almost forgot to serve her and the stallion sitting across from her.

“Can I have a seat?” Rainbow Dash asked, pointing at the short log Sunrise Storm was sitting on.

“Actually, we were—”

“Thanks.” She sat with relief, hoping she could use the bulk of the large, armored earth pony to hide behind in case anypony else came around looking for volunteers.

The camp had actually grown into something more than just a collection of tents. While Rainbow Dash had been busy digging and peeling, the rest had been busy as well. Bushes, dry foliage, and large rocks had been cleared out, logs had been dragged in to serve as seats while others were cut in half to be used as long tables. A palisade had started forming around the base camp, and she spotted small structures had been raised for ponies to stand watch from a higher vantage point while giving them some cover from any aerial predators that occasionally came out of the Everfree.

It seemed even some of the tents had been moved in order to increase efficiency, which angered Rainbow Dash a little. That was her work being remodelled, and she felt peeved that it wasn’t up to par simply because nopony bothered to tell them how exactly they wanted it done.

“—rruption like this means that he’ll almost certainly be guilty of other crimes as well. Nailing him on these, if possible, might be enough to give an opportunity to—”

Sunrise Storm was stopped from saying any more by the severity of Wave’s stare. Tidal Wave wore armor, much like all those other initiates who had a background as a Royal guard. Unlike all of them however, his was a motley mishmash of bits and pieces of different armors, some pieces old and dented, some obviously not pony made.

Word on why that was had spread. The green coated unicorn had been dishonorably discharged by the Royal guard, his armor taken, and he had even spent a long time in the dungeons. For a while they thought that Tidal Wave often let his blue mane cover his face -much like Fluttershy did- in shame. It ended up being something worse. Solid Charge had decided to share his problem with Rainbow Dash so she wouldn’t go digging on her own.

All in all, she thought it was a good call, though she’d rather not know about it at all.

“I don’t want him to go to jail for- for tax evasion or anything like this,” Tidal Wave hissed.

Sunrise Storm nodded, the barely younger mare seeming to fully understand him. “I get it. You want justice served for what he did to your sister,as well as you should. He’s escaped for far too long. That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t pay for whatever else he has done as well, does it?” she asked with an unpleasant smile.

Tidal Wave picked his spoon in his magic and got busy playing with his potato stew, disinterested in actually eating. Rainbow Dash didn’t care to follow his example; she was starving. She took a tentative lick from the tip of the spoon, still wary of the horror stories Short Order shared about Royal Guard rations and general meal quality on the field.

She cleaned out her plate in seconds. This was delicious! Maybe the military life wasn’t as bad as it was made out to be.

Barely any food made it past the unicorn’s lips. He was shiftily looking around. “Perhaps… Perhaps if there is no other way, if I convince Princess Luna that I am trustworthy, and she accepts my side of events… The rules could be bent a little.”

Uh oh.

“Just how much do you want them bent?” Sunrise Storm asked, putting both elbows on the halved log they used as a table. “Slightly? A lot? Twisted? Broken? Can you tell the difference when you are so emotionally close?”

“I’m not a halfwit, and he doesn’t deserve any fairness. You have no idea how it is, so don’t act all high and mighty when—”

“I lost family as well,” Sunrise Storm said quietly. “I didn’t like most of them, and they didn’t like me back even worse, but they were family, you know? I really miss my little brother mostly. There are days I wake up and wonder if he sent me another letter yet. You know how it is I expect.” The spoon moved the stew from side to side, making circles as she stared deep into it.

Tidal Wave slumped on the table, looking ashamed. His hoof brushed a small satchel he kept with him at all times. “I’m… sorry. I didn’t know. How long ago…”

“Five years,” Sunrise Storm answered. “Three of them I spent in the Guard. Then I struck out on my own.” She glanced at her cutie mark: a detective’s hat hung on the hilt of a downward facing sword. “Still haven’t found anything at all. I’m not giving up though.”

She looked at him, piercing eyes the color of ice crystals meeting deep sea blue. “I wonder what’s worst. Knowing nothing at all, and every day meaning they could be closer to getting away with it, or knowing exactly who performed such a vile crime and still trying to find a way to get him?” She sighed, closing her eyes, and checked her canteen, casting her face away. “I need to get some water.”

Tidal Wave’s horn glew and a tiny water stream popped into existence and started flowing over Sunrise Storm’s metal canteen, quickly filling it up. The stallion’s lips quirked upwards in a humorless, but not compassionless expression. “Perhaps we can compare notes and find out.”

Sunrise Storm drank a deep gulp of water and returned the exact same kind of smile. “Yeah. Perhaps we can.”

Rainbow Dash leaned forward, just enough to place one hoof on each pony’s shoulder. She held for a moment, getting their full attention, becoming one of them in the little space they had made as they understood each other. Then, and only then, she spoke up.

“Are you two going to eat that?” Her eyebrows pointed at the half-filled plates.

Both ponies laughed and sat down to finish their meal in relative silence. Rainbow Dash leaned back, letting her back rest on the ground and watched the sky slowly get darker as night approached fast. A shadow passed over her, and for a second she thought it was a cloud. She was wrong.

It was an evil, dark shadow of an evil, dark pony.

“Private Rainbow Dash, how are you doing this lovely evening?” Training Instructor Stampede, the Destroyer of Souls, asked with a pleasant smile, revealing the holes where teeth used to be.

Rainbow Dash thought fast. “I’m… tired. You know, all these chores, running around all day. I’m beat.”

Stampede nodded, his grey mane shaking up and down. “Understandable, Private. It is getting late as well.” The ferocious smile was replaced by a far softer one as he sat next to her. “It’s going to be a nice night.”

“Uhh… Yeah. No clouds,” Rainbow Dash agreed.

His elbow hit her playfully. “You know what I always loved on nights like this? A nice, big bonfire. Nothing ever beat a roaring fire out in the open.”

“Oh yeah. I do that all the time when I go camping,” Rainbow Dash said, finding some common ground with the Geezer of Ruin. “That’s always awesome.”

“I’m glad you agree.” Stampede rose up on his legs, and his old, grandfather-like smile was replaced by one you would see on a timber wolf. “Go build me one so I can warm my old bones.”

Sea Breeze watched impassionately as Rainbow Dash broke the firewood into fragile, thin twigs. “I am certain that we already had enough kindling. Is this all the wood you gathered or are you just kidding?”

Rainbow Dash glared at the unicorn mare that interrupted her. “Look, I’ve got some issues I need to work through.” She did her best not to stare at the stub that was all that remained of Sea Breeze’s rotten horn, looking down at her hooves instead.

Sea Breeze was one of the bluest ponies she had ever seen. Blue coat and bright blue eyes. Even her mane was teal, but it was way too easy to mistake it for blue as well in the dark. The only real change in coloration on her was her cutie mark, a bubbling black cauldron with a few white lines representing a breeze behind it.

“Are you looking at my horn again? Did you forget or are you deaf?” Sea Breeze said, suddenly hostile and dropping the basket of wood.

“Hey, cool down. I was looking at your mane. Geez!” Rainbow Dash said, lest she get into another fight about the unicorn’s sore lack-of-point again. Sea Breeze seemed as if she wanted to push it further before she finally got ahold of the basket in her teeth once more and continued towards the center of the camp. Rainbow Dash gathered up the rest and followed behind her.

The unicorn relaxed. “My apologies. I feel like everypony is staring, and it’s becoming grating. Okay, it’s a rotten stub, stop making me a spectacle or pitying me, you know? Last thing I need is getting the evil eye.”

Rainbow smiled mischievously. “You’d rather have ponies stare at the other end instead?”

The older mare wiggled her flank, playfully flicking her tail. “Hey, at least I know I still got that intact and full.”

Rainbow laughed and followed beside her, slowly sinking into her own thoughts. It must be horrible not to be able to use magic again. Pretty much like Leaf Stream felt about not flying, she guessed. Horrible. Rainbow Dash tried to imagine how she would fare in their place before her imagination closed stores for the day and hung a sign reading ‘no’.

Trailblazer was readying the wood for the fire, giving pointers to Limit Breaker as he worked.

“Now look, we need to have air circulate so that’s why we’re going for the cone shape with an opening, or door, instead of throwing everything into a pile. The tinder will catch fire easy as pie, then the kindling, and that will be enough to really get the fire going and make the larger wood catch on fire. That’s easy, right, kid?”

“Are you really going to let him call you kid, kid?” Rainbow Dash poked Limit Breaker. The earth pony was usually set on nopony calling him that.

Not that they didn’t have reason to. Limit Breaker had the body structure of a small pegasus rather than an earth pony. He even had a few short feathers on his withers, though unlike most ponies born like that he genuinely liked them. Like Sea Breeze was almost entirely blue, he was mostly red, if you ignored the few darker spots on his coat. These, along with his maroon hair, made him look as if he was burning. Even his cutie mark was a weird flame. It was quite the intimidating combination.

Then he turned to you with that coltish, bright smile, and his honey colored eyes on his foal-like face, and you couldn’t possibly help but call him a kid. Leaf Stream had even pinched his cheeks the first time she saw him. He looked like he belonged in school, not out here.

“Nah. It’s not like it’s stopping any of you, is it?” Limit Breaker laughed.

Sea Breeze playfully thumped her flank against him, making Limit Breaker fumble. “Acceptance is one thing. Letting them walk over you is another, sweetie,” she warned jokingly as she dropped her package.

“I don’t really care now anyway, I’m too excited. We’re going into the Everfree Forest. We’re finally going to become real heroes!” Limit Breaker said, jumping up and down in enthusiasm.

Rainbow Dash exchanged a hoof bump with Limit Breaker as she went by, feeling her own giddiness return. “Atta kid! Now that’s the kind of spirit we need to bomb Everfree with!”

Trailblazer wasn’t even looking at their direction as he kept stacking wood and talking. “Correction. We’re going to be guards, not heroes.”

“But if we do a good job and save ponies then—”

“—Then we will be good guards,” Trailblazer finished Limit Breaker’s sentence as he backed away from the unlit stack of wood, examining it with a critical eye. “Take a good look around, Limit. We’re not the type to be heroes.”

“What do you mean?”

The unicorn took off his helmet and ran a hoof over his windswept dark orange mane, the yellow highlights on tops creating an illusion of a flickering flame as it moved, before he covered it up again. “I mean that nopony here is hero material. You’ve got guards that couldn’t make the cut elsewhere, ponies that never saw a monster in their life, ponies with permanent injuries or defects… You shouldn’t be surprised if you find out some of us were former criminals as well.”

“We are defined by actions and words, not the past or loss,” Sea Breeze said -sang almost-, visibly sore at Trailblazer’s comment of defects.

“Very inspiring,” Trailblazer said, drily. “Who told you that? Your mom when you got an F on your home economics exam?”

Limit Breaker and Rainbow Dash got between them as soon as Sea Breeze made a snapping movement as if to charge the stallion. “Guys, calm down. Look, heroes or guards, we’re not supposed to fight with each other,” they both said together. Rainbow Dash exchanged a surprised look with Limit Breaker before bursting into wide grins together.

Hoofbump!

Rainbow Dash and Limit Breaker nodded from one unicorn to another, urging each of them to take the first step, grinning like madponies all the while. Peer pressure got to them eventually, and Trailblazer was the first to break.

“I’m sorry. That might have been a little too far.”

“It was,” Sea Breeze agreed.

Trailblazer grinned. “You started it. You threw salt right into my eyes.”

Sea Breeze flustered. “Wh-what? There was no such attack!”

“While you were eating,” Trailblazer reminded her.

“Salt was spilt by my hoof, the spirits I needed to soothe! I just threw a pinch behind me!”

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” Trailblazer demanded, distrustful of Sea Breeze’s excuse.

Sea Breeze bent her head and paid attention to how she dug the earth with her hoof, and mumbled under her breath.

“I didn’t hear that.” Trailblazer put his hoof behind his ear.

“I said I’m sorry. I thought the rite was a resounding success and your screams were the evil spirits cries of egress.”

Limit Breaker and Rainbow Dash faced a dilemma. Did they stop laughing now before either of these two tried to kill them or should they keep on and see if asphyxiation by laughter did them in first?

“Why isn’t that fire lit yet?” Stampede’s voice roared through the evening air.

“Oops,” Trailblazer said. “Better get to it fast.” The unicorn picked up a long piece of thin wood in his magic. His horn’s glow intensified and the end of it flared, leaving it alight. He turned aside, took aim, and the makeshift torch nailed itself on the bonfire’s kindling with a sharp twanging sound.

“Cool!” Rainbow Dash and Limit Breaker said together.

“That oughta do it,” he said as he watched the fire grow. “I guess we have a little time before the Princess takes us into the forest.”

Rainbow Dash sprang up in the air, finally remembering to ask. “Where have those two been, anyway? Any of you have any idea?”

“Two?” Sea Breeze asked.

“Luna and Raegdan. Why are they not here yet?”

Limit Breaker raised his hoof. He looked like a schoolcolt. “I know! I heard the Princess’ bodyguard was still pretty injured so he had to take it slow. The Princess is walking along with him.”

“Why didn’t he ride on one of the wagons?” Trailblazer asked. Limit Breaker shrugged, not knowing the answer.

Well, he didn’t know the guy like Rainbow did. Raegdan probably didn’t want to look too hurt. If Rainbow Dash was any judge of character he probably spent his trip swearing with every single step at his own idiocy.

“I think they’re here or soon will be,” Sea Breeze said. “I saw the Lunar Commander rush in a hurry, along with the members of the Lunar Guard.”

Rainbow Dash unfurled her wings. “Great. I’m gonna go find them. I’ve got a letter for Raegdan.” She crouched, ready to jump in the air, and paused.

“If Stampede asks for me, tell him I volunteered to be a messenger. And that I spat in his food.”

Author's Note

There was need of quite a few new characters to fill the ranks of the Lunar Guard. Luckily, a lot of wonderful people were happy to provide me with some great characters, but I only have so much space if I don't want them to simply be a passing remark. The characters appearing in this chapter and their creators are:

Blank Slate was provided by Mobile SAM
Gobrend Grasstalon was provided by SirReal
Limit Breaker was provided by Hywther
Raven Moon was provided by Wolf Blood
Red Dawn was provided by TheHiddenBrony
Sea Breeze was provided by Spooky Moon
Shaded Swirl was provided by Vwyx
Short Order was provided by LordGrayGem
Snared Wish was provided by Vwyx
Stalwart Shield was provided by Ancient Chronicler
Stampede was provided by Shinji
Sunrise Storm was provided by That Hooded Fella
Tack Toe was provided by Mr-Dr-Prof Sweetness
Tick Toe was provided by Mr-Dr-Prof Sweetness
Tidal Wave was provided by Lord Demolitions
Trailblazer was provided by Oak_Splitter

A massive amount of thanks to these delightful people.

These characters will make a mark in this story in one way or another, and there will be more appearing. I hope you will all come to enjoy them as I try to do my best with them.

Ch.34 - Hiding

“No way,” Broken Gust confidently stated with an ugly, angry grimace. “Not Princess Luna. She would never do that.”

Cradle Song listened with a bored look, and seemingly unperturbed. “Why not?” he asked.

“Why not?” Broken Gust repeated, shocked and seething with offense. “Because it’s Princess Luna! That’s why!”

Cradle Song wiped some of the spittle that had left Broken Gust’s mouth and landed on his fire colored beard. “It’s a tremendous argument, I’ll admit. Allow me to counter. Why not?”

Broken Gust dragged him close with a violent pull, her hoof trembling with barely contained rage near his eye, and her teeth grinding as if restraining herself from biting him. “One more word out of you against her, you traitor, and I’m going to pluck that stupid red mane off of you, hair by bucking hair!”

Eventide’s hoof landed gently on Broken Gust’s leg and firmly eased it down, her unwavering stare cowering the younger Thestral. “Enough. Cradle Song has a point. Princess Luna could and would tamper with somepony’s mind if, and that’s if, she found it necessary. You know this as well as everypony, Broken Gust. Princess Luna does not shy away from doing what she believes needs to be done.”

“However,” the old Thestral continued, shifting her gaze from Broken Gust to Solid Charge, “that means exactly that. Princess Luna might have done something atrocious under a wrong belief or might know something we don’t. We are her guards, Solid Charge. I’m not going to betray her or accuse her without knowing more, but considering what you’ve uncovered and who it involves, I don’t wish to let this continue without hearing this exceptional reason now that I know of it.”

Solid Charge nodded grimly, Eventide’s line of thinking aligned perfectly with his own. What worried him was Leaf Stream. The brown maned mare simply sat, listening with a dead expression, and waited to be told what would be done.

A sense that had been growing sharper and more prominent as the hours passed told him that there was going to be trouble with her. There was outrage before. Did it simply wither away?

Or did it simmer beneath the surface and out of sight?

Raegdan was sitting down on the dirt, legs crossed in that weird way of his. He didn’t wear his armor, but that was to be expected. The casts that held his body together had been replaced with a multitude of splints and bandages, but there was no way he would be able to handle donning the metal weight until he was much further healed. His left arm was still unable to move, and it rested on a sling across his chest.

His head and face was covered by the black, tight cloth hood, leaving only his eyes and mouth visible. A pad of white gauze covered his left eye, held in place by thin strips of bandage tied around his head.

In a fantastic display of arrogance—accordning to Solid Charge—, he had marched with them when anyone else would still be resting their broken bodies. Hewn Laurel, the doctor, had given them his professional opinion on the matter. If he was forced or dared to undo Hewn Laurel’s efforts and commit himself to strenuous activities he’d be lucky to only have a couple of months added to his recovery. The good doctor assured them that there would be a catheter involved in his extended healing period, and no, it wouldn’t be required at all. Nevertheless, he would install one with a smile on his face.

Raegdan had rested on an overly long halberd -but just right for his size- next to his legs, that he had been using as a walking aid, along with a plate filled with cold, untouched food.

“You are not eating,” Luna noted as she licked clean her own spoon.

Raegdan was taking a number of large marbles out of a bag, each big enough to fit in the palm of his hand, and placed them in front of him. “Not much of an appetite at the moment. Maybe later.”

Luna examined her empty plate of potato stew, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “I see. Right. We finished the memorial by the way. You haven’t visited it yet.”

“I don’t plan to.” Raegdan pressed the ball he was currently holding on the ground with some force. “When we have free time, I’m going back to Manehattan,” he breathed quietly through half closed lips. “I’ll find him. Then that will be it.”

Luna allowed a minute to pass in silence. “The chances of finding him are nil. It’s done and over with, Raegdan. Twilight Sparkle may be right, nevertheless. It was an accident. Even if you found him, killing him would be nothing but short of murder.”

“Then he should have pissed off someone who cares about the distinction,” Raegdan snarled. His working right hand covered his face, the fingers spread claw-like as if trying to hurt himself. “I should have fucking stayed there instead of getting back to Canterlot with all of you. Fat lot of good I did anyway.”

Luna moved her empty plate to the side. “Twilight Sparkle and Spike care—”

“Yes, yes, I get the fucking point,” Raegdan almost yelled, throwing the empty bag on the ground. “Murder bad.” He pouted for a few seconds, looking on the ground, and lifted a finger in question. “What if—”

“I’ve come to the conclusion that a good rule is asking yourself first if Celestia or Twilight Sparkle would approve. It helped me wonders when isolating which ponies should be considered as candidates out of our selection pool.” Luna placed her hoof on his thigh. “Let it go. There’s nothing to be done. Just let it go. Go to her memorial and leave it at that.”

Raegdan picked up his plate with his remaining hand and carefully balanced it on his lap. “Fine. One more out in the cold, what’s the difference? Who gives a crap anyway?” He took a deep breath and his grimness seemed to drain along with his exhaling lungs, leaving him drained.

He dexterously twirled the spoon in his fingers, stopping at times to tap the metal belly of the spoon against the metallic rim of the simple plate before he spun it again. “Did you put that lock of hair there?” he asked after a while.

Luna simply nodded once, keeping quiet.

The spoon kept spinning, catching small flickers of moonlight on its polished, untarnished surface. Round and round it went, speeding up and slowing down, sometimes with the help of the thumb to make it over a knuckle, most often without. It was short, and a wrong grasp would often end with it barely clinging by one end among two fingers. Raegdan would then reverse the direction and the dance started anew.

“Haven’t visited a grave before,” he finally said after a few minutes.

Luna did not break her silence, nor did she turn to look at him or ask any questions. She simply listened, and waited as he subconsciously kept his fingers busy. The simple utensil crossed over his digits once, twice, and then ten times.

“Dug a few. Covered them. Left. That was it.”

What was there to say? All she would do was repeat his words. She never visited one either, not until they passed by the remains of that sad, tragic village of so long ago.

“This will be… new.” His breath shook, a shy rattle like that of a frightened child testing a locked door. “I’ll think about it.”

Luna patiently stayed quiet, watching the night sky and her companion in turns, giving him time to allow his disturbed mood to diminish. After a while she let out a hiccup and hid a rambunctious burp behind her hoof. Raegdan’s chest shook with a silent bark of laughter and he pretended to clear the air in front of his nose. Luna smiled along.

Mind control. Mental manipulation. Deep perception magic.

It all got down to diddling with somepony’s brain, and that crap wasn’t tolerated. Not by Princess Celestia, not by the law, not by ponies at large, and certainly not by Leaf Stream for the most part. The potential evil and abuse somepony could pull with that was just too large.

It didn’t stop a few smartasses from trying though.

A pony who wanted to make sure his kid liked what it should and got a proper cutie mark. A bussinesspony who ensured a transaction went just as he wanted it to. A spouse who was desperate to find a way to make his or her other half stay with him or her. A pony, either disgustingly desperate or simply plain disgusting in general terms that got a free slave.

And then you got to the really sick ones.

It didn’t happen often. It was very, very rare, but it did, and when it was found out the wrath of Princess Celestia herself would land on somepony’s head. Oh, it was used for a very few and exceptional reasons by specialists, but even they had to get permission on a case by case basis from Princess Celestia and it only happened if the patient requested it. Use it on your own however, and your flank was hers, and she really didn’t take it lightly.

Of course, it made some ponies wonder, and Leaf Stream was among them, if it didn’t happen much more often than they thought.

It was extremely hard to detect. Keep it up long enough, and you don’t even need it after a while. Ponies would believe by then that this is how they’re supposed to think, that this is who they’re supposed to be.

Princess Luna was a princess, same as Princess Celestia. She was, or supposed to be, a diarch. She technically was, even if not that many ponies would agree even now. Too many would hear an order from her and then seek out Princess Celestia to verify. There had been a lot of that even while preparing proper quarters, armory, and everything else needed for the Lunar Guard. Oh, they would listen to her, but waited for Princess Celestia’s Majordomo to nod before they went at it. They would take instructions from Stampede more readily than they ever did from Princess Luna.

You could argue that she had given herself the permission to use these spells. You could also argue that she didn’t have the authority to do so, that she simply wasn’t the same as Princess Celestia.

What Leaf Stream knew was that she doubted that the girls had given permission or asked for it.

And Leaf Stream certainly never gave the ok to anypony to screw around in her mind.

She was one hundred percent sure they mucked about in her brain, and she was positively sure she knew whose idea it was.

Well, that one wasn’t going to fly with her.

Pun unintended.

“Cast Iron is well on his way of making wonders with the metal provided, thus we don’t have to slave away over a forge ourselves. He even started making some structural changes in your good set of armor, and I’ve allowed him to use the broken one for scrap—”

“Uh huh.” Raegdan’s downcast head failed to hide his pout, but Luna ignored it for the moment.

“—And between myself, Eventide, and Stampede, we have a good training schedule going and our expectations are high. I know it’s going to be less gruelling than what we had planned, but all we need with our new direction is a few helping hooves, not soldiers. The time I spent with them has been enlightening as well. Did you know that one of Eventide’s ancestors was one of my ill-fated Lunar Guard’s brother? She was even able to quote, word for word, a remark I made to him. I could scarcely believe they kept oral records of this!”

“Hmm.”

“Perhaps we should be spending more time with them. They are certainly good company at the very least, though I worry about one or two of them. Broken Gust seems to have a habit of collecting certain types of… magazines. I don’t know if you have seen any of them…”

“I have.”

One of Luna’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Really? You’ve been holding out on me. I know for certain that Broken Gust had none when we returned to Canterlot. She’s going to need a bookcase soon because the underside of her bed is rapidly running out of space. She asked to take a photo of both of us together.”

“Huh.”

“I said no, of course. Who knows what she would do with—” Raegdan was barely paying attention. He was staring at the ground with the expression of a puppy that wet the carpet and was hoping his owner wouldn’t notice.

Luna stopped herself. “Alright, that does it.” She lost her smile and good mood, and moved in front of him. She pushed his chin up, forcing him to face her. “What the Tartarus is wrong with you now?”

Raegdan stayed silent. Luna kept her hoof under his chin and moved her head erratically from side to side, trying to force Raegdan to look at her, but he kept avoiding her eyes. “Speak,” Luna ordered.

“Look, I understand,” Raegdan started to explain. “I know I’ve been fucking up a lot. You’ve been very vocal about it—”

“About the fact that you held still and waited for Steadfast to kill you, you mean?” Luna asked angrily. “Yes, and I intend to keep repeating myself for the foreseeable future. If you didn’t want to kill him because of that filly you didn’t have to. But to let him— I swear, if that was an attempt to kill yourself then you owe me—”

“It wasn’t. I told you a thousand times, I froze.”

Luna gave him a dirty look. “For that long? I find myself reluctant to believe that, and, after all, you’ve proven yourself capable of lying to me.”

“That was…” Raegdan’s fingers pinched the bridge of his nose, and he took a deep breath. “See, that’s exactly what I mean. It makes sense what you’re doing, spending more time with—”

“What, working alone, without you, so you can rest and heal? Having to go through endless sessions with my sister and Solid Charge, poring over maps and planning our hunts on my own, training our new ponies, spending every available waking minute and then some on our work? Is that what you meant? Because you are acting like a pettish puppy that yearns for—”

Luna paused. Her breath hissed as she inhaled sharply through her nose, and she covered her muzzle with her front hooves, blushing furiously. Her voice was like a lone water drop landing in the middle of the night. Lonely and quiet, yet powerful in the black silence.

“You are jealous?” she asked in a breathless whisper.

Raegdan scowled at once and lifted a finger in protest. “I’m not jealous!”

The Alicorn’s jaw opened in a dumbfounded expression. “Thou art jealous!” Her hoof pointed at his face and she looked unable to believe what she just said.

“I’m not jealous!”

“Yes, you are!” Luna was laughing in disbelief and exhilaration. “You think that because I was spending time with everypony else while you were in recovery that I’ll no longer have need of you. You think I’ll throw you aside. I cannot believe this. I can’t even decide if this is insulting or- or… you are jealous! You miss me!”

Raegdan savagely stabbed the potato stew with his spoon. “I’m not jealous,” he repeated sullenly.

Luna’s hooves climbed over his shoulders and her wings unfurled, engulfing him. “I’m… Thank you!” she said, hugging him tightly.

“Arm.”

“I don’t intend to ever forget who has been spending sleepless nights by my side. Who put himself through ordeals to remind me what laughter was. I won’t forget your sacrifices. Your presence has been a boon unlike any other.”

“Arm. Luna, arm!”

“You’re my best friend and you will remain thus forever. I don’t intend to let you escape me so easily. You will never be replaced.” She kissed his hooded head and tightened her embrace.

“Arm! Broken arm! Shoulder! All pain!”

Luna finally pulled back and Raegdan tenderly squeezed and prodded said arm as it hung from the sling around his neck. Luna’s wingtips pressed against the bandaged wounds and she examined them for any traces of bleeding.

“Yes, I think you’ll survive tonight as well,” Luna said, grinning in bliss. She was barely able to restrain herself from hopping in place. “Perhaps, if you were willing to drop your self-punishment and be serious for once, you might survive the coming months as well.” She giggled at her own joke, and pointed at the plate still on his lap.

“You should eat. We won’t spend all night out here.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he bellyached though with no real gripe. The hint of a smile had returned, only to quickly vanish as his cloth covered face was overtaken by surprise when he took the very first bite. He brought the plate closer and examined it while his tongue moved inside his mouth, tasting with obvious dislike.

Raegdan leaned even closer to the plate. “Did that taste weird to you?”

“No. Is there something wrong with yours?” Luna used her own spoon and tried some out of his plate. She tasted it carefully. “It doesn’t seem like it.”

“It tastes like… there’s something rubbery in it? Who gave this plate to you?”

“Stampede. Now that I think about it, he said he was saving this very plate for you. He said it had been seasoned voluntarily, just the way you like it.”

Raegdan took another spoonful, deeply suspicious. “It tastes fine now. What the hell did he do, emptied his throat? And what does seasoned voluntarily supposed to mean? I think he’s still sore that I helped Celestia trick him into retirement.”

Luna bit her lower lip. “Oh. So that is why he said he couldn’t wait to work with you again. Silly me, to think you were in good terms with somepony. I believe he might think he has a score to settle. I’ll have a word with him. What is it with you and aged ponies?”

“If I knew maybe I could figure out how to stop bending over so they can wipe their feet on my back,” Raegdan said as he started to eat, unmindful of what had been done to his dinner. “Ah, let Stampede be. He just wants to give me the equivalent of a punch in the face. He doesn’t have any real problems with me. What’s the worst he could do?”

Luna’s dark wings shook in mirth. “Raegdan—”

“Yes, I realized it as soon as I said it. Can we change the subject?”

“Fine.” She smiled widely again. “You are jealous…” she hissed in a mocking whisper.

“Luna…”

“Let me have this.” She looked back, tracing the camp’s periphery with her superior night vision. “Now finish up your meal. We need to do your exercises.” She took another spoonful.

Raegdan watched her, amused. “Are you going to leave something for me or...”

Luna blushed, and let the spoon drop. “Forgive me.” She waited for a little while, watching Raegdan eat. “Don’t you find it strange?”

“What exactly?”

“Eating cooked food out here,” Luna specified, looking with wonder at Raegdan’s plate before taking in the darkened scenery around them. “The concept of forays into such dangerous areas while keeping ourselves supplied so well, the capability to retreat as to heal and rest… I did not expect this, to be almost like when I was young. I expected something more akin to my old nonstop, constant travelling.”

Raegdan shrugged one-shouldered. “A thousand years ago, sure, I guess. It’s quieted down a lot now, at least near villages and towns. Plus, Celestia’s really pushing the Royal Guard with her new measures and has had her Solar Guard get more active. We’re not going to need to be there for every little village that heard something roar in the dark, so it’s not that weird. It will still take years until travel by foot becomes mostly safe, and even then we will have to be on watch. We can take our time. You don’t want to push yourself as hard as you did last time, do you?”

Luna shook her head. “No. You’re right, but still… I’m having difficulty coming to terms with these changes.”

The sitting biped laughed. “Heh. It worries me actually if you want to know. I feel I’ve been getting soft all these years. Ah well.” He took a huge spoonful. “This beats eating worms any time.”

The alien ate as fast as he could and stood up slowly, twisting to his side and using his right arm before managing to push himself off the ground. He massaged his pained knee and gently rechecked his left shoulder and arm before taking a step back.

The spheres were surrounded by Luna’s magic and slowly levitated in the air, orbiting each other, twenty large marbles dancing in a field of blue in the dark.

“This might be a little hard at this time of day—or night, so I’m going to illuminate them for your benefit,” Luna said, gathering the marbles in front of her and standing about twenty paces away from Raegdan.

“Just make sure you actually throw them at me. I’m not in the mood to jump around to catch them,” Raegdan teased, loosening his body.

He stood ready, half crouching in place. The marbles formed a wheel, spinning around an invisible axis, leaving blue contrails of magic behind them. One spin, two, three, four, and one of them jumped in a gentle arc, flying for Raegdan.

The biped’s head followed the movement. The marble reached the pinnacle of its arc and started falling on the rest of its way to him. Raegdan reached out his hand, the palm looking up and waiting. The marble fell, and the fingers closed.

The marble rolled a few centimeters before it got stuck on some vegetation. Raegdan’s hand had been a few centimeters short.

The rest of the marbles followed suit, and as he failed to grab them his misses became wilder, overextending or pulling his hand too far back. The marbles fell down on the soft, grassed earth, one by one.

By the end, he had managed to catch six out of twenty. One of them he had barely managed to hold by the tips of his fingers.

A metal clap sounded in the night as Luna repeatedly struck her shoed hooves together. “Congratulations. You did worse than last time. Are you even trying?”

Raegdan stared at the pathetic number of marbles he had caught. “It’s harder than it looks!”

“Yes, ‘catch’ is a notoriously difficult sport. You should keep practicing while I’m gone.” Luna gathered all the marbles together and placed them back into the bag using her magic. “Your greatest problem lies when objects get too close to you. I’ve noticed that your aim is still good enough, though you take more time, but with more practice you could—Is there something wrong?”

Raegdan was standing tense in front of her. “What do you mean ‘while I’m gone’?”

“While I’m in the Everfree with our recruits later on. What else?” A slight frown of worry passed over Luna’s features. “You didn’t overexert yourself, did you?”

Raegdan’s expression changed to a puzzled one. “But I’m going to be there with… Hold on a minute. You’re leaving me behind?”

Luna gathered up the plates and spoons, effortlessly holding them in front of her inside a magic telekinetic field. “Of course. You need to get some rest after all that walking today, and I don’t think it would be a good idea to leave the camp unattended.”

Raegdan picked up the halberd from the ground and supported his weight on it. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m coming with you.”

“In your condition? No.”

“Still coming.”

The plates fell on the ground. Luna started pacing back and forth across from Raegdan, glaring. “You are in no condition to go in there.”

Raegdan was picking at the axe head. “Please,” he scoffed. “Half the things in there can’t hurt me.”

The Alicorn’s horn lit the area around her in a pale blue glow. A small rock hovered up in the air, zipped to the left of Raegdan and was thrown towards him in a gentle arc. The alien had to turn his head more than he used to and he noticed it coming his way too late. His arm rose to catch it. The rock hit him at his forearm, the hand he had reached out with wildly misjudging the curved orbit.

“And the other half would kill you in seconds in your state,” Luna spat. She kicked at his knee and he hissed in pain, slouching to hold his hand over it.

The alien gritted his teeth. “Not all of them. Timber wolves won’t come near me even if I were half-dead.”

“Oh, good,” Luna ridiculed. “One down, three hundred and fifty nine to go. You are staying in the camp. I’ll have somepony stay here with you. Perhaps a couple of the initiates as well.”

Raegdan scowled. “I don’t need babysitters! I came here to help you, Luna, not sit on my ass while you—”

Luna’s hoof struck the ground, demanding silence. “You whine like a baby, you get treated like a baby! This is an order. You’re staying back, and if you make any ‘smart’ attempts to come along I’ll have Leaf Stream play the percussion version of Equestria’s anthem with your groin!”

Eventide’s puffy ears had been stretched to their maximum, doing their best to absorb the slightest of sounds as she waited for the best moment in her Princess’ conversation to break in.

“I believe that’s our cue,” Eventide said, turning back to her two companions. Solid Charge nodded stiffly, and Leaf Stream barely acknowledged her. “From what I get you might have a chance to play whack-a-mole,” she joked in deadpan.

Leaf Stream barely hummed a response, her eyes glued toward their target. She started walking ahead, and Eventide let her gain the lead for a moment. Eventide used that little time to exchange a quick glance with the Lunar Commander, relaying all they wanted to say in an instant.

Trouble?

Maybe.

Minotaur and Thestral moved together, overtaking the crippled pegasus until they were a pace in front of her. Three sets of hooves, quadruped and bipedal, would not pass unnoticed by Princess Luna or her companion, Eventide knew that. Just as she knew that by all probability both knew that they were there long before. She chalked up being allowed to ‘spy’ with impunity on the guess that neither of them thought of Eventide, Solid Charge, and Leaf Stream further or at all really after the few first moments of realizing they were there.

It seemed weird to think so, didn’t it? But it made sense, so much sense as long as you kept in mind Princess Luna’s history. If you were told who the Princess’ companion was and what he had done. Alone for so long, both of them. Keeping themselves alive, day in, day out. Every day, for years and years, a passage of time so long and full of danger than even Eventide, having taken part in so many monster cullings, could scarcely begin to comprehend the magnitude.

For what possible reason would they think of them for any longer after realizing what was out there? Their instincts cared only if whoever was out there was a danger or not. Apart from that, nothing mattered. They didn’t register, perhaps not even consciously. Why should they care? They had been steeped in solitude, and hadn’t yet learned to use these instincts to preserve their secrets or personal moments. As long as Eventide and the other two stayed out of sight and non-threatening they might as well be a piece of the landscape.

The Night Princess and her consort abandoned their argument as the trio walked up to them. Princess Luna hurriedly checked the moon’s position.

“Solid Charge, Eventide, Leaf Stream. You’re too early. Has there been some kind of problem?”

Solid Charge hesitated for a moment, opening his mouth before closing it decisively. He was going to say yes, the soldier in him barely holding back from giving back the honest answer to his superior. “No, Princess. But we need to talk.”

“Talk is fine. We can do talk,” Princess Luna said, sitting down and waiting. “Speak.”

“It would be best if it was just you, Princess Luna.”

Princess Luna’s face was marred by the tiniest of scowls. “Solid Charge, I know that you don’t see eye to eye with Raegdan, but this has to stop.”

Eventide intervened, the rarity of her speaking up against Princess Luna’s wishes or orders serving their intentions well. “Princess, that’s not why we wish a private audience with you. Would you please allow Leaf Stream to escort Raegdan back to the camp while we talk? Please?”

Thankfully, the Princess’ companion and his resentment played straight into their plan. “I’m going to do as you want, Luna, but this is not over. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go stay in my corner until you whistle for me again.” He turned, heading for the camp.

“Leaf Stream, please go with him and make sure he doesn’t try anything,” Princess Luna tiredly said, watching him with a peeved expression stumble in the dark and holding himself up using the halberd.

“Yeah. I’ll make sure he stays still,” Leaf Stream said, following the alien immediately.

“Good,” Princess Luna absently said. “Now, what is it you wanted to talk about then?”

Solid Charge took a step closer, standing near the Alicorn. “We know, Princess. We know what you did to the Element Bearers.”

“Hold up,” Leaf Stream called out without much zest.

Raegdan halted, and waited for Leaf Stream to catch up. He didn’t have to, if Leaf Stream was being honest. He was going so slow, putting as much weight as possible on the spear, that she could walk circles around him without even trying. What she didn’t want was to hurry after him like a pet. Especially not now.

They slipped through the spaces in the palisade. She had heard bits and pieces, and was going to give him credit for saying it wouldn’t be of much use, but it was never meant to be. It was done mostly to give them a reason to be busy.

The tall son of a bitch turned to her. “So, are you planning to follow me all night?” he asked.

“Nope,” she answered. Not all night. “Hey, if you want to be useful though, I got something I could use your help with.” He waited for her to continue, but she wouldn’t be having that.

“It’s easier to show you than explain. This way.” She gestured with her head toward the other side of the camp, where some ponies had dug up rudimentary latrines for them. Freshly dug, and already stinking. Perfect for what she had in mind.

The hated biped didn’t even question it. He just started heading there while she followed behind, ignoring everypony’s looks the same way he did. Leaf Stream walked right behind, observing and taking notes in her mind. His knee had bulked up quite a bit since this morning. It had swollen, and the way he barely bent it meant it hurt him. Good. She hadn’t seen him use his left hand at all, not even twitch it, but she knew a thing or two about broken limbs, and the way the muscles had barely shrunk told her that the cunning flankhole was exercising it regularly, as much as he could. It might have to do with why he healed so slow, but then again he had taken a lot of damage. His left side had almost shattered to the point her wings had.

Too bad not shattered enough that they had to amputate. It would have been so fair it almost physically hurt.

They reached the latrine area. A small fence of sorts, comprised of a few sheets, had been erected as a visual obstacle to preserve privacy. Privacy that she was going to need now.

“In there.” She pointed at the hanging sheets that formed the fence.

Raegdan sighed and ducked under a long wooden branch where one of the sheets was hanging from, brushing it aside so he could pass. “I swear, if you got me here because you’re so proud of your latest number two…”

“Yeah, yeah, just go.” She followed immediately after, and stayed behind him as he stumbled in the dark, careful not to put his feet into any of the trenches. Leaf Stream took the chance to undo the dagger she had on her from its sheath.

“You know,” she said, conversationally. “It struck me pretty often how absurd it is that I work with you. How easy it feels nowadays and similar stuff.”

“You are an artist with words. There’s nothing you can’t get used to, take it from me. What did you bring me all the way here for?” He looked around, searching for anything out of order.

“Maybe. Maybe you’re right.” She took the dagger’s hilt in her mouth, and spoke through it. “Or maybe it’s because taking my wings wasn’t enough for you and you had to rape my mind as well.”

She jumped for his back, intent on burying the blade anywhere she could, as many times as she could, and watch his body cool among feces and urine, just like that monster deserved.

“...I see,” Princess Luna said after a few moments of stunned silence. At least, that’s what Eventide thought. The Princess’ expression had stayed meticulously even. She didn’t even bat an eyelid. She was either indifferent or extremely controlled.

Eventide hedged her bets towards the latter. She didn’t fail to notice how the Princess’ hind legs slowly moved, inching toward a position of better balance, a fraction of a movement, but one that worried her immensely.

“And what exactly do you plan to do with that knowledge?” Princess Luna coldly asked.

This was the part that they had been worried about. The worst outcome was that the Princess would try and fight them, perhaps put them down long enough to shape their minds as well if she felt threatened. The best they were be able to hope for in that case was that Princess Luna decided to leave instead, run away from them, an option that neither Eventide or Solid Charge expected her to choose.

Even so, none of these options were acceptable. So they planned, thinking over what they had to do in intimate detail, choosing their course. It all came down to this moment. There was a reason why only Eventide and Solid Charge were here, why they left everypony else behind and away.

Why they did their best to make it obvious they were not ganging up on her.

Solid Charge and Eventide exchanged a glance, and an imperceptible nod.

Eventide sat down, and so did Solid Charge, the minotaur carefully putting himself down on the ground while Princess Luna watched in surprise.

“We don’t know,” Solid Charge confessed. “It’s hard to say when we know almost nothing. That’s why we’re here, Princess, just like we said. To talk.”

“You want me to explain myself to you.”

“No, Princess.” Eventide was now the one who had her Princess’ attention. “We want you to explain the situation. Why this is happening.”

Princess Luna turned around, taking a few steps away from them. She kept her back turned to them, her star-filled mane blending with the horizon perfectly. It looked as if the whole night sky was a part of her.

“And if you don’t agree with the reasons? What then?”

Solid Charge slowly scratched the underside of his chin. “In that case… I suppose we will have to talk some more and figure out what to do. If something is wrong then we will want to fix it. If it’s not we will want to help.”

It was the only thing that they could do. Eventide and the younglings refused to betray their Princess in any way on such frail grounds. They knew nothing, and as much as Solid Charge had raged—in that contained way of his—that Princess Luna had crossed a line, he admitted that it would be unfair not to hear her out first.

The soldier still tried to cling to the safety of following a superior’s will as much as he claimed to change his tune.

“You… would listen me out?” Princess Luna asked with awe in her voice. She kept her back on them and her head was tilted up, eyes searching the stars. “Why? Why not assume you know? Why not do what has always been done before? Judge me by only seeing the side you wish to?”

Eventide didn’t answer, and judging by the look on Solid Charge’s face the minotaur wasn’t going to attempt either. They had already said all they could say. They said the truth and left it at that.

They waited, patiently. Princess Luna stood like a statue, her mane the only sign of movement, almost unnoticed against the backdrop of the night. Eventide didn’t know what Solid Charge was thinking, but she was all too aware of her own unconscious thoughts, and hoped that none of them bubbled up to the surface to be revealed.

Please don’t start casting. Please be a force of good. Please don’t make all our past struggles in your name be false. Please let Night Lilly have died in service of a good mare. Please be what we thought you to be, even a little. Please don’t become the Nightmare again. Please, please, please.

Princess Luna made her decision.

“In hindsight, warning you with a one-liner wasn’t the best of decisions. I’m a big enough mare though to admit that I made a mistake.”

Raegdan’s leg tightened around Leaf Stream’s lower torso, and her own stolen dagger pinched deeper into her flesh as he held it in his right arm and under her throat. The left arm had escaped its loop that tied around his neck and was securing her against his stomach. Despite how injured that arm was, its grip was iron.

In a second bout of hindsight, Leaf Stream realized she should have heeded her own observations a tiny bit more when planning her attack.

“I really didn’t expect this. What exactly were you thinking?” Raegdan asked, pressing the sharp tip deeper into her throat. The skin felt ready to pop.

“I thought I could take you. Errors have been made.” She gave a half-hearted wiggle in an attempt to loosen his grip, and immediately gave up in instant cold sweat when she realized what was happening in the back, her eyes opening wide with revulsion.

The pressure of the dagger’s tip left only to be replaced by the razor edge as Raegdan adjusted his hand in a better position. “You’re awfully casual about this. Do you think I’ll think twice about killing you if you crack a joke or two? The only reason I haven’t so far is because I’m curious, and I don’t want to have to change clothes when I have all this crap on.”

“Look, as scary as you think you are, I have more pressing matters on my mind right now!” Leaf Stream hissed, trying to turn her head back towards him as much as possible, not giving a buck about the warning pressure.

“Like what?” Raegdan growled back.

Leaf Stream’s free hoof stabbed downwards where her lower body was trapped between his legs. “Like the fact that your Mr. Little Alien is pressing against my flank!” The pressure on her neck eased a little but the one below remained solidly rigid.

“Why are you at full mast?” she wailed. “Why?”

“Wh- That’s my dagger, you idiot!”

“Because you ‘stab’ with it? Fine. Mr. Dagger or whatever you call him. Seriously, too much info. Is this supposed to be the part where you torture me before killing me by telling me everything about your geni-”

“Dagger! Actual dagger. On belt. You fucking, stupid moron!”

Leaf Stream let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding in and sagged with relief. “Oh, thank Celestia!” She motioned with her hoof for him to continue. “Ok, you can go ahead with the cutting now. I can die… well, not happy, but I’ll take it.”

“You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?”

“Hey! I know I have tried to kill you a couple of times, mostly while you had your back turned, but name calling is taking it too far. You impotent, retarded, sadistic, pink monkey.”

The fingers rotated the handle so it pointed away from her throat. Now, instead of threatening to cut her, they barely held back from choking her. “I swear, I’m going to strangle you.”

“I’ve heard worse!”

“By pressing your face down in shit.”

“Not that worse. Ok, I’m taking the pink part back. Total backsies.”

Raegdan stayed silent for a few seconds. “What exactly was that part about your mind before?”

“What, that?” Leaf Stream spat out the thickest, most disgusting, vile glob of throaty phlegm she could manage, aiming for any part of Raegdan she could reach. She missed, and the runny mucous ran down her coat. “Son of a… It was nothing really. Just a small, unimportant case of feeling incredibly violated to the depths of my soul because you two buckers dipped your ‘dagger’ in my brain and diddled it!”

“What?”

“Is anypony in there?” A sudden voice asked from the other side of the sheets.

Leaf Stream recognized it. That was that Smoke Ring guy, a friend of the cyan braggart or boyfriend or beard or something. He was a Royal guard! Well, used to. He rushed to join as soon as he had the opportunity, and she had to admit, he had quite a useful talent. Nopony was able to find him so that he could do his share of chores, and others had to pick up the slack. The important thing however was that he was sensible, and he was somepony that could help her!

“Yes!” Leaf Stream yelled back. “He’s got me pinned down and- mmph!”

“We’re busy at the moment,” Raegdan said through clenched teeth, seemingly not minding how Leaf Stream bit the hand he was gagging her with.

“Oh. Oh! Sorry! I’ll make sure nopony else comes and… ahem, interrupts your personal time.” If that hand wasn’t in the way Leaf Stream would have screamed hard enough to be heard in Canterlot. “Just, make it quick. You don’t want the others to see you. Hear you, know you’re here. I’ll… be going now. Have fun.”

Leaf Stream could hear him mumble to himself as he left despite the ringing in her ears. “...Huh. And here I thought that they hated each other’s guts. Must be that whole hate, slash, love kind of stuff I keep hearing about…”

He thought that she… He bucking insinuated that she and Raegdan were… She said pinned down and he actually, actually, thought that she was having… The one guy who spread more rumors than castle maids was going to go around now and...

Murder! Death! Kill! Exterminate! Exterminate!

Raegdan waited for a minute, his head tilted to the side as he listened carefully. “Ok, he’s gone. Now explain.”

Leaf Stream spat and scratched her tongue against her teeth, trying to remove the taste of bile and physical hate in her mouth. “What’s there to explain? We know you screwed with the Bearer’s heads, you idiot. Nice job on letting your so called daughter get mindraped by the way. You’re one swell papa. If you did that to them it makes total sense why I accepted to work with you or not trying to kill you at first chance or getting friendly with you or actually feeling sorry for—”

“Wait, hold on. Shut up!” Raegdan covered her mouth again. “You all know? About the girls?”

Leaf Stream nodded.

“Shit! That’s what Eventide and Solid Charge wanted to talk to Luna about, wasn’t it?”

Leaf Stream nodded a second time.

“Shit! Is it just the three of you or the rest as well?”

Leaf Stream nodded twice.

“Shit! Shit, shit, shit!”

Leaf Stream managed to get her muzzle free while Raegdan was busy with his chant. “If somepony hears you right now they’re going to think you’re psyching yourself up in here. Sorry, buddy, but it’s a total loss. The cat’s out of the bag and there’s nothing you can do about it,” she cackled.

Raegdan pivoted to the direction Luna was, and his expression shattered.

It should have been a moment of joy.

It was almost like watching an illusion fade away. Like somepony had been casting a spell this whole time and then suddenly the magic stopped funneling into the enchantment. The castle proved to be a hovel. The gold became lead. The clear, sparkling water turned back into muck.

The giant simply crumbled. It wasn’t anything spectacular, his spine hunched a pinch and his stance relaxed. No, not relaxed, it slackened. That was it. That, and the sudden moment when his remaining eye lost its piercing glare. The arrogant waft of audacity was gone, and then, right before Leaf Stream’s eyes, the silhouette that haunted her nightmares became small, small and fragile.

Raegdan brought his right hand at the top of his head, his fingers clawing at it. It trembled, and he whispered something so quietly that Leaf Stream would scarcely had realized he had talked if she hadn’t seen his lips move.

“What?” she asked, not expecting an answer.

Raegdan deigned to look at her, and it seemed as even his pupil was shaking. “What should I do?” he whispered, barely louder.

Leaf Stream took an involuntary step back. “You’re asking me?” She wanted to make really sure of this part.

“I- I don’t know what to do.” He towered over her, and he was as small as a twelve year old colt at the same time, stuttering through every sentence. “What if I screw it up again? Should I go and stop them? What if I make it worse for Luna or- or… It’s going to be like Twilight again, isn’t it?

The hand moved and covered his face instead, almost as if wanting to rip it off. “She told me I can’t take care of… I can’t be close to little flame because I can’t be trusted to focus on him, and I proved her right. He hit her, and I didn’t even think to check on her. I fell right into the trap, got her hurt, and then I didn’t care to check on her. I forgot about her so I could- I could… I can’t do this right. I can’t do anything right! What should I do?” He paused for a second, and then he made Leaf Stream question the reality she occupied.

“Help me.”

Leaf Stream stood still for a few seconds, her mind reeling in shock. “You never did anything to my head. That was my decision, wasn’t it?” Ponyfeathers, that had been her decision.

And now that he stood in front of her, vulnerable and lost, she had another one to make.

A little over five years ago...

Raegdan opened the door to Blueblood’s room without even bothering to knock and immediately threw himself on a large chair, resting on it like a ragdoll that got discarded. The one-day-to-be prince watched Raegdan make himself at home in his room at Aunt Celestia’s castle from his own seat in front of a simple desk where he had been busy writing a letter.

Blueblood finished the sentence he was writing, and turned to give his guest the attention he was due. “I suppose Twilight and Spike are busy with Auntie Celestia?” he asked. Rose colored magic moved a full glass of water in reach of the biped.

“Where else?” Raegdan responded. He caught the glass and emptied it at once, wiping the scattered droplets from the hair around his mouth with the back of his hand. “Celestia’s finally teaching her that teleport spell, and little flame has gone along to keep notes for Twilight.” A small, honest smile made his lips curve. “He’s really taking this assistant role very seriously.” Raegdan leaned into the chair, resting his body with his eyes closed.

The pure white unicorn let him be for a few moments before breaking the peace. “Shaded Markets has been missing for two days now.”

“You don’t say.” Raegdan didn’t move from his position.

“Most believe that he took off, running either from some awry dealings or that he finally made a mistake and got out of Canterlot before the Royal Guard knocked on his door. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. He was paying a lot to have his mansion guarded, especially lately, and the amount of protection and alarm spells he had covered it with was obscene,” Blueblood noted. “Except for a few, like those that lead to his own bedroom. Those had been removed.”

“If he ran like you said, then he probably took them down himself.”

Blueblood nodded, as this was the prevalent idea among those who discussed the recent disappearance of the prominent, rich merchant, and even among the Guard itself. “A few ponies ask why he was so paranoid though.”

Raegdan yawned. “Well,” he said, stretching a little. “If they find him I suppose they’ll ask him.”

A few seconds trickled by. “Raegdan, where is Shaded Markets?” he asked, his voice shaking a little at the end.

The biped’s hand scratched his stomach. “Somewhere around, I’d say. I thought you didn’t want to know too much.”

“I- I don’t, but…”

Raegdan cut him off, his eyelids opening and his eyes already on Blueblood. “How are the girls in the hospital doing?”

Blueblood turned his head away, his blonde mane whipping around. “No… no changes since last I heard. Raegdan, listen… this is why I think it might be better off to go talk to Auntie Celestia.”

“We’ve been doing fine so far.” Raegdan supported his head on his hand and his elbow on the arm of the chair.

“Have we?” Blueblood questioned. “Raegdan, what if there are more girls like that out there, and what if… It’s taking too long. What happens to them while we are fumbling in the dark? What if we don’t find all of them or not get to them in time? What if there are others and decide… decide to cut their losses and get rid of the evidence? What if they already have?”

Raegdan slowly stood straight.

“You failed to take this into consideration, didn’t you?” Blueblood somewhat accused.

The biped scowled, and ran his fingers through his hair. “Then we speed up. Shaded Markets gave me nothing I didn’t already know, and there’s no way he was the leader. There’s someone higher up on the food chain, but I don’t think he covers for them so much as lets them get in the game so he can use them as screening smoke or scapegoats. That’s who we need to find. I need more names, Blueblood. Someone will know something more.”

Blueblood struck his hoof on his desk. “Well, I can’t give you any!” He took a deep breath and straightened his mane again, slowly calming himself down from his sudden explosion. “Raegdan, I’ve got nothing more. All I have in my employ are the mere crumbs my father leaves me, and there’s only so much I can do with them. If I dig any harder I’ll get his attention, he’ll want to find out what I’m doing, and he’ll be only too happy to get you in trouble.”

“Just a hint, Blueblood. Anything you can get,” Raegdan insisted. “Point me at a direction, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

Blueblood spread his hooves apart. “I have nothing left. How about the mystery pony that is working with you? Can’t he or she help?”

“No. They can’t.” Raegdan stood up. “If you have nothing why did you tell me to come here? You know I won’t get Celestia involved. I started this, I can finish this.”

“I still believe it is wrong, but I had already taken this into consideration.” Blueblood folded the half-forgotten letter and placed it in a drawer to work on later, and stood up as well. “I summoned you here because while I can’t do anything, you can. My aunt desires to talk with you.”

“I told you, Celestia is off—”

Blueblood snorted. “Not aunt Celestia. My father’s sister. She is far better connected than me, and she wants something from you. Maybe you can exchange favors, but you will have to be very, very careful. She isn’t anything like my father, but she’s still devious.”

“Favors, huh?” Raegdan asked contemplatively. “I can see what she wants at least, but if she can’t help with this then no deal. I don’t have time for other’s crap, not now.”

“If you wish to be acquainted and talk I can escort her here right now. Should I take this as a yes then?” Blueblood asked for confirmation.

A few minutes later the door opened and closed again. The mare walked in alone. Her coat was bright white and her long mane flowed in pink curls. Her horn was longer than normal, much like her nephew’s. The mare all in all looked more like a thinly disguised Celestia, the illusion mostly broken because of the lack of Celestia’s constant smile. The unicorn mare had a straight expression instead, one that came through a complete absence of emotion.

Her cutie mark was the brightest thing on her: a golden cup with a red colored drop next to it.

Blueblood had left them to use his room, tending his own errands while they talked. Raegdan sat on the chair still, not bothering to stand or greet the mare in any civil way. “So, you’re the aunt, huh?”

“Yes,” the mare answered, undisturbed by the biped’s manners. “And you’re the one that my brother calls ‘the guard dog’.” She examined him carefully, a hint of interest briefly coloring her face. “Sanguine never had much imagination even for insults.”

“Your nephew mentioned you wanted something,” Raegdan said, getting them straight to business.

“I have a proposition,” the white coated mare said. “You help me, I help you. I don’t suppose my nephew has any wine in here?”

“Never bothered to check. I don’t really drink. What do you want help with?”

The mare sat on a vacant chair across from him. It was a few moments before she answered, and did so hesitantly. “I… I need you to find something for me. If the rumors about you are correct then you’re exactly what I need. It’s very important. You have to help me. Please.”

Raegdan’s expression softened imperceptibly at the sound of the mare’s broken voice. “I might have helped some other time, but I’m having problems of my own as it—”

“I can give you something in return!” the mare anxiously said. “I- I already know who has what is my own, so your task will be easier, and- and I can tell you things you don’t know. Things you must know! Princess Celestia’s pupil, Twilight Sparkle, she is still in danger. You care about her, right? I can help you keep her safe!”

In the span of a second Raegdan was off his chair and standing in front of the mare. “Tell me.”

“No. Pr-Promise first. Promise you will help me!”

“If my little one is in danger then you will-”

“Promise!” the mare shouted, almost in agony.

A second passed. Then two.

“I promise,” Raegdan conceded. “Anything you want. Just tell me.”

Magic opened a saddlebag on the mare’s back, and a book floated out, surrounded by a crimson magic field. It dissipated as soon as Raegdan caught it. He read the title.

“Have you ever heard the term ‘eugenics’ before?” the mare asked.

Raegdan opened the book. He flipped from random page to another, staying on each only for a few seconds at a time, the scowl on his face deepening with each passage he read. He closed the book, visibly struggling with his desire to tear it in half.

“What’s your name again?” he asked, barely taming the growl in his throat.

The mare sagged in relief. “Honest Serenade,” she answered quietly.

Blueblood returned an hour later to find Raegdan still sitting on the chair and his aunt nowhere in sight. “How did it go?”

Raegdan’s immediate response was a little freaky. He looked Blueblood up and down in a way that chilled his veins, as if he was meeting him for the first time. Then he scratched his chin before answering with a smile back on his face. “A bust,” he said, getting up. “I can’t help her, and she can’t help me.”

“Oh. That’s a shame. I had my hopes up that there was something she could do for you.”

“Don’t think of it too much.” Raegdan headed for the door. “Gotta go. I might find something on my own. I still have an idea or two I can use. If I get stuck again I’ll ask for your help. If not...”

Blueblood insisted. “Are you sure my aunt won’t be able to provide help?”

Raegdan stopped himself from opening the door. “Positive. She didn’t even want anything, Blueblood. She was just curious to see me up close, like I’m a freak or something, and she doesn’t want to trouble herself with me. Good try, but no dice. See you.”

Raegdan left, and never mentioned Honest Serenade again.

Leaf Stream pointed at the equine figure ahead of them. “There’s your princess. I guess the others decided to do the same thing I did.”

Raegdan’s hand tightened around the halberd’s handle. “Leaf Stream… Thank y—”

“Save it,” Leaf Stream quickly cut him off, scowling with disgust. “I still think that you two really bucked it up, but at this point there’s not much we can do, is there? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. You can go to Tartarus for all I care, and she might do well with a reminder that she could try talking it out first before busting out the mind control spells, but that’s not going to happen now, is it?”

“It’s not her fault.”

“Horseapples.” Leaf Stream turned around. “Remember; Think of doing something like this again and I go straight to Princess Celestia. Keep that crap on the girls a minute longer than needed and I go straight to Princess Celestia. Be massive idiots in general and I go straight to Princess Celestia. This is not a joke. You crossed a line, and I swear, give me the slightest reason...” She shook her head in disbelief. “Seriously. And you claimed to think of Twilight as a daughter.”

“I… I do.”

“Yeah, you’re a swell papa, no question. You ass.” Leaf Stream sighed and the edge of her hostility melted off. “It took some balls to speak up, and I didn’t expect you to do that. That’s reason one I ain’t selling you out. Reason two is that it’s already done, and I’m not exactly waiting with baited breath to see Twilight’s face when she understands what you did to her and her friends. I wonder what Pinkie Pie will think of you now. That will be a hoot.”

Raegdan lowered his head in shame.

“Reason number three is that the others don’t deserve to get dragged with you. I don’t want to have these poor girls dragged in the spotlight. They’ve gone through enough, and Twilight Velvet and Blueblood simply trusted the wrong guy. Blueblood might be better off never finding out what really happened.”

Leaf Stream walked a few steps before stopping abruptly again. “Can’t believe you’re protecting Honest Serenade of all ponies. Seriously, how much can you buck up to tangle it all up like that? Why didn’t you just go with the truth? The Tartarus is wrong with you?”

Raegdan kept his head lowered. “I didn’t want to. She was a friend. Hope is… hope is the only thing that keeps you up at the end. That, or hate.”

Leaf Stream didn’t merit that with a response. She left, going off to find the others and make sure they were all on the same page, as well as let the rest of the Thestrals and Cast Iron know everything she did. She wasn’t going to play the secret keeper game on her own, and she wasn’t going to force the others to do what she thought was right either. That crap never ended well.

That was obvious, of course. All she had to do was look behind her.

Raegdan slowly approached Luna and sat next to her, both of them watching the moon hover over the horizon. Luna gazed at it with an intensity that bordered on disturbing, and every now and then one of her hooves would briefly shake before she reigned it under her control again.

Luna spoke after a few minutes. “I heard what Leaf Stream said. Solid Charge and Eventide’s reaction were about the same in general terms, though I think Eventide saw your actions with a more accepting eye than Solid Charge.”

Raegdan’s functioning arm rested on Luna’s back, lazily scratching her coat between her shoulderblades. “It’s better than we would have expected, right?”

“It is,” Luna agreed. “It is far more than we deserve…” Her eyes shone with unshed wetness in the moonlight.

“Luna…”

“We’re really something, are we not?” Her voice trembled, and she forced it back to normal with iron will. “As if we didn’t thread a thin line already, now our own guards are ready to be set against us all because of our own actions. If the spells on the girls break or Honest Serenade decides to push, if Celestia digs a little deeper, if that charade of a conspiracy realizes what is going on, if…” Luna suddenly let out a sharp bark of laughter, and hid her eyes behind her hoof, trying to stifle her laugh.

“We—Can you believe that we thought we could actually—We’d trip over our very own hooves and onto our enemies spears! We- We are so useless, such failures, it’s- it’s so funny! We’re a joke! We’re… we’re a bucking joke…”

Raegdan stayed silent for a few moments while Luna’s laughter died off, his expression blank. “That’s not true,” he finally said.

Another bark of laughter, full of bitterness.

“The ponies in Manehattan don’t think so.”

“I was only looking after ourselves, that’s the only reason we-”

“No. I think you would have wanted us to try either way. And… And you didn’t have anything to earn by giving Mint and Stormdrain someplace to live, did you? Or saving little pink and Rarity.” He let another moment pass. “And you saved me. I thought I threw everything away again, but then you came. I’d die if it wasn’t for you, or worse.”

Luna flinched and then threw herself on Raegdan’s body. His arm reflexively wrapped around her, and Luna quietly sobbed, the painful sounds drowning against his chest. Raegdan positioned himself a little better, mindful of the horn, and settled Luna against him.

“I didn’t tell them…” Luna whimpered among her quiet cries.

“It’s alright.”

“I couldn’t tell them…” Her chest heaved as she labored to breathe among her gasping sobs. “I didn’t tell them what I did to Twilight. I- I didn’t tell them what I made her see, what I made her feel, or- or that I took it all away when I understood that… I didn’t tell them. I was scared. I was so scared!”

Raegdan didn’t answer. He simply held her and let her hold on to his pained body as tight as she needed to.

“I… I raped Twilight’s mind. Because she said something that- She said that because of what I did to her! How- how am I supposed to m-make up for that? And then- then I did it again!” she wailed.

“That was because of me, Luna. I screwed up with Steadfast. You did the best you could,” Raegdan whispered in her ear.

“I want to make it right. I want to make it right,” Luna chanted with a trembling voice, crying all the while. “She isn’t what I thought. None of them are what I thought…”

“I know.” He ran his hand down her mane, and all the way down to her neck. “We’ll make it up to them, Luna. We will figure something out. We will.”

They sat there, the princess’ cries dying down and the alien letting her stain his clothes with her tears until she calmed down. Raegdan used the end of the shirt to wipe off any remaining traces off Luna’s face.

“You need to get ready for the forest,” Raegdan reminded her after a while.

“I know. Stars, I wish I had your certainty… Just… just let me stay like this for a while longer.”

“Take all you need. The night is yours.”

Leaf Stream suddenly popped from behind Rainbow Dash’s back, scaring the cyan pegasus enough that she flew in the air like a frightened pigeon. “Are we being peeping toms here?”

Rainbow Dash breathed heavily and her pupils had turned to pinpricks. “You scared m- You startled me!”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s what this was. What are you doing here?” Leaf Stream asked.

“Oh.” Rainbow Dash turned back towards the distant silhouettes. “I have a letter for Raegdan from Spike, but, uh… he seems busy at the moment,” she said, the red on her cheeks visible even in the dark.

“Yeah, tender, sweet moments and all that,” Leaf Stream said, half smiling. “I like them myself. There’s no diet quite like watching that and then throwing up.”

“Jerk…” Rainbow Dash murmured.

Leaf Stream pretended not to hear her. “Go get ready. We’re heading into the Everfree Forest as soon the Princess is up and ready. Stampede has been looking for you. Where had you been, gone off flying?”

Rainbow Dash glanced at Leaf Stream’s stubs and had the smarts to look a little embarrassed at least. “Uh, yeah. Sorry. I rarely fly at night so...”

“Well, there’s no need to be sorry. You’re an idiot.” Rainbow Dash scowled at her, and Leaf Stream expanded further. “A real, grade A idiot. This isn’t like Ponyville where most things have learned to stick on the forest side. Out here if something sees you flying it won’t hesitate to come out for a quick snack, and I don’t think you can see in the dark to notice a wyvern or something going after your flank at night, can you?”

“That’s… That wouldn’t happen, would it?”

Leaf Stream’s face did all the communicating it had to.

“Oh. Okay, lesson learned.”

“I doubt it,” Leaf Stream deadpanned. “Get out of here, and give me your stupid letter. I’ll give it to him. Now shoo.” Last thing Leaf Stream wanted to do was run damage control because somepony overheard something he or she shouldn’t have.

Rainbow Dash passed the letter with some hesitation. “Alright. I’m gonna go get yelled at.”

“Yeah, you do that.”

Rainbow Dash spread her wings and crouched. She stopped and sniffed. “Phew. You weren’t kidding about the throwing up part, were you? It stinks.” She flew off before Leaf Stream had enough time to kick her.

Leaf Stream watched her go, and made sure she was alone. Then, and only then, did she sniff the air. She lifted her hind legs one by one, and checked her hooves. Then her front right one. Then her front left.

She gagged in disgust. “Son of a… What did I ste—oh right.” She put her hoof down and tried to wipe it against the grass.

“Note to self: don’t start fights in the bathroom.”

Interlude 11 - The dream of her duty

“Luna, that’s enough wood for now. We’ll only spend a night here, not the whole week.” Celestia’s laugh is a joy to hear once more. A few minutes of rest and the wound is already aggravating her much less.

I’m sure that I look ridiculous, covered in pine needles, dirt, and dragging a branch that’s so much larger than me and must weigh two or three times as much as I do. If that’s not enough, my hind legs keep slipping on the loose dirt and I either end up on my flank or some really weird and unconditional poses.

Some of these slips might have been on purpose. Maybe. I’m not telling. They make my sister laugh though, and that is enough. Too bad I didn’t think of finding a tree with some nice, thick sap. The sight of my mane sticking up would drive her to tears. Still, I have figured out what makes her laugh. My hind legs slip once more and my hooves furiously seek some purchase, find none, and I end up upside down.

Celestia struggles not to laugh. “‘Tiaaaa!” I whine, just the way I did when I was five, and she loses it, bursting in deep laughs that come deep from her chest.

I abandon the unwanted thick branch, and return to my sister’s side with a fake pout on my lips. What I want to do is smile and sing, I want to run up to her and hug her, and bury my face in her mane, but I don’t. What Celestia needs now is to worry at her baby sister and to make my fake frown leave.

So I oblige and let her treat me as if I’m half my age. Celestia reaches out with her strong right wing and drags me to her side, almost smothering me in a hug as she traps me between her white coat and her soft feathers. It’s the safest, most comforting place I’ve ever been.

Not that there have been a lot, but I think this one will always remain my favorite no matter what.

“I’m sorry for laughing at you, Luna. I’m always thankful for your help, and you did a splendid job,” Celestia says, nuzzling me.

“‘S’okay,” I mumble, fighting down the urge to give her one of my brightest smiles.

“Still, you’re only twelve. Please don’t try to do more than you can, okay, Luna?”

I turn my head to her, giving a stop to her rubbing of my cheek. “I can do it!” I assure her. I’m pretty sure I could drag that tree branch all the way here if I kept trying. Though, from all the way here, in the middle of the large clearing we have stopped to rest for the coming night, it looks bigger than up close. More like a trunk than a branch. Still pretty sure I could drag it. Pretty sure. Maybe.

“Anyway, you keep trying to do more than you can yourself all the time.” I tell her, making a very good point. I can’t see or point her left wing from where I lie down, but Celestia understands what I mean well enough.

“That’s a little different, Luna.”

“No, it’s not. You got hurt because you went to help those ponies.”

“I had the opportunity to help them, and I took it, Luna. See? Now thanks to both of us—”

“I didn’t do anything…” I quickly correct her.

“Yes, you did. You’re the one who noticed the tracks, are you not? Now that monster isn’t going to hurt that poor village any more than it already did, and nopony else got hurt.”

“You got hurt,” I remind her, with a hint of real annoyance making it into my voice. I understand what my big sister is doing, and I understand how important it is and how many ponies she’s helping every day. Sometimes though she gets hurt, like she did this time. Sometimes worse. I hate that this has to happen. Why does it even have to? Why does it always have to be her that gets hurt?

“I’m going to be fine in a couple of days, Luna,” Celestia assures me with another nuzzle.

“You could have flown us to the next village if you hadn’t got hurt. I like flying…” I mumble.

Celestia hugs me tighter, and just like that, all's right with the world again. “Two days of walking, and then we’ll fly for hours, and not for travelling. For fun. Just the two us, doing all the tricks you want,” she says, kissing me on the forehead.

Flying on my big sister’s back, doing flips and dives and… “You promise?”

“I promise.” She glances at the lowering sun. “Now come on. Let’s get the party started, shall we?”

We get to work. I break the little branches with my hooves, and Celestia uses her magic to break apart the larger ones that I can’t, and prepares the fire while stacking the extra wood at the side. It’s not that cold yet, but fire keeps almost everything away, at least in this area. It might attract a few… things, but those might have come anyway. It’s better to have a fire than not.

“What are we going to the next village for?” I ask while gathering up dry leaves and small sticks for kindling. The constant wandering has made me forget. It’s always from one village to the next, only staying long enough for Celestia to learn what she can and teach what she has learned, help where she can, and if possible, work for a few days to pay for what we need, even though we most often than not have to rely on gifts and charity.

Celestia nods at her overly large saddlebags. She carries all our food, blankets, tools, everything herself. She claims she hasn’t been able to find saddlebags my size, but I’m going to ask the next clothier we find myself. I think she’s been lying.

“There’s a new breed of wheat that is much more resistant to disease. I want to give out as many of its seeds as I can, as well as teach the ponies there about some new tricks with crop rotation. I hope they will make the following winters a bit easier.”

“Oh. Couldn’t somepony else do that?”

“We were going that way anyway, Luna. There’s a pony I want to meet, a unicorn.”

My gasp of excitement made me drop the small branch I held in my mouth. “Unicorn? Is it about a spell? Have you found something new?”

“No, he has,” she tells me, laughing at my hopping. “They told me he has managed some kind of spell that forms an invisible wall that blocks attacks.” She flexes her left wing, not without some wincing. “That will be useful if it’s true.”

“That is amazing!” If that’s true, when Celestia learns that spell—and she will, there’s nothing Celestia can’t do!—then she will never get hurt again! I will never see her beautiful white coat stained with red again. Let it be true, please let it be true.

Celestia however keeps her enthusiasm down. She reminds me that there have been too many rumors of some powerful spell or power that can keep ponies safe from monsters. None of them has been true, not even a little, but Celestia still keeps going after these rumors every time she hears of them. All it would take is one of them to be true, and even if they are not completely true then there might be something else useful to know.

I think this spell might be true. It has to be. Celestia deserves it. The world has to make it up to her for everything she has been doing, all that constant travelling, the fighting, learning and teaching. Even if it isn’t, Celestia might make such a spell herself. My big sister is brilliant!

We light the fire. She lets me do it this time. I haven’t grasped how exactly the spell works yet, but I understand enough and have plenty of magic to force the spell to make a spark big enough to set the kindling ablaze. I still don’t understand how thinking of the air rubbing against itself, like I do sometimes with my forelegs when I get cold, makes it easier, but it does.

“Well done, Luna. You made a much bigger spark than last time,” Celestia compliments me. It didn’t seem that way to me, but I’ll take it! Celestia knows better anyway. She then turns her gaze back to the sun which had failed to move for a while. “It seems they’re having trouble again.”

The news should be worrying, but I’m excited to hear that. “Are you going to do it yourself?”

Celestia thinks for a few moments. “I think I’ll have to.” She closes her eyes, and a different kind of smile graces her lips, like the one she gets when she meets an old friend. The orange hued sunlight colors her differently, almost gold, and the light is soft, and she seems so at peace… I take it in as long as it lasts, for it soon fades away as the sun travels beneath the horizon and the stars start coming out.

“The sun. Can you feel it? When you guide it?”

“I can.” She talks like she’s coming out of a heavy dream.

“What does it feel like?” I asked breathlessly.

Celestia takes a minute to think about the answer. “Put your hoof on your ear,” she instructs me. I do as she says. “Now press down on your ear, hard as you can, and rotate it left-wise. Can you hear something?”

“No,” I say, a little disappointment creeping into my voice.

“Give me a second.” Her horn brightens, and her magic envelopes me. “Can you hear it now?”

I can. It’s a rhythmic whooshing sound. It’s like a roaring river, only one that comes and goes, and somewhere behind it…

“There’s a faint thumping in the distance.”

“That’s your heart,” Celestia tells me. She sits next to me, and positions herself so that her bosom sticks right against my other ear. Her magic flares again.

Now I can hear my sister’s heart as well. It’s like a loud drum, and each beat fills up the world until the next one comes. All the while I can hear my blood flowing and the distant echo of my own heart. The sounds are unsynchronized but somehow they all form up together to make something grand and wondrous. It sounds less like my sister’s heart with each beat, and more like the world itself.

“That’s what it feels like, only not really. There’s this sense of warmth and fierce winds, and behind it something else, as if… as if there’s a power hiding just out of view, one that’s building and building… That’s what it’s like. That’s what the sun feels like.” Celestia smiles, as if basking in the memory of what transpired only moments ago.

I smile as well, although it doesn’t come as easy for me. Truth be told, it sounds frightening.

I look up. The stars are beautiful as well. A different beauty, a quieter one, but one that I like much more. They are so soft, and lonely despite how many of them are around each other, and sad, and quiet, and they look like they want nothing more than to touch the others, that’s why I think they sparkle like that, they try to reach to the others and make friends, but they can’t and it’s sad, so very, very sad—

“Luna?”

“Oh, sorry. Did you say something, ‘Tia?”

Celestia repeats herself. “Could you bring something out of the bags for us to eat for dinner?”

I rush for the bags, and dig through them until I find our supplies, as well as our blankets. We need to find a bigger one for Celestia. This one barely covers her at all, and I think she’s still growing. We’ve had this blanket since I was eight, and I don’t think it’s the blanket that’s shrinking. I don’t think normal ponies grow anymore when they’re as old as Celestia, but she’s… different.

I take the chance to mess with our shares since she isn’t hovering over me this time. A mare gave us a couple of clay plates three days ago, and we like them better than eating from a couple of handkerchiefs. I just hope they won’t break anytime soon. I put our portions on them.

I go back to her side and the fire, holding both plates in my magic. I may not be able to cast a fire spell, but I can do this much. I glance up at the starry sky once more, hoping in the back of my head that I won’t trip. “Do you think they’ll put the moon up tonight?”

“I don’t think so. They already had too much trouble with the sun.” Celestia takes her own plate, looking down at her large piece of cheese, big slice of bread, and one of our last apples. “Luna, this is too much. We’ll run out of food in two more days at this rate.”

“S’okay. I only took a little, see? That way it ends up even.” I tilt my own plate: half a slice of old bread, and a very small piece of hard cheese.

Celestia frowns. In the flickering light of the fire it makes her face so much harsher than I know it to be. It looks as if she is angry, but I know it’s only concern. “Luna, you can’t do that. You are growing up, you need to eat more—”

“I’m not hungry! Really, ‘Tia, I’m not.” I’m starving actually, but I can wait until morning to eat some more. Celestia is the one who has been eating less, trying to stretch our food, even while she’s hurt and needs to heal. “We only walked a little today. I didn’t even get tired.”

She mulls it over while guiltily glancing at her plate. She’s hungrier than I am, I know that. I heard her stomach rumble fiercely before we stopped. “If- If you’re sure…” she stutters. I nod fervently and she dives in, ripping the stale bread with her teeth.

I nibble on my own portion. I really want to scarf it all down, but if I finish faster than Celestia then she will insist that I have what’s left of hers.

We finish our dinner faster than either of us wants to. Celestia even gathered up the crumbs that were left, and I did the same while she wasn’t looking. Anything to fill up our bellies. At least since we are walking we have a better chance of finding some fruit trees, berries, or even some mushrooms. I’ll have to spend tomorrow on the lookout for these. Celestia is too worried for anything chancing upon us to spot them as well as I do.

Celestia lifts up her right wing, inviting me to huddle up in the warm nook of her body. “Time to sleep, Luna. Come on, I’ll wake you up a couple of hours before dawn so you can do your shift.”

As much as I want to, I don’t accept. “Can I take the first shift tonight?”

“Luna, I don’t think that… It’s dangerous out here. It’s better if you wait until I wake you up. There are less predators near the morning hours. I can sleep then.”

“I can do it!” I assure her. “ ‘Tia, if I see or hear anything I’ll wake you, I promise. I’m twelve, I can take the first shift for once.”

“Lu—”

“Please!” I use the most adorable look in my arsenal, in combination with a stance that screams ‘I’ll be a good filly, promise.’

Celestia is tired, hurt, and she just ate. She’s unsure, but today has been quiet so far, and she yearns for rest. She nods, and I gleefully jump in joy. “Now, remember. Wake me up if you hear so much as a whisper, okay? And don’t try to investigate anything on your own. Some creatures make noise on purpose so you will go to them, remember that.”

I wave my hoof at her in dismissal. “‘Tia, I know. You’ve told me a thousand times. I’ll be careful, I promise. Go to bed. I want to sleep in a while as well.”

“Well, okay…” She is still unsure, but scoots closer to the fire and lays under the thin blanket. It doesn’t take that long until I hear the faintest snores.

I wait until she’s completely asleep, and then I cover her with my own blanket as well. She always leaves her back uncovered. It’s a wonder she hasn’t gotten a cold yet, though maybe that is because we can’t get a cold. Perhaps it is simply harder for us to get one. We don’t know, and it isn’t like there’s anypony who can tell us. Celestia says she got one once, before I was born.

It’s really hard being so different sometimes. Even the simplest questions have no answers. Like Celestia’s mane. It floats and dances in a non-existent wind, and nopony knows why that is, not even her. Will my mane be like hers when I’m old enough? Will I have so many pretty colours, all mixing together like a rainbow?

I really hope so. I like my soft blue mane but it’s so boring compared to Celestia’s.

I’m not going to wake her up until morning. Not unless I have to. Celestia deserves a full night’s sleep for once. She deserves so much, and we have almost nothing. I can give her that much though. All I have to do is make sure that she is safe.

There’s a small spear among our things. It’s not really a proper weapon, it is just an old broken one with a chipped head, but it is still usable enough, though not in its original way. Celestia doesn’t know I’ve picked it up, and I make sure I always hide it well among the blankets and other items. It is one of the perks of having nagged her into letting me be in charge of this chore.

Then I flutter my wings, and it is with some relief that I finally let the sharpened stone fall from its hiding place in the nook of my right wing. Celestia doesn’t know about this one either. It’s a hard stone that I broke and sharpened into a kind of knife. It won’t do much good against any monster, but that’s not what it was meant for.

It wasn’t that long ago when a couple of ponies decided that they could make a pretty bit by displaying me in a freak-of-nature kind of show. Celestia found me and stopped them, but I wasn’t going to let myself be caught without a fight again. It will be hard for anypony to get the chance though. Celestia has stopped leaving me behind exactly because of this. In a way, they did me a favor.

I stand by the fire, a vigilant sentry for my big sister. It’s boring, but every now and then a piece of wood breaks in the fire, sounding so much like wood snapping under a hoof or a paw, that reminds me I have to be careful. I listen as careful as I can, but all I hear is the fire crackling. It’s so loud it even drowns the few crickets around us.

I can’t see too far, I realize after a while. All I can see is the small ring of light that our fire casts. I bite my bottom lip as I understand. The fire might help keep us safe, but it blinds us. It blinds me. If something comes creeping up to us I won’t see it coming until it’s too late. The small pockets of moisture trapped in the wood burst so loudly that I probably won’t even hear it.

Huge, clawed paws make it to the light in my imagination. I can almost see a feral head, covered in thick bristles of hair, and razor sharp teeth under a pair of yellow, malicious eyes. I hear myself crying out for Celestia, and I can see her rising up in alarm, even as the monster leaps, aiming for the throat of the startled mare. I can see the teeth sink into my sister’s neck, the vibrant white drenching in dark red, I can hear her screaming—

No, no, no, no. No! That’s just my imagination! It won’t happen! I won’t let it happen. I can’t stay blind. I can’t guard Celestia like this. I abandon the fire, its warmth, and its false sense of safety. I move ahead until the darkness swallows me, and I sit and wait.

Slowly, the world brightens up. Not as much light as the fire gave, but even though it’s less I can actually see a little better. I can see the edge of the trees around us, I can make out the silhouette of rocks, grass, and leaves. I can see almost everywhere around us, and if I cover the fire’s glare with my hoof I can even see behind the treacherous fire. It’s not perfect, not near anything good enough even, but it’s better.

I can even hear so much more. The chirping of crickets, the hooting of owls and other night creatures. I can hear the grass sway under the night breeze. I can hear the fire behind me, and I can hear my sister breathing, even all the way from here. Everything is so loud, yet…

Everything is so alone, and silent.

Like the stars above. They are so beautiful, and they are so much brighter when I’m away from the fire. I wish I could lie down on the grass with no worry, and just… look at them for hours and hours. They glimmer like the brightest silver. I wonder what it would be like if there were no monsters in the dark. If I could lie down next to Celestia, and together try to find the brightest stars. We could name them, and make them our friends. Then perhaps they wouldn’t look so lonely.

I wish the unicorns had managed to get the moon up.

It is always so nice to see it. The way it hangs among the stars in the sky. The sun looks so distant and unapproachable, but the moon isn’t like that. She looks like she’s swimming and smiling down on me, a smile that hides a secret that she teases me with. I wish she was out tonight. It would be so much easier to stand guard with her light, and it wouldn’t feel as lonely either.

As it is, I have to be alone, away from my sister in order to make sure nothing will harm her. I have to stay out here in the dark and cold to make sure she’ll sleep and rest in the light and warmth. I can see her from here. I can see her chest rise and fall with every slow breath, and I can’t help myself but smile. It’s worth it.

I return to my vigilance, holding the bronze spearhead against my cheek, feeling the cold metal and its ragged, unpolished surface. I decide it is better to change locations every little while, both to keep myself awake, and to make sure nothing escapes me.

My eyes and ears are kept busy as they jump and flick to every little sound and movement, imaginary or not, be it a branch shaken by the wind or rustling grass. My mind… not so much. I keep thinking, and I don’t like what I think of at all.

The monster with the bulging eyes that Celestia fought and killed. The ridged, leather neck, the stinking breath that smelled of blood and meat. Fresh meat. Celestia pushed me back with her magic, but not before I saw the bones and the patches of coat around the monster, I saw… I saw…

I bite my tongue to stop myself from sobbing. I won’t cry. I’m twelve years old, I’m not a little filly anymore. But... That could be my sister someday. That could be Celestia, one of these things might get lucky someday, and my big sister will end up… end up torn and- and bleeding, and there will be nopony to help her, there are so few ponies able to help, that risk everything, and I’ll- I’ll end up alone… Alone without my sister…

It hits me that this could- this could happen any moment. Celestia could be doing her shift, these horrible long shifts in the night while I sleep, and I could wake up to see her- see her- I could end up like one of these ponies I see in the villages. I’ve seen so many of them. The ponies that cry for husbands or wives or children. Only I would be crying for Celestia.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair how this is our life, how everypony is scared of the dark and what hides inside it, and how our life could end like that, in blood and teeth. It’s not fair that Celestia has to run herself apart taking care of me, helping ponies do better, stop the monsters, raise the sun when the unicorns or minotaurs or what have you can’t. They don’t even know that she’s doing it, nopony knows how she makes sure the sun is always up for them. It’s not fair. It’s not fair!

I change position and I sit down again. No. No, I won’t let this happen! I’m not as smart or great as my big sister, but I can do this much. I can guard her during the night. And perhaps… perhaps when I grow up and I’m stronger, when I can cast some spells and fight properly with something more than a damaged spear… maybe I can do more than that. Maybe I can…

The stars are so pretty. It’s not fair how everypony is afraid of the dark and can’t see them for how beautiful they are, that they can’t sit outside and watch. It’s not fair. The night should be calm and serene, it should be restful and ponies should be able to watch the stars and the moon, and the moon should be out more often. It’s not fair that they leave it hidden under the horizon, that they don’t try harder to let it out—

I left my spear behind. I pick it up with my magic, and… for a few moments it is heavy. It’s almost impossible to pick up, but I don’t care. I keep at it, while my mind is still thinking about the moon. The silent, pretty moon. It’s almost like I can feel it, like Celestia told me she feels the sun. Only, the moon won’t be like that, not even close. There’s no roaring sound or anything of the sort. The moon is quiet, so very, very quiet. It’s a strange silence. Not the one of waiting or of listening to the dark. It’s a peaceful one, like the one in your mind on the verge of sleep. There’s never going to be a sound there, and that’s okay. Softness too. I can almost feel it, how soft the moon must be. Almost like falling from up high, but quieter, gentler, almost like passing through a sea of soft feathers. I can feel a warm light landing on it, and I can feel it change, becoming soft and cool. I can feel the moon giving it all away, I can feel it’s remorse at not having its own to give away, I can feel how lonely it feels and how it yearns...

I pick up the spear and everything brightens up.

I… I can see so much clearer! I look up and… It’s the moon. They raised the moon! They actually did it, even at this late hour. There’s only a sliver of it showing up in the sky, it’s not a full moon, but I can see so much more. It’s almost like it’s day, like I can see through every shadow. Even looking back I can see without the fire blinding me now. It’s amazing how big a difference the moon made!

The moon. Yes, I’m going to do the same when I grow up and I’m big and strong! I’m going to be out here in the dark, under the stars and the moon, and I’m going to watch over everypony, especially my big sister. No monster is going to hurt ‘Tia while I’m around! I’m going to stop all the monsters, and when they’re all gone everypony will be able to lay down on the grass and look at the stars and moon. I’m never going to be able to be as great as my big sister is, but I can do this much! Nothing will hurt Celestia again!

I go next to Celestia the next time I stand up. She’s smiling in her sleep. I wonder what she’s dreaming of. I wonder if she’s dreaming of our parents. I sometimes wish I could dream of them too, but I can’t. I never knew them. Celestia has been my big sister and my mom. She doesn’t like talking about them, she misses them, so I stopped asking. I don’t need to know anyway. I have her.

Still, I wish I could share her dreams. See what she sees. See our parents, see all the things she told me or hinted about. Maybe Celestia will make a spell for it one day if I ask. Maybe.

I kiss her softly on the lips and wish her good dreams. I tell her that I love her then go back to guarding, making sure nothing is approaching. It’s so much easier now in all this light and with my company up in the sky.

My mane dances in front of my face for a moment before it settles down again. That was weird. There’s isn’t any wind blowing.

Ch.35 - Run, Forest, run

It was always strange how the naked branches of the Everfree Forest’s trees blocked almost all light. It was nighttime, but the stars were nowhere in sight. Rainbow Dash already had an idea about what she should expect. This wasn’t her first time entering this little roller coaster, no way. She had already been in the Everfree Forest enough times, the night that Nightmare Moon returned first and foremost.

This wasn’t what she expected. The Everfree wasn’t supposed to be like this, feeling like they stepped inside a giant mouth. They told her that the area of the Everfree Forest near Ponyville was relatively safe after all these centuries of ponies living almost right on the edge of it, but she didn’t believe them. How was that howling den of danger and nightmares safe, where timber wolves and manticores prowled freely?

But it was. Gosh, she ached for that safe haven right now, and they hadn’t even met anything yet. This luck wasn’t going to last long, not with Luna so intent on hunting down worthy prey, and her idea of hunting in this place was by going around until something found them! Who the heck gave her such a stupid idea?

There were twenty one of them in here, and she could barely hear the hoofsteps of those in the back or front. It was like the Everfree was swallowing everything, every source of light and every sound. The unicorns had tried to light their way with light spells and they gave up wordlessly when Solid Charge ordered them to cut it out. It had been useless anyway. No matter how much magic they fed into their light they had barely been able to illuminate the path directly in front of their legs. The Everfree Forest had swallowed them. A few steps under the dreaded canopy, and it was as if they had reached the heart of a thick forest already.

They marched through the Everfree Forest in a double file, or they tried to at least, as much as it was possible in this pathless growth. Luna was taking up the front by her own, and she had placed Instructor Stampede in the back—thank Celestia for small favors—with Raven the Diamond Dog with him. From what Luna said the front and the back were the most dangerous places to be, but Luna felt comfortable taking the lead alone, and Raven might be able to smell anything that crept up on them much easier than any of them.

Rainbow Dash had been placed in the middle of the double line with Cast Iron at her side. She was a little cross about that at first, but a small of part of herself—that she really hated—was glad for this now that she was actually under all these gnarly branches. Luna placed her in the safest position as if she… as if she was a helpless pony. Rainbow Dash fumed at the perceived insult, but did so silently. She would use this to her advantage. Luna would soon realize that she didn’t place Rainbow Dash in safety—like a foal!—but at the best possible position so she could instantly jump to aid whichever side faced trouble. Rainbow might have been feeling a little skittish, but she wouldn’t let that make her a coward and hide behind others!

Shaded Swirl and Snared Wish were a lot more anxious than Rainbow Dash was, and the need to show more backbone than how she truly felt for their sake helped steady her resolve even more. The couple was turning their heads to every little sound, their ears flicked around erratically to cover every possible approach, and their tails were almost tucked under their bodies.

“Hey, calm down, okay?” Rainbow Dash told the two ponies in front of her. “We’re going to be fine. I’m sure that Luna knows what she’s doing.”

“Maybe,” Snared Wish conceded, “but I don’t! I mean, what exactly are we looking for in here?”

“Princess Luna said we’re hunting, honey. Probably some kind of dangerous animal or something alike. If miss Rainbow Dash says we’re going to be fine then it’s okay. Steady on, alright?” Shaded Swirl donned his best comforting smile, but it was apparent that the city-raised earth pony was out of his depth. His dress shirt was covered with small grappling foliage, and tiny tears were starting to make their appearance on the fabric, making him look dishevelled. There had been moments he looked ready to suggest they turn back, but a glance at his wife was all it took for a brave smile to appear and comfort to return to his eyes.

Snared Wish took her courage from her husband’s presence, same as he did from her, but there was more driving her. She would press her lips together, as if angering in a memory, and her steps would steady once more.

“Right, hunting. We can do hunting,” she assured herself. “First time, but this is what I’m here for. To learn. What do we hunt? Anypony know? Wolves?”

Cast Iron was tightly squeezing his axe in both hands, and was paying constant attention to the right of their column as they walked, searching among the trees for movement. “Timber Wolves,” the minotaur specified.

This exact tidbit was news to everypony, including Rainbow Dash. She saw Smoke Ring, a couple of rows in front, look back with his mouth open, stumbling a little as he stopped paying attention on where he walked. The unicorn gasped for a few seconds before turning back. “Well… Fuck.”

Tick and Tack, the earth pony twins from Baltimare were behind Rainbow Dash and Cast Iron. “Timber Wolves’ bodies are made out of wood, right? They can’t be that dangerous. I mean, can’t we just break them apart?” Tick asked.

Her twin, the one who tended to think deeper, answered her sister’s question. “I don’t think it’s going to be that easy. They’re magic creatures, their bodies are probably harder than they look. Remember that unicorn captain who magicked his brandy cabinet? We couldn’t even break the glass.”

The line suddenly halted as Luna stopped. All eyes turned to the Alicorn now instead of the conversation among them. “You ponies don’t really know anything about Timber Wolves, do you?” she asked, a little stunned at the realization. Sadness took over her expression for a few moments. “Right. Another mistake. I should have briefed you beforehoof.”

Her face filled with determination again, Luna spoke loudly enough to be heard by everypony. “Timber Wolves are creatures of magic, composed of the forest itself. They are notorious not only for their unexpected hardness and ferocity, but also their regenerative abilities. Explained in plain terms, if their remains are not broken in as small pieces as possible then they might as well return to normal in seconds. Sometimes they even seek to merge together, forming a massive Timber Wolf powerful enough to easily slay a manticore.”

Luna walked down the line slowly, making sure everypony was paying attention. “The Everfree Forest is crawling with far more dangers than Timber Wolves, but they will make a good start and introduce you to what you are supposed to be fighting against.” Luna’s eyes glowered at them as she continued the sudden lesson.

“A lone Timber Wolf can easily overpower two or even three average ponies if they don’t fight the way they are supposed to, and Timber Wolves are almost never seen on their lonesome. There are usually three or six of them at least, but larger groups are certainly not unheard of. In a rare few occasions there have been hunting packs consisting of hundreds of them.”

Blank Slate raised a hoof. “What is the right way to fight them?”

“Not on your own,” Luna answered. “Timber Wolves, unlike their flesh and blood brethren, lack teamwork. They hunt together, but fight alone. Fight as a team, cooperate and support each other, and you can take them down. They mostly pounce at their prey, seeking to bring it down and go for the throat or use their back legs to gut it. Being aware of their intent to leap and avoiding it will serve you well as long as you don’t get flanked by another. Now, have any of you seen a Timber Wolf before?”

Gobrend raised his claw, and surprisingly so did Trixie to his right. They were the only ones aside from Solid Charge and Rainbow Dash. Stampede didn’t even bother, seemingly intent on scratching his side.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Trailblazer sneered from the back of the line. The unicorn levitated a stick in front of him and it burst in flames, the flames colored as the stallion’s own mane. “They’re still wood. We can burn them.”

“It sounds like a valid plan,” Luna conceded. She turned to Gobrend and Trixie. “Would either of you have any objections?”

“It won’t work,” Gobrend said.

“Trixie has tried it before.” The mare in the garish magician’s hat shuddered. “It didn’t care, and they all kept running after me, only now Trixie had one that was on fire after her. It set my cart on fire. Luckily, there was a river nearby when they stopped hunting me.”

“Anypony got any questions or anything to add?” Luna asked.

“I do,” Gobrend said. Rainbow Dash recognized the posture and inwardly groaned. She had seen Twilight stand like that a thousand times. “Timber Wolves favor their olfactory organs or what they use as a substitute, to an astounding degree. It is their language of a sorts, and they share smells they have come across to denote worthwhile prey or locations. They seem to believe this to be a universal trait. That’s why they exhale a horrid, putrid breath at all times. Most scholars believe they use it either for intimidating reasons or to scare other, worse predators away from them.”

“Interesting, but what we should take from all this is simple: use your noses. You will know when they’re near. We are on the outer layer of the Everfree, and this is their main hunting grounds.” Luna went back to her place in front and they marched on.

Well, they knew now, and knowing was… certainly something. Didn’t help much. Stupid Twilight and her talks about how learning and understanding lessened a fear. That was a load of horseapples! She felt worse again!

The Wonderbolt-Wannabe glanced behind her just in time to witness Tack raise her left hind leg sideways and strain herself, letting out a thunderous roar that caused her tail to flutter in the short wind she let loose. “Hey, Goobread, does this smell like death?”

“You understand of course,” the griffin said in a polite tone, “that I can only take so much of your insults before I am driven to answer in kind, you sad, sailor’s playthi—Gaag! Yes, yes it does!” Far in the back the Diamond Dog howled in pain.

Mental note: when walking in ranked files, try to get as far in the front as possible next time.

Rainbow Dash would much rather she was on her own out here though all things considered. If she was, she could easily evade any predators or just fly the heck out if need be. But no, now she would have to stay and help the others who didn’t have sweet, fast wings to get their flanks out of danger’s way.

The sound of breaking glass echoed in her mind, and she quickly silenced it. No, these were stupid thoughts, selfish ones. She was sticking with everypony here, and if something bad happened… then so be it. Rainbow Dash wasn’t responsible for everypony, friend or enemy, when it came to a fight. All she was ultimately responsible for was whether she chose to fight—and accept the outcome—or not. And if her friends were involved? Heck yes she was going to fight.

She heard Red Dawn whisper a question. “Uh, why do Timber Wolves hunt only out here?” No, don’t ask further questions! Questions lead to answers, and the answers so far helped nopony! Better to know nothing! She was in a good place mentally, don’t, just-

Surprise bucking surprise, somepony had to answer, and that happened to be Gobrend, their resident expert. And oh, the joyful news he shared with all of them.

Apparently, the Everfree Forest could be divided into zones. In some of them you met certain… residents more than others, like the swamps, but the basic idea was that the deeper you went, the more you screwed yourself. Manticores and Timber Wolves, even the rare cockatrice or wyvern, were sticking to the edges not because the hunting was more plentiful there. They stuck to the outside because the deeper regions were too rough for them.

Manticores. Were afraid. Of going deeper. Celestia save us! Eventide took the opportunity to jump in and add to the horror as well. As far as food went, it was more plentiful the deeper you went.

Now, that didn’t sound scary did it? Wrong! There was a lot of food, because there were a lot of monsters. Take from that what you will.

“So, uh, how deep in the Everfree are we?” Rainbow Dash asked, nonchalantly.

“About… five hundred meters in? I think?” Cradle Song answered from near the front. “I don’t think we’re supposed to go deeper than a kilometer at worst.”

“Well, duh,” Drum Beat said from the back, answering his fellow Thestral. “We don’t want to end up dead.”

Oh my Celestia, what did she get into?

“Wait, wait!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “It can’t be like that. I’ve gone deeper than that with my friends, and we were fine! Heck, the Castle of the Two Sisters is about five kilometers in the forest and it’s absolutely safe!”

Nopony answered for a couple of minutes. Then Luna spoke up. “Celestia’s old castle is near a… special place of magic that protects the area. I suggest you never try to find how far its boundaries extent.” Luna was lost in thought for a moment. “I wonder if we could repurpose the old castle to our needs.”

“Maybe when we have some more members and experience, Princess,” Solid Charge suggested from next to her.

Solid Charge was acting a little weird, now that Rainbow thought about it. He was acting almost hostile in a sense. The words he used were courteous enough, but it was how he said them. Rainbow Dash knew the difference between a ‘thank you’ that was honest and filled with gratitude, and a ‘thank you’ that meant ‘could you also go fall into a hole?’ Solid Charge was treading dangerously near the second one at times, and- Oh my gosh, was that a rottersnake?

Rainbow Dash jumped in the air to avoid the red, snapping jaw, barely making it by the breadth of a hair, and four hooves came down on its long body, the two extra ones courtesy of Cast Iron and Snared Wish, even as a bolt of magic launched from Trixie’s horn and split the rottersnake’s head in two. A flaming, thin piece of wood skewed it a fraction of a second later, as a final insult.

“I totally had that,” Rainbow Dash said, wiping her front hooves on the dirt. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”

Luna came to check on the commotion. “Bury the snake, clean your hooves, and cover the traces of blood you left on the dirt as well. I don’t want you to have the scent of blood on you in case we get separated.”

Celestia, she almost wished she was back at camp along with the others. On second thought, maybe she wasn’t that desperate yet. They were the ones stuck with Raegdan, and he didn’t look very happy at all with the fact that he stayed behind. They probably had it even worse.

Rainbow Dash snickered silently. Oh, she wondered what horrors they were being put through.

The bottle stopped twirling, it’s neck pointing at Leaf Stream like the talon of a dark god.

“Truth or dare?” Stalwart Shield asked Leaf Stream.

Raegdan sat next to him, his legs crossed and with his broken arm resting on his laps. “This is the stupidest game ever.”

“I concur,” Short Order said from the other side of Raegdan, watching the bottle with his single eye, unamused. “I expect this amount of negligence from the interior regiments, but I had greater hopes for the Lunar Guard. We should be setting up sentries and patrols.”

“With just us seven, we can’t. Too many approaches. It’s safer if we simply don’t separate. It’s not like there’s anything here interested in stealing rather than eating us. Setting a camp in the middle of an open field was a mistake,” Raegdan said. He frowned at the bottle. “Mind you, I’m minding it less and less.”

Leaf Stream grinned smugly at them. “Well, you should have said something else other than ‘whatever’ then when I asked what we should do, shouldn’t you? Limit Breaker, solid choice, my good stallion.” She exchanged a hoofbump with said young stallion who was grinning bright enough to remove any need of fire. “Alright, I’m gonna go with… truth!” she answered Stalwart Shield.

“Alright. Hmm…” Stalwart Shield scratched the back of his silvery, messy mane. “Is it true that you and…” Stalwart Shield glanced fearfully at the biped next to him. “And a certain individual had an ‘encounter’ tonight?”

“I’m going to stab you in your sleep.”

“Pardon? I couldn’t quite make out that whisper.” Stalwart Shield raised his ears.

Sea Breeze choked a sound between a laugh and a cough. Raegdan offered her a sip from his canteen which she gladly took. Broken Gust on the other hoof was still busy smiling as if this game was her birthday wish come to life and it was everything she hoped for.

Leaf Stream’s smile had frozen on her lips as she tried to think of a way to answer the question that wouldn’t make her sound like either a backstabbing moron or having a thing for the ‘certain individual’, may tartarus take his soul and perhaps Stalwart Shield’s as well if it had the time.

“...Yes…” she hissed, her tongue wrestling her empty brain.

Stalwart Shield glanced at Raegdan for a fraction of a second again. The tall alien was slowly sipping from his canteen, looking bored, and staring mindlessly at the distance, giving no sign of being disturbed or annoyed of any allegation. Stalwart Shield and Broken Gust looked at each other and shrugged.

“Right, my turn,” Leaf Stream quickly said, and gave the bottle a spin. The bottle spun and spun, slowing down little by little. The neck of the bottle passed over every pony at a turtle’s pace.

Stalwart Shield looked pained at the prospect of getting into Leaf Stream’s hooves. Limit Breaker lit up again, anxious to get a chance to play. Sea Breeze looked on, her face blank but her eyes betraying her amusement. Broken Gust was doing kissing practices with her lips, and her Thestral, slitted pupils almost turned into circles when the bottle almost stopped at her. Short Order was the very definition of apathy.

The bottle stopped. It pointed straight at Raegdan.

Leaf Stream laughed. “Oh, ho! I got you. I got you now! You’re gonna spill-”

“Dare,” Raegdan said.

Leaf Stream didn’t let her smile show as Raegdan played straight into her hooves, but he must have noticed something, perhaps the sparkle of anticipation and utter, magnificent villainy in her eyes, because his remaining eye widened just the tiniest, tastiest bit. Leaf Stream leaned forward, and inspiration hit her. Two birds. One stone. She won either way.

“I dare you to kiss Stalwart Shield.”

Stalwart Shield huffed in dismay. “This is the exact reason this game never amounts to much,” he said, not surprised at all. “Somepony always pushes too much too soon and hmmphh!”

Raegdan grabbed Stalwart Shield’s short mane, pulled his head back, and leaned down to do the unimaginable. The firm lip-lock held for a good number of seconds as well before he pushed Stalwart Shield away from him and wiped his lips with his forearm. “There. Dare done. My turn?”

“Why tongue?”

Leaf Stream nodded. Her throat slasher’s smile didn’t go unnoticed by Short Order. Everypony else was guffawing in surprise and laughter. Except for Broken Gust. Her leather bat wings had popped so straight she was definitely getting a cramp later on.

“I’ll have you know, young filly,” the veteran Royal guard warned Leaf Stream, “that I have a certain amount of disciplinary actions in my name. Some of them involved my superiors. You’d do well to keep this in mind before you get any ideas.” Leaf Stream’s sinister smile remained in place. This was her game. Short Order simply hadn’t understood it yet.

Raegdan gave the bottle a spin. It pointed at Broken Gust. The mare trembled and breathlessly screeched in excitement. Raegdan sighed. “Okay. Truth or-”

Leaf Stream didn’t even see her coming. One moment Broken Gust was standing there, the next she was burying her tongue down Leaf Stream’s throat, her wings hooked on her back to ensure Leaf Stream’s hooves had no chance in Tartarus of pushing her away. Sea Breeze was struggling for air next to her, her manic laughter echoing in Leaf Stream’s ears in merry accompaniment to Broken Gust’s moaning and Leaf Stream’s choked screams for freedom and a stop to the molestation.

“Hey!” Limit Breaker called out, pouting angrily. “That’s not how the game is played! You’re ruining it!”

“There’s a nasty smell coming from our right,” Raven yelled, calling for everypony’s attention.

Luna immediately halted them. Everypony rushed to form a line waiting for the oncoming opponents, but Luna quickly ordered them to form a circle instead, getting Stampede to array them in a proper order.

Stampede had them make a three ringed circle. On the outer ring he placed the earth ponies, minotaurs, Raven, Gobrend, and himself. Luna placed herself there as well, right in the middle of the side facing the direction they were expecting to be assaulted from. Cast Iron and Solid Charge were placed in opposite sides as to block the sight of those behind them as little as possible. They left enough space in between them to swing their weapons and fight without getting in each other’s way, but not enough to let anything slip through. Spears, axes, and sturdy hooves stood ready.

The second ring was composed of the unicorns. Tidal Wave, Smoke Ring, Trailblazer, and Trixie. They stood behind the first ring, each of them watching a different direction. Solid Charge made sure to warn them, Trailblazer especially, not to set any live Timber Wolves on fire. It would only make things worse for the frontliners.

Every pegasus and thestral was waiting in the center, forming their own, tight ring, and Rainbow Dash stood there with them. Their job would be to watch, and speed to the aid of anypony who was in trouble, cover any openings, and stay in the air and mobile as best as they could.

Now all that was left was to wait.

Rainbow Dash sorely wished they had waited a day before venturing into the Everfree on this practical experience training. She was all too aware of every aching muscle and joint, and the slight grogginess in her head as her body called for sleep suddenly felt like a wave of tar that threatened to cover her and slow down her every response and reflex. She wondered if she would be able to strike as hard or accurately as she would need to, or did all the work and stress she had been involved all day with had sapped too much of her strength? Luna had made a point of warning them that almost no fight would come to them while feeling their best, and Rainbow Dash suspected this was why she dragged them in here without letting them rest, but right now, with her nostrils flaring as she tried to catch a whiff of what crept up in the dark, it felt too reckless and dangerous.

She focused her mind on the lessons she had been taught. Put all of your body weight on your strike, and use the force of it to bounce back instead of carelessly following along. Be wary to not be cornered or flanked. Go for the torso as it was the largest target, and only aim for the head or spine if you are certain you won’t put yourself in risk. Keep your distance, and maintain the initiative, don’t let your opponent dictate the fight. A thousand pieces of advice that blended all together, from how to stand on what to look for and how to breath. She shuddered, suddenly fearful that she would forget one of them and it would cost her life, or the life of somepony else.

Luna breathed in deeply, inhaling a scent that Rainbow Dash, high strung as she was, wasn’t sure if she really smelled at the edge of her sense or she imagined it. “Timber Wolves. They are almost here. Prepare yourselves.”

Rainbow Dash’s hind legs dug into the earth, preparing to use the extra resistance and in the right position, almost subconsciously. Her wings half spread, ready to get her airborne or tuck in and avoid any attack, and her tail coiled around her instead of being in easy reach. Her lungs regulated her breathing without her input, breathing steadily. All the words of the lessons and advice vanished, and what remained was action without thinking.

The thick foliage rustled, and every eye turned to it. A sharp reprimand from Eventide and Stampede warned the flyers and the unicorns to keep eyes all around them. Everything was covered in shades of black and the darkest blues, the moving leaves turning into shapes, and sinister eyes. With the confirmation of their approach, now every errant branch and stick around them became the leg or snout of a Timber Wolf, waiting for them to turn away to be attacked.

The bushes spread aside, and eight large Timber Wolves made their appearance, led by a truly massive one. Rainbow Dash felt her throat dry up at the sight, and her courage vanish. Eight, when one of them could easily kill two or three ponies, that’s what Luna had said. The odds were balanced, but they were tired, and this was the Timber Wolves turf. What if more of them were waiting around them?

Ponies didn’t fight Timber Wolves. Ponies ran. Even Twilight, who had so much more magic than everypony else, Twilight who once put an Ursa Minor to sleep and levitated it all the way to its den, when faced with Timber Wolves would either teleport or run. Fluttershy never attempted to try her stare at them, their ferocity too great to risk it. She lived right next to the Everfree, closer than everypony else, and when she heard them howl she’d call all her animals into her cottage and hide under her bed.

They were going to fight. Oh, Celestia help them, they were mad!

Luna walked in front, abandoning the ring, and everypony quickly scooted closer to cover the empty spot. The Alicorn stood alone in front, facing the pack of monstrosities with a smirk on her face. She took her eyes off them and looked behind her and at them, her grin widening.

“I’ll take the alpha. You can have the rest.”

She wasn’t afraid. Rainbow Dash knew that Luna wouldn’t be afraid, but she didn’t really know it. Heck, the mare was loving this. She was almost trembling in anticipation for the fight, and…

Rainbow Dash wasn’t going to be afraid either! If Luna could do it, so could she! She would hold the line, she would jump in and kick and bite, she would keep her friends here alive, and she would make sure they would all make it on top. These Timber Wolves didn’t stand a chance!

Weapons stood steadier, hooves dug in the earth, and horns lit with tamed magic. The Lunar Guard stood ready.

The alpha Timber Wolf took a step forward and growled, a deep reverberation that sounded like a tree splintering and falling without stop. The sound never ceased, not even as the alpha sniffed the air and its packmates spread around their circle.

Suddenly, the alpha whined. The rest of the hunting pack froze still, and all of them started sniffing questioningly, at the air and the ground. Their muzzles all converged towards Luna, the Alicorn obviously perplexed by the strange behavior. The Timber Wolves let out a keen wail, and as one they turned and ran, the stubby branches that served as their tails tucked between their legs. Two more of them appeared, ones that had gone unnoticed and had circled them, running to vanish behind their fellows as well.

“What just happened?” Tidal Wave asked, searching around them with eyes filled with suspicion.

Sunrise Storm lowered her spear, and removed her helmet, looking around them as well. “This isn’t supposed to happen is it?”

Red Dawn glanced behind them. “I don’t suppose it’s a trick or something? They left just to attack from behind us?”

“Impossible!” Gobrend said vehemently upon the suggestion. The griffin’s good wing crossed the air in front of him in denial. “They do not possess this kind intellect.”

Blank Slate smelled the air. “I don’t smell anything. What were they sniffing around for?”

Luna lifted one of her front legs and smelled the pit between it and her torso.

Raven approached the night princess, inhaling through his nose, his wolfish muzzle ridging in concentration. “I don’t think it was you, uh… Princess,” he announced after a few moments. “You smell fine. Just not very pony like. Is that how Alicorns smell?” he rhetorically asked.

They stood, unsure of what to do, waiting their cue from the Princess of the Night. Finally, Luna gritted her teeth, the grinding noise extremely audible in the stillness. “He did something,” she mumbled. “Centuries of killing them, and they never ran from me. How dare they! There’s a trick, I will find it out, and then give them a real reason to be afraid!”

“It’s called adding insult to injury, and it was funny at the time. Then it kind of became a habit.” Raegdan shrugged as much as possible with only one functioning shoulder.

Limit Breaker clapped his hooves and laughed, falling on his back. “Like- like a dog peeing on a tree!”

“Well, said that way it makes sense, doesn’t it?” Raegdan said, grabbing onto that comment. “Trees, Timber Wolf corpses, what’s the difference, am I right? I had to empty the old bladder at some point, why not then?”

Short Order was paying attention to Sea Breeze, a hint of worry across his scarred face. “Are you alright, miss? Is your horn in pain?”

Sea Breeze was tracing the blackened stump that was all that remained of her horn with her hoof, her head lowered and eyes lost in view of another place or time. She jerked back to the present. “No. No, I’m ok. I was just… lost, reminiscing of older loss. I wish there was one like you with us before. I was with a group a few years back. Apprenticing to Najee to learn his art. We were attacked by Timber Wolves, and barely escaped, but we had wounded. We were too far from help, and in our folly we decided to cut through the Everfree, lest our companions helplessly expire.”

“That must have sucked,” Raegdan remarked apathetically. He took his canteen in hand and kept sipping, leaning back against the trunk of a tree. He never stood entirely still, always fussing with something, even if it was just drinking water extremely slowly.

Short Order stood up. “I’m going to get you something,” he announced and headed for their supplies.

“It took us days. We were near the south end, where it’s the narrowest, and it still took so long. Maybe we lost our bearings. Maybe we counted the days wrong. We thought Timber Wolves a terror, but there are worse in there.” Sea Breeze’s eyes lost focus, and her voice got harder to understand as if she wasn’t able to completely articulate herself. “I’m still not sure what we saw at times. Warped, deformed monstrosities. The forest itself rising up. Clouds of light, pillars of stars, whispers and screams. I think I heard my... It was horrible. We kept casting, and casting, and casting, keeping ourselves up only through alchemical concoctions, running all the while as much as we could in our state, never stopping. The Everfree or- or something talked to us in there, but I don’t know what it said, I don’t want to know what it said. We made it out in the end. Over half of us were gone. We only realized it when we were out. They were just… gone. All gone. Najee was gone too, I don’t know when, he ran right next to me, and… and I don’t remember when, but at one point must have no longer been there.”

Short Order came back, holding a small, unmarked bottle in his magic. He nudged Sea Breeze, and passed it to the magicless unicorn’s hooves, urging her to take a drink. Sea Breeze did, and closed her eyes at the sharp sting of the liquid burning down her throat. She tried to give it back, and Short Order shook his head.

“Anyway,” she said, now out of the trance she had gotten herself into, “that was how I ended up with this.” She pointed at her horn. “Too much magic, forced unnaturally. It rotted off. So did the horns of the other two surviving unicorns.”

Raegdan gauged how much water was left by making it slosh around. “Not bad though. You could have done better, but still. Not bad at all. I’m actually surprised that any of you got out. Ah well. Maybe next time you will do better, eh?” He chuckled.

“You’re an ass,” Leaf Stream declared.

“Pardon?”

“Sea Breeze lost half her group, and here you are, going oh I could do better, I’m so smart and amazing, just ignore how I screw up more often than a screwdriver.” Leaf Stream fell back down on four legs, abandoning the bad impression she did. “Ass,” she repeated.

Raegdan gave Leaf Stream a dirty look while everypony else sat aside, watching like spectators in a match. “I was only going to offer her some advice, let her know how to do better next time, because I fucking know how. She might get into a similar situation again because this is what she signed up for and I’m trying to help her! How does that make me an ass?”

“Oh, ho!” Leaf Stream laughed, her words dripping sarcasm. “I can’t wait to hear this. What’s your advice, wise sage? Should they have ditched their wounded? No, wait. They should have used them as bait! No, wait, I got a better one! They should have dragged them along and every now and then force one of them to run in another direction while bleeding! Am I getting warm? Come on, shower us with your wisdom.”

The biped looked away, chewing the inside of his cheeks. “Well, now I don’t want to.”

Leaf Stream’s mouth gasped open for a second in awed surprise. “You ass!” She ignored the little black pot in her head that clanged its lid in support of giving that kettle what for. She turned to Sea Breeze. The poor mare was stunned by the implications of what she heard. “Don’t mind him. In fact, buck him. In fact, literally buck him. There’s a reason he’s not in charge.”

Limit Breaker was pouting angrily at Raegdan. “That’s not right. This is not how it’s supposed to be done at all.”

“News flash, kid,” Raegdan said, waving the canteen around. “There’s no manual for that kind of stuff. You just do what you need to do to get as many out alive as possible, including yourself. There is a thing as acceptable losses.”

“No, there isn’t!” Limit Breaker said, standing up. “That’s just a way to say you gave up. The right way is to save everypony. That’s what good guys do!”

Raegdan almost snarled in disgust. “Oh heavens, you are one of those…” He hissed out the rest of his breath and took a long drink, swilling the water in his mouth. “Let me guess, kid. You think that when something nasty is going on, the good guys, the heroes,” he spat,” will come and save the day?”

Limit Breaker raised his chin. “I don’t think it.”

“Well, that’s crap,” Raegdan stated, looking back straight ahead and away from everypony, sourly drinking his plain water. “There are no heroes to save you when things get real bad. No one comes when you’re hurt or alone. It’s just you. Just look at Sea Breeze.” He nodded towards the surprised mare. “No hero came to save her and her group.”

“What? Of course they were saved,” Limit Breaker said, looking confused. “She just told us.”

Raegdan looked even more confused. “What are you on about?”

“She just said it. She risked herself for the others, kept casting nonstop even when it hurt her that much, she tried to save everypony, and then,” he added with real admiration, “after going through all that she joined here to help even more ponies! Sea Breeze is a hero!”

“Me?” Sea Breeze breathed.

The metal canteen in Raegdan’s hand shook as he pushed his lips together. “Then too bad for her,” he growled. “Heroes die, kid. That’s what they always do.”

“She looks alive to me.”

“No, I mean-”

“I bet she could go for a walk.”

“Look, what I mean—” Raegdan stopped his outburst with a long exhale, and carefully explained, “is that heroes always die, okay?”

Limit Breaker pulled back blinking as if Raegdan blew in his eyes. “What? No they don’t!”

“Ok, maybe not always, but like nine hundred ninety nine out of a thousand. They lose.”

“No, they don’t! Heroes win.”

Raegdan huffed, looking for all the world like he was having difficulty convincing somepony that the sky was blue. “Ok, where the hell did you get that stupid idea?”

“Where did you get yours?” Limit Breaker asked, incredulous. “Heroes always win. It’s how it goes in stories, and what always happens.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Yes, it does.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Yuh-huh.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Yuh-huh.”

Stalwart Shield leaned sideways to whisper to Leaf Stream. “I heard a rumor once. I refused to believe it. It went that Raegdan used to wear a dress and put on a wig for some of young Twilight Sparkle’s imaginary tea parties. For some reason… it’s not that hard to see him doing that now.”

Leaf Stream gently pushed him away from her. “Respect the private space, ok? I’ve had it defiled way too many times today.” The image was funny though. She wondered if it was true. Honestly, she heavily doubted it.

“When do heroes ever lose? That doesn’t happen,” Limit Breaker asked, frustrated.

“That always happens. It happens all the time!” Raegdan said, embittered. “Look, you have situations or stories where there’s a… an evil king, or mage, or- or a monster that comes out of nowhere and kills everyone in its path, right?”

“Yeah. And the heroes win. That’s the whole point!”

“OK, fine. Let’s say they do. But what happened to the others before those heroes won?”

“Others?”

“If there’s an evil king or mage it means he made it to power by using his methods. But someone must have tried to stop him, right? Or if he has been around for a while. There can’t have been just one person who tried to stop him. There could have been hundreds. All of them, trying to be heroes, and failing. The king crushed all the rebels, the mage vanquished all his opponents, and the monster killed everyone a thousand times before. What about these ‘heroes’? Trust me, heroes die all the time. One in a thousand… that’s understating it. They’re simply called victims then.”

Everypony’s eye had turned to Limit Breaker, waiting for his response. Surprisingly, the young stallion seemed to mull over what he heard. For a few seconds, his dark red colours and the striking gold eyes, combined with the extremely rare serious look on his face, made him look far older and dangerous than he normally did.

“So… what you’re saying is that heroes might be brave, but chances are that they will fail and die. They do their best and they die because or despite that…” he hesitantly said.

“Yes!” Raegdan had a look of relief.

Limit Breaker however wasn’t finished yet. “... But they don’t stop trying. Meanwhile the bad guys might be cowards and live, but only until the heroes finally get them.”

“What? No, that’s not- How do you even figure that, you little idiot?” Raegdan yelled.

“Pfft, that’s all obvious,” Limit Breaker said, waving his hoof. “And everypony knows that heroes win anyway because even if the villain wins he still loses. Bad guys can’t win because they lost from the very beginning. That’s basic stuff. I mean, do you even know of a villain or monster that died of old age or happy?”

“But—”

“Besides,” Limit Breaker continued, smiling brightly once more and without realizing how much his debate opponent had deflated. “Doesn’t really matter, does it? Whatever we did before or thought or whatever you or Trailblazer says. We are here to be heroes, just like Princess Luna. She protected ponies a long time ago, didn’t she?”

Raegdan’s face twisted in a sullen grimace. “Yeah. And you know where that got her?”

Limit Breaker looked around him. “Right here? I mean, she’s back to fighting monsters, right? Then that means that she’s a hero, and since we’re in her team we will be as well! Doing the right thing because it’s right, no matter how scary or hard it is.”

Clapping began behind him. Stalwart Shield, Sea Breeze, and Broken Gust were applauding him. Even Short Order was doing a discreet, half hearted slow clapping, a half smile etched on the elder pony under his eyepatch.

Though all of them could see the dazed expression on whatever could be seen of Raegdan’s face, between his cloth mask and the bandages over his eye, none of them was close enough to hear the whisper that made it out of his lips. None, except Leaf Stream.

“Luna is a… hero?”

Limit Breaker was lifting his hooves in the air, accepting the applause and bowing down. Sea Breeze put a leg around his neck and pulled the shorter stallion close to her. “Okay, kiddo. You deserve a reward for vanquishing my jitters. If we have apples I shall make you fritters.”

“We do. Come, I’ll show you,” Short Order said, leading the way.

“Hey, if there’s time maybe you can make enough for everypony? I’ll help,” Stalwart Shield offered, tagging along.

Broken Gust got up as well, but delayed a bit to pause next to Leaf Stream. “So, uh, you can fit two in a tent you know. If you squeeze really tight…”

“No.”

“Which one is your tent?” Broken Gust asked, making sweet eyes at the crippled pegasus.

“None. I’ll sleep in the Everfree. Find a manticore and hug it for the sake of my virtue.”

Broken Gust giggled. “Well, if you change your mind, mine is the last one in the second row.”

“Towards the forest?” Leaf Stream asked. Broken Gust nodded, her whole being filled with hope and anticipation. “Great. Thanks for letting me know.” So I can avoid it, she thought.

The Thestral winked at Leaf Stream and left, swivelling her tail and flank. Leaf Stream hid her eyes behind her hoof and wondered if maybe she was some kind of evil, serial murderer in her past life and karma was finally catching up.

Leaf Stream waited until she was sure everypony else had gone, following the promise of freshly made apple fritters, and then turned back to the figure that seemed to dominate her life lately. “So. What’s new?” she casually asked.

“I’m really, really tired of being ignored in favor of believing in butterflies and rainbows waiting at the end of every road,” Raegdan answered, resting the back of his head against the tree trunk. “This? They’ll end up believing it, and they’ll get hurt. You know it’s not like that. How come you didn’t say anything anyway? I’m surprised you didn’t comment at all. That isn’t like you.”

“I was busy thinking deep thoughts,” Leaf Stream said, shrugging.

Raegdan snorted, spitting some of the water he kept in his mouth. He wiped it from his shirt without success. “You? What were you thinking about?”

“Mostly how amazingly inclusive we are to the disabled. Between you, me, Short Order, Gobrend, Sea Breeze, Smoke Ring, and Stalwart Shield we got quite a few cripples. Heck, I’m sure there’s something wrong with Blank Slate as well. There’s gotta be a reason he keeps wearing that damned… cardigan or whatever it is. Now that I think about it, Princess Luna should count as well. Maybe we should rename it to the Broken Guard.”

That was a complete lie of course. What she had been thinking of was the mess they had found out about. Specifically, she had been wrangling her brains to figure out some way for everypony to come out unscathed. All she got out of it was stress, stress, and then, as if that wasn’t enough, she felt stressed. Like she needed any more of that.

“Stalwart and Smoke Ring aren’t. There’s nothing wrong with them, is there?” Raegdan pointed out, drawing Leaf Stream out of her thoughts.

“Give me a couple of days,” Leaf Stream growled. Raegdan chuckled.

“By the way, I got something to give you.” She grabbed the envelope out of her small saddlebag. With her wings gone she found she needed someplace to stash small stuff, and was never a fan of stashing it in her mane like some idiots who had a pillowcase of a mane tended to do.

Raegdan took it, wiping the edge she had bitten it from even if she left no saliva at all. “This has already been opened,” he commented.

“Hey, great news. Your eye works fine. Yeah, I checked out what it says so I could be sure we wouldn’t have any problems with all that crap you told me. Sue me for taking measures.”

He took the paper out of the envelope and started reading, turning so he could get as much of the fire’s light to illuminate the contents. There were two letters inside the envelope. One written by a dragon’s claws and one by a pony’s magic. Leaf Stream had already read both, so she wasn’t surprised to see him crumple them and roughly shove them in one of his pockets.

“I forgot little flame’s birthday…” he muttered, covering his face with one palm.

“It’s not that bad all considered,” Leaf Stream said. “It’s not like you could go to the party, being on the mend and all. Besides, they covered for you, right? Princess Celestia sent a present with your name on it, and Twilight forged a letter that you supposedly wrote wishing him happy birthday. It’s obvious he bought it judging from this thank you letter. All you have to do is pretend that was all from you next time you see him. Just a few more lies. You are good at those,” she added with contempt.

“I forgot little flame’s birthday,” Raegdan repeated. He took a deep breath and stood up. “I’d like to stay alone for the rest of the night if you don’t mind. I’ve got to do my exercises and... just want to stay alone. Please.”

Leaf Stream wasn’t sure how wise that was. “You aren’t going to try and follow Princess Luna in the Everfree or anything, are you? Cause then it’s my flank on the line.”

“No, don’t worry,” he said, waving her away even as he started walking. “I’m gonna be around, and I think I… I‘ll stick around. Luna said stay? I’ll stay. Go with the others. Have some fun. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure you’ll be ‘fine’?” Leaf Stream asked, doubtfully.

“I don’t know. We’ll see, I guess. I’ll see you later. ...Leaf Stream?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m… sorry for piling all our crap on all of you.”

Leaf Stream humphed and turned her head away. “Yeah, well, it’s my job, and anything other than keeping silent and it’s others who get screwed. What did you expect us to do?”

“I… I don’t know,” he said, his shoulders hanging. He stood up straight. “Leaf Stream… Do you think I’m losing them?” he asked, patting the pocket where he stashed the letters. “Or can I still hold on to them for a little while longer?”

“Seriously? I think you already did. This…” she raised her hoof displaying him, top to bottom, “can’t keep friends or family. I don’t know what they saw in you before, but I’m sure it wasn’t what you are now. Nah. You haven’t got a chance.”

Raegdan didn’t answer. He stood there for a moment, looking down on the fallen, empty envelope on the ground, then shrugged and turned away, slowly vanishing in the darkness, absently humming a sad song. Leaf Stream watched him go, doing her best to convince herself that he was only being dramatic. The bastard was fine as rain. He just acted out like that, wanting pity. She’s had it up to here with him. She’d check on him later on. Just to make sure the princess didn’t blame her for not obeying her orders. Nothing else.

She should look up what kids liked to read as far as comics went when they got back to Canterlot. That little dragon wouldn’t shut up about these stupid magazines. If Raegdan sent a few of these to the little firestarter then-

Oh, what did she even care? Let him burn.

She marched off to find the others, so she could watch their work and sample it. Fritters, and lording over others. That was the life. Who cared about Raegdan’s stupid personal problems? The guy was a total waste of space. Let him dig his hole even deeper.

Power Ponies. Yeah, that’s what the little lizard wouldn’t shut up about. She made a mental note to remember it.

He actually said sorry… Huh. Who would have guessed?

The consensus was to keep following Princess Luna, and try their luck a little deeper in the forest. They had all hyped up too much, waiting for the fight with the Timber Wolves, and to have it end like that was anticlimactic. Instructor Stampede said it best anyway; Were they here to be Lunar Guards or not? Any monster they hunted down was one less that could threaten ponies. They hadn’t chosen this place completely at random. North of here was the road that lead east from Canterlot and it approached the Everfree Forest more than any other location. If anything decided to move outside the Forest then it would put ponies in danger. A little culling here wouldn’t be amiss.

At least, that was the plan. None of them ignored the fact that most of them had zero practical experience, and that there was a chance that they might be biting more than they can chew. But this was what they had chosen to do, and they might as well follow it through to the end and prove it wasn’t a flight of fancy.

Now Rainbow Dash on the other hoof didn’t have all that binding her here. She could leave any moment, and Luna had in fact told her that she could go if she chose to. Rainbow Dash chose to stay though. She was here to learn as well, and this seemed to be the best opportunity she had.

A picture in her head of her five friends facing something they had no idea how to deal with because Rainbow Dash turned tail also took part in the decision. She wasn’t here just to learn how to defend herself. She was here to learn how to defend her friends.

Rainbow Dash carefully stepped over a crawling vine, careful not to make contact with any of the jagged, spear shaped leaves. She passed a quiet warning to Tick and Tack behind her, same as Shaded Swirl did to her and Cast Iron.They kept up a slow pace, and were trying to keep a relatively low profile.

She heard Trixie warn Sunrise Storm behind her as Rainbow checked her side again, watching for any shadows that failed to move with the swaying branches, just like Luna told them. There was a large boulder cresting a small rise, and as they went around it she noticed that something had sculpted a deep line on it.

“Hey, what do you guys think did that?” she said, raising her voice and pointing.

Everypony stopped to look. The boulder was huge, perhaps twice a minotaur’s height, and over twice that in length. A completely straight line had been horizontally carved on it, but as they got closer Rainbow Dash realized that this had happened a long time ago. Time, wind, and rain had smoothed it over, and thick lichen grew inside the cavity.

Luna came back to see what they were looking and froze at the sight.

“Princess? Are you okay?” Rainbow Dash asked. “You know what did this?”

Luna blinked and shook her head. “I- yes. I did that. A long time ago. Stars, we’re here? So close?” She looked around, her head whipping in every direction. “The trees haven’t changed at all. They should have grown, shouldn’t they?”

“Some old story?” Rainbow Dash guessed out loud.

“Indeed. A very old one,” Luna answered. She was lost in thought, staring in the darkness of another direction that the one they were heading into. “If we’re so close, then… We’re changing course. There is something we must do,” she ordered.

“Is this wise?” Eventide asked, doubtfully. “We will be heading deeper into the Everfree.”

“Not much. We’re almost there. This is important.” Luna started walking, and everypony followed behind her.

There were a few mystified, exchanged glances, but nopony protested. Solid Charge broke off from the line briefly to make sure everypony kept to their places, as well as check them up briefly. When he was done he returned to his place in the front of the line.

“Princess,” he asked, gruffly. “What exactly are we looking for?”

“A body.” Luna’s horn lit, and a barely perceptible light appeared over the ground. “Hole here, everypony watch out.”

“What body?”

Luna kept silent for a few moments. “When I first assembled the Lunar Guard comprised of Thestrals, we came here. Somepony had witnessed something… very strange according to rumors, and I wanted to take a look.”

“I’ll take a wild guess and say it was some monster,” Smoke Ring said.

“Correct,” Luna absently answered. “More than one. They came from the deeper regions of the Everfree, breeding all the while, and were slowly heading outside.”

“What were they?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Luna shrugged. “Who knows? I never saw them before or again. Most of what comes from the depths of the Everfree is unique. Most of them were young, or still weak and inexperienced, and we defeated them easily. All except one. It was not as large as some as the others, but it was extremely cunning and ferocious. We pushed it under a ridge, and planned to crumble the whole thing over it, but one of my guards got injured. His name was Steel Edge. He wasn’t really a warrior, not on the level of the rest. He was along mostly to maintain weapons and for his technical expertise. A quartermaster of sorts whose skills would allow us to spend more time on the road.”

“I know this name,” Drum Beat said, clearly in awe. “I remember it from the stories. It’s hard to believe they were actually real. His clan died out four hundred years ago. It was then that the rest of the surviving clans all merged together.”

The Alicorn continued as if Drum Beat never interrupted her. “I tried to reach for him. I really did, but the cliff was already breaking off, and the creature loomed over him. I tried a spell I’d never tested. It’s purpose was to replace his current location with one he occupied ten seconds ago. It was a failure. The spell blew in my face, launching me back and away from him. Next thing I know, Blooming Spiral was shaking me awake. Both the creature and Steel Edge were under the rocks. We didn’t know if the creature was dead or just trapped, and we were all hurt. We left Steel Edge there.”

They trundled through the forest in silence. Blank Slate spoke up. “We’re going to recover what is left, are we not?”

“Yes.”

“It will be good to finally give him peace after so long,” Sunrise Storm said from the back.

“Over a thousand years, rotting under the rocks. Yes, he deserves better,” Luna said, speaking quietly. “They all did.”

“May we ask what happened to the rest of the Lunar Guard, Princess Luna?” Red Dawn asked. Rainbow glanced at the Thestrals and wasn’t surprised to see them all stay quiet.

Luna stopped walking for a moment, her whole body flexing. A second later she was walking again. “They all died. Six days later. There worse things than what you can find in here. Evil so twisted and vile, far worse than what even the Everfree can ever hope to produce.”

As Luna said, it didn’t take them that long to reach their destination. They stopped at the top of a hilled part of the forest, looking down at a short cliff. If this was the place that Luna meant, then there were no traces of any collapse remaining. The forest had reclaimed everything. Trees grew down below them, and even a few had sprouted out of the cliff face as well, their trunks curving upwards among roots from the trees above.

They silently made their way down to discover that any search would be useless. There were no rocks or boulders to be seen. The ground was nothing but soil and vegetation, covered with rotting leaves, branches and foliage, but otherwise smooth as the rest of the forest had been.

Luna was standing at the edge of the area she had designated, examining the landscape with wide eyes, while some of the guards walked around looking for some point to start while others were spread around by Solid Charge and Stampede as sentries to form a small perimeter. Rainbow Dash flew close to Luna, and landed next to her.

“It doesn’t seem as there’s much we can do, Princess. I mean, we can’t dig with spears, can we?”

“No, you’re right of course. I just thought that- I hoped I could make this a little right somehow,” Luna said, sadly.

“Hey, don’t give up!” Rainbow Dash immediately said. “We can come again later with some shovels or something now that we know where it is. Trust me, I know we have a few back at the camp. It’s a big space though. It will take some time. Where will we even start?”

“Hmm? Oh, no worries. I think I remember where.” Luna walked ahead, heading towards the face of the cliff. “Steel Edge stood somewhere around here. The creature was right over- whoah!”

The ground shook. At first Rainbow Dash thought it was an earthquake, but none of the trees around them moved. Whatever was happening it was straight below them. She jumped in the air again, and Luna joined her, flying less than a meter over the ground. The earth groaned and heaved, and then it split.

Dust soared in a cloud around them, and the earth rose up. Up and up it went, like a pillar. Rainbow realized the truth too late. That wasn’t the ground rising up. It was brown and black, covered and mostly made out of leaves, sticks, and rotting compost, with some mud flowing in between, like cement. It glistened wet under the little light they had, its surface looking surprisingly organic and alive.

A… thing stood before them. It was shaped like a minotaur or… No. It was shaped like Raegdan. There was nothing resembling horns on the featureless lump that served as a head, and its proportions were more like that of Raegdan than any minotaur or Diamond Dog. It took a step, and Rainbow Dash noticed, with eyes that suddenly took in every detail, from how the leaves on it shone to how the mud it was made of kept swirling, that the legs bent just like Raegdan’s. It was as if somepony took a heap of mud and made the crudest possible imitation of him.

It stood over twice as tall as Raegdan, thick and solid looking despite the soft materials it was made of. It looked around it. Rainbow could tell that it did, even though it had no eyes, just slight dips that she supposed were its eyes or sockets. It’s body swiveled, and the mud head on top turned this way and that. Something appeared for a fraction of a second under the head, an orb of sorts, less that half the size of the creature’s head. It was white or possibly a faint yellow, grinning madly.

Rainbow Dash felt her stomach rumble and threaten to heave.

“It’s alive… How can it still be alive?” Luna whispered. “Why… Why is it here now? Why now of all times?”

“What the bleeding Tartarus is that fucking thing?” Tick screamed at the top of her lungs.

The creature, that moving gunk of forest waste, found what it was looking for. Cast Iron was fallen prone near it, shaken off his hooves by the quake it caused. The forest gunk bent down, a crude hand reaching out for him.

“Oh, heck no, you disgusting forest gunk,” Rainbow Dash said. She flew for it, even as it took hold of Cast Iron. It didn’t try to lift him up. The forest gunk simply held him while part of its mass flowed down the trunk-like arm, covering Cast Iron little by little. The minotaur struggled to get free, but the creature had gripped him well.

Rainbow Dash planned to kick that thing, distract it and give Cast Iron an opportunity to escape. Her plan was foiled with a sickening splat. She sunk deep into the soft body of the creature. It was soft when she flew into it at least. As soon as she tried to escape it started hardening, trapping her into it.

She wrestled with it, trying to move her wings, her hooves. She fought to kick with the legs that were trapped in it, but couldn’t even move them. Her front legs were out, but it was like she was hitting hard mud, and the disgusting, swamping foliage flowed back to repair any damage.

Something burned. A heat started around the portion that was embedded into the forest gunk’s body, quickly becoming painful. It burned, and it grew hotter, but it didn’t feel like fire, more like hot water, hotter than anything she could imagine, and she felt the one wing caught in it hurt, hurt like she had dipped it in acid or something like that-

“Don’t you hurt them! Don’t you dare hurt them! Don’t touch them!”

Luna shot like a comet, screaming and with eyes lit on fire. She aimed for the arm of the forest gunk, and just like Rainbow she sunk into it. Before the creature had enough time to solidify Luna bent her neck and buried her long horn into it. Light grew in intensity from the inside of the creature, the foliage it was comprised of turning it a sickly green. A second later the part where Luna was dissolved. The rest of the arm, from the elbow and below, lost its rigidity and rained down nothing but wet mud. Cast Iron quickly stood up, and Solid Charge was by his side dragging him back. The minotaur was smoking, and he seemed to have lost some of his coat, his naked skin red and raw.

“Get Rainbow Dash! Get her out of there!” Cast Iron shouted, coughing and paying more attention to the pegasus than himself.

Rainbow Dash couldn’t free herself. She screamed in pain. She could feel blisters forming on her skin under her coat as the heat became overbearing.

“Rainbow! Hold on, I’m coming!” Luna shouted. She shot again, and sunk right next to Rainbow. “Get ready to jump off!” she called out, and repeated the process, sinking her horn into the chest of the monster.

Rainbow felt her teeth vibrate, similar to how it felt when you hummed and slowly brought your teeth together, only dozens of times stronger. The ‘flesh’ of the creature didn’t break down like it did before but became springy and soft. It felt like she was swimming in jello, and Rainbow doubted she would be able to escape in time until Luna placed her legs behind Rainbow’s. Now she had something to push back against, allowing her to leap out of the thick sludge.

Rainbow fell on the ground and felt hands dragging her back. She looked up, hopeful for a second that Raegdan was there to kill that thing, but it was just Raven who pulled her away with his paws.

She glanced at her wing. Her coat was smoking as well, and it had shortened and curled as if it had been burnt. Her feathers were a disaster. Most of them had melted somehow, and everything hurt as if she had been tumbling about in poison ivy.

Luna was still caught. The creature’s swampy flesh solidified again, trapping the Alicorn. Luna tried to bend her head to stab her horn into the chest again, but Rainbow’s escape had moved her, and now she simply wasn’t positioned right to do that.

“Princess! Get out, now!” Stampede shouted, the elderly earth pony looking distraught for the first time.

The Alicorn tried to do that, moving left and right, but she was completely trapped. Nothing but her head was visible. The creature ducked lower, touched the remains of its arm, and became whole again, the mucous-like half-mud, half-flesh knitting together with the sound of wet slurping. It stood up, unharmed, and with Luna captured in its chest, gazing down on them.

Luna stopped fighting. “Get out!” she yelled, desperate. “Run, get out of the forest! You have to warn Raegdan and my sister, it will eat, grow, breed and spread if left alone. Leave me, I can take care of myself. Run! Run no- Aaaaah!” Luna screamed, and Rainbow knew that the thing was doing what she did to her and Cast Iron before.

“We can’t leave her here!” Rainbow Dash shouted, pleading. “We can’t!”

Solid Charge looked behind him. Everypony was gathered together, watching the Princess scream in pain and ordering them to run. Solid Charge glanced at the forest gunk creature, then Cast Iron, then them, and then back at the Princess. He only delayed a second before he made his decision.

“Lunar Guard….” he called out in his gravel voice.

“Attack!”

Not all of the muck had been absorbed back to the giant creature. A small puddle stood unmoving, and with the attention of everypony turned to its parent, it started to crawl away, an amorphous blob that quickly scaled up the cliff under the cover of darkness.

It followed the scent of the creatures below, following the path they came from. A smell of blood attracted it, and it dug into the earth, revealing the broken body of a snake. The blob took it into it, and soon it had dissolved and the blob was no longer a blob. It’s crude serpentine body slithered faster, travelling more efficient than it did before. It was larger as well. It kept following the trail, rushing for the outside where the hunt was plentiful and easier.

A few small animals happened on its way. They were taken too, the smell of earth and forest not alerting them to its position. The muck-made creature kept going, now in the shape of a humongous scorpion almost the size of a pony, the tiny bug too slow to avoid its death.

It made it out of the forest.

In the distance it saw fires burning, and it knew it would find more meat there. Meat that would make it grow. Make it stronger. Make it divide and spread.

Interlude 13 - Janus

The man’s lips were so dry they cracked and bled.

He ignored his thirst and the dust that covered him like a shroud. He waited under the smoking ruins of crushed steel beams, listening to the retreating guns and screams of people dying. He waited, paying attention to the sound of iron steps and heavy tracks.

Finally they were far enough. He dashed out of his hole and out to the street. He stood there for a moment, his legs frozen in sheer disbelief. This couldn’t be his City. Where were the tall buildings, and the mighty walls? Where had the beautiful trees and bounties of nature that were grown on every available surface gone? There was none of this. Only smoke, ruins, and ashes.

The tall towers had transformed into pillars of flames, and dark, thick smoke covered the sky, plumes originating from everything he had cared, loved, and protected. One of the towers far away broke in half with a thunderous roar that was somehow muted. The earth shook, and the vibrations kept going for some time as more buildings shattered and fell.

Everything stood unharmed hours ago. It couldn’t all have vanished so quickly. It couldn’t. City Three had lasted for over a century. How could it fall now? What happened to their defenses, why were the cannons silenced, why did the gates open, why did their generators fail at that exact moment when they needed them most?

What had happened to his world? How did they lose everything so suddenly?

The man shook himself off. He couldn’t stand there in the middle of the street. He had to find cover, a safe place. There were bunkers and fallback positions. The main ones were in the part of the city furthest from the walls. He had to make it to one of them. There should have been instructions, voice systems should be blaring across all of City Three, but there was nothing.

The machines would head for them. He could stay behind them and be relatively safe for awhile, until at least more of them came from behind him, or he could try to bypass them and reach safety. If not safety, then a place where he could hold a weapon and fight like he should be doing. They could still hold on if they pushed them back. Everything could be repaired, they just needed to push them back and hold until they repaired the generators and the main guns.

The machines were slaves to their flawed brand of cold logic, one that had worked through repetition and random moments that could have been called insight or creativity if they weren’t completely incapable of it. They wouldn’t rush ahead, but move methodically. That meant that if he moved diagonally in respect to their route he had a chance of making it there faster than them. The machines favored straight lines, even when the roads were blocked. They’d spend hours on clearing a path rather than take a detour, and with all those new ruins in place of where beloved City Three was… he had a good chance. He could make it as long as he was quiet.

He went through alleys, he climbed inside crumbling buildings, and jumped out of broken walls. He crouched and crawled under the remains of the school he had gone as a child, dodging holes and craters.

He stopped for a moment, letting his eyes wander around the small schoolyard that had been allowed to stay empty for the children’s sake. It looked almost normal. On the ground he noticed the markings for a game the children played. He used to play it as well. He remembered his old, sour grandfather, and how he told him he had played this game as well. Nine and one and one. It took eleven kids for the game. Nine of them would be the Cities. One of them would be the machines.

Nine and four and five
Locked up in your hive

And the other one, a secret one, would be… something else.

Eight and one and two
Something's gotten through

God, that song. He hated that stupid rhyme. Ever since he first heard it, but he kept singing it. Almost daily it had been on his lips like a prayer. Every kid, every year, playing their game. Until one day they stopped, grown into the real world where all that mattered was the fight for survival against the machines, with their eyes fixed on stealing back small pieces of the world outside in order to make it another year.

He left the school behind, but something had now tagged along. The rhyme clung in his head like it did the very first time, and made everything worse.

Weapons firing. Plasma meeting steel and damaging it. Plasma meeting flesh and sizzling it, the owner screaming in agony. Those were the sounds that echoed in City Three now, and that he was approaching. The last lines were already under pressure, fighting behind the cover of ruins and the shimmer of shields. The man stood back, watching the machines and their efficient, fearless lines shoot the descendants of their creators and murder victims. One shot per second, never less or more. Never.

The broken, half-melted remains of dozens of machines layered the cracked concrete. The line had been holding, and the machines threw themselves to the meatgrinder with no self-preservation. They never minded the loss. They could always make more of themselves. What mattered was killing people, even if it took an army for them to kill just one; it was a victory to their eyes.

A large one crawled to the front on treads that trampled everything in its path, it’s shape indistinct of anything man like. It had no head or eyes, like none of their accursed brethren, and it should be impossible since the machines had no feelings, but the man almost got the sense that the huge machine scoffed.

It unfolded like the petals of a flower, and support legs braced against the ground as it made the whole of its being into a weapon. Blue energy coalesced, amassing at the bottom, and the men across from it were turning every available power supply, even their own weapons, to the shield. It would all come to whether or not they would be able to hold back the blast. If they did, they could strike back and win this brief scuffle. If not, the machines would have won in a single strike.

There was a sound like a ‘fwoom’ and a rocket headed right for the large machine, leaving a trail of gray smoke behind it. It hit the tank-like machine with almost no time to spare, and the amassed energy increased the power of the explosion. The machines next to it turned into wreckage, and every man in the field had to duck for cover as metal shrapnel filled the air. The shield protected them from the worst, and they all rose up with shouts of triumph.

The man looked where the rocket came from. A strangely dressed man he didn’t know appeared over a broken building, holding a launcher that normally needed two or more men to operate. No wonder he could handle it on his own. He was huge. Even from this long distance he could see enough to stare in awe at the sheer height and size of him.

The City’s militia cheered at their savior, but the man pulled back. He didn’t know this strange savior, and his clothes… He didn’t wear a uniform, or City clothing. He was dressed in a patchwork of cloth and steel. The man noticed that the stranger had tied up the heavy outer leg plates from a machine around his forearm. He was also carrying much more than the launcher. A plasma gun was slung over one shoulder while a mass of small satchels hung from the other one.

The stranger jumped from one ruin to the next, scrambling up and down as he made his way over what used to be homes.

One of the machines was still operating. It burst out of the brickwork it had been covered under, stood up on its barely humanoid body, and aimed its weaponized arm at the stranger so close to him. Its logic dictated that the closest enemy was the prime target. A few of the militia raised their weapons but didn’t shoot. They called for the stranger to get down for he was too close.

The machine was right in front of the stranger in touching distance. The stranger didn’t even bother with trying to use one of his own weapons. He pushed the weapon arm away from him, and then struck again at the highest point of the machine’s torso with a backhand motion using the makeshift bracer. Normally the machine wouldn’t even factor such a strike, but the stranger’s apparent strength and the point he struck unbalanced the machine and made it tip.

It’s logic called for it to attain its balance first, ranking a simple fall as a more immediate threat than a man in front of him. Servos whined as the machine forced itself back on multi-jointed legs.

The man placed one hand at the machine’s ‘chest’ and one at the base of its legs. To everyone’s astonishment he lifted the machine in the air, hundreds of pounds of metal screeching as alarms and digitized warnings blew out of machine’s insides, took three steps like a titan carrying an immeasurable weight, and threw it down to the street from where he stood on the tumbled foundations of a tower.

The machine crashed six meters down with a dull reverberating thunk, but it would take more than a fall to even disorient a machine. The stranger knew that. He fell upon a large piece of mortar, and pushed. His legs scraped against the floor as he struggled seemingly in vain, but the brick and concrete gave away. It fell down the side as well, straight on the machine below. There was one last crackling shriek as proximity alarms screamed, the violent folding of metal, and then just the noise of mortar crumbling.

The militia men howled at the unexpected victory of a single man against a machine with nothing but his bare hands, and beckoned for him to approach with open arms and smiles, calling him to get to safety. The stranger lifted an arm in a friendly wave, and the militia lowered the shield, inviting him in their protected bunker.

The man almost rushed ahead too, but he held back, suddenly afraid.

Six, seven and three
reaper laughs in glee

The stranger kept walking leisurely towards the militia, slowly climbing down the rubble, as if the city wasn’t swamped by the machines. The men now had started taking proper notice of the stranger’s attire as well. Civilians peeked shyly from behind the militia lines, feeling curious about the break in the fighting, and saw the stranger approach.

The stranger took one of his satchels at hand and fiddled with the inside. He raised his arm again, shouting something muffled. One of the militia men asked him to repeat himself, but the stranger shook his hand as if that wasn’t important. He pulled his hand back and threw the satchel in an easy arc, like a friend tossing his backpack to another. Another one followed, thrown hard enough to reach ever further along the defensive line.

One of the militia men jumped to catch it, but the stranger had thrown it too high and fell behind him. The militia had turned their attention to the soldier running after the brown satchel, the one that looked so full and heavy yet the stranger threw effortlessly. But the man had kept hidden, and watched the stranger instead, and he saw him reach for something under his strange coat.

The militia started coughing, and falling on their knees. A few of them turned to the stranger with faces full of betrayal and blood running from their eyes, nose, and ears. The stranger didn’t mind. He didn’t even try to avoid the guns that weakly tried to aim at him. He made sure his gas mask was secure, and kept moving towards the men who were quickly turning into corpses. Only one shot made it in his direction, and it came nowhere near hitting him.

Screams erupted from behind the fallen defensive line as every fighting man was now dead, leaving the sick, women, and children undefended. A poor soul had somehow managed to cling to life. As the stranger went by his hand weakly caught the murderer’s ankle. The stranger didn’t even look down. He lifted his leg, and the boot, covered and repaired with layers of frayed materials, dug its heel in the dying man’s throat. The stranger unshouldered one of his guns, and kept walking. He stopped only so he could gather a few batteries from the guns, and so he could pick up the satchel and throw it again, closer to the survivors. Then he followed along, to make sure he got them all. A merry whistle made it under the mask, and the stranger hummed a song.

The screams had almost all stopped. Almost, but not all of them. The man waited with baited breath to see the flash of shots being fired. He waited, but there was none. What he heard instead was the sound of screams rising in intensity and fear. He heard pleas for mercy. He heard children crying and being silenced. And above it all, getting louder as the crying grew quieter, he heard laughter, devoid of any semblance of joy. It was how the dead would shriek if they could, almost weeping in its repugnance. The laughter grew with each silencing scream, until it was almost a howl of fear and pain itself.

The man retreated, heading for the walls at the other end of the City, determined to find help. The City was getting quieter, as even the explosions and gunfire lessened and faded. At times he believed he heard the scraping of movement, but never called out to make sure. He stuck to staying low and hidden.

Almost twenty minutes later he heard another explosion and looked back just in time to catch the flash of fire. He wasn’t sure, but he thought that originated from another bunker.

He made it to the massive gates of the city, rushed in the defenses post, and found out why the machines came through so easily. Bodies littered the corridors and the rooms. Most had their necks broken, others stabbed with whatever was in reach, and others had their heads bashed against the wall. Only deeper into the complex had the shooting started, when the intruder from the city’s side of the gate had been detected far too late, and failed attempts to stop him were made. He found the controls and wasn’t surprised to see that they had been destroyed after the gate had been opened.

Most of the people in there had been torn apart. Noses and cartilages had been almost ripped off as strong hands used them like handles. Eyes were missing or pushed deep into their sockets. Entrails covered the floor and the blood prints revealed the victim’s desperate attempt to pull them back inside his body. Faces were colored blue, their tracheas and windpipes completely broken and almost pulled off. The inside of their nails were filled with their own flesh and blood as they scratched at their own throats, striving for one more breath they would never get again.

He left the massacre behind him, and outside he saw a tree still standing, though the top branches were slowly smoldering, caught in fire. He saw a friend of his stand against the trunk, and the man thought for a second that he found another survivor. He knew that red, vibrant hair. They had even talked of getting together once, but broke it off as they were too different. That was in the past and no longer mattered though. What mattered was that he found one more person, and that meant there would be even more.

The woman was also dead. Her head had been shoved so hard against a branch that the thick base of the branch managed to penetrate the skull and kept her up, gray matter oozing down the side of her face.

The man stood there for a while, examining her face, tracing the paths of moisture that her tears left. There was dried snot on her face. She hadn’t been pushed while she stood at the wrong place. She had been brought here, and the man suspected that she saw what was coming all too clear. He could see the marks that she left as she tried to dig in her heels to slow her coming death.

She almost bent in half every time she laughed, he remembered. Like she couldn’t contain her mirth if she didn’t half seat herself, and she always covered her mouth with both hands. The laugh always came out muted, but so alive. It didn’t take a lot to make her laugh. She liked laughing. She loved jokes.

Her name was Joanna. She was dragged here, and killed. For no reason. Joanna only cleaned. And laughed. She liked to laugh.

She died crying.

An explosion roared behind him. He saw a tower lean impossibly, and then it crumbled and fell, whole floors almost slipping apart like cards out of a deck. A dust cloud rose, and the destruction continued as other buildings followed along, falling like dominoes. Lights suddenly turned on, flickered, and a few seconds later they died as fire erupted from the other side of the side where the underground generators were housed. The public address system had managed to crackle to life for three or four seconds. All it had managed to say was, “- to forty six are destroyed. All survivors head for bunker fift—”

He wondered how many were left to heed that message, and if it even mattered. All he had to do was look out the gate, and see the glare of the sun as it reflected on a tide of machines heading for them. Generators dead, shields gone, gates open wide. Of course more would come. There was nothing left to stop them with. Without power they had no hope. The city was dead or would be soon. Even if all the machines today were stopped, more would come soon. Even without them…

He looked up just in time to see one of their precious choppers rise over the skyline and its motor explode out of nowhere. The flying machine spun around itself over and over as it tilted to the side. A few shapes fell out of it, their limbs reaching out for help as they screamed. It crashed on the side of a building, the explosion barely noticeable among the spires of flame and smoke.

There was no way out. None other than risking certain death on the outside. How long ago had their deaths been planned? How meticulously had every chance of survival been crushed?

Six, seven and three
No one made it free

He doubted there were enough left alive to stop the coming machines. It was over. City Three was no more, and with it… with it...

The man ran. He decided to take his chances with the machines and the outside. He ran, and he didn’t stop, not until exhaustion took him. When he woke up he kept on running, laughter following him at every step of the way.

Sometimes it was Joanna. More often than not it was the stranger.

There was a scrap of faded fabric around the stranger’s right arm, almost rotten with age. He saw it, but didn’t understand its meaning, not until now. It was blue, and on it, stenciled in a pale yellow, almost invisible, was the number nine.

Not the stranger. He was not a stranger. They knew him.

The reaper.

“We have a live one! There’s a live one here!”

The man screamed at the sound of voices. All these months of running, of evading machines, of only eating fruits, roots, and bugs he found, without stopping even to light a fire, and his end was here. He dashed among the trees, falling on some, and pushing off others, determined to make one last attempt to save his life. It had been the only thing in his mind so far. Run, and stay alive. Run and remember. Remember City Three, and keep it alive in mind at least.

Remember the good laugh. Not the other one.

He had been without water for too long, and food for so much more. He didn’t have the strength for an escape inside the thick forest. Branches and roots caught at him, and suddenly he felt his nightmares come true. Hands grabbing him from behind and pushing him to the ground.

“Get him down, put him down now, and gag him if he tries to shout! Both of you! Search for weapons. Curry, keep a lookout for these fucking robots! Don’t you fucking fall asleep on me, you hear?”

“Loud and clear, sir. Keeping watch.”

They barked and hissed like men, not chirped and scratched like machines, and there were more than one, more than the one reaper. He was still alive, the reaper would have killed him by now. The man wrestled, but only so he could turn and look up at them.

No wonder he didn’t see them among the trees, their armor sported a blotchy pattern of greens, browns and black from head to foot, matching the forest’s colors. Beneath the armor they wore fatigues of the same palette, and their gear had a weathered but well cared for appearance.

At first glance they were all equipped alike, but there were differences when you looked longer. It’s as if they had all started the same, but mixed and matched down the line, replacing gear or making do. Two of them were holding him down, and their grip was as strong as steel. He doubted he’d be able to escape even if he had been taking care of himself.

Their weapons were strange. They certainly looked like the guns he knew, but they were more cylindrical instead of boxy, and there were no warning lights or even battery packs in the stock. They smelled like fire and smoke, and some of them were different, with various bits and kibble clipped on them like different barrels or scopes.

The one who talked before, the one who gave the orders stood still and waited. His eyes were uncovered, and they spoke of a man who had seen much. The man felt a kinship with these eyes, lurking within these ebony hollows. The bottom of his face was covered with something that resembled that gas mask that haunted him.

The apparent leader took off his helmet and breather, and Liam saw he had no hair. The man was completely bald, and his dark, almost black skin shined at the top.

“No weapons. He’s unarmed. Not so much as a knife on him.” Wait, this voice was lighter, smoother than the other two, even if altered by the mask. A woman’s voice. She was holding him down? Just how strong was she?

The leader knelt down in front of the man. “Okay, buddy, can you understand me? Are you still there? Do you understand my language?”

The man managed to hiss out a, “Y-Yesss…” that sounded more like air escaping a can.

“I think I heard him sing something before. He definitely speaks the same tongue we do,” the woman said.

The leader reached behind him, and the man cowered, but all their leader pulled out was a metal canteen. He unscrewed it, and the man could actually smell the water in it. “Come on, buddy. Take a sip. Careful now, not too much. Ease into it. There’s more where that came from.”

Water. He hadn’t realized how much his body needed it. It was wonderful. He felt strong again, stronger than he had felt in days. Some of it was the water. Most of it was the friendly sounding voices.

“Now, what is your name, buddy?”

“L-Liam.”

“Liam. Okay, Liam, I’m Sergeant Darry, Janus Division. This is William, and the lovely lady at your other side is Miny.” Sergeant Darry pointed at a burly man crouching at the top of some rocks high over them. “This fellow is Curry. We’re all friends here, and we’re going to take care of you, feed you and keep you safe. Do you understand?”

Liam nodded. “Y-Yes… Thank you. Thank you!” He couldn’t control himself he started sobbing. He wasn’t alone anymore. There were others out here. He wasn’t going to die all alone.

“No problem, Liam. It’s what we do. Come on, control yourself, buddy. Now, I have a couple of questions. It won’t take long. Can you answer them for me, Liam buddy?”

“Yes. Yes, anything you want. Just don’t leave me out here alone, please!” Liam begged. “I don’t care where you’re going, I want to come with. Please!”

The sergeant’s hand softly patted Liam’s cheek. “No worries, Liam. We won’t leave you behind. Now, what happened here?”

“H- Here? I… I don’t know. I’m not sure where I even am. I was just—”

Sergeant Darry interrupted him. “No, no, you misunderstand me, Liam. I don’t mean this-location here. I mean this-world here. What happened? Assume I just… dropped out of thin air. How did it all become so bad? What’s up with the robots?” The sergeant’s face was completely honest in his question, otherwise Liam would have believed he was being played a joke.

“The… machines,” Liam answered hesitantly. “They… They all went crazy, started killing us. They say bombs rained everywhere for days. Either them or us, we don’t know for sure. We- We all hid in the Cities. Built defenses. Worked out how to discourage them from coming around too often. Kept them at bay.”

“Okay,” Sergeant Darry nodded. “An A.I. uprising, end of the world. Where are these cities? We haven’t found a single one so far. Can you take us to one of them?”

Liam shook his head so violently that Miny had to hold him. “No. No! The Cities are all gone! There’s none left. Everyone’s dead, I think we’re the last ones. We have to hide, we have to hide if we want to live!”

The sergeant put his hand on Liam’s shoulders. “Okay, Liam, relax, I believe you. What happened, can you tell me? Did the… machines manage to win?”

Liam started to cry again. He felt like a mess. He used to be strong as well, others used to look up to him and now… He had seen everyone else die. Everyone! How could he not break? He had broken months ago.

“No, not the machines. The reaper. It was the reaper. The comms failed. The gates opened, and the guns no longer worked. We might have won, we could hold… but we didn’t know! No comms. That’s how every line broke, how it must have been for every City before. We expected the machines, not him. He did it. He destroyed the Cities. All of them.” Liam hid his face behind his hands, and cried. “It’s what he does… Oh god help us, it’s what he did, and he laughed… oh, how he laughed. He broke the defense, piece by piece. Piece by piece. One life snuffed at a time. He made sure no one could run. Where could they go anyway? It’s a miracle I’m not dead so far.”

The sergeant waited patiently, and when Liam was done he gave him his canteen to drink again. “What’s the reaper, Liam?”

Liam uncovered his face. He had to tell them. They didn’t know, and in ignorance laid danger. He sang, quietly.

Nine and four and five
Locked up in your hive
Nine and four and five
Engines came alive

Eight and one and two
City made it through
Eight and one and two
Something's gotten through

Six, seven and three
reaper laughs in glee
Six, seven and three
No one made it free

“Creepy,” Miny commented.

Sergeant Darry nodded once more, completely patient. “OK, Liam, but what is the reaper? Some kind of weapon? An infiltrator machine? A bomb? What?”

Liam shook his head. They didn’t get it. “We didn’t know!” he shouted. “We didn’t know what he is, we didn’t believe he was real! There were stories years ago, ever since Nine fell, teams that found something that wasn’t a machine and were lost, isolationists carrying rumors, and… and he killed everyone. He killed us all! There were nine Cities! Nine! Gone one by one, we thought it was the machines, but it can’t have been. The machines never tried to take down communications first. I never saw them do this or try it. We should have realized the truth. They don’t work like that! It had always been him! There are no Cities left! No one left!”

“Nine…” Sergeant Darry was finally as shaken as he should be. “When did the reaper appear, Liam?”

“I don’t know,” Liam answered, defeated. “Years ago. My grandfather used to sing that song as a kid, and who knows how old it was already back then.” Liam kept quiet for a moment, but he couldn’t keep his silence after so long alone. “I saw him.”

“You saw him? You mean the reaper?”

“What was it? Some kind of huge tank or…” William asked.

“No. Nothing like that. I don’t know what he really is, but… he looks like a man. Just a man. Just a man…” Liam went slack, letting William and Miny keep him from falling prone on the ground.

“A man. What, just a single guy?” Sergeant Darry repeated, his eyes unfocused for a moment before they hardened. “Impossible! Nine cities, one man, and how many years… It can’t be, it’s not fucking possible, not unless- unless he came through from somewhere else like we did and...” Suddenly, he was a whirlwind of motion. “Curry, get on the radio! We need the captain to come meet with us and we have to get the hell out of here!”

“Radio’s dangerous, sergeant. Better we just wait until we make it to the rendezvous. The robots might pick up the signal again. We’re running low on ammo as it is.”

Sergeant Darry swept his arms in front of him, and took his weapon in hand as he strided back and forth in front of them. “I don’t fucking care if they do! Get on the radio and tell the captain that this world has undergone a world-ending event.”

“That won’t be news to him, sergeant.”

“And then tell him that we have confirmation on a possible Ender. Do you understand me now, Curry? There is or was an Ender here! We have possible confirmation and we have a witness! A live one!”

Every soldier’s expression was one of shock. “An Ender, sergeant?” Curry asked, lifting an eyebrow in disbelief. “That’s just a stupid theory, right? That crap’s been recycled for centuries. Hell, I first heard it sixty five years ago. They can’t be real.”

“They have to be, motherfucker! I told you, we might have confirmation. Now get the captain, we have to get out of here. You know what might be coming next if they’re real and they’re part of it!” the sergeant shouted.

Curry pulled back in sudden alarm. “Oh. Oh fuck. This place is going to be harvested? Shit, we don’t want to be here! We gotta run! The gate is a fuckton of miles away! It will take weeks to get there.”

The sergeant went back to Liam, who was watching the whole exchange without understanding a word. “Come on, Liam. Up you go. Help him up, guys.”

“Wh- Where are we going?” Liam asked, standing unsteadily.

“Somewhere far away from here, buddy. Just going to have to walk a little before we can stop and eat, okay?” the sergeant smiled at him like an old friend. “I’ve got a can of spam that I’ve been saving. It’s all yours when we stop, buddy.”

“Sergeant!” Curry shouted after a while.

“What?”

“Captain says we’re to meet with him on the way to the gate, and haul ass! We’re to get there asap and start the random jumps,” Curry answered. “No dead weight. Anyone but your witness falls, we leave them behind with some supplies and carry on without them.”

“Random jumps?” William asked. “As in more than one? We won’t be at home for years! How many? Two? Are we seriously doing two stretched out as we are?”

“Captain says three!” Curry shouted down, lowering the radio. “That goes for even if you get stuck behind. Do the randoms on your own if you can or die. Don’t go home otherwise.”

“Three?” Miny said in disbelief. “We always do three and one. Why do we do three randoms now? That could take decades!”

“Get your heads thinking, morons,” Sergeant Darry raged in low tones at his men. “If this is right that means there is something out there, and one of its real soldiers was or is here. This might be our first real contact with the enemy. No more photos, drawings, scraps of info or mad conjecture with no real meaning. Three jumps, and that might be too little. We don’t want to guide them home.”

“We have no idea if it even works, boss,” William said. “If the enemy’s real then they know how to really work the gates, not the little stuff we do. We might end up pointing them the way anyway.”

“Yeah, well… Not much we can do about that then. The big heads back home need to hear this, and ask Liam the smart questions. We can’t fuck this up. Come on, pick up everything and let’s go. Carry Liam if you have to, and guard him with your life. He must make it to Janus HQ no matter what, and soon. We don’t want this reaper guy to find us, and we definitely don’t want to still be here when the harvest begins.”

Liam did his best to stop them from moving him. He had to know what they were talking about. “W-Wait. What is this harvest you’re talking about?”

“End of the world, buddy,” Sergeant Darry answered as he picked up his gear.

“I thought you said that the end of the world already happened.”

The sergeant motioned for Curry to get down, his attention already turned from Liam to logistics and routes. “It didn’t, buddy. They just took out the worms. Now they come for the apple.”

Ch.36 - More than one front

The Night Princess was entombed in the behemoth’s massive torso, still trying to wriggle herself free while her guards defied her orders and surrounded the sluggish giant. Every attempt of Luna to escape was for naught; her limbs and body were deeply imprisoned within the mucky body, while every spell she cast did little more than splash on the mud and rotten foliage that comprised the forest gunk creature.

The two earth pony twins, Tick and Tack Toe, stayed behind, reluctant to attack when a kick or any other strike might entrap them in the same situation. Tick stepped around nervously, glancing at her sister for instructions. There was none forthcoming. Tack just gazed at the monster as it stepped forward, its leg moving with glacial finality. The ground lightly rumbled under its weight, and both twins looked at their hooves as everything shook.

Tack eyes lit up as she gazed down and up again, at the creature’s legs. She called out to her sister. “Tick! Give me a hoof!” The earth pony mare kicked a long thick branch with her white socked hoof, and snatched the end of it with her teeth. Tick did the same from the other side at once, helping her sister hold up the long branch. They left an empty space between them, large enough for a pony or two; or a monster’s leg.

“Woo too!” Tack yelled, muffled as she was, to Shaded Swirl and Snared Wish. The married couple glanced at each other and then the monstrosity in front of them, and their eyes lit with mutual understanding. They picked up a branch in the same way, aligned themselves next to Tick and Tack, and charged together.

They ran, and bypassed the two minotaurs who waited for a chance to pull the princess out. Solid Charge saw the two pairs of ponies run past him, and immediately pulled Cast Iron next to him, pointing at the monster.

“Get ready,” Solid Charge ordered, and knelt down, his cloven feet digging into the ground. Cast Iron settled next to him as well. They waited a moment, and when the ponies had enough of a head start, they charged behind them. The ground rumbled under their weight and pounding hooves, and their horns shone menacingly in the pale moonlight as they rushed towards the monster.

Stampede glanced behind him as he avoided the monster’s wayward foot, and saw what was coming. Three pairs of guards, proper soldiers for once in his old eyes, attacking as one. The century old, experienced stallion immediately understood what would happen.

“Eventide! Push it! Push it forward!” he hollered.

The flyers had been busy trying to damage the lumbering forest gunk, and slowly discovering that they could not. Eventide feared that the sluggish motion was only temporary until it got its bearings back. It was difficult avoiding even these lethargic movements in the tight confines of the forest. One wrong dodge and they risked hitting against an errant branch or tree trunk, blocking them from avoiding the gigantic limbs and leaving them easy prey.

She heard Stampede’s order, looked at the advancing ponies and the minotaurs closing in, and connected the dots. A smile filled with teeth sprung on her face. She wasn’t fighting with a bunch of amateurs anymore, but a Thestral expedition, each pony a gear in the machine that let them survive horrors and win. She almost felt back home.

“Flyers, move to the back, stab, and push!” She flew around the creature, leading by example.

Rainbow Dash didn’t bother asking for explanation. She followed Eventide’s example, avoided the forest gunk’s monstrous fist by easily twirling around it, and stabbed that thing in the back of its head with the spear she had been given. The creature’s murky body hardened around the spear head, stopping it from going deeper. Rainbow Dash kept pushing though, all conscious thought replaced by a drunken excitement and thoughtless instinct that she had so far only felt during her most perilous acrobatics.

Two more spears sunk next to her own, and Rainbow Dash saw Red Dawn and Blank Slate flying next to her. Red Dawn snarled silently as he drove his spear as deep as he could, the tall pegasus savagely twisting it as much as he was able. Blank Slate had gotten rid of his vest. Rainbow Dash spotted a bit of ripped fabric on his side, evidence of his haste to remove it. She spared a moment to gaze at his mismatched wings. One of his wings was like a pegasus’, sporting white feathers. The right one was a thestral’s wing, the black leathery wing membrane a sudden contrast to his white coat.

They heard a sound like branches breaking, the sucking of mud against hooves, something wet ripping, and the monster’s weight fell on their spears.

“Now!” Eventide yelled. “Push! Push!”

Rainbow nodded at the two ponies to her side, and at her silent signal they pushed harder, their wings buzzing to lean the behemoth forward.

The twins and the couple had almost reached their target. The Forest Gunk spotted them coming, but soon lost them as Smoke Ring’s horn lit up furiously and fog sprung out of nowhere to hide them from view. The monster raised its arms to bring them down at a guess nevertheless.

A rope tangled around the monster’s left arm like a lasso. From the other end, Raven, Gobrend, and Sunrise Storm, pulled together as one. The monster reflexively solidified its flesh when the rope dug into it, and the three of them together managed to stall it enough, grunting with effort as their legs braced against rocks and trees.

The right arm came down on what might have been Snared Wish and Shaded Swirl, but stopped an instant before piercing the fog. An amalgamation of magic flowed around the slimy appendage, forming a net and slowly pulling it back. Trixie, Smoke Ring, Tidal Wave, and Trailblazer, had closed up together, and their horns bathed them in multicolored light. They yelled and the magic shot up, pulling the arm with it.

The two branches, carried by the pairs of running ponies, sliced through the thick, pillar-like legs of the creature, cutting them off before the monster could harden itself and stop them.

A mighty wind rose, forcing leaves and small pieces of wood to fly away, as six pairs of wings flapped as one, tipping the monster. It fell forward and would have crashed the head of Luna between the ground and her chest if not for the pillars of magic that erupted from the ground, holding it up just enough to spare her. The monster placed its hands on the ground and raised itself up from the waist up.

The magic vanished.

Solid Charge and Cast Iron came charging through the fog and into the thick chest of the creature, piercing it and making a hole through it and out its back. In their arms they held Luna, the Alicorn’s coat smoking under a layer of mud that shone venomously.

After carrying the Alicorn for several meters to where the twins and couple had retreated, they stopped and gently set her down.

“The Princess is free! Everypony, keep that thing away from her! Hold it down with magic, and you three,” Stampede barked at Gobrend, Raven, and Sunrise Storm. “Get more rope, that worked.” Coils of rope were thrown and anchored from one side to another, criss-crossing the monster’s back with a web of weaved rope to keep it down as much as possible.

Rainbow Dash landed next to Luna. Solid Charge and Cast Iron tried to sweep the mud off her, but it burnt their palms as if it was toxic. They had ripped part of their clothing, and the fabric smoked as soon as it touched the mare and disintegrated in seconds.

“Gods, how is she still in one piece?” Solid Charge wondered out loud, blowing at his hands and swiping them against the ground.

“I think she’s using her magic, look.” Rainbow Dash pointed at Luna’s horn. The Alicorn’s expression was one of intense focus, her eyes shut with the eyeballs behind them moving so fast and intensely she could see them move, and her horn had a faint glow around it. They noticed the same pale, almost invisible, glow over Luna’s coat as well, and it obviously protected her. The hair was slightly charred, and there were painful-looking blisters forming, but the small part they had managed to clean seemed relatively unscathed compared to what should have happened.

“This is too much,” Cast Iron said, glancing fearfully at the behemoth behind them trying to rise up. “How long can she keep this up?”

“Hold on, I have an idea.” Rainbow Dash zoomed off, reaching Tidal Wave in a second. The stallion in the mismatched armor was helping the rest of the unicorns in pushing the monster down every time it tried to rise. “Dude, you’re coming with me, now!”

Tidal Wave’s horn flared as he helped force the monster down one more time. “Kinda busy at—”

“Yoink!” Rainbow Dash grabbed him before he had a chance to understand what was going on and flew him over to Luna’s side.

“Missus, that thing—”

“Quick, hose her down!” Rainbow Dash ordered, pointing at Luna. “Your waterspout spell thingy,” Rainbow explained further. “We need to get this mud off her, it’s eating her up. Clean her up with that spell of yours.”

“Everypony stand back,” Tidal Wave said. A feeling like that of a heavy rain cloud formed around him, and Rainbow’s sense of smell was struck with the scent of wet earth. A magic funnel appeared in front of Tidal Wave’s horn and a forceful flow of water struck Luna.

“Oh stars, that feels so much better,” Luna said with exhausted relief in her voice as her eyes opened slowly, heavy with exhaustion. She shook her head to get rid of the water in her mane, and dizzily tried to get up on her legs. Solid Charge was at her side instantly, along with Rainbow Dash, helping her up.

“Solid Charge,” Luna said, half-mumbling the words, “I believe I ordered you all to leave.”

Solid Charge stood to attention. “Yes, Princess. You did,” he said, and left it at that.

Luna locked eyes with him for a moment. “...Thank you for not leaving me, Commander. I don’t know why you didn’t, not after… I appreciate it.” She turned to the others around her. “Rainbow Dash, Cast Iron, are you hurt? Do you need medical assistance?”

“We’re right as rain,” Rainbow Dash said, hovering in the air for a moment to prove her words. “What about you? You look bad.”

“I’ll keep.” Luna straightened up with effort, and smiled gallantly. “Now, what about the monster?”

“We seem to be holding it down for the moment, Princess. It is contained,” Solid Charge reported and stood aside so that Luna could get a good look.

The Alicorn took a trembling step forward and hissed in a breath. “Oh no. Everypony get back, now! It’s a trap!” she shouted, jumping to the air, her exhaustion forgotten.

Rainbow Dash followed along. Everything happened at once. What they thought was them stopping the Forest Gunk’s repetitive attempts to stand up was actually a ruse as the monster was slowly backing a smidgen every time. It reached its severed feet and the mass got reabsorbed into it once more. The creature rose up, suddenly either being much stronger or showing off its real strength instead of deceiving them.

The multihued holds of magic over its back shattered, accompanied by a pained cry from the unicorns, and the ropes they had laid over it snapped violently, the individuals holding them falling down. The creature rose and ran forward, and Rainbow Dash was once again struck by the resemblance to Raegdan. Its legs and knees bent the same way Raegdan’s did, pushing at the ground beneath it, the arms moving like his did when he ran.

Four ponies and a griffin were standing in its path. Luna put on a burst of speed, and Rainbow Dash easily kept up. They sped before the bipedal behemoth and Luna caught Tick and Tack, getting them out of the way, while the monster’s arm swiped the air in a last ditched effort to trap the Alicorn once more. Luna’s magic grabbed Red Dawn and threw him aside. Rainbow Dash tried to catch Stampede and Gobrend.

She didn’t make it. She got a good hold of Stampede, the geriatric earth pony relaxing in her grasp to make it easier for her, but her hoof wrapped the wrong way around Gobrend and twisted his lame wing. The griffin cried and twisted at the sudden pain, falling back into the monster’s path.

A black blur jumped in the monster’s path, caught the griffin, and leaped off, four pairs of strong paws giving Raven the needed speed to barely get them both out of danger. The monster’s pistoning legs passed them by, Raven’s tail actually sliding against it; it was that close, and got lost among the trees.

“Is anypony hurt? Is everypony present?” Luna called out in distress, frantically looking around for anypony missing in action. “Blank Slate, where is he? Trailblazer? Cradle Song?”

“I believe we’re all here,” Gobrend hissed, carefully nipping at his twisted wing. “I suppose thanks are in order,” he told Raven, who stood sullenly next to him.

“I’m not like slaver Diamond Dogs,” Raven growled, looking angry at himself.

“I’ll try to keep that in mind henceforth,” Gobrend flippantly promised. He glanced at Luna, and gulped when he spotted the angry red pustules formed by the acid on her. “A moment, Princess. I may have something for your burns with me,” he told her as he dug into his satchel.

Solid Charge arrived by their side, the rest of the hopeful recruits and Lunar Guards following behind him. “It seems to have escaped. We should get back to camp, send a message to the nearest Royal Guard outpost, and return better equipped and with proper reinforcements. We should hunt this thing down if it’s as dangerous as you claimed, Princess, but you are wounded. We should get you to safety first.”

“I don’t think we have a choice now,” Luna said. She was watching Gobrend impassively as he slathered balm and layered gauze over the worst affected regions on her, careful as to not pop the pus-filled blisters. When he finished she let herself fall on her flank, breathing heavily.

“I thought I heard you say that it will try to multiply, Princess,” Eventide commented.

“It will. That wasn’t the only one of its kind when we found them. There were others, bigger and stronger. It was this one that was the most dangerous though. This one is smart. Cunning.” She pointed at the direction the monster escaped with a wing, the tip trembling. “The creature didn’t run away from us. We outnumbered it and it was weakened, so it seeks to balance the scales and have some time to regain its strength.”

They all looked at the trees, and the dark spaces among them. The multitude of shadows, the formless shapes of half-gloomy branches and foliage combining with hints of light and dark to form menacing threats. Threats that looked too much like a walking, shambling mound.

“It’s gone out there to try and ambush us, hasn’t it?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“We have to get out and away from its natural grounds as fast as possible, all of us,” Luna answered, her eyes scanning every dark corner. “It is now hunting us.”

“Cinnamon and honey are classics. You can’t go wrong with them!” Sea Breeze said angrily, forcing one apple fritter in Limit Breaker’s mouth.

“Bah,” Short Order barked, spitting on the ground. “Look at this caramelized mess. You have hidden the taste of fresh apples under this sugary mess. I’m telling you, all you need is the merest pinch of sugar, and nothing else. Here, try this!” Limit Breaker managed to swallow half a second before the stallion with the grey hairs in his sea-foam mane telekinetically shoved another fritter in his mouth.

Leaf Stream was laid down, rubbing her swollen stomach. “Wait. Your superior commands you to give her a sample too...” She raised a hoof weakly, and a fritter landed gently on it. She quickly munched on half of it. “Thanks.”

An untouched, golden-crispy fritter floated in front of Stalwart Shield. The former Royal guard smiled. “This night is progressing much better than I expected,” he said to Leaf Stream. He turned back to his coveted pastry and it was gone, replaced by a female Thestral’s head with bulging cheeks.

“Hey! That was mine.”

Broken Gust swallowed. “There are more,” she pointed out. Her breath was like a glazed apple-orchard walking by.

“How many have you eaten?” he inquired, suspicious.

“I don’t know. How many have they made?”

“A lot.”

“Then about half of them,” Broken Gust belched like a monster. She covered her embarrassed smile with a hoof. “Hoo, sorry.”

“Oh Celestia, it smells like a bakery!” Leaf Stream whaled from down on the ground.

Short Order and Sea Breeze were waiting on Limit Breaker to stop chewing and swallow, hovering over the small earth pony. “Well?” they asked together when he was done.

“They are both great,” he answered. His lips were glossy with honey and sugar, and the way he smiled and his eyes were bright he looked like an eight year old colt. “But I really like honey.”

“Yes!” Sea Breeze cheered with a hoofpump.

Short Order threw down the spoon he was holding before picking it up guiltily and rushing to clean it. “You ponies know nothing about appreciating the merits of simple flavors.”

“Hey, come on,” Limit Breaker protested, trotting after the one-eyed, rough looking stallion. “Yours were amazing, too. It’s just personal taste, you know?”

Short Order glanced back with his single eye. “Sure, kid. No offense taken.” Short Order pointed at his makeshift kitchen area. “Just have to clean this up and prepare another batch for the rest, okay?”

Limit Breaker walked back to Sea Breeze who gave him a one hoofed short hug. “Personal taste or not, we know who won, right?” she called out loudly.

Leaf Stream burped, feeling the pressure in her stomach ease and making her decide she could fit one more fritter in there. “Yeah. Me.”

“I hope he doesn’t mind,” Limit Breaker gloomed. “I liked everything. It was all very tasty and… What’s that?” he asked, pointing at the end of where the light from their fire reached.

Leaf Stream raised her head, and what she saw made her rush to get back on all fours. A... thing that looked like a giant scorpion was scampering closer and closer to Sea Breeze and Limit Breaker. A scorpion that was almost pony sized, and made of some kind of flowy, disgusting looking flesh-thing. It pulsed, moved, and coils of mud weaved in and out of the surface, and Leaf Stream saw greenery and brown roots and sticks compose most of it.

Sea Breeze pushed Limit Breaker behind her. “Kid, stay behind me, and slowly back off. No sudden movements.” She brought her attention back to the slimy scorpion. “I don’t know what you are but you better—” The monster’s legs clicked against the ground and the barbed end of its tail pulled back.

Two large knives pierced its head.

“Well, that’s the end of that,” Short Order said from where he stood. More of his knives floated around him, as well as a selection of pans and other cooking utensils, gripped by the handles with his magic. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t touch my utensils,” he sharply reprimanded Broken Gust.

“Sorry. Instinct. I didn’t know you would to the same,” she apologized. “These knives are really well balanced though.” She held one up for inspection.

“I’m not here just for cooking, you know. Even my pots are specially weighted. Give that back.”

Stalwart Shield moved forward. “Are we sure it is dead?”

“I can poke it,” Limit Breaker offered. “I just need a stick. Anypony has a stick?”

Sea Breeze turned sharply at him. “No, we stay back until—” The thing suddenly exploded into motion, its body flowing around the knives and ignoring them. It jumped towards Sea Breeze, more like a spider than a scorpion, its pincers aimed upwards instead of down.

“Look out!” Limit Breaker’s smaller but far sturdier earth pony body crashed against Sea Breeze and threw her aside. The scorpion shaped monstrosity fell on him while Sea Breeze and the rest watched with wide eyes. It kind of splashed against him, but somehow still kept its consistency, its insect legs wrapping around his torso and melting into indistinct shapes as they tried to cover up as much of him as possible.

Limit Breaker bucked and shook, tried to dislodge the thing from him, but it had somehow half-melted on him as it tried to wrap him inside its gunky body. “Get it off me, it burns! It burns!” he shouted.

Leaf Stream, Broken Gust, and Stalwart Shield rushed for the fire, taking long, burning sticks in their mouths and surrounded Limit Breaker seeking a chance to try and burn that thing off him as if it was a leech, but it was hard to tell where Limit Breaker ended and that thing began.

“Kid, stay still! Stay still!” Short Order yelled in vain, surrounded by a dozen of knives held in his magic, undecided on whether to make the attempt or if it would even help.

Sea Breeze got up and tried to kick that thing off him with her hooves. “Get off him, you bastard, just get off!”

“Sea Breeze, don’t get so close!” Stalwart Shield tried to warn her.

The young, red colored stallion had been wildly trying to shake off the thing that was on him, burning him more and more as the seconds passed. When Sea Breeze got too close and attempted to stop the thing from subduing its meal it reconstituted enough of itself to form the scorpion tail again. It stabbed, and Stalwart Shield’s magic shield managed to deflect the strike enough that only her left cheek got scratched by the stinger instead of having her head getting run through.

Limit Breaker froze as he saw the blood running down Sea Breeze’s face and heard her shout in pain. The young, bright eyes narrowed in anger and determination. “No! Why did you hurt her? Get off me, you stupid thing! Get off and stop trying to hurt my friends! Get off me!”

He jumped away from Sea Breeze and through the space between Leaf Stream and Stalwart Shield before they had a chance to get in his way, filled with energy. He galloped away from them, small chunks of the half-melted scorpion on his back breaking off and falling behind. He headed straight for the boulder that served as Short Order’s working station.

The young stallion didn’t stop. Instead, he turned sideways and pummeled himself against the stone. At everypony’s astonishment, it was the rock that gave away and not bone and flesh. Limit Breaker pushed through the stone with unbelievable strength, a shout of sheer effort and willpower climbing out of his throat. He passed through it as if it was nothing but a thick block of mud, leaving broken rubble, gravel, and dust behind.

The mud creature didn’t have the fortitude or strength to withstand this passing. It got scraped off Limit Breaker’s back, falling down in an shapeless puddle, while Limit Breaker tumbled to the ground and stayed still.

Everypony rushed to his side. He was breathing hard and seemed to be in pain. Sea Breeze checked him over while Stalwart Shield knelt next to his head and the rest stood over him.

“Kid, are you okay?” Stalwart Shield worried. His magic forced one of his eyes open, and a short-lived light spell sparked on his horn.

“My back hurts,” Limit Breaker groaned, and hissed in pain. “Sides hurt too.”

Stalwart Shield let Limit Breaker’s eyes close again. “He has a small concussion and he might have broken his ribs the way he went through that rock. Celestia’s mane, how did you do that, kid?”

“We need to move him back to the fire, and I’ll need our medical supplies,” Sea Breeze said, eyes wide. Leaf Stream walked around, and gagged at the sight. Limit Breaker’s back was bleeding, as well as wherever that muck had latched onto him. The skin was showing, the coat burned off, and it had split apart with blood oozing out, dark and shiny. Blackened blisters were already forming as she watched, filling with clear liquid.

Broken Gust carefully crept around the stone block, holding a lit torch in her mouth, and Short Order was right behind her, a cloud of sharp and blunt tools casting their shadow over him as he levitated them at the ready. They stood there for two seconds.

“Everypony back to the fire, now,” Short Order whispered, both him and Broken Gust quickly backing off towards the others.

“Oh Celestia, don’t tell me…” Leaf Stream grimaced.

Short Order nodded. “It’s not there. We are at a disadvantage here. It could jump out of any shadow. Can we move the kid?”

“Can you get him?” Sea Breeze requested. “You are better with your telekinesis spell than Stalwart Shield, and he needs care.” Short Order glanced at his floating weaponry, and Sea Breeze scowled at once. “Those didn’t hurt that thing, so you won’t need them. Help us carry him, now!”

It was just a few short meters from there to the warmth and protection of the large, burning fire, but their wracked nerves made it seem like it took them minutes instead of seconds. Limit Breaker moaned in pain, Sea Breeze spoke soothingly in his ear, and Stalwart Shield was jumping at every shadow, his horn shining with unshaped magic. They laid Limit Breaker on a blanket as close to the fire as they could, and Sea Breeze got to work, promising him repeatedly that she would brew a salve that would take all the pain away once they got done with that scorpion monster.

Leaf Stream wondered when that would be. That thing could be anywhere. If it stood still and low they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between it and a patch of dirt in the dark. There was no safe point in the camp, not until dawn—

“Horseapples!” Leaf Stream exclaimed loudly. Everypony stared at her outburst. Even Limit Breaker half raised himself from where he laid moaning. “Raegdan is out there on his own.”

Limit Breaker made a brave attempt to stand up. “We gotta go get him.”

Sea Breeze and Stalwart Shield pushed him back down again. They barely had to use any effort to do so. “You stay where you are,” Stalwart Shield told him. “I’ll go.”

Leaf Stream raised her hoof up, stopping Stalwart Shield from moving. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“Excuse me?”

“That thing ignored a knife at the head and being crushed against stone,” she reminded all of them. “Magic might be the one thing that hurts it. Fire might not do anything against it. It was made out of wet rotten leaves and mud. You and Short Order have to stay here.”

“I’ll go then,” Broken Gust offered. “I can fly and find him, and I can see in the dark better than all of you.”

Leaf Stream took a deep breath through her nose. “Can you see well enough to tell that monster apart from anything else?” Leaf Stream taunted. Broken Gust’s hesitation was all the confirmation Leaf Stream needed. “Thought so. The moment you get low, that thing might get you. For all we know it might be able to fly or shoot the acid it burnt Limit Breaker with.”

They stared into the threatening darkness enclosing their lighted little island of hopeful safety. “Then who will go?” Short Order asked. “You?”

Leaf Stream’s lips turned into a thin, almost invisible, line. “Nopony goes. We all stay here.”

“We can’t do that!” Limit Breaker exclaimed. Even that outburst was too much for him and he fell back down whimpering as his burned shoulderblades and pained muscles exacted their toll.

“Sucks, I know, but we will,” Leaf Stream announced. “He’s on his own and—” A hoof drew blood with a punch. She recoiled, clutching her crushed nostrils.

Short Order took another step, getting into her face and shaking the hoof he struck her with in front of her eyes. “We don’t leave ponies, or whatever he is, on their own.” Limit Breaker and the rest united their voice with his, giving him their support. “I’ve noticed how you talk about him, and I know about your history. I’m not going to be part of your little revenge scheme.”

Leaf Stream showed off her bloodied teeth and growled in anger. “Yeah? Well, I know about your history, mister Dragging-Off-Ponies-in-the-Wild-to-Die. Yeah, did you think we wouldn’t know? Princess Luna can see your bucking dreams, so don’t you pretend to be morally superior to me!”

Short Order got his wind back as quick as he lost it. “Okay, I did that. And you know why? Because the bastard was as bad as you!”

Stalwart Shield got in between them, his horn crackling. “Nopony’s leaving anypony to die, and we’re not starting fights between us, not now! We’re going to go find him!”

The bitter mare whirled her head at him. “Listen, you idiot. He’s got a better chance of facing that monster than any of us!”

“Like Tartarus he has!” Sea Breeze called out. “He can hardly walk. He can’t move his arm. He’s half-blind. He’s still in recovery!”

“And he still can deal with that thing on his own!” Leaf Stream wiped the blood off her muzzle. Something broke in there, and she was sure a tooth was loose. “I don’t want the guy dead. Understand? I don’t. I just trust that he’s worse than that muddy scorpion! If that thing goes to him looking for a fight he’s gonna have its ass.”

“How? He doesn’t have magic!” Stalwart Shield retorted, full of anger.

Leaf Stream stalled, sputtered, and started crashing. “I’m… I’m sure he’ll think of something.”

Broken Gust was glaring at her. “We’re Lunar Guards. We shouldn’t leave him out there. I’m not leaving him out there. He brought Lilly’s body out of the fire. I owe him.” She flexed her leathery wings.

“We are Lunar Guards!” Leaf Stream yelled, ignoring the part about the late Thestral mare. She didn’t like thinking about her much. It always felt weird knowing Lilly was dead and the cripple was still alive. It felt unfair and like it was her fault. She pointed at the ponies around her instead, especially Limit Breaker as he lay wounded. “But they are not, not yet. We should focus on keeping them alive, not any of us! If it was me out there, or you, I’d say the same.”

“Don’t use me as your excuse,” Short Order growled. “I can take care of myself.”

“And so can Raegdan! He’ll be fine without us.”

“Guys?” Limit Breaker said. “If one of you can carry me we can go all together, and we can all take torches and go find him. We’d be safe that way, right? Or you can leave me here, I don’t mind. I’m sure I’ll be okay.”

“Nopony’s leaving you behind,” Sea Breeze stomped the ground in emphasis. “I’ll carry him,” she resolved to Leaf Stream. “I’m no use against the monster anyway.”

“And when that thing jumps you again you’re both dead!” Leaf Stream warned her. Convincing a bunch of rocks to take up gymnastics would be easier. Why didn’t they get it? “We don’t have to go find him, okay? Does one of you know a spell to make their voice loud? Or we can clang Short Order’s pots and pans. Make some noise to warn him at least. Heck, he might know already, we haven’t been quiet at all.”

Stalwart Shield paused. He looked at Short Order. “I know a spell for that. We can do that.”

“Good,” Leaf Stream breathed out.

“If he’s not here in a couple of minutes we’ll go find him though, right?” Limit Breaker asked.

“Let’s try that first and—” Leaf Stream was interrupted by an animalistic and hungry roar that ripped through the night, one that she didn’t think came out of Raegdan. This was something else entirely. “Aw, shit.”

“Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Got—Fuck it!”

I throw the marbles away. It’s useless. I’m not making up for my eye in a day. What’s the point anyway? Why am I even bothering? So I can go ahead and make a mess one more time? No thanks. Besides, if these idiots want to go ahead and prance around singing in the fields for things to come and maim them they can do so without me.

I don’t want to get up. I’ve got a good grump going so far. But I do anyway. I start searching for the marbles. I told Luna I’d practice. Leaf Stream as well. I should keep that little promise at least. Heavens know my track record needs as much help as it can get.

Why the hell did I throw them in the grass, in the fucking dark? I’m never going to find these stupid things. Luna’s going to have my ass! She got them from Stormdrain and told him he’d give them back to her. That’s great. Well done, you idiot. Score another point on the dumbass board. Paint that thing white.

There’s one of them. That’s something. I sigh and pause my search for a second. I still can’t believe I forgot little flame’s birthday. I should have sent a letter, a note, something. I should have told Celestia to get him something in my stead rather than letting her do it on her own. Then she could tell him the truth at least, and little flame might not mind if that happened. It would be far better to send a gift by proxy rather than entirely forget him.

The letters… Leaf Stream didn’t get it. Of course she didn’t, she didn’t know them. Twilight’s letter was full of disappointment and anger. All you had to do was pay a little attention to see it. It was full of sentences like: I wasn’t expecting you to make an appearance, really. I had the foresight to make a fake letter. We’re fine, in case you wondered.

Take a knife and take my other eye out, why don’t you? Not that little flame’s letter was much better. He knew. The kid didn’t buy the fake letter or the present that was supposedly from me. He had been raised reading Celestia’s and Twilight’s letters. He knew their handwriting better than they did.

Worst thing was that he didn’t complain. He was worried about me instead. I never wrote him back, not once, I blew off three birthdays of his in a row by now, and little flame worries over me instead. I… I have no idea what I’ll do the day he writes me a letter like Twilight and I know he doesn’t trust me anymore.

Another marble. This is not going fast at all. By the time Luna’s back I’ll hopefully have enough to pretend I just dropped the rest. Maybe she won’t tear me a new one for losing the kid’s toys if I still have some of them at least.

The wind blows from the south. I get a whiff of something new for a second.

I wonder if littl—… Twilight will be really angry if she finds out what Luna and I did to her and her friends, especially to her. Even I got angry when Luna told me what she made Twilight see in a misguided attempt to understand why I act like I do. I made Luna cry for that. I shouldn’t have though. She fixed it.

Which is exactly why I don’t get what the issue is now. Twilight forgot everything. It’s like it never happened. What the hell is the big deal? If magic affected me I would have asked for four slices of that spell please. I’d have Celestia whack me with memory spells until the best I could remember was how to wipe. Twilight is damned lucky, not a victim.

There’s nothing moving at the periphery of my eye.

Or how we made sure they wouldn’t do anything we didn’t want them to or anything else. Considering the alternatives there are to force someone to do something, this mind control stuff is harmless! Hell, I’d have a few portions of that as well if I could. Doing what you did because of someone else’s will? Sign me the hell up!

I rub my forehead. I’d have a headache if I didn’t already. I’ve been having one without a single stop for over a decade now. Day in, day out, the fucking rifts singing in my brain… Living so close to one of them hurts like hell.

I left the spear back where I was sitting. One leap away if my knee was working.

Luna says she understands what they mean, but I can’t wrap my head around it. Still, if she says we shouldn’t have done it, then she’s probably right. I’m not that sure yet, but I’m finally getting how useless my opinion is as far as these matters go. I’m not thinking long term, not in a way that matters. I’m still thinking that soon, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, I’ll be out of here and nothing here is going to matter. But I’m not going anywhere, am I? For better or worse I’m…

I’m not making this place my home, am I?

No, that can’t be right. I have a home already, and I don’t care about… about… something about being too long since I was there? It was something important… Who cares, I’m going back one day. This isn’t home. It’s all going to break one day anyway. Something’s going to come through, I won’t be proven crazy after all, and it’s good night for everyone. The Lunar Guard is a stopgap measure at best if it works. There’s no way these people will manage to stand up to what is out there with that way of thinking. If it wasn’t for Luna, not even half of them would make it out of the forest tonight.

I swivel my head in a slow wide arc as I keep searching. I see nothing. No marbles, and nothing at my front or left side. I turn my head a notch too much towards the right, and I glance over my shoulder. Nothing behind me either.

Still, maybe… maybe I shouldn’t outright piss on what I have. Or had. Maybe I can do a little better, just enough that I don’t lose Twilight and Spike any more than I already have. I could try making Twilight proud. I’m never going to be a hero, heavens know I don’t want to be, but perhaps… perhaps I don’t have to go all that way. Just… think a little more long-term. Show some trust like she’s been pleading for me to do.

And I could write Spike a letter. Five minutes, that’s all it will take, and Celestia will send it for me if I ask her. Maybe I could send one to little pink as well. A scroll covered with a layer of oatmeal to pay her back for the one she sent full of pink frosting. I could ask Celestia to get her next gala dress from Rarity, or ask Blueblood if he knows anyone wanting to negotiate a good, steady supply of apples. Rainbow… I’ve got no idea what she wants. What she’s already getting I guess. Swift kicks on her ass. As for Fluttershy… I don’t know. I’ll tell her I stopped kicking puppies and kittens.

There’s something here. It hasn’t spotted me yet.

The wind blows from south to north. It must have passed me by. I pick up the spear. Yeah, I can totally see myself being able to thrust with this knee. I’m boned. I make sure the longest of my knives isn’t blocked by cloth. The last thing I want is to die as I lived: stupid.

It’s not here, whatever it is, but it’s somewhere in the camp. Prowling around. I look at the fire at the other side. These guys have been making noise for a while. It’s like they’ve been drinking rather than making pastries. I swear, if they’ve been holding out on me…

Whatever’s in the camp might go for them if they keep up like that. It’s probably planning to do so right now. I could go and warn them… and then someone, probably that little red idiot, will want to be a hero and I’ll have to gather up the chopped up pieces. Yeah, I’m not letting that happen. I don’t know how Limit Breaker managed to convince everyone else, but there’s no way that kid is a day over fifteen. I’m not getting the kid killed, directly or not. I had enough of that shit. No more dead kids.

Most of the stitches are almost healed. Still, it’s not too hard to reopen them with a little effort, and blood starts flowing. All I have to do is walk around and make it obvious I’m injured. It will certainly smell that, even with the breeze. It’s too strong a smell. There goes my one advantage.

Wounded mammal separated from the rest of the pack, yummy, yummy, yummy. Come and get it, you bastard. I just wish I knew what I’m getting into. I hope it’s just a wolf or something small. Crap, I bet it’s going to be a manticore.

I’m boned.

Tick was shaking and clinging on her sister as they travelled through the forest. They didn’t dare go the way the monster had run off to, so they were going to try and circumvent it. Nopony believed they would be able to avoid a confrontation but they hoped to if they moved fast enough. Except for a few like Tick.

“I’m sorry I got us killed, Tack!” The earth pony wailed to her sister while everypony else was frantically yet futilely making motions for her to shut the Tartarus up.

“We’re not dead yet, Tick.” Tack’s white-stained hoof patted her twin’s head for a moment. “But if you don’t lower your volume…”

The white-muzzled mare sniffed loudly. “I- I’ve got something to confess before we die, Tack.”

“I know you stole my bits to buy drinks.”

“I slept with Royal Fortune on our last day in Baltimare!”

“And that you slept with Royal Fortune on our last day in—you did what?”

“I slept with him and I’m sorry! I knew you fancied him but he was so funny and I got kinda tipsy with the drinks I bought with your bits and one thing lead to ano—mm!,” Tick’s apology-rant was plugged shut by her twin’s hoof.

Lips pursing and eyes squinting, Tack thought hard about that day. “You were with him in the afternoon? About two o’clock?” Her hoof fell.

Tick nodded while wiping her nose. “Well... He had company coming and I left about then. I’m sorry, Tack. I’m so sorry!”

“Motherffff—He told me to come by at three! That’s why he was tired?” Tack screeched. At the front, Luna looked back in disbelief while Solid Charge slapped his face hard enough to bruise it. “Tartarus, we ain’t dying! We gonna live so I can get that stallion and use his tongue to choke him after I elongate his anus by employing metal, barbed tongs and a poker with—”

“Okay, ow, we get it,” Smoke Ring made a face at the vivid promise, and tucked his tail between his legs. “You’re mad at the stallion who screwed you both. But could you do what your twin should right now and calm down?”

“Until I get my hooves squeezing that jiving, conniving assbutt’s neck, no!”

Tick got off her twin and got in front of her, walking backwards with an equally frightful expression. “Hey, hey, hey! You’re not the only one he, uh... “ Tick gagged. “Oh Celestia, I can’t believe he did that. We’re both getting him together, just not the way he wants, agreed?”

“The only thing I’ll agree to is a five-second head start. Without his head. I’m gonna punt that thing like a ball! Both top and bottom one!”

Rainbow inwardly whistled at the impending doom the guy sowed himself. She resumed her overwatch, looking for anything tall, green, and dark. Not a helpful description in any area of the Everfree. It was chock full of tall green stuff, in various hues, and as for the dark, woo boy... She looked left, and saw a lot that was nothing. She eyed right, and behold, plenty of zilch. She peered behind her, and spied another couple of green tree trunks shuffling towards her, just like she did every time—

Shuffling?

Wait, ‘green’ tree trunks? Green, moving tree trunks? Rainbow’s magenta eyes climbed up and noticed those trunks connected to a massive torso with a blob sitting on top like cherry on a cake. Two more trunks dangling from the sides were swaying, following the inverse rhythm of its legs as it increased its speed, a speed that it didn’t possess a little while ago. Two empty sockets, mere shallow hollows on a ball of muck made contact with her eyes. She didn’t know how, but she knew the thing knew she saw it, and it would smile if it had a mouth to do so.

The behemoth was sprinting behind them, ready to stomp all over their perfectly positioned line in its path. She grabbed the two nearest ponies near her and jumped to the side, aiming to take cover behind a normal tree. "Run! Forest Gunk! Run! Take cover!"

Everypony, hearing Rainbow’s warning, turned around to spot the fearsome monstrosity bear down on them. Tick was the first to see it and react, her yellow eyes focusing away from her twin’s scowl and behind the raging mare’s left shoulder. She grabbed her twin and leapt to the side while Tack only realized what happened when she saw a leg covered in rotten foliage dangle in front of her.

“I’m gonna die unavenged! Thanks a lot, you soggy, mucky, dendrophiliac!” Tack cursed, still immersed in her anger.

The Forest Gunk ignored her as it did everypony else. It could have caught anypony at any time. It grazed by Trailblazer and Red Dawn, its huge arm only needed to reach out and it would have caught Drum Beat as he flew to avoid it. Trixie had fallen in its path under the strong protection of her cloak covering her like a blankie, and she still escaped it. More than that, Rainbow Dash could almost swear it consciously avoided her.

It reached the front of the column in less than two seconds. The two minotaurs dived aside to avoid it. They too were ignored. Luna took the air or whatever meager height she could attain under the forest’s unyielding canopy.

The Forest Gunk swung its arms, striving to catch her among its palms like a fly, and Luna backed off with a sudden, whip-like flap of her wings. The behemoth pressed on, punching or grasping at the air. Its arm cut the air horizontally in a backhanded swing that Rainbow Dash had seen on occasion before by another biped. Luna had seen it even more often and was experienced with it. Her wings flattened against her body and she free-falled beneath the arm.

Solid Charge got on his hooves and struck with the axe, swinging it in a continuous arc to avoid having his weapon trapped in the creature’s flesh. A bit of the murked mix that made up the monster splashed harmlessly against the ground only to instantly be reabsorbed as the creature’s steps brought it close to it again. The axe strike not only didn’t have any lasting effect, but the Forest Gunk didn’t even acknowledge it in any way.

The creature lost no time when its prey avoided it. As its left arm missed its target it used the momentum of its movement to bring its fist down, kneeling as it actually punched towards the ground. Magic flashed around Luna and she barely escaped the monstrosity’s strike, appearing a couple of meters from where she previously stood, gasping for breath, the magic on her horn sputtering.

Bolts of magic and flaming arrows flashed against the creature’s back. The magic vanished within the creature, and the fire withered with black smoke. Smoke Ring, Tidal Wave, Trixie, and Trailblazer all stood together and launched a volley of pure magic against their foe. The Forest Gunk half-swiveled to turn its blind gaze on them, completely silent. Its left arm rose across its chest and it slashed the air in front of it.

Globules of dull green liquid flew towards the unicorns. A shield was hastily erected and it splashed against it, hissing loudly. The four unicorns half-groaned, half-screamed in pain as the feedback from their shield rattled against their consciousness.

The Forest Gunk raised its arm again. Ponies, griffin, and diamond dog rushed to the unicorns to pull them out of the way. Luna screamed, demanding the creature’s attention and charged for its back.

Rainbow Dash had kept her attention at the creature’s ‘face’. It was featureless, devoid of anything that resembled expression save the shifting and gurgling mass that characterized it. She would swear nevertheless, and nopony would convince her otherwise, that the Forest Gunk smirked in wild triumph.

Luna flew straight, aiming for the creature’s back of the head, her horn shining with fueled magic while beads of sweat ran down her forehead, those nearest her horn evaporating by the magical energies coalescing together. The Forest Gunk played its charade of launching another attack, and raised its right hand, clawing for the incoming Alicorn.

Rainbow dashed for Luna with the kind of speed that would form a Sonic Rainboom in a longer flight, and she still barely made it. Luna’s right wing flicked dangerously close to the creature’s palm, and Rainbow hooted in fright as a long finger, sporting a thick, broken piece of bark like some twisted version of a nail, passed millimeters away from her eye. That was another thing that she would swear until the end of her days; that she totally didn’t pee herself a little right there and then.

They landed together a little distance away from the Forest Gunk, getting a much needed breather from the advancing titan. Rainbow Dash was draped across Luna’s stomach, with the Alicorn fallen flat on her back beneath her.

Luna weakly pushed at Rainbow. Her throat convulsed and she audibly swallowed. “Get… Get off me, and get away from me.”

“Hey, I’m trying to help,” Rainbow complained. She wearily glanced at the Forest Gunk. It got delayed by another volley of magic, but this time the unicorns were ready for its counterattack, and they didn’t group all together. Its intended target ducked behind a tree only to go around the other side and keep blasting. Rainbow didn’t know if they were damaging it, but they were surely annoying it enough to keep its attention on them for a few valuable seconds.

The melee fighters and flyers were doing their best to approach it without getting caught in its swings, using their weapons to seep some of its mass away rather than pierce or slice it. Rainbow watched for a half second. The way it was completely silent wracked her nerves. It never made a sound of pain or anger. Nothing at all. It just fought.

“I know you are,” Luna said as she stood. One of her knees trembled for a second, but she got up nevertheless and assumed a stance that made it hard to believe that the tall mare with the flowing star-mane was tired in any way. “But you have to go. I can bait it away. Use the chance I’m giving you.”

“We’re not abandoning you with that!” Rainbow proclaimed, offended at the mere suggestion. “It went straight for you, didn’t you notice?”

“I did. That’s exactly what I mean,” Luna repeated. Her expression softened. “And Rainbow? I’m sorry.”

“For what? Hey, what are you planning?”

“For seeing the Element of Loyalty, and not Rainbow Dash, the pony who wields it. The beast is after me, so we will let it give chase. Meanwhile, you will have to think of a strategy to slay it. I can’t. I’m too weak. I doubt I’d be able to withstand its grip once more and I no longer possess the amount of magic that I slayed its brethren with.”

Rainbow looked at Luna like she grew a second head. “You want me to think of a plan?”

“You, and anypony else with an idea; twenty heads are better than one, are they not?” Luna grinned. She flapped her wings experimentally and winced at the result. “I can give no more than five, ten minutes at best. I’ll circle around and guide it back to the cliffside where it emerged. Think, and act.” Luna took to the air, moved apart from Rainbow, and shouted with that impressive volume she was able to summon at will.

“Hey, monster! It’s me you want, don’t you? Here I am! Catch me, and claim me if you can!”

The Forest Gunk turned its bulbous head towards the challenge’s origin, and as soon as it made a step Luna retreated among the trees. Soon, the Forest Gunk was running after its prize with the swishing of branches and leaves as it passed, and Luna’s continued cries.

The Lunar Guard members approached Rainbow Dash. She noticed some of them were sporting various degrees of burns. Raven’s left arm was smoking, Shaded Swirl was missing his shirt, and Trixie’s cloak was less than half its former size, the pieces serving as hasty bandages among the unicorns, including herself.

“What is she doing?” Eventide asked. She favored her left leg. She was too slow avoiding a swipe from the Forest Gunk and her right leg got caught enough that it almost pulled the leg out of its socket.

Being stupid, Rainbow Dash thought, but answered, “She’s distracting it, buying us time to think of a plan to take that gunk down. Any ideas? We don’t have a lot of time.”

“First, what do we know about it?” Solid Charge asked.

“It burns!” Raven whined.

“Yeah, and I can’t pay it back for that,” Trailblazer whined. “It’s mostly dead plants, but it’s all so wet it kills any flame.”

“It can harden itself, trapping whatever is sunk in it.” Gobrend said, putting a talon under his beak. “And admirable defense, especially how it allows for the hit to come through and avoid damage if it can. I don’t believe it can control it though. If it did it would never be caught by a rope.”

“It has an ego,” Red Dawn said. Everypony turned to him for a moment. “I dodged a hit and I blew a raspberry at it. It concentrated on me for a few seconds. I think I got it mad.”

“What if we keep slashing away at it?” Blank Slate suggested. “Reduce its mass?”

Sunrise Storm shook her head. “Won’t work. It can easily absorb back whatever it loses, and it doesn’t give us a way to kill it. Besides, its huge. A lot of us would die in the attempt, and it would mean nothing the moment it made contact with what it lost.”

“Perhaps it was a weak point. A core that is not as resistant as the rest of it,” Stampede offered. “Alas, I don’t know how we would find it.”

Solid Charge punched a tree next to him. “We need ways to kill it and we don’t even have a way to hurt it! What about magic? Any of you know any spells that can do the job?” he asked the unicorns.

Trixie rubbed her front legs, looking ashamed. “Not- Not really. Trixie is a showpony. All I have are… lights and tricks. I don’t know any powerful combat magic. Just what I could teach myself.”

The rest of the unicorns shook their heads as well. “Nothing that we haven’t tried,” Smoke Ring explained. “Magic bolts are the usual fare. There is other stuff, like what Trailblazer tried, but magic is harder than it looks. There are not many ponies that can do any spell they like.”

Twilight could, Rainbow Dash thought. She really wished Twilight was here. Her, and the rest of the girls. No matter what Luna had just said, Rainbow doubted that Rainbow Dash the pony was any use now. If all her friends were here they could have figured something out. Twilight or one of the others would make a plan, Rainbow would do as they said, and done, monster gone. At least, Rainbow Dash the Element of Loyalty could use the Elements of Harmony. That thing wouldn’t stand a chance if they had them.

That’s what they needed. Twilight with her powerful spells and knowledge or the Elements. Rainbow Dash the pony was useless here. What did she have? A few flying tricks and bravado. She didn’t know enough to make a plan! She felt so dumb, especially next to the likes of Gobrend who analyzed the creature with a scholar’s eye, Tidal Wave and Trailblazer who knew at least a little about magic, and Sunrise Storm who quickly figured out the pros and cons of any solution anypony offered.

What did Rainbow Dash know? How to fly upside down. Or get a nice storm going in a few minutes. Yeah, she had that much at least. Knew her weather job inside out. Fat load of good knowing every single way to form or dissolve a raincloud would—

Oh. OH! So that’s what’s being Twilight is like!

“I’ve got an idea!” Rainbow Dash announced. Nopony was paying attention to her, frantically trying to come up with a plan themselves. “I’ve got an idea!” she repeated much louder.

She waited for all eyes to rest on her and their ears to stop ringing. “Kill it with fire!”

Trailblazer huffed. “We can’t. I just said so.”

“We totally can!” Rainbow Dash reiterated. She grabbed Tidal Wave, the stallion vaguely peeved at being hoofhandled again. “You can do your water spell.”

“We don’t want to get it wetter,” Tidal Wave deadpanned. “That’s the opposite of what we need.”

Rainbow Dash smiled so wide her cheeks hurt. In fact, Blank Slate looked at her with a hint of alarm. “When you do your water spells they gotta work like pegasi do clouds, right? You pull the moisture out of the air, right? What I want you to do is pull the moisture out of the Forest Gunk.”

She could learn to love these looks of amazement. Tidal Wave however tried to rain on her parade. “I can’t choose a specific point where I draw the water from. I just get it from all around me. I don’t have enough time to remake the spell!”

“Right,” Rainbow Dash said, still going. “Then we get you close to it. You cast your spell, make a geyser and blast it away from it. Sooner or later you will start pulling the water out of it. Then, when it’s dried out like a prune…”

“I burn it!” Trailblazer finished, smiling maniacally.

“If he goes near it and that thing notices him it will kill him,” Solid Charge said.

“What if we distract it?” Snared Wish said.

Blank Slate spoke up, pointing at Red Dawn. “That could work. Red Dawn said that thing got angry at him. All of us flyers can get near it, keep it looking up and keep its attention on us!”

“You can’t.” Shaded Swirl took a step to the front. “I saw you try to do that now. You can barely move in here under the trees. Make it focus on you like that and it will kill you.”

“What we need is a clearing,” Sunrise Storm said.

“Luna’s going to take it back around where it first came out.” Rainbow Dash looked back the way they came. “We should head there soon. We lost too much time already!”

Raven grunted in distaste. “No clearing there.”

Stampede stood up from where he stood, his old joints cracking. “Then we make one. Time to show that thing what earth ponies can do, and the rest of you can help. Distract it as much as you can until we clear out a space. When we are done it’s up to the flyers only to keep its attention while Tidal Wave dries it up. When that’s done with we set it alight and make sure it won’t escape. Anything goes wrong, use your best judgement.”

“Sounds like we have a plan.” Solid Charge hefted the axe in his hand. “Let’s go.”

They started running back where they came from. Stampede laid a hoof on Rainbow Dash’s shoulder and kept her down before she could take to the air. “Volunteer Rainbow Dash?”

“Yes?” She was feeling a little worried by that hard look.

Stampede smiled, showing teeth shortened and yellowed by age. “Good job,” he said, and left her back as he ran after the others with speed unlike his age.

“Gnnnhh!” Limit Breaker grunted through his tightly shut lips as he shook on Sea Breeze’s back.

“Are you okay?” Sea Breeze asked, worried.

“I’m fine, go, go!”

Leaf Stream winced. This was exactly what she didn’t want to happen, but she didn’t have time to stop them. She told them, she ordered them, to wait while she went out on her own, but no. They had to come along and make sure she was fine as well. It would have been sweet if it wasn’t so bucking infuriating.

Huh. So that’s what the other side felt like.

She was certain that Raegdan was in trouble. Maybe she should have listened to them, but she had seen the guy come on top too many times. He had gone alone and wounded against over a dozen griffins and was winning for Celestia’s sake. Except, you know, towards the end where they were about to kill him. But to be honest, she was certain he would have found a way out on his own either way.

They weren’t sure if they were heading the right way. The roar came this way, but was Raegdan still here or alive or—

“You fucking, cheap-ass, heaven-damned spear! Fuck you and whoever made- Fuck!”

Ok, still there. That was good. Didn’t sound it was going well though. The hasty torches they carried did their job. What they illuminated however… was not what they expected to see.

A huge manticore was in the middle of attempting to maul and eat Raegdan who was on his back on the ground, holding off the slathering jaws of the monster just a hoof’s reach away from his face with one arm. The manticore’s scorpion tail rose behind it, the spike dripping with venom. It coiled slightly back, and stabbed for Raegdan’s head.

The biped barely dodged, leaning his head aside, and Leaf Stream saw his teeth in the pale starlight as he winced at the near-hit. A spear had been stabbed in the manticore’s chest, its shaft broken. Leaf Stream spied the majority of it sticking out of the ground just a little over to the side. Raegdan’s leg started kicking, his shin striking against the broken grip and pushing it a little deeper into the manticore’s belly even as the broken wood slashed at his leg and turned it into bloody chunks.

“Why won’t you fucking die and make this easy for me, you fucking piece- Hell!” The manticore had growled in pain and raised its right paw. The large talons popped out of the feline appendage and tried to slash at Raegdan. He lifted his arm, the one that hadn’t even managed to heal, and stopped the claw by putting his forearm in the way of the monster’s wrist. It gave a little, the arm bending in a way it wasn’t meant to. He didn’t shout out in pain, but he bit his lips so hard they bled.

He spotted them with the edge of his eye. “Are you fuckers seriously just watc—” He dodged again, this time managing to somehow grind his back against the ground in order to move even further as the stinger descended for his throat. “Right, I had it, I’m gonna shove that thing up your ass! You idiots get out of here!” he screamed furious, pushing the monster’s head further back.

He kicked at the broken spear again. The broken end stabbed into his shin this time, and he grunted in satisfaction as more blood spurted out. Using the stability offered by the wood digging into his flesh he forced his leg up, driving the spear point deeper while at the same time still holding off the manticore’s teeth and claws.

The manticore roared in pain and rose at its hindlegs, howling to the sky, it’s leathery wings flapping. Five torches guided by magic shoved themselves against its face and throat, the fire sizzling and the smell of burnt hair and meat overpowered everypony. A blast of magic struck its torso, drowning out the manticore’s new roar of pain, and three pairs of hooves, one belonging to Broken Gust and nailing it at the head, the other two belonging to Sea Breeze and Leaf Stream, the two mares striking together at the same point and toppling the towering, toothed monstrosity.

The manticore rose to its feet slowly, carving up the ground with its talons, and its eyes promising retribution. It stalked towards Leaf Stream and Sea Breeze, ignoring the blasts of magic from Short Order and Stalwart Shield despite the pain. It leaped for the two mares, and was stopped short by a magic shield.

The talons were stopped by the shield, but the magic didn’t end there. The shield gave in, the manticore sinking into it for a moment before the shield flexed like rubber and threw the manticore back. Stalwart Shield’s smirk was short lived, as the manticore simply unfolded its wings and landed on the ground unhurt. It stormed for Leaf Stream and Sea Breeze again, half-heartedly making a swipe with its venomous tail for the Thestral that was trying to strike it with her bare hooves without getting in range of any of the manticore’s deadly arsenal.

Leaf Stream really, really wondered what came over them and decided to leave all their weapons behind just because they were of no use against the scorpion.

“Hey, hey monster! This way! Come on, this way!” Limit Breaker shouted, limping from the side.

“No, you idiot!” Leaf Stream yelled. What was the moron doing? He was hurt! Sea Breeze and Leaf Stream could still dodge and avoid the manticore. What was he planning to do? Distract it by being hard to chew?

“Kid, get back here!” Short Order shouted, mirroring Leaf Stream.

The manticore turned for the young stallion.

“Yeah, that’s right!” Limit Breaker continued, ignoring the shouts directed at him. “You don’t hurt my friends, okay? You look this way and— Ow!” He fell down with a grimace of pain, his burnt shoulderblades betraying him and making him easy prey. The manticore charged for the kill.

Raegdan got in the way in the last second. The alien’s right hand rose from behind him, arching over his shoulder, the long blade reflecting the pale moonlight, and finishing in a downwards stabbing motion. His whole body followed the motion, his hips turning and his knees bending at the right time for that tiny boost of strength. There was a crack, and Raegdan’s right shoulder shook as his arm popped out of its socket.

The dagger he held sunk into the manticore’s head, piercing through the thick skull and digging into the brain with a dull, dry sound that Leaf Stream felt with her teeth. The force of the strike was enough that, accompanied with the monster’s instant death, drove the monster straight to the ground, sliding for a few centimeters as its momentum brought its mouth to kiss Raegdan’s boots.

Leaf Stream watched the instant kill with widened eyes. She thought she was about to see Limit Breaker get torn in shreds, not… not watch a one-shot kill she had never dreamed about. The manticore was still, and somehow looked even bigger than when it was alive. It was as big as a bear, its mouth large enough to swallow a pony’s head whole! She brought her hoof to her mouth, making sure her jaw was in its right place and properly closed. What stunned her most was the fact that he did it blindly. The cheeky bastard had actually kept his working eye shut, aiming by sound or whatever alien senses he probably had! She couldn’t believe he took the time to show off!

Limit Breaker grinned with his usual brightness. “Wow, that was amazi—”

“Fuuuck!” Raegdan fell on his knees, screaming another epithet as soon as his bloated knee crashed against the ground. He clutched his right wrist and with a groan of pain instantly regretted it as his broken left arm shook with the sudden shift, abandoning the dagger in the manticore’s skull.

“Are you alright?” Stalwart Shield asked, rushing to Raegdan’s side.

“Do I look fucking alright?” Raegdan spat. “I dislocated my wrist and—” He looked at his shoulder. “And my fucking shoulder. And my arm is fucking broken again!” He offered his right hand to Stalwart Shield. “Hold it.”

“Uh, and do what with it?”

“Shove it up your— Just fucking hold it!”

Stalwart Shield held the hand between his hooves as tightly as he could. Raegdan swore under his breath and then pushed and twisted his forearm. There was an ugly crackle, and a stream of what must have been a very imaginative mind swearing in an alien tongue.

“What about your leg?” Stalwart Shield asked, eyeing his bleeding shin.

“What about it? I’ll tie it up when I have a working arm again,” Raegdan managed through clenched teeth. “There’s not much else I can do until I get a needle and some light.”

Sea Breeze approached him carefully. “Would you… like me to help you with your shoulder? I believe I can pop it back in place.”

“Do you know how?” Raegdan asked as he sweated.

“I think so…” Sea Breeze answered hesitantly. She prodded his shoulder for a second. “Let’s see, it should go in here, so if I—” She pulled, twisted, and then pulled up. She walked off with a satisfied smile as the new torrent of curse words exclaimed her success. Raegdan leaned to the side and emptied his stomach with loud retching noises.

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” Limit Breaker said cheekily from the side. “It hurts for me—”

Raegdan pointed at the young stallion, roaring. “You shut your mouth, you stupid brat. I swear, when we get back to Canterlot, you and I are going into a room alone and my palm and your flank are having words about the crap you just pulled! What the fuck were you thinking?”

“But… You…”

“No buts! Even dream of pulling another stunt like that and you’ll spend a month in the girliest dress I can find, cleaning carpets with your tongue! And I’ll know. I’ll have Luna check every night!”

“Raegdan,” Leaf Stream began, trying to interrupt his litany of curses. “There’s something else here as well.”

“Like what? Another manticore? Nesting feral dragons? Twilight Velvet?” he hissed as he ripped off the remains of his trouser leg and used it to tie up the grisly wound.

“We don’t know. Something. It doesn’t get hurt by weapons, I’ll tell you that much. Seriously, we tried. That’s why we brought the torches. We hoped fire might work or if not that then magic.” She nodded towards Short Order and Stalwart Shield.

“Fucking great,” Raegdan huffed. He looked around him at the sticks turned charcoal. “You mean these torches?” he asked full of sarcasm.

“Okay, so we need new ones. Sorry for saving your ass.”

“My ass didn’t need saving. I had that.”

Leaf Stream scoffed. “You did have that. You were the bottom, remember? You had a lot of that.” She winked as wickedly as she could.

“Laugh it up, but remember, I don’t get killed that easily.” Raegdan walked over to the manticore’s corpse. “I guess that’s what got the kid hurt? Let me get my dagger and we will go get some more torches, and then you can tell uncle Raegdan what made the widdle filly wet herself.”

He slowly bent on his knee and reached for the handle. Behind his back, a scorpion made of mud and rotten foliage was midair, aiming its fall for Raegdan. It descended on him before anypony could give the slightest warning, covering him entirely with a sickening wet sound.

Either they arrived on the scene too late or Luna had more trouble that she expected. She was already there, and the Forest Gunk had almost cornered her against the cliffside.

Rainbow Dash flew for the creature, she even spinned around it and managed a slash, but to no avail. It completely ignored her, focused on its exhausted prey. Luna was able to avoid the monster yet, but it was obvious she was fueled by pure will and every flap of her wings was the result of supreme effort.

“It’s not paying attention to us!” Rainbow Dash yelled.

Solid Charge knelt next to a broken log. “It will pay attention to this I bet.” He lifted one end of it, and Cast Iron got the other. They run forward, lifting the log over their shoulders as they went, and threw it together, piercing the Forest Gunk through, the log sticking half out its back, half out its front.

The monster stopped, lowering its arms and giving Luna a chance to breath. It slowly turned around, full of menace, and seemed to finally notice the crowd behind it. It took a step towards them. The log twisted and swiveled in its body, the hole closing and the log sinking into the murky body.

Luna tried to fly around it, making sure she was out of its reach. She was exhausted, and she thought she was safe for a moment. She wasn’t going fast enough, and it wasn’t like she had the strength to do so.

A wave bulged over the Forest Gunk’s body and travelled across its body. It swole over its torso, travelling down its shoulder and across its forearm in tremendous speed. The Forest Gunk swung with its massive arm, and as it performed the motion the tree trunk they had just tried to stab it with exited out of its palm. The monster grabbed it in one single motion, and just like that it was able to reach the Alicorn flying it by. The massive club cracked against Luna’s head, throwing her away like a ragdoll.

Rainbow Dash, Eventide, and Snared Wish managed to grab the princess before she could smack against a tree and get hurt even worse. Rainbow Dash was alarmed to find that Luna was unconscious, and even worse, her head was bleeding, really bleeding and not just a few drops.

“That thing is coming for us!” Snared Wish warned them. Rainbow looked up and she saw she was right, but there wasn’t a lot they could do while carrying Luna. No way she would be able to avoid that thing among all these trees and keep on to the unconscious mare.

Raven the diamond dog growled beneath them. “Give her here,” he said, reaching up with his paws. Rainbow hesitated for a moment, unwilling to trust a bleeding friend to a diamond dog, especially one with such a long muzzle and sharp teeth like Raven and his black coat, but she quickly shook away the ridiculous feeling. They lowered down and deposited Luna to his arms, and then took off again to go annoy the monster as much as she could.

Raven carried Luna one handed, running across the ground with just three legs. He reached Gobrend and barked something, and the griffin rushed behind him. Raven rested Luna on the ground as softly as he could with Gobrend’s help.

“You have medicine for her too? Can you fix her up?” the wolf-like diamond dog asked.

Gobrend was digging in his small satchel. “Her skull is cracked. We need to stop the bleeding, and I don’t have any more bandages!” he yelled with a hawk-like screech.

Raven tore up his shirt, using a stubby claw to shred in in straight lines. “Will this work?”

“Yes!” Gobrend snapped them off Raven’s offering hand. “Lift her up carefully, and don’t touch where she’s bleeding. The skull might be too fractured.” Griffin and diamond dog worked together, Gobrend giving orders and Raven following them to the letter, rushing off to pick up whatever the griffin required without any protest.

Solid Charge jumped into the fray. “We will keep it busy. Make space for the fliers!” he ordered at large. He entered the battle, him and Cast Iron providing a breather for the flyers whenever they needed one as they forced the Forest Gunk to pay attention both high and low. The monster kept trying to gaze at its surroundings, looking for Luna, but nopony dared to give it enough space to do so.

Rainbow could scarcely believe that thing’s speed or stamina. She was getting tired already. Worse, she was losing her focus. She could only concentrate so long on avoiding that club before her mind started to slowly cloud as the mental effort took its toll. She was going to make a mistake sooner or later and end up as paste. She needed more space!

“This thing is still looking for the Princess!” Cast Iron shouted. “Solid, it’s searching around for her!”

“Stampede, we need to finish this quick!” Solid Charge shouted in turn.

“Alright ponies, you heard him!” Stampede yelled, standing proud next to a tree. “Time to show what earth ponies can do!” He turned his back to the tree and kicked it with just one leg. The trunk broke in half and branches of the trees surrounding it broke in droves as it fell on the ground with a tumultuous noise.

Sunrise Storm’s jaw fell, as did that of Tick and Tack next to her. Shaded Swirl was rubbing his eyes in disbelief. “I didn’t know we can do that!” Sunrise Storm whispered.

“Might take you youngsters a little while until you get the trick. Or grow the necessary muscle. On to it, come on!” The geriatric pony said with a smirk on his withered, cragged face.

Rainbow wasn’t sure what was going on. She started hearing trees falling, a lot of them in a row, though in most cases there had to be a lot of kicks involved before one bent down. She paused to watch the earth ponies’ progress and almost paid for it. The Forest Gunk’s long weapon rushed for her.

Mismatched wings flapped furiously and pushed her out of the way. She found herself muzzle to muzzle with Blank Slate who had finally changed his tired expression to one of fear. “You okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine. Fine.” She looked around. The space was clear enough. “Hey, guys! We got our clearing. Bring it this way,” she yelled at the fliers still in the air.

Red Dawn glanced at her, and nodded. The light red, tall stallion flew in front of the behemoth, unafraid. When the creature was doing its equivalent of looking at him, he unleashed his new found knowledge of his opponent. He pulled at his cheeks, showed his tongue, and rolled his eyes.

He zoomed flying next to Rainbow. The beast’s hit had barely touched him, but it had been enough to throw him away. The Thestrals took up the torch, going wild and enraging the monster. Rainbow and Blank Slate took the air once more, spitting saliva all over as they blew raspberries with wild abandon.

When I tell this story, Rainbow Dash thought, I’ll make sure to skip this part.

“Tidal Wave!” Solid Charge shouted, pulling back. “Any day now.”

“I’m on it, sir,” the quiet stallion in the patchwork armor answered. He jumped over the fallen trees, and got as close as he dared, doing his best to keep his approach undetected. A light fog fell over as Smoke Ring cast his spell, but not enough to conceal him entirely, not without obstructing Tidal Wave’s vision as well.

A few seconds later a geyser of water started flowing from behind the Forest Gunk. Rainbow could feel the moisture draining away from the air with her pegasi magic. It wouldn’t be long until the local atmosphere was completely dry and the spell turned on the next best source of water.

It did. The creature didn’t slow at all, but Rainbow could see the mud drying up and flakes falling off. The rotten foliage lost its shine and shriveled as time went on and the water cannon kept spouting gallons away from it. It was working.

Then the Forest Gunk realized what it was going on. It stopped trying to hurt Rainbow Dash and the rest, and its hollow eyes swept the ground. It found Tidal Wave, the unicorn keeping his eyes closed as he focused on his spell, and unaware of what was happening. The Forest Gunk raised its dried up arm, forming a fist.

Fireworks flashed in front of its face, the monster pulling back in surprise and losing sight long enough for Tidal Wave to get away.

“Haha, that’s what you get for facing off against the Great and Powerful Trixie, monster!”

“Trailblazer!” Solid Charge called.

A rain of flaming arrows pierced the Forest Gunk’s body and set it alight. The flames spread rapidly, it’s dried up body engulfed in an instant. The fire crackled, and the dried up branches and leaves snapped as they were consumed. The behemoth was dying.

It wasn’t dying fast enough. Its empty sockets looked around, and connected with Rainbow Dash’s. Once more, she had the sense that there was an expression there. A feeling. Like that thing knew that it was her idea that lead to its coming death.

Or maybe it was because she had been hooting and howling in her victory. Whatever the reason was, the creature lashed for her. Its arm, enshrouded in fire, reached out for her, faster than ever before, as if it put all of its dying strength into making sure it got one of them with it in a last act of spite. Rainbow tried to snap herself back to life to avoid it, but the sheer speed of its attack and the malevolence in that hollow, empty face had stunned her. She tried to back off, and felt a tree trunk against her flank.

The flaming fist was almost on her. Time slowed, and she could see dry leaves crackling black and turning to ash as the burning mass headed for her, millimeter by excruciatingly slow millimeter, to crush and burn her.

Not the way I thought I was gonna go, she had time to admit to herself before it was all over.

A blur passed Rainbow by, and the flaming Forest Gunk was pushed back. Luna was on its chest, uncaring of the flames licking at her body. She pushed her horn into the monster one last time.

“Die!”

The Forest Gunk blew apart, setting small fires all around them that swiftly died. Gobrend and Raven had rushed behind Luna, and managed to grab the Alicorn that half-fainted again and almost crashed to the ground, sparing her already heavy wounds from becoming greater.

A round, yellowed bone fell on the grass and rolled downhill for a few centimeters, until its sockets stared up at the starry sky, now visible through the newly opened hole. What was left of its teeth formed something like a smile, and the shadows shaped by the flickering flames played games with it, giving it the impression of closing its eyes and going to sleep, breathing peacefully as it rested.

Solid Charge, Eventide, Rainbow Dash, and all the rest waited. The minutes passed by as they waited to see if their plan worked, watching the puddles of mud and flaming bushes with dread.

Solid Charge and Rainbow Dash leaned over Luna. “Princess? How are you feeling?” Solid Charge asked, keeping his voice low.

“Is it dead?” Luna croaked.

“We’d say it’s ashes, but the mud didn’t burn. We also found that. Does that work?” Rainbow Dash asked, showcasing the ancient skull.

Luna examined it with half-lidded eyes. Rainbow had no idea how Raegdan’s skull looked, and this certainly wasn’t how she would imagine it to be, but it was still too close for comfort. At least she took solace in the fact that it couldn’t be one of someone like him, but something similar, like a monkey perhaps. It was too small.

“Well enough,” Luna said, closing her eyes again. “Now I do feel a little better. Good job, all of you. I’m still not sure how you did it, but I’m certain I’ll enjoy hearing the story.”

“Oh yeah, it was awesome!” Rainbow Dash took to the air, gesturing wildly. “So, I knew it couldn’t burn, cause Trailblazer had already tried, but then I remembered how Tidal Wave cleaned you up or how I saw him filling up a canteen with water back at the camp, and then—”

“Later,” Luna specified. “I’d like to hear it later, when my head is back in one piece, thank you.”

“Oops. Sorry.” Rainbow Dash grinned apologetically, still high on victory. Quite a few of them had got hurt, but it was mostly bruises and a cracked or dislocated bone at worse. The burns were most worrying out of everything, but Gobrend assured them that if nopony showed an allergic reaction so far they were probably safe. Still, they should get them treated as soon as possible before somepony came down with an infection.

Luna was actually the one hurt worst among them. The Forest Gunk really had a thing for her. Most worrisome was her bleeding skull, and the burns. Especially since she got more of them when she latched on the monster there at the end. Still, she was conscious and could talk so that bode well.

Solid Charge stood straight again. “We are making a stretcher to take you back to the camp, princess. We will be leaving shortly.”

“No- Not yet. Help me up, please.”

“I don’t know if that’s wise.” Solid Charge glanced questioningly at Gobrend who shrugged, unsure himself. He had been greatly impressed by Luna’s fortitude so far, but perhaps she had been pushing her limits too far.

“I have to,” Luna insisted weakly. “I want to look for Steel Edge’s body.”

“Lie back down,” Rainbow Dash counter-insisted. “We can’t dig, remember? We have to go back.”

“N- not yet. When it came out…” Luna continued dizzily. “It made a hole. He might be there. I want- I want to take his body with us. I owe him that much. I owe him a proper grave.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll go check, okay? I’ll be back in ten seconds flat, I promise.”

“No… Take a good look. Don’t hurry too much,” Luna lied back down. Rainbow examined her for a moment. She was looking kind of pale, and there had been a lot of blood. She decided to go check the hole immediately. The sooner they got this over with and went back the better.

Rainbow Dash arrived at the edge of the hole with a few flaps of her wings. She carefully approached, peering carefully, now wondering if there might be one more of these things in there. One step, two, three, and she was looking where the Forest Gunk came from.

“Princess?” Rainbow called out, her voice shaking. “I see him. There’s a… kind of a problem?”

Solid Charge shouted back. “She asks what’s the matter.”

“Hold on!” Rainbow went into the hole. It took a little digging, some clearing up, but soon she was out and flying back to Luna and Solid Charge, carrying their prize. She deposited the body in front of Solid Charge who was staring in awed disbelief. Luna’s eyes were shut again, but Rainbow could tell what she expected to hear from her saddened expression.

“He’s still alive,” Rainbow Dash said, not believing it herself.

The Thestral was alive. Gray coat, black mane, and a cutie mark of a smithing hammer behind a couple of weapons criss-crossing in front of it like an ‘X’. He was a big guy, even bigger than Big Mac, quite unusual for a Thestral. He was asleep or unconscious.

Luna’s eyes shot open. She stared, simply stared for a long time. Then her hooves pushed her away, away from the impossibly still breathing, ancient Thestral with fear.

“Princess?” Solid Charge asked.

“Take… Take me away. Take me away from him. Take me away from him!” Luna screamed. “He can’t be alive. He should be dead, dead like the rest. I killed them all!”

“Shit!” Leaf Stream screamed when she finally got control of her senses again. “Light up the torches, get something, anything, now! Raegdan, get down, we will try to pull it off you!” A lone torch flared to life as Stalwart Shield managed to find one that was still dry and clean enough.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…” Raegdan hissed. He tilted his head up, and Leaf Stream saw that the gauze over his eye had fallen off.

The red flames reflected against the crimson inside his no longer hidden socket, and it was like she was looking in a burning eye. There was no white, only the deep red of blood, and an indistinct, long black shape in the center among the ruins of his eye like a distant threat.

Leaf Stream and the rest froze. “Hey, are you...?”

Raegdan stood up like a pale ghost under the moonlight, covered with a brown, dripping cloak. “Just how big do fucking birds get around here? Why the fuck did it have to aim for me?” A large, almost hoofball sized, piece fell off his shoulder and splashed harmlessly on the ground. There was a new smell, a mix between manure and rot, emanating from the remains of the mucky creature.

“What the…” Short Order whispered.

Leaf Stream couldn’t believe her eyes either.

That thing was dead!

Ch.37 - Skulls of various thickness

Raegdan sat next to Luna. She had requested, and they let her rest outside of her tent and some distance from the rest of them, though whoever was still fit enough was patrolling around the camp, making sure they would spot any other creature trying to sneak in.

They would all head back to Canterlot in the morning.

“How are you feeling?” Raegdan asked. His fingertips ran across the burns, tracing the edges.

“A little better.” Luna swallowed dryly. “No, that’s a lie. I’m feeling horrible. You?”

Raegdan spread his fingers and tilted his palm left and right. His left arm was back in its sling, the bone clearly broken once more. “Like crap.” His shoulders stooped and his body slackened with a sigh of relief. “My left side is pure agony. I would give an arm for a single painkiller. I think it’s more than just the arm bone that’s wrong.” He rubbed his chest. “And I think I cracked my ribs again when that manticore fell on me. All in all, could be worse but not by much. Could be better. I’m just glad that really wasn’t bird crap. My dignity can’t take another hit. How’s your head?”

“The pain has lessened, and it shall not get any worse. Sea Breeze knows more about Zebrican healing than I gave her credit for.” The jealousy on Raegdan’s face was almost tangible. “But I still feel like throwing up, especially if I try to stand. The good news is that I don’t feel the burns as much,” Luna croaked. She closed her eyes, wincing. “And this pillow must be made out of rock or something. Do you mind if…”

“Here.” Raegdan removed the pillow under Luna’s head and re-positioned himself so she could rest her head on his thigh. Luna let out a sigh of contentment.

“About Steel Edge…” Raegdan started.

“I don’t want to talk about him. In fact, I’d rather I don’t see him ever again.”

“I don’t know how possible that is. I’ll see what I can do but we must talk a little.” Raegdan nodded. “Good news though: Eventide and everyone else believe you said whatever you said because of the knock on your head.”

“Knock… It split my head wide open. Oh stars, what will we do with him? What am I going to say?”

“Well, I stepped up as the resident expert on time displaced ponies—” Raegdan chuckled at the stare Luna shot him. “What? It’s true! Anyway, I suggested that they take him back to his people. He isn’t even speaking the modern dialect, and he would need to get up to speed, let alone get over the shock. So, for awhile at least, he’s staying away from you. I played up the overprotective card as well so they won’t ask you to help with him even later on. If he asks to stick around though I’ll do my best to keep him away from you.”

“I can’t understand…” Luna breathed, looking up at the stars. The twinkling of the stars was reflected perfectly in her eyes. “How can he be alive?”

Raegdan stayed silent for a minute, delicately brushing Luna’s mane with his fingers and removing crusted blood whenever he found it. “I have an idea about that actually.”

Luna hissed in pain. The way she twisted to look up to him brought her a new flash of pain and made her vision blacken for a second. “You do?”

Raegdan half-shrugged, thought of it better, and nodded instead. “You told me you hit him with a time spell, one you had no idea if it would actually work, right?”

“Yes. You believe it froze him in time instead?”

The biped pursed his lips and scratched the cloth mask over his hair. “No. I don’t think that’s what it did. You see, he did say something to Eventide before he fell asleep again.”

“What?” Luna asked, pushing him for the answer.

“He said something to the likes of, ‘Tall castles reaching for the skies as far as I could see, and a road made of a single, continuous stone.’ At least that’s what Eventide thinks he said. She’s not that sure about her translation. But he mentioned he was there for a short time only, and that monster you faced was there as well, and it was either made of smoke or he could see through it.”

Luna blinked. “Tall castles? Like the towers in Canterlot or… or like the buildings you described to me? The ones your people can build?”

Raegdan didn’t answer immediately. After a few seconds he slapped his other thigh. “Here’s what I think happened. I think your spell kind of worked like the rifts, but not really. It didn’t take them through, at least nowhere near all the way.”

“But it was over a thousand years ago. The spell was nowhere powerful enough to mess with time this much,” Luna observed.

“I don’t know. What else could have happened? I guess it got all wonky with time or how he perceived it. Maybe it had been a thousand years for him. Time flies when you’re having fun,” he tried to joke. “Then you come along and the spell… ends or fizzles or whatever as soon as you got close enough, like a... a runic array that closed itself? That’s not the word I’m looking for, but you don’t have that I think.”

He scowled, looking angry for a moment. “But whatever happened, you shouldn’t be fucking with time spells anymore. If one of them does work like a rift, you’re screwed. I’m gonna see what I can do to make sure Twilight never bothers with them either. Maybe tell Celestia to discourage her from looking into them.”

Silence reigned for a while, the seconds passing slowly by. “Stars,” Luna whispered with hurt in her voice. “All I had to do was get close? That was all? If I had done that then… then maybe nothing would have happened. So much could have been different…”

“Yeah, that thing could have popped out and killed you all while you were weak from killing all the rest of its kind,” Raegdan scoffed at once. “How’s that for different? You didn’t decide to trap it under there for the giggles, remember?”

“Which reminds me…” Luna’s horn glowed weakly.

“Stop that magic crap. You should be getting rest. You exhausted yourself again.”

“You’re one to talk. This is important. Look.” The skull was brought closer and rested on Luna’s belly as she laid on her back. “Is that what I think it is? It didn’t belong to a child, did it?”

Raegdan grabbed the skull, putting two fingers through an eye socket for a better grip. He examined it carefully, turning it this way and that. “A skull like my own noggin’? Oh yeah. Though it’s hard to judge by comparing it to me. I told you, I’m tall for my race. I can’t tell what it is. I never really bothered with skulls. Not my style. Offals work better I find.”

“I pray it wasn’t a child,” Luna fervently said. “That would be a horrible way for a small one to meet its end. The way the creature killed... Unfortunately everypony so far thinks so when judging by the size difference between you and it. I know of what I will dream tonight. Do you think whoever that belonged to came through a rift?”

“They didn’t take the train, that’s for sure.” He threw the skull in the air, whistling merrily, and almost fumbled the catch when it came back down again. “Do we keep this or…”

“We bury it,” Luna rebuked. “And we treat it with respect. That could very well be a child, Raegdan.”

“It’s not. You’re getting awful serious about this, aren’t you?”

“Shouldn’t I?” Luna asked. “We did what we did because we had to, even if it was wrong and cruel. We made our choices because we believed the alternatives were worse. Fine. But should we keep making the same choices when we have better options? Should we retain the harshness and cruelty in everything? He or she was innocent, Raegdan. This was not the enemy, their murderer was.”

Raegdan placed the skull aside, carefully setting it down, slowly. “This did not belong to a kid. I’d know if it did. For what it’s worth though, I’m sorry. I get it.”

“Do you?” Luna wondered aloud.

“... No. Not really. But hey, maybe I will get it later on, right?” He smiled as innocently as he could. “I’m trying, Luna.”

Luna closed her eyes and settled back on Raegdan’s thigh, resting for a while, and enjoying his ministrations. “The monstrosity failed to absorb or eat you. That’s what I understood from what little they told me.”

Raegdan did shrug this time, and he almost swore in pain. “That thing must have been alive only because of magic. I’m immune, remember?”

Luna’s hoof blindly pointed at the skull. “But it did kill the owner of this.”

“Ah. Right.” Raegdan thought for a few seconds. “Well, the answer is obvious then, isn’t it? It was weak and died. The others did hurt it with their weapons after all, and what Limit Breaker did damaged it as well. Then it tried to get me, and either I was too large for it and it spread itself too thin or it died before it had time to feed and heal.”

“Hmm…” Luna mumbled unconvinced. She lifted the skull in her magic for a second, making it rotate around itself once. “Perhaps… Though I feel I am missing something.” She sighed with a pained expression. “I cannot think right now.”

Raegdan rolled his eye. “Then don’t. Who knows how that thing worked? Maybe it simply couldn’t survive outside the Everfree Forest and we all worried over nothing. Maybe the best thing to do was to take a hike and watch it kill itself trying to get out of the forest. Let’s forget about that. We’re heading back to Canterlot tomorrow. We have a lot of work of to do, and this time I’ll help. I’m not staying aside again.”

Luna shook her head slightly. “I’m not sure if there will be anything to do. I’ve already mentioned the possibility to Solid Charge, Eventide, and Leaf Stream.”

“Possibility of what?”

“I am considering of dissolving the Lunar Guard.”

Raegdan simply stared at her and scratched his ear. “I’m sorry, I thought you were the one who got hit in the head, but apparently I’m the one who’s hearing things.”

“Perhaps the Lunar Guard folly should end,” Luna repeated, keeping her eyes closed and frowning in misery. “Steel Edge is a sign. I can’t keep them, Raegdan. I won’t kill more of them. I have enough screams in my head. I can’t have more of them. I don’t want to be the reason Leaf Stream dies. I don’t want to see Solid Charge and Cast Iron dead at my hooves. I don’t want to see the look in Eventide’s face as she dies and knows that’s all I ever did for the Thestrals. And these new ones… All of them so brave, so foolish. I want them to live, not die because of me.” She was almost whimpering. “I don’t want to burn more of them. I don’t want another Night Lilly.”

“Luna. Luna, calm down. It won’t be like that this time. You know better now.” His hand stroked her cheek, the thumb running under her eyes and wiping the tears before they could fall.

“Maybe, but they’ll still die because of me. I couldn’t protect them from that monster. They were the ones who had to save me. They jumped in and put themselves in harm’s way for me.” She paused for a second. “Stars, how many were like them and I tossed them to their deaths? How many ponies did I use as bait when they could have been—”

Raegdan spoke quietly. “Come on, Luna. That’s… That’s what the Solar Guard does anyway, isn’t it? They protect Celestia by putting themselves in front of attacks if they have to. It’s the same thing.”

“I’m not Celestia!” Luna hissed, bringing her hoof down weakly. “I don’t deserve this kind of sacrifice or loyalty!”

“You get that loyalty from me though.”

“T- That’s different,” Luna stuttered. “You’re my friend. Besides, they would never stay anyway. Look at what we promised, what we presented ourselves as, and what we delivered. No, the more I think of it the better I think that it ends by my own hoof.”

Raegdan’s fingers dug at the top of his head in frustration. “Then what do we do, Luna?”

“I… I don’t know. I was thinking… Maybe we could leave?” she shyly suggested.

“Leave? Leave and go where? What about Twilight and Celestia? What about everything we planned?”

“I don’t know!” Luna said, raising her volume in distress. “Raegdan, what if we took one of the Elements with us, and just… left Equestria? We could travel south, across and beyond the Badlands. Get as far away as we can, just you and me, and never return. We wouldn’t have to. We could check up on them every now and then through their dreams, and plan something else if Celestia doesn’t do anything to cover for the Elements’ loss.”

“The Lunar Guard was supposed to—”

“We might figure out someway to block the rifts instead. I could make a spell or there might be an artifact that could help us, or maybe the time spell itself could be the solution? I don’t have Celestia’s pure knowledge of magic, but I have a good enough grasp, and with your help and knowledge we could figure something out. We could try to find a way to shut our world out and then… then we could leave them, safe from everything, and lock the door behind us.”

Raegdan’s palm had stilled over Luna’s brow. “I… I don’t know, Luna. I don’t think that’s possible, the rifts are too... And I was hoping that, I was thinking that I could try to—”

“What other choice do we have?” Luna asked, tearing up. “Nopony will ever stand with us!”

“So what was all this, some kind of trial run?” Tick asked.

“Nah, if it was a trial run then some of us would not be unemployed now,” Tack observed with humor that quickly drained as she realized the enormity of what just happened. “Wait, we’re off? All of us? After all that?”

“So might the Princess decree,” Solid Charge confirmed. The minotaur’s tone was completely flat, as if he was in shock. He stood in front of the large bonfire so it was hard to tell how he actually felt. He was nothing but a silhouette with the edge illuminated by flames in dark oranges.

“This makes no sense. Why would she do that?” Sunrise Storm questioned. “You don’t gather up recruits only to announce that the whole Guard is no more.”

Cradle Song scratched his chin with his hoof. Half of his beard was missing, the hair lost in a near-miss by the caustic acid the Forest Gunk had been throwing all over the place. “I wonder if—”

“Shut your mouth!” Eventide snarled.

“But—”

“No! None of this.” She noticed the ponies around her looking at the exchange. “Thestral business. It’s none of your concern,” she warned.

“Hold on a sec, all of you!” Rainbow Dash called out, silencing everypony’s grumbling and taking the lead in the discussion. “Solid Charge, why is she breaking up the Lunar Guard? We totally rocked that monster!”

Everypony waited for the answer to the question they had all been asking. Solid Charge took his time sitting down in front of them. He pulled his axe across his lap and fiddled with the wrap on the handle, chewing the inside of his cheeks as he thought.

“We all know, don’t we? Who Princess Luna was, what she did. The mare that threatened to extinguish the sun. The mare who looked for, found, and allowed a demon to invade her body and her soul. Nightmare Moon.”

“Not any more,” Rainbow Dash huffed tiredly and feeling like the world’s most colorful parrot.

Solid Charge’s eyes shot suspicion at her, a look that transformed into utter fury that only lasted for a second. Rainbow Dash didn’t care for it. One had to let the past go at some point. If she focused and brought to mind all the times she had crashed, she would never dare to fly again. The point is to learn from it, not to have your face rubbed in every single failure.

“The point stands,” Solid Charge enunciated slowly, “that this happened. Princess Luna… I think she asked herself a question. With everything she’s done…” His eyes glanced momentarily at Rainbow Dash again, and let the statement hang in the air with a tired shrug.

Rainbow Dash scowled, feeling mighty offended at this particular chain of thought. “It doesn’t work that way…” she mumbled.

“What doesn’t work that way?” Solid Charge asked, having heard her.

“Loyalty,” Rainbow Dash answered loudly, feeling a small cringe crawl up her spine at how melodramatic she sounded, but pushed on. She turned around, addressing everypony. “Loyalty isn’t something that you owe or are owed. It doesn’t have a nick to do with whether you deserve it or not, and try as much as you can, you can’t really earn it. You don’t buy it. You get it or not get it. It doesn’t have anything to do with what you want! Loyalty is given!”

Rainbow stomped her hoof down for emphasis, spreading her wings. “So that’s a load of horseapples that Luna is trying to feed us. It’s not up to her to decide if she deserves for ponies to stick with her or not.”

Solid Charge chewed on his lips. “You want to give her your loyalty? Even with what she’s done? You’ve been around her long enough. You know what she’s really like. She’s not like Princess Celestia.”

“Yeah, well, neither are me and my friends, yet we still stand by each other. And besides, so what? She’s made mistakes. And? Has none of us ever screwed up?” Rainbow directed her question to those behind her.

Nopony spoke up. They let silence reign as each of them examined the ground between their front legs, unwilling or ashamed to give their tale. Rainbow waited, her ire building the longer no one spoke.

“Alright, you know what? I’ll go first then!” she announced. “You all know about Discord, right?”

Gobrend flicked a talon. “We might have heard the tale one or two thousand times.”

“Okay, well, uuhm… Sorry. Anyway, he got all of us with some mumbo jumbo and stuff. Messed with our heads. The things is that, well.” Rainbow Dash felt greatly reluctant to tell the next part. What had she been thinking? “HegotmetobelieveacloudwasCloudsdale.”

“Sorry? We didn’t get that,” Cradle Song called out.

“I thought that a small cloud was Cloudsdale and I was the only one who could protect it, okay? Ha, ha. That’s what he did. Here’s the thing though. That’s all he did. I don’t quite remember most of what I did while I was under, but I dissed Ponyville, my friends, everypony. Because Cloudsdale—well, the cloud—was fine, and I was okay with that.” She lowered her head, pouting something fierce. “Here’s the element of Loyalty for you. Duuur…”

It wasn’t her proudest moment. Hearing what she did wasn’t that hot either. Worse yet, having everything she said repeated to her and realizing that everything she had said was a totally, one hundred percent, genuine Rainbow Dash comment, and a small voice inside her head asking her if she wouldn’t make that same choice even then… Boy, did that day suck.

“Well…” Limit Breaker shyly lifted his hoof after a few more seconds of silence. “Mister Raegdan told me I really screwed up tonight… Does that count?” The young stallion was almost mummified the way he had been wrapped in bandages.

Stalwart Shield exploded in a bark of dry laugh. “You think that’s a screw up he really counts? Wait until I tell you how all of us in the castle screwed up. No wonder he hunted me down for trying to bring a pillow to his ward. As far as he cared none of us was worth a fart, and he made sure we knew his opinion of us.” He scowled at himself. “And I didn’t really do much to earn some trust, did I? Just…”

“Sat in front of a door and guarded it because that was easier?” Smoke Ring asked. Stalwart Shield nodded, his scowl deepening. Smoke Ring sighed. “Yeah. I know the feeling.”

“A door... or a pony that didn’t need you and would insult you and what you loved,” Snared Wish mumbled. Her husband crossed a leg over her shoulders. “We didn’t even have to do anything to make a mistake. Just… let it be, and only care when it was you and yours on the line.”

Eventide’s shoulders shifted and she shrunk into herself as much as possible, every other Thestral imitating her. They looked like they wanted nothing more than the earth to open up and swallow them whole.

Trailblazer dug lines on the ground with his hoof, not looking up. “I used to be a pickpocket,” he said so quietly that everypony silenced so they could hear him. “I even taught other kids how to steal. We took care of each other, sure, but… you get it. Not really the best way to go if you’re trying to make a life. Then I got caught, and who knows what would have happened to all these younger kids or me, but I was given a chance. So here I am now.”

“My sister died because of me.” Sharp intakes of air followed Tidal Wave’s statement. “Somepony tried to, to hurt her, and I hurt him back instead of…” He breathed deeply and stared at Sunrise Storm for a second. “Instead of doing the right thing, the lawful thing, and… And she got murdered and I ended up in prison for my mistake while her killer never got caught. Can’t do much worse than that.”

Gobrend nodded, his brown eyes blinking owlishly. “No, probably not. But I believe a considerable approach is possible, in variety in lieu of impact at least. My father perished to his ailment while I searched for a cure that I was incapable of discovering. Family, legacy, my own work and hopeful accomplishments, all gone.” Gobrend snapped his talons. “In one smooth action. I will be blunt and honest. I had high hopes of a place here. That I would find a purpose to serve. Meaning.”

“That’s why I came to join as well,” Sea Breeze agreed. “I sold my store, packed up, and joined. I know how… how dangerous the world can be. How quickly fortunes change when monsters come to range. Like… Like tonight.” Her hoof was tracing her broken horn once more. “I do not enjoy the idea of allowing more ponies asking, ‘what if?’ It’s bad luck.”

A hoof pointed at Leaf Stream. “I joined because of her,” Blank Slate said.

Leaf Stream stared at the tip of the hoof with an expression of offense. “You what?”

“I saw you in Baltimare,” Blank Slate explained. “I’ve always been singled out for my wings,” he said, spreading his mismatched wings, one pegasi, one Thestral. “That’s why I keep them concealed. Then I saw you, with nothing but stumps on your back, there among the chaos, giving out orders, and everypony listening to you—” Leaf Stream’s eyes drilled holes at him. “—And I thought, if you could do that—”

“Wow, really? Thanks a lot. I’m flattered. … Ass.”

Red Dawn interrupted Leaf Stream’s incoming torrent of vitriol. “I don’t have anything like you guys. I just wanted to be a part of this, of something greater than wasting away serving tables. I haven’t made any mistakes that I feel like I have to atone for or make up. But… I worry that I might have to one day. I try to consider very carefully what I do, but I worry that one day I might not and,” he flexed his leg, the lean muscle showing off. “Any of you wonder how easy it would be to do like… like mister Raegdan does? Just… give in? I do. I think of it often. I never hurt anypony, but if I slip once, just once, and, and the idea alone is both…” He put his hoof back down. “Anyway. I don’t like the notion that mistakes hang over you forever.”

Sunrise Storm let out a deep sigh and took off her helmet, letting her short brown mane out. The tall, earth pony mare stood undecided for a second. “I don’t have any family left. I don’t know why or who. I’ve been trying to find out, I’ve been bending the rules as much as I can and…” Sunrise Storm let the words fade. Her blue, almost crystalline, eyes locked with Rainbow’s. “And nothing. Years of nothing. That’s it.”

Raven snarled, shaking his head. “This is stupid. I don’t care what she did. Princess Luna jumped in to save the blue one and the minotaur. She got the others out of the way. She took on the mud creature alone, and then we all worked together. First time I ever felt like part of a pack in a long time. Nightmare…” He growled unhappily. “Sounds like the crap diamond dogs tell about wolf dogs. Looks feral, it’s feral. Looks stupid, it’s stupid. It’s not like we know what demon said or what happened then. I only know what I saw.”

Short Order stood up, taking the strict stance of a veteran guard. “As much as it pains me to agree with a diamond dog,” he said, touching his eyepatch, “he has a point. Princess Luna is a princess. I know the Nightmare Moon stories. I also know the ones before that. I didn’t join up here without looking up all the stuff that came up recently. I’ve been a guard all my life. I’ve been at the borders most of that, and that wasn’t easy. She had it harder, and her stint was longer. I have too much respect for a fellow veteran to allow a moment of self-deprecation to make me abandon them. She had her moment of weakness. She paid her sentence. Now she’s back on her old job, and that is a princess that I approve of. That’s all.” He sat back down, holding his head high.

“She saved our town,” Tack said. “We thought it would be a rotten thing not to help in turn. Kinda seems a rotten thing to just leave now as well.”

“Yeah. Besides, loading and unloading stuff all day long is boring. At least this is fun.”

“You kept screaming that we will die!” Tack reminded her sister.

“Yep.” Tick raised a hoof. “But it was the fun kind of screaming. Hey, see? We screwed up as well! We almost got everypony killed.” She turned her hoof around, expecting a high-hoof from her sister that would never come.

“I didn’t yell—”

“You so did,” Tick reminded Tack. “Royal Fortune, remember?”

Both of the twins leaned together to look at Shaded Swirl with anticipation. The milky white earth pony blinked in confusion before he realized what everypony was waiting for. “Oh, uh… I’m just here to support my wife. And I... “ He started sweating. “Forget to take out the trash sometimes?”

“Trixie?” Rainbow Dash called out sweetly.

“Yes?”

Rainbow Dash twirled her hoof around, showcasing everypony else at the same time. “Don’t you have anything to share?”

Trixie made a show of thinking, staring up and placing her left hoof under her chin. “No, not really,” she said after a few moments.

Rainbow smirked. “Not even about lying that you beat an Ursa Major or…”

“Hey, I’m a showpony! Trixie’s job is to put on a show!” Trixie countered.

“And when ponies believed that—”

“Idiots. When two idiots believed that!” Trixie yelled in dismay. “What was Trixie supposed to do? Put up a disclaimer?” She paused, thinking for real this time. “Well, maybe a disclaimer wouldn’t have been such a bad idea…”

“Okay, fine,” Rainbow relented, feeling a lot more amiable towards the showpony than she did a few hours ago. She turned her attention to Solid Charge instead, her stance and puffed up chest saying everything.

“And because we all made mistakes that makes her deserving?” Solid Charge asked.

It was Gobrend who spoke up this time. “We have all kicked the standing notion of "morality" aside for our own convenience at some point during our lives. Some of us more than others. Some have tried to rebalance the scales. Some failed, some barely, painfully, stood for a time, others never even tried. No one here is without their flaws, and therein lies naked and revealed the cause of our sense of unity and belonging, short lived though it has been.

Perhaps there is a question of worth here as you believe Princess Luna to be asking of herself. One we could ask ourselves. Why believe to be deserving of aid and succor? To this we seem to say, ‘Why not find the answer together?’”

“We want to stay!” Limit Breaker yelled as soon as Gobrend was done, and he was not alone. There was a chorus of agreement and applause, discordant and unorganized, but united in purpose.

Solid Charge had never let Rainbow Dash out of sight, no matter who talked or what happened. He did the same now, keeping her in view, until a few seconds later that passed in silence, he turned around. He put his left hand over his right forearm, and massaged it thoughtfully.

“Leaf Stream, Eventide, if you please. Rainbow Dash, if you’d like to come along?” he asked. “We should let the Princess know that she’s not alone.”

“Nopony will ever stand with us!”

Rainbow Dash was leading the procession from the front. She heard only the last few words that Luna said, but that was enough. “That’s not true,” Rainbow Dash said, making their presence known.

Luna turned her head from where she lay,resting over Raegdan’s leg. The tall biped twisted around his waist to look behind him as well, both of them slow in their movements, like a pantomime of how Applejack’s grandmother moved.

“We will,” Rainbow continued. “We all talked between us. Your guards want to stick around, you know? I mean, what you did tonight? That was awesome!”

“I… what?” Luna asked.

“Yeah!” Rainbow Dash nodded, and she couldn’t take in anymore. She jumped back into the air, feeling too hyped to stay walking on the ground. “The way you zipped around, kept fighting... Oh my gosh! And the way you killed that thing in the end? Total badass!”

Rainbow Dash forced herself to relax. She spent a few minutes going over what the others said. She tried to get it as close as possible, even mimicking a few of their mannerisms as well. She actually could pull off quite a few impressions. Close enough that Leaf Stream started fuming when it was her turn.

“Well, that settles it then,” Raegdan said, smiling wickedly at Luna. “Looks like your retirement plans are cancelled.”

Luna pouted. “No, it’s not. The decision is up to me, and this only steels my resolve. The Guard should be dissolved. I’m not going to allow this… this drivel,” she shouted, closing her eyes, looking pained, “to make a mockery of me. I won’t have these brave ponies’ lives extinguished in service of... me.”

Raegdan’s expression was flat, and both him and Luna locked into a silent battle of wills. Slowly, a grin appeared over Raegdan’s lips while Luna started sweating.

“Rainbow Dash…” he almost sing-songed.

“Uh… yeah?”

“Could you do me a favor and get a couple of the Thestrals, and fly over to Canterlot as fast as you can? This is important. Luna’s hit her head. Very, very hard. Why, I think she’s not even in—”

“Don’t you dare. Raegdan, don’t you dare!” Luna seethed.

“—good condition to give orders. Certainly not after this. After Celestia, why, I’m the best person to tell. Let Celestia know we’re on our way tomorrow morning, and that Luna will need… A week? Yes, let’s make it a week of rest. At least.” His grin was the smile a demon would have upon seeing a colt trip his little sister. “She’ll have to pick up the slack while Luna heals.”

“That is awfully close to insubordination,” Solid Charge warned. “Almost treason some would say.” He hid a smile behind his palm. “Though after a hit like that, even with magical healing a week’s rest wouldn’t go amiss,” he mumbled almost unheard.

Raegdan chuckled when Luna’s eyes lit with the hope of a way out. “Really? Well, if that is treason then I would have to be punished.” He leaned down, getting awfully close to Luna’s face. “So, am I being insubordinate and treasonous, Luna? Will you order me into a cell to rot?”

Luna’s expression was void, but her eyes now sparked with lightning and fury. “I don’t know,” she deadpanned after a few moments. “I’m in no condition to make decisions apparently.” She scowled in confusion. “What am I even supposed to do for a week? Spend it on a bed like you did, unmoving?”

Raegdan, very carefully, didn’t shrug. “You’re a princess. You can do whatever you want as long as it’s restful and relaxing I guess.”

“What, anything?”

“I suppose so. My downtime usually consisted of either being too hurt to move or locked in a cell, but you can do whatever you want. And if we keep these guys then you will have enough guards not to worry about a thing,” Raegdan explained.

Luna hummed thoughtfully. “So… If I wanted to I could spend it sleeping, eating anything I want, and relaxing in a bath?”

“I think that’s what you should do at the very least, Princess, if you were to heal,” Eventide noted while Luna’s expression brightened.

Rainbow Dash shuffled her hooves on the ground. “So, uh… should I go?”

“Yes,” Luna mumbled. “Go, but be wary on the way and keep the Thestrals close. Let doctor Hewn Laurel know we have wounded, and that Raegdan broke his arm and shoulder again.” The toothy smile swiftly abandoned Raegdan’s face and settled on Luna’s. “I believe he will need some extra time to prepare a welcome for Raegdan. I believe tubes going up somewhere uncomfortable were mentioned.”

“My dignity, Luna. My dignity.”

Rainbow did as the princess allowed—and Raegdan had tricked her into- and ran along, deciding to grab Cradle Song and Drum Beat on the way as Raegdan suggested. Last thing she wanted was to get caught out in the dark by something nasty and flying while all alone, and somepony should get the doctor to be ready for everypony. Luna and Raegdan were more hurt than they admitted to, and everypony else was hurting as well.

Good thing that every crisis was all done and accounted for. Rainbow Dash saves the day once more, she thought. She just had to avoid Stampede while preparing to leave. She didn’t miss the fact that half the tents she had set up had already fallen to pieces.

Eventide gave one more small bow and took wing in the night as well. Luna relaxed again. “I believe it is time that we all rest. You’re excused as well,” she told Solid Charge and Leaf Stream. The minotaur bowed slightly and turned to leave with Leaf Stream at his side. She had decided not to involve herself if she didn’t need to, so nopony had given her much attention. Which was a good thing as her jaw still hurt from that punch.

Most ponies, those that weren’t on patrol right now at least -get in my camp once, shame on you. Get in my camp twice, shame on me- were winding down near the bonfire at the center of the camp, exchanging parts of the fight as they lived it or discussing completely inconsequential stuff to drive any further thoughts of monsters away. Some simply gazed into the fire and tried not to lose their shit in the aftermath as their brains caught up with what they just did and what they really signed up for.

Leaf Stream had done so in private before, so that was out of her system.

Solid Charge chose to sit near one of the small fires they had lit around the camp in an effort to make the sentries’ job easier, and Leaf Stream joined in without asking if he wanted the company. She wasn’t ready for sleep yet, and she wasn’t sure if the others would appreciate her presence at present.

If she was expecting a conversation she would be sorely disappointed. Solid Charge half laid next to the fire and closed his eyes, resting. Not that Leaf Stream minded it. Some peace and quiet would be nice.

After about fifteen minutes Raegdan came along walking with a painful gait. So much for peace and quiet, Leaf Stream thought.

Solid Charge half-opened an eye and closed it again, grinning in misery. “Oh gods, what is it now?”

“Relax,” Raegdan said as he sat down in front of the fire, moving slowly. “I’m not going to stay long.”

“I hope not. Should you be walking around? You’re hurt as well.”

Raegdan stretched slowly. “Not really. I’ve taken much worse. I’m fine.”

“You won’t be able to keep that up forever, you know,” Solid Charge warned him. Raegdan nodded along, silently agreeing. “Anyway. What do you want?”

Raegdan placed the skull, which they hadn’t noticed he had been holding, down on the ground between them. “I hoped you could take care of that. Bury it or whatever you are supposed to do.”

“You know, we were wondering if it’s possible, since it looks quite small compared—” Solid Charge began.

“If it was a kid? It was,” Raegdan immediately said.

“Are you sure?” Solid Charge asked, picking up the small skull reverently.

Raegdan shook his head. “As much as I am for anything. All I got to go on is size. I might be getting it wrong. There are a lot of short people. Don’t tell Luna by the way. She’s got enough worrying about already.”

“Fine. I won’t mention this. Anything else?”

“A question.” Raegdan picked up a stick and poked the fire, moving some firewood aside, letting the fire breath easier and flare up. “Just wondering why you didn’t take the chance to shut down the Lunar Guard permanently, that’s all.”

“Now why would I do that?” Solid Charge asked, half-sitting up and warming his hands by the fire.

Raegdan just stared. Leaf Stream watched the fire’s light play against his black, cloth mask and the white gauze that once again covered his eye. She shivered in the memory and she played it off as being cold and getting closer to the heat.

“I know what you’re thinking of,” Solid Charge admitted after a minute of silence. “I am still very pissed about what you did to these girls that only wanted to help you, make no mistake. But why would I want the Guard to break apart? So that Princess Luna can spend more time with just you and your half-justifications? No, the more people around her, the better.”

“You think I should stay away from her, don’t you?” Raegdan asked. His voice was carefully flat.

Solid Charge scratched his jaw and ran his hand down his beard. “No. I don’t think there’s a need for that. I think she’ll outgrow you. Princess Luna grasps morality far better than you do. You didn’t see her tonight. She did everything you flaunt.”

The minotaur stood up, dusting his legs. “You know what I think will happen someday? I think you’ll end up alone again. She won’t be able to understand you and your choices anymore, and you won’t be able to understand hers. You will lose her too, just like you lost Miss Twilight Sparkle. You will be left behind. All because you can’t change and want to remain like… this—” He waved at Raegdan’s body with full contempt. “—For the rest of your life.”

“I can change,” Raegdan said, staring to the side.

“And maybe one day I will be able to fly. I’m going to bed. Goodnight. Goodnight, Leaf Stream.” Solid Charge turned around and left, uncaring of the dirty look directed at his back.

Raegdan sat there, quiet and unmoving. Long enough to make Leaf Stream worry, but before she could make up her mind of whether and what to say, he stood up.

“Fuck that guy. I can change. I am changing,” he declared. He turned and left as well, heading back to the princess, and leaving Leaf Stream alone by the fire.

And that was the end of that, she figured.

Leaf Stream left as well. She was ready for sleep now. She wanted to lie down and relax. It had all been too much today, she had been far more stressed than she had shown to anypony, and her stumps were killing her. First there was the exaltation of what they had all managed, but then… Hearing that the Guard was dissolved almost broke her.

For a few minutes she had no idea what she was supposed to do, where to go. She didn’t have anything else. Just this little group where she directed her ire at everypony and nopony liked her. It was all that was left to her.

She nodded to Stalwart Shield who was one of the unlucky ones to end up being sentries for the rest of the night, found the tent that she had been looking for, crouched, and went inside. It’s owner had already settled in, and Leaf Stream woke her up accidentally as she laid next to her.

“Wha…” Broken Gust sleepily said. She saw that it was Leaf Stream in her tent and jumped a little in surprise.

Leaf Stream made herself comfortable next to the Thestral mare. “I’m just looking for a place to sleep. I wasn’t feeling up to sleeping alone. It’s cold,” she lied.

A timid smile spread over Broken Gust’s sleepy features. “S’ok,” she mumbled. Broken Gust laid her head down again, and a leather wing spread and hugged Leaf Stream, pulling her an inch closer.

She was going to protest, she really did, but the thin membrane of the Thestral wing felt too warm and… friendly. She was tired as well. So she didn’t say anything. Just brought a hoof over the wing’s edge, and slept without feeling alone. Who would want to be alone? It’s horrible.

She remembered how it was to lie on a bed, fresh stumps on her back, and dried tears on her cheek as everypony who knew her, and still made the effort to come by, at some point after crossing the threshold stopped seeing her and was replaced in their eyes by an invalid that had to be placed somewhere out of the way.

She liked this place, this small Lunar Guard. She wasn’t treated like she was worthless or a shard of glass that might crack even worse if you spoke too loud. She preferred being the jerk or the rude one, even if it cost her. She ran her tongue over her tooth and was both dismayed and glad to find out it really was loose. Nopony thought she would break here.

Maybe she really should be a little better or someday she might lose what little she had as well, just like Twilight had warned her. But it was so hard. She kept pushing them all away when all she wanted was somepony close. She tried, but it was hard, and being the same was so familiar and safe.

She dreamt of a lonely skull and the cries of an unknown family until a dark blue shade covered her dreams and gave her a peaceful sleep among the clouds she had sorely missed. She flew among them, feeling the rushing wind on her wing feathers once more, and laughing in joy among faceless friends.

Interlude 14 - Cracks

“You are not eating, Luna,” Celestia comments, noticing with disappointment that I haven’t so much as prodded the food that lays on my plate.

“I am not really hungry,” I lie, somehow managing to stop my stomach from performing any gurgling sounds. “I ate before I arrived… home.”

The spread before me is mouth watering, and I don’t even know how half of them are supposed to taste like. Plates of vegetables drenched in colorful sauces, soft balls of baked dough that shine with an unidentified glaze, and so many condiments and side dishes that all I can tell about some of them is that they are a type of cheese.

Celestia doesn’t share my qualms and she’s eating freely. I try not to wince when I see that she picks her salad with a different fork than she used up to this point. Was it the three or two tined one? Where am I supposed to rest it after? She uses a napkin laid to the side for this purpose, but there is none at my side. Am I supposed to place one there or use the same she does?

I hate it when this happens. Something always changes, there’s always a difference, and I’m stuck spending any few nights I hesitantly allow myself in my sister’s library instead of staying close to her as I was hoping, playing catch-up. Like the time she deposited this crown on me or this choke around my throat. I still have no idea when I’m supposed to be allowed to take them off so I keep them on all the time. I had to stay in Celestia’s room until she got too tired and decided to lie down to find out if removing them when going to sleep is acceptable.

Still, I have to keep up appearances. Celestia is a princess now. The Princess. According to her, we both are, but I don’t believe I’ve earned that. Scare a few ponies to shake them, search into their dreams if they seem suspicious to me, and then I let Celestia do whatever is supposed to be done after. I don’t spend enough time here among the luxuries to do more of administrative duties nor do I know where to even begin.

In the meanwhile, I have to miss what precious little sleep—or real meals—I’m supposed to get while here in order to make sure I don’t cause a… a faux pas or what it’s called. Another item on my list of things to look up in the middle of the night. I can’t shame Celestia like that, not while anypony is scrutinizing our every move. Even the guards and servants she employs, as if they don’t have anything better to do than watch us.

“Still, I remember how most dried rations taste, and you should really try to eat a little more,” Celestia joked. “You’re too thin by half.”

I look down at myself and almost bite my lips so I do not answer. Does she think that I’m stuck like this by choice? Look at her, look at how tall she is! Does she think that I didn’t want to be like her? To be prettier and taller than what I currently am? I’m a stunted little thing compared to her. But of course I am.

‘remember how most dried rations taste’, she says. How can you even claim that? You’ve been served and pampered for almost three hundred years while I barely was able to find enough to keep myself moving at times! No wonder I ended up like this, and you joke about it, you stupid, fat—

It’s not her fault. It’s not her fault. I chose this, she tried to stop me, I could stop anytime, and she wouldn’t blame me. She would understand, and be saddened over what I’ve been through, and then the questions would come, she would ask me what exactly happened to me, what I have been doing out there, interrogate me like I am a—

“Some of us like keeping a semblance of a figure, thank you,” I answer, lifting my chin, and my playful answer satisfies her, and she titters merrily.

“Still, I worry about you. You tell me so little as it is—”

“It’s the same old routine day after day. After the first couple of months nothing really changed. Sleep outside, walk or fly a lot, cast a few spells at what might crawl out, repeat. Even if something more exciting happens it basically ends the same.”

“—And it’s not just the danger you put yourself in, but I’m also worrying over your health and how alone you are. Luna, would you like to reconsider taking some guards with you?” Celestia pleads.

Guards? I gander around the room. These useless meat shields? Well, not entirely useless, they do serve a purpose, I suppose. That’s why I prefer levying civilians instead. It gives them something to do that’s not talking behind my back. They have about the same chance of survival, and a guard might be what saves lives in my stead. But to have them with me? What for? To slow me down, and then go to Celestia and spill all my secrets?

“I’m fine on my own, sister. We’ve had this discussion a hundred times, and I told you a hundred times, I am fine.”

Celestia put her fork down, her torso slowly bending in weariness. “I’m worried, Luna; you come back less and less. It’s been almost ten years I saw you last. Ten years, Luna! And you stay for a few days at most. I miss my little sister. And then there are these stories I hear—”

“Falsehoods and fabrications, sister. I am being rough at times, and my patience is little as it is when away from you, but there’s nothing more to them than that.” I sit straighter. “I’m certain that a lot of them are propagated by those who wish to gain some measure of power over you. They cannot attack you so they try to do so through me.”

“I know, I know, and you are right of course. Not that I’d ever believe this malice over you. Like that you eat colts and fillies and leave their bodies for the parents to find. They are despicable. These… politics are full of doublespeak, misdirection and roundabouts. I can barely keep up.”

“Maybe you should have some ponies to keep an eye on them and let you know of these paltry tricks before they can even bring them to bear,” I advise offhoofedly, though I have no belief that it would amount to anything.

“Maybe,” Celestia answers, and she ponders my suggestion for a few seconds before dismissing it and changing the subject once more. It was a foolish idea anyway. “Luna, if you don’t want—or need—any help, then why don’t you at least change the way you travel?”

“The way I travel?”

“Yes! Like the Thestral Clans. You’ve seen these wonderful wagons that serve as their homes, haven’t you?” Celestia grinned. “It surely wouldn’t be out of the question to use one of them, would it? And we could ask if any of the Thestrals could accompany you. To take care of the wagon while you’re away, of course. I’m sure they would gladly make one for you if we asked. They always say the best things about you.”

They do say good things for me. After all, I’m the only other one who lives worse than they do. A moving home like theirs… No. As great as a temptation it would be, I can’t. It would slow me down. I barely take anything with me as it is in order to speed my patrols. I cannot afford to go back to guilt.

As long as I do my absolute best, do everything it takes, the fault is not on me. It’s on them, on everypony else. I’m not going back to how it was before. Never.

“I will consider your suggestion, sister,” I lie. It makes her happy, and all I have to do is lie and tell her it didn’t suit my purposes the next time I return. I accidentally inhale through my nostrils, something I was desperately trying not to do, and the aroma of the food strikes me once more, waking my hunger.

“If you don’t mind I will head to my room now, Celestia,” I tell her, having enough of both this dinner that is out of my reach and her.

There’s a new addition to my room. A mirror on the wall, taller than I am. I light all the candles available and I stand in front of it. I look up, at the top of the mirror that is so far from the tip of my horn. It’s easy to guess who it had been made for. Celestia probably has a ton of these already, mostly gifts to ‘Her Majesty’, I wager. One of them must have finally trickled down to me.

I still look at the top, at how far from my reach it is. I shouldn’t have to look at it from this angle. No wonder everypony looks down on me, even Celestia. I’m supposed to be her equal and I am unable to even look her in the eye without craning my neck. All because I starved, and for what? To be mocked and disparaged at every opportunity, to face worse and worse as the years crawl by, doomed to do this forever?

Why am I even still alive? Why is Celestia? When are we supposed to die, when am I supposed to stop and rest?

I close my eyes and concentrate for a moment. I gaze back at the mirror. Yes, this is how I should be. As tall as her. No longer have anypony to look down at me. But she would always be the one they flock to, the one they rush to, because of her beauty. I’m so dull when compared against Celestia.

But, if my fur was darker... yes, just like that. No more of that dark blue that makes ponies’ eyes bypass me, but a black so dark that I would stand out even against the dead of night, unmarred by hidden scars and clean instead of drenched in sweat, dirt, and blood. My mark of a waning crescent moon now rests against royal purple, like the mark of a true princess. My wings grow larger and more stately, seemingly able to spread forever.

This crown… What need have I of one? I hate it so much, always needing to care for it and to not lose or damage it. It’s colored black, as if it is tarnished or trash. No, I would rather have a steel helm with a set of segmented metal strips that drape down the back and front of my neck, both coated in pure silver. My shoes shall be made the same. And this peytral strapped across my chest will be bigger and sturdier, to proclaim who I am as well as protect me in battle.

I think of my sister’s hair, how it looks like a glistering fog of green, pink and blue. Mine is always compared to hers in the manner of being almost as pretty as hers. No, mine shouldn’t be like that. It shouldn’t be like the night sky, it should be the night sky. It will be ethereal and almost translucent. My hair won’t be a window into the cosmos, but reality itself ripping apart to show off true beauty.

And last, my eyes and their color. Teal, pure teal, glowing with their own inborn light.

I pose and look at myself, at how I should be. The reflection itself seems to nod in satisfaction.

This is how you should be, it coos. This is who you should—

Somepony knocks on my door.

“Luna? Are you asleep yet?” Celestia whispers from behind the thick wood, barely audible.

The illusion shimmers off as I stop it at once, a pang of guilt and shame flashing across my rapidly beating heart. I don’t answer back immediately because I have to steady my shaking body. Stars only know how I managed not to scream.

“I’m- I’m still awake, Celestia. What is it?”

“Would you… Luna, would you mind if you slept with me in my room tonight?”

I move for the door, now feeling stunned for other reasons. “With you?”

“I haven’t been sleeping well lately, and… well, I’ve missed you. Will you? Please?”

I open the door at once. “Yes, of course I… What is this?”

Celestia looks at what I am pointing: a plate hovering in midair, glowing gold, filled with small sandwiches. “Hmm? Oh, I know you said you had eaten before, but it’s been some time since then and dinner, and I thought a small snack wouldn’t go amiss. I made them myself!” she announces proudly, delivering them under my muzzle.

I levitate one sandwich, and remove the top slice to check its contents. It’s everything I like, favorite cheese and all, and I can spot a few of the sandwiches sporting various jams, all of them sweet and to my taste. But, it’s how Celestia arranged the ingredients that amazes me.

They’re in the shape of a smiley face.

“You used to love them like that when you were small and we could get them,” she needlessly reminds me.

I haven’t forgotten. There were times when she would work for a farmer for days, performing more chores than a team of earth ponies could manage, all without rest while I was safely tucked away in their house, too young to help, and doing the lessons she assigned to me, practising numbers and letters.

She’d be dirty, tired, and barely have any time to rest until she had to be up again, and the first thing she would do when getting back into their house was ask permission to make my dinner. She always made them… made them like…

I take a bite, and it tastes so much better than that rich dinner could ever have. I can feel the little face’s smile, and it spreads to me. It must be especially infectious as it is now on Celestia’s lips.

“Is that a yes?” she asks.

I glance behind me. Celestia probably thinks I’m looking at my own bed, but it’s the mirror. I wish I had some more time to stay like this, to wish for what could have been…

But the mirror will still be here tomorrow.

I hug Celestia, and she embraces me back. For a moment I’m twelve again.

“Let’s go. Perhaps I could tell you one of these little stories you used to love as well.”

“Tiaaa. I’m not a filly anymore.”

“Alright, Luna. Would you like to tell me one then?”

“Well… Maybe. After I finish these sandwiches. Would you like one as well?”

Ch.38 - Two sided recruitment

The young woman was staring at the floor. Simple white tiles, with a few black ones placed in a pattern every few rows to break the monotony. It didn’t work in any real capacity. She tried to count them to pass the time while she waited, but her nerves made the numbers jumble and be confused each time.

She stood up and paced for a long minute, the short heels that she was so desperately unused to, clacking loudly with each step. She’d rather be in her standard military boots, even if the noise would be deafening. It had been a long time since she had dressed so… feminine and it chaffed her.

Her head snapped back to the ticking clock hanging on the wall, condemning every second passing by. It was the only other source of activity in the stillness, aside from the buzzing murmur that seemed to permeate the building. So many people down there and all around, yet no one ever stepped in this long corridor. Just her, counting down the minutes, wondering if she got the time or place wrong somehow.

The woman took off her cap, dropped it on one of the blue plastic chairs she was sitting before, and scratched her hair. She stepped in front of a portrait trying to get a glimpse of her reflection on the glass, but the clear lighting in the building didn’t allow for any. She chose one of the dark cabinets instead. She ignored the plaques and badges of honor inside, and gazed at her visible, dark reflection instead.

A small mouth under an equally small nose. Her eyes were clear blue, and by all accounts she should be considered a beauty, if each peace was taken individually. But her features were too small and set too far apart. Her eyes were tired, and creaks were already showing despite her very young age. Her skin was damaged by exposure to elements and the harsh lifestyle she led.

She ran her strong fingers through her short hair, barely able to cover her knuckles. She never bothered with a bun or any other measure other women soldiers tried in order to retain their long hair. It didn’t look good on her, but it meant she didn’t have to worry about keeping it straight or combed either. Just short enough.

No makeup as well, aside from the lightest touch of lipstick, and even that was something she wasn’t sure she should have applied. Friends and acquaintances told her she could be beautiful if she gave herself more attention, but she never saw the point. It wasn’t being beautiful that she wanted to do. She wanted to see the world, its hidden mysteries and secrets. She refused to believe in the dullness everyone else worshipped. There must be more, and from the rumors and hints she had gotten, she was following the right path.

She sat back down, twirling her cap in her palms once more. She fiddled with the medals and her rank symbol on her chest, she even tried to inspect her sidearm, forgetting she didn’t have one. What’s taking so long, she wondered, anxiety eating at her, feeling each gnawing bite with alacrity. Am I waiting at the wrong place?

She bent her head down, entwining her fingers behind the back of her head, and waited, forcing herself to stop glancing at the clock every few seconds. The hands ticked like thunder in her ears. That was why she missed the sound of steps, if there had ever been any. She would later learn that her new sergeant was very quiet if he wanted to be.

“Miss Jacqueline? Are you awake?” a bass, masculine voice rumbled with good natured humor.

She was up on her legs in a second, stomping her foot on the floor as she gave a stiff salute to the impressive, dark man that stood in front of her. His outstanding physique was obvious, even through the dress uniform he wore. He was tall as well. She reckoned he was just a hair short of two meters of height, dwarfing her by almost one fourth of a meter.

“Sir, yes sir!” she cried out at once, instincts kicking in as soon as she saw the shining sergeant pips on his shoulder. “I’m awake, sir.”

The sergeant laughed. “Easy there, girly. You can loosen up a bit. It’s my fault, I got caught up in some crap of my own. I’m terribly sorry for making you wait. I’m Sergeant Darry.” He opened up the folder he was carrying. “So, do I call you Jacqueline or do you prefer being addressed by your surname?”

“Most people call me Jackie, sir.” She blushed a little, feeling she was being too informal too soon. “It’s shorter than either one.”

“Jackie it is then,” he announced, closing the folder and putting it under his armpit. “Come with me, Jackie. Time to tell you what you’re getting into.”

He led her down the corridor, and then another one where the doors were unmarked. Jackie paid close attention to them, scrutinizing them. All of them were thicker than normal if she judged by the space they took against the threshold. She had the suspicion that breaking through any of them would be hard without specialized gear. Like a blowtorch.

The background mumbling faded into nothing. This part of the building was taken by complete silence. She could swear she could hear her own blood travelling up and down her veins.

The sergeant opened a door seemingly at random, and they both went inside. It was a dark room, empty aside from a simple metal table and two unfolded chairs in the middle. Sergeant Darry flipped a switch next to the entrance and two bright lights came on, turning the room into a blinding white.

He closed the door, and Jackie noticed how slow it swivelled, and how large and thick the hinges were. Sergeant Darry sat on one chair, bidding Jackie to sit across from him.

“So,” he started as soon as she sat. “Impressive record from what I see so far. Not much practical experience, but you’re not at fault for that. Hard to find a war to fight in nowadays. At least if you want one where you’re at the right side.” He winked.

“Thank you, sir. I’m trying my best, sir.” She took a deep breath. “I’ve also completed all the courses that have been required for being considered for your program, sir. My instructors gave me excellent marks on all of them.”

The sergeant leafed through the folder slowly, smiling gently. “So I see, so I see. Impressive fortitude for long distances. Not too shabby with your aim either, though you don’t fare well against moving targets, do you? Ah, well done on all survival courses especially. Except for the arctic one. Do you get cold easily, Jackie?”

“I’m- I just… expressed my dislike of the conditions, sir. It was just a comment made in jest.” She had no idea that bitching out would make it into her record. She should have done as she had decided from the start, keep her mouth shut and do what she was told. She was certain now that she blew her chances.

“No worries, Jackie,” Sergeant Darry assured her, waving his hand and bringing instant relief to her that she hid. “Trust me, we’re gonna be bitching a lot when we set out. Even me. Especially me. I’m a bastard when we’re on a mission, but I do that to keep you all on your toes. That is, if you decide you want in.”

Jackie’s mind stalled for a second as the sergeant seemed to read her mind and tried to decide what this was supposed to mean. On one hand, she was exulted. Sergeant Darry insinuated that she was already accepted! She wished she was alone so she could start whooping and screaming in joy.

On the other hand, did he believe there was a chance that she would possibly throw away all her dreams and struggles?

“What do you mean, sir?” she asked, her calm demeanor nothing but the most careful front that she could put up.

The sergeant leaned back, the rickety chair groaning under the weight of his muscled body. The light of the bulbs above them was reflected almost comically on the black skin of his shaved head.

“Jackie. What do you think we’re doing here? What exactly do you believe the Janus branch is?”

Jackie put her hands on the table in front of her, and entwined her fingers together in the perfect pose of a businesswoman about to make her sale. “Sir, with all due respect, everyone already knows what Janus is doing. Suspects at least. It certainly isn’t the special forces you claim to be, not when there’s not even a hint that Janus ever undertook a single mission.”

“And what is Janus doing then?” Sergeant Darry enquired with an anticipatory smile.

“We’re dealing with aliens, aren’t we? Space civilizations. They must have been here for a long time and-”

She had to stop or the poor man would die laughing. The small room was echoing with his laughter and the sound of his fist hitting the metal table. He pushed himself and the chair backwards, and bent at his waist over his knees, gasping for breath and still laughing.

“I suppose… I got it wrong then,” Jackie shamefully admitted.

Sergeant Darry wiped his eyes with a napkin, still giggling. “Oh man, I always love this part. I’m sorry, Jackie. You will understand why I laughed. It wasn’t personal. Why do you think… heh, aliens?”

“Well, sir,” Jackie began, deciding to plunge deep and be told all the reasons why she was wrong and stupid. “There’s the fact that whatever Janus is doing is extremely secret to the public, yet almost every nation is privy to information about it that none of them share. The strange measures that are enacted every few decades, like that inoculation that everyone underwent two years ago or the quarantine measures that are drilled in every city and became routine by now. The unexpected technological leaps. And everything always points here. To Janus.”

The sergeant clapped, nodding along. “Not bad, not bad. And don’t worry, I’ve heard worse. Hey, my father thought Janus was in contact with the spirit world.”

A small snicker escaped her. “I’m, I’m sorry sir. I didn’t mean no disrespect. It’s just that…”

“It’s okay, I know how it sounds. In his defense, when he joined up he used a spear as his main weapon and he had a wise man bless him before going through each time. He was a very traditional man, and the knights never managed to change his ways.”

“I’m sorry?”

The chair squeaked against the floor as the sergeant scooted back to his previous position. “Alright. Here’s how it’s going to go. I’ll tell you what Janus is. I’ll tell you what we do, and finally what we want you to do by joining. If at any point you feel it is too much, you tell me and it’s over. There is no pressure. You can choose to leave and there will be no consequences.”

Jackie wasn’t sure she believed that. There was too much mystery and secrecy around the Janus Division to do so. “And what will happen to me if I decide such? With all due respect, sir.”

The sergeant shrugged. “I don’t know. Go back to what you used to do?” He smiled, or more actually smirked. “You think you’ll vanish or something, don’t you? Don’t worry, nothing like that’s going to happen. We will tell you enough to know that you should keep your mouth shut. If we didn’t think you could keep a secret we wouldn’t even consider you. You might vanish, but that is only if you accept.”

He stood up, and took a thinner folder out of the large one he held, laying the larger one on the side of the table, and gave it to her. “Read this. It’s the basic info. I’m going to go make some preparations, and then I’ll be back to explain the rest. Would you like me to get you something to drink, Jackie?”

“[...] rendering all rifts completely undetectable. Every attempt of lockdown has been met with failure. Current protocol dictates at least two Janus Division members that have undergone transition[pg86, Pain Medication] must be present on each active site, in rotation. They are to ascertain the Gate’s status at all time, and in the event of an unaffiliated entry, they have absolute authority to initiate Purge [Det. pg113, Non-Native Entry] [...]”

Her fingers trembled, but she flipped through the pages and found the relevant entry to look at once more. There was text there, but all she noticed was the table of increasing firepower to shower the area at a one mile radius minimum. It started with an hour long artillery barrage, and only went up from there. Her finger traced the rows of cells until she reached the last one, where she pulled it back as if it was burnt.

A small whimper filled the empty room. She fumbled through the pages, reading another one at random, even though she flimsily read through most of them.

“[...] The underlying cause of the longevity effect and how it is applied has not been resolved so far. At first it was thought to be without solution since every Janus Division member that transitioned has been rendered back to normal status upon return to native environment.

“Non-native refugees and volunteers to Janus have not contributed to any valid solutions. While research is still done in depth [pg225, Immortality], the most we know, at layman terms, is that cells keep rejuvenating without apparent cause of origin or DNA modification. All these reasons, along with the fact that the human brain is incapable of handling the long term effects [pg247, Psychological Support/Medication] is why the Gate mechanisms are incapable of use for [...]”

Jackie got up and walked to the wall, her palms covering her mouth. If what she read was true then that meant there were immortals walking the Earth. Her Earth. One of many Earths. Immortals who came from another world, through a Gate that promised to make her one as well, at least for as long as she was willing to abandon her home.

She always felt that there were secrets in the world. Hidden sides that she would never see unless she looked for them. She didn’t know what astounded her the most. That she was right, that they were this big, or that they were served to her one by one in a small folder?

She sat back down, breathing fast, and ran her hands through her short brown hair. She remembered how she used to make fun of people in movies who would run away from answers. She would ridicule them, call them cowards, idiots. God, she thought, I really regret that now.

Jackie’s hand selected another page at random, not sure why she kept reading the same parts again and again. Perhaps because it was unbelievable. Perhaps she hoped—or feared—that the words would change if she kept reading them, that there was a hidden meaning behind them that had nothing to do with the surface.

“[...] unable to form a pattern without a larger sample and data. This goal is currently considered unachievable [pg24, Infinite/Finite Theory]. The abundant theories are all considered valid, but the prevalent current one is that each World is, in simple terms, a marble that rolls randomly on an infinite surface. Chance collisions and passages of individuals through the Gates help to form interconnections that, due to each differing timeline, make predictions impossible.

“The only solid law that has been established so far is that the timelines always move forward, making a Gate transition to a time before another Janus member impossible, even if the Janus members in questions are unknown to each other and separated even by great periods of time, as the common denominator of their origin or connection to Janus renders them ineligible for this paradox to occur. Time passed between transitions is also impossible to determine.

“The soonest a Janus team has returned was Team G419 in 1988. The time that passed between departure transition and return transition was 00:23:46. Their expedition lasted 32 years by their timeline.

“The largest passage of time was achieved by Team Argus in 1468 who returned in 1922 after an expedition that lasted 41 years, their timeline. It is for this very reason that Janus HQ is prepared at all times to accommodate and rehabilitate all teams, no matter their length of absence [pg325, Teams].”

The sergeant knocked before entering. It made no difference to Jackie. She couldn’t answer. She kept staring into nothing, glancing at the pages in front of her every few seconds as if they were snakes that hissed angrily at her.

The door opened and closed. Steps approached her, and a shadow came over her. A steaming hot cup of coffee was placed in front of her, and her hands automatically sought it and its friendly, known warmth. The steps retreated and went around the table. The chair creaked, and a pair of heavy boots tapped at the floor.

“Still with us, Jackie?”

Her head was heavy and fogged. It was like the times when you were between awake and asleep, in that fragile state where a loud thought could wake you up. So did the sergeant’s bass voice. It was a gentle breeze in her mind that blew the fog away.

“Gates to other worlds? Dimensions or- or- other Earths? A multiverse?” she managed, stumbling through words. Suddenly the name made sense. “Janus. The Roman god of beginnings, ends… doorways and transitions. Oh God. Oh God.” She drank from the cup, not feeling the scalding liquid.

“A good choice though, wasn’t it? I’ll admit, I’d never have expected the Templars to use a pagan one.” The sergeant blew on his own coffee, waiting for it to cool before sipping from it.

“Templars?”

“Templar Knights. I really think they should add a little bit of history in that dry thing. Are you familiar with them? I know they’re a little obscure…”

“No, I know them. I saw a documentary. An order of knights, the ones who made the first real banking system. They… They vanished in the thirteenth century, the whole order. They disappeared. No one knows why or what happen—Is this what happened to them? Did they go through one of these Gates?”

“Nope. It’s far more simple actually. They found out about the Gates…” Sergeant Darry smiled over his cup. “...And they became us. We lost the religion in the way. Hard to keep it after seeing all that stuff.”

Her palms hugged the cup even tighter. “So… Do we trade with alien- other worlds then? Or is there a war going on?”

“Nothing that good or that tragic. At least, not yet. We’re trying on both fronts though.” He put down his cup, frowning. “See, girly, we can barely travel through them. We don’t have any control over them, just point them in a direction and only a few can go through each time. You read that part, right?” The sergeant drank from his coffee. “Hot.”

It was surreal the way he treated this. As if he was talking about a country next door that you could hop in a plane and go to or discussing something he read in a website. She wondered if it was an attempt to make it easier on her to hear all this. If so, it rather made it worse. She felt like a sheltered child that was suddenly thrown to the street to live on her own.

“Then what do we do?”

“ ‘We’, huh?”

She hesitated only a moment, figuring that her body knew better, and followed its lead. She nodded.

Thick fingers tapped at the side of the cup while Sergeant Darry scrutinized her with no attempt to hide it. Her hand went for her hair again, forgetting that it hadn’t been long for years and there was no way they could stick out. His eyes zeroed on her palm, and she realized that it was shaking. She placed it back in front of her, and made it stop with a willpower she didn’t know she had.

White teeth shone through parted lips as the sergeant smiled. He stood up, and walked around the table while reaching his hand out for Jackie, like a dancer calling up his partner.

“What do you say we go somewhere else and I show you a couple more things, huh?”

Jackie walked around the equipped dummy, feeling awe. “How… How much does this cost?” she asked, trying to make sense of all that she saw.

“If you have to ask, too much to take a kit home with you,” the sergeant answered merrily, taking great joy in her reaction. “A lot. It doesn’t come cheap. It’s not just the engineering and production. Everything goes through grueling testing before we even touch it. We can’t afford malfunctions or anything breaking apart. We start up with the best because by the end of the trip we’re usually running on the dregs.”

She hesitantly touched the vest with a finger, and when she saw there would be no reprisal she examined it closer, getting a feel of its material. She was sure that the flexible chest piece wasn’t kevlar, at least not the kind she was used to. This here was a vest designed to be extremely light and thin, yet she was certain that it would have no problem stopping a bullet.

The forest camouflage patterned clothing was different as well. It was reversible with a winter pattern on the inside, and the weave was amazingly sturdy. She pulled, and when the sergeant nodded encouragingly she tried to rip it. She couldn’t.

The helmet, the breather, the electronic equipment, all of it was designed to be as light and sturdy as possible. Everything used the same batteries, thin silver bars she had never seen before, and there was even an astoundingly small solar charger for them. Even the blankets looked to have popped out of a science fiction film. Paper thin and barely weighing anything at all. It was like they expected them to go to an alien plane—

Oh. Right.

The sergeant opened one of the display cabinets next to the soldier mannequin. He removed a sword and gave it an awkward swirl around, grinning like a child. The sword was old, almost ancient really, but still serviceable. The handle was wrapped in dark leather, stained by sweat. The blade was sharpened, and there was a golden cross on the pommel.

“Now this was the weapon that the old Janus Knights used. We are using that one.” The sergeant pointed at the unusual assault rifle the mannequin held. It looked like it was carved out of a single brick of metal, with the only discernible parts being the barrel, the trigger and the folded iron sights. The magazine did not stick out of the bottom, nor did the stock at the back.

The sergeant ran his hand over the flat of the blade, petting it. He held the old sword upside down and gently kissed the handle before putting it reverently back to where it belonged.

“We have a lot better gear now, but a good weapon is always a must. It’s not all good out there, Jackie. In fact, we’re shifting our objectives a little as time goes on. This beauty is the best weapon you have ever seen so far, at least until the boys in the labs can crank out something better. Modular and able to accommodate almost every role. Click a few parts on it and you can turn it into a decent sniper rifle. Fiddle some more and you got a good enough light machine gun. Even better, it all uses the same ammo, it’s light, requires very little maintenance, and it can take all kinds of punishment.”

He took it in his arms, handling it like an old friend. He removed the barrel with a few sharp twists and had it changed in less than a minute with a longer one, all without using tools. The frame of the weapon hugged and grabbed the new barrel as of on its own. The magazine was ejected soundlessly and replaced in a second, a scope was placed on top with a simple snap, and the sergeant’s finger swept over the stock and it obligingly lengthened. The whole process took less than a minute.

“I’ve never seen one like that. Never heard of it even!”

“Damn right you haven’t. One of these costs up to half a million. They go through a thousand tests before we even get to touch them, every single one of them, and the slightest hiccup is an instant scrap. We only get the absolute best,” Sergeant Darry said proudly, running his palm down the barrel. “There’s a sidearm of course, but we mostly rely on this. You will get familiar with the rest of the gear soon. If you join.”

She finally tore her eyes away. “Why wouldn’t I want to join, sir? What would possibly change my mind? This is amazing!”

“Jackie.” Sergeant Darry’s expression was now serious and he made for a real grim figure as he stood tall, with his arms crossed over his chest. “You do remember the courses you were told to run through, right? You will be facing ten times worse out there. The protocol is that we go to three targeted destinations and one random before we return. The targets can fail, and you never know where the random jump will take you. What do you think happens if twelve of us end up in a barren, frozen wasteland, and the Gate is at the other side of the world?”

“I… We carry supplies with us, right? It was in the specs.”

“How much can you carry? We have to carry everything on our own. Weapons, ammo, tools, food, water. How long will reaching the Gate take? Would you be willing to leave someone behind while you take his food and carry on? If the lot falls on you, would you be willing to be given a swift mercy so that the rest could have your supplies? Would you be willing to eat one of your comrades? This is not a what if, Jackie. This has all happened.”

She believed him. She saw it in his expression, heard it in his voice. He wasn’t looking at her now. He was talking to the floor at the right of him, his face burning with the shame he must have been living with.

“I- We all- all agree to this though, right?”

He nodded. “We do. That’s why we need to know for sure if you can do this and are willing. Both eyes open, Jackie. Every card on the table, and only then you agree. You can say no anytime. You can say yes only when you know everything.”

“Well spoken, Darry.” A blonde man, not much taller than Jackie walked up to them, his footsteps muffled by the thick carpets laid on the floor of the opulent room. He was dressed in simple civilian clothes; a new looking pair of jeans and a black t-shirt with an old rock band stamp. His face was young, but it was drawn and haggard in some undecipherable way. She reminded Jackie of soldiers that had lived through shellshock.

Sergeant Darry saluted, and Jackie imitated him when she noticed, with barely a second’s delay. “Captain,” he sharply said, stomping his foot down to attention.

“At ease, Darry,” he nodded to the girl. “This must be Jacqueline I suppose?”

“Goes by Jackie, Captain,” Sergeant Darry responded before she had time to answer, smiling brilliantly.

“Shame. I like Jacqueline. It’s pretty.” He turned to her, and his smile was that of a grandfather on a thirty year old man. “Miss Jacqueline, I hope for your sake that you say no. But if you’re as stupid as we are and say yes, then it will be my honor to have you in my team.”

“Thank you, sir,” she answered, ignoring the dig the best she could. She doubted it was meant in a demeaning term. “I will do whatever it takes, I promise.”

The blonde man shook his head, a bang of golden hair falling over his tired eyes. “No. Never do that. That never ends well. It doesn’t. Just do your best, Miss Jacqueline. That’s all you have to do.” He took a step back and smiled gently once more.

“I’ll be out of your way now. I just wanted to get something to read, maybe write a few notes on the books before I have to talk to my shrink today. How far ahead are you on orientation, Darry?”

“Still at the beginning, Captain. She read the pamphlet and saw the toys.”

“Tell her what we are supposed to do, Darry. Can’t go much further without that. Tell her about the harvests as well. Everything. It will take some time to ingest that. Give her as much time as possible to think on it before she has to give us an answer.”

“I plan to, Captain.”

“Good. Miss Jacqueline, I hope you can take everything that comes next as well as you did everything until now. Darry, I’ll see you tomorrow for breakfast. Miny will be there as well. We can visit the memorials afterwards.” The man, one of the team captains from what she understood so far, the men who held absolute authority out there, went to pick one of the old books in the large library that took up the east wall, and sunk in a plush, old armchair to read.

“What is a shrink?” she asked, lowering her voice.

“Psychiatrist. We all have one. It’s what he calls them. Come on, Jackie. Time to go further into your education. Do you like vacation slides?”

“Not really, sir.”

“You’ll not like these either, but they are pretty interesting.”

They walked out together, leaving the sergeant’s captain in his peace, and it was only now that Jackie questioned something she should have noticed much earlier.

“Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, where is everyone?”

The sergeant had been distracted and it took him a few moments to register the question. “Hmm. Oh, that? This area is reserved only for those who have made a passage through the Gates. We need a place away from… normal people so we can get a breather. They just don’t get it, see?”

Jackie watched the sergeant fiddle with the projector in the back, feeling strangely amused and warmed by the amount of expletives murmured by the man who had so far been ineffably polite as he was defeated by a, as he called it, piece of defective arsewipe.

“Would you like some help, sir?” she asked politely. She was supposed to be watching the front wall where the photos would be projected, but that was supposed to begin fifteen minutes ago.

“No, thank you,” he said loudly, quickly speaking through his teeth. “You fucking piece of junk, make me look like an imbecile some more, why don’t you?”

“Are you sure?”

He forced a smile on his face as he tapped the machine. “I got it, Jackie. Just… making a last check.” He discreetly kicked the bottom of the podium where the projector stood.

“Alright, sir,” she answered, smiling in kind. “Just remember to plug it back in after you’re done,” she added and put on a show of not hearing him groan.

The projector finally lit up, and Sergeant Darry turned off the lights, but there was no image displayed on the plastic sheet hanging over the wall yet. The sergeant sat next to her, picking up one of the water bottles and unscrewing the cap.

“So,” the sergeant began after a long swallow that almost emptied the bottle. “What is our purpose? At first it began as simple exploration. It was the unknown, and the unknown promised a lot.”

“That was the Templar Knights who did this, right?” After a beat she realized she forgot something. “Sir,” she added at once.

“Templars, us, same deal. Go in, find stuff, explore, bring it back. Down the centuries however emerged a pattern.”

Jackie stood silent, waiting as her imagination worked overtime. The sergeant pressed a button on the small remote he was holding, and an image was waiting for her on the wall.

It was a painted drawing, like those you saw on manuscripts from the medieval ages, yet the colors were powerful and evocative. Four knights in mail were battling against unarmored and unarmed foes. Six of them stood against the knights, while more laid dead on the ground beneath them, all of them with a vicious hack or slash on their head. Shadows that proclaimed a mob or a crowd coming up from a distance rose behind the men the knights fought. Other knights were already among the dead.

Jackie leaned forward. The faces of these men… Were they screaming or shouting? Their mouths were open, teeth showing, and they had no pupils, only white. Was this an attempt to demonize the knights’ opponents, she wondered, or simply an effect of the art’s style?

“Do you know what you’re seeing, Jackie?” Sergeant Darry slouched on his chair, his arms resting against his legs.

She went with the best guess she could make. “Templar Knights fighting… in another world?”

“Technically correct.” He pointed at the six figures in front of the knights with the remote. “Ever seen a zombie movie?”

“Yeah, a few. Wait, what?”

“Next slide.” The screen flickered before she could double check.

This one was a sketch, drawn with pencil and hurried annotations spread around the page. It displayed something worm-like in the style of an autopsy, with a front view on the edge of the paper. The worm’s mouth was full of hooked teeth, all of them pointing inwards, towards the blackness of its gullet.

The words were blurry and faded, but she could read some of the text on the bottom. Rock-hard skin, impenetrable to small arms fire. Blind. Navigates by sound. One of them ate Enrique. We heard a gunshot come out of its insides five minutes later. The inner side is vulnerable, but we had no way to hurt them aside from our last few grenades. We ran. Six survivors.

“Next slide.”

“Wait—”

A colorless video this time, speckled with film grain and lacking audio. It showed a wasteland. Dark clouds gathered low in the distance, like an oncoming storm at sea. The camera panned low at the feet of the cameraman. She saw old fashioned military boots, and then she saw the rest of the men of the team, with bolt-action rifles slung over their shoulders. They wielded short shovels, digging desperately a hole deep and large enough to hold all of them.

The camera panned up again. The clouds were slowly getting bigger. No, they were coming closer. Too fast, way too fast, and they stayed too low. Jackie changed her mind. It must have been a sandstorm. The men were panicking. One of them said something and they all threw their shovels aside. The men already in the hole reached for the cameraman and yanked him in as the man tried to record the coming clouds for as long as possible.

One of them reached and pulled something over the top of the hole, closing it. It must have been a large board of wood or a sheet of metal, though Jackie hadn’t noticed it. There was nothing to see here but a few holes where the sunlight pierced through into the tomblike hole.

The video cut to black. When the picture returned, the beams of sunlight were being broken, for longer and longer, until they almost vanished entirely. One of the soldiers lit a lamp, and she could now see their worried faces, all of them looking up with expressions of dread. The absence of sound made the video immensely creepy.

Something made it through one of the holes and fell on the digged up ground. The soldiers screamed and started pushing at one another. Something small jumped up and clamped on the cheek of the man next to the cameraman. Jackie managed to get a glimpse of something insect like. The man was obviously in pain, screaming, his eyes almost white. His hand reached up, pulled the large insect, and crushed it in his fist.

There was a large gash at his cheek, where the insect had somehow eaten through almost all the way through it in a couple of seconds.

“Vore clusters. Never met these things, I really don’t want to,” Sergeant Darry commented, sounding as disgusted and revolted as Jackie felt herself. “Next one.”

This one was a very clear photo of Sergeant Darry himself. He was standing next to metallic remains that had been obviously riddled with bullets. Everything had been gathered up and repositioned to give it its original shape of…

“Is that a fucking robot?” she almost screamed, standing up.

The sergeant smiled in the gloom. “Sit back down, Jackie. Next one.”

The next slide was a grayscale photo. It was a close up of a man that seemed to bleed out of everywhere. Eyes, nose, ears, and…

She gasped. That wasn’t a man. The face was too long, the nose too high, and these weren’t bones that jutted out because of how thin he was. “Is… Is that… Is that an ali—”

“Next.”

Another sketch, one that showed some kind of mutated canine creature.

A photo of a tree with rotten fruits still hanging on the branches.

A short, blurry video of something wet and squishy, like a column of tar, crossing an empty, unlit street in the dark, its bumpy surface glistening in the poor light that managed to touch it.

A series of shots of mushrooms, zooming out with each successive one until she saw they were growing out of a mound of dead people.

Panoramic views of armies clashing. Some of them with clubs and swords, others with guns, some of them with nothing but their fists.

The slides kept coming one after the other, with no warning of change. She got glimpses of ruined buildings and ravaged countrysides. She saw craters, deep and wide, crowned on their edges by the depressing remains of the cities they once were. She saw seas blanketed by orange hued sludge. She saw naked forests of blackened, dead trees. Men and women standing around an animal that resembled an antelope as it died, covered by scabs and lesions. She saw far more that she couldn’t understand.

The furious slideshow came to a sudden stop. There was a colorful, modern photo of a mountain displayed on the plastic sheet. It stood alone, strangely further away from any other.

The sergeant turned on his chair, his broad body directed at her, and gently placed his wide palm on her shoulder. His voice was quiet and gentle as he could make it, but it echoed queer in her ears. She felt as if she was delving deeper into a cave, the light and reason slowly fading the further she stumbled from the entrance. Her vision was growing darker on the edges, and her skin felt cold. Jackie’s mind kept replaying the images, and she feared that any moment now she would hear a guttural growl coming from the dark she was probing.

It was just words before. Shapes on a white sheet of paper, sound coming out from the mouth of a man she had just met. Now it was becoming real. The weapons and the gear made sense now, but the things she saw on that innocent, rectangular piece of plastic were horrid. A gun, no matter how good, was poor defense. You couldn’t carry enough bullets for a population of monsters. You couldn’t kill a swarm by shooting it. You couldn’t intimidate a disease from staying away from you.

Something was shaking her. “—Jackie! Jackie, are you still with me, girl? Did you listen to anything I said?” The sergeant was moments away from shouting.

“I’m fine, sir,” she answered, managing not to stutter. “I’m… I’m fine. I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not.” Sergeant Darry leaned back to his own chair, giving back her personal space. “Girl… Jackie, I know this is too much. Now, I want to warn you about something. What you saw here? These are rare. Most of the time we find worlds that are empty or very like ours at some point in our history. Sometimes we find exotic ones. Places of wonder and alien cultures. There are worlds out there where magic is real, and you might see that one day.”

Sergeant Darry pointed at the wall where the images had flashed. “But there is that stuff out there as well. And as pretty and wonderful everything else might be, it’s this that worries us the most.”

Jackie breathed deep, the large intake of oxygen clearing her head. “Because there are chances we might end on one of them, sir?”

“No, Jackie. It worries us because we have found most of these plagues more than once.”

The strange measures that are enacted every few decades, like that inoculation that everyone underwent two years ago or the quarantine measures that are drilled in every city and became routine by now. Suddenly everything clicked into place, making sense.

“You find out what happened out there,” Jackie said in awe, suddenly seeing the huge man in front of her differently. How many dangers unlike everything the world could imagine had he faced, to bring back warning of a threat that may never come, all to keep them safe?

“All this can go through the Gates as well,” she continued, a shiver running down her spine as the words were spoken, “and we prepare ourselves to stop them if they ever make it through!” The sergeant nodded.

Then another page of what she read came to mind. “But… why do you even need to do that? I read what happens if something comes through and isn’t… Nothing could live through these measures. You stop short of nuking the sites, and only if the order is given to cancel!”

“Did you read how we know where the Gates are?” Sergeant Darry asked.

She did, and she was vividly reminded how ludicrous it seemed even as she read it. “When you first go through one you get a headache. The direction and intensity of the pain guides you to them.” She giggled, mostly out of nervousness than anything else. “I’m sorry, it’s just… it reminds me of a game I played in grade school.”

“It would be funny if it didn’t hurt like hell,” Sergeant Darry answered. Jackie’s expression turned horrified at the insensitivity she displayed, making the sergeant laugh. “It’s fine, Jackie. We have drugs for that. Beautiful, wonderful, tasty drugs. Isn’t it strange though that this happens?”

Jackie stared down at the end of her shoes. She thought hard, deciding that she now faced a test. “It does now that you mention it, sir. Could it be that it’s a way for your own body to warn you to stay away from them?” she ventured.

“That’s one theory. Here’s another. What if the Gates talk to us?” On noticing Jackie’s vacant stare he continued, “Put aside any ideas that this happens because of a natural or biological cause. What if there’s an artificial reason?”

Jackie couldn’t follow the thought. “You mean that they might be alive, sir? Have some kind of consciousness?”

The sergeant snickered. “I wouldn’t put that thought away, but that’s not what I meant.” He tapped three times at his own temple. “What if they’re trying to connect with what is in here or they send information that we can’t understand?”

Flashes of some of the images she had seen ran before her eyes. She remembered the creature with the long head. “Information that we don’t have the capacity to understand?”

“Have you seen the new advances in prosthetics, Jackie?” the sergeant asked out of the blue. Memories of articles she read in boredom in a hundred waiting rooms awakened. “People able to move fingers—”

“With an implant in their brain…” Jackie whispered. There was a connection here. The reason Janus kept reaching out to other worlds, why they let nothing come through, this theory the sergeant shared with her…

“Sir,” she asked, the fact that Sergeant Darry waited patiently for her not escaping her. “What is the reason for the random jump?”

Sergeant Darry turned back towards the screen, still displaying that lonely mountain. He crossed his right leg over the knee of the left, his face grim. “We’ve done that for almost the last two centuries. Local timescale of course.”

“The reason… There are a lot of them. The starting one was this.” A thick, dark finger, its nail in perfect condition, pointed at the mountain on the screen, and for a moment Jackie was afraid she would burst out in crazy laughter when she realized that the huge, black man, who was probably older than she could imagine, liked to pamper himself with manicures and could easily now picture him in a spa.

“It’s a mountain, sir.”

The sergeant looked down at his remote. He took his time finding the right button. He pointed it behind him, even though he didn’t need to, and pressed the button.

The mountain stood on four massive legs, each of them made of what seemed to be mountains of their own, bent and shaped like the legs of a crab or a spider. Hair-like extensions had erupted out of the mountain, woefully small and short, but only until you realized the scale. Each of them must have been as wide as a house or more, and dozens of meters long.

The mountains behind it were there no more. Not because this one had moved too far, but because they themselves had gone. Huge holes marked their previous location. The mountains had walked, and from the gaping maw into the earth that the one in front had left, something was snaking its way out. It was impossibly long, and inexplicably thin when compared to the walking geography.

The mountain rested down again, the world shaking with every move it did. Two of its legs—they could not be legs, they were too large, too humongous—reached forward and gripped the earth, raising hills as they sunk into the ground. The mountain pulled and it moved, leaving a scar worthy of the grand canyon behind it.

The snake creature reached higher than any building ever had. It made an arc as it bent towards the mountain, impossibly graceful, and then it vomited for what seemed like hours. It fell on the ground, the shake of the camera betraying its true mass, and slithered back into the hole. More creatures like it were coming out and doing the same.

The mountain lazily reached out and dragged the snakes’ dregs to itself. Whoever held the camera fell to his knees. Jackie would have followed along if she wasn’t sitting.

The screen turned to black, leaving them in the darkness. The sergeant’s voice filled the room, steady and real like an anchor, but the words were daggers to her shaken reality. She had just seen a mountain walk. She had just seen a fucking mountain walk, and a gigantic snake, worm, or mother fucking Jormungand, fucking come out of a hole along with its whole fucking family!

“This is a small part of what we call a harvest. There are more things than what you saw. When a world dies, when it’s empty and undefended, these things and others like it come. They, for lack of a better word, eat the planet. They drink the ocean, eat everything alive, chew the dirt, inhale the atmosphere, steal its riches. When they are done there is almost nothing left.

“We don’t know if the harvesters are… We don’t know how smart they are. What we do know is that they can travel through Gates. More than that, there’s evidence that they can open them or something else opens Gates for them where there is none. They know exactly where to go. We hope for the best, and assume the worst. We make a random jump in hopes that they might lose us if they can tell if we’re travelling through the Gates, like a kid who does one extra walk round the block before running into its home. A poor measure, but the only one we have.

“So, there’s a chance that the Gates are being operated by something. We know that too many of the diseases and monstrosities we’ve met are common even when they shouldn’t be, which means they go through the Gates as well. We know that we can’t travel to worlds more advanced than we are. Yeah, we can’t. Not unless these worlds are... dying to put it in simple terms. We tried. We always end up in hellholes when we try that. It’s like something is blocking us off, and that is quite the red herring.

“But there is something else out there as well, Jackie. Look at this. We found it in a dead world.”

There was a light click, and the projector lit the room once more. It was a photo of a charcoal drawing that had faded into gray, drawn with long and hasty lines over a crumbling wall. Cloaked and featureless figures stood all together. There were many of them, almost ten of them, but they were drawn so close and over each other that it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended. A faded splotch, perhaps a symbol of some kind, hovered over the head of one of them.

A message in perfect, though strangely rectangular, english letters was written beneath. They are coming. Unite with us. Break the walls, and let us run. We can’t fight them. We must escape. Soldiers won’t save us. Walls won’t save us. We must run.

“Did… Did they run?” Jackie asked. The desperation on that message. She could feel it, simply in the way it was written. It was a plead, its author pressing the writing implement so hard on the surface that she could spot almost every one of the many places where the charcoal he was writing with broke and he had to start again.

“We don’t know. But we have this one as well. Different world,” Sergeant Darry said, pressing the button once more.

Jackie turned back to the screen. She didn’t understand what she was seeing at first. Then she realized it was another video, but it was incredibly grainy and the frames would randomly jump back and forth. The cameraman was trying to take a panoramic view from the top of a building. There was shattered glass everywhere, and the camera paused for a moment when it spotted other figures across other roofs.

The member’s of the cameraman’s own team waved like children at the camera from the distance. The camera finished it’s work, and then pointed at the ground. It’s owner turned to leave, and suddenly the camera whipped back up, though Jackie would be hard pressed to say if it was done in an attempt to record or an accident while bringing the arm up for defense.

Darkness fluttered across the camera lens, and iron glimmered for a moment. The owner of the camera fell. The camera kept recording, but not at the killer’s direction. At the sergeant’s direction Jackie noticed the reflection on one of the shards of glass. It was distorted by dirt and angle. An indistinct shape like a cloaked man stood over the corpse. It moved, as if it was looking around, and then the darkness or the cloak flapped harshly in a sudden wind, and the figure vanished. One moment it was there, the next it was not. The video went back to the last frame where the figure was visible. Text written in bright green at the bottom shared a terrifying info. Designation: Cloaks. Known Occurrences: 2 / Suspected Occurrences: 4

“Twelve Janus soldiers. Nine of them died in the span of the same minute. The other three were actually on a floor below Marcus, the guy you saw get murdered. They retrieved the camera, and got what gear Marcus carried. The harvest began soon after, and they only made it because they were almost at the Gate already. The camera wasn’t working. It took two years to get as much out of it as we did.”

Jackie stood up. She didn’t know how much more she could take. “Sir, isn’t that… isn’t that a bit too much? I- I just learned what is going on, and you’re throwing all that on me—”

“Just say you don’t want to have anything to do with us, Jackie, and I’ll stop,” Sergeant Darry said, his eyes locked on the empty shard of glass where the figure was before. “If you can’t take words, then how can you stand against the reality? There’s no shame in it, Jackie. There were better applicants than you.”

She sat back down at once. She didn’t freeze her ass off to abandon the wonder she had searched for her whole life at mere words!

“So there’s a chance we might get killed by these things that spread out there. I’m not afraid. Sir.”

“These don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Spread.” The light flickered, and new dark wonder was now at the screen. “They are unique, and we think they have a purpose. Everything must have a purpose. The harvesters eat even the metals.” It was a photo, taken with an old camera, monochromatic, and grainy.

There was not enough light, only the flames that burned in the background. But you could see the shape. Talons that were literally long and thin as swords, stretching further than it would be possible on any real animal, so long that they should have snapped. A long, thick neck, bent upwards. A cloud of fire belching out of an open mouth. Scales shining in the contrast between flame and darkness. A long, catlike iris full of evil, staring straight at the camera.

A wingless dragon straddling over corpses. Designation: Dragon. Known Occurrences: 3 / Suspected Occurrences: 5

“Why do they need metals? Where does it go? Where does the bounties of whole worlds end up?”

A humanoid figure in the far distance, walking in the night. There was no light, but you couldn’t miss it. It burned orange and red as it was engulfed in savage fire, yet moved leisurely, a shadow in flames. Six more joined it. They vanished together into nothingness. Designation: Fire Men. Known Occurrences: 8 / Suspected Occurrences: 2

“Why is everything that spreads through the Gates biological if it’s somebody’s work? Why do these diseases and monsters make it through? Why don’t the Gates work every time a bird or an insect passes through then? Why are the harvesters themselves not made of metals if they were made by something out there? Where are the soldiers, the tanks, the machines?”

A note, half burned, on a material she couldn’t identify, written in characters she had never imagined. The translation was next to it. —then came the end of his gifts, and they all turned to ash and black in our grasp, fake as the white he wore. There was no true wisdom he gave, no wonders, no mystic joys. Just madness, and an inexorable hunger for more that infected us. Still he drove us to greed, whipping us with his soft, wise words into a bloody fervor. Fractured into one, three, ten, a hundred sides, all of us with the divine being on our side that talked to gods. We never realized the gods were of death. I am the last. I killed my son, for he had more than I. Now I have nothing, and the wise one leaves while mountains walk and the light grows dim. I shall copy this last testament a billion—

Designation: Man of gifts. Known Occurrences: 1 / Suspected Occurrences: 3

“Why has no world managed to recover? Why did none of them take their planet back? Well, we think we might really know the answer to that. It’s done maliciously and on purpose.”

A sketch drawn with a shaky hand. A man standing on top of a ruined building. He’s armed with a gun, and dressed in tatters. His face is hidden by a gas mask, and his right forearm is covered in armor, held by rope. His stance is perfect arrogance and power. On the bottom left, written in digitized characters, glowing green, was again a line of text. Designation: Reaper. Known Occurrences: 1 / Suspected Occurrences: 17

“We call them Enders. And our job now is to find out as much as we can about them.”

The projector was turned off, and there was darkness again for a moment, feeling uncomfortably cold and numb. The sergeant turned on the lights, and his wide smile chased away the ice over her heart.

She was back in the real world, her world. She felt safe.

“Any questions, Jackie?” he asked lightly, obviously knowing full well that she had a thousand.

“Are… Are those Enders real? I mean, are we sure, sir?”

Sergeant Darry shook his head in mock disappointment. “Well, here we go for anticlimactic. Now, girlie… We don’t know. The brains give it a twelve percent chance that they are aligned and work together, at best. It’s very possible we are going after phantoms and coincidences. The world is, after all, a much bigger place than we ever imagined. That’s the problem, that they can also be a thing we made up from the shadows. But, in case they are not… Anything else?”

“Just… Yes, sir. There’s one more. How do we guide ourselves through the Gates? How do we make sure we don’t run straight into them if they are real?”

Now the sergeant chuckled. “Jackie… You read it in the folder, didn’t you? Or did you skip that part?” He grabbed two bottles of water and passed one to her.

She took it, her hand trembling almost none at all. “That must have been a joke of course. There must be some other way. Something from another world perhaps? The magic that you mentioned or we have some technology. There has to be.”

"Why should it be?” He drank deeply, and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his dress uniform. “It worked for Dorothy, didn’t it? We just don't need to click our heels.”

Ch.39 - Ponyville. Day One

On the outskirts of Ponyville, one librarian and a baby dragon sat on the recently born, green spring grass, supposedly watching the acrobatic skills of a cyan pegasus with a rainbow mane and tail that was already on the third repeat of her repertoire. The winged pony cut lazy turns on the sky, her fervor for warmer weather long exhausted, as well as any pretense of having more tricks to show.

Spike turned to another page of the newspaper he was holding, not even bothering to pretend that he paid attention anymore. He read for a few moments before smiling and announcing, “Dad’s in the newspaper again.”

Twilight kept her eyes on her flying friend, because good friends support each other despite how inexorably bored to tears one may be or unsure of what’s the difference between a barrel roll or aileron roll or why it matters, but it was pure mechanical motion by now. She had been making mental checklists for over an hour now, proceeding from her household chores all the way to experiments she wanted to run in the next half year. Her assistant’s laughing voice was enough to pull her away from imaginary quills scratching imaginary ink on imaginary paper.

“Is the article about him or the Lunar Guard?” Twilight asked. Most times so far it had turned out to be nothing more than a mere mention of his name. Twilight was quite impressed with his record of relative quietness so far.

Spike switched between two pages, his eyes sparkling with barely contained laughter. “Both. There are two articles. Okay, the first one is about the Lunar Guard. Somewhat. There was an explosion in a forest near Coldhoove village, west of Canterlot.”

“Oh Celestia. Another one? What did they blow up this time?”

“Uhhh…” Spike hesitated for a bit, his little claw following the text lines. “Apparently we will have to wait ‘till we know. It was a nest of some big nasty stuff, but the Royal Guard has problems telling the pieces apart. Yuck.” He stuck his forked tongue out in disgust.

Twilight leaned over to see the article for herself for a moment, hoping there might have been a rare picture of the Lunar guards. “At least they are far more practical than I expected. This honestly wasn’t how I expected their vaunted monster hunting to go. There weren’t any injuries this time, were there?”

“Nah. Come on, Twilight, that was a one time thing. Or two. Dad wrote back that the guards learned to watch for shrapnel from the monsters exploding, and he’s promised to warn them from now on for this kind of stuff.”

“I still wonder how they manage to get them all with one blast every single time,” Twilight pondered loudly, rubbing her chin. “How do they bring them all close enough?”

“I still wonder why I bother if neither of you pay attention,” Rainbow grumbled, suddenly hovering behind Twilight and making her scream in fright.

“I’m really sorry, Rainbow, that was—”

Said pony waved her hoof nonchalantly. “Eh, don’t sweat it. I think that’s long enough anyway,” she said, checking the sun’s position for some reason.

Spike’s face popped around the newspaper, his left eyebrow arching in suspicion. “Long enough for what?”

“How they get them all with one boom, right?” Rainbow Dash repeated Twilight’s question loudly, changing the subject at once. “Yeah, I asked the same. See, they look for something big enough first that monsters might find tasty, and then shove it full with—”

Spike’s tongue made a reappearance and Twilight’s joined in for a double chorus of “eeugh”.

“We get the picture,” Spike interrupted, putting up the newspaper again as a shield. “Well, there’s not much else here about them. It’s the usual puffing by the Solar Guard and how they don’t need to resort to such trickery.” Spike chuckled. “Heh, last paragraph mentions how they petitioned Princess Celestia for access to these ‘trickery tactics and weapons’ again.”

“Sounds like some ponies don’t want their jobs taken from them,” Rainbow Dash said, scratching herself absently until Twilight knocked the offending wing away. “Though they are the only ones who care. Well, them and the ponies on their side who try to keep score. Princess Luna and the rest don’t bother jotting down what they kill or making announcements every time they bring a timberwolf down.”

“Shame. Dad would win,” Spike remarked.

“Spike!” Twilight immediately scolded. “Princess Luna is doing the right thing. These monsters are hurting ponies. Their job is to stop them, not turn it into a counting game and forget what they are supposed to be doing! That’s why Princess Celestia is driving the Solar Guard and the Royal Guard so hard once more after being so lenient in their duties.”

“Okay, okay, jeez.” Spike leaned conspiratorially towards Rainbow Dash, putting a palm over his mouth. “I bet you that Dad and Princess Luna totally know how many they got, they just got the rest of the Lunar Guard to pretend they don’t care to get the Solar Guard mad.”

Rainbow Dash agreed with a snicker.

Twilight eyeballed the chuckling pair, but chose not to comment. “What’s the second article about, Spike?”

“Oh, right.” Spike turned to the proper section and reread it for a few seconds. “Oh, the Lunar Guard met up with the Wonderbolts!”

“Really?” Rainbow Dash tried to get a peek at the paper, but Spike kept turning aside. “Are there any pictures? Darn it, why wasn’t I there?”

“You quit months ago,” Twilight reminded her. It had been quite a surprise for all her friends. Nopony had expected that. Rainbow Dash had come back with a tale of shapeshifting monsters that chilled them to the bone, and seemed to be coasting on a surge of adrenaline that would never end as she repeated the bloody fight over and over.

Twilight wondered if she’d ever have the chance to study the skull they found or if any hope of that happening was already gone.

Then came a letter from Canterlot asking Rainbow if she wanted to come along at the next expedition. Rainbow Dash scribbled a hasty answer, had Spike send it immediately, and then burned all her camping gear before the hour was out.

Spike cleared his throat. “Anyway, there’s a lot of small stuff here, but here is the good news: Spitfire is fine and there’s no reason to stay in the hospital at all.”

“What? Why was she in the hospital?” Rainbow Dash yelled.

“Raegdan?” Twilight betted.

“Yep. Dad kicked her head,” Spike deadpanned.

“Why?” Dash demanded, incredulous.

Spike checked. “Because Soarin ducked.”

“Why’d he kick—”

“Let it go, Rainbow,” Twilight advised. “His foot often says hello to guards and soldiers. He doesn’t like them at all. I guess that the Wonderbolts were similar enough to them for him. Spike and I are going to head home. Would you like to come along?”

Rainbow Dash hid a smirk behind her hoof, setting Twilight’s prank alarm off. The proud pegasus had planned something. “Nah, I’m gonna head to Applejack’s farm.”

“To wait for her to come back?” Spike asked, finally turning to the funny pages with a sigh of happiness.

“Yeah. If she isn’t back in a few hours I’ll go look for her.”

Twilight laid a hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder. “You worry about her.” Rainbow Dash had changed this last year. Her protectiveness of everypony had increased, while her hothead attitude had certainly diminished.

Rainbow Dash rubbed her front leg with a hoof, looking to the side, in the general direction that Applejack had gone. “Kinda. She travels down some rough roads, and I know that she comes back from every trip all tired and smiling... but what if there’s a day that she doesn’t come back, and I don’t think it’ll be from defending Granny Smith’s pies from bandits.”

Spike had let the newspaper spread on his legs, and his voice was shaky. “Is it really that dangerous? Applejack is going to be okay, right?”

“Nah. She’ll be okay.” Rainbow ruffled Spike’s head. “We’re just worrying over nothing. Applejack’s too tough, Spike. She’s been doing her route for a long time now. Okay, I’m off. Later, Twilight. And you’re welcome.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes. “... For what?”

Rainbow winked. “You’ll see.” And with that she was off, putting on one of her trademark bursts of speed and vanishing towards Sweet Apple Acres.

The baby dragon waved his claws towards Twilight in resemblance of a spooky narrator. “Oooh, ominous, ooooh…”

Twilight rolled her eyes. She got up and discreetly shook her bum to get rid of any grass blades as well as the pins and needles she felt. She levitated Spike on her back and started trotting back to Ponyville.

She gazed up at the sky again as they neared the small town. It was way past noon, the ponies of the town already settling into their routine of a lazy, warm afternoon, eager to put all memories of the winter’s cold behind them. Twilight had wasted—spent a lot more time with Rainbow than she had planned.

She wasn’t entirely out of it. Twilight did notice that a few ponies were forming wells of conversation, but she didn’t care enough to find out what today’s gossip was. Chances were she would meet Rarity tomorrow and know each and every version, whether she wanted to or not. Right now what mattered most was getting her research in high gear.

Twilight had meant to start looking into law books and legal regulations for days… No, scratch that, months now. But something always came up, didn’t it? And if it didn’t she always had something else take priority first. It was weird how her mind worked lately. She wanted to care for her family in the coming trial and she ignored it in favor of looking into historic details that nopony cared for instead or some other triviality.

“Huh. Sugarcube Corner seems to be full. Do you know any of these ponies, Twilight?” Spike asked, but Twilight barely registered him.

A trial that I’m going to set off, she thought. Not for the first time she wondered if she could find the strength to do such a thing. She wondered if she should. She found it very hard to decide if that would be right or wrong. Especially since… She sighed quietly, not wanting to alert Spike that something was wrong. What would happen to her mom? She was involved as well. She was an accomplice.

“Hey, Twilight, is everypony looking a little worried or is it just me?”

Am I hesitating because it isn’t right or because I don’t want to do such a thing to ponies I love in favor of what were almost certainly abominable criminals? She didn’t know, and that was probably why she would tell Princess Celestia everything. Truth had to be the right thing in the end, especially if you weren’t sure.

“Twilight? Do you see this?”

She wasn’t sure, and thus needed advice from… from… she needed to compile a list of transitional spells and make a few tests of her own before she contacted Princess Celestia. If she could figure out a way to halt the effect on a percentile ratio and apply it to certain materials then they might be able to create new combinations that are simply not possible otherwise, like wood with properties of iron or…

Okay, she wanted to ask Princess Celestia something else as well, but what was it again? Well, she could think of it after she finished this. Did she have any paper on her to jot down—

“Twilight!” Spike yelled, pulling her out of her thoughts.

“What is it, Spike?” Twilight asked, already getting lost among book titles and memorized indexes.

“I think we got evicted.”

And pop the bubble goes! Twilight’s head whipped straight up, finally seeing what she was looking at. The Ponyville Library—her home—had its door wide open, but that wasn’t what alarmed her. What alarmed her was the sight of tables, chairs, furniture, and most of all, humongous stacks of books—her books!—out on the ground, barely protected by the harsh elements of the moderate spring day with the aid of some tarps and boxes.

“They threw out my books!” Twilight gasped.

“Well, they put most of them in boxes,” Spike noted, surprisingly docile. “And the books actually belong to—”

“ME! They are my books! Mine!”

“Okay, jeez, don’t bite.”

“Who did this?” she growled, her teeth grinding fiercely and audible enough that Spike covered his sensitive ears with his hands. “I will make them rue the day!”

“We could ask at the Mayor’s office if—”

“RUE!” Twilight snapped, charging into the library, ready to knock some heads, tie some limbs together, and perform impromptu experiments on the flexibility of spines!

Spike’s claws dug into Twilight’s coat, holding himself on her back through the sudden sprint. “Or we can do that instead, why not?”

Twilight ran through the door, a sparkling orb of magic ready to bolt at however many ransackers there were, feeling vindicated on everything terrible she was going to inflict by the sight of an encyclopedia left to fend for itself on the cold, cruel grass. The sight of her beloved home totally bare only served to infuriate her further.

A roar of pain sounded only moments afterwards.

Applejack took her hat off her head. Then, very slowly and very carefully, she peeked around the side of the tree trunk she was huddling behind. Her usual path lay ahead, and besides the swaying branches, what little grass lived here, and the puffs of smoke and fire that rose from the ground, nothing else moved.

“Alright. Seems this place is all chimera free fer now,” she commented to herself. She placed her hat back on her head, her eyes still scanning the area. She didn’t like this one bit. Her route had been surprisingly menace free the last couple of months, excepting the chimera that tended to put up ambushes here. Perhaps the three-headed monster moved away as well. Her gut feeling told her a different story than her eyes and recent experience however, but she couldn’t stay here forever. Besides, it would be worse when night fell. Probably. She hadn’t been caught out here at night ever before, and she wasn’t in the mood to do so now.

She hitched herself back on her pie cart, feeling much better when she was reminded that the cart was empty, and thus much lighter. She would be able to just breeze through. No problem. She did that all the time. Just a little more and she would be back home in a jiffy.

No sense in getting tired without needing to, though. She kept a low pace that allowed her to keep her guard up. The rattle of the wheels and axle was kept quiet enough that she was certain there was no way that creepy, three headed freak was getting the drop on her. Slow and steady wins the race and all that, ask the tortoise.

A loud thump sounded behind her as four legs landed on the path, accompanied by a deafening tiger’s roar, a goat’s bleating, and the hissing of a snake, her dreaded opponent not meaning to go the sneaky route this time.

Ah, seems like it ain’t in the mood to play hide and seek today, Applejack thought as she clamped her teeth shut so as to block that scream of fright.

One of the heads spoke up. Probably that tiger one. It loved to hear itself talk. “So, little pony, what have you brought me to eat? Your very own succulent flesh—”

Yeah, nope. Nope, nope, nope. Nope. “Sorry, all out of pies, gonna get some more, seey’alllater!” she shouted as her precious hoofsies scorched earth with the acceleration she put on, her cart rattling as if it was shaking itself apart.

“Feed me!” All three heads demanded as the chimera pounced after her.

“You can eat my dust all ya’like, how bout them apples?” Applejack shouted back. That was false bravado of course. The chimera had longer strides, it was more rested than Applejack was after spending a day wandering around the nearby villages, and the chimera wasn’t dragging a gosh-darned cart. The monster would get her -eventually.

Thankfully, the big idiot-times-three had chosen the worst possible place to make its ambushes. Applejack saw the tongue of flame in front of a tree she had memorized go out, and started counting down as she headed for a particular spot. Nine, eight, seven…

Her and the cart were clear. She kept running, getting distance between her and the coming fireworks. Four, three. She glanced back, grinning while she still ran. Here comes the flaming geyser, here comes the annoying cat-goat-snake, here comes the part where the chimera moves to the side and avoids the fire spout…

Oh shoot, it finally learned to avoid that trap! After falling for it only seven times. The chimera was learning fast for its kind, but Applejack wasn’t out of tricks yet. She was running out of breath though, and the next geyser was a little too far away. She pushed herself harder. She was gonna do it. All she had to go was go around that pony that appeared in front of her there, and—What?

Oh come on!

The pony had her back turned to her as Applejack rumbled down the path, but the silhouette of that pointy hat was ticklishly familiar enough. The mare turned around just as Applejack reached her, making her starry cloak soar behind her.

“Fear not, hapless citizen. The Great and Powerful Trixie is here to—oh, it’s you…” The former magician was disappointed.

Applejack was forced to stop. Trixie was positioned right in the middle of the path, blocking her. “We gotta run! A chimera is right behind me!” Applejack warned her.

Trixie walked around Applejack and her cart, still frowning. “Yes, yes, I know, I know. Luckily for you, Trixie is here.”

“Trixie’s gonna become lunch if she ain’t gonna listen to me!” Applejack quickly let go of the cart and grabbed Trixie. “Let’s go, ah’ma ditch the cart and we can make a run for it.”

“Will you please calm down? Trixie is prepared for—” The chimera finally reached them, roaring in delight as it spotted them. “Oh, here’s Trixie’s part. Trixie just adores these goosebumps when her turn on the stage comes.” She turned to Applejack for a moment. “You might want to close your eyes when I tell you to.”

“Ya daft mare, it’s going to—”

“I’ll eat you both!”

“...That!”

Trixie didn’t listen or didn’t care for anything Applejack had to say. She stood up on her hind legs, fluttered the long cape behind her, and tilted her conical hat higher. “Behold!” the showmare shouted. “The fabled spell! Triple Power Word Score: Blind!”

A number of flashes went off in front of each of the chimera’s heads, blinding the monster. The monster’s legs dragged on the dirt as it braked down, stopping its chase only meters away from them. Trixie huffed and hit the ground in dismay.

“Oooh, almost there…” Unbelievingly, she closed more of the distance with the chimera while it was busy shaking its heads, trying to regain its sight. The serpentine head of its tail had almost tied itself in a knot with the way it went left and right.

“Excuse me, could you please not take a couple of steps forward? Stay right where you are or else you might be able to bite Trixie.”

“I got you now, tasty pony!” The goat head crowed in joy, falling for the obvious lie. The chimera jumped ahead blindly, and three sets of jaws gnashed on empty air.

“Thank you.” Trixie bowed. Then she turned to Applejack, bringing her hooves in front of her eyes as she did so. “You should close your eyes as well. I hate this part.”

“What in tarnation—Aaaah!” She wished she had taken Trixie’s advice.

A large log swung on ropes tied somewhere on branches above. Applejack barely had time to see that the end of the big trunk had been cut to a rudimentary point before it half-way vanished into the chimera’s body with a sound like a wet paper towel ripping apart, and launched it away from the path. The chimera folded inwards, looking like crumpled paper in that short time before it vanished out of sight, the torso of the monster almost rippling like water as its bones shattered.

“Is it over?” Trixie asked, her eyes still covered.

“Ah, uh… Ah guess so,” Applejack ventured, gulping to keep the bile down.

She watched as a number of ponies came out of the underbrush, most of them covered in black, dark grey, and silver armor. A few waning moon insignias covered the heavy looking armor, armor that looked way more robust and surprisingly more plain than what she was used to seeing. Applejack was certainly no expect, but it looked thicker than normal though that might be because there seemed to be some kind of brownish layer beneath, and the little hint she got of the edge of the material felt distantly familiar. Everypony wore a dark green, splotched cloak over them that had hidden them amazingly effectively in the underbrush.

“Alright, Breeze and Limit, let’s make sure it’s dead. Blank Slate and Red Dawn, make a couple of rounds, make sure nothing else is here.” Applejack recognized the voice of the mare that gave the orders.

“Leaf Stream?”

Leaf Stream barely glanced at her before continuing on her way to where the chimera had vanished. “Oh, hey, Apples. Nice running. You really know how to shake that tushy. Sorry, can’t talk now. We got a corpse to retrieve. Hey, Trixie, you’re in luck! I think it missed the firepit. It’s all in one piece. Guess who’s getting her armor soon.”

Trixie gagged. “No thank you. Trixie will stick with her old hat and cloak.”

“I’ll let ya talk that out with the boss, let me know how it goes,” Leaf Stream smirked before she vanished. “Now go and escort Apples home. We’ll catch up.”

The two hatted mares exchanged a look. “Mah name is not Apples. It’s Applejack,” The farmer corrected before Trixie could talk.

The cyan mare rolled her eyes. “Of course, how could Trixie forget.” Applejack could only stare as the queen of pots dared to call her a kettle.

Applejack huffed as she got back into position to drag the empty applepie cart. “Ah don’t need an escort. Ah’m heading straight to Ponyville.”

“Trixie will escort you only up to the next town anyway,” Trixie said, following Applejack’s slow pace by her side. “This was Trixie’s team last assignment. We knew we kept missing this chimera. The Lunar Guard is now getting some well-earned vacation.”

“Vacation?”

Trixie nodded. “Princess Celestia’s idea from what I heard. Every few months we’re all to take some time off. Trixie is only too glad for this. Some time to relax will be splendid.”

Applejack swallowed the chuckle before it surfaced. “And y’all vacation at the next town over?” Trixie nodded. “Ya know what the next town’s called?”

Trixie’s pursed her lips, perplexed. “Trixie hasn’t asked actually, but it was Princess Luna’s idea to rest there. She wanted us to stay together for the first year at the very least. I suppose some quiet, backwater…” She noticed Applejack’s shaking mouth as the apple farmer stifled her laughter. “No!”

“Eeyup.”

“But… She’s there! And if Trixie gets there, and she sees Trixie, and Raegdan will be there…” Trixie’s face twisted in terror. “I’m a dead mare!”

When Twilight charged into her ravaged and depressingly empty home, three things happened almost at once.

First, she noticed how everything had been moved out, leaving her usually small yet homey library feel almost cavernous. She noticed the missing planks on the floor, the smell of cut and broken wood, and the wholesale destruction that reigned around her.

Then, she spotted Raegdan and Luna at the other end, near the staircase. All their focus was engrossed in what they were doing, but Luna was positioned just so that she saw Twilight and Spike gallop inside. Luna’s attention wavered, and that lead to the third and final act.

The shift of Luna’s attention wasn’t missed by Raegdan. He looked up and started to turn around. This proved to be his undoing. Twilight and Spike could do naught but watch the tragedy unfold before their eyes.

Raegdan’s hand had shifted too much as he tried to awkwardly turn around enough to see behind him, unable to see with his right eye. It left him vulnerable to the mass of iron. The hammer was already coming down, Luna’s strike already in progress and she could not hope to stop it in time. The blunt metal struck, ignoring the leather armor, smashing flesh and bone, and crunching through the meagre protection of ceratin. The brown leather was immediately tainted with bright red, darkening as its inner side absorbed the precious fluid.

Raegdan released the nail he was holding in position and clutched his pained finger, roaring in pain. “You’re supposed to strike the iron nail, not the fingernail, you little b—”

“Raegdan.” Luna pointed behind him, cutting him off and biting her lips. She, like Raegdan, was covered in wood shavings and sawdust.

Twilight’s adopted father turned around. “Oh! Uh… little beautiful princess, that’s what I was going to say. Hey, Twilight. Hey, little flame.” Raegdan spread his arms, showcasing their empty, half torn home. “Surprise!”

“Dad?”

“Wha- What are you doing here?” Twilight asked aghastly.

Raegdan looked around, then smiled. “I told you, didn’t I? Either you fix your home or I do it for you.”

“How is this fixing?”

Twilight got her first honest glimpse of Raegdan’s hands for the first time ever he came out of Charybdis. After a lot of fussing from Spike, as well as declarations of ‘you don’t trust me?’ and puppy eyes, Raegdan broke down and allowed the baby dragon to bandage his trashed finger.

Spike, to his credit, didn’t comment further than, “It kinda looks like when you stay too long in water,” when he saw his hand. The flesh was discolored, wrinkled, and a small piece of tissue, about the size of a nut, had been removed from the side of his palm, near the thumb. All in all, it looked like somepony went wild on him with a knife and a sharp spoon.

Twilight was worried a little over Spike, but then she figured out that the baby dragon had seen Raegdan get hurt too many times to either worry or let his apprehension show. Spike removed the fingernail shards with a pair of tweezers, then expertly placed a thin gauze over it and bandaged it. Twilight could barely watch the proceedings. She had no idea how Spike and Raegdan kept joking while this view was under their noses.

The unicorn decided to fuss over the kitchen instead. Luckily, nothing in there had been touched so she quickly made four cups of tea, sitting down on the table with her unexpected guests to enjoy.

“Spike, could you go outside and make sure that none of the books are damaged?”

The little dragon obediently slipped off from his seat on Raegdan’s knees. “Sure thing, Twilight. I’ll be right back, Dad.”

Twilight waited until she heard the door leading outside close before she swung back to Raegdan, taking a calming breath. “Not that I am not glad to see you both, but would it have killed you to warn me of this? You remember what I asked you, right? About Spike?”

Raegdan and Luna exchanged a glance; they knew she would say that, Twilight was immediately certain, and right now they were hoping they had the right excuse. “We wanted to surprise you,” Raegdan said. “Warning you wouldn’t let us do that.”

“So instead we sought permission to do as thus from the alternate guardians you had established,” Luna continued.

“Exactly,” Raegdan latched on. “We talked to Celestia and your mum, and they said it would be fine. We got in touch with Rainbow Dash and—”

“Rainbow Dash knew you were coming?” Twilight thought back to Rainbow’s insistence that they both come watch her flying routines even though it was obvious she had barely anything new to show, as well as her not-so-cryptic-now remarks. “And she stalled us!” Twilight bristled.

“Right. We wanted to make sure Spike and you would come back together. See, littl- Twilight? I did as you said, right? I can stick around as long as it’s both of you, right?”

Twilight gave it a moment’s thought; she didn’t expect him doing that. She believed at first that he had decided to barge in and ask for forgiveness instead of permission. What was happening was actually quite unexpected. Now that she thought about it… She searched around, hoping that Spike left his little project laying around again. He did, just like she suspected. She pulled the album to her and opened it at random. Every small mention of the Lunar Guard, Princess Luna, and Raegdan that had been printed in any magazine or newspaper was in here. “I’ve noticed that there hasn’t been anything far-fetched in the newspapers about either of you.”

Luna half hid her face behind her cup. “We… have been doing our best to follow the lessons and advice of you and your friends. It hasn’t been easy, but… we do our best.” She cleared her throat and turned her eyes away. “Our guards have been of great help, and their… I suppose some would call what they do at times insubordination, but they show an amazing amount of initiative and we welcome it.”

“And the sudden stream of weekly letters from both of you, was that their idea as well?” Twilight asked.

“Twilight, I know I should have- It would have been better off if I had thought of doing that a little sooner…” Raegdan said.

“You mean on Spike’s birthday?”

Raegdan nodded, the tightness around what little was shown of his mouth because of the cloth mask betraying his guilt..

“Twilight Sparkle, neither of us has ever had reason to- to send letters or keep in touch.” Luna stepped in again when she saw that Raegdan was going to say nothing more. “We are making amends now though. Surely that won’t weigh against us?”

The girls had told Twilight that they received letters from Raegdan and Luna as well. A lot of times, when they were meeting either at a cafe or at each other’s places, they would bring the latest ones along to let Twilight and Spike know as much as possible as to what was happening in Raegdan’s life. After the initial joy diminished Twilight and the girls couldn’t help but notice how poor their contents were. It was painfully obvious that neither of the two had any experience or idea as to what to write about. Many of their letters were questions like, ‘What’s the best recipe for chocolate biscuits?’ to Pinkie Pie or ‘What goes best with dark blue?’ to Rarity. Truth be told, they reminded Twilight of herself and that humiliating incident when she was certain she just had to send a friendship report to the Princess weekly. It was all too easy to picture both of them sitting opposite each other on a table, wracking their brains over sheets of paper and trying to come up with topics to write about, even matters they cared little about just to keep the conversation flowing.

“Don’t both of you have your duties to attend to instead of ruining my home? What about all these monster like the one Rainbow Dash told us about? Why did Luna come along -no offense, princess- if you…”

Twilight blinked. She leaned toward the Alicorn, seeing the sawdust still clinging on her dark-blue coat like the glazing of a donut, and the black crown atop her head that bared a crescent moon in the center.

Reality registered.

“Why is a princess doing carpentry in my house?” Twilight freaked out.

“Can’t one have a hobby?” The dusty princess joked. “My sister and I have come to an accord, actually. Under her insistence, and that of certain individuals, the Lunar Guard and the two of us are to take a two week vacation every six months at the very least.”

“Which is kind of bullcrap, since she doesn’t do that herself,” Raegdan added. He got up from his chair and stood at the small kitchen’s threshold, peeking towards the main door. “So, short notice, but do you mind if the two of us crash here, Twilight?”

“B- But I don’t have space or a proper room for a princess—I’ve only got one extra bed and it’s in my room!”

“You do have space in the basement. We can stay there. It’s just two weeks after all,” Raegdan insisted.

“We don’t wish to be a nuisance, Raegdan,” Luna told him at once. “We shall find other accommodations for ourselves, much like our guards.”

“No, no! You can stay!” Twilight was getting frazzled. “But I need to find cots, and clean up, and—”

“We will provide for ourselves, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said, her lips curling in a simple smile while her eyes shined far more brilliantly. “Do you mind if Raegdan leaves us to give Spike the good news?”

“Sure, that’s fine,” Twilight permitted, but was quick to add, ”But no celebrations by dragging each other anywhere! Go help him make sure my books are in good condition.”

Raegdan saluted. “I hear and obey, young lady.” He left the kitchen, and loudly added from the main hall so he could be heard, “Don’t library books actually belong to—”

“Me!” Twilight snapped, hearing him laugh before the door slammed close. She waited patiently, watching Luna, and recognizing the way the princess stood still and waiting until she heard the faded murmurs of Spike and Raegdan talking outside.

“It’s pretty funny how both of them fall for the same trick, isn’t it?” Twilight commented, causing Luna to jump at the realization that her ploy had been evident. “Is there something you don’t want Raegdan to know?”

Luna put down her cup after taking a large sip, mindless of the beverage’s heat. “No. But there are topics he hates and disrupts if he’s around. You are aware of the term of masks, are you not?”

Twilight winced. She should have seen this coming. She had thought about it, and was considering sending a letter to Princess Celestia, but she just couldn’t figure out what to say. Heyo, Sun Princess. I was out today, having fun with my friends and pretending to run away from a facsimile of your sister’s blue period so she wouldn’t gobble us up, and I thought, ‘Hey, maybe Luna wouldn’t quite appreciate that and it doesn’t quite help her, does it?’Just thought I’d let you know. P.S. Nopony really likes Sun Lollipops. Maybe you should look into that as well. It lacked a certain tact.

“Erm, in ponies’ defense, nopony has proposed of using your picture in making Nightmare Night costumes, Princess…” Twilight wanted to bash her head on the table, even if it meant that would drive her teacup up her nostril and far further than ponies were ever meant to go in olfaction expeditions.

The dark blue Alicorn’s normally stoic face betrayed a rare moment of complete confusion before she chuckled. “Perhaps not in Ponyville, but I assure you, they did elsewhere. Nevertheless, it is of little matter, and I am too weary of listening to my sister’s endless apologies for not catching up to what Nightmare Night celebrations really entailed before they had become too widespread. No, I am talking of masks in the manner of personality. The masks we put on during our life.”

“Oh, yes. I’ve read a little on this, though I don’t subscribe to that philosophy.”

“You do not?” Luna raised an eyebrow, lifting her teacup for another sip. “Do you mean that you address and talk to my sister the same way you do, say, your friend, Pinkie Pie?”

“Well… No. But that’s not really the same, is it? I’m not putting up a false front.”

“Yes, I can see how the connotations brought forth by the term would make you think that,” Luna almost muttered as she tilted her head in thought. “But if you think of them as not something false, but merely… configurations?” she absently asked. “Yes, configurations of you. What and how you choose to act and react to ponies or situations?”

“I don’t quite agree with that,” Twilight countered, getting swayed into a debate with the relief of doing something familiar. “Ponies put on those masks when they also try to act unlike as they are, don’t they? A pony wishing to portray himself or herself in a certain way will adopt, to the degree they are capable of, personality and behavioral traits and quirks which are normally absent, minimized, or exaggerated.”

“But does not the act of creating this mask make one own it and thus part of one’s self?”

Twilight stalled for a second as she thought of a counterargument. She hadn’t thought of it like this. “Perhaps. But owning up to a lie doesn’t make it true.”

“I concede to this, but we are not talking of factual truths.” Luna emptied her teacup and brought it around Twilight and to the sink with her magic. Luna’s magic field tickled her head near her left ear as the teacup passed way too close, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. If nothing else, Twilight almost felt as if a headache she hadn’t noticed relaxed a little.

Luna continued talking after depositing the cup among the unwashed plates. “Our personalities and who we are shifting continuously. What is true today might not be as true tomorrow, and you can’t identify all personal traits as present or not present. There are too many degrees. The masks we wear shift these. Especially if you wear them for too long or have too many.”

Twilight’s lips became a straight line. “You’re talking about Raegdan, I assume?”

“And myself. Perhaps even my sister as well. You are familiar with at least three masks she wears, according to Raegdan. The mask of the Princess, the mask of the Mentor, and the mask of the Princess Who’s Not The Princess.”

Memories of Princess Celestia flooded Twilight’s mind. Moments where they all sat on the table together, when she laughed and played with her, Spike, and Raegdan, memories of snowball fights and lakeshore visits. Days when the Princess acted unlike her position and station, laughing instead of smiling.

“That is not- That is who Princess Celestia really is!”

“I take it then that you propose that her personality as a ruler is false?” Luna’s smile was unsure, as if she was undecided on which answer she’d rather hear.

“I… No. Of course not. Princess Celestia really is…” Twilight paused. “I see the point you are making,” she admitted.”But if these masks can be removed, changed, or discarded, then in the end they are just that: masks. They hide, reveal, or lie. Most of all, they would constrict. They would only be something of temporary value. In the end who you are reveals itself.”

“Perhaps there doesn’t have to be one true mask or a real face beneath. What if all of them are true or parts of the greater whole? Celestia acts differently to me when we’re alone than she does to you. Does that mean that she’s lying to me?”

“I don’t believe so,” Twilight replied, and then her eyes flashed. “But that would be the kind of question that only the individual could answer. ‘Which mask is closest to the real self?’ And like real masks, maybe not everypony owns one. What about you and your masks?”

Luna chuckled. “Oh, I have mine. Many of them, wildly different from each other, and I will be honest-” Luna’s expression became somber once more. “I have no clue as if to which if them is closer to the true me and which is a fabrication. I am desperately trying to figure out which is worse; that all of them are true or only one of them and I know not which. It is worrying when I think of it, and lately I’ve been thinking of this matter too often.”

Twilight moved from her chair across Luna to sit next to her instead. “Does this have to do with your past?”

Luna rubbed her eyes with her hooves, letting them rest there and leaning her weight on the short table. “Past, present… Future, hopefully. Where do I go from here? Who do I wish to be? I’ve made no secret of how glad I am to have Raegdan, how wonderful it is to have somepony that won’t judge my behavior and actions, but understand.”

Twilight didn’t respond vocally. She nodded, even though the princess couldn’t see her, but hoping the Alicorn sensed the movement, and placed a hoof comfortably on her back, a short distance higher than her wings.

“And it occurs to me that as glad as I am to have this comfort as it entails to my past and present,” Luna continued through the darkness she had placed herself in, “That I now have the choice to undo, not my past actions, but what lead me there. I can change my future. I don’t have to be lonely or hide anymore. I don’t have to push myself over my limits, I don’t have to break my mind as I try to make sense of what is right or wrong on my own. And I don’t mean that only because I have Raegdan now, even though he has been my pillar.”

“You mean your guards,” Twilight remarked. “But then, why didn’t you seek help from the previous ones?” Luna lowered her hooves enough to cast a questioning glance. “The Thestral ones. I was told about them. Was it because they died so—”

“No.” Luna’s hooves landed back down on the table with a thump, and she stared at nothing with an expression of anger. “It was because I believed I was fine. I was fine, and I found myself surrounded by blinding support beyond my wildest dreams, and then I wanted more, far more. I discovered greed. I wanted things I didn’t understand or deserved.” Luna took a deep breath. “I’m not… Nightmare Moon was only my second greatest mistake.”

“What do you mean?” Twilight was shocked by this statement.

“Have you ever felt… anger? True anger? The kind that opens your eyes even as it blinds you?” Luna asked, eyes vacant.

Her blood ran cold in her veins, and her mind was as still as a frozen pond. She had a clarity of thought unlike anything she felt before, she saw everything through a crystal lens full of angles and sharpened edges. She had a purpose in mind, and a drive as solid as the coldest ice.

“I… I have,” Twilight admitted. She remembered Raegdan falling on his side, a piece of metal plunged through his helmet’s eye slits. “A couple of times.”

“As did I. Once. Just once.” Luna sighed and shook her head, afterimages of the stars in her mane straying behind like stardust tails. “The point I am making is that I did not nor could I think like this back then. But now I finally do, and I have Raegdan, I have my guards, I am trying to be closer to Celestia once more, like I should have always been…” Luna glanced shyly at Twilight. “And I hope that I can have the aid and friendship of your friends and you. I was never happy, Twilight Sparkle. Not once, not since I was a filly. Then Raegdan came along, but still I’m…”

Twilight waited patiently, wanting to let Luna speak on her own terms and pace. The wait stretched, and Twilight chanced a guess. “But there’s a problem.”

Luna moved to the small kitchen window, and looked outside through the glass. “Maybe. Maybe not. It could only be a matter of patience. If we all wear masks, can we change them, and how long will it take? Is it even possible or can we suppress the unwanted ones at best? And if they do not exist, what then? What if the real face cannot change?” Luna sidled to the right, trying to get a better view of the front of the Library. “Have you ever wondered if there’s a difference between being happy and believing you ought to be?”

“Hmm? Well, that would be quite obvious, wouldn’t it?” Twilight proposed immediately, but as soon as she spoke she started wondering as well. She thought she had been happy right before coming to Ponyville, even if all she had were her books and nopony else but Spike and her lessons. Then she gained her friends, her wonderful friends, and then happiness really entered her life again. A happiness that had diminished so greatly once before. When she had so little she really thought she had enough. She wondered, by that logic, did what she have now was true happiness? Or was it her believing once more that she had to be?

She had been lost in thought for a minute there, and when she came to Luna was looking at her with a knowing smile. “Why don’t we go outside and see how the young drake has taken to the news?” she proposed.

Twilight rubbed her forehead, torn between laughing civilly or becoming a spectacle as she rolled on the ground and died an ignominious death by sheer chucklery. “Just… Just what did… did you tell him?” she managed.

“I didn’t do anything. I only told him that we’re staying here for two weeks, which apparently turned him into some kind of leech! I never taught him anything like this. Get him off!”

“Spike,” Twilight managed to choke out, fighting her amusement. “Spike, come on down now.”

The baby dragon tightened his hold around Raegdan’s head in response, and his tail wrapped around the closest available surface that it could get a good grip around. “No.” Spike’s answer was muffled by the black cloth on Raegdan’s head that he clung to. “If I do, and something comes up, then he’ll leave again!”

Twilight huffed, her humor gone just as it arrived, and shot Raegdan a glance that said, See, this is why I put up these rules. You’re hurting him. “Spike, he won’t do that. Even if something comes up these are his vacation days. He’d come back as soon as he’s done. You’re getting two weeks with him no matter what. Raegdan, explain it to him.”

Raegdan was doing his best to gently remove the surprisingly strong dragon tail wrapped around his windpipe. “... Choking…”

Luna spoke up. “Young drake, did he have a chance to tell you that he’s planning to do more than repairing and maintaining your household? He has plans to build you your own room as well.”

Spike’s eyes went wide and he jumped down on the grass, the wheeze of Raegdan’s lungs filling up desperately with air accompanying the muffled thud of Spike’s landing. “Really? I’m getting my own room?”

Raegdan nodded and coughed. “Yeah -cough-. Second fl-cough-floor.” He pointed at two massive branches, horizontal to each other and at the aforementioned floor’s level. “I’ll use them as the main support beams for the floor -cough- and it will let you have plenty of space on your own.”

“Shouldn’t we hire some ponies to help?” Twilight asked, dubious of Raegdan’s ability to do as he claimed. He never showed any propensity towards this kind of work -though of course there was that hidden room in Luna’s chamber, she reminded herself.

“It will be fine,” Raegdan said, rubbing his neck and raising his shirt as high as possible while making sure the cloth of his mask hid it from view. “I was doing construction work before… stuff. You know. I’m no architect, but I can build a room no problem. Cast Iron ordered enough lumber and tools to get me started at least. Everything will be here tomorrow. I’m almost finished with the staircase, most of the steps were too old and creaked too much, or they were loose. And some of your bookcases shake too much, so I’ll fix them up as well. The floor on the second level needs work as well. Your bed is fine, but your mattress is a lost cause. How old is that thing? I was tempted to ask Luna if she recognized it. We can go buy a new one when we go get a bed for little flame as well in a few days. In fact, we should just replace everything. Have you noticed how your kitchen table wobbles?”

Twilight blinked, hearing the description of everything he found at fault in less than a day and wincing. She knew that her house needed repairs, but never thought it was quite that bad. Raegdan did give her the means when he gave her all these bits months ago, but she just hadn’t had the time, and it was all too easy to postpone it for the future.

“Am I really getting my own place then?” Spike asked full of excitement.

Raegdan picked up Spike and lifted him to his shoulders to ride. “Isn’t that what I said, little flame? We will have to pick up some stuff to fill it up as well. A bookcase for your comics, toys, and everything else you want.”

“I haven’t spent any of the bits you gave me,” Twilight said, “So if you can really do most of the work then there will be plenty left over for that.”

“Keep it,” Raegdan said. He half-hopped in place, making Spike jump as he was on his shoulders and laugh. “I’ll do all the paying. What else am I going to spend my salary on? Lunar Guard, remember? Everyone gets paid, a lot actually, including me. I don’t have anything to waste it on.”

Twilight hummed nervously, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to convince him otherwise in a thousand years. At least she could make sure they had the best time possible while here. She’d have to make sure that Raegdan didn’t burn all of his time into working on her home, and that he and Luna actually did a few things for fun. She smiled as she thought of all these things she wished she could share with Raegdan and now realized that she could. They could spend some normal, harmless time with her friends, show him and Luna around… She would be able to give Luna a place where she could feel welcomed if she played her cards right!

She watched as Raegdan picked Spike up and played a game of throwing him gently at Luna, only for her to catch him in her magic and throw him back, the baby dragon laughing and whooping joyfully, especially as Raegdan started spinning him and throwing him in more diverse ways as his confidence in Luna’s catching abilities grew.

She’d missed him. As much as she grumbled, as angry and disappointed as she was, no matter how Raegdan failed to live to her expectations, she was happy to see him. Good or not, it didn’t matter. He was family.

She started to wonder if the expectations she had of him were too much. That her anger in him refusing to change his ways was unjust. For how long had Raegdan worn that mask of violence that slipped on so easily? It would take far longer than a few paltry weeks, months, or even years for him to adjust and leave it aside, and she had been a fool to think otherwise. She should have seen this sooner; there was her answer now for Princess Celestia’s limitless patience. Why the reigning Alicorn kept giving him chance after chance, proclaiming each one the last. Why she kept pushing him steadily, but softly.

Twilight’s smile faltered for a moment. Raegdan had his own masks. Which one was the real one? Was this Raegdan, the one who laughed along with Luna and Spike the real one? Or was it the other one, the one who craned his neck as he decided if he should hurt his victim some more or end it? Was it someone else she had never known or were all of them?

Did it really matter though? The decision was whether to keep trying, no matter how long it took, or give up, and she knew as she watched the three of them play, that she was going to try yet again. She was going to keep trying until… Well, it didn’t matter. That was in the future, and it would come when she was ready. Now, she had other things to care for.

A complained groan announced that Twilight’s stomach was empty. Right, a proper meal for her, Spike, and both her guests. She left them at their game and walked around the large boxes to head back inside and see what she could prepare. She was pretty certain that her pantry was almost empty, and having missed the market there was no way to replenish it now, but perhaps she had enough to make something.She was at the door when rumbling hoofsteps announced somepony was approaching rapidly. She turned around.

“...Trixie?”

The showmare -no, former showmare- had become a Lunar Guard as Rainbow Dash told her, much to Twilight’s disbelief. Still, the mare didn’t seem to have changed that much at first glance. She still wore her hat and garish cape as usual, but a deeper look showed subtle changes. Her legs were no longer wiry and uncomfortably lean. Trixie’s face was a little fuller, and her body had filled out more.

Of course, most intriguing -and worrisome- of all was the way Trixie breathed in and out loudly, and the sweat she was drenched in.

“Twi- Twilight Spark -huuungh!- Sparkle! I need a -wheeew- a favor. OhCelestiaI’mdying…” Trixie wheezed, almost falling over.

“What happened?” Twilight was fully worried now. “Take a few breaths, calm down.” Trixie did as she was told, and Twilight didn’t push her to talk until after she stopped sounding asthmatic. “Now, what was is this about?”

Twilight’s face became trapped between Trixie’s hooves as the show magician caught her by the cheeks and squeezed. “You must never tell Raegdan that I intended to seek revenge on you!” Trixie’s muzzle was undignified close, and either she let up soon or there would be rumors starting.

“Fwou didth?”

“If he finds out Trixie joined the Lunar Guard because Trixie was hoping to learn spells to crush your arrogance with, he is going to kill Trixie!” Trixie’s fear in her eyes was all too real. The mare was panicking. “Trixie knows that she’s giving you the perfect weapon to use against Trixie, but surely you wouldn’t let Trixie suffer like-”

A towering alien stood behind Trixie like a menacing shadow. Twilight suffocated in an intense sense of deja vu. Trixie spotted Twilight’s change of focus, and with an expression of surrender and misery, turned to face her fate.

A hand descended on her, lightly knocked Trixie’s conical hat away… and then ruffled her hair playfully. Raegdan turned to Twilight, his hand still patting Trixie’s head. “Twilight, little flame and Luna are getting hungry. Are you in the mood to go to a restaurant?”

Her surprise held her back for a second, but then she remembered her empty fridge. “Uh, sure. Dinner out sounds great.”

“Alright.” Raegdan grabbed Trixie’s horn and turned her head upwards. “Do you want to tag along, Trixie? We got room for more.”

“No, thank you,” Trixie said, white-faced and sounding sick. “Trixie would… Trixie would like to go lie down for a while, rest, and come to terms with her mortality.”

Raegdan and Twilight watched her go, the trembling of her legs causing her to sway a couple of times. “She’s a weird one, isn’t she?” Raegdan said with a mischievous glint in his eye.

Twilight waited for everypony to finish reading the menu and make their choices before she went up to order. She was going to order the same as always herself. She just hoped she’d be able to control herself and not bathe her fellow diners in sprays of ketchup as she massacred her hay burgers. She couldn’t help herself. They were just so good!

She looked around, feeling a tinge of mirth at how every other customer looked with wonder at the sight of a Princess putting down the normal menu in order to go over the kiddie’s menu once more. If there was one more thing she liked about Luna was how she shared Twilight’s own taste in food, although the Alicorn was still experimenting and discovering new tastes. While Luna took formal and informal settings in stride, Twilight had the distinct feeling that the Night Princess had no preference for either but favored what she was already familiar with. But in all, going to the local junk food restaurant instead of a fancy one was far preferable for all involved, even if there was a princess among them. It was much cozier and friendly.

“I was really impressed with how you dealt with Trixie,” Twilight told Raegdan.

Raegdan was fussing with his cloth mask. Every once in awhile the motion of talking or turning his head would start to move the holes he had opened for his mouth and eyes, and he had to reposition it carefully. “What, you mean not ripping her a new one?”

“Ripping her a new what?” Spike asked.

“Cloak,” Raegdan answered immediately. “Rip her cloak and then she would have two.”

“I mean not being violent and handling it maturely, even though you were a little mean scaring her like that.”

Raegdan leaned sideways to peek at what Luna was looking at exactly, and the Alicorn absently pushed him back to his place as to not block her light. “Eh, I’ve been waiting for the chance to do that. It was just as funny as I thought it would be. Little show off has been scared of this moment for months. If I talked it out with her nicely she would think I was setting her up for worse.” He rested his weight on his elbows. “Mind you, if she was ever even remotely a real danger to you she’d be right to be scared.”

“But she wasn’t and thus had nothing to fear,” Luna commented. “What’s more, she is one of our trusted guards. We would have surely credited her with some sympathy or sway her from her goals instead.” She glanced at Raegdan, her eyes narrowing forbiddingly.

“Right, sure. But some things are just…”

“What?” Luna asked.

“Inexcusable,” Raegdan answered.

Luna put down the menu and leaned back with a mirthless look of fake amusement. “Oh, this will be good. And pray tell, how would we define ‘inexcusable’? As an act done to you and yours from others instead of the other way around?”

Raegdan crossed his arms. “You know what? That’s exactly how we would. Or don’t we have the right to choose what we or how much we can take or not now? Although, perhaps I should say ‘I’ instead?”

“If this is the choice to harm Trixie for being angry at losing all her worldly possessions and way of income then perhaps that right should be reconsidered.”

“Oh, boo hoo. Yeah, she really got screwed, didn’t she? Let’s make a song to commemorate her troubles, why don’t we?” Raegdan said sarcastically.

Luna frowned, angry. “I thought we agreed that we shall no longer make judgements pertaining to extremes that don’t apply—”

“No, we didn’t!” Raegdan snapped back. “That was just you making like a puppy and lapping every single piece of crap that—”

Luna’s hoof struck the table. “You will watch your next words very carefully! I don’t lower myself to childish insults and I expect you to do likewise as much as you are able!”

“Oh, and raining down that subtle scorn is so much better? You know, as much as ‘I am able’ to understand of it?” Raegdan grumbled.

Luna raised herself up. “I never did this and if I did you know full well it was not meant this way! Don’t put words in my mouth!”

Reagdan stood as well, towering over her. “I never mean any swears either and you know it as well! You never told me you minded! I’m not a fucking mind reader!”

“... Please stop fighting...” Spike begged timidly, using the words that Twilight was too afraid at the moment to say, only willing to be a frightened bystander.

Both Raegdan and Luna stared at Spike for a few seconds before looking at their legs as if surprised they were no longer sitting. They fell back on their stools as one, Luna quickly hiding behind an upside-down menu.

“Everypony’s staring at us,” Twilight warned them.

“Our apologies,” Luna half-mumbled, gazing at the floor behind her cover. “We were not fighting, young drake. We tend to get a bit loud and forgot where we stood.”

“You were both getting quite flustered…” Twilight eked out.

“For what? Trixie?” Raegdan asked, and he quickly chuckled along with Luna, exchanging a glance. “Like I don’t get in disagreements with anyone else ever.”

Yes, with Princess Celestia after I left, Twilight thought but didn’t say out loud. You never outright clashed with Luna as far as I’ve seen. You always obeyed her without question. At least… that was what she had witnessed thus far, and watching them go back to their previous behavior with no hitch forced her to acknowledge that she probably didn’t know as much as she thought she did. Raegdan was already poking Luna on the ribs, calling her a slowpoke and telling her to choose already, while Luna was doing her best to retain her austere facade and stop her lips from trembling as she forced her smile down unsuccessfully.

“I would like to try one of each of these if you please, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna finally requested, underlining each item on the menu with a visible line of her magic. Twilight memorized them, gulping at the sheer volume. Either Luna would prove herself an eater worthy of Pinkie Pie or there would be enough leftovers to last her a month of mid-night binges.

“I’ll take my usual,” Spike ordered.

“Raegdan?” Twilight asked.

The tall alien did his best to get comfortable on the stool that was a little too small for him. “Anything that isn’t made with hay or flowers.” At least apart from this requirement he wasn’t a fussy eater.

Twilight moved to the end of the line, where she waited patiently for her turn. She did her best to ignore any murmurs that were still going on or the new ones that started every time a new pony entered and saw the infamous princess and the unusual being seated next to her. But Ponyville residents were, for good or bad, used to a higher rank of weirdness than the average pony, and after noticing Spike sitting affably on the same table they turned back to their own business. Twilight wasn’t sure how she felt about that, ‘Ah. Twilight Sparkle again,’ that they voiced.

The little bell over the door ringed again, and Twilight ignored it once again. Then she felt somepony getting uncomfortably close and she realized that the worst pony possible was right behind her, having decided to finally give Twilight a turn.

This is not going to end well…

“Who’s that?” Raegdan asked, his eyes mere slits.

Spike looked where his father was staring like a dragon whose hoard was being messed with. “Who, him?” Spike pointed at the white coated pegasus with the receding black mane that was determined to make Twilight pay attention to him. “That’s Laughter. Merry Laughter. He’s a nurse at the Ponyville hospital.” If Dad keeps looking at him like that then knowing the ponies who work there might prove lifesaving to him…

“Does he often try to… get temperature readings from ponies that are not his patients?” Luna asked, noticing how the pegasus was getting closer and closer to Twilight, forcing her to backstep all the while.

Spike clicked his talons together, wary of what he should say. “He’s a cool nurse and all. Very good and professional, at least that’s what everypony says. It’s just that…”

“That?” Raegdan prodded.

Spike winced. “He flirts a little too heavy-hoofed when not on call,” Spike admitted. “He’s funny and all, but uh, I don’t talk to him that much since Rarity told me what she thinks of him and his manners. You’re not gonna do anything, right? He’s not hurting anypony.”

It was entirely obvious that Raegdan wanted to, but to Spike’s surprise he shook his head, glancing momentarily at Luna who nodded in satisfaction. “Nah. Twilight can deal with him if he gets too much.” Raegdan frowned with distaste. “I’m going to the bathroom. The less I see, the better. Let me know if she ends up giving him a couple of shiners.”

His father-figure left the table and headed for the bathroom in the back. Spike felt a little bit of relief. Twilight was making such a fuss lately about dad and how he acted that she would only get angry if dad was being over-protective again, Spike internally grumbled. He couldn’t understand what had gotten into her. That’s how dad was, and he didn’t see her making a fuss when it turned out that being like that was helpful. Dad was doing his best to take care of them. How was that fair?

Spike turned back to see how Twilight fared, and he witnessed Merry Laughter’s terrible mistake. He looked behind him with a grimace; unfortunately for Merry Laughter, Raegdan saw it too.

“I already told you that I am not interested,” Twilight said with saint-like patience. If this creep tried to creep any closer to her again, she would lose her place in line. Did nopony tell him about personal space before or did he attend the same school as Pinkie Pie?

“You don’t sound so good,” Merry Laughter smirked. “I think you’re suffering from a lack of vitamin me.”

“Suffering is the right word…” Twilight looked at the ‘golden’ medallion that Merry Laughter wore at his chest with distaste. She could spot the flakes of paint crumbling, revealing the cheap tin beneath.

“Come on, don’t be like that. I’ve got some books at my place. Why don’t you come over and we can read them together?” Merry Laughter didn’t exactly leer, despite how it sounded, but right underneath his words was the implication that he didn’t really think of what he said because he was too busy staring at Twilight’s best points, and none of them involved any on her face.

“I can imagine what books you have. Can you take a step back?”

“I have in mint condition the first edition of ‘Shagger—”

“No! That wasn’t a request to tell me!”

“See, this is why we could fit together so well. I like you. You’re feisty!” Merry Laughter said, and taking courage from the fact that Twilight hadn’t slapped him yet, he slapped her instead. On her flank.

Twilight’s eyes widened at the sheer disbelief of the stallion’s lack of manners and very poor timing. “You didn’t…” Then she heard death coming.

Tables, stools, flyers, ponies, and half-eaten food flew in the air as Raegdan bulldozed his way through the restaurant hall in a straight line, his sole eye blazing with bloodlust while his roars sealed what the offending pegasus’ fate would be as soon as he wrapped his hands around his throat.

“I WILL FUCKING MURDER YOU!”

Twilight pushed Merry Laughter away, and shouted the only useful advice for this situation before trying to run interference.

“Run!”

Applejack walked leisurely next to Rainbow Dash, describing the rest of her relatively undisturbed route, her run-in with the Lunar Guard excluded, when they spotted Merry Laughter running out of a fast food restaurant like his tail was on fire and jumping to the air.

“What’s up with that creep?” Applejack asked.

“Maybe he messed with the wrong mare again? But then,” Rainbow grinned, “we’re both here!”

Then a table smashed through the restaurant’s window, barely missing them. They looked on in wonder as Raegdan jumped through the broken glass, keeping his arms folded in front of his head to protect himself from any remaining glass, landed on the road, and searched around him. He spotted the fleeing figure at once, and before Merry Laughter could get too far, Raegdan had pulled back the stool he was holding on his right hand and launched it at the flying pegasus, nailing him on the head and causing him to crash land on a roof with a pained yelp.

“If you like asses so much I’m gonna tear yours off and feed it to you!”

Twilight ran out of the door, missing Raegdan by seconds as he went around the corner, looking for a way to climb up on the house where Merry Laughter landed and fulfill his promise.

“Hey, Twilight. Guess what, your dad’s here! Surprise!” Rainbow Dash giggled.

“Yes, Rainbow, thank you, Rainbow, I noticed, Rainbow, that was very helpful, Rainbow,” Twilight deadpanned.

“Shouldn’t you be running behind him before he actually murders somepony?” Applejack asked nervously, her worry evident.

“He’s being really loud, so that’s a good sign. He’s going to beat him just a little and mostly scare him until he makes him pee himself. It’s when he’s quiet that it ends badly. The less he speaks, the worse he is. On the bright side, he did hold off for a little while. That was progress at least.” Twilight breathed. “Baby steps.” She was about to say more when her attention was diverted by the filly-like, terrified squealing of Merry Laughter. “Oops, he found him. Gotta go!” She vanished in the flash of a teleportation spell.

“ ‘Two weeks’, you said?” Rainbow asked.

“Eeyup.” Applejack answered.

“Cool. At least it won’t get boring anytime soon.”

Spike gave Princess Luna another napkin to wipe off the mustard that she had been splattered with. Luna methodically cleaned her face while looking at the ponies who stared at each other in a state of shock; moans of pain and grief escaped their trembling lips as they mourned over fries that failed the five second rule and terrible wounds of ketchup redness on their coat.

She stared at the broken window for longer. Spike was looking up at the bun that had gotten hooked on her horn instead, and wondered if she knew that her mane now contained celery galaxies and pickle planets, orbited by onion rings. Spike himself was unscathed, as the much larger Alicorn had made great cover in the short bombardment.

The bun fell off Luna’s horn with a sad ‘flop’.

“I assume everything will have to be compensated for,” Luna stated, glancing at Spike questioningly.

“Probably,” Spike agreed with a shrug. “But I don’t think anypony will complain a lot, at least. They’re used to stuff breaking around here.”

“Lovely.” Luna picked up a menu and relit her choices. “I’m certain we shall test that tolerance to the limits. Do you think we can still order?”

Ch.40 - Ponyville. Day Three

2 days after - 3rd day at Ponyville

The outside of Twilight’s library had turned into a construction yard. Wooden sawhorses surrounded an area full of tools. Saws, hammers, grinders, and axes, all laid next to smaller implements, like measurement tapes, levels, and small pieces of wood connected by string were thrown all around in a daring display of unorganization that Applejack was certain made Twilight’s eye tic every time she got out of her library. Boxes of nails were all piled together forming a small neat wall next to satchels of sand and containers of polishing and sealing materials. The smell of fresh sawdust permeated the air, and the rhythmic noises of hammers, axes, and sawteeth grinding against wood went almost unnoticed by this point.

“Can you say, ‘best vacation ever’? I can!” Leaf Stream crowed, hungrily watching Raegdan hack away at the thick branch he sat on, slowly turning its top, curved side to an uneven, flat surface. The force of each strike of the hatchet rippled along his body and threatened to shake him off. Leaf Stream has been muttering, ‘fall’ in almost perfect sync with each hit for the last five minutes.

“If he falls from there, he’ll break his head,” Applejack observed, sipping at her lemonade. Some things seemed destined to remain unchanged, and Leaf Stream had probably bought a life subscription to that philosophy. She seemed to be as vitriolic as ever. Even more actually. She had upped the ante so much that it was funny now instead of aggravating.

“Trixie believes that this is the outcome Captain Leaf Stream is hoping for,” Trixie commented, pointedly staring away from Spike, going overboard in her attempt to convince any certain somepony watching that she had no interest in either of his family members as she had been doing all day.

After taking a look inside Twilight’s library, Applejack was extremely surprised by what she saw. Raegdan had actually done a superb job in a single day. She had seen him working inside the library yesterday, wanting to get the interior fixed before he started on Spike’s room, and the outcome was beyond anypony’s expectations. The big galoot certainly knew what he was doing. The staircase was as solid as a rock, with not even the slightest creak, and the flooring had never been more level. He had even replaced all the worn boards, and the library seemed almost new. She almost had it in mind to ask him to come over to her place as well if he had time to spare.

“Maybe we should lay something down below him, ya know?” Applejack suggested.

“Yeah, a few spikes,” Leaf Stream laughed.

Said similarly named baby dragon was helping Limit Breaker saw wooden boards in pre-designated portions by holding onto them. He turned his head to look behind him. “What?” he called out.

“What what?” Leaf Stream shouted back.

“What do you want?”

Leaf Stream’s face furrowed in puzzlement. “What I want?”

“What do you want me for?” Spike asked.

“I don’t want you for anything. Gross. What do you want?”

“Me? What do you want?”

“Nopony wants anything, Spike. All’s good here,” Applejack butted in, pulling the broken record out of the player before it really had a chance to get going. The little dragon puffed, waving his hand in dismissal, and turned back to his work. He was exalted to help Raegdan in any way or form, and from what Twilight told him he was antagonizing Luna yesterday on whose turn it was to hammer the nails that Raegdan held, despite the fact that Raegdan was insisting, rather exceptionally, he didn’t need help with that.

“Trixie swears she played Leaf Stream’s part at a carnival show once...” the soft blue unicorn’s purple eyes were sparkling in nostalgia.

Leaf Stream immediately growled at Trixie’s snark and lifted a hoof up to her muzzle. “I seriously don’t want this kind of lip in my team. I’m your captain, and I’ll have nothing but respect from you all. You get me? I have my eye on you… and you don’t want to know what happens when this eye zeroes in on a mare!”

Broken Gust chose that moment to land next to Leaf Stream, holding two cones of ice-cream between her front hooves. She passed the one bearing a mountain of chocolate, covered with sugary sprinkles, to Leaf Stream. “Here’s yours, sweetie!” The young thestral mare winked at her.

Then she kissed Leaf Stream’s cheek and sat next to her marefriend, enjoying her own strawberry and peanut concoction.

“She’s… She’s my gofer,” Leaf Stream stuttered, after the tide of snickers passed her by, leaving her in tatters. “She’s just… very affectionate. I’m a... a very generous boss. Nothing weird here. Nothing at all.” She half-heartedly started to eat her own treat, pretending not to notice when Broken Gust inched closer, practically melding together at the hip, or when the thestral stole a lick of sprinkled chocolate.

Applejack placed her elbow on the wooden table and rested her head on the hoof. “You do a lot of chores for Leaf Stream?” she asked with a teasing smirk. Now it made sense why the wingless wonder was playing up this angle of her personality so much.

“Oh, lots,” Broken Gust answered, her attention mostly on her frozen treat. Next to her, Leaf Stream had become stiff as a statue, standing painfully straight and with beads of sweat starting to appear on her brow, but the casualness of Broken Gust let her relax, only for the strings to be pulled taut again with her next sentence. “For instance, I have to make our bed every morni—”

There wasn’t even the blur of a fast movement; one moment Leaf Stream sat on a chair, the next she was up on the table, screaming. “HEY, RAEGDAN, YOU HAVE TO SKIN THE CHIMERA!”

“Holy shit!”

“Dad! Hold on!”

“I’m okay! I’m okay!” Raegdan assured Spike, even though his position was quite shaky. He was hanging upside down on the tree, having slipped over the side and barely managed to hold on with his legs long enough to secure his grip with all four of his limbs. Of course, that left him on the bottom side of a very wide branch, with no way to climb up, and about four to five meters off the ground with his back facing it.

“It’s not that high,” Limit Breaker said, walking to stand next to Spike, both of them looking up. “Can you make the fall? Or should we move all this stuff out of your way?” He pointed at the wooden boards and boxes underneath the biped, one of the few piles that were spread around the large tree that served as Ponyville’s Library.

“I can… get it, I think,” Raegdan growled, his gloved fingers trying to dig into the bark.

“Just don’t fall on your head!” Applejack shouted her own piece of advice, and left them at that, ignoring Raegdan’s very heavily censored insult. “What do you mean, skin the chimera? That sounds like an euphemism if ah ever heard one,” she chuckled to Leaf Stream, then blinked. “Wait, hold up there a sec. That chimera? Actually skin it?”

“Don’t ask. Seriously, don’t ask. Stop right there. You don’t want to know more,” Leaf Stream begged, climbing down to her chair. Trixie and Broken Gust were nodding, wincing in disgust.

“Ohhhh...kay…” Applejack sat back on her chair, deciding to stop the little jokes, and turned to Trixie. “So, ah got whatever survived of yer cart in mah barn. You can come over in the afternoon and pick it up.”

“Ah will—I mean, ah’ll, uh… Trixie will be there,” Trixie managed. Applejack bit her tongue. It wasn’t the first time this kind of slip ever happened around her so she let it slide. “Trixie had a few photo albums she would like back. And Trixie’s first cloak, if it’s still there. It’s very important to Trixie.”

The door of the library opened, a faint blue glow around the knob. Rarity and Luna exited the library side by side, the fashionista’s speech an unending stream that seemed to have no need of earthly needs, like pausing for breath.

“... And your mane is of course exquisite, Princess Luna, and I’m sure you take very good care of it—”

“I do have… a certain somepony posted to aid me in that,” Luna interrupted, her cheeks blushing slightly.

“—And I won’t deny he’s doing a very good job, but you should get a professional’s opinion. Have you considered curls? Oh, we have all the time in the world to experiment. The spa will be solely ours for the day, and we will have a marvelous selection of—”

Applejack’s head turned from the two mares to Raegdan who almost had his grip secured as he tried to twist so he would drop feet first. She saw it coming and called out to Luna, “Don’t slam the door—”

“Pardon?” Rarity asked while Luna slammed the door behind her, unknowing of Raegdan’s predicament.

The door shook in its hinges and the vibrations travelled across the trunk and over the branches, causing dried out leaves and bipeds left out to dry to fall like mature acorns.

“Fuuuudge!”

Applejack had to give Raegdan credit for managing to censor himself in front of Spike even then. She hoped he would prove to be okay, as she watched Spike and Limit Breaker rush over him, with Luna trotting there biting her lips in worry. If they were lucky the fact that none of the wood he landed on broke, it was because he fell from too short a height, and not because they proved sturdier than his spine.

“Raegdan? Are you hurt?” Luna worried, her muzzle and wingtips prodding on bones that had already been ravaged enough recently—and the year wasn’t even out.

The biped was out of Applejack’s sight, but she was able to see his hand rise up curled in a fist with his thumb pointing up. “Fine… Just… Took a break,” he groaned.

“... Was that a pun?” Luna indignantly asked after a few silent seconds.

“Maybe.”

Luna turned to Rarity, rolling her eyes. “He’s fine. We may depart.” She turned back to Raegdan, concern returning to her expression. “Do take a break— and I mean proper rest, will you? We are under no timetable. If it takes longer for your project to finish we will simply stay longer. And try not to get yourself hurt again.”

“I’ll be fine. I just got the wind knocked out of me. Go have fun for once,” Raegdan responded. Luna nodded after a few seconds, leaning towards him before freezing and taking a look around her, red. Then she quickly retreated and left with Rarity.

“Do you want me to get you some water, Dad?” Spike asked, eager to help.

“Yeah. Some water would be great. I’ll just lie down for a bit, okay, little flame?”

Leaf Stream had been craning her neck trying to see more, and Applejack was sure that there had been a hint of distress in the way Leaf Stream’s lips had pursed. But then Leaf Stream choked a snicker after everypony proved to be fine, and the caring moment was gone. She went back to ravishing her ice-cream cone, and shivered. “Mmm! Mistake, mistake! Brainfreeze!”

“You should take it slow and not bite. Enjoy your treat, y’all,” Applejack said without paying any real attention, her focus still on Raegdan and Spike. Twilight had been extremely clear on the fact that she was trusting Applejack while she was gone to keep an eye out, as unnecessary as both believed it to be for now, and Applejack was not going to disappoint that trust.

Leaf Stream shrugged. “Eh, it’s fading now. What about you? Got a headache?”

“Ah ain’t eating ice-cream,” Applejack pointed out.

“Hey! I’m trying to make conversation. Be friendly! So, try to keep up with me. Headaches. What do we think?”

Applejack was taken aback. Either she was missing something or the pressure was finally getting to the mare. She was cracking. She was cracking something fierce! Either way it seemed safer to humor her. “Ah don’t know. They’re… bad? Ah ain’t had…” She rethought her sentence. “Actually, I’ve been having a lot of them for some time now. So often that ah think I got used to them, at least ‘till today. Ah was having a talk with Princess Luna yesterday, welcoming her to Ponyville and all, when suddenly mah head felt quite relieved. Ya know the feeling, like when a pain you had forgotten suddenly stops. Well, actually, it was exactly that.”

“Huh.” That was all Leaf Stream said. Applejack looked away for a moment, but she caught, by the edge of her vision, Leaf Stream and Broken Gust exchanging a quick glance, gazing straight into each other’s eyes with a pleased expression. Applejack felt like cooing at the two lovebirds.

Land sakes, she wasn’t turning into a Rarity clone or anything, was she?

“So, ah guess it’s back to you now?” Applejack asked, considering her turn in the ludicrous subject matter done and over with.

“Nah. Bored of headaches already. Eating ice cream now. Go’way.” The two other mares shrugged apologetically for their captain’s sake, but Applejack took it in stride. It wasn’t like she didn’t already know of Leaf Stream’s major streak of jerkiness.

“Trixie doesn’t know if she will be able to have enough time this afternoon. Will you be available tomorrow?”

“Well, yer welcome to come by any time. If it ain’t me there, then get mah brother to help you out. I’ll let mah family know yer coming by. I’d go with ya now, but Twilight wants me to stay here and keep an eye on Raegdan and Spike.”

Leaf Stream frowned. “What for? Scared the fire hazard will blaze it all up?”

“Nah, just, ahmm… Ah’m keeping them company!” Nope, that wasn’t a suspicious glare, no siree!

… Actually, it kinda seemed like Leaf Stream was teasing her?

“How come none of the other guards help?” Spike asked Limit Breaker, pointing towards Trixie and Leaf Stream who sat nearby, sipping lemonade, eating ice-cream, and having a fun time.

Limit Breaker stopped sawing, wiping his forehead with his hoof. His copper-red mane was drenched, and laid on top of his head like a wet mop. “I traded a punishment I had for this. Do you think your dad will let me have some free time? Sea Breeze was talking about visiting a Zebra that lives nearby, and I want to go with her.”

Spike waved his hand. “If you ask him, he probably will. Actually… Give me a minute. There was something I wanted to ask him myself anyway.” Spike looked at the morning sun and sprinted towards his father who was taking the chance to sharpen his hatchet since he had landed.

“Hey, Dad.”

Raegdan looked up, smiling at once. “What, are we doing the greeting part again? Should I get my head out of your reach?” His hands kept working, as if with a mind of their own.

“No,” Spike grumbled. “I already apologized for that. Are you going to keep working for much longer today?”

Raegdan checked the sun’s position as well, frowning. “I planned to. It’s still pretty early, little flame. I want to get everything done as soon as possible, and I don’t want to waste the light. Besides, Twilight wouldn’t appreciate me hammering during the night.” He looked Spike up and down, recognizing the posture of his adopted son wanting a favor. “But, as Luna said my schedule isn’t written in stone, so…”

“Can we go somewhere? Together?”

“What, now?” Raegdan glanced towards Applejack, his hands on the axe finally stopping their movement. “I’m… not sure, little flame. If we left and weren’t back before Twilight returned she might be worried. Let’s wait for her to get back first, okay?”

“I can send her a message!” Spike reminded him, perking up.

"Shoot, you can,” Raegdan whispered, but Spike’s dragon ears caught it, and craned his head as he tried to decipher the meaning of that. “Uh… Okay, send her a message, but first ask Applejack if she wants to come along.”

“Applejack? Why? Not that I mind her of course, she’s a great friend, but—”

“Because, uh…” Raegdan scratched the top of his cloth mask, making the eyeholes move out of place and he spent some time slowly setting them back in place. “Because she is a guest here and it would be rude to abandon her here on her own?”

Spike nodded. “Oh, right. That makes sense. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that! I’m so thoughtless!”

“It does? I mean, yes, of course it does. So, go ask her.” He pushed Spike along—a little forcibly in truth—and rested his face behind his palms, obviously tired in Spike’s eyes. “Wait. Where do you want to go anyway?”

Spike stopped in place, grinning embarrassedly at the fact that he forgot to mention the most important thing in his haste. “Oh. The Ponyville School.”

“The school?”

“Yes.”

“You want me,” he pointed at himself, “at the school?”

“Yeah, of course I want you there!” Spike said, balancing his weight on his heels. “But you need to wear your work clothes first.”

“Um…” He looked down at himself, at the white shirt wet with sweat and the blue pants with the thick, tough fabric. “I’m ready.”

“No, your work clothes.” Spiked winked

“Oh, ho, ho,” Raegdan laughed. “I got you. I’ll be ready in a little while. Go tell little apple in the meantime.”

“Great! See you in a bit!” he hugged Raegdan’s leg briefly before running off to Applejack and the two mares he felt he shouldn’t like but turned out to be pretty funny sometimes.

“Hey there, Spike. Something up?” Applejack asked.

“Applejack, can you do me a favor? Please? Please, please, please, pretty please?” Spike begged, holding his hands locked together in front of him, begging.

Applejack lifted an eyebrow, pushed her hat higher, and turned in her chair to look straight at Spike. “If ya ask like that, ah think ah might have to. What is it?”

“Can you come with me and Raegdan to the Ponyville School?”

“The school?” Applejack pulled back at the unexpected request. She was internally pleased -and she was darn sure that so would Twilight- that Raegdan obviously arranged things so there would be an escort. But why the school?

“Why there? Ah mean, yer not enrolled, are ya? Ah remember Twilight mentioning plenty of times that she home schools ya, so…” Memories of yesterday evening and this morning at the farm crossed her mind. “Wait a sec. Wait, wait, wait. Ain’t today…?”

If she had any doubts, they were gone. Spike looked like he was holding a fiery burp with the temperature of a volcano in his cheeks.

“Well, shoot.” She lowered her hat to hide her smile. “Ah wouldn’t mind seeing how it goes mahself. Just remember to send a note to Twi first.”

“Already on it, Applejack. Thank you!” He hugged her briefly, and she reciprocated as quick as she could—kid could be as adorable as Applebloom. “I’m gonna send the note while Dad changes into his work clothes!” he said, and hastened off. She waited until Spike went back into the library before she beckoned Raegdan to come over.

“What was that about?” Leaf Stream asked.

“Yer gonna love this.” Applejack grinned, briefly explaining in the few seconds she had until Raegdan stood up and came over. “What’s this ah hear about work clothes, now?” she immediately asked, wanting to understand Spike’s cryptic statement first.

“He means my armor,” Raegdan answered, stopping in front of Applejack.

Broken Gust and Applejack snickered, Trixie seemed to be staying quiet by a force of will that could shatter mountains, and Leaf Stream was laughing so hard that she didn’t actually make any sound. It sounded like a fish asphyxiating.

“Why do ya think he wants ya to wear the armor?” Applejack asked between her choked peals of laughter.

Raegdan’s mouth hung open as he tried and failed to come up with a decent reason for a few moments. “Obviously some kids tried to bully him and he wants me to go and… no, huh? Uh, crap. No idea. He wants to show off?”

Four mares nodded, smiling maliciously.

Raegdan clapped his hands. “Great. He wants to show off. ...Wait, show off how? Why? What do you know? Why are you smiling? What the hell did I sign up for?”

“Hey, Mister Raegdan? Does that mean that I can go for now?” Limit Breaker timidly asked.

Raegdan spent a few seconds looking at Applejack and the three mares next to her, their grins growing wider. “Sure. Run for the hills, kid. Save yourself,” he declared. “And stay away from mares. You see their eyes? Those are crazy eyes. They’re crazy. Sadists!”

“Sea Breeze is always nice to me!”

“That’s how they get you!”

Twilight pulled out her checklist once more. Normally she would have memorized it during its creation and only take it out for the formality of checking off the items, but this list was one she didn’t write herself. After two days of dining in restaurants, Luna had decided enough was enough. Twilight was unsure if she was tired of being gawked at or she wanted to feel more useful.

Though the Princess did her best, it turned out that carpentry was not her strongest point, and she got in Raegdan’s way more often than not. She had been regulated to simply holding things for him, along with Spike. Being able to do only as much as a thirteen year old baby dragon might have offended her sensibilities. Her solution had been evident. She decided to take over the kitchen instead, and keep them all fed.

The fridge and pantry hadn’t been restocked yet though, and Luna had a choice of words that she shared with Twilight about that. The Princess of the Night talked to her at length about malnourishment and the insidious nature of hunger, drawing off from personal experiences that made Twilight feel like a spoiled filly who put in danger not just herself but her valued assistant as well.

At least Twilight and Spike were going to be eating exceptionally for the next two weeks. Twilight still remembered Luna’s cooking fondly—or would if it hadn’t been for the events that had followed—and the Alicorn hadn’t relied just on her natural talent, but took the time to unearth some cooking books from Twilight’s boxed library. Twilight had to be honest: She had been on the verge of salivating at the mere names of the dishes Luna was mumbling as she wrote down the shopping list.

Twilight ticked off the tomatoes entry. What came next was spices, and reading down the list made Twilight stop in her tracks as she had a horrid flashback to the first party Pinkie Pie set up for her, and that awful, awful decision to drink from an unlabeled bottle. Why did Luna need all this pepper? Why were there so many different ones? What sauces did she intend to make?

“Ah, you must be Twilight Sparkle!” An approaching, somewhat scrawny, griffin greeted, deftly avoiding the various shoppers in the market, and shaking her out of a growing panic attack.

“That’s me,” Twilight admitted. She used her magic to slowly put the tomatoes she just bought in her saddlebags, using the excuse to be ready to throw one of them at the newcomer’s eyes. She was a little weary of griffins. “And you are?”

“I am wounded,” the griffin swooned theatrically, the sharpness of his stare contrasting his playful words. “I would have thought that somepony would have mentioned the sole griffin thus far in the ranks of the Lunar Gua—”

“Oh! You must be Goobread Asstalon!” Twilight finally realized who was talking to her. The griffin froze, the wing he used to gesture sprung erect with a ‘twang’ sound, and his left eyelid seemed to be having a seizure while his neck was in spasms. Twilight bit her lip. She knew the name had been too weird. “Rainbow Dash took a few… liberties, then?”

“It was not her who first called me that,” the griffin grumbled, bringing his muscles back under control. “But she’s not doing herself any favors either.” He extended a claw, reintroducing himself. “Gobrend Grasstalon, an honor to finally meet you.”

Twilight blushed, and they shook. “Thank you... Gobrend. Likewise. I see that you are shopping as well?” She had spied the bags that he carried, both of them far more burdened than hers were.

“Ah, yes,” Gobrend chuckled. “You have spotted my malady. Your lovely town seems to be ill equipped to handle the insurmountable amount of extra bodies we have burdened it with. All twenty-five of us.”

“Ponyville is not really a tourist attraction,” Twilight coldly responded to the cutting and unfair remark against her beloved choice of residence.

A pair of intense, brown eyes scanned their surroundings, passing slowly over the simple market stalls and gossiping ponies around them. “The mysteries of this world continue to hound me. I cannot fathom why that would be.”

Twilight had enough on her plate as it was. She refused to spend time with Leaf Stream Two point Oh: Articulate Edition. “If you have nothing pleasant to say, mister Goobread, then I regret to inform you that I have more important work to do than listen to derogatory remarks about Ponyville.”

Gobrend hissed an inhale as if physically assaulted. His beak opened and closed a few times until his eyes settled on Twilight’s saddlebags. “... But everything’s fresh and at reasonable prices in this lovely town?”

Twilight looked behind her. She had the sneaking suspicion that… yep, the hoofmade poster on Honeybee’s stall said exactly that. Gobrend wore a pained, wincing expression when she turned her head back to face him, knowing he had been caught red-winged. “I’ll give you credit for the effort at the very least,” she announced after a couple of moments that she allowed him to sweat freely.

“... Thank you,” he said graciously. He unabashedly read the poster again. “Strange though. Everything is much cheaper here. It’s like the economic crisis due to Baltimare has not touched this place.”

She decided to start over, and give him another chance. “Just the food, really. Most is grown locally and nopony really wants to make anypony else starve. There is a little loss, but we keep by. And you must be feeling quite peckish,” she punned, pointing towards his overfilled saddlebags, and offering him a chance to undo his previous behavior. “It’s not a good idea to shop with an empty stomach.”

“Oh, you misinterpret my situation, dear lady,” Gobrend said, courteous as you please. “As I mentioned, space is quite limited. My team has rented a small hov—dwelling, and we are forced to make do. I have been assigned this menial chore. I am shopping for six stomachs. Some larger than others.”

“Team?” Twilight questioned.

“I had anticipated that you would already know. Apparently, I was wrong. The Lunar Guard has been separated into four teams, led by a captain each.”

“Oh. No, I never heard anything about this.” Twilight rubbed at her chin. “Now that I think about it, Raegdan and Princess Luna haven’t mentioned their work once so far. I suppose they take their vacation seriously.”

“There is validity within that reasoning, I concur.” He had started to walk next to Twilight as she went about, and jerked to a halt as he spotted Roseluck’s flower stall. “Tell me, which flower species do ponies specifically use for eating and which for decoration?”

“Oh?” Twilight stopped to think. “Do you have a special somepony?” she teased. “If you want, I have a number of dating advice books back in my…” She remembered that everything was now thrown into boxes, needing to be reorganized again. “Or I could help you right now! Is it for a first date?”

“Nothing so romantic, I’m ecstatic to say.” Gobrend smirked. “It’s for a bribe. I overheard that Sea Breeze knows of an Zebra alchemist that resides in the Everfree Forest, and I simply must be there—”

“You mean Zecora? She’s a friend.”

The griffin’s eyes hungrily staked their claim on Twilight. “My dear, miss Twilight. Has anypony ever praised the glossiness of your mane? It is as if a single strand could pull me through to velvety, alien seas of—”

“You know, yesterday I visited the last stallion who tried to ‘woo’ me. In the hospital. They had to treat his tailbone, seeing as how the bone itself is not constructed in a way that allows it to turn sharply enough for a stallion’s tail to be forced into… places.” She grimaced. “Never mind the smell.”

Gobrend gulped and shivered. “I thought that was a baseless rumor… He really pinned the tail in the pony,” he exhaled. “Please, miss Twilight, I would be extraordinarily obliged if you would do me the honor of introducing me to your friend.”

Twilight imagined how Zecora would thank her for burdening her with a rude griffin on top of everything else she had to handle while living all alone in the Everfree. She was too nice to magically curse her—not that Twilight believed in that absurd possibility—but perhaps she wouldn’t prove to be nice enough to not curse her in the manner of swearing up a few stanzas at her direction. “I don’t know if Zecora has the time for—”

“I will be very, very… nice, and I will owe you one!” Gobrend pleaded unabashed, looking ready to fall on his knees and grovel if that was what it would take. Then something glinted in the depth of his eyes. “And mayhaps… I could arrange it so that you would learn a few, very special things in turn… Hmm?” he teased.

This griffin! How did he dare? Wha-What was she supposed to say now? No? That was impossible! You can’t just dangle such a bait in front of somepony’s muzzle! But still… “Why do you want to meet Zecora so badly?”

Gobrend paused and pulled back, his eyes sweeping left and right in suspicion before leaning back forward again and spoke in a lower voice. “I have decided to continue a project I undertook a long time ago. Miss Zecora’s profession as an alchemist and long time resident of the Everfree Forest could prove crucial to my own undertaking.”

“And that project is…?” Twilight prodded. Possibilities were being projected in her mind. Could it be that Luna and Raegdan are behind this and are after a way of weaponizing alchemical concoctions? Poisons? Performance boosting potions? She had heard of potions that could enable a unicorn to keep casting even when all the magic in the body had been normally depleted, though at the body's immense expense.

“This is not information to be shared lightly. Do we understand each other, miss Twilight Sparkle?”

“... We do,” she said, leaning closer as he did.

The griffin’s beak almost touched her ear. He didn’t whisper as much as breathed the words out, revealing his secret.

“The Fauna and Flora of Everfree Forest: A Compilation.”

A dragon’s greed didn’t have shit on Twilight Sparkle’s.

“I get to edit it and have access to any samples you have or will collect, any manuscripts or references you have under your possession, the first twenty copies of the first edition, personally signed; free and immediate delivery of any addendums you may compile.”

“Wait, that—”

“You will also, of course, provide me with the aforementioned arrangement,” Twilight cut him off. “As well as a full transcript of your discussion(s) with Zecora, but I will allow for them to be produced at a later date.”

“... How did you do the parentheses—”

“An agreement will be dictated, notarized, and signed before witnesses no later than tomorrow noon, barring no delaying circumstances, at the City Hall. If you are unable to provide a witness of your own then I will need to be warned so I can find one for yourself.”

“Signatures? Whatever happened to a firm shake of—”

“And you will be a perfect gentlegriffin in Zecora’s presence or there will be repercussions.”

Gobrend’s stare regained its intensity. “Define ‘repercussions’.”

Twilight stalled for a moment. She didn’t want to do it, but in truth she didn’t have any other stick long enough. There was no other stick long enough other than the one Princess Celestia herself could wield.

“I’ll tell Raegdan.”

Gobrend clicked his beak twice. “The champion of the elements and of goodness, everyone,” he theatrically announced with a wry expression at nopony at large, the mass of shoppers around them ignoring him. “Then I shall meet you at my current residence, in a couple of hours. We are situated at the eastern side of Ponyville, near the post office. Look for the house with the burn marks.”

“Burn marks?”

“Trailblazer wished to practice,” Gobrend sighed. “I’m afraid our deposit will not be returned, not that I ever had high hopes of that to begin with. I will see you in a few hours.” He turned back to Roseluck who was smiling hopefully at him. “I’m sorry, miss, but I’m not interested today after all. No, my apologies, but—I really don’t—Fine, just don’t make that face, one bouquet, a small one—”

Twilight had seen this play out before. She left, heading for home. Two young mares, strong looking and obviously twins that Twilight had never seen before, passed by Twilight as she left the marketplace and Gobrend behind her.

“Hey there, Goobread! Getting flowers for your coltfriend?”

“I’ll wring your necks!”

“Woop-woop-woop!”

Rarity looked on smiling and feeling her heart swell.

Ditzy Doo’s house had never been the most well-cared house of Ponyville. It wasn’t that Ditzy, sweet darling that she was, didn’t care for her own home. The poor dear was simply a bit on the… clumsy side. Something was always broken, pieces of paper or blocks of wood found underneath tables and chairs to stop them from wobbling were a common sight, and the windows found themselves being covered with thick paper or just blocked off as time passed.

Little by little the house became more decrepit down the years, and Ditzy was trying to keep up with the damages as best as she could with her mailmare salary and what few chores she could pick up. It was hard, and the fact that Ditzy was such a sweet mare made it even harder. She would always pay back others first if she broke something of theirs -not an uncommon occurrence- even when somepony would insist she didn’t have to -which wasn’t uncommon either.

Then there was Dinky, Ditzy’s pride and joy. The single mother would make the impossible a certainty for her daughter’s sake, and she made sure her daughter would want for nothing. If that meant that Ditzy herself had to permanently live with a broken window into her own bedroom and sleep on a bed that was nothing more than a mattress on the floor, so be it. And as long as they had a solid roof over their heads and she made sure not to traipse into her daughter’s room then everything else would be fine. That was what Ditzy always said.

Which made what Rarity was seeing right now, the sweetest, most commendable, most worthy generous act she had ever seen.

“Cast Iron, I am so proud of you!” Rarity gushed, almost losing her lady’s decorum and hopping in place like a filly, or Pinkie Pie, next to Princess Luna in the middle of the street.

The minotaur finished screwing the window shutter in place and rubbed the back of his massive neck, blushing. “It really is nothing,” he mumbled, “I don’t like sitting idly on my hands. Besides, with so little space around and since miss Ditzy is accommodating Mint and her little brother instead of being forced to stay in a small place with any of us…”

Rarity addressed Princess Luna who was waiting serenely next to her. “Mint? Mint and little Stormdrain are here as well?” Oh, she had missed the little colt with the sweet heart. And Mint! She had to get something for the young Manehattan mare as well as Stormdrain. Maybe a proper dress -no pink of course- and maybe an excuse to wear it with a girls night out?

“Of course,” Princess Luna replied with a sense of confusion. “She is part of my retinue after all. That is proper, is it not? Or wasn’t it? Did I do this wrong?” she asked, quickly switching into abashment.

“Certainly not, Princess,” Rarity ascertained. “I was only mildly surprised. I thought you would have only brought your guards.”

“So did we,” Cast Iron chimed in, smiling widely as he put the second shutter in place, “but then Mint asked what she was supposed to do while we were gone—”

“Mint did not mean that she preferred to stay in Canterlot, did she?” Princess Luna asked at once.

“No, Princess, she’s very glad she came along. Stormdrain loves it here,” Cast Iron assured her.

A grey colored pegasus with a blonde mane and yellow eyes, each of them drifting towards a different direction, and one of the most honest smiles in the world, opened the door and walked out of her home while carrying a small tray with a large glass of iced tea with infinite care. Ditzy placed the tray on the window sill next to Cast Iron and quickly did a bow towards the Princess with one eye on Rarity and the other on the Minotaur.

“Hello, Princess!” Ditzy cheerily said, turning around and waving from too close a distance. “Would you like me to get you a drink too?”

“Greetings. Miss Ditzy I assume. No, that won’t be necessary. We’re only passing by. Thank you for being so hospitable to Mint and her brother.”

“Indeed, Ditzy. That is very generous of you,” Rarity added.

“Aw, it’s nothin’.” Ditzy waved her hoof and wings all at once, Cast Iron barely managing to grab the tray and glass of iced tea before she knocked them down. “Dinky and Stormdrain became friends so fast, I had to offer. It’s like a long sleepover for the two of them. Oh!” Ditzy straightened up as if shocked. “I almost forgot! Thank you for being so nice to Mint, Princess Luna. That was very nice of you.”

Princess Luna stirred in her place for a moment, bashfully looking aside and pretending—overacting, in Rarity’s opinion—to examine the horizon through the brick wall she was actually staring at. Rarity took it upon herself to answer. “I am most definite that Mint has proven herself quite capable of undertaking the position offered to her by the princess. I’m surprised she told you of their arrangement though, Ditzy.”

Ditzy nodded fast enough to shake her mane loose like a golden cloud. “Yep. I’m teaching her to make muffins since she doesn’t know how.”

“I thought that she would have...” Rarity trailed off. “But it’s a small thing, no matter. Forget I ever said anything.”

“Oh, you mean that she was…” Ditzy looked around her in as conspicuous a manner as it was possible, making everypony in a two mile radius know that she had a secret. “You know, her work?” Rarity reluctantly nodded. “I think she was afraid I wouldn’t want her around. Which is funny, cause now I’m afraid she might think I only offered her a place to stay because of your rules, Princess.”

“My rules?” Princess Luna asked, watching with no hint of emotion as Cast Iron stood behind Ditzy. The minotaur was grimacing and pantomiming a chicken trying to say everything was fine while dealing with the difficulties of egg laying mixed with fear-puckered holes.

“Oops, sorry. You must have a lot of them, Princess,” Ditzy apologized. “I mean the one that says that your guards and personnel must keep a proper appearance, including their resistances.” Ditzy made a confused face, clicking her tongue as if tasting the last word. “No, wait… residences? Yeah, that!” Ditzy finished proudly. “I thought Dinky and I were going to lose our new friends, but mister Cast Iron said that what it meant was that my home had to be repaired.”

Cast Iron’s face behind Ditzy was the very image of either ultimate begging or ultimate constipation.

“And from what I see he took it upon himself to oversee this ‘rule’ of mine?” Luna inquired, and Ditzy nodded in affirmation. “And how does the renovation fare so far?”

“I, uh, started with the windows and the frames first, Princess. Most of it was simple work actually. I just need to get a few glass panes and then I’ll see about the inside—”

Ditzy raised her hoof. “I can’t really afford that. But I do have some really sturdy cardboard to close them off—”

“Miss Ditzy!” Princess Luna almost shouted, cutting off the cheery pegasus and making her cower like a scolded filly. “I do not know what exactly Cast Iron has told you, but this is not part of my rules! I do not enjoy half measures or being told what to do. Cast Iron!”

“Yes, Princess?” the minotaur squeaked, his eyes closed and his expression one of crushed defeat.

“You will stop these shoddy repairs at once, and find Solid Charge. You will explain yourself to him, and give him a monetary estimate. He will provide you with the appropriate budget. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Princess,” Cast Iron responded again, gulping with his head downcast before raising it up as Princess Luna’s meaning registered, lighting up his eyes. “Wait, you mean that…”

Princess Luna turned to Rarity. “Shall we proceed to the spa? I do believe it is best we leave Cast Iron to his work.”

“I will be right behind you, Princess. Allow me a moment to say my goodbyes,” Rarity said, grinning widely even as Princess Luna kept her face void of any emotion, save for the fact that if anypony paid attention they would notice that Luna carefully avoided looking at Cast Iron or Ditzy.

Princess Luna walked slowly away, and Rarity quickly took the moment to congratulate Cast Iron on his great, big heart once more.

“Wait, what exactly happened?” Ditzy asked.

Cast Iron was grinning madly, his overjoyed expression making the fear of that dark alley where Rarity first met him all worth it. “We’re paying for the glass panes! I need to—no, I need to make notes of everything that needs to be repaired and replaced first. You said the oven doesn’t work sometimes, right?”

“Uh, that’s because it’s old, I didn’t do anything to it! It’s not that big of a deal—”

“Replaced!” Cast Iron yelled, lifting his arms in victory and laughing. “You don’t have a proper bed either, I saw that when I was fixing the bedroom window.”

“No, no, that is too much!” Ditzy protested, turning to Rarity. “Rarity, please tell them that this is too much, I just wanted to do something nice for somepony, I didn’t—”

“Replaced!” Rarity shouted, laughing with an exhilarated glee that threatened to lift her up to the sky even though she lacked wings. “The house needs a repaint as well.”

“The faucets are old, too,” Cast Iron noted with the same enthusiasm.

“And that door?” Rarity pointed at the front door that was covered in small, thin wood boards to cover the holes made by accident across the years.

“Replaced,” they both cheered.

Ditzy couldn’t take it anymore. She started crying, hiding her face behind her hooves and wings, muttering how this was too much and she’d never be able to pay back for all that. Cast Iron bent down next to her with Rarity across the other side. “Come on, miss Ditzy. It’s on our expense, don’t you worry. Think of Dinky. We’ll make the place nice for her as well, right?” he urged, making Ditzy burst into sobs and cling onto the minotaur’s neck.

Cast Iron accepted the embrace with the widest smile and hugged the small pegasus mare back. “Let’s make a few notes before I go talk to Solid Charge, okay, miss Ditzy? We will fix as much as we can, I promise you won’t recognize the place after I’m done!”

Rarity looked behind her. Princess Luna was watching them from afar. A hoof was placed on the heavy peytral over her heart, and her face showed a tired, ancient relief.

“And that’s the long an’ hard of how ya do the work in an apple farm the old, earth pony way,” Granny Smith proudly concluded to the class. She narrowed her eyes and managed to look each single young foal in the eye somehow. “Which is the best way, young ‘uns, and don’t let nopony tell ya any different, ya ’hear me now?”

The extremely old mare turned to miss Cheerilee, grinning through her dentures. “Was that up to yer liking, young one?”

Cheerilee led her class into an ovation. “Thank you, Granny Smith, that was very informative.” The young schoolteacher went around her desk and hovered her hoof over the far older mare’s back, not daring to put weight on her spine. “Outstanding as always.”

“Well,” Granny Smith slurred as she allowed Cheerilee to escort her back to the wall behind the class where other parents or family members stood, “Ah did the same thing for my good Bright, rested may he be, ah did it for Big Mac, did it for Applejack, ah couldn’t let sweet Applebloom all out and dry now, could ah?” Granny Smith chuckled.

The grizzled mare sat next to her granddaughter, and Applejack quickly pushed one of the few available cushioned chairs underneath the Apple matriarch for her to sit on rather than the hard floor. “Great job, Gran,” Applejack congratulated.

“Aw, shucks. That was nothing. Didn’t expect ya to come by, though.” Granny Smith looked up and to the side, examining the armored figure of Raegdan. The biped stood overwhelmingly tall around the ponies who were gathered there, silently fuming in his dreary helmet as he leaned back on the wall with his arms crossed forbiddingly around his chest. He had chosen to stand right next to the corner to make sure the only one standing next to him was Applejack.

“Aint’ seen ya around, sonny, that’s for sure,” Granny Smith observed, looking up and down. “I’d remember somepony that tall. And yeh are?”

“Pissed,” Raegdan answered.

Granny Smith chuckled, completely unafraid of the unknown being, unlike most ponies around her. “Can’t be comfortable in there then. Too moist. Better clean that up before ye rust all over.”

Raegdan’s helmet zeroed in on the guffawing mare, tilted in that way that Applejack had figured out to mean he was thinking, and then turned to Applejack. “Okay, there’s something wrong here. Do you ponies just go insane after you give birth or does bulky and spiky metal means clowns around here?”

Applejack joined her grandmother in her giggling. “Nah. My granddaughter might have told me a story or two about yeh. Though ah hafta say, ah don’t quite approve of some of yer shenanigans.”

“Oh heavens. Another one,” Raegdan spat, turning his visor away. His large pauldrons shivered. “Wait, granddaughter?” He examined Granny Smith up and down once more, his head switching from her to Applejack, and alarmingly scooted a little further away, his shoulders slumping.

“But ah do approve of you being here,” Granny Smith said.

Raegdan shrugged. “I… ah… I didn’t mean to…” He cleared his throat. “Not much of a choice. I didn’t know what little flame was planning.” He nodded towards the baby dragon who was sharing two desks brought together with the Cutie Mark Crusaders, almost jumping on his seat with excitement. “He’s, ah... changed. He didn’t used to be a— a braggart before.”

“A braggart?” Applejack asked, furrowing her eyebrows.

“Yeah.” He looked at Applejack. “If he expects me to tell stories about… about what the Lunar Guard has done so far, he’s going to be disappointed. I don’t think—” He stopped again, tilting his chin down and swallowing. “I don’t think scarring any more children would go well. With anyone. I’m sorry.” He kept his head up, refusing to look down on either Granny Smith or Applejack.

“Hmmm,” Granny Smith hummed, sucking on her teeth. “Mister Reektan—Am ah pronouncing it right?—take a look at yer young dragon there. How does he look now?”

Raegdan did as Granny Smith bade him. “Excited?”

“That’s right. And what might be the reason for that?”

“He—His ‘turn’ is coming up?”

Granny Smith frowned. “Spike is a very good, well mannered foal—or dragon ah suppose. He’s helped me with mah shopping bags whenever he was around. He’s as sweet as the best apple cider yer tongue will ever touch. We had him and Twilight over at the farm for dinner a lot of times as well, didn’t we, Applejack?”

“Lots, Granny.”

“That we did. And quite a healthy appetite he got.” Granny Smith nodded deeply as she talked. “So ah think ah can tell ya a few things, what with having raised a few sweet foals on mah own.” she winked at Applejack. “That there ain’t no kid who wants to tell tall tales to his friends to impress them.”

Raegdan’s helmet tilted to the side again. “Then I’m here because...?”

“‘Cause,” Granny Smith drawled. “That there’s a kid that wants ta show off he has family, not what they do. Family’s important, and ye know it more when ya lose it or never had it. Yer little Spike’s just lookin’ round to show everypony that he’s got one.”

The helmet turned back to Spike, not moving a millimeter away from him, still as a statue. Until Cheerilee called for Raegdan, the only movement the biped did was when Spike turned to him and waved silently but enthusiastically. He responded by weakly raising his arm in return.

“Mister… Rug-dan? Am I getting it right?” Cheerilee asked, but Raegdan simply shrugged. The mare was taken a little aback, but she quickly refocused. “Would you like to come forward and tell us a few things about yourself and what you do for a living?”

Raegdan nodded silently and moved to the front of the class. Every eye was on him, the colts and fillies looking at him with a mix of excitement and fear, though it was hard to feel very worried about his black and spiky appearance when he stood in a room decorated with foal drawings and happy colors. Still, the almost predatory movements and his silence was unnerving. It was hard to see his eyes before, but ever since he started wearing that black cloth underneath it was almost impossible.

Spike was striking the tips of his talons against each other, his previous agitation displaced by the turmoil of anxiety now that the time had come. Applejack managed to pull his attention for a small instant and shot him a calming smile that worked a little on easing his tension.

Raegdan inhaled deeply. The air swished audibly through the holes on his helmet almost like a whistle, his chest rising and deflating as he exhaled. The colts and fillies in front of him had frozen in place.

“Hello,” he began, his voice actually sounding friendly and even giving a small wave. “My name is Raegdan, and I’m Spike’s dad. Not his father, we’re not the same species, but his dad. I’ve been with him ever since a few months after he hatched. He’s been… How to put this…” His right palm patted his left elbow three times while he thought. “He’s been the best thing anyone could ever have. He makes me proud every day, and him deciding to call me his dad is… It was one of the best days of my life. Sorry, but your parents lied. You’re not the best kid in the world. He is.”

Spike was beaming, and the joy he was radiating only became greater when Sweetie Belle whispered something in his ear while Applebloom slapped his back in congratulations and Scootaloo reached out for a hoof bump that he gladly exchanged. The little dragon’s eyes were shining, and Applejack knew he was doing his best to hold back tears of happiness. Applejack realized how much Spike was waiting for this moment.

She wished she could be in his place. How great and grand would it be if she could sit on a little desk and see her own dad point at her like that. She never got the chance, and never would, but seeing Spike get it? That was almost as good. Seeing Applebloom be happy for her friend? Even better!

Cheerilee led her class on a short clap. “All of Ponyville is very glad to have Spike as well,” she said, causing Spike to discreetly brush his arm over his face. “Could you tell us what you do for a living?”

Be diplomatic, these are young colts and fillies, ya big galoot, keep yer trap shut and don’t try to be smart with—

“I, uh… I used to be a bodyguard before. I was working for Celestia, and I helped raise Spike. Now I am a Lunar Guard for Princess Luna.” He spoke as if he was unsure of the right answers. Good. That was good. He seemed he had understood that he should keep some stuff censored.

Cheerilee led him on, trying to coax him to talk a little more. “The newspapers say you were the first to join. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“... And your job entails…?”

“Oh. Uh… We kil—hunt monsters. We don’t really do a lot of guarding as the Royal Guard does. Kind of a misnomer. We’re more active. Though we’re here on a vacation of sorts right now. We travel all together up to this point, but we’re going to stop that after this. We’ve separated ourselves in teams and we’re going to spread around to cover more ground.”

“Really?” Cheerilee asked. “I didn’t know this.”

“We haven’t actually told anyone yet,” Raegdan admitted, ducking his head a little between his pauldrons.

“And you’re going to be in one of these teams, leading one I suppose?”

“Uh, no. I’m mostly staying near L—Princess Luna. I’m going to be doing hunting of my own as well, but I will be doing it either alone or with L—Princess Luna. We’re both used to working alone,” he explained. He was rubbing his left arm, almost identically to how Spike did when he was feeling in trouble.

“Isn’t this dangerous?”

“I… suppose?”

Cheerilee waited a bit, but no more information was forthcoming. “Anypony have any questions you would like to ask mister Reg-tan?”

Every colt and filly raised a hoof.

“Scootaloo,” Cheerilee started.

The filly jumped on the desk. “Do you have horns under your helmet like a minotaur?”

“No,” Raegdan said. He pulled off his helmet to show what lay underneath, which to the children’s disappointment was mostly the black, cloth mask, but the flatness of the face amazed them even so. “See? I don’t have a coat either under here, but I keep my skin covered because, uh… doctor’s orders. Very sensitive complexion. I can’t sunbathe.”

Spike’s palm rushed to hide his snigger.

“Why do you wear a bandage?” Scootaloo continued, pointing at the bandage underneath the black cloth that covered his left eye.

“I got something in my eye. It stung,” Raegdan answered, and Applejack chortled despite herself. “Anyone else?” He put his helmet back on.

“Do you have a cutie mark?” Sweetie Belle questioned.

“Nope. My kind doesn’t get them.” He tapped at the moon sigil on his right pauldron. “But I got this one now.”

“That’s Princess Luna’s.”

“Well, she learned to share.”

“Where are you from?” Featherweight lowered his hoof.

“Not here. Too far actually, and you don’t want to hear that story. It’s really boring. Most of it is me walking. For months.”

“Witth wath the biggeth enemy you fought?” Twist asked. “The Leviathan doethn’t count,” she was quick to specify.

“I once wrestled Celestia for a piece of cake. I lost, and she became even larger.” The young ones laughed and the grown ups in the back gasped.

Diamond Tiara raised her own hoof, eyeing the armored plates the biped wore. “How much did that cost to make?”

“I don’t know; I didn’t keep the receipt.”

The kinda spoiled filly pouted. “Are you going to answer any question seriously?”

“Yes. This one. Next?”

“Do ya have a big, big sword?” Applebloom asked, stretching her front hooves apart as much as possible.

Raegdan stretched his own hands as far apart as they could go and excitedly announced, his smile audible, “No!”

Applebloom frowned sourly at wasting her question, and Raegdan obviously took pity at her. “I use a big hammer or whatever is around. I’m not really picky. I prefer to improvise. If you get too comfortable with a certain weapon then you stop seeing other options.”

“Do you have any special magic?” Silver Spoon asked.

“Uh, I kinda have the exact opposite in a way… To keep it simple, no.”

Silver Spoon finally got her turn. “Do you eat ponies like Nightmare Moon did?”

There was a slight gasp from the watching parents, as all of them knew that Princess Luna was currently in town. Raegdan stood still, as if equally shocked, for a second. Then, slowly and with deliberate movements, he made his way in front of Silver Spoon’s desk under the silent and teeth-grinding stare of everypony in the room, looking down at the suddenly shaking filly. He leaned down, grabbing the edges of her desk.

“Are you offering?” he darkly asked.

“N-No!” Silver Spoon immediately said, gulping in fear.

He leaned closer, almost touching her muzzle with his iron face. “Do you know what I would have done if you had said yes?” he growled.

Silver Spoon rapidly shook her head, trembling.

“Same thing I’m gonna do now,” Raegdan rasped, and Silver Spoon closed her eyes as Raegdan’s four fingered hand reached for her, opening her mouth to shriek.

Raegdan’s hand brushed lightly against Silver Spoon’s muzzle, and retreated. The young filly opened her eyes in surprise, crossing them to see what was obstructing the middle of her vision. Raegdan had put a sticker at the end of her muzzle.

The armored figure was already walking back to the front of the class again. “That’s the dunce prize for asking a dunce question. Well done. Alright, anyone else?

Sweetie Belle wanted to have another go, and Cheerilee indulged her by calling out her name. “I have another question; How come you’ve been over my sister’s house for the last three nights?”

“Isn’t that after your bedtime?” Raegdan challenged Rarity’s sister after a moment.

“I’m a light sleeper,” Sweetie Belle innocently answered. “Well? What do you two do?”

“... Ballroom dancing.” The classroom chuckled, with some uncertainty, once more.

Button Mash was practically jumping on his seat and Raegdan must have pointed at him if only to spare him from an accidental fall, if not to change the mystery subject. “How many monsters have you killed?” the colt asked as he sat, though his was still shaking all about.

“Oh. Let’s see… How high can you count?” Raegdan queried.

“All the way to infinity I guess?” Button Mash said. He scratched his head with his hoof, making his hat drop.

“Okay. Much less than that. Right, next one is… you, the patchy brown and white one.”

“I’m Pipsqueak, sir. Mom says you fought the Leviathan from the inside. How did you get in there?”

“That was the easy part; we let it eat us.”

There were a few seconds of stunned silence. There never had been an actual report of what and how, and even though Rainbow Dash had tried to share the story a few times nopony really believed most parts, especially this one. Applejack snorted as she took a looksee to her left and right and saw the expressions of the ponies near her. A couple of them looked like they were having a small seizure.

"It was fine,” Raegdan announced, enjoying the reaction. “Evidently, it didn’t chew.”

“H-How did you get out?” Pipsqueak breathlessly asked.

“I tickled the back of its throat. Then it threw us up,” Raegdan explained.

Applebloom popped in. “What would y’all do if it hadn’t coughed ya up?”

Raegdan shrugged. “Dunno. Run ‘til we got pooped?”

It took a long while until the questions stopped, and despite Raegdan answering them as laconically as he possibly could, it spurred the children even more. Applejack was certain they saw it as a challenge or a game, and soon enough questions and rephrasings started to pop up, trying to squeeze a little more info out of that iron head. In the end, nopony really wanted to stop them, the proceedings being actually quite funny to watch, and it was the school bell that brought them to a stop.

For now, Applejack and Granny Smith sat outside on their own. Leaf Stream, Broken Gust, and Trixie having long left when they were told they couldn’t sit in as they weren’t family of any of the students, and the classroom was not spacious enough anyway.

They were watching, completely bemused, as Raegdan turned himself into this recess’ favored toy, every parent and Cheerilee herself feeling at ease after watching him interact with the children for a few minutes. He had taken apart pieces of his armor and passed them out to the children to play, except for his helmet and kneepads as they were too dangerous with their sharp edges, and his hammer and daggers. Most of the rest, including his shield, had become fair game, and colts were running around looking like armored turtles as they used his pauldrons as makeshift armor, pretending to fight.

The rest of the colts and fillies who couldn’t get a piece of steel to play with had fun by climbing up and down Raegdan, who would pick them off him and throw them in the air a couple of times before setting them back down. Then they would start climbing up his back again and the game would continue.

Then the games were raised up in their ante, and the children had scattered, scrambling away and howling in terror. All but one, who had been left behind as a sole sacrifice.

“P-P-Please! Please h-h-have mer-mercy!”

“Mercy is a hope long turned to ashes for you.”

Raegdan was tormenting Silver Spoon. He had found out that the filly’s left side was particularly ticklish, and he was going all out. A little further away Diamond Tiara was trying to dare the beast and get close enough to rescue her friend from her fate, but Raegdan’s one eye seemed to sweep everywhere, and she feared to approach the long arms too much lest she be captured herself.

Luckily -or not- she had support and aid rained from above. Three fillies jumped from on high -and Applejack would have words with Appleboom for climbing on the roof when they got home- somehow managing to say quite a lot on their short way down.

“Cutie Mark Crusaders Tickle Rescuers!”

“He’s only got two hands!”

“He can’t get all of us!”

Raegdan got all of them.

Spike was hovering close, looking down at the failed rescue operation totally unimpressed. His brows were flat and low on his face, and he kept his arms crossed on his chest as he talked down with contempt at the three fallen crusaders who now shared Silver Spoon’s fate. “Full attack from the front, huh? Bold choice. Not what I told you, but hey. How did that go?”

“T-Thi-This a-aint—ha, ha, ha—fair! How does he—hahaha—do it? Two hands—hahahahahaha—t-two ha-hands!” Scootaloo was almost weeping.

“I can switch, you little idiot!” Raegdan’s hands were a blur as he kept the four filles trapped using his knees to push them all together, and went hard at work to making them asphyxiate.

“So, what do y’all say to having dinner at Sweet Apple Acres?” Granny Smith asked, watching her youngest granddaughter beg her for help. “I’d love to meet tha new princess, too. New Princess. Huh. That ain’t something happening often.”

Granny Smith’s question caught Raegdan by surprise enough that the Cutie Mark Crusaders and Silver Spoon grasped the chance to get away, gasping for breath and giggling still.

“Yeah, Dad! Let’s go. It will be fun!” Spike said. “And Granny Smith’s cooking is incredible. You have to try her pie!”

“Uh…” Raegdan’s head whipped from side to side as if looking for an exit. It didn’t take a genius to understand that he had no intention of going along, though Applejack found it strange, as well as a little insulting. “We’ll see, little flame. I need to ask Luna too. Let’s see what she thinks first, and we will arrange something later, okay?”

“As long as it ain’t too much later!” Granny Smith insisted. “Some of us are too old to be waiting on you young ‘uns, huh?”

“Hey Dad, show them that trick where you twist your arm all the way around your back,” Spike requested, motioning for the other children to gather around and watch.

“That wasn’t a party trick, little flame. I had dislocated my shoulder. I had done that so you would have a laugh before I popped it back in place.”

“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t know.” Spike lowered his head until his chin rested on his chest.

Raegdan sighed, and placed his right arm in front of Applejack. “Pull as hard as you can,” he grumbled, before putting one of his gloves in his mouth and biting it. “Party trick, coming up,” he called out with a pinch of misery.

Applejack pulled.

Most of the kids thought he meant actual fudge.

Twilight finished her examination of the armor and laid the pieces back on the bed in the order they had been, nodding her thanks to Tidal Wave for allowing her to do so. She had never seen the Lunar Guard armor up close before—of course she hadn’t—and it turned out to be quite unexpectedly constructed, nothing like she had imagined it to be. She had thought it would be forged in the way of the standard armor worn by the Royal Guard or maybe the ones by the Solar Guard with their increased magic protection. Instead the Lunar Guard had gone for a different route.

The outer layer of the armor was quite like what she would have expected and how Applejack had described it. It was sturdily built, thick, and covered almost the entirety of the wearer with only a few exceptions. She wasn’t surprised to see it was made out of the same steel alloy that Raegdan’s armor was, though she believed it was quite thinner than what he personally wore. All in all, extremely light for the coverage it offered.

The surprise was the inner layer. Magically enhanced armor, the very rare and precious ones, had runic arrays carved on the inner surface of the metal. Of course, given enough damage the runic array would be disrupted and stop working, making it useless. A strong enough cut, a deep enough dent, and the precious armor became dead weight. That was why runes that increased the metal’s hardness were so important. This was not the case here. The metal armor was clean, and devoid of any temporary spell weave, no matter any possible runes. But the inner layer underneath, the padding below the armor…

She knew what the material was, though not many ponies would recognize it. The runes were… somehow stamped on them, denting the leather surprisingly clearly. Twilight felt for sure that it would straighten out or repair itself in minutes, but no. The leather was covered in runic arrays, the runes as small as possible as they could be stamped on and still be working, which was frankly impossible, yet here it was!

Not only that, but there were loads of them! And unless she was very, very wrong, they even had—they even had backups! There were runic arrays designed to strengthen the material over them, which while was nowhere as strong as what could be used on the metal itself, considering what Luna’s metal was already capable of was still more than enough. Arrays that lightened the weight, that boosted strength, speed, and reflexes, everything increased by a tiny, infinitesimal edge. Almost negligible, yet that could save somepony’s life even so at a critical moment, and even an array that-

This was insane. They were using runes in a way that should not be possible, and they did it in order to regulate the wearer’s temperature!

Admittedly, nopony had ever thought of using leather as a medium for runes. And of course every other attempt to make use of a similar process using metal always failed. Metal could not be stamped accurately enough while cold, and the small changes as heated metal grew cold warped the runes enough to disrupt the flowing magic, and the rune became useless.

Speaking of which, Twilight performed a hasty test. “So, if I bend it like this, do the runes still work?” She showcased what she meant by bending the piece in a gentle curve.

Tidal Wave’s blue mane moved to cover his eyes as he nodded. He pushed it back. “So far, yes. It can take that easily. Something to do with its flexibility I think. As long as they don’t get warped too far, they work.”

Perhaps no pony knew as much about runes as they thought. The material did matter, she knew that. Runes on metal were uncannily sturdy, able to compress and withhold more magic, while all rare glass runework had proved itself ostensibly fast in actions like charging or releasing—

Leather. It was an organic material. Could it be so simple? Did the runes adopt the adaptability of the material? She never cared for runes before. Too much effort and too high risk to make your whole work fail because of a small mistake in the hoofwork, but new horizons opened up before her now. Twilight made a mental list of the tools she would need to find, as well as different materials, as diverse as she could find.

Twilight put down the leather piece she was holding as well. “This is both amazing and disgusting,” was her final verdict. Oh Celestia, she was going to have to ask Raegdan for some leather. She was going to have to work with leather. She felt icky.

“Not a fan of wearing dried out skin over me either,” Tidal Wave agreed, gathering up everything into a trunk. “But it has proven its worth so far, so I’ll take it even if it feels like I’m wearing a corpse.”

“I’m surprised the runes don’t fade,” Twilight observed.

Tidal Wave paused, taking a glance at the aforementioned runes. “They do if it gets wet enough. Not a lot, but enough that they need to be redone if it happens too much. Princess Luna is able to redo them easy enough.” Twilight figured that the quiet unicorn must have noticed her open jaw. “It doesn’t take that long. I think the princess is able to do a full suit in an hour or two at most. At least, I think so. I don’t know how it’s done.”

Don’t dislocate your jaw, don’t pop your eyes out, don’t get a cramp on your brain, stop that spasm on the side of your neck before you break your whole spine… “Really? Wow, that is so… fast,” she finished, her face feeling like a crackling mask of plaster.

The way Tidal Wave seemed to take the impossibility of this armor’s existence in stride bit at Twilight. For a moment she wanted to slap him, hold him be the neck, shake him, slap him again, and scream at his face. ‘Don’t you see what you are holding? Do you realize how much work it takes for one of these the normal way? Decades!’ Then she’d slap him instead.

She sighed. No, slapping wasn’t her. But she eyed those puffy cheeks. They were really asking for it. “What about the metal part? I suppose Raegdan and Luna make that also?”

“Oh, that I know.” Tidal Wave poked his head over the top of the trunk’s open lid. “Cast Iron makes the armors now, and all the rest of whatever we need. I think he knows how to make even the exploding stuff now. I don’t know if the other guy knows it.”

“Other guy? You mean Solid Charge?” Twilight asked.

“No, the other guy. The Thestral.” Tidal Wave closed the trunk with a thud, and he rested his elbows on it as he thought. “What was his name again? We don’t see him a lot, and he just got around…”

Twilight’s eyes got wide. She had a feeling that she knew exactly who Tidal Wave talked about, Rainbow Dash having told her everything, but she thought she’d never have the magnificent opportunity to talk to a pony from so long ago. She thought that he had been sent back to the Thestrals, to rehabilitate and continue his life as much as he could!

“Steel Edge? The Thestral that was part of the original Lunar Guard?” Twilight asked, hoping she was right. “Is he here? Can I talk to him?”

“No,” Tidal Wave responded, shattering Twilight’s hope with simple nonchalance. “He was making a clamor of getting back to Princess Luna, she didn’t want him around—”

“Why?”

“No idea. But he came to Canterlot anyway, on his own. He got settled with Cast Iron after all, but orders are to not let him anywhere near the Princess. I wonder why?” His hoof rapped the trunk’s lid as he thought. “You know the strangest thing? Not even the other Thestrals will talk to him. Eventide and the rest just… ignore him. Poor guy. At least he seems to have his plate full re-learning his trade.”

“What do— Oh, of course!” Twilight’s hoof gently smacked her forehead. “He’s one thousand years behind on modern blacksmithing. But why don’t the others talk to him? That doesn’t make any sense!”

Tidal Wave sat back on his bed. His hoof briefly passed over the old teddy bear on it, making contact for a moment. “Who knows? Half of everything doesn’t. It almost feels like a family issue of sorts, so I wouldn’t meddle in that. At least the guy, Steel Edge, is sticking close enough. That’s something.”

The outer door of the house creaked loudly enough that everypony inside knew when someone was going in or out. It did so now, and a few seconds later Gobrend appeared at the threshold of Tidal Wave’s room, a tall, tan-coated, and short-maned mare standing next to him.

“See?” Gobrend’s beak almost warped itself in a self-satisfied smile. “‘Tis as I said; I met miss Twilight, and had her come here as you asked me to do if I perchance ran into her.”

Twilight stepped angrily up to the griffin. “You told me that I was to come here to learn special things,” she mocked, “in exchange for a favor. You tried to buy me off with what you were already going to give to me.”

Gobrend clapped while next to him Sunrise Storm was shaking her head in exasperation. “Congratulations,” Gobrend smirked, resting his side on the wall. “You’ve also learned an important lesson in mercantile trade as well. Truly, I am spoiling you.”

Twilight gave him the sweetest and most saccharine smile she could, placing her hoof against her chest in a gesture of thankfullness. “Thank you. Oh, I almost forgot. I will have whatever samples you’ve already gathered today, please. Some payment must be given up front, you understand of course.” She winked, closed her eyes, tilted her head to the side, and lifted her hoof in a most innocent and playful way. “Mercantile rules!”

Gobrend scowled and stomped off, leaving them alone. “I’ll be in my room packing them up for you…” he grumbled.

“Miss Twilight, if I may I offer you a beverage in the kitchen?” Sunrise Storm said, gesturing the way.

The kitchen was small, homely, and not that much different than Twilight’s own, back in the library. Sunrise Storm closed the door and set on preparing tea for both of them, staring at the water as it heated up with unmoveable patience. Twilight waited as well, not sure about this mare’s character or personal quirks at all.

Sunrise Storm put Twilight’s cup in front of her and then sat across her. “I know that Gobrend may have told you that you would learn something from me, but that was a lie in a way. Unless of course my questions are informative by themselves to you, of course.”

“Questions? Am I being interrogated?” Twilight joked.

“Yes.”

Brain, restart. “...Wait, really?”

Sunrise Storm burst into a short laughter. “No! Of course not! I just have a few questions.” The mare’s crystalline eyes locked with Twilight’s, and the unicorn noticed that there wasn’t a whole lot of amusement in there, despite what the rest of the face said. “Do you know that we have separated into teams?”

“Yes. Gobrend mentioned that.”

The brown-maned mare nodded. “Good. He is in my team. I’m leading one of them, this one. We, however, have taken part in very few monster hunts. We’re being groomed for the cities and towns, not for the outside. The team is I, Gobrend, Trailblazer, Tidal Wave, Snared Wish, and Shaded Swirl.”

“I see. They want you to find the one behind the attacks.” Twilight levitated her tea in front of her.

“Actually, we weren’t. Commander Solid Charge assumed so and told us everything he knew in preparation. When we brought the matter to Princess Luna though, in hopes of having more information to share, she expressly forbid us from hounding the matter.”

Twilight managed to grab the cup only an inch before it shattered on the floor. It didn’t stop it from spilling all its contents on the floor. Twilight gasped and stepped aside so as to not step on the mess and spread it further. “She wh—I’m sorry, let me get that… but what!”

“I’ll take care of it, if you could change your seat, please.” Sunrise Storm found a rag and started mopping up the spilled tea. She kept talking while she worked. “I’m not ‘hounding’ the case as she requested, but it is only natural that I do ask some questions since it involves a princess’ safety, is it not? Tell me, have you seen this photo on the counter before?”

A purple cloud of magic floated a flimsy piece of paper in front of Twilight. Even though she had only seen it once, she immediately recognized the balcony door in front of which the Alicorn sat, shyly smiling at whoever shot the picture. It was taken right in Luna’s quarters. A more thorough examination revealed little more, but she did notice that the small mark, the dip on the side where Luna had been gravely wounded was not there. Twilight decided that this photo had been taken before any of them had gotten to Baltimare.

“It’s the first time I've seem it. The first clear photo of Princess Luna that I've seen, in fact, barring the ones taken at her speech in Manehattan.”

Dirty tea was wrung out of the rag and into the sink before the cloth splatted back on the floor after a brief wash. “You know what I really noticed on that photo? The angle. Do you see it?” Sunrise Storm kept her head to the floor as she cleaned up Twilight’s mess.

I do, Twilight thought, contemplating what she knew and the way everypony, including her, always turned their suspicions to a certain person. “Somepony taller than Princess Luna took the picture.”

“Yes. Do you have any suggestions-”

Twilight smacked the photo on the table. “I don’t have to make any suggestions. The angle wouldn’t necessarily mean anything. I can take a photo from that angle myself. Levitation magic, remember? Princess Luna is smiling in the picture. Considering it was obviously taken before they left Canterlot, she would only do so for two others. Raegdan or Princess Celestia.”

The scrubbing ceased, unnecessary as it was. The floor was as clean as it could be. “A different reasoning from what I took, but sound. The photo was found in Sharp Chisel’s possession. Strange that the princess doesn’t want us to find more about this, but she insists on tracking the bombs that Sharp Chisel allegedly made as soon as possible in some way other than going after our only lead so far. Now, Solid Charge let me know that Raegdan-”

“Raegdan can’t use a camera,” Twilight immediately said, scowling. She didn’t bother explaining about how a camera worked and how Raegdan’s strange ability would make it a practice in futility. “I don’t know what you were thinking,” she lied, “but the photo must have been obviously taken by Princess Celestia.”

Sunrise Storm deflated. “Oh. I didn’t know that.” She forcibly blew air, making her lips flap. “Well, that was a wrong hypothesis then. Any idea how it could have ended in-”

“It could have ended in Sharp Chisel’s possession in a number of ways if someone wanted to provide him with a photo. Do you have any idea of the sheer number of ponies who wander around the castle at any given time?” Twilight said, expressing her displeasure at the line of questioning.

“But if the photo was in Princess Celestia’s possession—”

“Which is kept clean by maids? And that is if Princess Celestia even kept the photo there. Don’t forget that somepony must have developed the photo. Who can assure us that there weren’t any copies made? What if Princess Luna had kept it? We know for certain that somepony crept in there with ill intentions at least once, and many more times according to Princess Luna.”

Sunrise Storm smacked her forehead. Suspicion erupted in Twilight’s mind. The mare was pretending, she was certain. “Of course, I should have checked that. Thank you for the suggestion.”

“You are welcome,” Twilight said, nodding. She pushed her chair back as she got up. She was certain that the photo was taken by Princess Celestia. And she was certain it was no maid who took it, they were the most trustworthy of those who worked there. Nopony could get in Princess Celestia’s room without her permission. Almost nopony.

“A last question before you leave?” Sunrise Storm asked. “When we separated in teams Raegdan told us he would stick out on his own.”

“I’m… not surprised,” Twilight confessed, stopping before the kitchen’s door. “He’s very self-reliant, and he does much better when he doesn’t need to worry over others. He has been hunting in the Everfree Forest since forever. He’s going to be fine on his own.”

“I heard about that. How does he hunt, anyway? Does he set traps?”

Twilight shook her head, and chuckled as she remembered Applejack’s story of how they travelled through the wilderness on hoof on their way to find the Thestrals. “I haven’t seen it myself, but Applejack told me something. He went to hunt a couple of times while they were on their way to the Thestrals. She said that he uses, and I quote, ‘the using-yourself-as-bait method’. It’s just like him,” she said, laughing.

“Oh yes, he raised you, didn’t he?” Sunrise Storm smiled warmly. “Happy memories?”

“I’m sorry, it just makes so much sense!” Twilight was laughing merrily, the joy coming so much easier lately when she thought of those moments that they had for a long time. “I remember when we had a snowball fight. Even Princess Celestia joined in. Raegdan kept using himself as a diversion in order to get us to aim for him while the rest in their team went for us. Oh, you should have seen him. It’s a wonder he didn’t end up with frostbite!”

The small kitchen was filled with sounds of disbelieving snorting, and chuckles as the images formed and Twilight shared some more details. Sunrise Storm wiped a tear from her eye. “Ponies don’t change much, do they? If one trick works, why use another?”

Twilight headed for the door. “Yes. I guess you are right.” Raegdan was a creature of long habit. It wasn’t the first time he did something like that, and even then her thoughts went to the armor he wore. He made himself an obvious target.

She remembered the story of when he faced that cat creature in some other world, that broke his arm. He didn’t try to hide or set a trap. He made himself visible and waited for it, preferring to know where it would come from. Rainbow’s story of how he killed that manticore in the camp was about the same. He had found it by making himself a target. Raegdan didn’t go blindly searching after his opponents and into their hooves.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t more helpful,” Twilight said, opening the door and preparing to leave.

Sunrise Storm came to her side, escorting her out. “Don’t worry, you’ve been quite helpful,” the mare said.

Funny, Honest Serenade had said the same thing once.

Twilight was feeling like a chump once again. Had she missed something? She replayed the exchange with Sunrise Storm in her mind, and for some reason she kept thinking of Applejack. Something that her friend had said sometime. She focused. She remembered papers, disappointment, she was someplace gloomy and… and…

“How the hay did you notice that?” Twilight asked with wonder. The pages were so indecipherable, and similar to each other, that even now she could barely notice the repeat. This was expertly done. They had even added some sketches in random points to confuse the eye even more.

“Patterns,” Applejack said. “I’ll explain some other time. Let’s just say that having to check a few hundred of identical trees for signs of trouble every day, tends to leave you with a talent for seeing this kind of stuff.”

No. This couldn’t be it. That was crazy! Was Sunrise Storm really suspecting that Raegdan and Luna left themselves vulnerable on purpo—

The door leading out slammed open as a red and black hurricane forced its way in. The edge of the wooden door slapped Twilight’s face, and she barely missed having a tooth or two prodded off by the protruding knob. She dazily saw a pegasus shouting at the top of her lungs, with military pneumatic efficiency, while Twilight herself was watching her upside down, thrown against the wall and pressing her hoof against her pained muzzle.

Twilight called out for a smidgen of aid by announcing, “sumrfloglub,” to the room at large.

“All of you, front and center, now!” The red coated pegasus with a short black mane sounded not quite angry as much as impatient. She lorded in front of the entrance like a pegasus warrior of old, ready to crush anypony who dared defy her by simulating the fury of thunder and lightning on their faces.

Sunrise Storm hovered over Twilight, helping her move so she could be more comfortable and urging her to wait while she would go and get her some ice. “Snared Wish, you accidentally hurt somepony here.”

“What is going on?” Trailblazer asked, peeking out of his room, the unmistakeable smell of smoke quickly emanating from inside.

Tidal Wave opened his door and walked out, sniffing the air. “Trailblazer, we said no more fire spells! And what is all that shouting? I was going to nap.”

“Nopony naps! I had it up to here. You are all getting out of here tonight! Right now!” Snared Wish shouted over the others’ voices, flapping her wings as to gain a physical advantage in height.

“That’s why I was trying to get a nap!” Tidal Wave loudly complained. “We have that stupid training exercise tonight. Vacation time, my flank.”

“Sooner! You are all leaving, and you are leaving now!”

Trailblazer casted a spell in his room, the smell of smoke instantly fading, and he walked out. “Okay, just what is the matter?”

Snared Wish was on him in a second, her eye an inch away from his, instantly intimidating and cowering the taller unicorn. “What is the matter? The matter is that I haven’t had ‘we’ time with my husband for months! This is supposed to be a vacation, I’ve been patient and expected you all to get my little hints, but a mare can't stand even her own, lovingly cared for, leaf collection for so long, and I’m not waiting a moment longer. You are all leaving, and will allow me and my Shaded Swirl to finally have some ‘we’ time. Have I settled the matter enough for you?” she, very threateningly, pointed out.

The fire-maned unicorn backed off rapidly, a drop of sweat staining his forehead. “Does this ‘we’ time involve his ‘wee-wee’?”

“OUUUUUT!”

Sunrise Storm rose up, scowling deeply. The mare looked actually angry. “Snared Wish, go get me some ice and a few paper towels. She’s bleeding.”

Snared Wish finally noticed Twilight, bleeding from her muzzle, and instantly quieted down. “Uh, who is that?” she asked, remorse painting her tone and expression as she alternating between staring at Twilight and the door. “Celestia, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you at all, I’m so, so sorry!”

“Let me introduce you to Twilight Sparkle,” Sunrise Storm said, moving to look down at Snared Wish with more than a hint of annoyance. “Bearer of the element of magic, student of Princess Celestia, personal friend of Princess Luna, and adopted daughter of Raegdan. Can I get that ice pack now?”

All color faded from Snared Wish’s face. “Wait, didn’t he shove a pony’s tail up his flank for… for… It was an accident! You will tell him and the princess, right? They’re not going to be mad, right?”

Cackling laughter burst from above. You could almost hear the tears on the griffin’s eyes as he laughed harder than he ever had, claws scratching the floor as he tried to control himself. “Ha! It looks like that you’re getting your wish in some way! Of course, it won’t be your hubby doing the fu—”

Rarity, humming contentedly to herself, picked up two of the glasses and rested one of them next to Princess Luna as she sank back into the large tub of the spa, next to the Alicorn that enjoyed the warm water, her eyes shut in bliss. A brief opening of her eyelids revealed brilliant teal as the crystal glass tinkled, its bubbly liquid popping soundlessly.

Fluttershy had sunk herself low enough in the water that her nostrils barely made it out of the surface. She rose up high enough to speak briefly before sinking back down again. “None for me, thank you.”
Rarity didn’t mind. If there was one thing better than a glass of cold champagne during hot tub, it was two glasses.

“I have no words to describe how this feels,” Princess Luna purred, sinking a little deeper in the water. Her mane floated on the surface of the water, making it look like a lake at midnight was forming around her. “Is this wine?”

“Champagne,” Rarity said, taking a sip and enjoying the cold sensation running down her throat while she was surrounded by warmth. “This is not normally allowed here. Bringing a princess to Lotus and Aloe has granted us some perks though.”

Princess Luna sipped tentatively, swirling the drink from cheek to cheek before swallowing and licking her lips. “Tis acceptable. It fits the mood. How did you call it again?”

“Champagne,” Rarity repeated, and retreated to her own seat near the Alicorn, leaning her head on the folded towel at the edge of the tub that served as a pillow. “You’ve never had it before?”

“I don’t believe so.” Luna half opened her eyes to look around with a sense of serenity. “I wonder how hard it would be to have something similar constructed in my tower.”

Rarity giggled. “From the looks of it, you have a couple of hard working stallions that like to get their hooves dirty. Gentlestallions such as they would not refuse undertaking such a worthwhile project for a princess.”

“I think Raegdan and Cast Iron would actually like it,” Fluttershy added. “They both look so much happier with what they do now.”

“Indeed they do, darling, don’t they? You could probably ask them for an even bigger one and they would jump at the chance, princess.”

Luna lifted the champagne glass in her magic, slowly rotating it and catching the soft light. The fluted crystal sparkled, and the champagne within glew like pale gold. The Alicorn opened her mouth and let some flow over her tongue, not touching the glass with her lips, hovering the glass over her awaiting mouth instead.

“Time. It is a vicious, unrelenting enemy.” Luna’s hoof splashed the water, warm droplets speckling her mellowed face. “And this is a luxury I might be better off without. My time is already overwhelmingly too little just for my current activities. Having a wonder like this freely available would only taunt me.” She smirked, resting back again. “But I would not be averse to revisiting this spa a few more times before I am to leave.”

Fluttershy’s cheeks had reddened with heat that had nothing to do with the water’s temperature as she watched the way the Alicorn—ahem—‘drank’. “Um, princess, you’re supposed to, um… bring the glass to your lips and drink…”

Luna sighed in disappointment and she hastily placed the half-empty glass on the glossy marble at the edge of the tub. "I only meant it as fun. I presume it is a taboo way to drink champagne?”

Rarity pursed her lips. “Mmm, it’s a… frowned upon way of drinking. Depending on the,” she coughed meaningfully, “company though.”

She was uncertain on whether Princess Luna gleamed her innuendo, but Luna still frowned heavily, her lips moving from left to right in distaste. “This is exactly what I mean. So much to catch upon, so many things to do.” The glass floated on her magic again, raised high over everypony’s heads. “How do you drink this, on which occasions, is it an expensive drink, are there more preferable varieties, what time of day is it favored upon, how much can you civilly drink, what is the etiquette upon receiving it… a hundred questions, all over a single drink.”

“It’s just champagne,” Rarity weakly said.

“And it is something you’ve grown with, steeped in the culture that contains it.” Luna nodded at Rarity, letting her know she didn’t mean any offense directed at her. “But I haven’t. So many things to catch on, never knowing which motion of mine might cause me to be portrayed as an imbecile.”

“Is… this why you don’t take part in any formal appearances like Princess Celestia? Or why you still don’t talk to the press?” Rarity suddenly understood. Of course Luna wouldn’t talk to the press or make any appearances in public! It had become obvious that the princess hated being looked down upon, and there were indeed some really repugnant parties among the mass media that would gladly encapsulate on the slightest error of hers to bloat up their sales.

Ah, so much made sense now. It was simplicity itself to understand why Luna would rather savage anypony who asked her questions or approached too much as she used to do so recently. As much as equally scandalous as this degree of violence from royalty would be, it would be something she did by choice rather than an ‘oafish mistake’, and it kept those cowardly journalist weasels away from her.

Rarity had to admit to herself that maybe she was a little rough on how she thought of those ponies, but dammit, their review of her latest line still scathed.

“Partly,” Luna admitted. “The other reason is, once more, time.” The Alicorn stayed quiet for a while, casually making small waves with her legs.

After a minute of quiet she spoke again. “I take lessons, you know.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Fluttershy asked, slowly paddling closer and to the other side of Luna, across from Rarity. “What kind of lessons?”

“Everything. Etiquette lessons from Red Dawn. Modern Royal Guard strategies and tactics from Stalwart Shield and Short Order. Griffin relations from Gobrend. Everything about the Diamond Dogs that Raven Moon can tell me. Every little bit of knowledge that wandering ponies like Blank Slate can share. Conversations with Solid Charge, Trixie, Shaded Swirl, Tick and Tack, Eventide… And of course I follow Celestia in every other available second I have, watching and learning. Everything I can possibly get, all among my other duties.” Luna rested against the side of the tub, looking tired just from being reminded of her courses.

“I’m sure it will be worth it in the end, Princess.” Rarity smiled encouragingly, laying her hoof on top of Luna’s for a moment.

“Luna, please. Just call me Luna. I’m not sure if it is worth it now,” Luna darkly said. She was looking far away. “We started fighting.”

“It has been on the newspapers,” Fluttershy needlessly added.

The Alicorn’s expression darkened in puzzlement, looking thrown off her loop for a second before chuckling. “No, I didn’t mean that. I mean… with Raegdan.”

“Oh, this is absurd,” Rarity immediately said. “Raegdan simply adores you.”

“I haven’t spent almost any time with him at all in all those months. So much to learn if I truly desire to get better, and… I’m ashamed to admit that I cast him aside. He had nothing to teach me of what I wished to learn. Instead, I gave him more responsibilities. To spearhead the design and construction of our armories, to plan our excursions, to help train our guards even closer.

“I fear he believes I’m keeping him away. He is angry. He keeps it in check, but I know. And knowing that, I… I become angry myself. It never became a full blown fight, we never actually addressed these issues. We just gritted our teeth and kept on. Mayhaps we both hoped our stay here would ease our relation.”

Luna paddled the water once more. “But instead he spurns me and spends all his time with… I’m being unfair, am I not? He has missed Twilight and Spike so much. I shouldn’t be keeping this against them. They are not at fault here.”

Fluttershy, sweet, timid Fluttershy, swam next to Rarity and whispered in her ear, full of concern for her good friend. “Um… Rarity? I don’t think it’s proper to stare at Luna like that… Actually, your eyes kinda shine like a timberwolf’s...Like, a dark, sinister light, only it seems to swallow everything else...” Fluttershy meekly reached for a towel. “I’m going to the bathroom, I’ll be back… later,” she announced.

Oh, how Rarity knew that her patience would be rewarded. That her resolution and inspiration would be needed, nay, demanded! She flicked her wet, purple mane to the side, and in one smooth move was right next to Luna, her hoof draped comfortably across the mare’s back.

“Oh, Luna. Of course it is natural that Raegdan would wish to spend as much of his time with those he hasn’t had the chance to do so. But it is not right nor proper to have a pony worth so much to him laid so casually aside, is it?” Rarity’s voice was as thick and sweet as honey.

“I… will not refute the possibility that I may have had these thoughts…”

“Thus, nopony would blame you if you appropriated some of his time to spend together in a more personal setting, hmm?”

Luna ducked under and away from Rarity’s grasp. “I believe I should remind you, before you go any further into your proposal, that we currently sleep right under Twilight’s and Spike’s very sensitive ears…”

“No, no, no. Darling, you misunderstand me!” Rarity cried out in a dazzling display of showmanship as she caught Luna’s face between her hooves.

Luna spoke through her lips, crushed together as they were through Rarity’s hold, with some difficulty. “I am fairly thertain that thith ith both undignified and irregular.”

“Dream with me,” Rarity crowed, turning around and bringing her hooves around in a hold that smashed Luna’s face between Rarity’s foreleg and torso. Luna’s eyes were wide at the astonishing amount of strength that Rarity unconsciously used. “Visualize! A white tablecloth with no more than two tall candles to softly illuminate the setting. Music dancing its way to you from further away, strings singing a song of the heart. An opulent dish, the finest cuisine available, served on delicate, expensive china, its fragrance wafting and bolstering your appetites, mixed indelibly with gentle flowers around you. The pull of the softest of fabrics as the finest dress rests upon you, accentuating your lithe form and gentle curves, with silver resting on your brow and ears. And across you, dressed immaculately, his attention fixated solely upon you—”

“Wait,” Luna interrupted, her hoof raised and her words making bubbles on the water as Rarity held her a smidge too low. “I’ve heard of what you describe before. You mean…”

“Yes!” Rarity cried again, swivelling the far taller and heavier pony around her with as much ease as she would a scarf. “Exactly, darling! A date that will make everypony weep in envy. I will, of course, gladly aid in making whatever small arrangements are needed.”

“You expect me to ask him on—”

“Stars forbid, my dear! He’s the stallion, he will do so. Your part will constitute of staying radiant and graciously humoring his humble request!”

“... This will not happen in a million years,” Luna declared. “He will never do this. He wouldn’t do it even if I asked him. Which I won’t. This simply cannot happen in any conceivable reality.”

Rarity patted the top of the princess’ head, too far gone to realize what she was doing, although she would be mortified enough later when she finally laid on her bed after an hour or two of straining activity. “Leave this to me. You wouldn’t believe what a few whispers at the opportune moment can achieve. Stallions are so easy to manip—to divert their attention to their perceived shortcomings. They will rush on their own to do your bidding thinking it was their idea to begin with.”

“Opportune moment?”

“Tut, tut. Allow me a secret or two of my own, please.”

“Even if this absurdity were to pass, I’ve never even worn a dress, so I don’t own—Ah, of course. Should I presume it is ready even as we speak?”

Rarity chuckled. “You overestimate me, princess.” Rarity’s smile faded instantly, overtaken by her ‘business’ composure. “I need you to come in for the fitting as soon as possible.”

Luna’s magic brought her forgotten glass back to her, and she drank greedily. “Can we please let this go? I have more important issues to ponder than a,” she almost whispered, her voice turning tiny, “a date!”

“Well, of course—”

Luna sighed in relief. “Thank y—”

“—not!” Rarity waited, her eyes burning into Luna’s own, a manic smile on her lips. Luna would of course make the right choice, the only choice. It would be as it should be, as every story said, and Rarity would be there, right in the center like a scheming spid—a true and loyal friend who only wanted to make others happy.

Luna’s teeth were savaging her bottom lip as her surface desires fought with her deeper ones, her slow blush almost turning her dark blue color into a royal purple. “...Is it a pretty dress?”

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessss…

Twilight was on the verge of winning the battle for dominance over Luna. Despite the protests of the Alicorn, Twilight knew that she was in the right, and she refused to let victory out of her grasp.

“Twilight Sparkle, we agreed that I would be allowed to make thy meals for as long as we stayed here, did we not?” Luna repeated her argument once more.

Twilight grabbed the last of her shopping bags with her teeth—too far gone to think of using magic—and put it on the kitchen table. “Yes,” she mumbled through the thick paper, “but, first: We agreed on that by saying ‘starting tomorrow’, and two: I am not going to let yourself get steamed in cooking vapor and fumes today. Rarity would have my hide if I allowed this right after you came out of the spa.”

“Rarity can’t—”

“My hide!” Twilight interrupted loudly. She started putting everything at its proper and long-defined place. She questioned why storing packages in the cabinets had suddenly become so much more of a hassle when she realized she still wasn’t using her magic. “It’s not even time for supper yet. I will make something light for all of us later, you could at least allow me to attempt to cook for you at least once, right?”

“I don’t enjoy sitting around like this,” Luna petulantly grumbled.

“Tough. You’re supposed to relax on vacations. Raegdan should have let me and Spike hire some ponies instead of doing all this work himself. I think you both have gotten the idea that you’re only supposed to be idle when on a hospital bed.”

Luna blinked. “That is… not necessarily true.”

The library door no longer creaked, but the new and still unsettled floorboards announced somepony’s presence. Twilight headed for the main hall of the library to welcome back Raegdan, and ask him exactly where had he vanished. From what she got when they were done with their little trip to the school, Raegdan came back to keep working while everypony else was doing their own things. Spike spent most of his day with the Cutie Mark Crusaders, but when he returned, a little while ago actually, Raegdan was gone.

“True or not,” Twilight continued as she made her way out, “you will leave this to me for tonight. I can make a—”

A blood-soaked figure had entered the library. Its clothes might have been been blacks and greys once, but now they were dark crimson. There was a smell, not just the coppery, tangy smell of blood that suffocated her nostrils, but something deeper and subtle. Twilight was certain that bloody prints would be left behind the horrid sight, though a trembling glance proved her wrong. Whatever the reason, not a single drop had dripped.

Her tongue had gone numb, and it was only Spike’s voice as he yelled out in excitement that finally spurred her mouth to move.

“Is that Dad? Is he back?” the baby dragon yelled from the second floor. Twilight heard a thump, probably from Spike jumping off her bed, where he comfortably laid and read his comics.

“Spike, stay up there,” she shouted.

“Huh?”

“Stay up there!” she repeated even louder. She lowered her voice, hissing almost. “What in Celestia’s name happened to you?”

“I slipped and the bucket spilled all over,” Raegdan said, pulling at the fabric he wore. There was a squelch, and even though it was the exact sound soaked cotton did, it made her almost physically ill nevertheless. “Look, there was that chimera’s corpse, the one that went after Applejack? We put it in a shack, and I finally went to clean it up and, well, I just finished. Can I go take a shower before little flame sees this? You weren’t supposed to see me either…” he finished, spreading his arms in apology.

“Did anypony spot you looking like… that?” Twilight asked, covering her mouth with her hoof. Her stomach was queasy, and she almost felt something coming up her throat.

“A couple. So what? We’ll say it was paint if it troubles you.”

“Just… Just go get cleaned up,” she ordered, and watched as Raegdan obediently headed for the bathroom, using only one of his fingers to pull the door open and stooped to pass through the low threshold.

Then she went down to the basement, and spent a few minutes trying to find where he had stacked his belongings among the rubble that he hadn’t moved to make space for him and Luna as much as push away haphazardly. A change of clothes suddenly hovered next to her, caught in Luna’s magic. The Alicorn had come down, found what Twilight was looking for, and got them ready, and Twilight didn’t notice her. She picked the simple clothing in her own magic field, ignoring Luna’s expression of concern. She rushed past her, up to the ground floor, and knocked on the bathroom door after leaving the clothes in front of it.

Then she ran outside, sat next to the water spout at the back of the library, and heaved. There wasn’t much in her stomach, but the little that was in it gushed out. Twilight used the hose to clean up the mess, watching the liquefied remains of her previous snack get diluted and absorbed by the ground. She turned the hose on her next, washing her face and cleaned her mouth of the foul taste. When she was done she let the water run, the quiet splash on what quickly became mud a welcoming soothing noise to momentarily cover up her turmoiled thoughts.

He probably looked just like that after he was done torturing those ponies.

It didn’t matter how he looked. It didn’t matter if seeing him like this was almost exactly like the time she had gone down to the dungeons to find him, despite hating the smell of blood, and seeing him over a stringed up… torso that she had been certain belonged to no animal, and, and, and…

She tried to retch again, but all she managed was a little spit and a harsh cough. She washed her mouth again, gingerly swallowing a small mouthful despite her stomach’s protests.

You said you were going to wait until he had helped Luna. Until she had other ponies to keep her safe. She has her Guard now. It’s over. When are you going to tell Princess Celestia?

Twilight didn’t want to tell the Princess. At least, at least not yet. Not until she had figured out some stuff for her own.

Like Mom?

Oh, Celestia, what was she going to do? Her mother had told her that she would gladly accept any outcome, that it was her actions and that Twilight only had the obligation to do what was right, but how could Twilight do it anyway? How could she be the reason that her mom ended up in a cell?

Why don’t you mind the same about Raegdan? Why aren’t you that upset over him?

She almost choked on her breath. Why didn’t she? Didn’t she care for him?

She did! She absolutely did! She loved him, he raised her, it was just that… that…

You know that Raegdan won’t stand and let anypony imprison him, not for as long as he should be if he’s found guilty. You know he won’t allow himself to be executed either, even if Princess Celestia went insane and let it happen. As for banishment, he would laugh at the idea. Nopony tells him where he can or can’t go. You know that he will—

—Find a way out. He’s good at that. He would escape at worst and find residence somewhere where no reasonable pony would go find him, like the Everfree Forest. And even if he didn’t go in there, who would be able to catch him except Princess Celestia herself without risking lives, and that’s even if she was able to find him first? No, for Raegdan, this would only be a temporary hurdle. That’s why he didn’t mind if Twilight spoke up after his job was done. That’s why he wanted to take all the blame on himself and leave Twilight’s mother out of it or whoever else had helped him.

Then why do you want to snitch on him? Why do you want so desperately to betray him like this when you know that he will not be punished?

I don’t want him punished! That’s not why I’m doing this! I want to do this because it is the right thing to do.

Is it?

It is!

Then why aren’t you sure?

How can I be sure? Look at this mess; Innocent fillies freed from a torture by the worst of scum through bloodshed and torture. Yet it wasn’t done for the cause of saving them, though it was done nonetheless! It was done for revenge and blood, it was done with the foulest methods, for foul reasons, and worst of all it was done because of her. It saved innocents, yes, but Raegdan was as bad as they were in his way, or worse! Yet she loved him! Didn’t anypony get it? Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow, Fluttershy, Pinkie, none of them got it! Twilight loved Raegdan despite what he had done!

What about the ponies who loved those horrible monsters that her own monster killed? What about them? What of their Twilights and Spikes? Would they never know what happened? Should they?

It wasn’t right what he did, but something right came out of it even so, and she didn’t know what to feel, she didn’t know what to think, she didn’t know if—

—If it was right or wrong. You don’t know if it was true or false. One or two. Black or white. You don’t want to believe in a grey world. So, you need to be told. You don’t want to do this so that the law will decide if he is guilty or not. Nothing will truly come out of it, and the law can be tricked and played with. You know him too much. You want to do this because—

—Because I want Princess Celestia to know. Because I want her to say if it was wrong or right. Because I need a definite answer. Because finding it on my own hurts too much, and there is no book that holds the answer to this kind of question.

Are you any better though? You will do this to someone you claim to love and care for, because most of all what you want is an answer? You will strike him like that, even if he’s willing to take the hit, when he has shown you nothing but love? Is this how you will repay him?

It was not as simple. Twilight was coming to realize that now. Maybe nothing was simple any more. Maybe it never had been. But she yearned for it to be so much. She needed to know if what Raegdan did was right or wrong, if she should have done things differently to spare him and others, if she was right to care for him, if it was right to keep Spike at a hoof’s distance away from him, if, if, if…

A thousand questions that she couldn’t answer. So she wanted an easy one. Yes or no.

Twilight reached for the valve and stopped the water flowing out of the abandoned hose. Her two right legs had been soaked in mud. Her left legs were still, by pure chance, on ground that had been left dry, and they were clean.

She should have had these thoughts long ago. Twilight could not comprehend why she hadn’t. Too fresh, she imagined. It was as if she had been lost in a haze as far as this matter was concerned for the last few months, the veil only recently lifting, letting her properly think.

And she still wasn’t able to make her mind.

Maybe… Maybe after some more time, she thought. Let them have their vacation. Wait until the Lunar Guard has some more experience. Until he does something about the rifts. Delay until you have another excuse.

Yeah, well… She deserved a few breaks. She’d take it.

Twilight went back inside the library, after making sure she had cleaned herself up and wiped her hooves dry on the doormat. She hoped that her absence would have gone unnoticed, but apparently she had lost track of time. Raegdan was already out of the bathroom and in clean clothing, the mask he wore still damp despite being wrung dry. He was sitting on the largest and plushiest chair that Twilight owned, the only one that could fit him comfortably. Spike was lying down across his torso, using the cranny of Raegdan’s left elbow as a pillow while he read from a pile of comics. Raegdan held one of them himself, holding it aloft so he could read without bothering Spike.

Luna had laid out on the couch, working through a notebook with a pencil caught between her lips and drawing a small line or adding a few letters every now and then while the thick notebook hovered over her face.

The moment that Twilight entered, Spike gave an offhand greeting that Twilight barely noticed. What she did notice was the nearly imperceptible look that Luna and Raegdan exchanged. The Alicorn sat up on the couch, patting the empty space next to her.

“Come, Twilight. Sit with us. It’s what we’re supposed to do, is it not?” Her easy smile disarmed her words of any possible stings.

Twilight thanked her, crashing on the couch with relief. She felt tired, physically as well as mentally. At least she thought so. It might just have been how her desire to curl under her blankets and sleep all decisions and problems away, though. She had been doing that for months, after all. Celestia only knew what had gotten into her.

Raegdan’s tongue struck against the top of his mouth in disgust. “Really?” he asked in tired disbelief. “The Mane-iac again? These all follow each other, right? They just caught her. Where do they put her, in a paper maché cell?”

“It’s part of her whole shtick.” Spike’s tongue wet his claw and turned to the next page without looking at Raegdan. “She always escapes and comes back. Even if she’s in an explosion, she soon returns. The guy at the comic store says that it’s possible she’s got immortality as part of her powers.”

Raegdan’s eyes narrowed. “Or she doesn’t and pretend she does. Do they ever lock her anywhere else than this Arkhay place?”

Spike rested his comic against his chest for a moment. “Nope, don’t think so.” He went back to reading. “It’s where they always put her.”

“No wonder she keeps escaping, then. She deals with idiots. At this point I only try to understand if she’s the bigger idiot for being caught in the first place.”

“It’s not like that,” Spike whined, not enjoying his favorite series being thrashed. “They always add new measures, alarms, guards, everything. She always escapes. She’s too devious!”

Raegdan squinted on that for a beat. “... Do they ever change the locks?”

Spike paused. “They haven’t mentioned that specifically in the comics so far…”

“No prison ever changes the locks. Bitch hides a set of copies under a doormat or something. No wonder she walks out at any time,” Raegdan declared.

Luna’s silver shoe double tapped against the other, causing Raegdan to lift his chin. “Raegdan, language,” she chided, openly nodding towards Spike.

“Heard worse,” the baby dragon immediately said, casually flipping another page.

“Still, bad slip,” Raegdan apologized with a glower on his frowny face that was directed at himself.

Twilight lifted her head. She didn’t like the atmosphere in the room. There was tension in the air, probably emanating from her. Spike hadn’t caught on, yet that didn’t mean he wouldn’t if this continued. Twilight glanced at Luna, who kept herself busy in her own quiet way. A strand of mane fell over her face. Nothing new, but the light curliness of it was. Lotus and Aloe had preferred to keep Luna’s hairstyle almost barely different, but the subtle effect was still powerful, perhaps because of that same subtlety.

Luna’s mane had been lightly curled, in a way that gave the starry landscape an illusion of increased volume and of space being distorted. As Luna breathed, a star would be lost behind another, only to reappear as she inhaled. It was as if dozens of dawns and sunsets happened every few seconds.

Her coat had been thoroughly cleaned, brushed, and given a deep gloss, making it seem a touch lighter where the light struck it, but a deeper, more velvet coloration at the edges, shining almost like polished metal.

“You look beautiful. Lotus and Aloe overdid themselves. I love how your mane is now. Not that it wasn’t great before, just… saying.” Twilight smiled awkwardly.

So did Luna, and the pencil on her mouth ripped the paper. She spat it out, blushing furiously. “Th-Thank you. Rarity said so as well, but… but it’s good to hear it from another.” Her eyes tried to move, but Luna got them under control and chose to stare at the naked floor instead.

Okay, this I get. I know what to do here, Twilight thought. “Hey, Raegdan, what do you think?” Twilight loudly asked. “Doesn’t Luna look amazing tonight? She went to the spa today.”

All I'm missing is a sign to hold that says ‘say something nice!’, Twilight thought with a frozen smile.

Raegdan barely glanced at Luna for a second before returning to his comic book. “Yeah, I know. Did you have fun?”

“It was… enjoyable,” Luna said towards the kitchen door, an edge of disappointment in her voice.

“Doesn’t her mane look fantastic like that?” Twilight wondered how much more heavily could she hint at this point. A little more and she might have been better off by giving him a written script to recite.

Spike looked up, smiling as he tilted his head left and right. “Yeah, it looks really great!”

“Yep,” Raegdan dryly said, twisting his fingers so he could flip to the next page one-handed.

Twilight huffed. Well, so be it. She could do some damage control, and then explain a thing or two to Raegdan in private. “Well, I think Luna looks absolutely stunning.”

“Yeah, sure.” Raegdan coughed a sound between a chuckle and a scoff, with a train stop at derision hill, offering a great view to the sneering sea. “So what? You think that’s because of the spa place? Luna always looks great. Waste of money if you ask me. I could do that.” He furiously shook the comic book, trying to get the pages unstuck while Spike called out for him to stop in dismay.

… And he fixed it without meaning to, Twilight inwardly observed, surprised indeed at the level of lightness and comfort that Luna suddenly exuded. Raegdan’s blunt and matter-of-fact remark had an effect much greater than any carefully crafted compliment would. Luna caught her notebook back in her magic and started scratching notes once more, this time much more lively and humming a pleased tune.

For a few minutes, everything was almost right. Everypony was doing his or her own thing, separately yet together in comfortable silence. Twilight had picked a book at random, not minding whatever topic she would pick out of a few books she had chosen for that exact purpose, only looking to waste time.

Then somepony knocked at the door.

A glance around her was enough for Twilight to confirm that nopony was expecting anypony. She made her way to the door, opening it with some wariness, seeing as how the sun had set.

A bright white and large Alicorn was waiting patiently outside. Princess Celestia lowered her head, smiling apologetically. “I’m not intruding, I hope? I know it’s a little late.” She snickered behind her hoof. “I did it, after all.”

“Princess Celestia? What are you doing here?”

The Princess waved her right wing towards the west. “Seeing how today’s work is over and done with, I was hoping I could… spend some time here with all of you tonight? I only have a few hours available, and I am forced to beg for a small corner for me to sleep off the night. If you’ll have me, of course?”

Twilight stepped aside, allowing Princess Celestia to come through the low—for her size—threshold. Luna was surprised to see her, but fortunately not in a bad way. “Sister? Is something the matter?”

“No, nothing at all, Luna. I managed to clear a few hours from my schedule, and I thought… well. I made these!” Princess Celestia revealed a platter that she kept hidden behind her back. Her golden magic removed the small towel covering it, revealing a respectable mound of sandwiches. “Supper, anypony?”

Spike jumped off his spot for a quick hug and a few of the offered gifts, immediately finding and picking those that had gems inside and saving the others’ teeth. Twilight picked a couple for herself, and even Raegdan accepted a few, making a counter offer at the same time.

“Comic?” he asked, holding one for her.

“Oh, thank you. Is that the one where the Mane-iac escapes?” Princess Celestia started flipping through it, taking a seat on the couch next to Luna.

“Don’t you start,” Raegdan warned.

The night Alicorn wasn’t eating yet. She had opened one of the sandwiches and gazed at the inside with a forlorn smile. She didn’t look she was going to stop soon.

Twilight gave into her curiosity, and opened the one she had half-eaten. She saw the remains of a smiley face made out of cheese staring back at her. She giggled. Her mom used to do the same.

“Any special plans for tonight?” Princess Celestia asked, looking at the innovations with interest. “Do you have a night out planned or perhaps some activity?”

“Yes,” Luna said playfully. “The program tonight consists of just relaxing.”

Princess Celestia practically half-melted on the couch, sagging in relief. “Oh, thank goodness. I’m exhausted.” She picked up her own comic, uncaring of the idea that a Diarch read comic books for children. “Who am I bunking with tonight? I am too tired to fly back until morning.”

“What happened to your fancy chariot pullers?” Raegdan asked. “Their backs finally gave up the ghost?”

“No, you ‘flatterer’. I gave them the night off. I wanted to relax, not keep parading.”

“You should have used them to bring you here at least, sister. Then I could lend you some of my own guards for the return trip.”

“See how nice it is when you have your own?”

“Umm… I’m not sure if my bed will fit you, Princess.”

Princess Celestia smiled at Raegdan, fluttering her eyelids.

“Fine, you can take my sleeping spot. I’ll take the couch,” Raegdan allowed. Princess Celestia whooped, and she missed Raegdan lowering his voice and half-whispering to Spike. “Wait till she sees I actually sleep on the floor. I bet you she’ll kick me off the couch in a second.”

Spike took the last bite out of his first sandwich. “Or she will just sleep on top of you.”

“Sh—oot. You’re right. There goes my spine.”

Ch. 41 - Ponyville. Day four, Part 1

As the proud owner of the Carousel Boutique, where everything is chic, unique, and magnifique, Rarity was widely known for her designing and crafting of many suits and dresses, whatever event they may be worn for. Yes, the work could be challenging, outright demanding on occasion, but the clients’ joyed faces on seeing their orders always sent her heart aflutter.

Rarity cared for more than manifesting beauty on her own work. She was equally as invested in bringing beauty on the faces of her clients and friends through either her efforts or her presence. A smile from the heart could be as sparkling as any gem.

Rarity was also known as a bit of a romantic, endeared by the process of budding love. But she did understand certain ponies are just not compatible nor as amiable as they ought to be. Raegdan and Luna, her big, future project, had showed signs of endearment towards each other and were nothing if not on the same wavelength. That kiss Luna almost gave him the other day was one of the bigger signs—and yes, she didn’t miss it!—that her aid was required. Summoned! Fated! It was in that single moment that plan ‘Date Plan’ was created.

The title was a work in progress of course.

It wasn’t the fact that Luna had almost unconsciously moved in for a kiss before leaving that moved Rarity into play in this game. It was that she pulled back when she realized what she was doing. It shook Rarity’s soul to see such a sight, to witness a friend pull back deny their desire when in reach.

Smiling at the scene playing in her mind once more, only this time continuing in the way it should instead of abruptly ceasing, Rarity reached into her pillowcase and took out her very secret, very important key. Taking it in her telekinetic field, she slid out of bed and cantered over to a certain hoof mirror on her dresser. Bordered with a wavy cord of metal around the rim, it had a thin rod with a crown on the top of it. The alabaster unicorn plucked it off with her magic, revealing the rod to be a copy of the pillow key. She looked to the bottom drawer, at the hardened steel padlock securing it from opening, and brought the keys to use.

She paused for a moment, noticing scratches on the keyhole that were never there before. Suspiciously, and muttering Sweetie Bell’s name, Rarity inserted one of the keys into the hole. It turned, but didn’t unlock. She put the second key in, this time speaking her sister’s name in cursive. It did unlock. Rarity opened the drawer, the incantation of hairbrush punishment on her lips.

The scene in her head crashed into the plane of the forgotten, her brain now too focused on staring at the spot where her stack of precious, irreplaceable, and spicy papers no longer sat.

There was only wood, and not in the figurative sense. Her project was gone. Somepony had pilfered her room, and… her other valuables were still there? But, then… this meant...

Her hidden sin was found, or worse, read!

With a leaden weight in her stomach, and a respectable scream that would have been heard by Luna were she still on the moon in the air, she galloped from her room, down the stairs, out the door, past town hall, through the marts and to Twilight’s house, all with a single breath of air. On the exhale.

“Twilight!” Rarity wailed, her eyes glistening with tears born of terror and her shattered, once bright, future. She threw herself at the door, pounding it with desperation. “Twilight, of all the worst things that could happen, this is the! Worst! Possible! Thing!”

“What, did they stop making eyeliner?”

Rarity opened her eyes, and scrambled off her back. Instead of Twilight, Raegdan stood at the threshold of the library’s door. For some reason he wasn’t standing straight, but slightly bent over with one hand supporting the region just over his buttocks, as if it would crumble if he let go.

“You!” Rarity shouted in inspiration, pontificating at him as a goddess from above—or below, considering the difference in their height. “You are exactly what I need!”

Raegdan smiled smugly at nopony, gazing at the sky pretending to be nostalgic. “Ah, yes. You’ve finally fallen for my razor-sharp wit and rugged, good looks. Classic tale. Every lady yearns a ride on the Raegdan train.”

Rarity fumed. “I have no time for your lewd words and implications, you boorish buffoon. I have been burgled! Plundered! Raided! Bamboozled! Robbed!”

“On the bright side, nobody took your thesaurus.”

“They took my… diary. Or, not exactly my diary, I don’t keep diary thoughts in there, that’s a different book entirely—my diary—but they took my-my—!” Rarity fumbled for the right word to describe the object of her predicament.

“Your not-diary?” Raegdan said with sarcasm.

“Yes! Now, lest you want my part as an instructor in the art that you are so woefully inadequate at, it would be prudent that you offer your own help in turn in my time of need! Am I understood or should I speak more plainly?”

“Wow. When you ask so nicely, how can I ever say no?”

She shoved the steel padlock she had kept in the grip of her magic at his masked face. “Look. Look! They scampered into my very own bedroom and robbed me blind! Celestia only knows how my sister and I, delicate sleeping flowers and so vulnerable in our innocence, avoided their filthy, sinister hooves.”

Raegdan’s fingers wrapped around the padlock, and Rarity felt once more the disconcerting effect of his sordid immunity breaking her magic apart. It felt as if there was nothing there, not in the sense of no object, but literal nothingness. A universe of non-matter that her magic could not interact with. It was a void that somehow felt full.

“I doubt Celestia knows either, she was dead to the world, believe me,” he mysteriously mumbled. He examined the padlock, his lips pursing in… disapproval? “Heavens, this is disgraceful. Fucking amateurs. They couldn’t get the lockpick in?”

“I knew it! This is a clue isn’t it?” Rarity anxiously asked.

“Oh yeah. It means somewhere out there is a very disappointed missus.” He lobbed the heavy-duty padlock back at her in an easy arc. “Want to come inside? We got some hot omelet still left. Luna’s got the cooking part down, but not the portions one. She’s not used to making for more than two. Not even Celestia could clear up the entire table. Not that she didn’t try…”

“Princess Celestia? She is here?” Rarity’s hoof quickly ran over her mane, her eyes objectively criticized the state of her tail, and she stood straighter. “I should come in and pay my respects to her at the very least—”

Raegdan’s foot made a dull thumping noise as his leg appeared in front of her, blocking her entrance. He was looking down at her in the way he did when he was truly getting upset or angry over something. “If you start any of your shit I will kick you out, I swear it,” he growled.

“Excuse me? Me?” Rarity felt a hoof stabbing her in the chest, and looked down to find that it was her own, not even realizing she was doing that. “Start my…” She struggled with the word, and made due with the best she had available. “Defecation?”

A gloved finger shot under her chin and pushed it up, smarting a bit as its point bit into the sensitive flesh. Raegdan had bent enough to look at Rarity from uncomfortably close. “Yes, your shit. How do you think Luna will feel if you start kissing Celestia’s feet when you spent yesterday with her and did nothing of the sort? If they are the same, then you treat them the same.”

“Oh. I see your point. I…” Rarity hesitated, but Raegdan did hit the nail on the head. “I will do my best to be appropriately civil and respectful without harming Luna’s feelings or demoting her position in relevance, I assure you.”

He nodded. “As long as you keep that in mind, fine.” His finger stopped its soft stabbing of her under-chin and Rarity rubbed at the tender part. “Celestia likes it when you don’t treat her too much like royalty, too,” he mumbled.

Raegdan tried to straighten up as he rose, and his spine popped loudly like a tree and all its branches breaking under the onslaught of a fierce wind. He grabbed onto the side of the door to retain his balance. He inhaled sharply as he did so, gasping for air and in pain, his hands rushing to support his back as he comically made a sound between a blacksmith’s blower working backwards and a surprised, pregnant giraffe. Almost immediately, he relaxed, looking relieved as he rubbed his back, though there was still ache in his voice. “Oh heavens, this feels much better now. Come in.”

He led the way inside the library. The only one inside that Rarity saw, despite her expectations, was Luna. The Night Princess was sitting comfortably, and very un-lady like, on a large armchair, hungrily devouring the words out of a thin collection of papers her magic held in front of her. Rarity greeted her, but she doubted that Luna noticed her.

Raegdan fell on the armchair next to Luna, picking up a second stack of papers himself. He pointed towards the kitchen before he got lost in reading as well. “Food’s in there,” he absently said.

“But what about the thieves?” Rarity reminded him, the urgency making a spectacular comeback. “They could be getting away!”

“Later,” he answered, waving her off and reading on with a pained expression. “When we’re done. Don’t worry about it, I’m already on your case, I promise.” He mumbled a bit as he read, pulling back his face with a wince at what he reviewed. “Dear heavens, slow down girl...”

“If you are certain…” Rarity couldn’t really start making a fuss in her friend’s home like she owned the place. Even so, she wasn’t sure she had to. Something in Raegdan’s stance told her to really not worry, that he knew more than he revealed. He hadn’t been too surprised after all.

Now that Rarity thought about it, with her wits returned, he didn’t even seem upset or angry. A very suspicious reaction from the over-protective non-stallion.

Stepping into the kitchen, Rarity found Twilight munching her breakfast slowly, every bite brought down forcefully and with anger, as if she held a personal grudge with the beaten yolk. Her eyes were focused on her plate, so she didn’t see Rarity come in. Twilight probably didn’t hear her either, as she had huge wads of cotton forced into her ears, sticking out like oafish pigeon tails.

Twilight reached for her glass of juice, and she spotted Rarity standing at the door, examining her. The purple unicorn casually removed one of the cotton wads, ignoring the loud cork-like pop. She spoke to Rarity with a calm and serenity that was worrying.

“Good morning, Rarity. Have you had breakfast yet?”

Rarity’s eyebrows furrowed in curiosity. “Not yet, dear, no. There was a happenstance,” she emphatically said. “Spike won’t join us today?”

Twilight’s magic blindly prepared a plate for Rarity, bringing it to the seat next to her, utensils following close behind. “Nope. Left early to go meet up with the Cutie Mark Crusaders since it’s a Saturday and all. He wants to introduce them to Stormdrain. Orange juice?” An empty glass shook questioningly next to Rarity.

“Oh, yes. Of course. Thank you ever so much. But while I appreciate the hospitality, may I note that you don’t appear surprised to see me here at all.” She cut into the omelet and had a taste. It was simply divine. Enough cheese to make arteries quiver in morbid pleasure, but delicious nevertheless.

Twilight stopped the flow of juice by tipping the pitcher back straight. She interrupted her humming just long enough to speak. “I had an inkling that you or one of our friends might show up. Mostly you. Well, until I see what they got from Applejack at least.”

Rarity scanned around for a napkin or paper towels to tie around her neck. If she were to keep ravishing her food like a barbarian or Pinkie Pie, then she should at least make sure she kept her coat clean first. “Very mysterious, darling. Quite fitting the theme of how my day has been developing so far. In this spirit, may I ask what the ear plugs are for?”

Twilight looked back at the huge cotton wads left on the table, seeming to have forgotten about them, and directed a sideways smile at Rarity. A very, very sinister one. It was quite unsettling. “Oh, this? It’s so they will not try to read any more passages to me.”

“… Passages of wha—”

Twilight plugged her ear again, and she stopped paying attention to Rarity, acting as if she was dead to the world.

“Well, I never!” Rarity proclaimed. Her comments to rude behavior going unheard, Rarity decided to forsake her lecture for proper hostess rules for later. Most of her days she made due with a quick cup of coffee or a small bowl of cereal at best. Eyes on the prize, she kept the crispy forkfuls of egg coming.

“Twilight Sparkle, somepony’s at the door. It’s your turn!” Luna’s voice, generated by her impressive lung capacity, hit Rarity like a freight train. Twilight, of course, heard nothing, and she pointedly refused to heed Rarity’s frantic hoof waving that she needed to take her earplugs off.

“That’s alright, darling. I will get the door.” Twilight might not have heard her, but manners demanded that she let her host know nevertheless—or at least make the attempt. Rarity went to the door, noticing once more how deeply focused in their reading both alien and Alicorn were. A part of her wondered where was Princess Celestia or if she was even truly here.

She opened the door in the midst of a second row of knocks, interrupting the—

A Diamond Dog. A Diamond Dog that looked positively… wolfish, and was wrapped in metal from top to bottom. Rarity had a flashback to dank, dark holes underground, illuminated by torches and growls growls reverberating down the tunnels, and large Dogs holding spears. Though none of them ever was as well armored as this one. This simple detail broke her away from the spell that had taken her over.

Was that his helmet dangling from his belt? Who in their right mind decided to add a hinging jaw cover and extra rows of sharp metal teeth? The sharp, zig-zagging slits of the dark helmet drilled at her head, and its empty mouth seemed to howl with berserker rage.

“C-Can I help you?” Rarity asked with a stutter that was barely there. The fellow was obviously part of Luna’s guard and there was no need at all to be upset. None at all.

The Diamond Dog tried to lean and look around her in a lukewarm attempt to see through the half-opened door. He shrugged, and brought his paw forward. “I’m Raven. We got a prize like we were told to. Completed the exercise. Let the bosses know, okay?”

Rarity took the object he offered in a half-daze, and the Diamond Dog made a sharp turn around and left, walking proudly in his armor and even licking the fur on his paw to shine the moon sigil on the front of his chestplate. A few steps away he stopped, and Rarity heard him sniff the air while swerving his snout to the right. He squinted curiously for a couple of seconds, before sneezing loudly and shrugging emphatically as he went on his way.

When the visitor was out of sight and the door closed behind her, Rarity was able to see what she was actually holding.

Applejack’s hat.

I had an inkling that you or one of our friends might show up. Mostly you. Well, until I see what they got from Applejack at least.

… They didn’t…

Luna drowned a chuckle before it made it out of her throat, its valiant attempt to struggle for life gone under the undisturbed waters of her vague expression. “This is outstanding,” she whispered in the chilling silence, part of a conversation that only now Rarity realized had been going for some time. Nopony else could see or feel the encroaching, terrible darkness that Rarity felt enshrouding them all rapidly, finding themselves in a long, claustrophobic tunnel where the only existing color was the white of paper.

“Which part are you at?” Raegdan whispered back.

Luna put a hoof over her mouth, doing her best to cease her giggling so she could speak. “The one where you mount me. You?”

Raegdan winced, covering his eye. “The one where you mount me…”

“What?”

Raegdan offered the page he was referring to, bringing it closer to Luna’s inquiring face. “Here, see? Apparently, this thing’s like a belt or something, but it also twists in place so you...”

… Nooooo…

Luna’s hoof snaked out, whining like a filly at the same time. “I want to read this one, let me read this oneeeee!” Raegdan stretched his own hand, giving her the papers--

Rarity fell down like a white bolt of lightning—the zenith of her pounce making her back brush the ceiling—and snagged the offending chapter out of Raegdan’s hand with her teeth. Her magic furiously overworked itself. A tornado of paper swivelled around her, swiftly reforming the complete story she had so painstakingly crafted, granting her with a couple of errant papercuts. Her pupils turned to pin-prick dots as she counted pages and put chapters in their correct order, almost faster than the eye could read.

“I was reading that...” Luna complained, still on her seat. Rarity ignored her. Chapter one to three, that was alright. Four, five, six… everything in order, and they seemed untouched apart from some bented corners, thank her lucky stars. Seven, eight…

No…

She was certain she had been standing in between Raegdan and Luna just an instant ago. She found herself riding Raegdan’s chest, her hooves pulling the lapels of his shirt and screaming in his cowardly, thieving, hidden face, may a thousand spiders lay eggs behind his eyes and under his tongue—

“WHERE IS CHAPTER NINE? SPEAK NOW OR I’LL PLUCK OUT YOUR EYES THROUGH YOUR NOSTRILS!”

“Was that the last one?” Raegdan mused, amused at the amount of spittle coming out of Rarity’s growling mouth. He pointed upwards, grinning like the uncaring maniac that he was. “Because, if so, Celestia likes to read the ending first. She wants to make sure it has a happy ending, you know? And judging by what I’ve read so far, it’s choke full of happy endings. Whoo boy, it’s drenching with them…”

Rarity let him go. In fact, she was feeling generous and expedited his withdrawal by pushing his skull against the back of the chair, eliciting a laughing yelp of pain from him. Luna was biting on her hooves, her eyes tearing as she snorted through sealed lips.

Then began her personal glimpse of Tartarus.

Heavy hoofsteps, bearing the weight of steel shoes and irate, weeping Alicorn, came down the stairwell. A tiny, still operating part of Rarity’s brain imagined the scene that had been unrolling until then. Princess Celestia deciding to rest on Twilight’s bed on the second floor while she read what her family and friend shared with her, innocent in her ignorance. Perhaps she had decided to open the balcony door to let a soft breeze in. She could have been drinking her morning tea, the very picture of relaxation.

It’s alright, Rarity, the Reasoning Center of her brain told her. There is nothing that can’t be fixed with proper care and caution. We are professionals after all. All you have to do is destroy the governing heads of Equestria, kill your best friends, and level Ponyville to the ground. Yes, your boutique will be sorely missed, but you don’t really have a choice now, do you?

Princess Celestia’s face was sickly green. And screaming of course, we can’t forget the screaming. So much screaming, all of which gushed from the heart. She was running like a mare possessed, heading for the bathroom while incoherent syllables slowly transitioned to a howling rant.

“She is my sister! We are sisters! We don’t… We don’t bucking trade or share or-or-or comfort each other by-by-by—kiss or-or-or tongues on-in—Aaaaaaaaaaah!” Rarity felt more and more like a worthless worm as Princess Celestia shrieked for what her eyes had read and her mind could not forget, each word a spear in her heart.

The bathroom door slammed behind the elder Diarch of Equestria, and Rarity heard her retching and half-crying.

“It was just a personal side project…” Rarity whimpered towards the sobbing as an apology.

Behind her, Raegdan and Luna were striving against each other, sparring on the floor for ownership and first dibs on the acclaimed portion that brought the Princess to tears. They bit and kicked until each managed to acquire about half a chapter’s worth of pages.

“I’m doing your voice!” Luna announced with glee, cackling as she read random sentences in preparation. “It will be… Oh my. All four? Ah, I see. Your hands.”

“Fine. I’m doing yours and Celestia’s,” Raegdan answered, laughing in equal volume. His eyes ran back and forth across the pages he held. “Shouldn’t be too hard. It’s mostly moaning and grunts. Oh, except this part... Wow. Oh, heavens! You think you’ve seen some shit and then you read this—”

A whirling firestorm, fury and senseless desperation in magical form, funneled out of Rarity’s horn and towards the retreating forms of the instigators of her doom. Paper turned to ashes, an astral mane curled as its ends surrendered to the heat despite its magical, but meager, protection, and a biped fire elemental ran to the bathroom screaming for water using the most vulgar of language.

Rarity’s last thought before she fainted was that she really didn’t know any fire spells.

“I think she’s waking up.”

“I’m never, ever leaving either of you alone with my friends again.”

“I do not deserve this accusation, Twilight Sparkle. Mine sister’s theatrics were what drove thy friend’s mind to the brink.”

“I admit I overreacted, but it was pretty traumatizing. I was not prepared. It went from zero to Sonic Rainboom in seconds. You should have warned me. At least it wasn’t a magical comic book like others I’ve seen. The prose was nice though.”

“... What? Twilight, what are you looking at me for? She set me on fire! I’m not to blame here.”

“Maybe we are. A small amount of responsibility does lie with us, at least.”

“Ah, come on, don’t do that, Luna. Never throw out a free ‘get out of jail’ card.”

“Oooh, we should play that again. Twilight, do you possess a copy? I wish to be the banker this time.”

“That was an impressive spell if it was cast as you told me. I didn’t think Rarity knew such spells, and she didn’t damage anything she didn’t mean to. Look, the walls are untouched!”

“... The little, white bitch!”

“Language. It’s uncommon but not a rarity, my dear student.”

“Heh.”

“Thank you, Raegdan. Twilight, you remember the day you earned your cutie mark, of course. Pure, reflexive will can bring a spell to reality, but sometimes with a cost that refined spellwork lacks. No wonder she fainted. She exhausted all of her reserves in a single second.”

Rarity could hear their voices. She had been able to do so for a while, but it had been nothing but a pointless, yet soothing, jumble before. Cohesion entered her awareness, meaning was settled, and remembrance joined in, springing happily like Pinky Pie. It waved, and went to work, excitedly reminding her of what happened so far.

Vomit rose in her throat.

“There, she’s awake. You don’t scream like that when asleep.” Raegdan’s palm was displaying her form, laid on the couch, with indifference, and quite the load of sour grapes on his expression.

“Rarity, calm down. Everything’s fine. Deep breaths, come on.” Twilight was hovering over her, visible worry trying to edge its way into her carefully schooled, calming features. Twilight’s magic took something off Rarity’s forehead, removing the coolness that nested there.

Rarity still felt quite groggy and very hyperventilated, but not enough not to be thankful for Twilight’s presence after her ordeal. “Oh, darling, today was the worst. I’ve no idea what to do. How am I supposed to show my face to Princess Celestia again? What if… what if she imprisons me for what I’ve done? Or banishes? Oh, woe is me…”

Princess Celestia’s smile appeared over Rarity’s prone head. “It wasn’t that bad. Honestly, I’ve seen much worse. That was a new… pairing though.”

“Triple shot,” Luna and Raegdan cackled together.

“Shush.”

Rarity didn’t hear the levity in the princess’ voice. Her mind was currently too busy envisioning darker features and desperate ways to avoid them. She rushed off the couch and down at the Princess’s hooves, bellows for mercy following every placating kiss.

The Sun Princess turned to Raegdan with a hint of amusement in her stance, even as she tried to kick off Rarity’s attempts to huddle at her shoes. “Why does everypony assume that I’ll throw them in the dungeon or banish them for every little infraction? When have I ever done that to earn that reputation?”

Raegdan had moved next to a window, his back against the wall and carefully peeking out through the curtains, looking almost bored. He shrugged. “Gee, who knows? Someone would think that you banished your sister for a thousand years or something.”

Luna turtled her head in-between her shoulders, avoiding Princess Celestia’s guilt ridden stare. “ ‘Tis not an easy thing to know that your freedom can be taken in the blink of an eye and trapped within a box in what could easily be somepony’s whim, sister. Rarity knows of your character, but all know that anger changes a pony. Nopony’s seen you angry, not even I. Thus fear comes when sin becomes revealed, and your ponies tremble.”

“Luna…”

“Rarity, sister. We’re talking about Rarity at the moment,” Luna reminded her of the unicorn still cowering at her hooves.

Princess Celestia sighed tiredly. Golden magic wreathed around Rarity, forcing her to stand up with a gentleness that was always surprising to come from such a powerful magic user. “Rarity,” Princess Celestia explained slowly, “I am not angry nor upset by what you wrote. It was a personal… recreation of yours, and it is obvious that you never meant for it to be read by anypony, least of all me. If there is anypony that needs to make apologies, that is me.”

Rarity could hardly believe her good luck. She stammered, not sure what she going to say other than gush out formless thanks, almost on the verge of tears. She apologized profusely, despite what the Princess claimed.

“If you do not mind,” Luna interjected softly, “I would be extremely interested in having a copy once you complete it. It was wonderful.”

“You- You are not mad? Or are you?” she added so quietly that nopony heard her. Rarity could believe Princess Celestia, but Luna? She had after all been one of the… primary protagonists and a lot of focus had been put on her... ahem, explorations and reactions.

Luna gapped in disbelief. “You must be jesting. It was so out of character it was hilarious from beginning to end. I honestly can’t wait for more!”

That… stung actually. Granted, it was kinda the point when she was writing it. Fictitious characters only superficially resembling the original, but that was because she wanted to explore a direction that otherwise wouldn’t be possible, and it chaffed that her work was so easily demoted to comedy. “Th- Thank you, Luna. And… I’m sorry for your mane. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

Raegdan stopped staring outside through a thin gap in the curtains, and turned to Rarity instead, his hand doing an impatient, wheeling motion. Rarity’s eyes followed the point of the fingers, trying to decipher the meaning for a few seconds.

“What?” she finally asked.

“‘What?’ she says. Are you joking?” Raegdan asked, exasperated. “You set me on fire! Where’s my apology?”

“Oh. Of course, how silly of me.” Rarity waved her tail to get rid of any errant dust that may have stubbornly stuck on it, and sat back on the couch. “Do tell me first… Whose idea was to have my property stolen?”

Luna’s hoof sold Raegdan out at once.

“I fucking jumped into a Leviathan’s throat for you, you traitor.”

Twilight cleared her throat. “Rarity makes a good point. You do kinda… bring these outcomes on yourself. It’s not the first time you’ve had that exact thing happen to you.”

“Okay, now you’re kinda reaching out too far,” Raegdan said as he made his way across the room and to the window across. He carefully pushed aside the edge of the curtains. Princess Celestia rolled her eyes at the overdone display Raegdan was doing of massaging his lower back in the meantime.

“Although… You may have a point,” he finally admitted. He slowly rotated his torso while a series of cracking sounds filled the room.

"You are overreacting as usual,” Princess Celestia deadpanned, “and nopony is buying it. It’s not the first time I slept like that."

"Yeah, but," Raegdan groaned as he straightened up and starting working on his stiff neck, "that was before. Now that you don’t have me to run after, you finally have more time for other activities. Your chefs went, ‘we can improve her. Bigger. Fatter. We have the cakeology!’ "

In Rarity's humble opinion, as much as the uncouth, insulting, cheating, dirty-deed stallion deserved it, a series of slaps with metal shoes and Alicorn strength was a smidgen too close on the overreact side of the scale, playful as they may have been meant to be. They certainly sounded painful, despite Raegdan’s wicked smile. Not that this stopped Rarity from not-so-discreetly kicking his shin as he stepped closer to her, miserable little ringleader of a bunch of thieves that he was!

“Have you taken anything else from any of our friends?” Rarity asked when the pair calmed down. Raegdan retreated away from Celestia and back to where he stood before, far closer to Luna who had hunched behind her hooves and laughed alongside him.

“They did,” Twilight said, appearing pleased with how the situation rolled out despite the surprising apparent violence coming even from Princess Celestia herself. Rarity chalked it up to familiarity. “Apparently you all were part of a ‘stealth training’. They had each team visit on of you and get something from your place that was either important or not simply laid out for the taking. I suppose I can see why you were the targets. It would be easier to explain all that to you rather than somepony random.” Purple magic levitated a brown hat between them. “Apparently, Applejack will be looking for her hat now.”

“She won’t be happy when she finds out,” Rarity needlessly said. “What did they take from the others?”

“Let’s see…” Twilight looked into the kitchen and her magic brought out two items. “The Young Flyers Award from Rainbow Dash, and this golden covered tome from Fluttershy.” Twilight rotated the heavy book around, examining it from all sides. “No title. I might have taken a read, but after seeing what yours turned out to be I chose not to. It might be something personal as well. Though it did seem to have some cobwebs on it, but then again, in Fluttershy’s home...”

“Yes, yes, a wise choice, darling,” Rarity said, fighting off the blush. “Pinkie Pie’s belongings escaped unscathed then?”

Raegdan’s attention turned from the two sisters to them. “Leaf Stream’s team went for her place, but they screwed it up so I had them get something from Fluttershy instead.” He reached behind the couch, stretching as far as he could to reach down to the other end. He got back up holding something green and wide eyed. “All they brought was a stuffed animal. That didn’t count, of course.”

Twilight gasped. “Raegdan, that’s Gummy, Pinkie’s pet! He’s not a stuffed animal, he’s alive.”

Raegdan turned the tiny alligator around, bringing him closer to his face for a better look. “Oh crap. Was it always dead or did Leaf Stream screw it up? I swear, it wasn’t my fault. I threw it behind the couch gently. It barely bounced, and it wasn’t moving even before that, you gotta tell little pink!”

“He isn’t dead! We’ve got to bring him back to Pinkie Pie!”

Raegdan tilted his head, still examining the quiet animal.“Are you sure? I still think we should bury it, you know, on the quiet side, and tell her after a couple of days. This crappy, little thing doesn’t even blink—”

Gummy’s mouth opened and closed like a mousetrap, catching Raegdan’s nose with a loud crunch.

“Again, darling, I’m very, very sorry for upsetting you all today. And for my atrocious behaviour.”

“It’s fine, Rarity. The fault lies more with me. I should have warned you or done something before you came in. I just couldn’t think of what.”

“That’s alright, forgiven as well. Mmm… Do you think it might be possible that we all forget about everything, including sensitive contents of the written form, and not mention them to any of our friends? Please don’t tell Rainbow Dash. Or Applejack. Please. I’ll drown myself rather than be forced to hear their guffawing.”

“What about Fluttershy?” Twilight teased.

“Oh, I’ll tell her in good time myself. I’ll need an editor if a Princess will be reading it after all.”

Twilight said her goodbyes to her friend, escorting her out. She urged Rarity to go have a lie down and rest, which the usually workaholic seamstress agreed to, clutching her manuscript closer to heart with her magic.

She closed the front door after she made sure Rarity was able to walk off fine, though slowly, still worried for her friend after her genuine faint. Raegdan had moved to another window, looking agitated somehow, and looking out and around him in a manner that distressingly reminded Twilight of how he acted after he had gotten a concussion. Unsure in what he was doing, where he was, and why. She hoped it was simply a case of nerves after realizing how upset Rarity had gotten because of their actions.

Princess Celestia was talking with Luna, both sisters sharing the couch. “I’m going to be off now,” Princess Celestia said to Luna. “I don’t know if I’ll have time to come back another time, but I will attempt to. Do you need anything from me before I go, Luna?”

“No, sister. I believe myself capable of contesting with the ravages and treacheries of Ponyville, I assure you.”

“If you want, I can arrange some reparations to Rarity for what happened—”

“That won’t be needed,” Luna said, smiling in the face of her sister’s anxiety. “If I have judged her correctly, come evening she will be far more devastated over the damage she has done to my mane. I will simply offer her to escort me at the spa again to have it undone, and we will put this incident behind us.”

Princess Celestia’s lips curved in a joyful, motherly smile, but not the one she usually wore. This was more relaxed and there was a subtlety in it. “It is good to see you have friends, Luna.”

‘I’m… unsure if this is what it is.” Luna lowered her head, hiding her face behind her mane in a manner eerily similar to Fluttershy. “I’m not quite sure if- if we have this kind of… of a rapport.”

“Then perhaps you can make sure you build one on this next spa visit you will spend together,” Princess Celestia said, getting up. “I’ll see you soon, Luna, or at Canterlot if I don’t make it. Love you.” She nuzzled her blushing sister for a few seconds before turning aside.

“Raegdan,” Princess Celestia said as she passed the biped by. “A few words before I leave?”

“ ‘Sod off’?”

“Drôle,” Princess Celestia said, fighting a smile. She stopped before the exit, and she hadn’t noticed that Twilight was close enough to overhear in the quiet of the Library. Neither could Raegdan spot Twilight, covered by the bulk of Princess Celestia as she stood in front of him.

“Are you and Luna doing alright?” Princess Celestia asked, concern returning to her voice. “Has there been anything I should know about? Some new attempt, any words against her, anything?”

Raegdan straightened up, his seriousness returning. “No. Everything’s been quiet. We’re doing quite well actually. We even met a couple of ponies while we were leaving Canterlot that wanted to tell her that they loved her and some stupid stuff about the moon. Anything in your front? I don’t suppose those griffins decided to talk while we are gone?”

“Unfortunately not. And no, your request is still denied. Even if you only want to scare them into talking, this kind of rumor will reflect much worse on Luna if word gets out. I’m afraid it would do more damage than good. I’m starting to think they simply have nothing to trade for their freedom.”

“Or they are fanatics. They certainly sounded like that. Dead certain they were on the right.” Raegdan sighed, rubbing his neck. “Familiar. Whatever. Dead end. Don’t need them. We’ll figure something else out. Crucible?”

“He sent me a message yesterday, actually. He was asking how large the Lunar Guard is supposed to become. He’s being cautious in his own way, but I do not believe he is planning anything. He’s too upfront.” Princess Celestia stayed silent for a second, her gaze switching from Raegdan to Luna and back. “How are you and Luna doing?”

Raegdan slightly shook his head. “I thought we were already covering that.”

“No, I mean how are you and Luna doing? Both of you? Personally? Are you okay? How are you doing with Twilight and Spike?”

Raegdan returned Princess Celestia’s stare with a softness in his eyes that hadn’t been there for some time. “Good. Everything’s been going… pretty good actually. You were right about this little break after all.”

It didn’t seem weird to Twilight that Princess Celestia was the originator of the idea. The fact that Raegdan accepted it without apparently too much fuss was. She wasn’t about to complain though. So far everything had been going great, and Spike had seldom been prouder or happier.

“I usually am,” Princess Celestia proudly proclaimed.

“Yeah, yeah. All hail wise Celestia, blessed be her huge backside,” Raegdan mocked good naturedly. He placed his hand on Princess Celestia’s neck, shaking her a little in a friendly way. “Shame you can’t stay a little longer. Come on, blow them all off and stick with us today, what do you say? You can throw the blame on me if they ask. Tell them I kidnapped the princess.”

“I can’t. But I’ll try to be back. It has been great, even with all the excitement at the end.”

Raegdan chuckled. “Like the good, old days, huh?”

Twilight’s breath hitched when she heard that. Raegdan was right, it had been quite like it used to, and Princess Celestia had enjoyed every second of it. Twilight wondered how. Twilight was feeling the responsibility that Princess Celestia must have surely felt every day to make sure that nopony got hurt, that nothing went wrong, and it was running her ragged every time. She always knew Princess Celestia was patient, but she wondered if there was more than that.

“Like how every day could be,” Princess Celestia said, likewise bringing her hoof on Raegdan’s shoulder. “It’s up to you both if they are or not. We are all going to be around. Just remember you have a place to come back to when you’re out there, and that we all love you. Don’t do the same mistakes, Raegdan.”

Raegdan put his hand over Princess Celestia’s hoof on his shoulder. “I’ll try not to. We both will.”

“And keep my sister safe, will you? I’m trusting you with her life.”

“Same here. Look after her as well from your side, alright? I don’t want to see anything happening to Luna because you were dozing off.”

Princess Celestia nodded, opening the door with her magic. “We both will then. I’ll see you all again. I’m already late as it is. Court is about to begin.” She looked around, the golden crown on her head glinting in the sunlight coming through the open door, until she spotted Twilight standing behind her. “Ah, Twilight. I expect to hear from you soon enough. Your letters are always an oasis of rest among my straining workload,” she said, lowering down to briefly hug Twilight.

“Of course, Princess,” she replied after the all too short contact.

Raegdan stepped out the door first. “I suppose I should pretend I have manners and escort you all the way out.”

“‘Manners’,” Princess Celestia scoffed, following after him. She was about to say more, perhaps tease him some more or ask a question, but was interrupted by the sharp landing of two spears impaling the soft ground between her and Raegdan as they stood right outside the library’s door.

Twilight stood, frozen almost, at the shadow of the threshold, her eyes locked on the still trembling top of the makeshift wall that separated Princess and alien. So focused she was on the vibrating, metal spike at the back end of the spear closest to her, that she almost failed to note Princess Luna coming to stand next to her. Luna’s coat almost darkened, as if she was hiding in that sharp contrast between light and shadow, almost unnoticed even from so close.

“Step away from Princess Celestia and kneel on the ground!”
The loud order came almost instantly and as sharp as the weapons in front of Twilight. Her eyes jumped, and only now noticed the ten Solar guards arrayed across, positioned in front of the short hedges where she bet they must have had been hiding. Two of them missed their spears, but eight more still had their own in their hooves. Some of them were held by forelegs, but most were gripped by rippling magic. All of them aimed at Raegdan.

“Oh, for the love of… This is exactly why I can never have a moment to myself…” Princess Celestia lamented, covering her eyes with her leg. “Captain Vigilant, order your guards to stand down, please.”

“I’m sorry, Princess Celestia, but I will have to refuse your order for the sake of your own protection. Considering your sudden absence and how dangerous—Drop your weapon and back away from the princess!” The most decorated pony in the middle of the group started shouting again in alarm.

“You know, there are idiots, and then there are these idiots,” Raegdan almost laughed as he brandished one of the spears right under Princess Celestia’s neck. “Hmm. Good grip. Sturdy. Shame it doesn’t come on my size. But not bad as a javelin I guess, though a little heavy.”

“Raegdan, what are you doing?” Princess Celestia asked in a tired tone.

The biped pressed the tip a little stronger against Princess Celestia’s skin. “Making a point,” he said gleefully before resting the butt of the spear back on the ground and turned disinterestedly back to watch the gnashing guards who just witnessed him bite their Princess’ vulnerable throat with a weapon.

“Raegdan,” Twilight whispered urgently from behind him. “They are serious. Look at them! Put it down.”

Her adopted father turned his head, always too much in order to get her in sight of his working eye. There was nothing but pure, scathing, dark humor in its depths and the toothy grin he displayed. “Want to see something really cool?” he whispered back.

“No,” Twilight honestly answered. She was afraid that it would turn out to be him imitating a pincushion.

Raegdan suddenly took a step towards the Solar guards. They all flinched for a moment, but their training took over and their weapons flexed in their grip, ready to attack their opponent. Princess Celestia had called out for her guards to stop and for Raegdan to get back, but she was ignored by both sides. The guards, either by purpose or because they kept their focus entirely on the dangerous biped stalking towards them. Raegdan, because he never actually obeyed an order, why would he start now? Instead, the Princess watched, her features forbidding and the sense of her muscles bunching up to move at any moment.

Raegdan’s pace was familiar. Slow. Methodical. Each step after the other only once the one before it was solidly on the ground, shoulders moving in greater arcs than normal, demanding silently for attention lest the measured progress explode in a flurry of action the moment eyes turned away.

It reminded Twilight terribly of the time he walked off to face Steadfast Ray. She remembered all too vividly how that ended. She was on the verge of screaming herself at all of them as well, and only the fact that she doubted they would listen to her when they ignored the Princess stopped her. Raegdan wasn’t even wearing his armor. He was being insane! Every logic part of her told her that it would only take a single pony deciding he had enough and Raegdan could die.

She should have teleported in front of him, but fear that her sudden appearance might spook one the sides into action held her still.

The Solar Guard captain had been shouting non-stop at Raegdan to cease walking. You could hear Raegdan chuckling, louder the more he approached them.

Raegdan stopped halfway to them. He raised the spear over his head, held horizontally and gripped by the mid-point. Twilight couldn’t see his face, but she could imagine him almost perfectly, teeth bared like a wolf anticipating a meal. Enjoying himself and the smell of fear around him.

“Do I have all your attention?” he breathed questioningly, his voice booming in the silence of the ghost that had descended on the small open area.

The captain of the Solar guards almost growled. “On my mark…” he said, sweat dripping down his chin. His eyes flinched from the Princess to Raegdan. Twilight could almost read his thoughts. Attack now, and he’s gone. Attack now, and he’s gone. Attack now, and the princess will be safer, even if she doesn’t agree. Attack now...

Raegdan tilted his head, waiting patiently for the guards to prepare themselves, ignoring Princess Celestia gathering magic on her horn behind him. “Now, watch how my kind does magic tricks.”

Raegdan let the spear fall. It took forever to land and it was over before Twilight had noticed his palm had spread open. There was the distinct lack of a clutter of metal as it met the short grass and rolled lazily towards the guards.

A mass of bladed instruments appeared, hovering next to the throats and heads of the Solar guards. A long axe, sharp and deadly was held by Solid Charge, it’s edge glinting near the Solar captain’s eye. The minotaur looked almost twice his normal size in the dark armor that covered him, and far more intimidating, the bleakness of his arms matching his tone.

“You all either drop down or we drop you down. Princess Celestia gave an order.”

The guards did as bidden, the captain letting his weapon drop first. Princess Celestia was fuming in anger as she made her way to them, unlike Raegdan who couldn’t have looked more pleased. He had the smile of a drunk on his lips, and his shoulders stood high with pride.

“I love that trick,” he said aloud as Princess Celestia passed him by. He had picked up the spear he had dropped and yelled at her back as she headed for the disobeying guards, Twilight hot on her heels. “Hey, I’m keeping both of these, okay? Finders keepers!”

“Would you mind explaining yourself, captain Vigilant?” Princess Celestia spat, any semblance of her usual smile having abandoned her face with haste. “Please, grace me with an explanation of why my orders are so blatantly ignored when you feel like it.”

“Princess, we feared you in danger,” the pony said. He made an attempt to stand, but the edge of an axe against the back of his neck told him not to. “Better to be wrong a hundred times than right once and not be there. We only seeked to defend you.”

Princess Celestia’s voice was getting louder and louder, her patience thinning as she drove herself to greater fervor. “By throwing your spears inches away from me? And what if Twilight or somepony else had gotten in their path? And “defend” me from whom? From Raegdan? My friend, my sister’s guard, my—”

“Princess, please,” the captain interrupted the princess, daring the axe and raised his head.
“We cannot be sure. He’s already attacked you once, and for all we knew, Nightmare Moon took you again or poisoned your mi—”

There was no blast, no manifestation of magic, Just a crunching feeling in Twilight’s head that spoke of immense power. The next thing she knew the Solar guard captain was plastered on the trunk of Twilight’s house. His pupils had rolled to the back of his head, and his tongue flopped listlessly outside his jaw. He fell down with a dull thud, luckily falling on his side rather than his front, and didn’t bite through his tongue.

“I believed I had already made myself clear on the matter of such accusations against my fellow Diarch and sister,” Princess Celestia hissed. Her eyes glew with magic, a barely visible white fog wafting off them as she examined the suddenly far more cowering guards in front of her, Solar and Lunar alike. Her mane was whipping across her face in a frenzy, caught in a gale that only she felt.

“Release them,” she ordered after a few seconds of uncertain silence, barely sparing a glance for the minotaur Lunar Commander as she did so. The massed Lunar guards hastened to obey, taking a few hurried steps back as well for good measure.

Princess Celestia was slowly calming down, but her eyes and voice still carried a burning threat. “Gather up the civilian, and take him back to Canterlot,” she ordered the Solar guards. “Hospital wing first, then the dungeon. You will all accompany him, in neighboring cells, until I call for you to explain yourselves to my satisfaction. One. By. One. Do you comprehend me? Do these orders reach your ears?”

It only took minutes before the Solar guards vanished from sight, and Princess Celestia was able to relax her posture. Raegdan chose that moment to congratulatory slap her on the back, making her flinch. “Good throw. You know, just a little more to the left and you could have avoided this whole thing. There was a very good, thick branch there. Just a tweak, and hrrk.” He imitated a blood-gurgling sound.

“You are an awful influence,” Princess Celestia said, but not without a small hiccup of amusement that almost sounded like a small sob, and the shy return of a smile. “Where is Luna?” she asked, growing disquiet again. “Did she witness any of this?”

“All of it,” Raegdan proudly informed her. He leaned towards Princess Celestia’s head and whispered theatrically. “She’s in the library and squealing in joy over you standing up for her, but pretend you don’t know. She’ll be embarrassed.” His smile was infectious, and it spread to Princess Celestia at once.

It was exactly the pick-me-up Princess Celestia needed. She turned to Solid Charge and the rest of the Lunar Guard who waited patiently nearby instead. “I’m surprised you are all here. I believed this was a vacation for all of you. I didn’t expect to see you all in guard duty at the… same time…” She frowned. “Alright. What is happening here?”

“Nothing suspicious, Princess,” Solid Charge rushed to answer. “We keep two of us around at all times, but it was Raven—” He pointed towards a Diamond Dog in armor that barely bent his head in acknowledgement, “— that caught a, ah, whiff of something going on. We decided it would be better to be ready to intervene, just in case.”

“Hmm. I have to commend you on your skills and timing. I’m surprised my guards didn’t catch on to you.”

“It was easy,” Solid Charge said, rubbing the back of his neck. “They were all really focused on the library, so we just took position behind them. Then they were giving all their attention to Raegdan so we got closer.”

Princess Celestia turned to Raegdan almost accusingly. “You knew they were there.”

Raegdan shrugged. “Well, duh. They were hiding from your guards, not from us. Not my fault you’re half blind in your age. Which reminds me, you morons did the same mistake the idiots did. You didn’t have anyone checking your back. Amateurs,” he grumbled. “Still, good enough. For starters of course.”

Celestia laughed, finally restored to a better mood once more. “Oh, your poor, poor guards. I wish I could stay even more than I did before, but unfortunately…” She sighed. “It seems I now have more things to do than a few minutes ago.”

Twilight downed a glass of water in one go. She dabbed at her chin with a small towel as she looked at a clock on the wall. “Today has been quite the full day, and it’s not even noon yet.”

“It’s not over yet, you know,” Raegdan said. He was sitting on the kitchen table, examining Gummy. He was prodding and poking the tiny alligator, trying to find a way to make him react and failing. Twilight had to wrestle a fork away from him at one point, and she positioned herself near the rest of the cutlery. Just in case.

Luna was sitting across Raegdan, enthralled in a staring contest with the indifferent creature. Neither of them had blinked for quite some time, and Twilight had started getting weirded out a little.

“You are lucky they didn’t launch their spears at you while you were walking up to them,” Twilight reminded Raegdan, the image still refusing to leave her brain. She had been genuinely worried for a second there. It was like he was inviting them to kill him.

“What were you thinking?” she asked after a moment.

Raegdan was flicking Gummy’s head repeatedly, but Pinkie’s pet ignored him entirely. “That Celestia can cast a magic shield in front of me in less time than it would take for them to finish blinking?” He glanced at her in amusement. “What, did you think I’m that stupid?”

“No. No, of course not,” Twilight quickly said, biting her lip. “It just, you know… Kinda looked dangerous?” she finished lamely.

“Mmm… Well, as long as they focus on me...” Raegdan mumbled before he slapped his palms on the table and rose up, the sudden noise unable to disrupt the two combatants in front of him. “Alright. Since we have to give everything back to their owners, including this… hmm… whatever this is—”

“Alligator,” Twilight helped.

“Debatable. Anyway, since I made a day out for Spike yesterday it’s only fair that I make one for you too. What do you say we go together? You can show me around and everything! Just like you told Applejack back in Canterlot, remember?”

“I do,” Luna supplied, not turning away from her foe. “It was while Raegdan and I were busy kicking each other and you were waiting outside with Applejack.”

Twilight felt her face flushing red, and she scrambled around to fill another glass of water she didn’t want. “Y-Y heard me?”

Raegdan grinned. “Well, Luna was pummeling the door with my face at the moment so I was close enough. So? What do you say?”

“I believe you should accept, Twilight Sparkle. I would like to hear about your day when you are done though,” Luna said in a carefully neutral tone.

Twilight swivelled around, feeling a stab of loneliness accompany memory. How many times had she uttered similar words when her friends were planning a fun day or activity and they hadn’t specifically invited her? Because it never passed their mind to think that Twilight considered herself not included without directly told so. It took a few times until she outgrew that false belief, but she clearly remembered how she felt every time. Alone.

“Why? You’re not coming?” Twilight said as innocently as she could, the words carefully phrased in her mind. And they worked. Luna abandoned her game to look at Twilight with badly hidden surprise.

Raegdan kneeled down to reach Twilight’s level. “So, is that a yes?”

Twilight blushed, and uttered a very, very quiet, “yes,” feeling like a filly that had to be coaxed into doing what she wanted, no, dreamed of doing anyway. “Yes, we can have… a day together,” she repeated louder, becoming slightly giddy.

Ch. 41 - Ponyville. Day four, Part 2

First off, Twilight decided they should visit Fluttershy.

All three of them stood outside the little wooden gate -an obstacle laughingly easy to step over for Raegdan- watching the myriad of animals weaving their way around Fluttershy’s property. There were birds of course, from humble sparrows to even an eagle. Mice and lizards ran among the grass, chickens clucked, and cats lazed in the sun. Beavers, weasels, dogs, and other, even larger animals could be heard from behind the house.

It was an open zoo where somehow no animal ever hurt another, and none of them would ever even think of crossing the borders of Fluttershy’s property and disturb anypony. Nopony knew how Fluttershy did it or even if she did do anything. As soon as an animal was let in it was as if it knew the rules and obeyed them.

“What do you think?” Twilight asked, watching a stork pop its head up from the roof before vanishing again after a second. She went back to searching the grass again. There were snakes slithering in there, she just knew it, but she never seemed to find any, even though she swore she heard their hissing.

Luna’s eyes were measuring distances. “I am worried for her sake. A little too close for comfort to the Everfree Forest, isn’t she?”

“A little, yes,” Twilight admitted, having had the same concerns once. “I think it’s part of why she bought the land so cheaply. She’s never been bothered by anything though. At the very least she has enough animals around here to make anything trying to creep out of the forest too wary of approaching her cottage. She houses snakes among others, and she has some big animals as well. Even a bear.”

Luna’s ears perked at that bit of information. “I have to reconsider how I thought of her then. It is quite unexpected that she is still alive if she slumbers with such threats within and without.”

“She is perfectly safe,” Twilight argued, having seen Fluttershy’s skills with animals too many times. “What do you think, Raegdan?”

Raegdan was turning his gaze from left to right, taking in everything with levity and some enjoyment, but his one-eyed sight would always be pulled by the chickens. The feathery animals had started making their distance from them, probably feeling his attention.

“I think I’d like to do some shopping.” He wiped his mouth and pointed at the chickens. “She sells them, right? Could I buy a couple of—”

“No!” Twilight cut him off.

“But if I pay whatever she asks—”

“If Fluttershy sells you or gifts you an animal it is because you are supposed to take it in as a pet. Not to eat it! And no lying to her either. She’d be devastated if you did this.”

“Heavens, fine! I’ll eat the damned chimera then!” He half-yelled in exasperation. “It didn’t even have the decency of being cow instead of goat…” he mumbled.

Twilight’s hoof froze an inch away from the wooden gate. “Cow? You’d eat a cow?”

“You have cows? No one told me you have cows! That’s amazing! I’ve got to get my hands on—” He paused mid-sentence, and covered his face with his palms. “Oh heavens. Don’t tell me. Cows talk, don’t they?” His voice was muffled, but Twilight heard him clearly.

“Of course they talk! Luna, stop sniggering, this is bad! Raegdan, have you… have you hurt a cow?” Twilight asked. Too, the little, dirty voice added.

Raegdan shook his head, still covered by his hands. “No. Heavens damn it, the universe hates me! One world that has plenty of cows and they fucking talk.”

Twilight understood now. “You had them back home too? And they didn’t talk?” she asked to make sure.

“Well, they said ‘eat me’, but they did that by being really juicy and tasty, not words.” He uncovered his face with a sigh. “Let’s go in. I’m feeling extremely sad now, and I need something to make my mood better.”

“Didn’t the chimera talk as well?” Luna questioned.

“It did what?”

“I don’t care if it sang, and no looking at me like that, Twilight. It would eat Applejack if it could. I am not doing anything it wouldn’t do. I’m playing by its own rules.”

Twilight knocked on Fluttershy’s door, and they waited for the pegasus to answer. “So you want to eat chimera for morality reasons.” She rolled her eyes.

Raegdan tried to peer through the window next to the door. He was defeated by drawn drapes. “Sure. That’s a good one. Morality reasons.”

Luna spoke up after a few awkward seconds of waiting at the door while the conversation wilted. “I admit it. I do want to know what a cow tastes like now.”

“Oh, you have no idea!” Raegdan gushed, his hand movements praising an unknown divinity. “It’s nothing like predator meat. It’s full of fat, tasty, and it’s all great! Ribs, neck, back… The only thing that comes close to cow meat is por—”

“Could you both stop talking about eating people I might know?”

This could have been timed better. Or worse. It was very depended on whether you were a unicorn that wanted the earth to open up and swallow her, or an alien and a princess that had to resort to coughing lest they choke on their laugh once witnessing Fluttershy’s expression.

Fluttershy had—of course, how could it be otherwise—opened the door at the worst possible moment. She was now staring at Twilight with an expression that was frozen in time like a statue, yet managed to convey a full array of emotions, expressions, and ideas through it. Most could be found on the negative side of the social bell curve. Not good.

‘What the buck did I just walk into’, a living performance. Only on Saturdays.

“Fluttershy!” Twilight called out with semi-fake enthusiasm, knowing full well she chose the absolute worst way to deal with a just-distraught friend and not caring. She had no idea what to do and no time to figure it out. “You look great! Did you do something new with your mane?”

Fluttershy’s hoof absently passed over her head in a vain attempt to fix the worst case of mane horns anypony had ever laid on in the last two centuries. If you ignored the lesser known event of 812 C.Y.P., and Twilight did ever since she read about it, jotted down in history as Princess Celestia’s earliest rising, and definitive proof that Alicorn mane fell under similar rules of normal manes.

“Umm… I was in bed actually…” Fluttershy mumbled. “But thank you.”

Oh Celestia, these were small branches in there, weren’t they? Some birds were making a nest, weren’t they? Do I say something?

“That is gre-he-he-ate!” Twilight maniacally continued, forcing her way in and bringing her leg around her friend’s shoulders. She guided Fluttershy back into her cottage and to her couch, shooing away two squirrels who were getting too friendly in the morning. Raegdan and Luna made their way in as well. Luna kept turning this way and that, trying to keep every flicker of movement in sight and having an expression of childish wonder on her face. Raegdan was staring mostly on the floor to avoid stepping on anything. He had to keep his posture low or he would hit his head on one of the myriad of cages and feeders that hung from the ceiling.

“I assume then that you didn’t notice anything missing from your home yet,” Twilight continued, her major objective to forget the previous subject as soon as possible.

“No. Should I have?” Fluttershy innocently asked.

Luna stood on her hind legs, peering through the spaces between books on a shelf to get another glimpse of the white mice she was following around. Raegdan gently struck his knuckles on one end, trying to scare them so they’d run towards Luna’s line of sight. “I’ve never seen white mice before,” she said in a whisper after hopping back down on all fours.

The Alicorn looked around, in search of other wonders of the animal kingdom. “Do chickens taste like cow?”

Twilight almost gave herself a shiner with her left hoof.

“No, but they are great as well. Leaner meat. Did you know, they make great soup? Especially for if you are sick—”

The right hoof joined in.

Fluttershy’s head eased its way back to Twilight’s direction. Her left eye was… pulsing for lack of a better word. Twitching wouldn’t do as a verb. Fluttershy had gone beyond that. Twilight noticed all that while she lowered her hooves, but she also noticed something else.

For a split second, Raegdan and Luna glanced secretly behind them, gauging Fluttershy’s reaction. Their lips tightened as to keep themselves from smiling or laughing, and they quickly turned back the other way again, talking among themselves.

And Twilight realized why Princess Celestia never particularly worried about Raegdan and Luna or what they said and did. Why she encouraged and partook in the madness. Princess Celestia hadn’t been diving in so she could redirect the stream. She was simply joining in. Why? Because...

They were doing it on purpose.

They were having fun.

Messing with them all!

“Muh chickens?” Fluttershy half mumbled, half whispered, and the way she slurred that first word was almost like a bad impression of Applejack, a parody almost. She trembled as well, as if her muscles quivered under their desire to rush out and check against her will to stay in place. And her mane, still going everywhere but where it was meant to…

Twilight started chuckling.

The second she did, she heard Raegdan and Luna copy her from across the living room.

Fluttershy’s ears twitched, and a small twig fell down. The sight upgraded Twilight’s—and Raegdan and Luna’s—chuckling into full-blown laughter. Loud, uproarious and throaty from Raegdan, loud and cackling from Luna. She was barely aware of Fluttershy starting to shyly giggle along, unsure of the joke but finding the image of Twilight banging her hooves on the floor and the couch funny by itself.

No other sounds were heard for the following few minutes.

“That’s not mine,” Fluttershy repeated. The pegasus took the heavy, golden book, but she didn’t open it, satisfied with just looking at it from up close. Twilight, sat next to her on the couch, did the same.

Raegdan’s head fell back, his face turned to the ceiling, and sighed. “So Leaf Stream cheated. Real nice,” he grumbled. Luna didn’t feel justified to warrant this any attention, at least not enough. Her attention was wholly taken by the sight of three sparrows chirping and plucking at Fluttershy’s mane with their small beaks, slowly straightening the pink mane hair by hair with an immeasurable attention to detail.

“Oh, no,” Fluttershy quickly said, sounding worried. “Please, don’t be mad at her. I mean, she got it from here, it just…this tome isn’t mine. If that makes sense.” She frowned in confusion and looked around her, unsure. “I’m… not quite sure where I got it from. But I’ve never read it. You can keep it for your… your library if you want.”

Twilight checked the book again. The golden plating was quite thick and obviously expensive, but other than that it was without decoration. Almost. The edges had a border of thin triangles, all pointing inwards, but apart from that there was nothing that informed of its contents.

“Are you sure?” Twilight asked.

Fluttershy nodded. “Oh yes. It… feels right. That you should have it. Because… ummm…”

“Books?” Twilight teased with a sarcastic smile directed at herself.

Fluttershy was acting far more serious than Twilight was though. She bit on her lips, concentrating her eyes on the book. “Maybe? I’m not sure.”

Raegdan crashed down in the small space between Fluttershy and Twilight from behind the couch, making them both scream with fright. He had moved all the way around and behind them without either of them noticing. Twilight looked up her heart hammering, while Fluttershy was holding her chest. The pegasus’ mane was now in dire need of a good shower as the birds on it were scared—not senseless but pretty close phonetically—and flew off, Luna letting out a disappointed ‘aww’ as she watched them leave through the window.

“Raegdan, what was that for?” Twilight demanded after swallowing her heart back down.

The masked face panned its vision across the room almost mechanically before settling towards Fluttershy. “Where’s my guy? I’ve got a present for him.”

Fluttershy brought her hooves to her muzzle, suddenly excited. “Oh my gosh, Angel Bunny will be so happy to see you! He doesn’t know you are here.” She jumped off the couch, flying in the air excitedly, something that Twilight rarely saw Fluttershy do in her home. “I’ll go call him right now!” She flew out, calling out for her pet bunny in her usual way, which meant she would have to do a few rounds until she happened to be close enough to where he was that he would hear her.

Twilight flatly addressed Raegdan who was taking a small red box from Luna. “You got a gift for Angel Bunny?”

“Sure,” Raegdan said, shrugging and shaking the box in his hands. “Little guy deserves it. He’s funny. He makes me laugh.”

“You didn’t get one for Spike,” Twilight pointed out.

“What? I’m building him a whole new room! I thought that was enough.” He turned to Luna, who reflected some of his burgeoning anxiety. “Crap. Wasn’t that supposed to be enough?”

“I… uh… I don’t… Maybe?” Luna stuttered. “I- I thought that—Should I have-have gotten him something myself as well? Is this how it goes then? One gift each?”

Twilight was starting to see why he liked this kind of humor. Turnabout is fair play after all. She made her eyes dip in fake disappointment and her voice to tremble just a bit at the end. “You didn’t- didn’t get me anything either…”

Raegdan’s arms stretched towards Twilight, his hands making placating motions while he half-danced in place. “Ah, wait, I’m sorry, I’ll- I’ll make up for it right now if you want.” Luna had covered her mouth in shock with one hoof. She frantically started scanning everything in sight as if trying to find something that Twilight might like and magic it into a gift box instantly.

Twilight pressed on, fighting the smile that would turn into laughter if she allowed it to surface. “You didn’t get anything for my friends either…” she mumbled, and then performed the finishing blow:

She sniffed.

Raegdan fell on his knees in front of her. His hands hovered over her randomly, unsure if he was allowed to touch her or not. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’ll go get something right now! I’ll get you books. More than you already have, I’ll drag all of Celestia’s library here if you want. Fuck her, she’s read it all anyway. I’ll get Spike a thousand comics and gems, and I’ll get gifts for all of your friends, just don’t… I’m sorry! I didn’t think!”

Luna was right there, next to him and biting her lips hard enough to leave imprints. “The stores are still open. We can… we can send our guards to buy every single book in town for you! Is that enough? Thestrals! Raegdan, I’ll send them to Canterlot, they can be back with as much as they can carry in a few hours and I have a few personal books of spells, Twilight can have—”

They both stopped when Twilight’s shoulders shook visibly, unable to contain herself. It started off as a muted titter before she started laughing outright in their indignant faces. They looked more disappointed in themselves than hurt in any way, and it only made Twilight laugh harder.

“You sneaky, little—” they tried to chorus.

It’s very well known that large objects can be tipped if struck with sufficient force in an appropriate distance from their center of gravity. In this case, a self-launched bunny aiming itself at Raegdan’s face was enough to bring him down. Especially since he had been sitting on his toes and was unprepared.

“Gah! Hey, little rat. I missed you too!” Raegdan laughed.

Fluttershy ran into the living room, following behind Angel Bunny. “Oh, Angel Bunny! What are you doing?” she asked, aghast. Twilight’s and Fluttershy’s eyes bounced up and down in their sockets, following the bouncing movements of the fluffy white tail.

Luna laughed, half covering her eyes from the ongoing scene. “Apparently, he missed Raegdan a tad too much. Raegdan. Raegdan, he’s not hugging you,” she superfluously explained, Fluttershy turning into a thinner, pegasus version of Pinkie Pie as soon as she could no longer pretend to live in her own projected reality where her pet bunny wasn’t doing that.

“Huh?”

“He’s humping your face.”

Angel Bunny knew his fun was over as soon as Raegdan heard he wasn’t the victim of an animated hug as he thought. The bunny nimbly jumped off, avoiding Raegdan’s palms that tried to squeeze him in-between like a mosquito. The cunning lagomorph avoided Raegdan’s next few half-hearted attempts to grab him as well, blowing a raspberry at the biped.

The white pet landed on the box, and his right foot thumped on it repeatedly, calling for somepony to open it and give him his gift already.

“Umm, may I?” Fluttershy asked for permission.

Raegdan got up, fervently wiping at his mouth. “Sure. Ptuh. Go ahead.”

Twilight was too curious. She hovered over the box as well, along with Fluttershy who slowly unwrapped it with hooves and wings, and Angel Bunny who was trembling with excitement. Fluttershy removed the cover, revealing the homemade gift.

Fluttershy’s ears flattened in fear.

Angel Bunny squeaked in excitement.

Twilight reached for words that faded away like dreams of spring in an ice age.

And Raegdan smiled proudly because he absolutely believed his great taste in gifts had been proven right once more.

They had all gathered in front of the window like petitioners offering fealty, watching Angel Bunny take his gift for… a spin. There was spinning involved. And then thunderous landing.

“At least… At least he enjoys it,” Fluttershy mumbled, trying to find the silver lining before gulping in fear for her quality of life following the next few weeks.

Angel Bunny raised his tiny warhammer over his head. The equivalent of a bloodthirsty cry, modified per ancient lagomorph law, muffled out of his spiked helmet that had been crafted to accommodate his long ears and different head shape. The tiny, moon decorated, spaulders didn’t seem to limit his movements at all, and even though his legs were left relatively unarmored, the cloth replacements that wrapped his fur looked the part well enough.

All in all, he looked disturbingly similar to his patron.

Luna, expressionless and sober, turned to the rest of them. “My apologies, but I witnessed this right, yes? We’ve all seen the same thing? I’m not hallucinating?”

Harry the bear was unconscious and defeated. Angel Bunny kept howling his victory from the top of his foe’s bludgeoned head, while the rest of Fluttershy’s animal cowered in their nests, houses, and cages, realizing the dawn of a new age of tyranny.

“Oh my,” Fluttershy whimpered.

Ponyville Hospital was in sight in front of them.

Both of Twilight’s escorts were quiet, each for their own reasons. Luna walked with a wistful expression, face directed to the sky and enjoying the sun. Raegdan was the exact opposite. He kept his hands inside his pockets, his shoulders were hunched, and he glared sullenly at the ground. Every now and then he would kick it, spitefully.

Twilight had made the decision to order a light jacket for Spike from Rarity. If only because she was curious to see if the little dragon would copy shoving his claws inside its pockets if he had any when feeling upset. Apart from that small, Raegdan and Spike they were both perfect copies in this certain mood.

“I’d heard tales of Cloudsdale, or what later became Cloudsdale, for a long time,” Luna said gazing upwards, as if she was still admiring Rainbow Dash’s home. “I always wanted to visit. I was able to see it from afar plenty of times. Hovering up in the sky, like a mirage, always touched by the light. It was called the safest place in Equestria. The untouchable city.”

“Why didn’t you?” Twilight asked.

Luna tilted her head sideways for a moment before looking back at the colorful speck that was Rainbow’s cloud house. She had really been taken in by the rainbow waterfall. “Untouchable. I never had reason to go. I was never needed there. But I was elsewhere. So I never went. Still, it was very kind of Rainbow to give me a small tour. It was quite an experience.” She turned to Raegdan. “Too bad you couldn’t come inside or walk on it.”

“I’m sure I’ll have plenty of further chances to try walking on a magic cloud and plummeting to my death,” Raegdan responded without missing a beat.

Twilight walked around so she could be at Raegdan’s left while Luna was at his right, effectively pinning him in. “Raegdan, could you tell me what is wrong? You’ve been… off ever since we had lunch with Applejack’s family. Now that I think about it, you barely talked to them. I think Big Macintosh of all ponies talked more than you did. Did the food upset you? I noticed you were sweating. Are you feeling sick?”

Raegdan waved her off. “I’m fine, nothing like that.” Twilight quickly glanced at Luna. The Alicorn’s somber expression was all the confirmation she needed. Again, there was an undercurrent here that she didn’t know about.

“I thought we had stopped lying to each other,” she prodded, lightly pushing him in a firm tone that let him know she wouldn’t stop if she didn’t have some kind of answer better than that.

He huffed. “I don’t like farms. That’s why I didn’t want to go in. It was… awkward. I told you I didn’t want to go into their house.” He took a couple fast steps forward and reached the hospital’s glass doors first, and kept them open for Twilight and Luna to go through. “Why is little pink even here anyway? Is she getting her stomach pumped?”

“No,” Twilight answered. The nurse in the front only had one pony talking to her so Twilight quickly took her place in line. She kept her voice low. “Ever since… Lilly, Pinkie spends a few hours per week here. Especially with ponies that are, umm… not on the mend.”

“That sounds worrying,” Luna said. “Is Pinkie Pie still affected that much?”

Twilight shook her head. “Not really. I mean, yes, it does, but she actually likes it. She says that since they are going to... go either way, the least she can do is make sure they have some company before that. She’s not the only one doing it. There is a small organization with member around Equestria, and Pinkie signed up.” Twilight’s turn in line came up. “Hello. I’m looking for the Cakes? They had an appointment here today.”

Twilight gave Gummy back to his rightful owner. Pinkie rubbed the insensate alligator against her cheek and then placed him on top of her head. Gummy slowly sunk into Pinkie Pie’s mane with a glooping sound, blinking one eye after the other. Twilight kept watching for a few seconds after the pet vanished, expecting to hear the pink, curly mane burp.

“So, pregnant, huh?” Raegdan asked. He walked to the doctor’s door and placed his ear close to it, trying to eavesdrop and ignoring every other patient’s outraged, quiet gasp. “Oh, spell on the door? Cute,” he said, and pressed his index finger on the door. A few seconds later he grimaced and pulled away. “That was not cute. I don’t know and I don’t wanna know what made that noise.”

“Any news, Pinkie?” Twilight sat next to her friend.

“I don’t know, the doctor wouldn’t let me in again, he is still angry about all his lollipops somehow vanishing when I do, but mrs Cake told me the doctor suspected twins, and if they make sure today we’re going to get another crib, but we don’t know yet, this is all too slow, and there are not enough news yet, and—”

“Take a breather, Pinkie. Will they know today?” Twilight asked.

Pinkie shrugged, suddenly becoming quiet and reserved, breaking eye contact to anxiously glance at the door. “Twins will be fun. And mrs Cake is super healthy, so it will all be fine. Right?”

“I’m sure it will, Pinkie.”

“Why are you even worried?” Raegdan asked as he walked back. He didn’t sit down, preferring to balance on his heels as he crouched instead of trying his luck on the low, flimsy chairs. “Get a unicorn doctor to take a look if this one can’t tell for sure. Or Twilight.”

“You can’t do that!” Pinkie Pie said in shock. “That’s super-duper-baddy territory and shame on you for wanting to make Twilight a super-duper-baddy!”

Luna coughed gently. “He doesn’t know.”

“Raegdan,” Twilight started. “The fetus is still developing.”

The biped scratched at his head. “Yes, that’s what being pregnant means. I gave you that talk. So why not take a look and make sure it is developing right?”

Twilight sighed. “When a fetus develops it is very sensitive to environmental changes, especially magical background. It is why pregnant mares are also advised not to travel, as passing through an area with higher than normal levels of magic might negatively affect the baby’s gestation. Same issue pertains as to why spellcasting is ill-advised, unless there is complete certainty that there is danger for either the baby or the mother.”

“Negatively how?” Raegdan asked. He held still, so much that Twilight couldn’t even notice any movement from his breathing.

“Remember Blank Slate?” Luna reminded him. She got into more detail for Twilight’s and Pinkie’s sake. “Blank Slate suffered from the same cause, but was only cosmetically affected. One of his wings is a pegasus one. The other is a thestral one. Luckily for him, flight is still possible. All that happened was his Thestral ancestry to become a bit more… lopsidedly obvious. I suppose Limit Breaker was so affected as well, to a lesser degree though. His body shape is more akin to a pegasus, and you can spot a few small feathers at this withers.”

Pinkie Pie jumped up. “Oooh, I met them both! I liked all of them and they all liked my welcome cake. And Raven purred so much I almost felt asleep!”

“That was him growling, Pinkie Pie,” Luna explained. “I do not believe he enjoys public hugging.”

“So too much magic and you get birth defects?” Raegdan blinked, as if finding the explanation absurd or abnormal. “Then what if the baby is upside down or there’s something wrong with it? Can’t you look? Make the skin invisible or something?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, that would require a spell, and as I said, magic can be potentially lethal at that stage. For both baby and mother. Spells carry their own field, and thus danger when in such close distance. It’s a last resort, and even then it’s usually preferred to deal with any problems after the birth. A spell or a high ambient magical background can… mutate the baby or cripple it. Sometimes they can be actually helpful and positive, but that’s extremely rare.”

Raegdan sat silent after the lesson in magic, staring a hole towards the doctor’s office, almost like every other future parent in the waiting room. Every now and then his eyes would flick to the side, either towards Pinkie Pie or Twilight, and his right hand would grip his left one with enough strength to audibly hear the bones grind against each other.

“I have another question,” he said after a few minutes of silence. “Are either of you planning to ever have one?”

“One what?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Lollipop? Nah. The doctor is out. Again.”

“Kid, of your own,” Raegdan grumbly specified.

Twilight and Pinkie Pie exchanged a glance. “Well, maybe?” Twilight answered. “I mean, I don’t believe either of us has plans or anything, but it would be nice in the future to—”

Raegdan got up in a flash, interrupting her. “I’m gonna go,” he said.

“Go where?” Luna asked, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

“Need a walk. Think. I’ll meet you back at home later.”

Rarity heard a metal tinkle from her back and stopped, her patience reaching its breaking point. She removed the saddlebags from her bag and fiddled with the little clasp on the left one again, doing her best to force it to lock in place once more. She should have known. Little, artisanry decorations like this are just this. Decoration. She bought the adorable clasps because they reminded her of her very own cutie mark, but while nice to look at, they completely failed in doing what they were meant to.

Cursing the day she massacred her expensive saddlebags by stitching this garbage on, she pushed slightly harder, her magic carefully forcing the little pin. A little more. Just a bit more. And… got it!

A moment later it popped off with a snap and clattered on the stone road.

Curse you, you blasted, over glorified tack! Rarity raged, kicking the attachment well into the stream nearby.

She would have done the same to her saddlebags had they both not been packed to the brim with beautiful curtains, tablecloths, lovely knitted couch covers, everything she had available and in mint condition that she wanted to give to Ditzy. It felt unfair to let Luna hoof the bill and Cast Iron to do all the work while she just sat on the sidelines. She wanted to do something herself, and thought bringing a splash of color and a refreshing change would be just the thing.

But thanks to this Tartarus-forged-why-can’t-you-make-a-competent-clasp abomination, she would bring Ditzy nothing but a washing chore. The bags had been filled several pounds past their limit, and if she tried to carry them on her back without something to hold the flap closed, everything would spill out and be ruined.

She sighed. She supposed she could carry them all in her magic, but after this morning’s absurdities she really didn’t know if she should. Even after a short sleep she still felt sore inside, somewhere deeper than muscles and tissue. But important needs must come first. She would have to push herself a little hard today. Some magic endurance practice wouldn’t kill her.

Rarity followed the little stream that crossed through Ponyville, heading for the small wooden, colorful bridge that would bring her around to where Ditzy lived. She lifted her head, having spent the last hundred meters keeping it pointed to the ground as she focused on the effort of holding up her bags with her magic. The sight when she looked ahead again made her forget her weariness for a minute.

Raegdan was pacing back and forth in front of the small bridge. He would walk a few meters and then stop and look south, lifting his arm straight and pointing that way. Then he would, for lack of a better description, sight down his arm and across his pointing finger. He’d stay there for a few seconds, then use the tip of his foot to make a small line pointing straight ahead.

When this was done he’d move to a different position and repeat, glancing to where he had stood before, measuring all the other lines near him with gritting teeth and a low growl of rising anger. A couple of times he would back off and accusingly stare at the drawn lines and mount Canterlot, as if trying to align them with the horizon he had been pointing at.

She wasn’t the only one who noticed his weird behavior. Three mares, Daisy, Lily, and Rose, had come to the other side of the bridge, carrying saddlebags of their own. They obviously wanted to cross, but stayed in place, weary of the unknown biped on the other side.

Well, not quite unknown. Raegdan had already made quite an impression. He’d been in town for less than a week, and there were already printed guidelines in how and when to interact with him. i) Safe if he’s accompanied by Princess Luna, Spike, Twilight or any of her close friends. ii) Extremely Dangerous if he’s accompanied and you want to get smart with any of his escorts. iii) Relatively Safe to approach if on his own, but with great chance of being insulted, mocked, parodied, disparaged, and generally verbally assaulted. If being friendly. iv) Don’t stick around longer than you need, and don’t attempt to give him treats.

It was quite dispiritedly similar to approaching an half-tamed dog.

“Ex- Excuse m-me!” Daisy shouted out, only finding the courage to do so after repeated shushing and pushing from the other two. “W-Would you mind g-getting out of the w-way?”

Raegdan turned to them, paying attention to them for the first time. A glimmer of amusement shined in his eye. He stopped at the center of the bridge, his footsteps extremely louder than he usually allowed them to be. He leaned on his arm, supported by the wooden railing. “I say… not until you pay the toll.

Daisy exchanged a panicked glance with her sisters. “T-Toll? What-t t-toll?”

Raegdan’s finger pointed beneath him. “Well… The toll you pay for crossing me bridge.”

“We’re not paying any toll!” Rose cried out in sudden outrage. “This bridge belongs to Ponyville! Now let us pass.”

Raegdan raised palm stopped them in place. “Uhh… no. Sorry. But a toll is a toll. And a roll is a roll. And if I don’t get no tolls then I don’t eat no rolls.” He smiled, chuckling at their disbelieving faces. “I didn’t make this myself, but…”

“What’s t-the toll then?” Rose asked, taking the lead and glaring viciously.

“Hmm… Tradition says a goat?” Raegdan shockingly offered.

The three sister’s eyes bugged out, and they all took a step back as one. “Wh-What, like a hostage?” Rose asked.

The alien stilled for a moment, as if slapped by an epiphany. Then all of a sudden he started gesturing wildly with his arms, roaring, “Fuck this! Cows talk, goats talk, fucking chimeras talk, I’m just gonna have to take a bite out of you fuckers!”

It sounded like a whistle was in the three mares’ throats with how sharp their screams were. They bucked off their saddles and made for cover, probably the one on their beds.

When Rarity approached, making quite sure she exhibited her disapproval on her facial features, Raegdan was scavenging through the discarded satchels and bags with no care or uneasiness. “That was mean and crass.”

“I’m feeling mean,” Raegdan griped without turning. He found a loaf of bread after digging through stacks of celery and tore through a piece with his teeth, talking while chewing. “I didn’t crush anything though. So stop making false accusations. This is slander and I won’t stand for it.”

“You will, of course, apologize and pay up for the damages you caused to the poor girls,” Rarity said, her hoof pointing at the mess around him. “They didn’t deserve that, and that was their shopping you are looting.”

Raegdan mumbled. Unless Rarity was extremely wrong, it was a repetition of what she just said, only in a less than flattering tone. “If you don’t,” she continued, “Twilight will have to deal with the complaints. Again. Because of your irresponsibility.” That gave him pause.

“Fine, alright. I’ll… arrange something. I’ll get Leaf Stream to talk to them. She’s always up for bitching about me to new people. She’ll settle them down. Are we done?”

“Not yet.” Having made as much progress as possible about his behavior, Rarity now moved her worry to more personal matters. “I would like to know the reason behind your foul mood.”

“Oh, for f—”

“Tut-tut! I insist that we progress through this with as little profanity as possible. A tall order to be sure, but one you know you need to work on. Now.” She fluttered her eyelids. “Won’t you tell your caring friend what is wrong instead of holding it in and causing distress to Twilight?”

He paused, staring down at the half-eaten loaf he held. He sat on the railing at the end of the bridge, tearing small pieces and chewing them slowly. A few slow breaths later he was ready to talk. “You know a saying we had back in my home?” he asked in miserable tones.

“Obviously, I do not,” Rarity said with a smile and a jovial tone, trying to retain a less moody atmosphere. “But I will gladly listen to it.”

He pinched a piece of the core out and rubbed it among his fingers until he turned it into small breadcrumbs and threw them into the shallow stream. Small ripples appeared, flowing downwards, as small fish bit on the offerings. “I don’t remember exactly how it went, but the basic idea was, ‘everything you do should be so your children can have an easier tomorrow.’”

Rarity felt a warm smile pinching her cheeks even higher. “That is a beautiful sentiment,” she said approvingly. “But where does it fit into your current behavior?”

Raegdan grimaced. He turned sideways and spat into the water. “Nowhere,” he admitted, a smile fighting to stay on his lips. “I just thought you’d enjoy the trivia.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t quite understand.”

Raegdan sighed and pushed himself off where he sat. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just feeling out of it every now and then. It’s like a sneeze, only I like to annoy others instead of emptying my lungs.” He pointed at the treasonous saddlebags she had rested next to her. “Do you need any help with these?”

“That would be most helpful, thank you.”

It was quite the relief to not have to lug all that weight around, and Raegdan’s mood lifted a little by being of some use, even this little. Rarity didn’t leave the opportunity of their small walk go to waste either. She kept talking to him, mostly planting small seeds and turning his attention elsewhere. To important matters.

Rarity made a point of attracting his attention to a passing couple, and inflating the truth a little by making him think that Luna actually made a comment when it was actually what Rarity imagined she had alluded to. She told him how much she enjoyed the private time she spent with Luna at the spa, and abstractly wondered what plans they themselves had for spending time apart from other distractions.

She enjoyed the hunching of his shoulders with the satisfaction of a professional. Later this evening or the next she would fan the embers she lit into a small flame. It was a matter of time now.

But all little joys must come to an end. “We’re here!” she sang out. True to form, Cast Iron was already there, working. He had carried a table out on the street and was busy hammering some nails at the legs. “Cast Iron, I brought some beautiful embroideries for dear Ditzy. Do you think you can help me put up the curtains? My magic is just not feeling up to par today.”

Cast Iron looked up with a blinding smile. “Sure thing, miss Rarity. Can you wait until I’m done here? Oh, uhh… Hello, sir?” he said, his right hand rising, unsure if he should drop the hammer and salute or not. He had told her before that Raegdan having a simple guard rank and yet being able to not exactly order but always having to be listened to most of the time, but only under certain conditions, made this kind of interaction really awkward.

“Yeah, hey,” Raegdan disinterestedly greeted back. He stood over Cast Iron, watching him work and making the poor minotaur nervous. Cast Iron did his best to ignore him, and after a while Raegdan seemed to lose interest and started picking up whatever was around and fiddling with it. It was obvious he had no goal in mind and was searching for a hint of what to do next.

Cast Iron was trying to find and fit a couple of short enough wooden triangles that he could use to stabilize the last two legs of the table, when Raegdan came back. He kneeled across from Cast Iron and he pointed at him with the wooden dowel he was holding. “How long do you need to finish hammering a few nails? Are your fingers crooked or something?”

“I’m being careful,” Cast Iron testily said, refusing to look up. “It’s called caring for quality. The problem is that it’s easy to judge when you are standing all the way there and sounding off.” He spoke with the tired exasperation of repeating an old argument.

Raegdan hit the dowel against his palm. “You are as slow as a sensual and very considerate fuck. Almost as… quiet as well...hmm...”

Unaware or uncaring of Rarity’s small shriek of distraught at the vulgarity, or Cast Iron’s angry glare, Raegdan stared down at the small piece of wood he was holding. “Huh… I think… I think I’ve got a good idea for what to—”

“Fuck!”

A gang of voices chorused in a variety of volumes, tones, and enthusiasm behind him. Rarity and Raegdan turned as one. A large group of children stood there, repeating Raegdan’s favorite word like parrots. Colts and fillies that had amassed together to play and run on a schoolless day, most of them surrounding Dinky and Stormdrain.To her horror, Rarity spotted even Sweetie Belle, inhaling deeply in order to intone the f-word loudly in soprano.

Spike stood in front of the large group, his face, that he kept hunched between his shoulders, red as sin. He tentatively raised one claw up in suggestion. “Uh… Dad? Language?”

“Oh, heavens no. Your sister is going to kill me.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuuuUUUUuuu—”

Twilight made her way down the stairs and into the basement that had been claimed away from her possession. Raegdan and Luna stood next to each other in the middle of the large space, using an old table to support various bits and pieces of wood, metal, and wire, along with a plethora of tools. At the moment they were busy leafing through various books, bookmarking certain pages and leaving them on the table, most of them kept open where they marked them, and arguing with each other.

“One tonal range will not be enough,” Luna was insisting as her magic was drawing lines of varying lengths on the blackboard, each of them underscoring a different mathematical formula. “We need an alternating pitch intersecting with the receiving mode in order to get enough reference points. That way we can build the map in layers like you described it.”

Raegdan walked in front of the blackboard, a pencil dancing between his knuckles. He used it to point at one of the equations. “I recognize this one. That’s the number two, isn’t it?”

“You are genius,” Luna deadpanned.

The biped kept staring at the numbers, both hands digging into the top of his head. “I can’t tell what half of the symbols mean!”

“Let’s take it one by one. This is called the plus symbol...”

Raegdan held his sides. “Oh haha, you are so funny. I feel like an idiot though. I went to school. You didn’t. How the hell do you know all that?”

“Because I actually studied every time I found myself in a library instead of wasting my time like you did?” Luna proposed as she made an addition. “Move aside please, I need to correct this section.”

“So I wasn’t a nerd like you,” he said, pouting.

“Ah da da!” Luna raised the tip of her wing to his lips. “An intellectual. The nerd is you, sir ‘what-is-best-in-life?’.” She underscored what she was writing. “And a rather prettier one than you,” she said, smiling and changing a number. “The screen will be quite complex. I don’t think I can cheat through it with my magic as it is now,” she mumbled, the chalk leaving white dots on her chin as she tapped it, lost in thought.

“Alright. I’ll give you that one,” Raegdan consented, turning back to the table to pick up a sheet of grinding paper.

“Thank you.” A thoughtful moment later Luna snapped back to Raegdan. “Wait, which part? Drop the over-pleased pheasant act. Which part? Raegdan? Was it both? It’s both, right?”

Raegdan lazily placed a short ruler as a bookmark and lifted his hands, palms pointing up and weighing the two between them like a scale. “Could be one, could be other, who can truly tell?”

“Do you know what I can tell? I can tell that you are—”

Twilight knocked on the wall next to her to get their attention. Luna’s playful retort was cut short as she greeted Twilight with an excited nod. “Twilight! Come in!”

“Oh, hey lit— Twilight. I’ll go up and continue working on the room in a little bit, just want to finish something here with Luna first,” he said, turning to look at her with a suspiciously guilty stance.

“Raegdan,” Twilight started. “Would you mind please explaining to me why I just had a signed petition for you to be lynched delivered to me?”

Raegdan and Luna did a double take. The chalk piece that Luna’s evaporated magic held had gone unheard, covered by the sound of the falling screwdriver Raegdan was holding.

“Who in their right mind thought that was a good—”

“Rarity. Said you were about due.” The accompanying envelope floated up, trapped in Twilight’s magic, the form itself barely read. “But of course, more ponies have signed up. Oh, will this be a fascinating read. Would you like to make a statement before I make you rue the day?”

Raegdan half crouched and squinted at her, uncertain. “... Celestia?”

Luna collected the fallen screwdriver and returned it to the table, looking perplexed. “We had agreed to keep quiet and not disturb the ponies here. Why didn’t you listen to me?”

Raegdan shrugged. “Perseverance and sheer dedication to my craft. Besides, I barely did anything.”

Twilight cleared her throat at that and removed the letter from its envelope. She pompously fluffed the paper straight. “Apart from the property damage at the fast food restaurant the other day, as well as the assault on Merry Laughter, mister Dedication is also charged with; One(1) count of toll collection without jurisdiction. One(1) count of robbery. Five(5) charges of assault on the rear end of ponies by use of his foot. One(1) count of foal corruption. Four(4) counts of assault by kicking dust into ponies’ eyes. Seven(7) counts of verbal assault, to the point of driving the victim to tears. Three(3) counts of assault by tripping ponies up.Twenty-three(23) counts of public swearing. And finally, two(2) counts of public urination.”

The accused leaned down to whisper to the equally impressed Luna. “Did she actually do the parentheses or was that me?”

“She did.”

Twilight took her time folding the letter and returning it back to its envelope. “And how do you plead?”

“... I had too much water. That’s why I needed to go twice.” Luna furiously worked her jaw, visibly getting frustrated.

“And will you look at all these signatures?” Twilight continued, taking the second envelope out. “I’m… I’m honestly impressed! You managed to get all of my friends—”

“Excuse us? Why?” Luna demanded, incredulity fighting outrage.

Twilight started counting down, drawing a line on the blackboard for each one. “Pinkie thought it would be a bonding experience. Rainbow Dash wanted in ‘cause it sounded fun. Applejack ‘cause you stole and wrinkled her hat. Rarity said this is nothing compared to what will happen if Sweetie Belle recites what you taught her in front of her parents. And Fluttershy because of Angel Bunny’s so thoughtful gift.” She considered for a second and drew another half line. “She also signed in for Angel Bunny because she’d rather he wears down your gift on you than the rest of her animals.”

Luna’s mouth imitated a fish for a few seconds. “Okay. Six… ponies, I guess. That’s not so bad—”

“We also got signatures from the flower sisters. They actually left a little note in here. ‘We got your toll right here’. Hmm, let’s see. Leaf Stream, the Riches, Leaf Stream, Cloud Chaser, Leaf Stream, Flitter, a whole other list of names, Leaf Stream, the rest of the Lunar Guard, Leaf Stream...”

Luna raised her hoof immediately. “Pause. What do you mean ‘the rest of the Lunar Guard’?”

Twilight made room for Luna to read as well. “Here, see? They all signed up.”

“What does this say?” Luna asked, pointing with her hoof at a small notation.

Twilight shrugged. “It’s just a question Leaf Stream wanted answered, but Rarity already told her there would be no ‘dibs’. First come, first served.” Raegdan’s left hand moved to defend his gonads. “But let’s ignore the mob for now. They’re still busy making torches. What’s going on with you?” she asked, a manic smile playing escort to her sarcasm.

Luna flicked her mane, stars falling off like burning meteorites. “Well, currently I am stoking a furnace of rage for a few captains of mine, but mostly a certain flankhole close by—”

Raegdan intervened, his fingers pinching and massaging Luna’s neck. “We are making a thingy that will let you check on the baby without hurting it,” he said all casually and matter of factly.

Twilight’s mind quickly switched gears, from annoyed to morbidly curious. “A thingy?”

Raegdan’s free hand whirled in the air. “I suppose we could name it Thingy Magicus Sonicus unless I manage to come up with something more stupid…”

“A task of mythical proportions to be sure, but there’s no one more fit for the task,” Luna half-hummed, more interested in enjoying the impromptu massage up until her eyes widened and she angrily brushed his hand off.

“... but we got some basic stuff down,” Raegdan continued after taking a short breath. “It’s based on something from my home. It’s supposed to work almost the same so magic will never touch the baby. What we’re going to do—”

Twilight shushed him, her undivided attention on the blackboard. Her gaze flickered from equation to equation, finding common values and interpreting math into meaning so clear it could have come out of a textbook. Luna’s technique was a bit sloppy and archaic—obviously—and she was taking turnarounds where she could easily break through by using more refined methods.

Twilight picked up a chalk stick with magic and started rerouting the numbers. Not stopping there, she drew out a graph with all the required frequencies scaled to time. Input and output were on an equal halve and she made a small change by enlarging the input scale to allow some room for error. All in all though, it was brilliant.

How do you examine somepony sensitive to magic?

You don’t use magic.

“Short distance detailed topography through echolocation,” Twilight almost unconsciously gasped. Her magic clutched the wooden cylinder off the table and brought it before her, examining it in detail. Lines were drawn with pencil over it, with a number of crude, placeholder runes scribbled at one end. An unfinished proof of concept, but one with huge potential.

She could see it so clearly. The wand would work as both input and output, receiving the sound signals it itself send out in order to be reconfigured into an image. Done fast enough it would almost work as well as a real-time view into the womb itself.

Twilight sighed and rubbed at her eyes. “The assignment of the receiving values and turning them into an image… This will take a long, long time.” She smiled forlornly. “Pinkie Pie had her hopes turned up when you left the hospital. She was positive you’d come up with something. Too bad it won’t be ready in time to assure her Mrs Cake will be fine. Still, this will be of great help to so many!”

Luna had been examining her graph, but stopped in order to place her hoof comfortingly over Twilight’s shoulder.

“Well… There’s probably a way to have it ready in just a few days…” Raegdan meekly brought up.

Twilight whipped around to face him. He sat down, his right arm scratching his left forearm and staring at the floor, an almost guilty look in his eye. He glanced behind Twilight, at either the blackboard or Luna.

“I don’t see how,” Twilight confessed after a few moments of twisting the problem in her head. It was a matter of raw workload and experimentation as they would wrestle to convert the signals they would get to something understandable. There were no shortcuts.

Raegdan tapped at the table in front of him, nervously. “There might be… a shortcut.”

She stood corrected.

“Do you remember when you told me the two foundations of using magic?” he asked, his fingers tracing the rough lines of the wooden table’s surface. “One is intent: The sheer fact and shaping of what you want done. The second one is understanding: How and why it’s done this way. It’s why theory makes spells easier as well as practice, why you break down spells to examine them and how it takes so less magic to work alongside the laws of physics instead of against—”

Twilight interrupted him, stopping his droning recital. “Yes, that is all kindergarten level. I know that the basics are important, but I don’t think something that much basic will be of use. What is the shortcut?”

“Do you remember that color spell you learned once? The one that you could change the colors of an object?” he asked, trying to scratch out a splinter from the table with not much success due to the leather gloves he wore.

She did remember that spell. It never was that useful as there were others that built on that and had much greater flexibility. What she remembered most was how he told her about light and how his people used it. A flash of cognisance told her that that was probably the event that led him into mentioning microscopes to Princess Celestia.

“Here’s the thing about that spell,” he continued on, raising his index finger. “It knew what to do when even you didn’t.”

“Yes, but you had helped me figure out how to turn the apple to the color I wanted,” Twilight reminded him.

“That doesn’t matter!” Raegdan barked, his palm hitting the table. “You didn’t know how the physics worked apart from a vague idea. I don’t know how it exactly works! Yet the spell got it. It made it work.”

“But this is what magic does.”

Raegdan pointed at her in triumph. “Exactly! There’s more to it that what you intent and understanding how it works. The magic takes that intent, takes that understanding, and it translates it! It finds the best way to use itself to make what you want. That’s why if you know more and visualize what you want, and more closely to how it works, it makes a spell easier. It takes less magic to translate your intent and your understanding into the effect you want.”

He lifted three fingers up. “So make that three foundations of magic. Intent, Knowledge, and Translation. Magic is spent as it reads your mind or will and it translates it to something workable, even if you don’t know how or even have the wrong idea. That’s why it’s harder to do something when you are going wrong about it. Magic is wasted as it looks for the proper way around to translate your intent when your understanding is wrong.”

Twilight shook her head. That shouldn’t be making that much sense. And there were holes in this theory already. Foals were sometimes able to cast magic beyond the capabilities of grown up unicorns, sometimes with unbelievable ease. She had done it herself once, a feat that she could only replicate with extreme difficulty, if even so. What about them, then?

Admittedly, a child could intent something like that. She herself had wanted at that moment a dragon to pop out of that egg, and her parents to stop watching her like that, expecting so much when she couldn’t deliver. She had been thinking…

She had been thinking of dragons. Of huge, scaly beasts, but also she wanted a baby to come out of the egg. She wanted her parents to stop looking at her, but she still wanted them close. She didn’t want them gone in any way. And if Raegdan was right… then the magic translated to that as close as it could. Spike became a huge dragon, but still baby like. Her parents changed to plants, living yet unable to see and speak. It… in a way it was exactly what she had wanted, wasn’t it? If seen by the combination of the eyes of a child and magic doing its best to bring it to life.

No, no, that made no sense yet. Suppose it translated intent, fine, but what about understanding? She had no idea of how to perform spells such as these. She had no idea where to even begin. Her mind was a total void, she didn’t even have any—

—any preconceptions…

That’s why it had been so easy!

“I don’t need to know how to turn the readings into an image,” Twilight half-whispered to nopony else but herself, but Raegdan was already nodding along as she thought loudly. “Given enough magic to power it up, I can create a spell based on intent alone. I can then separate the spell to its base components and recreate them. I can test how close to the mark my hypotheses of the inner workings are by changing the conception of the spell and measuring its difficulty and magic consumption. Most importantly, if I have enough magic… I can have a fully working prototype ready in days instead of months!”

Raegdan smiled on her. She hadn’t seen that specific smile in years. The one he gave her when she caught on to a concept or idea that he tried to explain to her, prodding her to understand in her own way. One of pride. She smiled back.

Twilight skipped along the basement walls, her magic picking up the books and marking their helpful bookmarks. It was almost everything she would need to start! Even the beginning runes to design the matrix for the acoustic wand. They even had the tools out. She could begin work right now!

She felt like flying, and she surely would if she sported a pair of wings like a pegasus. As it was all she could do was run excitedly around and gush profusely while hundreds of ideas scrolled down her mind’s eye, hoping she would remember at least half of them later on.

“This is amazing! Do you realize how many doors this opens? This will rewrite spell creation as we know it! Not to mention the effect on other fields. Oh, if this is somehow possible with more than one unicorns casting together, we could achieve so much with a concentrated pool of magic! Worst case scenario, I can ask Princess Celestia to give it a shot. Nopony has as much magic available as she does!”

“Let’s not get crazy now.” Raegdan quickly pushed himself up.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Again? I thought we were over this. Princess Celestia just wants to help.”

“Hey, I don’t have a problem with that. But you saw what happened today, and you know how busy she already is. Let’s not make the Solar Guard think we are brainwashing their little princess anymore than we already do, heavens only knows what the Royal Guard thinks about us as well since they take their cues from them. We don’t need to go to her every time we need to pee.”

“Well, she is a very busy pony…” Twilight admitted, worrying her lip. “But this can be so useful and important…”

“I’ll make you a deal,” Raegdan offered. “I’ll tell you as much as I can about how we did it back home. After all, we didn’t have the ability to break physics, so it will be easier if you try to get it as close as to how my kind does it, right?”

“Any question I want answered?” Twilight asked in excitement she rarely felt at this unprecedented offer.

Raegdan shook his palm sideways. “For… a given amount of any, sure. But you don’t bother Celestia, okay?”

She jumped up to hug him, unable to help herself.

She never noticed Luna glaring at Raegdan, nor Raegdan return an apologetic stare.

I grab the side of the board I finished hammering and shake it harshly. It barely moves. One more down. Only three more to go and this wall is done. All that’s left than is the east wall where the window will go, and the outside part will be done.

I’m still worried about the damned insulation. There is something similar to insulation foam here, but the fucking canisters… According to the instructions there is enough in one to do more than half the room, all of it condensed into a single can with magic. I’ll have to get someone else to do it for me when I’m done with the outer wall. Who knows what will happen if I pick that thing up?

I can guess, and I ain’t taking.

There’s a light knocking on the doorframe behind me. Twilight, of course. She had been sitting there watching for a couple of minutes while I pretended not to notice. She never exactly had the lightest of footsteps.

“Raegdan, it’s late. Can you stop with the hammering? I am going to have a hard time making all the trouble go away tomorrow at the mayor’s office, I don’t need to have extras tucked in,” she said, trying to make a joke out of it, but she is obviously worried.

“I want to finish up before I stop,” I explain. A thought hits me, and I pick up a large red rag from the floor. I tear off a piece, fold it on itself until I make a good, thick pillow, and then place it over a nail. I give it a hard tap, and there’s barely a sound apart from a muted thump, more of a sensation that noise. “How’s this? I’ll be done in a little while anyway.”

“I suppose that is okay,” she says after a moment of thought. “I would have preferred a silence spell myself, but from you that is impossible. Just don’t be too long, alright? Spike is holding off from eating his dinner because he waits for you.”

“Just a few minutes, I promise. Half an hour at most.”

She nods and leaves. Well, I promised. Better get to it. I get the next board and start nailing it into place. It’s awkward to do so while holding the cloth and almost hanging myself all the way out over the ground, but what can you do?

Four nails after and it’s held in place by its middle. I shake it a little. Nowhere near sturdy enough. I need nails at the top and bottom. I take one more out of my pocket, and hold it in place, along with the cloth. It’s easier without having to worry about the board, but still slow. Slow but a necessity.

Every couple of hammer strikes I pause, listening intently for a second. Nothing. Just quiet. Two more strikes. Still quiet. No shuffling, no dragging. Two more strikes, and the nail is in. Next one. Two strikes. Pause. No moans, no groans. Two more. I check my left and right. The city is dark like every night. I can’t see but won’t be seen either. The shadows are clear. No clawing arms reaching out. Safe so far.

The perimeter is almost secure. Just one more board after this one. Next nail. My eyes catch a glimpse of red on the floor, but I quickly remind myself not to worry. They don’t have a sense of smell so I don’t need to clean up the blood. But they never stop, and if there are enough of them, they can remember recent changes. I have to finish quickly, but without noise. Two more strikes. Nail’s in. Next one—

“We agreed not to tell Twilight,” Luna hisses. I didn’t hear her coming up. Sneaky little princess had timed her steps to the hammer hitting the nail. “We agreed not to tell anyone!”

I shake my head and pick up the red as blood rag from the floor. It’s dirty, but better some dust that being drenched in sweat. “It’s going to be fine,” I assure her, trying to dry out my clothes and mask by patting them down.

Luna doesn’t believe me. “Not if she makes the connection.”

“She won’t. Trust me, she won’t.” I go near her, getting down on one knee. “Look, she won’t even think about the Elements. She won’t bother, not when she can’t experiment with them while she has so many other things and ideas to keep her busy. She is not going to figure out what they did to you.”

“Let’s hope so.” She massages her head as if suffering from a headache. “If she considers it even for a second she is going to rush to Celestia to ask if it’s possible. Then it’s back to—”

“Stop!” I pull her hoof and hold it tight. “She won’t, and even if she does, even if the worst comes to pass, you are not going back up there! How many times do I have to say it? If you are so worried about it, maybe you could… stop her from thinking about it?”

That was the wrong thing to say. Luna’s eyes harden. She’s angry. Genuinely angry. “Not again!” she hisses, trying to keep her voice low. “I am not meddling into their minds, any of them, again! I only just finished removing the constrictions! It’s enough that I have to keep the spell up to stop Twilight from remembering about Honest Serenade or what I did to her in my anger after the first time I used such spells on them, but trust me, first chance I have I’m getting even them off, so you better deal with Honest Serenade sometime soon and end her threat or—”

“Why don’t you fucking let Twilight know how you fucked her up instead, first?” I counteroffer. “Almost literally, I may add?”

Luna pulls her hoof out of my grip and I regret what I said already. I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have. Luna would never have done that if she hadn’t been angry because of what Twilight said. And Twilight spoke like that only because I completely fucked up.

Heavens help me but all too often I feel like the source of all stupid lately.

“I’m sorry,” I immediately say. Damage control. Do something to fix this, you idiot! You fucked up exactly like that once already, that is why you’re sneaking off to Rarity every night isn’t— Right. Rarity.

“Look, I’m… I’m kind of feeling strained. You too, I guess, and we haven’t been exactly spending time together. We’ve had zero private time to talk or have some fun to relax together like we used to,” I explain as an excuse.

She is fighting a blush for some reason. What did I say?

“What do you mean?” she asks, taking a step back and averting her face a little.

“Well…” What was I thinking? I had an idea, what the fuck was my idea? “We could… you know, go and take a walk or something just the two of us? Around Ponyville? You know, I made a day for Spike, one for Twilight… Maybe I should make one for you? Us?”

“A… walk?”she repeats, almost shyly, almost… offended? What’s gotten into her? “Just a walk?”

Is she disappointed? Crap, she sounds disappointed! Fix, fix! Abort the walk, figure out something else!

“I, uh… not a walk…” Crap, crap, crap. Not a walk, then what? “Something else perhaps?” Her eyes light up. I’m getting warm. “You know, give me a day or two to find something fun to do together. Something new. Know what, I’ll go ask—”

“Rarity,” Luna and I chorus together.

I blink. Then I get my face closer to her. Uncomfortably close. She’s feeling guilty for some rason. I can tell. She sweats like a pig and her eyes twitch more that a junkie on withdrawal, so I do have a clue or two to help me be more certain in my suspicion.

“What exactly am I missing here?”

“About two more boards, seeyouwhenyougetdownfordinnerdon’tbelate,” she spurts and she’s gone. The door slams behind her.

Something’s up. I don’t like it. It’s always my ass that gets burned when something’s up.

Nothing to do now but finish up for now. I pick up the second to last board and drag it over. Ponyville is glowing with so much light from every lit window that I barely need the gaslamp. I turn it off. The extra light makes it easier, but it always feels bad to waste resources when I don’t have to, even when there’s so much around.

I should hurry this up, but I turn to take one last look south. The view is clear from up here. I can see the silhouette of Applejack’s barn up on a hill in the distance, the edges lit by moonlight. The farm. Their farm. I shouldn’t have gone in their house. It felt like spitting on a grave.

I wonder what happened to them. I wonder, but not for long. I got a sneaking suspicion that I’m far better off not knowing. That no one knows. The fact that I want to scream when I try to find out is enough of a hint. But still…

Exactly what happened?

The Apple farm isn’t what really made me turn south though. Not this time. It’s something far more away that concerns me. I can’t see it of course. It’s too damn far away.

The rift to the northeast is way too close. The pain from it is like a tidal wave. I can barely feel the ache from the other ones. But the one from the south… I’m still not sure.

Did it move? It couldn’t have. Not unless something went through. In or out. Who knows which.

It’s too far. Best thing to do is wait. If something left, then nothing we can do. If something came and it’s bad, we will hear about it sooner or later. If it’s something too big there’s fuck all we can do anyway until it gets here. Same deal as with Charybdis. Besides, I doubt the rift was used either way. I would have noticed.

… Unless I was asleep at the time.

No. No, it’s still there. Nothing happened. I could tell for certain the other time. I just notice that one more because I’m closer to it that I usually am. I’ve been staying too close to the other one for too long. Canterlot fucking ruined me. The rifts are quiet. Well, for the everyone else other than me at least.

I refold the torn cloth, and start hammering. Better finish quick. I’m wasting time. Never waste resources. It’s not a good idea.

Two strikes. Pause. Listen. Two strikes. Pause. Search the surroundings. Two strikes. Pause. Listen...

Interlude 15 - The Elements of Harmony

The Elements’ glow increased, their radiance burning yet soothing, as they pulled in power from beyond. The magic suffused the ponies wielding them, the vessels raising them in the air. Bringing them together. One point reached to the other, their interconnections giving them strength, making the whole far, far stronger than the one.

The power was there. Raw, undiluted, and pure. Uncontested, terrible, and wonderful.

It existed without guidance.

‘Give me a reason’, it whispered to the subconscious of the six minds in control. ‘Give me a purpose’.

Six pairs of eyes opened as one, their movements identical. They all breathed in sync. They all felt and heard in unison. They all saw the enemy stand in front of them, a mare as black as the darkest night, with fear and unknown weaved into her ethereal mane. A fear that was mirrored into her own eyes, and pleads of mercy on her lips for the unknown was known to her.

But the six minds were not as one. Not entirely. Almost.

Almost would have to be enough.

‘We want her to stop’, said Loyalty.

‘We don’t want her hurt’, spoke Kindness.

‘We want her to no longer be a threat’, cried Honesty.

‘We don’t want to fear her anymore’, pleaded Laughter.

‘We want her to not be able to hurt ponies as she did before’, beseeched Generosity.

‘We want this Nightmare to end’, announced Friendship.

And thus Magic Translated…

I put the last of the cloth-covered dynamite sticks in the backpack just as Luna opens her eyes and gasps, her legs kicking the blankets over her as if they are a net that traps her. I’m at her side instantly, helping her sit and breathe. She didn’t scream. She’s gotten that under control at least. Either that or it wasn’t the moon again.

“Are you alright?” I ask after she has calmed back to normal breathing after catching her breath. “Do you want me to get you some water?”

She shakes her head and leans back to the cot. “No. I’m… I’m fine. It wasn’t that bad.”

“No moon?”

“No. The Elements. Again. Preferable though. Maybe telling Twilight was an unforeseen blessing,” She rubs her eyes with her hoof, and as she pulls it away she notices the backpack on the floor behind me.

“You’re going tonight?” she asks, and she is honestly surprised. Maybe I should have told her, but I kind of wanted it to be a surprise.

“Yep. I figured we could finally take this worry off your head for good. Better to go straight for the source, right?”

Luna half-pushes the covers off her. She doesn’t actually get up though. “I… I should come with you.” She doesn’t want to come in reality. She’s too scared. Too much fear of what will happen and too many memories yet not enough. She isn’t too much certain of what is there anymore either. Not after the moon. Fantasy has been mixed with reality.

And who’s to say whatever’s in that cave won’t remember her in some way or will try to stop her?

“We already agreed I’m on my own,” I remind her, remembering as ever not to show her that I know she doesn’t wish to get anywhere near it. And she knows that. “Magic immunity, remember? Go back to sleep. I’ll be late. I want to make sure I get it all down.”

She obeys and lies back down. She doesn’t go back to sleep though. She just looks at me. She’ll probably stay up worrying until she falls asleep. I pick up the pack on one hand, the hammer on another. Armor is already on—

Almost forgot the helmet. Oops.

“I’ll bring you back a piece. It will make a nice paperweight.”

Ch. 42 - The Tree of Harmony

I push one more branch out of the way, not caring at all about the sound of it breaking. Normally I avoid doing so, being much easier and smarter to just slip around them. No tracks, no warnings, and, even better, no callouts to monsters about where you are. But in this area of the Everfree Forest the rules are reversed.

First of all, it has been too eerily quiet. Too much for even it being near Ponyville. The second reason is that this is Ponyville. Each monster I kill is one less that hops around here. So far, I encountered none. Either the Lunar Guard’s training excursions have really done that good of a job or what is mostly left are Timberwolves and they stay away from me.

Gobrend had a great idea—same as I have a great idea on which crippled fucker told him about my problem with my memory. ‘Attempt to follow threads of any old memory you have’, he suggested, ‘and they might unearth forgotten ones.’ I decided to give it a shot, especially since I’m all alone in here. That why I’ve been singing every little thing that I can remember at the top of my lungs.

“That’s the way, uh huh uh huh, I like it, uh huh uh huh. That’s the way, uh huh uh huh, I like it, uh huh uh huh.”

Of course, that means if I happen to meet anyone in here I will be forced to murder them now, because I sure as hell won’t be explaining to Luna why I was dancing my way through the Everfree Forest.

I almost had a heart attack when I heard splashing while I was crossing the river, but it turned out to be just some big, purple, harmless-looking, water lizard that watched from a distance. At least that one won’t ever go tell anyone of my rendition of ‘splish, splash, I was takin’ a bath.’ First time I ever see a dragon-like creature rocking a mustache though.

Still, despite doing my best to ring the dinner bell, I don’t see a thing. Either the animals and monsters in here have gotten wary of me, pretty much like the Timberwolves, or my music selection is spooking them. Frankly, I wouldn’t blame them.

I’m going to get someone else to take a walk in here tomorrow to make sure. Probably Leaf Bitch; can’t have her thinking I’ve been going soft, and she’s kind of earned that.

“You spin me right round, baby, right round, like a record baby, right round, round, round…”

“You spin me right round…” I mumble, bending another dried out branch in my path until it snaps. I hold on to it and break it in smaller pieces against my chestplate as I keep moving, enjoying the satisfying cracks.

I had spun Luna around once, I remember. The day she finally managed to get that spell that duplicates a laser to do something more than a light show. She was laughing, exhilarated that she finally had an advantage to make up for the loss of such a portion of her magic. She had jumped up to me, I picked her up and—

—her dress swooshes behind her as I spin her around. Her legs almost touch the wall and I pull her back to my arms before she gets hurt by accident. She would be bouncing up and down if I wasn’t holding her up against me. I take one hand off her back and squeeze her behind.

“Oh my god!” she cries, still laughing and slaps me lightly. “We told your mom we’d just be listening to music, not letting you feel me up!” Her eyes sparkle with light. I think I love her eyes the most. Her lips come second.

I bend my head and kiss her, partly to shush her up, partly to stop her from storming out and having a laugh in my expence along with my mom as they’d team up and try to make me out as some kind of a pervert. Mostly though I just kiss her because I want to.

“Just music!” she repeats a few seconds after she’s had her fill of kissing me back.

I grin at her. “Alright. Music it is.” I reach to the mouse and start the next playlist.

‘You spin me right round’ starts blasting through my cheap speakers.

“Noooo!” she cries, her beautiful lips spread in a grin, covering her ears. “Not this earworm, you monster!”

I spin us both around again, faster and faster, repeating the refrain until the back of my legs hit on the side of the bed and I throw us both on it. She is still laughing nonstop. “You spin me right round, Vivi, right round, like a record, baby, come on!” I sing along, prodding her to join me.

“I’ll never get it out of my heeeaad!” she yells, laughing, and I pull her back in for another—

“Vivian,” I breathe out. That was her name. Vivian. I called her Vivi. I… I can’t believe I forgot it. I can’t believe I finally remembered it! “Vivi, Vivi, Vivi, Vivi!”

One of the trees I come up against is unlike most of the others. This one has a smooth bark, not the usual cragged, rotting bark. Fresh and lively. There’s a small clearing too, not much, only a small area of a couple of meters of clear sky. Enough to lighten the place though. I ran my fingers down the trunk, and then do so again after taking off my gloves. It feels like it’s almost polished.

I take out the dagger from my belt, and start carving. I feel euphoric. Happy. Alright, perhaps a little sappy as well. I carve the outline of a heart and I almost let the dagger drop when I realize what I’m doing, my palm covering the face of the helmet as I groan. Not that sappy! But I don’t stop, I keep on going. She’d love this. She would do this adorable little shriek she used to do. Heart is done. Now, top left, I need my initial. I pause, thinking fervently.

I just want the initial. Just one letter. I should be able to remember this much. Just one letter, one single letter. Think. You remember hers. What was yours? What did they call you?

Hey, …… How is she? Any news from the doctors? Is there going to be a change?

She’s gone! …… she’s gone! She’s dead, stop fighting, stop! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, …….

I’m going first. Better make sure one of us gets to the other side first, huh? Hey, ……….! It’s just like back home, remember? The river when we were kids? Only… Vivi isn’t here this time… Alright, bad choice of memories. Sorry.

Dad, the people back there asked me what my name is. Do I have one? Do you? I heard you say one while you were asleep. Is that one mine or—

I carve out an R. It’s good enough. I don’t use the Equestrian alphabet, though that is a little stupid when I think about it. If someone sees it they might guess it’s me. Next one, bottom right. It started with a V. Vivian. Vivian, Vivi, Vivi. I carve down a line…

...and stop. The euphoria is gone.

Follow the thread. I did. I remember where and how Vivian died. That is enough of a shot in the heart as it is. There’s more. I remember more. Far more.

We left her back there when we left.

She stayed there, walking and moaning along with all the rest. We didn’t… We didn’t give her rest. We thought… We thought we’d be able to come back once we got home and knew the way, that we would return with help, that I might be able to save her after all. I had forgotten that—

“Fuck!” I yell, kicking at the tree. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I start pacing. I had forgotten! Fucking hell, of course I did. Who in his right mind would want to remember… Stupid, fucking bird and his retarded, moronic suggestions! Like it wasn’t enough knowing that I killed her! She’s still there! She’s still there!

I go back to the tree and I drag down another line, half-heartedly. What was it I told Luna back when we were on that area where she had burned down a village so long ago? ‘What matters is that someone remembers, not the monument’?

I fucking remember now. And if I’m lucky I’ll forget it again. Still, it wouldn’t be the first time I don’t know what I’m talking about. Maybe a monument is something. A stupid, sappy carving on a tree doesn’t merit to be called that, but it’s all I can do now. Maybe it’s enough.

I pick up the pack and go on my way once more. I turn back to take one last look, feeling shamed.

R might love V. But I know for certain that V wouldn’t love R.

The ravine wasn’t much of a problem. I had brought rope with me, but I didn’t need it after all. I found a path leading down, almost carved into the wall of the cliff. Weird. It’s like it wants people to be able to find it. It could have been carved by someone else, maybe Celestia, but I doubt she comes around every few years to make sure it’s still here. Something keeps it in good condition.

Eh. I’ve seen weirder.

It’s darker down here, but it’s the good dark. Safe and still able to see just fine when I get used to it. There’s nothing hiding in here but me. I look at the northern direction the gorge is following. Not so much over there. The darkness that runs down that direction is not the good kind of dark.

I set off towards it. I want to make sure of that danger first. It’s a few hundred meters down the gorge, and it takes me a while to reach it as I climb over rocks and half-covered pits. Harsh ground, so unlike the other direction, one more thing to turn me wary. It turns out to be exactly like Luna described it to me. There’s the hidden opening of a cave on the side of the cliff, crouched between the folds of the crevice. Even from here it looks like it might be nothing more than a shallow cave, but I already know that it is not.

It is an entrance. And it leads down to the real Everfree Forest.

Nothing has been through in years at the very least, though. No fresh marks of any kind. No upturned rocks, no claw marks, no hair, scales, or worse. Just the air breathing in and out of the darkness.

I don’t actually need to go in. I don’t want to go in. There’s danger and death in there, I can feel it from here. My gut screams to steer away from there. Luna driveled in me the need to never go deeper than a couple of meters, and those with the utmost care.

But Luna’s memories might be faulty. I should make sure, I need to see what kind of danger lurks so near my Twilight and my Spike. If I know more then maybe I can stop some of the guards get killed because of me. Perhaps I could place some bait or just throw a few torches in...

She’s still in that city. Dead and walking. You left her there.

I go inside. This is definitely not the good dark. I can feel goosebumps run all over me. I can almost hear them holding their breath, same as I. Somewhere down below the slow dripping sound I’ve been hearing stops, then resumes from another direction. I follow the steep decline for almost a dozen meters, dragging my feet on the ground, when I can feel the difference.

It feels as if I crossed an invisible line. Far from where I stand trying not to lose my senses, I can smell the air coming from the other end of the tunnel. It smells like pine trees, water, and blood.

The smell lessens, as something moves and blocks it now. The darkness moves.

It shoots like a harpoon from somewhere below and the hook scrapes along my armor with the piercing sound of nails scratching a blackboard, utterly failing to penetrate it. The curved talon, or bone or whatever appendage this thing might be, manages to secure a grip on one of the armor’s ridges on my neck. There’s the lashing sound of sinew being pulled taut, and I’m pulled through the air.

Maybe a torch would have been a good idea after all.

I half land, half crush on a pile of short fur. There is not the tiniest hint of light in here, but the fury of the thing as short talons scratch the surface of my armor leaves no question as to whether it is friendly or not. My head gets knocked, and I accidentally bite through my lip. Not a moment later, I feel jaws wrap around my left pauldron, needle teeth gnashing against the metal.

Fucking hell, how big is that thing? If it had gone for my head instead, it would rip it off! I start fighting back, holding back groans of pain as the shock from the slashes on the armor reach my body. I pull a dagger out of my belt and strike, fast as I can before it changes its mind and moves its head from where I know for certain that it is now.

The dagger’s point gets stopped by a thick skull, and lodges there for a half-second, the thing growling in anger as I hurt it. Almost panicking because I can hear the leather straps groaning in protest, I pull the dagger out, grab the extremely large head with my left arm, and pull it sideways as much as possible. Then I try again, using a wider arc and much more force in my swing.

The dagger doesn’t slow down. It enters the skull with the sound of a cleaver hitting a butcher’s block, and the smell of fresh blood infests the surroundings.

It becomes a frenzy after that.

There’s fresh meat lying down now, and too many hungry mouths. The corpse of the creature is ripped away from me as a huge mass leaps on it, fighting among itself for first rights. The subsequent bloodletting inspires more into the fray. Growls, howls, and screams echo in the tunnel, the scent of blood and bowels filling every nook and cranny.

The screams are a terror of their own. Some of them are like harsh whistles, other like giant cats. The worst are those that could be coming out of the mouth of people I’ve known. Almost human-like or pony-like.

I don’t get a reprieve. The blood that splashed on me attracts them to me. The unknown in the dark lashes out, and I feel an impact on my torso, throwing me sideways. Teeth, impossibly long tongues, hands and tentacles reach for me, some trying to find flesh to puncture, others trying to rip the armor off me.

They are on me, trying to crack me open like a nut. At every attempt to get up I get thrown back down, my head slammed against rock. I try to push them off and almost lose my hands as jaws snap for them. There are too many, too heavy. I scream at them, and they scream back. The bandolier of grenades on my chest is ripped and gone.

I reach for my thigh. I still have one left, one I can still use. I take it out and remove the tab which blocked the runes from activating. All that stops it from going off is the fact that I’m holding on to it.

I try to throw it, but they won’t let me. I’m being shaken left and right like a ragdoll, and it’s a wonder my spine hasn’t snapped already the way they twist me. I get my chance, a single moment where I can move, and let the grenade fall, jumping into them.

One second. Something wraps around my throat. Two seconds. It starts choking me, but I can’t fight it off. Three seconds. My right arm is taken in a solid grip, and it start pulling. Four seconds. A long talon has found a gap and is sinking into my sides while my arm is in danger of being torn off. My shoulder is in flames, and it’s about to pop off.

Five seconds.

The flash grenade goes off. The light is blinding, even with my helmet on and my eyes closed. The explosion of sound makes my ears ring and pain blossom in my head. The screeching of the monsters around doesn’t help either. But they let me go. I can stand up. I got a few seconds I can use.

All I know is that I hold my hammer with my right hand and another dagger in the left.

I feel bones break under the hammer head. I feel flesh punctured under its hook. Flesh is sliced across the dagger’s razor edge, and too often I have to fight back without weapons, the bodies too close to swing. They come back on their senses and are back on me, and I pummel everything in range with the thick vambraces on my arms, I grab on one of them and my knee keeps going at its belly like a jackhammer, the horns on it slicing it open until I feel a gooey mass run down my legs.

For every strike I hand out, I receive five. The armor stops almost all of them, but the bruises pile up, and I am almost certain one my limbs was going to be torn off me in another two separate occasions. A few more teeth and a few more claws manage to find the seam of the armor, drawing blood but stopping short by mail and the padding underneath from doing too much damage.

The mass of teeth fights against itself as much as it fights against me now. Every kill means one or more out of this fight as another smaller skirmish breaks over the warm, bloody meal. As the blind battle rages, the sound of fighting is replaced by the tearing of flesh and satisfied snarls as they sate their hunger.

I lose myself in the fight. More than once I come back to my senses as I scream like one of the monsters themselves, bashing bodies until they stop twitching and snarling my way to the next one. Then everything goes numb again, action replaces thought and monstrosities become mere slabs of still-moving meat, and I don’t know if it’s seconds, minutes, or hours until I get back to my senses for a brief period of time before I lose myself again.

There is a small reprieve. I can move on my own and I’m no longer dragged from one melee to another. I take deep breaths, trying to catch up my breath. Despite my exhaustion, I listen intently, wary of them. My hearing is not that good when wearing the helmet, and my ears still ring with the knocks I’ve received. It’s not good good but it’s enough, and even if what is attacking me now is silent, there are still cues. An inhale. Muscles flexing hard enough to sound like rope twisting. Air being displaced. I raise my arm up just in time to protect my head.

It sounded almost like a whip. I grin. It’s only one and it uses a tentacle, and if that’s how it attacks it will do fuck all on my armor. With that kind of speed and thinness, even if there’s a talon at the end of it it won’t pierce through. I pull back just a half-step and invite another attack.

It obliges. I manage to bait it upwards a couple of meters nearer the entrance this way. Two meters away from what skirmish is still fought and from the noises of corpses being devoured. There’s a hint of light as we move towards the exit. I can see what one of the things down here look like if I get it close enough.

But the thing-in-the-dark stops. It probably rethinks on whether it should keep going after this bloody thing that moves too well despite the fights it has been in, or go back and try to claim a corpse. I don’t let it go.

I step forward. It attacks again. No dodging this time. This time I block. I take another step forward, and I hold the hammer at the top and bottom of the handle with both hands. The tentacle wraps around the midpoint of the hammer, and it tries to pull it away from me. Well fuck you too. That’s mine, you’re not getting it, and you’re the one getting fucked over for almost eating me.

I shift my grip so it’s on the tentacle, not letting it go of the hammer. It’s like almost fishing now! Come on, fishy, fishy. Let’s get a good look at you before I gut you. Come on. Up we go. And up. And up. It’s fucking strong as hell, and I’m dragging it up an incline. It’s strong, but not strong enough based on the weight and mass I can feel I’m dragging. It must be weak. Hungry or wounded.

All of them must have be like that. No wonder they didn’t manage to shred me apart with as many as they were in there.

It starts screeching and it crackles and pops. This is fun. Heavens, maybe I should get a hook and spend an hour or two every day here. This could make a nice hobby and I’m feeling mean enough to cause some suffering back to them. If I had the time, that is. One more pull, and an outline becomes visible. A few more, and… and…

That’s not a fucking tentacle.

That’s a finger.

The nail is thick, jagged, and warped. The skin is shrivelled, and unlike anything human or even animal I know of. There are spots where it is covered with hair and spots where it is bald. A moment later I realize that these are not hairs as much as tangled soft hooks.

It’s thin and composed out of dozens of knuckles. It tries to pull back. I grab the disgusting appendage and pull. It lets go of the hammer, tries to escape, and its knuckles strain and break as it wrestles to slip from my grip, but I don’t let it go. I keep pulling, reeling it in. I’ve got to see what it looks like, what is at the other end of the elongated finger.

I pull it to the light. I see its face. It has a mouth, it has many mouths, but no teeth. Soft, blood filled gums surround the horrid openings, located on a bulbous head, supported by a neck that looks like an open wound or gills. Fingertips wiggle in their depths. There are fingers everywhere, it’s reaching for everything around it, trying to hold on, to pull back. Most of them are far shorter than the one I hold, but still they try to drag their owner away, and I realize what the crackling noises were. Blood drips out of removed fingernails, and the white of bone is everywhere.

At the center of its mass, rows of finger rise up, pointing at me as if accusing me. As they do so, they uncover what they were hiding before.

What the fuck was I fighting all this time in there? What were all those things?

The eye is beautiful and feminine. It has long eyelashes, and its iris is a light, sky blue. A white teardrop pools beneath it, ready to trickle down. It immediately locks into my own eye, somehow figuring out it has to look behind the slits.

I stare back and I know that if the creature had a tongue, it would talk and beg, for mercy, for release. For help.

It knows what it is and... Heavens help me, this thing is… it’s…

This is a child.

Five minutes later I’m sitting three meters away from the entrance, catching my breath. I can just glimpse the creature’s remains. Its fingers are finally invisible, hidden among the blood and gore, and its eye burst to unidentifiable, thick, white mush under my boot.

I dig out dirt and use it to clean my hammer and armor, eyes glued to the freak’s corpse. It takes time. I’m covered in gore and entrails. It’s disgusting, and I don’t even have the time to take the armor off and look after the bleeding beneath. Not in here. None of the wounds feel too bad, but it’s hard to tell under the rest of the pain. Just flesh wounds, I assume. If it was worse I would have known by now.

I stop and wait patiently when I hear something extremely faint. Almost wet, like a mop slipping across a floor. The corpse shakes almost imperceptibly. A few seconds later it is dragged out of sight.

Then comes the renewed sound of flesh being torn, and a little while after the sounds of fighting as whatever else is down there wrestles its opponents away. They are extremely quiet even so. If I stood a few more meters away they would be completely silent.

So these are just the stragglers, taught to live in silence and carrion. The ones staying away as far as they can get from where the real threats and real rewards are; the weak ones. But even though they probably would be hard-pressed to make it even on the top Everfree, desperation has its own strength.

Weak as they are they would gladly prey on something even weaker. Like ponies. What Luna said is true. We can’t go down there. We’ll have to go near enough, though. We’ll have to find as many of the possible entrances as we can, all the climbable spots, and close them off. Otherwise something like the mud monster might come up again. The real terrors are all down there, containing each other, but every now and then one comes out.

If we can do it, that is. Luna’s not looking forward to that at all, and right now neither am I. Still, I learned something here. They are fighting against themselves. We can use that.

But this entrance is way too close to Ponyville.

Well, I knew I would have to do this one here. It’s why I brought so much dynamite. Time to start making holes. I heft the hammer, and prepare to get to work digging out emplacements for the explosives. I need to bring down as much of this tunnel as possible .

I just need a couple more minutes first. Just two more minutes to rest and forget that eye.

It takes some time for the dust to settle. The result is worth it. There’s no way anything comes through here again. I spend half an hour climbing on the rubble and checking every possible crevice, trying to feel any current of air. There is none. Completely sealed. Damn, I’m good! Still got it!

I pick up the half-emptied backpack and go down the other way. Time for the real reason I’m here. As I head south I remember that letter where Twilight wrote how Spike almost fell victim to a dragon that lives in the Everfree. I need to remember to ask Spike where exactly that dragon lives.

And then pay the fucker a visit. If I got enough dynamite left, I’m going to be nice. If not, I will make things personal. I’ve seen pictures of Equestrian dragons. They have big eyes. I wonder if he will die instantly if I shove a grenade in there or not. You know, for science. Or morality reasons. Whatever will fly.

I find the second cave entrance, the one I was really interested in. Large, grand, an almost perfect semicircle. Again, a call to attention. I never liked smart things that are not alive. They keep trying to make you think they think like you do. Sometimes they think that you think like they do. Creepy stuff.

I go inside, and the place lights up with a soft light that wasn’t reaching the outside of the cave nor was it visible from outside.

At the far end there’s a shining web. At least, that’s what I think I see at first. But then my head clears and I realize the crystal threads are branches, and the pattern I thought was there does not exist. But it looked so real for a second. Real and familiar. But it’s not a web. It’s a tree.

The Tree of Harmony.

Hello, little tree. I’m the lumberjack. Turn to the side and cough.

I take a few minutes to examine the entrance before I go deeper. It is too wide. I don’t have enough dynamite to blow all of this down.

I stop for a second, and rethink my previous train of thought before I cover my face with my palm. That’s what she fucking said.

I will just blow up the tree, and hope the explosion brings down enough of the cave to hide my tracks. Celestia has no idea I know about the Tree and she’s never seen what dynamite can do. With a little luck I’ll have no problem convincing her I had nothing to do with this. Hopefully it will do some magic explosion as--no, that would suck. A lot. Better make the fuse really long.

The Tree not as big as I thought. Somehow it looks bigger than it really is. It reminds me of a room filled with mirrors. The way it looks larger than it really is, that you can stretch and reach everywhere, and how, even though it is all the same but mirrored, everything looks completely different.

I move towards the Tree, examining its base. I hope the crystal it is made of is more like glass than diamond. I want to get even its roots if it is possible. Got to make sure this fucking thing never regrows. No more Tree, no more Elements. No more Elements, no more fear for Luna, no more threats for Twilight to face because of them. No more getting in the way of making sure that Twilight and Luna will…

… Just a few more, perhaps as few as one…

Focus. There’s something resembling a crack on the bottom left, right on the trunk. A crack or a structural weakness? Good. I can try to make a hole there and place one bundle in. I lift my hammer, point the hooked end at the crack and—

—he struck each Tree to their heart with his black spear, shedding their sap like blood. She immediately drank it up, her darkness bloating across the blessed kingdom, and Ungo—

—kill it.

The helmet clangs on the floor.

My stomach! My stomach is in agony! It feels like my innards are ripped apart by something, I can feel it in me, I can feel my insides burning-

Tell it again. Tell that part again.

I can’t I don’t I can’t breathe I need air air air vomit I’m on my knees and vomit still can’t breathe can’t breathe not the same not like this can’t breathe can’t breathe stay back stay back stay back…

Again. I want to hear that part again.

—it comes down black spears come down tearing ripping taking pieces eating cleaning harvesting feeding drinking biting pinching piercing hurting suffering torturing made for pain pain pain everything made for pain pieces torn torn torn torn into black water drowning drowning drowning I’m drowning—

He spread his power. He used others. A web of his own. He couldn’t devour the light so he had her to do it instead. That… is certainly an idea. Tell it again. I want to hear it again. Tell it all again.

—my skin burns it burns lashes rips stabs shots whippings teeth so many teeth and claws and nails and fire fire fire fire fire fire fire—

Again. Tell it again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again.

—bones break fracture crack arms legs ribs ribs ribs skull and jaw and fingers and shoulders it all heals and hurts and breaks again and again and again and again and again and the fire doesn’t stop the lashing doesn’t stop the pain doesn’t stop the laughter doesn’t stop—

…

…

I stay on all fours for almost half an hour, waiting for the shakes to stop. The nausea in my stomach fades away as time passes. Must have been the stink from the tunnel. I feel like I emptied my insides four times over.

This is bullshit. The Tree needs to go! It just made me dizzy for a while. It hasn’t won. It hasn’t fucking won! I wipe my mouth and look up. You haven’t won, you fucking little—

Oh heavens, there is no shortage of surprises today, is there?

There are growths on the top side of the trunk. Growths I didn’t notice before. Designs. Not carvings, but the inverse. They are marks. Marks I know. Celestia’s sun. Luna’s moon. Twilight’s stars.

Luna told me she thought there was something written on the tree, but she couldn’t remember what. Something important. I didn’t believe her, thinking it was one of the wrong memories. Heavens, I was wrong.

I stand up, trying to make the shaking of my legs stop.This is worse than whatever came over me a second ago. Far, far worse. What has this Tree done to them? How is it connected to them? I- I can’t destroy it! What if- What if doing so hurt them? But I have to!

It might be a trick. It’s must be a trick!

… I can’t risk it. It might kill all of them, and I can’t. I need… I need at least one of them. Just one.

“You know what? Fine! I’m not fucking blowing you up!” I take off my gloves. Then the dagger. Short cuts, but they bleed like hell. “But I am shutting you down!”

I run forward and place my blood-coated hands on the Tree.

The wind blows fiercely outside the slice on the weathered cliff face. There is a faint orange glow, barely illuminating the white fluffs that fall from the sky. There is a roaring as dry wood crumbles upon burning coals, and the fire flares up once more.

Inside the cave, deeper than where its current occupants currently warm themselves, the previous inhabitant is bled dry, his fluids drank greedily by the hungry soil. A slab of bear meat has already been cut aside, pressed between rocks as to be ready sooner.

What is this? How are you doing this?

A child, barely older than eight in form yet in truth much, much older, skimps out of its rough clothing, shedding wet cloth and hand stitched coat. It grabs the blanket left for it on the side, but with a flick of its bright blonde hair it changes its mind. It’s a young girl, and despite its travels through nightmare forays it is still beautiful and untarnished, body, mind and soul.

The girl scurries forward, and before the other occupant has a chance to stop her, a veritable giant, full of muscle and blackened almost whole, she ducks under his clothes, finding refuge between his warm skin and the clothes toasted by the fire.

Don’t do this to me. Please, please don’t do this to me.

“What the hell are you doing?” The man bellows, caught unaware and feeling cold wetness rub against him.

“I’m getting warm,” the girl child informs him petulantly, trying to bend her legs so she could warm her toes against the man’s belly. “Better now.”

The man shivers. “Are you insane, little one? Get out, get dressed, and just sit by the fire!”

“No! It’s cold out there.”

“Not if you sit by the fire! Come on, all you are doing is pissing me off,” the man warns her.

A small head covered in gold peeps out of the necklike of his clothes. The tiny nose almost touches his jaw, and clear blue eyes stare into his black ones. “I don’t want to,” she says, resting her head against his shoulder and pulling her arms and legs near her torso under his clothes, getting comfortable. “I’m going to sleep now. Goodnight.”

“Fine. Sleep half naked. Then tomorrow you can wake up with a cold and I will leave you back here to die alone,” the man says after a couple of seconds of his eyebrow ticking like a bomb.

“‘Kay. Goodnight, Daddy.”

The man lies carefully back down on the ground, as close to the fire as he can. “Just die in your sleep already,” he grumbles. He reaches out, and manages to hook the blanket the girl scoffed with a hooked finger. He folds it twice, and places it over the bundle on his chest, covering it and safekeeping its warmth.

A few extra pieces of cloth are folded likewise and placed under the head of the half-asleep girl. The man spends a few seconds measuring the burning rate of the firewood before he nods in satisfaction. Then he pulls the rough knapsack over to use as his own pillow.

The wind howls death and cold outside the cave for weeks, never reaching the two inside.

I didn’t mean to. I ran back. I tried to go back. I went back. I went back!

You shouldn’t be able to do this. You should be turned off. Dead. What are you doing? What are you trying to do? How can you possibly do this?

The man falls against a boulder, trying to gain his breath, hoping to restore his strength and push away the pain. Both physical and mental. He is still crying, though he is not able to tell. He just lets the tears fall, making their way down his face and drip to the dried stone desert.

No. I don’t want to see this. I don’t want to remember this.

There is still blood on his hands and on one of this trouser legs. Blood that sprang freely when the tip of the blunt knife he still has on his belt pierced through the artery of a woman he had known for most of his life. He had grown up with her, even if they had never interacted a lot as children, older than him as she was. But now she was dead, his face the last image she saw as he promised her lies.

It was a mercy, he repeated to himself. An easy death. She couldn’t move, he reasoned, and there was no way to help her. But he had wanted to. It galled him that he couldn’t figure out a way, that he hadn’t tried longer, harder, but he only had seconds! It wasn’t fair, there was no time. So he repeated to himself that there was none. That he did the best he could. Repeat it long enough, it becomes truth.

There was no other way. There was no other way!

The man keeps going, uncaring for the tracks he left behind him now. The blood dripping from his stomach was enough if those that inflicted it to him meant to follow, and he had no way to stop it, even though he tried. He doesn’t believe they will come after him either way. The burning pain tells him all he needs to know. He will live but only for a day or two, days brimming with agony and screams. They knew that.

He makes his way over rocks, crevices, and hills. Always one more, always the next one to be the last. There is no belief that he will make it. His steps are sloppy and he loses his balance more than once, hitting his head against the unforgiving ground over and over. Each time he takes longer to stand up again, sweating under the strain. The sun has set, and the cold is becoming almost more than he can bear, his bloodied body slowly losing the means to keep itself warm as time passes despite the fire burning inside him.

The man is dizzy, and his eyesight is blurred. He can barely think. Still he pushes himself. He keeps moving, not knowing how to stop, and then he sees something.

She stands, overlooking a tall cliff, and gazing up to the stars. Her hair is black, and she is dressed in dark blue that glitters with speckles of diamond and silver. Her skin is alabaster white, more akin to porcelain, smooth and beautiful, with an expression as vacant as she is of imperfection.

I… I don’t remember this. This never happened.

The man goes to her; he doesn’t know who she is or why she is standing there in this desert dressed like this, but sees no other option and he fears that if he keeps going all he will manage is to die alone. He is tall, yet she is at least as tall as he is, though elegant where he is wide and muscled. The man stoops and drags himself. She is standing tall and above it all, watching him with cold apathy as he falls prostrate at her feet.

“Help…” the man pleads, his arms losing their strength and unable to even lift his torso up. “Help me… please.”

The woman looks down, inspecting him as if he is an interesting insect. “Why?” she asks, confounded by the mere idea while the wind tries and fails to move her hair. Her voice is a black hole. When she speaks, everything else goes silent. All he can hear when she speaks is her voice, and the shy, terrified pulse of his heart.

“I… I’m dying…” the man says. He raises the hand that covered his stomach, displaying the wide, deep gash. “Help me, please…”

The woman stares for some time, her empty eyes drinking in the scarlet fingers. There are no irises in her eyes. They are pure white orbs, indistinguishable from her skin. “No,” she finally answers, smug arrogance covering her features and making no secret of feeling that spending more time on him is an act of great indulgence. “Why should aid come to you or why should your pain cease? What reason does the world has to bend down to your errant wishes, to mere ants such as yourself when it failed to obey the greatests of beings?” She turns back to the sky, forgetting the man dying on her feet.

But the man does not give up. The woman speaks no more, but he hopes she hears. He talks, and through words he tries to attract her mercy. He tells of a bus that crossed a world. He describes a city filled with dead. He speaks to her of other worlds, of torture, of pain he has felt, of losses he has suffered, of friends he still needs to protect. He begs, and begs not for life. He begs so as to die after saving a friend, not killing one.

His tale ends. A few minutes later the woman lets out a single dry chuckle, unadulterated malice in its deliverance.

“A boring tale. One more ant’s life winking out. A shame. I hoped for more. Something to move me, to inspire something in me once more. But there is nothing to be offered anymore, is there? Only to be taken.” She looks down at the man, a grin filled with more teeth that she should have on her face. A grin that shows her joy at seeing hope die and despair set in.

“The world is not fair,” she explains. “But I can make it. And I say it’s fair that you die like this. Broken. In pain. Alone. For you have nothing to give to me. None of you do. All you have done is take. The world itself takes. I take even more.” She turns and starts to leave, heading for the nothingness of the desert, her dress sweeping the ground and dust retreating away from her lest it offends her.

It isn’t real. This isn’t real.

The man’s world fills with pain. His heart fills ready to be torn apart, his torso is filled with acid, and his head feels ready to split apart as a song begins to scream its way into it. He has nothing else to say. Nothing to give.

Except a story.

So he gives her the greatest story he knows. He screams it out, the burning agony in his skull giving him strength.

“First, there was nothing. Then came the song, a song as rich and wide as the world. The song filled the void, its music dancing and creating stars, creating shapes and fate, bringing things it sang of to life…”

He tells the story for what seems to be a thousand times. He tells the story of the gems of light and the rings of power for what seems to be decades. He tells it through blood and pain and screams.

For a moment he is lost in a nightmare, and he wakes up in tears, fearing the woman was gone or a fantasy, but she is still there, waiting to hear the rest.

He tells it until the darkness and weakness claims him again. Until the light of morning pierces his eyelids.

There is no sign of the woman. Not even the cliff is there, and in the light of day he scoffs at the hallucination he had, driven by hunger, thirst, and pain.

The man stands up. He is still covered in blood, and there is a slight ache on his belly. He tentatively pulls his clothes up, decided to check on his wound. The cloth sticks on dried blood, and he tears it off by force. The wound stings, but it is nothing but a shallow cut and already healing. It will hurt as he walks, but greater pain has been a companion for a long time now.

He turns for the direction of the rift. His friends are there, waiting. Waiting for two of them. He closes his eyes, trying to stop the flow of tears. His best friend’s sister is dead.

He has to think of what to tell him.

They just as well as killed her! They would have if they had found her, and they would have found us both if I hadn’t done it! What I told him was truth! It was the fucking truth!

The woman is dishevelled. There are deep lines on her face, and her hair is covered with more gray than should be appropriate for her age. It has gone almost pure white. She looks like a woman that has been condensing the pain of a week in the span of a day, and her body is feeling it, wracked by it.

… Mom? Mom!

A deep, musical ding-dong fills the house. The woman takes her time in drying the dish she is holding and turning off the faucet, only hurrying up when the weak voice of a young woman calls her, wanting to make sure her mother heard the doorbell.

“Mom? Mom, it’s the door…”

“I heard it, sweetie,” the woman calls back. “I’m getting it now. Do you need anything? Do you want me to come turn off your TV first?”

“No,” the younger voice answers. “Let it on, it helps me sleep. Just keep it quiet, please?”

I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I didn’t see, I swear. I didn’t… I didn’t… It was… It was...

The woman nods, not bothering to answer back. She always keeps quiet. She keeps her own cries most quiet of all, not letting her husband or daughter hear either during the nights when the hurt becomes too much. She goes to the door, her hand brushing the photo of her long lost child by sheer habit as she passes by the foyer. One broken. One gone.

There is a shadow barely visible through the rippled glass of the front door. The woman opens the door just as the doorbell rings again, and she sees a face she hasn’t seen in years. It’s skin is weathered by sun, rain and wind, and his eyes are older than they should be, framed by blonde hair longer than he ever had let them become and he’s dressed in rags, but she recognizes him at once. She’s had him stay at her house times enough that he had been almost a part of the family himself.

She never saw him alone. He never saw him without her boy by his side.

The man makes an attempt to speak, but the woman is faster. She pushes him to the side as she rushes out. Frantically, she looks behind him, to the sides, around her. She looks to the blond man around her, and as he raises his hands, she knows.

She goes to the street, screaming for her son, calling for her child, howling for a god to tell her this is a lie, and the man runs to hold her back, to rein her in, whispering that he’s sorry, that he’s so sorry, while a young woman inside calls for her mother, asking what is wrong, what happened—

The world fades.

My fingers slip on the crystal trunk, wiping the blood in shapes around it. I touch the Tree again and again, patting it in an attempt to find the proper spot, hitting it even, trying to bring it bring it back.

“No, no, no. Show her to me again. Show me home! You can’t do this to me, show me my home! Let me talk to her, let me talk to her! I’m here! Mom, I’m right here! Work, heavens damn you, work!” I cut my hands worse as I hit them against the sharp angles of the tree, but I don’t care.

“Fucking work, let me speak to her, just one word, one single word, please, please! Mom! Mom! I’m here! I’m alright, I’m alright, please don’t cry, I’m fine, please, please don’t cry! This isn’t fair, this isn’t fair! Let me talk to her! Please! Please! I’m sorry! I was my fault! IT WAS MY FAULT!”

The world outside the cave starts filling with sunlight when I finally give up. The Tree is covered on with blood, some of it dried up, yet its glow keep uninterrupted. I pick up my helmet and leave, abandoning the backpack and the dynamite behind. There’s nothing I care to do with it anymore.

I half-run out of the cave, my head bowed low. I lost.

The Tree won.

...

But I’m not giving up. I’m never giving up.

Ch. 42 - Ponyville. Day eight

Zecora picked one last bottle out of her collection, the white fluid almost giving off its own light. She shook it gently, showcasing its slightly viscous nature to her impromptu student.

“This potion, of alchemy it has been a wondrous feat; with one gulp, into the past you may peek. But caution must be used even in its creation, for abusing this item will bring you devastation,” she warned.

Sea Breeze took the potion in her hooves with utter care, making sure the stopper was secure. “Poison?” she guessed. “Or addiction?”

A lot of ponies felt that alchemy and natural brews were a healthier choice than modern medicine. Sea Breeze, having apprenticed and educated in the alchemical arts herself, knew that if you weren’t wary enough then natural remedies could lead to a very natural death. Nothing more natural than dying because you choked on a vial of mercury for instance.

“Both,” the zebra answered, her raised up mane remaining unperturbed despite her sudden nod. “A malady of the body the potion is not, but it shall guide the soul to rot. Curiosity brings its own doom, and this the potion intimately grooms. As a secret it must remain, revealed only when all hope is vain.”

The unicorn with the rotten off horn checked her own notebook and copied over the instructions and ingredients needed, taking special notice of their cost as she did so. She wondered how much of the warnings she just heard had to do with the fact that most of the ingredients were so rare they would be worth half a kingdom’s ransom.

“I cannot accept this!” Sea Breeze said, her eyes widening. That potion was worth more bits than she had ever seen in all her lifetime so far. For pity’s sake, she first came here hoping for a few pointers and a Zebrican blessing at best. But Zecora insisted on granting her gifts without stop, teaching her as much as she could in the little time she spent here. And now this.

“But you shall, and so you will; for it might soon come in need,” Zecora retorted with the enigmatic smile Sea Breeze had seen all advanced Zebra alchemists have. Perhaps they had a potion to see into the future if they could make this, who knew? It would explain quite a lot. She graciously accepted the offered potion and made sure it was secure and safe in her saddlebags before continuing her notekeeping.

One of the three fillies that arrived midpoint her visit with Zecora yawned. “This is boring,” the orange coated filly complained. Scootaloo, if Sea Breeze remembered correctly. “Can we do something cool? Or help with a potion? This scribbling is boring. That’s what Twilight does all day.”

“You don’t learn anything without study,” Sea Breeze argued back, happily continuing her scribbling. It didn’t even merit as such. Her mouthwriting was excellent. Zecora’s however was atrocious. She wondered why every witch doctor she ever met had the same problem. Every apothecary as well. Pharmacists too. Hewn Laurel had this issue of making a letter be little better than a straight line.

She sucked on the end of the pencil in thought. Nah, it couldn’t be that. They were all intelligent ponies. No way they were dipping into their own supplies. Right?

“Ah’d rather go back to Ponyville if we ain’t having any fun today,” the one with the adorable bow on her head said, yawning. “Can we go?”

Sea Breeze shook her head, spitting out the pencil. “No! You three should never have come here without escort. I’m taking you back home when I’m done with my effort. Do you have any idea how dangerous the forest is?”

“Alas, I’ve tried as well, and the warning will not take root. At best it will leave the other ear with the whistle of a flute,” Zecora said, giving a disappointed stare to the three young girls, that certainly seemed chastised for a few brief seconds before one of them pointed the others towards something shiny.

“I am bored,” Sweetie Belle said after another minute of blessed silence, reaching up to look outside the window. “Bored, bored, bored, bored, why is Mister Raegdan out there fighting with a tree?”

They all rushed to the window. Zecora and Sea Breeze looked over the heads of the fillies. Her… sometimes superior was really out there, and he really was fighting a tree!

As Raegdan swore in his weird language and broke another thick branch with his hammer, she noticed a piece of wood had gotten lodged in his armor, right behind his helmet. That was probably why this particular tree was chosen as the current punching bag. She didn’t fail to notice the multitude of new marks his armor had either. It looked as if someone trying to whittle it down for a few hours without much success.

Knowing him as little as she did, Sea Breeze could only guess that he had gotten into a fight with something very dangerous in the Everfree Forest on his own. As for his current one, he was probably relieving some stress. It wasn’t the first time she saw him do that.

And apparently, the three fillies running off wasn’t the first time seen by Zecora either as she looked at her open door with a deep, heavy sigh. Sea Breeze and Zecora ran after them. By the time they reached them Raegdan had quieted down, but he gazed down at the chattering girls with a smoldering stance.

She saw the marks and dents on the front as well. Make that multiple dangerous something. Did he get piled on by lions or something?

Zecora greeted the biped with a deep bow. “Reg-dan, it is a pleasure to meet you again after giving me your aid. The Timberwolves of the Everfree are finally under rein. Your potion has been the greatest of boons; more powerful than the most mystical of runes.”

“Hi. Yeah, sure. No problem. I had to go anyway,” he absently answered.

“Potion?” Sea Breeze wondered aloud despite herself.

Raegdan’s stare turned her way. “Water: The Sequel. That’s what she means. Now, Sea Breeze, would you mind explaining to me, very carefully, why you brought these three children here?”

She fought off the sudden urge to cower behind the Zebra. Her right hoof made sure her own helmet was on her side as she left it, a small part of her fearing he would start wailing on her if she had mislaid her gear. Again.

“I didn’t bring them here,” Sea Breeze defended herself. “Apparently they come to visit miss Zecora herein, all too often without warning their kin. I was going to bring them back to Ponyville when I was finished here.”

Raegdan knelt down, eyeing the three fillies. Scootaloo sniffed suspiciously, and backed off a few steps rapidly. “Eww, you stink!”

Sea Breeze felt the smell hitting her own nostrils and fought off a gag. She thanked her lucky stars the young girls couldn’t tell what it was. Zecora silently tapped Sea Breeze and pointed her towards Raegdan’s boots and the seams of his armor, especially on the back. Places where it would be hard to clean without removing it. She could spot where grains of dirt had mixed with blood and caked him with mud that somepony who didn’t know might mistake for dark red clay.

“Thanks. That will make me more lenient, way to go,” Raegdan congratulated sarcastically. “Why do you three came here on your own? Do you want to be eaten?”

“We are fine,” Scootaloo insisted with the fatigue of repeating herself. “See? Whole and uneaten.”

“Yeah,” Sweetie Belle added. “Zecora keeps the path to her house clear and we don’t get lost.”

“And ain’t nothing happened to us so far,” Apple Bloom pointed out, matter of factly. “So why bother our sisters and all?”

The helmet turned towards Sea Breeze for a few seconds before switching to Zecora and then back to the three girls. The ever-present bandage was gone, and Sea Breeze caught a glimpse of the horror of his ruined, bloody eye behind the darkened, long eye-slit. “So,” Raegdan said, his finger tapping on the mouth of his helmet. “The problem is that nothing bad has happened to you so far, huh?”

Applejack moved her shoulders to get her saddlebags more comfortable on her back. “Ah ain’t got time for another of your shows, Rainbow. Ah got work to do. Why don’t ya go practice on yer own and you can show me your new tricks after you get them down pat?”

“Pff, I already got them down pat, AJ. If you don’t want to come, then it’s your loss. How about you, Rarity? You can give me a hoof. You got a good eye for routines, you can tell me if it doesn’t look as cool from the ground,” Rainbow Dash requested, turning to her prim and proper friend.

Rarity did seem to honestly mull it for a second. “I’m sorry, darling, but I have to decline. I’d love to help you, but my schedule is simply overburdened as it is. I have a couple of very critical pieces to finish. My time is all yours after I’m done, though.”

Rainbow Dash blew a raspberry at nopony. “Well, that blows. I’ll just get Pinkie instead.”

“You can’t get Pinkie!” both mares at her sides chorused.

“She’s helping me finish my chores.”

“She’s helping me finish my dress.”

“I thought she was going to help the Cakes finish up painting the baby’s room,” Rainbow Dash pointed out.

“Obviously after that,” both Applejack and Rarity said together.

Any further argument were cut off short as the sound of tired crying and sniffles reached their ears. Two pairs of ears perked up as the instincts of older siblings woke up, and one pair lowed down in self-defense as old instincts told her to keep low lest whoever was getting it pulled her in this time as well.

Raegdan made their way to them, wearing the armor that bode no good. Below his arms he was carrying the Cutie Mark Crusaders like empty sacks, all three tearing up, their little hooves dangling uselessly in the air.

The three mares marched forward to meet him, demands to let their sisters and friends down right now already flying, along with questions of what happened, who hurt them, why they were crying, and with eyes appraising them for possible wounds and hurts. All in all, what met Raegdan was an absolute jumble that not even the three of them could decipher.

“Shut up!” Raegdan shouted, and the volume of his voice was enough to bring the desired effect. He shook the girls stuck under his arms, even the fillies ceasing their cries at his bellow. “Do you have. Any idea. Where I picked them up?”

Applejack exchanged glances with her friends. “No…?” she ventured. Now, she could handle him fine usually. But when he saw himself in the right proper enough to be angry like that… Well, now that there was a conundrum.

“The Everfree Forest. They went in there alone!” Raegdan half-growled.

Rarity gasped. “Sweetie Belle, how many times must I repeat myself that—”

“Shut! Up!” Raegdan roared again. Ponies were already staring through windows, but none of them dared to venture out and watch the exchange closer. Bunch of cowards. If it wasn’t for her sister Applejack would… probably go in there and talk to them, maybe stay a bit to keep them company. “Not one word out of the three of you! Now, I already had a good talk with these three. Now it’s your turn.”

He let his stare traverse across all of them. Applejack noticed a red, evil glare inside his helmet that cut her breath and made her back shiver. “If they go in there on their own again, and I find out, I will punish them myself. Again. Then, I will find the three of you. And then I will punish you. And it will be brutal.”

Rainbow Dash raised her hoof. “Wait, why am I responsible for—”

“Shut! Up!” He took a deep, calming breath through his nose. Then he crouched down and carefully let the three terrified fillies on the ground before standing back up, lording his height over them. “I’m going back to Twilight’s library. I’m going to take a bath, eat, bandage myself, and then keep working on Spike’s room. We won’t talk any more of this. There is nothing more to say. Do we understand each other?”

Applejack swallowed. “Ah reckon we, ah, we do. For sure. No problem here, no sir!” All he demanded was for them to do their job anyway. Maybe it wasn’t his place, but somepony had to step up if Apple Bloom was gallivanting off to the Everfree Forest and Applejack had no idea.

Besides, she now had the perfect boogieman to keep her from venturing in there again.

Raegdan didn’t answer. He turned around and left, leaving his threats and a putrid smell that made Applejack’s stomach roll in his wake. She waited until he was out of sight and her guts settled again, before she asked the question burning in her mind.

“Alright. Now, what did he do to y’all?” she asked. Now, she was dead sure he hadn’t done anything too much, not against little fillies, but she had to make sure he didn’t go overboard. After all, what he might see as light or appropriate punishment might not mean the same for everypony else.

The three girls lowered their head and mumbled incoherently.

“Sweetie Belle,” Rarity admonished, “head up and speak clearly, please. Now, what happened? In your own words, take your time.”

Sweetie Belle wiped her nose with her leg, prompting Rarity to quickly produce three handkerchiefs out of somewhere and pass them around. “Well,” she sniffled. “He asked us why we went to see Zecora.”

“And we told him,” Scootaloo continued, “because we like her and she’s our friend. Plus, we wanted to ask her for any ideas for our cutie marks.”

Apple Bloom picked up the baton now. “He asked us about our quest for our cutie marks and then he said, ‘Alright. If it’s cutie marks you three want, I can fix that as well. Two birds, one stone.’ We thought that… We thought he could do special magic and give us our cutie marks. He said he could.”

Rainbow Dash was completely baffled. “But… But Raegdan can’t do magic!”

“Apple Bloom.” Applejack glared with her older sister authority. “What did he do?”

The three Cutie Marks Crusaders exchanged another miserable look. Then they half-turned, presenting their sore, aching flanks and the gigantic, bright red handprints that had been embedded on their flanks by sheer force. They were already turning purple around the opened fingers.

“Cutie Mark Crusaders Slap Winners,” the young fillies lamented as one.

Ch. 43 - Ponyville. Day nine

The rickshaw's wheels grinded the little pebbles on their path, undeterred. There was only enough room in the vehicle for one occupant, and the plump, pregnant pony riding it kept exchanging nervous glances with her husband who walked by her side.

“All comfy up there, Missus Cake?” Applejack asked, trying to garner their attention to her. “If ya want, Raegdan did brought a couple of pillows for ya comfort.”

Mrs. Cake was perfectly able to walk on her own to the library, but Raegdan had insisted on getting her there and back like this. Luna had agreed as well, claiming that the last thing they needed was for an accident to occur because of them.

“I’m alright, dearie, thank you,” Mrs. Cake responded warmly. She glanced towards the biped that up until moments ago had been dragging the rickshaw towards Twilight’s library, where they had promised the Cakes that a doctor was waiting as well as Twilight and Luna herself. “Actually, I could do with one,” she finally agreed.

Pinkie Pie dashed back and forth before Applejack had the chance to move, and aided Mister Cake in making his wife comfortable. Applejack took the chance to find out what Mayor Mare stopped them for, since she wasn’t needed. They were barely halfway back to the library, and had paused smack dab in the middle of Ponyville for all intents and purposes.

“What do you mean I have to pay a fine?” Raegdan demanded loudly. Ah, Applejack thought. Now it makes a lick more sense.

Mayor Mare stood steadfast before the tall figure, not intimidated by rumor, height, black mask, glare, nor voice. She was as unperturbed as her ever present teal scarf on her neck and with a pleasant, professional smile on her face. “Mister Raegdan, I have it on good faith that Twilight Sparkle was not amiss in forewarning you that you needed to attend to a meeting in my office where I would relay the conditions under which the charges would be dropped?”

Raegdan scratched the back of his neck. “She might have mentioned it a few times…”

“A few times?”

“Per day. So what, I have to pay so everyone will stop whining? Fair enough. How much? I think I have a few bits on me.” Raegdan started patting at his trousers’ pockets.

Mayor Mare produced a scroll and passed it to Raegdan. “You will find a full, detailed list in the invoice as well as the total. I will gladly answer any questions, but I must remind you that the full sum has to be paid by midday, tomorrow.” She raised her hoof, stopping any outraged interruptions. “It is not the fault of Ponyville’s governing body that you failed to present yourself and be notified of the proper date’s expiration.”

“I guess…” Raegdan huffed, and unrolled the scroll. His expression defined boredom as the paper unfolded a long way down, and impatiently started reading from the bottom instead. Five seconds later he was shouting at the top of his lungs. “You want me to pay how much?”

“A very fair amount considering the transgressions and unorthodox handling of your case,” Mayor Mare responded, straightening her glasses and still smiling, sunlight glinting on her teeth. “We’re doing you a favor, really. Not so much you as Twilight Sparkle, but the point still stands.”

“For this much I should have been allowed to push all these idiots down to the ground, get a fence post and—”

Mrs. Cake wrapped her legs protectively around her belly as if to shield the occupant from the ravings that Raegdan filled the air with. “Pinkie, could you please tell your friend to watch his language a little? I’ve read that foals have awareness of their surroundings while in the womb.”

Pinkie Pie glanced at Raegdan, who at this point had ripped his fingers through the scroll.

“—forth like a plunger until it comes out the other end—”

“Mmm… A little later.” Pinkie leaned close to Mrs. Cake. “He isn’t saying actual bad words, and he’s not in a good place right now,” she whispered conspiratorially.

Mister Cake had been growing a little green hearing Raegdan’s litany, though a little fascinated as well. Applejack just took plain old cover beneath her hat like she usually did, betraying no wince or chuckle. “Is he ever in a good place?” Mister Cake asked.

“Yep!” Pinkie pointed at Raegdan’s feet where a suspicious dark brown splatter stained the road and his boot. Applejack made a quick mental check of where Winnona was supposed to be today. “Usually when he isn’t standing in doodoo.”

“—and then spit in their mouths when I’m done as thanks!”

Mayor Mare waited patiently. “Are you done?”

Raegdan took a deep breath, standing back straight. “Yeah. I’m good now,” he said with a tone of relief. He leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees as he kept breathing deeply. “I don’t think I’ve been as stressed as I’ve been here for a long time. Spike and all, Twilight, trying to play nice, some other personal stuff... You understand.”

“I suppose I do. Very well, I can accept your frustration and technically you didn’t swear at me. Now, we have scheduled your public apology for tonight at eight o’clock. If you could keep to this schedule at least—”

“My what?” Raegdan’s voice was as cold, sudden, and painful as a brainfreeze.

“Your apology, at eight o’clock. If you do not appear then we will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. See you soon, Mister Raegdan. And make your apology a good one.” Mayor Mare turned away from the suddenly stunned biped and left, still smiling and walking towards the opposite direction they were headed.

Applejack took the chance to congratulate her on the sly while Raegdan was still seething. “Now that was quite something. Ya must have nerves of steel to lay down the law like that on the likes of `im, Mayor Mare.”

“One more minute, and I think I would have gotten lockjaw,” Mayor Mare whispered back without moving her jaw. She treaded off with her legs straight and eyes not daring to flinch, taking the diminished, but still quite large, admiration of Applejack with her.

Raegdan wrapped his hands around the handles of the rickshaw and started pulling once more. Despite the dark mumblings, he was still very gentle. Mrs. Cake barely shifted or rocked on her seat. Good bits could be bet on the fact that having a pregnant mare along helped restrain him.

Soon they were back on their way, with Pinkie Pie rapid-firing everything she knew about Twilight’s new toy. Considering Pinkie Pie had paid no attention to anything else apart from the beginning sentence that the device would use sound to allow a doctor examine the baby without letting magic touch it, it got pretty weird pretty quick.

The Cakes and Applejack were sagely nodding in unison seconds after Pinkie Pie started talking.

“—then, the desert wanderers got the Biggy Worms to be their ride, and used their sound-blastening, ear-deafening, teeth-rattlening sound horns to beat down the evil army of elite soldiers who wanted no baby-womb-seeing spiced ideas flow—”

Mister Cake interrupted her, laughing with some hesitation. “Gee, Pinkie. I don’t quite think that this ‘sounds’ right, heh.”

“Oh! Dad jokes already!” Pinkie Pie made smooching expressions towards the sky as she took the criticism to heart. “Yeah, the sound horn weapons do feel tacked on,” she allowed but wasn’t able to finish her thoughts. It was a shame. Applejack wanted to know if House Bold would win.

Two mares were advancing on Raegdan with offense and carefully stoked outrage scribbled on their faces. The pegasus one had a powder blue coat with a carefully combed pale purple mane and wore a blue bandana around her neck. Applejack recognized her as Scootaloo’s aunt, Lofty. Lofty was staring sullenly at Raegdan in support of the mare next to her.

The one beside Lofty was Scootaloo’s other aunt, Holiday. She looked much like her niece, despite being an earth pony. Her mane had the same wild streaks as Scootaloo’s, though it was the same shade of orange as Scootaloo’s fur. The color serenely complimented her pale pink coat and deep magenta necklace. She looked easy going and accommodating.

“Hey, you. Yeah, you! Stop right there, criminal scum!” Holiday called out while Lofty smoked in silent fury next to her.

Looked.

The cracking of wood reached their ears, courtesy of Raegdan’s right fist tightening and turning sideways while still holding the handle. Pinkie Pie jumped onto the rickshaw next to Mrs. Cake, placed her head next to the distended belly, and started singing at the top of her lungs.

“’Cause I love to make you grin, grin, grin—”
“Fuck me sideways with a broom—”

“—Bust it out from ear to ear let it begin —”
“—ying to get to the damned library, not fucking Ithaca—”

“—Just give me a joyful grin, grin, grin —”
“—o in the name of all the bullshit you retards spout like runn—”

“—And you fill me with good cheer!”
“—as gotten your prostates itchy this time?”

Holiday continued, unabated by the duet. She walked up to Raegdan, and if she could reach up to him she would push her muzzle against his nose. “Where do you get off abusing my niece as if you have the right, huh?”

“Your what?” Raegdan asked, focusing on the wrong part of the accusation in Applejack’s humble opinion.

Applejack quickly put herself in between pony and alien, hoping to waylay any confrontations. Best case scenario, she’d get Holiday and Lofty to unload on her temporarily, maybe calm down a thimble. “Let me introduce you, y’all. This here’s Raegdan, Ah’m sure ye’ve heard of him.”

“Oh, just the best,” Lofty sarcastically spat.

“And these fine mares here,” Applejack continued loudly, stopping Raegdan’s finger from rising in response with a quick slap downwards, “are Scootaloo’s aunts. This is Holiday, and this is Lofty.” Applejack pointed to each mare in turn.

“What, her actual mother couldn’t make it?” Raegdan asked uncaringly, referring to Scootaloo’s mother. “Or did she prefer to hide behind her sisters?”

Lofty huffed angrily. “She is often away due to her job, and Holiday is Scootaloo’s dad’s older sister. And I’m not related, we’re not sisters.”

“Then how…” Raegdan’s head swiveled from Holiday to Lofty and from Lofty to Holiday. The gears in his head as he did his best to compare features were almost visible. After a few back and forths he let his breath go with a sigh of awareness as the truth clicked. “Ooooh…”

A number of ponies had started to bunch up, taking courage from the amount of ponies they already saw gathered around Raegdan. Not to mention that if there was a hint of interest, and no screaming, ponies in Ponyville were always up for a show.

“Don’t you ‘ooh’ me,” Holiday sassed, gesturing angrily. “You had no right to hit Scootaloo!”

“Wait, he hit a little filly?” Bon-bon asked. Next to her Lyra gasped loudly in shock, though Celestia only knew why. Applejack had shared the full tale just yesterday.

“Her and both her friends.” Redheart popped briefly out of the crowd, almost unrecognizable without her usual nurse uniform. “Quite the bruises on them,” she announced to everypony’s disgust.

“But why?” Bon-bon asked, lost for words.

Applejack took her chance. “Now, see here, y’all, what happened is he found ‘em frolicking on their lonesome in the Everfree Forest like usual—”

“Yes. At Zecora’s house!” Holiday cut her off. “Where they were fine!”

Lyra gasped again. “Disciplining three fillies? Now you've gone too far!” she flared up and gestured menacingly towards Raegdan.

“In case you didn’t know, there’s some fucking distance you have to cross before you actually get to—”

“The Everfree is a place with a reputation for unpredictability; there is a reason not even Zecora wanders about outside her home for longer than necessary,” Applejack interrupted, trying to stem off any illusions as to the perceived safety the ponies around her might have had.

“You know, I'm all for setting boundaries and talking with kids and timeouts, you know, actually doing the good parent thing. But, I'm also all for equal consequences. Going into the death forest without an escort is a monumental act of stupidity,” a pony spoke in front of the crowd.

Applejack tried to see who it was. Too many ponies had come out to watch or herded this way, and they were all talking together. Some of them to the pony next to them, others to as many as their voice could reach. Well, as many as this hub-bub could hear. Applejack had intense trouble making out who said what as everypony started making their opinion known.

Case in point, a male voice spoke behind her. “Making kids understand, in some way, that there are consequences for their actions is probably one of the most important things you can teach them.”

“Right,” Applejack fervently agreed. “And ah’m doing—”

Holiday raised her voice even further, now shouting. “Going ‘well the parents aren't keeping them out of trouble so I guess it's my job to hit them,’ is not the way to do so. You want to keep them out of trouble, fine. But don't hit children that aren't yours unless you're one hundred percent sure the parents are fine with you doing it!”

“Technically ya ain’t—”

“Most concerning to me is Raegdan's hypocrisy here.” A rumbling voice said. Applejack twisted around and saw Solid Charge stand at the back of the crowd. “If anyone were to lay a hand on Mrs. Twilight or Spike, for any reason whatsoever, they'd find themselves short an arm if they were lucky. Yet when he does it he's justified.”

“Ha!” A scrawny gryphon scoffed loudly. “Are you not sure of which person we are conversing? He knows he is a hypocrite and he takes pride in it. It’s almost gallant. Alas, this might actually be a chance we can use. After all, Captain Leaf Steam was looking for a chance to seed a new petition...”

“Let’s keep it real.”

“I always keep it ‘real’, my exquisite Commander. Except when I don’t.”

Doctor Hooves raised his voice and Applejack ignored the Lunar Guards for the moment. “There’s a point in not letting them go without telling anypony. What if they were to vanish and never come back? Nopony would have any clue where they were, in the event that a search party needed to be sent out.”

“Look at it this way, if the parents or guardians aren't doing enough to keep children out of trouble, then who's job is it to make sure they get the point?” One of the pegasi that had started clustering the air about them questioned loudly. Applejack thought it might be Cloud Kicker but too many were speaking simultaneously at the same time to be sure.

Lofty spoke with a fake accent, massively offending Applejack. "Yah hey-o, Cloud Kicker? It's Applejack, my kid’s ah being ah rowdy again, next time ya see her in the neighborhood can ya physically assault her to teach her a lesson? No, no, it's fine, it's just ‘discipline’. Yeah, thanks. Y’all!"

… Practice what ya preach. Practice what ya preach. Practice what ya...

“Agreed for the simple reason that it's a great way to go to jail. And probably get labeled as a child abuser. Hey, what if he touched them—”

“Whoah. No way. Or… nah. Hmm. Do we know if he has a marefriend?”

“So what would you do if you come across a child whose parents refuse to administer any kind of physical punishment and the child blows off all verbal warnings and time out punishments?”

“Hey, Apple Bloom doesn’t blow off all verbal warnings, thank ya kindly—”

“Even so, a person should not be hitting someone else's child without the explicit input, supervision, and trust of said parents and guardians.”

“He certainly didn’t have my vote!” Holiday yelled.

“Neither did mine. What if it’s my child next?”

“String `im up!”

“Leaf Stream, pipe down. And get out of here, we don’t need to get this worse!”

“String `im up!”

“Ah think we’re all getting a little too steamed here for no reason,” Applejack shouted, trying to rile down the riled up crowd. “Look, Raegdan here didn’t—” She stopped, looking aghast behind her. The only thing there was a single cushion. On top of it rested a pink cupcake.

And beyond the crowd, heading merrilly for the library and all of them whistling the tune that Pinkie sang just a few minutes ago, was the rickshaw leaving her to handle the crowd all on her lonesome.

Yeah, nope. She had enough. She put Buckin' MacGillicuddy and Kicks-McGee to the test and leapt over the crowd and towards freedom. Lofty also gave her a hoof—or head—to get some altitude from, and clear the pony obstacle.

Pinkie Pie aided Mrs. Cake getting down from the rickshaw because she wanted to be super helpful as always. She put herself down like a rug, puffed up as much as she could, and inwardly wished she had eaten more cakes this last week. The eagle landed with a thunderous puff of air, and Mister Cake reassured everypony that it was just Pinkie blowing a raspberry, no reason to panic everypony, no accidents happened.

While everypony else was going in, Pinkie made busy realigning her spine. A pop and a crackle, and the passing danger of being crippled for life gone as fast as it came, she jumped back up a few seconds afterwards. She went through the library’s door, humming happily and wondering if she would be able to see the baby as well. Maybe it could see her, too!

Two seconds later she was being levitated out.

“This isn’t fair, Princess Luna! You’re being a meanie. I want to see the baby!” she cried at her captor.

“I am not being a ‘meanie’,” Luna said, carefully depositing her prisoner on the ground. Pinkie bounced anyway, because she knew how things were properly done. “We are already crowded as it is. It’s me, Twilight, Doctor Laurel, the Cakes, and a whole lot of a mess that Twilight feels the need to be organized twice before we even begin.” Luna rubbed her forehead as if in pain. “It is saddening to see that Celestia has imparted Canterlot’s fervor for triplicate forms to the poor girl.”

“But I want to help, too!”

“You can help by not being in the way.” Luna closed the door she was standing next to just as Pinkie made a Heroic Leap, a level six earth pony feat; all she managed was to plant her face on the smooth wood. “Pinkie Pie, we shall be spending a sizable accumulation of time performing adjustments and waiting for Twilight Sparkle to write things down before we even begin. It will be boring for you. Trust me, I am not anticipating the next few hours. Please, go have fun somewhere else,” Luna patiently explained, standing over Pinkie.

Pinkie Pie stopped staring at the floor as she laid down on her front and pushed up, folding in half. “I don’t want to have fun, I want to help. I can write down Twilight’s notes for her—”

The door opened and closed again, abandoning her outside on her lonesome. Gone and forgotten, a relic of friendships past. Destined to fade away, to pale in miserable obscurity. To wait out time as it ravaged her, body and soul. To pass away like the ghost of a whisper promised to the wind... “Okay, Princess,” Pinkie chirped out, hoping she could be heard inside. “Good luck, see you later. When you are done!”

She turned to leave just as Applejack skidded to a halt near her. “Hey, Pinkie. You’re waiting for me?”

Big breath. Remember to fill both upper and bottom lung areas.

“Well, you know how the library is big but not very big, even though sometimes we barely all fit and another time I had a party for all of Ponyville in there, but now there are, uh, Twilight… Luna… Cakes… Now there are five ponies inside, and they have all their equipment, strange how we don’t see the equipment, it’s like it would be too much hassle seeing it and having to describe it, and we don’t fit, I think that might be Luna calling Mrs. Cake too fat, do you think that’s Luna calling Mrs. Cake too fat, and I’m not allowed to be a record keeper, I’m never be allowed to be a keeper, nopony ever calls me a keeper, and Luna closed the door on me after not throwing me out and not making me bounce, the nerve, I never, though I never know what I never, so now I am outside and so are you!”

Inhale and proceed.

Applejack blinked slowly. “Ah. O...Kay, ah guess. We’re not needed then.” She took out her hat, using her hoof to plump it up again, her head turning to look around her. As she put the hat back on, she asked, “where’s Raegdan, then?”

Pinkie Pie’s head swivelled around her as well. “Sun of a beach!” she cried out loud.

“Ah think ya need to cut down on the time you spend with him.”

Pinkie quickly grabbed her fellow earth pony’s shoulder, turning her to the side as to make the sun shine on both their features as they gazed down the horizon with determination. Or… would if they weren’t in the shade of the library tree. Still, it counted! Chest puffing and stomach swerling and quesing—maybe Mrs. Cake really was too much on the plump side—Pinkie Pie described their mission.

“Agent Applejack, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find and locate Raegdan before he actually goes into somepony’s house and tracks doody all over their carpet. It will be a hard trek, but one that will earn you a star. You might even have to ask a few ponies if they saw him, but we know you will not let us down. Agent Pinkie Pie will assist you. Good luck. This pony will self-destruct in ten—”

“Whoah, calm down there, sugarcube,” Applejack laughed as she got out of Pinkie’s hold and dropping her hat. “Nopony’s doing anything of the like.”

Pinkie Pie raised her hoof. “But you heard what Mayor Mare was saying. What if he gets in trouble—”

“Then he gets into trouble,” Applejack said, nodding. “As he did plenty of other times, or maybe he won’t. Plenty of times he didn’t.” She sighed. “Now, he’s a grown… stallion, so it’s ‘bout time he learns to handle himself on his own, good and bad. Ah’ve got an inkling Twilight knew he’d have to make an apology and pay a fine, and she let him find out on his own, and see? He dealt with it. He ain’t a foal we gotta run after all the time, understand? Leave him be. And who knows, maybe at one point he’ll understand if he keeps rustling up trouble around him here, it will be more difficult for him to visit again, ya know?”

Applejack picked up her hat, checking it for dust from all sides before putting it on. “Ah got some chores to get underway, and ah’m sure you have yer own things to do. Same as Twilight in there. Ah’ll see ya later, Pinkie.”

“Okay,” Pinkie said, feeling a little dejected but only for tenths of a second. “Oooh, want me to come help with your chores?”

“Nah, ah’ll be fine on mah own. You go and have some fun. See ya!”

Pinkie waved Applejack off. “Yeah… See yah.” Geez, and they said she had a one-track mind about fun. How could she not when everypony was pushing her that way? They were fun dealers, always hinting to her she should get her next high happy fun-time.

As Applejack left towards one direction, whistling the best song ever, Pinkie Pie went the other way, not caring where she was headed. She didn’t have a destination in mind. She simply needed to… walk.

And think.

She didn’t want to have fun. She did, but it wasn’t what was always at the top of her mind. Or bottom or sideways. She wasn’t a girl that just wanted to have fun. Not anymore. What she wanted to do was help.

Ponies walked on the street, greeting Pinkie back after she greeted them first, always using their name, always remembering one little detail that they thought nopony else did except them. Brightening up their moment. Watching them smile as they saw that they were really important enough to remember and care about.

She punted a ball that had escaped from a colt’s grasp back to its owner, and ducked into a tight alleyway or what would be called an alleyway everywhere else. In Ponyville, it was just a tiny gap between houses that was large enough for a pony to walk through.

There she let her own smile fade a little. Just a pinch.

Applejack, Pinkie knew, had blamed herself for not standing by Night Lilly that night in that burning building. Still did, but Applejack liked to bury stuff. Probably learned it from Winnona. Pinkie had taken every opportunity to tell Applejack that there wasn’t anything she could have done even if she was there, and would still take every available opportunity to keep telling her.

Cloudy Quartz raised no stupid Pie. Pinkie knew that there was nothing she could have done in turn as well. She did all that she could. It wasn’t enough, but she did. She tried everything she could.

A blanket floated down and Pinkie grabbed it in her teeth before it fell down and got all dirty. Eyeing the only open window over her, she folded the blanket into a secure bundle and punted it through the window. Goal!

She still missed Night Lilly, even though she barely knew her. Mostly because of exactly that. She wished she knew more about her. There were so many little details that Pinkie didn’t know that knowing them would have put a smile on Night Lilly’s face.

Anyway! Pinkie wasn’t hounded by guilt of not doing more for Night Lilly.

What hurt Pinkie Pie was that she wasn’t next to Rarity when the ceiling fell.

If she had been by her friend she would have been able to tell that the ceiling was about to fall with her Pinkie Sense. She would have been able to help Rarity dodge it. But she wasn’t. So Rarity got trapped and Rarity almost died. Because Pinkie wasn’t there to help her friend when she could have helped her friend.

Pinkie Pie counted that as another time that Raegdan and Luna saved her as well, and not just Rarity. It was pretty piling up so far.

Pinkie wanted to help. She wanted to be there and give help when she could to all her friends. Raegdan might need help if he is in a bad mood again. Twilight might need help in her experiment. Mrs. Cake might need help with her breathing exercises. Mister Cake might need help with his. Applejack could always use a hoof with her chores. Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, they all had their own moments that could do with Pinkie’s help, and while she was there as often as she could, she couldn’t be there always.

Sometimes they all needed her help, and Pinkie had to choose.

“You missed a spot there,” Pinkie said, pointing towards Cheerilee’s hind leg and ignoring the scream of indignation. “Cheerilee, really, if you don’t like ponies watching you shower then why not close this window that looks towards a wall and I had to climb a ladder in order to watch through from? Bye!” Pinkie jumped down from her precarious ledge and walked on towards the alley’s exit, glad to have helped anyway.

Some ponies thought that Pinkie Pie never thought. She didn’t begrudge them for that, she did look like acted without thinking a bit. A lot actually. Maybe too much. Pinkie Pie was thinking however. Gosh, sometimes it felt like all she did was think. Think, think, thinkety thoughts, clamoring inside her little skull, tilting and reflecting off the borders but without, very annoyingly, hitting the corners. So many thoughts and ideas and dreams and stories and songs and feelings and jokes and hopes that she could never, ever, speak out no matter how fast she made her mouth go.

And she could make her mouth go really fast. But her thoughts were faster and had more words.

Not just words. There were images and sounds and feelings. When Pinkie Pie and her friends got out of the Everfree that one long night that didn’t really last that long, she had a new fancy necklace around her neck. She also had a new fancy title. One that she always felt like for a very long time, only now it was official. Sign on the door and everything.

Laughter wasn’t just a giggle, though. That’s what the thoughts told her.

Laughter was there to help you. When you were sad, laughter would make you happy again. When you were afraid, laughter would chase the shadows away. When there was tension, when there was awkwardness, when there was doubt. It would come and make it go away and you could start over again.

But what if laughter didn’t come when it should? What good was it then?

What if it happened again and she was helping the wrong pony when she could do more for another?

Too bad helping everypony at once wasn’t so easy as helping somepony when they were taking a—

...

...

—Bath?

“I am a former Royal Guard Captain of Canterlot, a temporary Lunar Guard Instructor, and future companionship to a delightful mare… if she would have me.”

Stampede edged closer to Granny Smith, giving her his most charismatic smile. He paid grave attention to ensure he showed her his left side, where his teeth were still whole. The gray maned mare laughed. The soldier trademarked smile never failed.

“Why, yer just a wild dang card, aint’ ya, you old rascal? Comin’ all forward and sorts to a lonely old pony like me?” Granny Smith kept walking towards her farm, but the centennial royal guard noticed the subtle wait for him to step to her side.

“Lonely? But how can that be? Surely there must be at least one stallion of some intelligence in this town that would not allow such a prize escape.”

“Oh yeesh,” Granny Smith said, waving her hoof dismissively. “Ye’d better watch out ‘cause yer not the first silver tongued stallion this mare has met, no sirree.”

“Showed the way out I suppose?” Stampede asked.

“Didn’t have to. The kick got them all the way there.”

Stampede exploded in laughter. He liked this mare, he really did. She might be making everypony think she was weak with the slow walk and moving, but he could see the fire in her. A fire that burned as strong in him as well. “If I ever come to deserve it I will accept my punishment gladly. I will strive not to, of course. Being branded in such a way is not a feat I want listed among my accomplishments.”

Granny Smith hummed in thought, and for a few moments they walked among the thinning crowd, almost nopony taking a second glance at an aged pair walking in their own leisure pace. Youth was running amok, always hasty to reach its destination. Stampede would hate being young again even if only out of fear of forgetting the important lesson of age. To stop and take your time.

He was shaken out of his thoughts. “It’s near noon, so ah guess ah can put you to the first test. Ye hungry, Mister Stampede?”

“Mrs. Smith, I’m simply famished.”

A pink pony was skipping her way towards them and on a course to overtake them, highly visible as her head reached higher over all ponies in even periods. “Hello, Granny Smith. Hello Mister pony who has kicked my welcome party cannon all the way to the Sweet Apple Acres farm six times so far.”

“Hello, young lady,” Stampede answered back, glancing around for the aforementioned weapon of mass confection.

Granny Smith showed off her dentures as Pinkie hopped by on the way to leave Ponyville. “Hullo there, young Pinkie. Where off to in such a hurry?”

“Hullo, Granny Smith,” Pinkie said without stopping. “I’m off to take a bath!”

“Well good for ya,” Granny Smith answered, her old joints creaking as she headed back to her farm. “Ya stepped on something there, better wash if off ‘fore you track it all over a carpet.”

“She is not one to stop and smell the… flowers, is she?” Stampede pointed out.

“Nah. Never.”

Applejack ran the sales figures in her head as she packed up and got ready to head back to the farm. Apple Bloom didn’t do a shabby job at all actually. Half the reason of course was because the filly preferred to stand and keep herself busy. The other half was that ponies kept approaching the adorable filly with the shivering bottom lip—or just shivering bottom, period—to say a few comforting words and ending up leaving with a big bag of apples as well.

A lesser pony might think there was a shrewd business opportunity waiting there. Applejack however turned her ears deaf even to the proposal of the shallowest, dark whisper in her mind. No way was she heaping abuse on her sister for the sake of a trifle thirty percent increase in sales!

Now, if she could do that on her own bottom and expect the same outcome, then it would be up for debate, no problemo.

“I don’t care if he wasn’t doing anything! Rose wasn’t doing anything either when he robbed her and her sisters! We got kids playing here!”

Applejack did not question, did not wonder, did not change expression. She simply made a u-turn, not really easy with a cart, even an empty one, and headed towards the town’s center where the fountain was located and the yelling originated.

Raegdan sat on the edge of the fountain. He wasn’t even sparing a glance at the pony yelling at him or Mayor Mare and Cloud Kicker standing in Cherry Blossom’s path. The attempts to pacify the mare behind him were set aside and ignored in favor of taking one of his shoes off and scrubbing it in the cold water.

Applejack bent her knees, setting her back free from the cart’s harness. “So, is there a situation here or are we just screaming for funsies again?”

Cherry Blossom stepped back, flicking her chin upwards in disdain. “Oh great. It’s his bodyguard,” she said, dripping sarcasm.

“Who told?”

Raegdan lifted his eyes up at her voice and gave her a small nod. “Hey, little apple.”

“Hello yourself again. What have you been up to?” she asked.

He lifted his dripping shoe, showcasing it. “Washing this. Then she,” he pointed at Cherry Blossom, “started ranting at me and telling me to leave. I ignored her.” He smiled, showing off his canines. “Now that got her mad.”

“Applejack, this has all been a simple misunderstanding,” Mayor Mare said diplomatically. “Cherry Blossom is a tad overzealous in her assumptions—”

“Overzealous?” Cherry Blossom yelled. “There are foals around. What if he hits one of them again?”

“You heard ‘bout that?” Applejack asked all manner of factly.

Cherry Blossom scoffed. “Who hasn’t?”

“Heard which fillies he hit?”

“Uhh…”

“Let me give ya a subtle hint,” Applejack offered. “I’m tha big sister of one of them. Did ya hear why? Let me give ya another hint. They got a single whack each while they were still in the Everfree Forest.” Cherry Blossom deflated instantly, and you could almost trace the line of the pony’s thoughts as she realized that if what she had half-heard was halfway true, then Applejack wouldn’t be siding with the biped behind her.

“Oops?” Cherry Blossom offered as appeasement.

“Why don’t we all just move along and forget this happened, right?” Applejack counteroffered, catching the eye of Mayor Mare and Cloud Kicker as well. “No need to get in a further argument over this since nopony had anything but good intentions at heart and we all learned a lesson here.” Applejack made sure that Cherry Blossom understood this was directed right at her.

“A capital assessment, Applejack,” Mayor Mare quickly affirmed. “Come, you two. I think we should let the poor stallion in peace for a moment.”

“Sorry!” Cherry Blossom turned around and said at the last moment.

Applejack returned to her cart, caught one of the few apples that had gone unsold, choosing one of the biggest, plumpest ones, and threw it at Raegdan. “Good boy. You didn’t bite. Here, you can have a snack.”

The biped palmed it out of the air with barely any notice. “Thanks. For the save as well.” He leaned to the side so he could better rummage inside his pocket. “Let me just…”

“This one’s on me,” Applejack stopped him. She left the cart behind and sat next to him, feeling a light spray of moisture on her back. It was a little uncomfortable seeing how winter was almost upon them. A week or two more and it’d be time for snow. “Besides, you’ve more than paid for it. Unless you changed your mind I’ve got quite the number of bits waiting for me, ain’t I?”

Raegdan was still chewing on the first bite of the apple. “Hmm? That? No, no change. You’re getting your share. That will still happen.”

“Ah don’t suppose you will finally tell me why?”

He shrugged, swallowing. “You will learn when I’m dead.”

Applejack huffed and turned her face away. Leave it to him to make her sorry for bothering in the span of a second. “Fine, forget ah asked then.”

“No, I meant that literally,” Raegdan clarified, taking another bite. His glove was soaking up with juice so he used the other one to wipe his mouth. “You will learn when I’m dead. There’s a letter and everything. Blueblood organized it all. Very neat.”

“Thank ya for being so thoughtful, then,” Applejack said with as much sarcasm as she could muster. “Do you plan on getting offed soon enough so ah can scratch that itch?”

He shrugged once more, more interested in eating. “Eh, who knows. Depends.”

Applejack gave a half-hearted chuckle before the statement actually registered and made her pause. “That’s a joke; it’s a joke or ah’am pulling you back to Twilight by the ear.”

The smarmy, one-eyed male watched her outburst with an aggravating smile on his face. “Aw, she does love me!” he coo’ed.

Applejack’s hoof slapped his hand and he dropped the apple down in the mud. “You’re being a flank on purpose. You’re trying to make me leave. Well, ah won’t. Something’s crawling up yer spine, ah can see it. Ah suggest you spit it out now or ah can just go to Twilight and tell her that instead.”

“Yes, yes, alright,” he said, beckoning for her to sit down. “Again with the blackmail. Heavens, you’re becoming my favorite.”

He lift the apple off the ground and washed the dirt off it on the water sprayed out of the fountain. He took a deep bite, the apple crunching satisfactorily in the relative silence. “This is quite good by the way,” he said, hefting what was left after he swallowed.

“Thanks. It’s not the best, but me and Apple Bloom already sold the best ones.”

He tensed for a moment, a tiny fraction of a second where he held his breath. “Is she… okay?” he tentatively asked.

“Aw, she’s just fine. Tried to milk some extra allowance out of Big Mac even. Big doofus fell for it, as sure as you breathe and live. Ah’m surprised that out of everything this is what raised up Ponyville’s heckles. Makes almost no sense.”

“Think about it too much, what does?” Raegdan took slow aim and threw the apple core in a basket far from them. “The only reason I got out of bed that day was because people felt I needed cheering up. Look where I am now.” After getting up and drinking from the fountain’s jet he sat back down next to Applejack.

A minute passed, Applejack waiting patiently. He hadn’t left or told her to so he had more to say. He was just working up to it, she knew it. The seconds passed fast enough for her. She didn’t reckon it was the same for Raegdan next to her the way he kept fidgeting.

“I would never actually hurt the kids on purpose,” Raegdan whispered almost unheard over the soft splashing of the fountain and the rambling of Ponyville rolling over them. His gaze was on his thumb, his other hand slowly drawing lines from its tip to his wrist.

“I think I used to hit her. Beat her. That hadn’t been the only time.” His fist coiled around a small object beneath his shirt for a moment. “Not a lot, no more than just a handful in all that time, certainly, but… but I did. I broke her ankle, I told you that, didn’t I? Last thing I did to her. Held her down and snapped it like a branch. She was screaming. Crying. Not because of the pain though. She kept screaming not to leave—”

His voice was overtaken with sterility and coldness, and his fingers had wrapped around the thumb. He twisted. He pulled. He made no sound.

“The girls cried and screamed too when I hit them.”

The smooth pop of cracking his finger gave way to the slow grinding of bone as he rotated the finger in a way it didn’t want to go. “I never meant to do the same to your little sister. I didn’t even believe I was. I only meant it as a warning. Like… Same as I always meant it as a warning for her. But what I meant and what I did—”

Applejack slapped his abused thumb free. Raegdan flinched as if startled awake.

“Did ya know we give chores to Apple Bloom back at the farm?” Applejack asked. She made it plain in her tone she didn’t expect a reply, but he nodded slowly. Either he did or he had guessed. Either would do.

“You think she never had a fall or hurt herself while doing them? Do ya really think that three rascals like them never got back home with worse bruises than what you gave them, laughing all the while?” she continued.

Raegdan shook his head.

“Well, they do. Trust me, they are not strangers to the rare spanking either. Except maybe Sweetie Belle. Can’t see Rarity or her parents doing that for the life of me. It’s usually Granny Smith who done them for us at the farm. And trust me, she ain’t got soft hooves. It’s the next best thing to be beaten with rocks, actually.

“Apple Bloom got it twice so far. Once I remember was because she broke a vase and instead of telling anypony she hid the shards under her blanket. She was going to sleep on broken glass if Big Mac hadn’t noticed a glint on her pillow and checked. Told her we didn’t mind the accident at all, but Granny showed her we wouldn’t stand for putting herself in danger for a stupid, old vase.

“So you hit them a little too hard and scared them good. Well done. She did earn that one and you made it plain why. Ya knew that was enough, and if you’re worrying that might have been excessive? Even better.” She patted him twice on his thigh. “That’s why ah don’t worry ya might do it again, do it with no cause, or do worse.”

Raegdan settled his weight down again. His stiff shoulders relaxed, and and his torso retained a more natural curve. He had calmed back down. Applejack was only too glad he did. She didn’t like what she’d heard one lick.

She did know of course. What shook her was the other thing he said. Applejack had a good ear for falsehoods most of the time, and one thing struck her. ‘Not a lot, no more than just a handful in all that time, certainly.’

What Applejack struggled was with which direction the lie took. At first her mind jumped to the horrid conclusion that the poor, unnamed girl had been horribly betrayed by her caretaker more that the few times he claimed. Then almost immediately she had another thought.

It would be just like him to lie to himself and her to make himself out to be a worst monster than he really was, wouldn’t it?

But she would never know the truth. Maybe for the best. She certainly wouldn’t ask. That way madness lay. Mostly for him. The more he thought of it, the worse off. He had been making up for it, as far as you can make up for something like this. You never could, as far as Applejack was concerned, but hey, it beat sitting on your flank, right?

Maybe it was all like sums. Bad things go on column A. Good stuff goes on column B. You add them up, and you get your total. If it worked like that, then enough hard work could help undo any wrong.

If it worked like math. Which Applejack doubted. There was column A. There was column B.

She didn’t think there really was a total. Just your columns, standing there and neither of them undoing the other. Just being there. Both true, forever.

She could be wrong though. Who knew?

“Y’all about done with Spike’s room yet or not? Twilight tells me you’re working awful fast.”

A soft smile harbored down on Raegdan’s face. “Almost. All that’s left is a last check-up and varnishing the floor, though Twilight insists we have a pony in town do it that can finish it quick with a couple of spells and is really good. It’s so much easier when you don’t have to worry about wires in the walls and such.”

Applejack’s ears flicked up. “Why in tarnation would you put wires in your walls?”

“You’ve got magic and stuff, what we used was e…” Raegdan trailed off, the momentary sparkle in his face dying along with his words.

“ ‘Eeeeee’ what?” Applejack prodded.

Raegdan stood up, moving slowly as if he was caught in a dream. “Oh heavens. I’ve finally cracked like a walnut,” he breathed out.

“What in tarnation are you—”

Pinkie popped right in her face, smiling as if it was somepony’s birthday. “Hello, Applejack! Need some help?”

Applejack was about ready to reflexively answer and deflect her friend’s offer for later. A pink blur on the edge of her vision attracted her eye first though, and she glanced towards it, freezing in barely contained panic.

Raegdan had retreated into the fountain, not caring about the cold water at all. His lips had gone almost white enough that Applejack was certain was it was not the cold that affected him. He kept stepping back until his back hit upon the fountain statue, and he still kept pressing against it as if trying to sink through it.

Pinkie Pie was standing in front of her. Pinkie Pie was also pestering ponies to let her help them with their saddlebags. She was also picking up trash that had fallen on the ground and kicked it towards a waste basket, celebrating briefly with each successful throw. She was in front of doors, knocking and asking questions, she was on rooftops, she was climbing up on trees, she was scuba diving in a water barrel…

Pinkie Pie was doing dozens of things, because there were dozens of her.

“... Ah think we should let Twilight know about this,” Applejack suggested to Raegdan, who didn’t answer in any way other than shaking his head as if trying to deny the horrific reality in front of him. Applejack couldn’t blame him. Pinkie Pie could almost be too much on her own. Double she would be impossible. A town full of her?

“This reeks of magic gone haywire.” she concluded.

“I’m… I’m not going anywhere,” Raegdan responded.

“Well, you have to—” Applejack stopped and stared in fascination.

Unnoticed to Raegdan, who could do nothing more than gap at the sight in front of him, one Pinkie Pie had climbed on top of the earth pony fountain statue. The pink mare spotted the biped below her and grinned in wicked merriness. Pinkie Pie theatrically flexed her hind legs, and then she jumped vertically, her fall on a straight course for Raegdan’s head.

“Huggies from above!” Pinkie Pie yelled.

The moment she touched Raegdan she exploded in a pink cloud of sparkling mist with a loud ‘bamf’.

The most feminine shriek Applejack had ever heard exploded out of Raegdan’s throat in turn.

Twilight followed Luna obediently, sharing everything she had managed to find out on the way to wherever the Alicorn claimed Raegdan had been cornered. Surprisingly, they were heading for the north edge of Ponyville. If that was so, then that meant that when Raegdan starting running he kept following a straight line until he found a somewhat safe spot. Not his usual M.O. at all.

“They are obviously entirely magical constructs,” Twilight explained, somewhat unnecessarily, but she had to cite her facts first. “That is why the faintest touch with Raegdan had such an abrupt end. Based on where Granny Smith and Stampede saw Pinkie Pie heading towards, as well as a few other sources, I was able to pinpoint the origin as a magical lake located in the Everfree Forest, called the Mirror Lake.”

“Other sources?” Luna asked, her stare straight ahead.

Twilight didn’t bother fighting off the embarrassed blushing. “The, uh…, the clones are so willing to help that they might have… explained everything when asked. In full detail.”

Luna nodded, smiling a tad. “If only everypony was always so accommodating. I don’t suppose you found any way to rid ourselves of these clones in a quick fashion? Or if the magic has an adverse effect on the real Pinkie Pie?”

“I don’t know about any side effects,” Twilight admitted. “The clones are fixated on helping out, but there are so many of them and somewhat inefficient. They tend to be more of an obstacle. Then they attempt to make up for their shortcomings, which leads to damages, which they try to repair even while they don’t know how and…” She sighed, not attempting to go deeper into the destructive cycle. “When the real Pinkie Pie notices this…”

“She will be burdened with the guilt of her action, the load increasing expediently as we allow these constructs to do more damage.” Luna bent her head as if feeling the weariness she talked of. “Any solutions?”

“There was a spell that sends the target to be dissolved back into the Mirror Lake. Problem is, I don’t know what it will do if I cast it on the true Pinkie. It could have zero effect on her, but then again… You understand.”

“Raegdan is our best course of action. His touch will leave the real Pinkie Pie unharmed but rid us of the clones.”

“Exactly,” Twilight confirmed. “It is refreshing to have an easy solution at hoof, isn’t it?”

Luna stopped and turned to her, lips shaking in a laughing smile. “Would thee like to reassert thy assumptions?” She pointed in front of them.

They had gone a few paces outside Ponyville. Indeed, the back wall of the house nearest to them was only a few meters behind them, and they were on the beginning of one of the many dirt tracks that culminated together into the main road towards Canterlot to the north. On the side of the narrow dirt path stood a tall pine tree.

Below that tree stood a gaggle of Lunar Guards. The two earth ponies twins that Twilight had been introduced to, Tic and Tac, stood right in front of the trunk and were looking upwards. Twilight had been told which was who, but she couldn’t remember if Tic was the one with the white muzzle or the one with the white socks.

“Aww, is the widdle stallion still peeing his pants? Is he? Yes, he is. Yes, he is!” The mouth one talked to him as if he were a baby. “Such a cute puddle of piss, d’awww…”

The other twin was making what was probably meant to be scary faces, which they kind of were with the disturbingly wide smiles. “Oooh, I’m a scary pink pony! Fear my smile! Fear my laugh! Can you smell what the baker’s cooking?”

“Imma… huuuuug youuuu…”

“Just so you know, chickens don’t actually make their nests in trees.”

“Maybe you are right, oh scary guard. Maybe the world is a dreadful, pink place. Better end it all. You’re already up on a tree, so we can throw you a noose. It will be a swift end for you, away from horrible, pink, smiling little girls, and we can have a pinata out of the deal!”

“You can all just go fuck yourselves!”

“Does the widdle colt want his mommy? Does the widdle pissypot want her to kiss it all better?”

“Yes, I would, actually. And don’t you dare talk crap about my mother.”

“Raegdan?” Twilight shoved her way through the ponies in front of her. “Raegdan, get down now! We need your help.”

“No, thanks. I’m fine where I am.” Twilight could barely detect a black silhouette among the many branches and pine needles.

“What,” Twilight challenged, “are you going to tell me you are feeling ‘featherly inclined’ or something equally stupendous now?”

“Hey! That’s our word!” Red Dawn reprimanded her. For some reason.

“Get down or I’ll tell my mom.”

“Velvet doesn’t scare me! Seriously though, don’t call her.”

A few of the Thestrals were flying, orbiting the tree. Suddenly, two of them flew into the branches to attempt to extract Raegdan out by force. There were cries of pain, branches and pines breaking, and both Broken Gust and Cradle Song crashed on the ground, full of resin, scratches, and growing bruises.

Leaf Stream was instantly at Broken Gust’s side, helping her up and shooting dagger-like glances at the hidden biped above her. Drum Beat was doing the same for Cradle Song, only on a far more sedate and less worried pace.

“You Celestia-damned flankhole! Come down here and get a piece of me!” Leaf Stream yelled.

“I already got two!”

Leaf Stream sat scowling for a moment before helping Broken Gust limp off, mumbling under her breath.

Twilight marched back to Luna who had stood back and watched the show. “Could you maybe tell him to stop this little joke?” Twilight requested. “It’s not that funny.”

Luna’s gaze wouldn’t leave the pine tree. “I don’t believe it is.”

“Good, we agree. Will you go tell him then?”

The princess found a rock and sat on it comfortably, gesturing for Twilight to sit next to her and share the rough seat. “I am waiting on my ice breaker. Then we will have a talk with him.”

They waited. Every now and then one of the guards would try to cajole him down or more often enough would insult him in an effort to get him mad and try to pay them back in physical fashion, thereby getting back on the ground. As this went on, Twilight was getting further and further intrigued. Raegdan was actually brushing off almost everything, responding with foul language of course, but never actually implying that he would climb down.

Stalwart Shield even attempted a half-hearted attempt to indirectly insult Twilight, and Raegdan still did nothing. Which was… certainly out of character enough to make Twilight’s mood revolve on the fringes of true worry.

No more than ten minutes later she heard the voice of Solid Charge. “Princess, we found one. Applejack was kind enough to let us borrow it.” Twilight spotted Cast Iron walking behind his more physical minotaur partner and carrying something, while Applejack trotted from behind the both of them.

“Good. You may begin,” Luna ordered.

The minotaurs got into position under the tree. Metal teeth glinted between them, set in a straight row on a thin, metal strip. Each minotaur grabbed a handle, and the saw kissed the tree’s bark.

“Luna. Luna, you’re not fucking serious!”

“And… cut him down.”

“Luna! Luna, I’m going to kick your ass. I’m on a fucking tree, Luna! Don’t you do this! I’ll fall off and die. It’s a really big tree, Luna. Luna, please don’t do this. I don’t want to come down. Luna!”

“You may climb down on your own pace then,” Luna answered, raising her voice with naught an effort. “It will take a couple of minutes till it is all sawed down.”

Twilight had started having doubts, and she lightly poked Luna, begging her attention without notifying anypony else. She whispered, even though she probably would have gone unheard even with a slightly lowered voice under the chorus of guards cheering, the grinding of metal against wood, and Raegdan’s alarming panic. “Luna, I… Maybe we should stop? He sounds actually scared. I’ve never heard him sound like that.”

Luna looked into Twilight’s eyes for a few moments, time enough to see that Luna also knew that Raegdan was honestly scared, that she didn’t like hearing him like that at all. It was never a joke.

“Pretend you find humor in this. Don’t let him know you can hear his fear. It will only make it grow,” Luna whispered back, and then turned back, smirking evilly and answering Raegdan’s pleas with mocking jests.

A couple of minutes later the tree splintered. Solid Charge and Cast Iron backed away. Groaning, as if almost in pain, the tree slowly bent, the cacophony of violent cracks increasing as the trunk gave in to gravity.

“Timber!” Smoke Ring called out.

“Fuuuck youuu, Lunaaaaaaa…”

The tree fell away from them. Halfway down, Raegdan jumped out of the thick branches, managing to get sufficient distance. He rolled on the bare ground and, his body tucked like a ball, until he came to a stop. He gingerly made his way upright, pausing to check his legs before putting weight on them.

Luna immediately flew up onto Raegdan, sending him on his back. everypony else behind her, including a small crowd of ponies watching from some safe distance. Half the guards were actually used as a barrier, set by Luna to keep not the citizens of Ponyville away, but the Pinkie clones that seemed to upset Raegdan so much.

“If we are done with games, may we start resolving this situation?” Luna was smiling gently down at him. “I have reason to believe that Pinkie Pie will be severely distressed, perhaps even in danger, without your help. You will not abscond her of your aid, will you?”

Raegdan closed his eye. He looked exhausted, and Twilight could see how his clothes had darkened and stuck on his body. He must have been swimming in his own sweat. “Luna, I can’t. I’m serious. I can’t even… look at all these things. Everytime I do… I just want to run away.”

Twilight raised her hoof. “If that is the problem, then I have a simple solution.”

“I’m not wearing a blindfold. I don’t want to be in the same room, even.”

“Fine. Solution number two(2) it is, then.”

Raegdan sighed. “How do you do that?”

Pinkie Pie dragged her hooves. This didn’t turn out the way she hoped. Nopony had been happy with her mirror images, and if that wasn’t enough, most of them did not really help. Like, the exact opposite! Poor Ditzy Doo had her house almost completely renovated, and a few Pinkie clones later, all of Cast Iron’s work had almost become undone.

Nopony would ever forgive her; Pinkie would never forgive herself.

She lifted her head away from the sight of her front legs barely moving to check behind her. Nopony there. No clone. She was bad even at that. Somepony was gathering her clones and making them form a straight line that they dutifully followed. Pinkie Pie did so because she believed that if ponies wanted to get rid of the clones then they should get rid of the original as well. Better this way. And even then she almost missed her chance to help everypony by leaving, getting last in line in the nick of time.

The line was doubling around, and Pinkie was almost standing in front of their final destination. A small hovel had been hastily erected, no bigger than an outhouse. Twilight and Luna were standing next to the entrance, ticking off a scroll as every Pinkie went in. There would be a pause, a squeal of joy from the Pinkie inside, and then a small bang, the curtain fluttering gently.

She could see Raegdan on the other side of the small cabin’s entrance. He sat on a chair and his arm was spread away from him, going through a circular hole and into the cabin itself. Raegdan looked as miserable as Pinkie felt, flinching every time one of the small explosions went off. He wore a blindfold, was tied to a post, and ponies from the Lunar Guard sat around him. Leaf Stream was standing next to him, cackling.

“You know what this looks like, don’t you?” Raegdan asked, barely lifting his chin from his chest.

Leaf Stream looked almost as if she would choke any moment. “Oh yeah. Seriously. It’s killing me!”

“Doesn’t anyone else get it?”

“Nope. Bunch of prudes. Gonna install one just for the heck of it in the public restroom in the town hall right after this!”

“Why? Missing your hobby?”

The line had moved too far to hear any more, and Pinkie sunk back down to swampy thoughts. They were slow, murky, and smelled and felt bad. They dragged her down, and she felt like she was drowning in them, but couldn’t get out. She tried to find something funny, to laugh, but there was nothing funny in how it all went wrong.

All she wanted to do was help! Just help. Why did something good go wrong so easy? How can that even happen? She barely even did anything. It all came to shambles as if rolling down a hill. Pinkie couldn’t stop thinking of her clones shouting at ponies, calling out “help? Help?” like parrots, and then, almost immediately, the angry voices telling them—her!—to leave. To leave them alone. That they didn’t want their help. Her help.

“Last one. Oh Celestia, I hope this is her. Maybe we missed some. Do you think she hid somewhere? Or is still at the Mirror Lake?”

“... We will find out soon, Twilight Sparkle. Come, in you go now. We need your help in there.”

Pinkie knew that was a lie, but she went in anyway. Better to get lost among the clones and nopony ever pay attention to her again, not if she made such dumb mistakes. The heavy cloth moved back into place and Pinkie could only see dark after the sunlight outside. Not that she cared to see. She kept her eyes downcast.

Something touched her mane. Fingers. She knew these fingers. They touched her almost shyly, and stood still for a second. Then, they started digging into her mane, scratching her scalp and her ears, and Pinkie almost unconsciously moved closer. The palm rested on her cheek, felt the wetness of tears, and the fingers carefully, lovingly, brushed them off.

Pinkie pushed herself against the hand, letting it comfort her. The hand obliged. It was just there, and it didn’t ask for help.

It just gave it.

Raegdan almost doubled in two as his chest deflated out of sheer relief. “That’s her,” he said, nodding towards the hole. “We got her.”

Luna breathed in relief as well, the mask she had been holding on to cracking for a second. “Thank the stars! I was so worried. So many clones… I feared that they were made by mistake, and that the constant help they talking about meant something else entirely. That she fell in, couldn’t get out, and… and…” The night princess shook her head, tearing herself away from the horrific imagery.

“Dark,” Leaf Stream noted.

“Let me go tell Twilight,” Luna said after a painful moment.

Raegdan’s free hand stopped her by catching her over the top of her neck. “I think she needs a minute or two first. I think… she’s in a bad mood from what I’m getting.”

Luna remained thoughtful for a few seconds, her eyes closed. “I will attempt to do something for her, then; I shall gather all of her friends together while you keep her busy.”

Pinkie rubbed at her eyes again, making sure she got all the dampness out. She wanted to get back out with a smile again, not crying. Raegdan’s hand had left her alone, but not before lightly pushing her towards the entrance. Twilight called for her gently from outside.

One deep breath—this shack smelled like the color pink would smell—and Pinkie pushed the blankety door aside.

Her five best friends were waiting outside together. Not just Twilight. All of them.

And behind them all was most of Ponyville, cheering and clapping their hooves as soon as they saw her. A massive chorus of noise, not just of ponies yelling her name in happiness, but her other favorite ones as well. Whistles, and poppers, and balloons blown, burst, rubbed, scratched, bumped, thrown. Confetti was thrown as if it was her birthday, and best of all; everypony was smiling at her.

Hooves wrapped around Pinkie, and muzzles rubbed against her neck and mane as she was gone in a torrent of hugging by her five best friends. After a minute of it they tried to separate, but Pinkie wrapped them all around her legs and returned the favor again.

“I’m so sorry! I just wanted to help!” Pinkie whispered. It wasn’t much of an excuse but it was all she had.

“It’s okay,” Fluttershy whispered back. “We know.”

“Oh, you generous soul. Come here!” Rarity cried and lead the charge in a new hugging attack.

“Well, shucks, sugarcube, we always knew you were up for it. No need to go overboard.”

“Still, it was pretty awesome. I doubt I could do that much damage in Ponyville even with the worst storm I could—”

“What Rainbow means,” Twilight said, shoving the pegasus aside, “is that nothing happened that can’t be fixed in a few hours. No harm done.”

“Oh,” Pinkie said, cowering a little. Hours that ponies had to waste because of her. “Umm… I can… help?” she asked for permission. Maybe she could do this right this time.

“Ah’m sorry, Pinkie, but ah don’t think you can,” Applejack said after exchanging a glance with the other girls. The simple sentence felt like a powerful kick to the heart. From the inside.

“Yeah, you will be so busy you can barely sit!” Rainbow crowed.

“... What?”

Twilight produced a small photograph. “We managed to get this printed. Luna brought it here. She thought you would love to see it.” It was grainy, and black and white. Dots upon thousands of white dots on black ink, but through size they made an image.

It looked like two tiny foals, curled against each other and floating in a sea of stars.

“The Cakes are having twins.” Fluttershy’s expression was full of love and joy. “You have to help them get the baby room ready.”

Pinkie searched for Luna and Raegdan. It took a moment, not able to see well with the happy tears blurring her vision. They were behind the Ponyville ponies, on a street that would lead them back to the library. Raegdan was holding himself over a dumpster, retching and emptying his stomach into it while Luna waited next to him, a bottle of water held in her magical grip. Inwardly, Pinkie scratched one more tally in their favor so far.

They kept saving her.

“Erm, by the way, Pinkie… Raegdan wants a word later on about where you went on your lonesome…” Applejack said.

Twilight felt a little bad. She didn’t expect quite that many ponies to show up to watch Raegdan apologize. There was a crowd as large as everything in front of the town hall waiting for him. There even was a small wooden stage set up!

“Ever been at an execution, Twilight?” Raegdan asked.

Twilight frowned with distaste. “Execution as a form of punishment was abolished centuries ago, and even then it had been a far longer time since they were done as a public display. The practice is long gone, and good riddance.” There was a beat of silence before she remembered to ask. “So, no. Why?”

Raegdan pointed at the raised stage and then the ponies waiting. “This is exactly what they look like.”

“Oh, come off it.”

“No, seriously. Look back there. Someone’s got pitchforks and torche—Fucking Leaf Stream! Seriously?”

Twilight turned back to him. “Raegdan. Public space. Spike could have been here. No swearing.”

The cloth mask moved as if he was chewing. “I’ll add it to the list I have to recite.”

Mayor Mare waved at Twilight, and she in turn pushed Raegdan forward. “Good. Your time to shine is now. Make it good, okay?”

“Yeah, sure. Got it all prepared and written down. No worries. I got this.”

Twilight joined her friends that had all showed up, waiting to see if Raegdan would really go through with it. Rainbow and Pinkie were sharing a tub of pop-corn, and were trying to cajole Luna into joining them, the princess examining the white foodstuff with deep suspicion.

Raegdan in the meanwhile had gone his way to the edge of the platform, expectant silence descending on the crowd. Raegdan did a small wave, and then lifted a single finger directed at Leaf Stream.

“Let me start off by saying, ‘mistakes were made’. People, or ponies, were placed in position they should not have been, if only they knew better. The reference has been made to me that I have offended some of you, and if that happened then know that it was not my stated intention. I am sorry that you were driven to depression, rage, or tears by mere words from someone you barely knew.

“It is also very unfortunate that actions, perhaps some performed by me, led to certain individuals being harmed, as they claim, by being in such positions. Know that if you left my presence with a light bruise when I might have kicked at you, that this was definitely not my intention, and I regret that you came out of our interaction with hurts easily remedied by the most basic of care.

“Nobody is sorrier than me for spending time—wasting it, actually—here, listening to what should never have been. Nobody is sorrier than me that Mayor Mare had to spend her valuable time writing me a fine. Even though it might be my personal belief that nothing of real consequence might have actually happened or that this apology will not benefit anyone after all, please accept my expression of deep regret for doing this.

“No thanks for the apology are needed.”

Raegdan jumped down from the platform and hastily made his way through the crowd, an expression of pure regret plastered masterfully on his face. He disappeared into the darkness, heading for the library and refuge, while ponies were still puzzling out bits and pieces of his recital.

Twilight covered her face; he did deliver exactly what was asked of him.

“I believe we should go,” Luna observed, her eyes rapidly searching left and right for signs of danger. “I have heard the term ‘lynching’ once too many times for my comfort.”

“Wait a darn second,” Applejack drawled, her eyes concentrated on nothingness as if she was trying to crunch through large numbers in her mind. “Ah know he said ‘sorry’… Ah know he used the word ‘apology’… But did he actually…?”

Twilight was already pushing her friends, their hooves drawing lines on the ground as her magic forced them forward without notice. “Let’s go and we can explain everything when cooler heads prevail—Rainbow, stop laughing and go!”

“The buck kind of ‘sorry’ was that?” Somepony from the crowd demanded after a minute of silent digestion.

“String `im up!”

“Go!”

Somepony was banging the door outside the Cutie Mark Crusaders Clubhouse. Apple Bloom let her two friends bicker on as they tried to figure out ways to earn cool Cutie Marks without ever going into the Everfree Forest again. She abandoned the sweet, soft pillow that was a source of comfort in the wake of her punishment, and opened the door.

“Pinkie Pie? Whatchu doin’ here?” she gasped. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were there in a second, echoing her question.

“I’m here to temporarily sign up!” Pinkie Pie said, hopping up and down.

“But… you have gotten yer own Cutie Mark,” Apple Bloom pointed out, not understanding.

“Yeah!” Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo agreed together.

“Sure,” Pinkie said. “But now we all have the same one!” Pinkie Pie twisted around, presenting her side for viewing. Superimposed over her party balloons Cutie Mark was a fresh, red palm. Fingers spread wide for maximum coverage.

“Cutie Mark Crusaders Slap Winners!” Pinkie Pie cheered loudly and spreaded her thigh. “Ouch!”

The three fillies stepped aside to let her in. “Pillows in the corner,” Sweetie Belle helpfully supplied.

Ch. 44 - Ponyville. Date night

“Twilight, your date is here!” Spike yelled as he opened the door, a note of faint surrender in his voice.

Twilight made her way out to the front just as her date walked in. Her dress was mainly dark purple, almost black in its richness and opulence, contrasted with loose fabrics of vibrant magenta, and the whole ensemble was accented with thin, rich lines of gold. The tail of the dress reached far behind her, seemingly for miles, but a self-cleaning spell kept it pristine.

Her date was wonderful as well. He was tall, and strikingly built. The blue dress-shirt was not able to hide his impressive, delicious, white barrel. His mane was a cascade of liquid gold, and his eyes were a deep sea blue. The only fault laid in the fact that his head was currently located a few feet away from his neck.

“Dad!” Twilight yelled, angry and disappointed. “That was my date!”

Raegdan shrugged, the head and machete in his hands both dripping blood as he did so. “Sorry, little one. Can’t have that yet. Go back to your room. Don’t talk to anyone, don’t move without me, and lock your door. I’ll deal with this.” That said, he opened the door next to him, and carelessly threw the head inside. It landed with a thick splash on the pile of her previous suitors.

Twilight’s dress felt weird. Too heavy. Of course it did. She was just a nine year old filly, trying to fit into a dress that was meant for full grown mares who didn’t have crazy parents looking over their heads all the time. She struggled to crawl out of it, realizing that now she was too young and unlearned to have cast the self-cleaning spell. The dress was filthy, having being used to practically mop the floor as she walked around with it.

It wasn’t even her dress at all. She stole Princess Celestia’s dress and ruined it. She would have to explain herself to her mentor, and she would probably be punished by never having to do homework again!

There was another knock on the door, and Spike quickly opened it. After a beat he turned back to them, the exhaustion in his voice all too obvious now. “Twilight, your date is here!”

Raegdan sighed, and hefted his machete. “A father’s work is never done. I’ll be right back, little one.” He made his way to the door just as her new date walked in, a stallion of dark colors with a long, fancy cape, and a fountain of blood coming out of his decapitated body—

As Twilight jerked awake, the spasm of her legs and head was immediately noticed by Spike.

“Bad dream?” the baby dragon asked.

Twilight yawned and scratched her itchy ear, shivering. The library was not exactly cold, but you surely wouldn’t call it toasty either, certainly not after a nice nap beneath a warm blanket. The nights had gotten real cold out of a sudden this winter.

“Mmm… Same old. Has Raegdan left? What time is it?”

“Does it look like he left? He is still getting ready. He is worse than Rarity. Uh, don’t tell her I said that by the way.”

Spike finished polishing the highest region of the tall mirror. He stood as back as his step ladder would allow him. He examined the glass surface critically, making a small pause to buff a few dull scales. Done and over with, he jumped down and moved everything away, leaving the floor in front of the mirror vacant.

“Did we have this?” Twilight asked, curiously examining the mirror.

“Yeah, remember the experiments you were doing to create an invisibility spell by making light bend around you?”

“Oh. Right. That went horribly wrong.” She picked herself off the comfy chair she had slept on and moved in front of the mirror. “Didn’t Rarity want it back?”

“I don’t think she is in a hurry. She has, like, five more like this one.” Spike opened the door leading to the basement and tipped his body, balancing on one leg, inside. His left hand securely caught on the frame of the door, his right hand set next to his mouth as he shouted.

“Dad! Come on up, we have a big mirror you can use. It will be easier!” He walked back to Twilight, not waiting for an answer. “Hopefully, he’ll be done soon. He is supposed to pick up Luna in a few minutes.”

For a few seconds she just stood confused before the last fuzziness of her nap left her and she remembered. Right, Luna had gone off to Rarity hours ago to make the last few changes to her dress. Twilight suspected that she also wanted Rarity’s help to actually get into the thing, as Luna had spent almost half an hour inspecting it with bewilderment before making her departure plans known.

Rarity, of course, had been gleeful. Raegdan, not so much. That meant he now had to walk through Ponyville on his own to go get Luna. Twilight also deeply suspected that he had been planning to nip over to Rarity for help with his own preparation before Luna beat him to the mark.

The slow stomping on the stairs preceded Raegdan’s appearance. He was dressed in a modified suit that resembled a stallion’s formal dress, only in his case it had been far enlarged, and had been supplemented—of course—with trousers. There were other differences as well, subtle changes in the cut that downplayed the formality such clothing usually held. It was deep black, with a dark blue sheen, and it gave his torso the hint of an inverted pyramid. In his hand he held the end of the tie that hung from his neck.

“I need some help with this. Anyone knows how to tie one?” he asked.

Spike motioned for him to crouch. He leaned in close to examine the knot, and then pulled back. “That is a noose,” Spike said.

“Tell me about it!” Raegdan fervently agreed. His fingers were digging around his throat, and Spike slapped them away before he wrinkled the collar.

“No, that’s really a noose knot. That’s not how you do a tie!” Spike’s claws had no trouble getting below the cloth and pulling the knot loose. He lassoed it around Raegdan’s neck and pulled, looped, and wrapped as if he had been doing this all his life. After checking Raegdan’s cufflinks for possible fogginess and his gloves for cleanliness, he pushed Raegdan to go check himself over at the mirror.

Raegdan stood in front of the mirror and stilled. He cut quite a nice figure in Twilight’s opinion. Certainly better than usual. Rarity had been able to incorporate the ever present cloth mask into the design, not allowing it to look out of place by blending in seamlessly into the collar of the shirt. He had even hid the white bandage over his left eye by placing a piece of identical black cloth over it. It certainly attracted less attention to it this way.

He took a surprisingly long amount of time standing there, looking himself over. Every now and then he would turn to one side or the other, moving slowly as if underwater. He was mumbling, and from the few words Twilight caught she figured he did so in his own language. A few more seconds of attention and it hit her. He wasn’t mumbling. He was singing a tune under his breath.

Spike could evidently hear it as well. He was thumping his foot on the floor, following the rhythm.

“Why circle around like that?” Spike suddenly asked.

Raegdan took a sudden step back, knocked out of his thoughts. “Huh? Circle… Oh. Just checking myself.”

“No, you were saying something about being circled around, all around…” Spike tried to insist but Raegdan just looked down at him with obvious puzzlement. “Probably heard wrong,” Spike admitted, looking guilty for some reason. “So, what do you think?”

There was some hesitation at first. “It… looks good. I barely described it to Rarity and she nailed it.” He glanced down at his feet. “I would be wearing something better than old boots, but Rarity isn’t a cobbler. I… I like it.” He turned sideways again, his leather-clad palm running down the front of his torso.

“It’s a bit cold tonight.” Spike’s claw was tapping against his lips as he did a critical half circle around Raegdan. “We should have gotten you a coat.”

“No need,” Raegdan half-argued. “It’s just a short walk to Rarity and then to the restaurant.”

“Still…” Spike mumbled, thinking. “How about one of your cloaks? A dark one?”

Raegdan raised his finger forbiddingly. “I’m drawing the line at showing up like the phantom of the freaking opera. Heavens, I’ve even got the mask on. No.”

Spike raised his brow. “What do ghosts have to do with—”

“Nevermind, little flame. Are we done? Is this good enough?”

“You’re looking sharp!” Spike assured him, with his thumb and pointer forming a circle in a gesture that Raegdan had taught him. “All ready for your date.”

“It’s not a date.” Raegdan had been very insistent on this very mark ever since Luna told them that Raegdan ‘invited’ her to go have a dinner together on their own. ‘Maybe dress up a little,’ he had allegedly said while making his proposal.

So much for little.

“I don’t think I ever wore something like this before, you know?” he absently said, eyes locked on his own figure on the mirror.

“Really? You never went on a date? You mentioned you had a girlfriend before, I remember that.” Spike questioned.

Raegdan bent down, using his own saliva and fingers to clean some dust from his old shoes. “First of all, this isn’t a date. I know exactly what Rarity is doing, and she is wasting her time. I’m just humoring her, and most importantly, Luna. She’s never done this so it’s only fair we do since she wants to. Good practice for when she starts going on formal events like Celestia. Second, it wasn’t a typical relationship,” he slowly explained. His concentration was slowly shifting inwards.

“We knew each other since we were kids. In fact… huh, I did wear something like this a few times after all. Vivian liked to sneak into my parents closet and get out their wedding clothes. We must have been… eight? Nine years old? We used to wear them, pretend we were getting married, and in process rip a hole or two in them since they were so big we could barely walk in them.”

Twilight giggled, imagining a tiny version of Raegdan at Spike’s size doing so. “It sounds very cute.”

“I wouldn’t know,” he said, focused on checking his clothing for lint or hair. “But there never actually was a typical date. It just happened, as naturally as water flowing backwards. We went from childhood friends to… being together.”

Twilight’s eyes glinted. “If she was pretending to be marrying you since you were nine, I don’t think it occured ‘naturally’,” she taunted.

“Wow.” Spike was absently looking upwards with a face of admiration. “Either she was really good or you were really thick. Boy, I hope I’ll never be that oblivious!”

“What? No!” Raegdan denied, turning to face them. “She wasn’t like that. I mean, it had been random chance. There was this party we were supposed to go and we both got the time wrong so we went back to her place, and she had brought drinks, and since there was no one else we drank it, started talking, we started joking about who in our group could be a couple and… No. No, no! Look, I never even went on a real date with her, understand? I—”

Raegdan’s head snapped up, his eyes looking to the realm of the impossible and frightful future. “Oh heavens. I’ve never gone on a date. This is my first date!”

“I thought this wasn’t a date,” Spike proclaimed smugly and loudly, folding his arms with a satisfied smirk.

“This is better than good, then!” Twilight clapped her hooves. “All the books I’ve read agree that sharing new experience help cementing and strengthening professional and personal relationships is good for you! This will do you both good, finding out together how you are supposed to proceed and tread new ground and interact with others in a new environment.”

That only made his body shake like a rumbling volcano. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do!” Raegdan picked up Spike by the shoulders and shook him as if expecting the answers to drop out of the small dragon. “Am I supposed to say something? Do I just pick her up and we go there or… what about when we leave? Do we leave as soon as we finish eating? What the hell am I supposed to do?”

“I-I-I d-d-on’t k-k-know-ow-ow.”

“Just be yourself,” Twilight advised, obviously foolhardy.

“That’s a horrible idea!” Raegdan and Spike chorused together.

Twilight rolled her eyes at the pair and went back to her blanket. Why did I even bother in the first place? Why does nopony else but me have to deal with this?

“Luna, dear, please. All you have to do is be your own, splendid self.”

“That is a horrible idea!”

The dark blue Alicorn paced back and forth in the middle of Rarity’s workshop. Her lithe form was draped with seemingly unattended rows of translucent teal silk, darkening in layers with her natural color as the backdrop. Delicate tails of fabric danced in the wind of her passing, and in the flows of her star-filled mane and tail she might as well have been swimming among the cosmos. Strategically placed ebony and silver strips broke the pattern and created another, making her seem an errant, brief dream rather than a creature of flesh and blood.

And Rarity had to keep running behind Luna to make sure she didn’t rip or wrinkle this latest creation with the sharp, sudden turns she took as she paced.

“He is late”, Luna mumbled as she cut corners around the circular workroom.

“He is not coming,” she argued to herself.

“He changed his mind.”

“He didn’t mean it.”

“He forgot.”

Again and again, her rounds syncing up with the bitter words, until she came to a stop.

“What was I even thinking?” Luna demanded of herself with venomous spit. She stood for a second, taking in the sight of the richest, most elaborate dress she ever wore, before she continued with a painful grimace. “I have enough. Wanting more might lead to losing everything. This is going to be a disaster. I should call this off...”

The pins used to both reinforce and hold portions of the dress up and away from careless hooves hovered still, as if similarly struck with shock as Rarity was at hearing Luna’s end to her little litany. “You don’t… want more?” Rarity asked, wanting to know if what she heard was what the princess really meant. “You mean, from your beau?”

Luna quieted, teal waves floating down as guided by gravity around her. “I shouldn’t—my what?”

“Your beau,” Rarity repeated.

As her head twisted clockwise, it was thunderously clear that so did Luna’s brain in an effort of understanding. “I don’t know that word.”

“It’s Prench.”

“I am not Prench. Why do you talk to me in Prench?”

“I meant your coltfriend,” Rarity explained, slowly.

“He is not—the Prench have a word for Raegdan? When did my sister take him there?”

I am talking to a mare that is literally a millenia behind, Rarity admonished herself. Why am I using expressions that are only a few centuries old? That’s practically a new-fangled modernism for her. “No, Luna. It literally means ‘coltfriend’.”

“That makes more sense. But I can’t have him as my… bow? It is stealing. Deceiving. Forcing. Name it what you will, but I would have thought you, chosen to bear Generosity, would understand enough to know how despicable I am being.” Luna directed her harsh words to the floor.

“I understand enough to know it doesn’t work like that!” Rarity sputtered, covering the indignity she felt as the bitterness in her princess’—no, friend’s!—voice startled her. “Oh, my dear princess, you have it all wrong! You are not taking anything. You can’t,” she furiously assured her, seeing Luna’s darkening expression.

“It’s not up to you if you are given something, not unless the other party decides to give it to you. Companionship, love, friendship, you can’t take them. Their generosity lies in choosing to give them.”

Rarity walked to Luna’s side and carefully bumped her torso with her own in the gesture of being close.”So you see then, darling, that you worry over nothing. Why, if he chooses to give, it would be insincere, not to mention rude, to not receive that gift.”

A shy smile dashed for a second over Luna’s lips, and Rarity latched onto it. “I saw that,” she said, playfully forcing Luna to raise her chin and a simpering expression to be duplicated in both mares’ faces. “You believe me, of course. Let all this nonsense that has been filling your head fade away. After all—” Rarity, pushed her meager acting abilities to the limit, placed her hoof on her chest, and spoke as boastful as possible. “—I am the Bearer of Generosity. That is practically a doctorate.”

“I doubt this is how it works,” Luna said, but her smile and poise rose nevertheless.

The Princess turned aside, watching herself on the closest mirror. “Is this good enough? Mayhaps my mane should have been different? Perhaps… something akin to yours?”

“Even if we had the time, I would strongly urge against it. Your mane is fine, and your shoes will do just fine, I do not care that they are weighted. Unless you step on his feet, which I strongly discourage unless he runs his mouth. No more stalling; you are ready. Luna?”

“Yes?” the Alicorn answered, turning away from checking her teeth on the mirror’s surface.

“Luna,” Rarity repeated, and her lips lifted in a warm, satisfied smile. “You are going to have a wonderful evening.”

Luna’s face brightened in such a way that made all the hours Rarity spent on clothes and preparations worth it, even if it had cost her more in favors and bits than Luna would ever know. The Princess’ filly-like eye spark and shiver of anticipation cinched the deal.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, Luna’s hooves wrapped around Rarity, pulling her in a fierce hug. Rarity patted Luna’s sides even as she could hear her ribs creak. “Luna, dear, your dress. It will wrinkle.”

She heard Luna’s answer as a trembling whisper in her ear. “I’m sorry.”

“For what? Luna, I told you, this has been a pleasure. It’s no trouble at all—”

“For not… being as good a friend as you are.” Luna pulled back, and Rarity was once reminded how glorious the absence of a crushing sensation is. “And for thinking wrong of you.”

Rarity took to task straightening the folds and drapes of Luna’s dress in an attempt to hide her own pleased blush. She gave up almost instantly. She was overjoyed, and would not hide it. “Oh, please. You had made it painfully obvious in those first days that you had an affinity for expecting the worst. A few unpleasant, personal thoughts towards my person in the past is not that much of a deal.”

The Alicorn glanced at the door leading to the main section of Rarity’s boutique with a hint of unease and a shipload of stress, barely held at bay before turning back on one of her myriad reflected idols sparsed around the walls.

“I hope your efforts will be justified. I have an inkling of what fantasy you hold of tonight, and I assure you, Raegdan will not follow thy script. He shall not… I hold great doubt as to whether he will do as you described.” Luna chuckled dryly, her hoof petting the sleeve of her dress. “If he comes at all. How long has it been?”

“Luna, Luna, Luna.” Rarity reapplied a hint of lipstick to Luna’s lips to cover up the bite marks. The princess’ habit of biting her lips had to be stopped at one point, but now was not the time. It would only add one more point of anxiety if Rarity mentioned it. “You found a guardian angel in me. Who’s to say there’s not one watching over Raegdan as well? Have a little faith, please?”

My butt is frozen off,
Yet still I cling on,
But you take your time
‘Cause you’re a butt…

Uh… That’s why..?

Everypony had one talent at least, and the best one always manifested a monogram at the best place you needed an excuse for checking out. That did not, necessarily, exclude other talents. And then came a pony named Lyra, who could rhyme with the grace of a dancer on waxed marble floors. It was a slap from the gods of music, irony, and naming conventions, that’s what it was.

Lyra shivered and pulled the coat she was wearing tightly around her, disregarding the pinches from the inside. It was a humongous, brown monstrosity, more fit for a minotaur than a pony, and with huge lapels that almost hid her head completely.

Evening had set in and with it darkness, except for the few nests of light hovering below lamp-posts. She hadn’t seen anypony for the last twenty minutes. Winter had finally saw fit to reveal its teeth, and boy, were they sharp! And cold.

The corner Lyra was in protected her from sight and wind. She hid there, rubbing her legs under her coat, and waiting. With the wind not blowing straight into her ears the night was quieter. That’s how she was able to hear the muttering, carried by the wind to her position. She peeked around her refuge, and sighted her target.

“‘I’m here, are you ready to go?’ No, that sounds like I’m ordering her... ‘Good evening, you look amaz—’ I can’t say that. She’ll know it’s rehearsed.

“Say nothing? Say nothing. She’ll… think I don’t want to be there. Fuck!

“ ‘Ready to get this show on the road?’ Yeah, and then maybe I can do a moonwalk—never make that joke at her!”

A self-punishing slap followed his latest proclamation.

“‘Whoooo’s… hungry?’ Heavens help me, I think that’s the best one I’ve come up with.

“She’s with Rarity. She’ll certainly have dressed Luna up. Compliment her. Say… uh, say… ‘Nice color’?”

Lyra pushed her head deeper in the trash bags she had buried it in. Humor and mortification battled it out, and second hand shame had rushed in to buttchomp both opponents out and reign as the undisputed champion. But a job was a job. She dug herself out and called to him before she had the chance to hear him dig his own hole deeper.

“Psst! Hey. You, yeah you. Mister Fingers. Mister… Handy? Or should it be Mister Punchy? Whatever. Hey, stranger! Come here!”

Stopping with a deep, heavensward sigh, the dark figure changed its course. “Your mayor had me basically stripped, so I am letting you know straight out that if you called me to hear a crack about what I’m wearing, you’ll hear your spine crack.”

Despite his words, he had approached anyway. Lyra wasn’t enough of a fool to think it was curiosity. The tall biped was obviously looking for a reason to delay and think some more. Lost cause, if she was any judge.

It wasn’t the first time Lyra saw Raegdan, but they had never exchanged a word. Lyra liked to follow him around if she happened on him, rare as the sight of him without anypony escorting him was. She kept right behind him—though not in swinging distance, she wasn’t that much of an idiot—with her lyre in tow, playing non-stop.

Bon-bon thought she tried to soothe the beast with her music. Pinkie Pie had commended her on trying to be his friend. Applejack asked her how much did she value her lyre and why did she risk it. Rainbow Dash betted that if this worked she’d eat Lyra’s lyre. Mayor Mare had congratulated her on her attempt to make their guest interested in Ponyville’s rich culture.

What Lyra was actually trying to do was get under his skin and get him nettled.

He was a surprisingly tough mark despite what everypony said. Lyra even spent a whole day lying on some wood beams and went through almost her whole repertoire while he worked on his little construction project, and all she got for her troubles were a few nails thrown her way. The way everypony behaved she half-expected him to put her lyre around her neck and try to choke her with it as a hello. She felt thoroughly cheated so far. She wanted to be part of the fun.

“So?” Raegdan asked, standing in front of her.

“Got some rare things on sale, stranger!” Lyra said, sporting a wicked smile and getting back in the present and the reason she was here.

Raegdan pointedly glanced around them. “It’s eight o’clock in the evening. Everyone’s inside, and it’s cold enough to use a cut-off nipple as an arrowhead. I don’t believe you.”

“Aww, don’t be like that,” Lyra whined. “And here I was, thinking that you looked sharp on your way to your date, yet with your hands surprisingly empty.”

“It’s not a da—Hold on, what?”

Lyra grabbed the lapels of her coat and spread it open, revealing her body and all her other wares, the rush of cold air making her wheeze. “Got a selection of good things on sale, stranger,” she managed through jittering teeth.

Raegdan bent his knees to investigate further, his sole eye gleaming. “Oh. That’s… That’s actually a good idea. Okay, let’s see…” His hand reached inside. There was a pinch as he made his choice. “How much for that?”

Lyra grinned. Her hooves slowly brought his choice out with a flourish. “Stranger, stranger! Now that's a bouquet!” She put on a smile that would bring a saccharine elemental to shame. “That will be one hundred and fifty bits.”

Oooh, that might have worked a few days ago. Shame she didn’t have the chance before. Raegdan shrugged after a brief moment of struggle against his ‘finer’ instincts. “You gotta do what you gotta do, I suppose.”

At the height of his stomach, his hands were wringing an imaginary neck, Lyra saw.

“That’s the spirit!” Lyra egged him on, handing him the flowers. “What are two hundred bits worth against a smile?”

The eye flashed her with an image of her death. Almost scored, Lyra cheered inwardly.

“Nothing at all,” Raegdan admitted. Or so Lyra believed. It was hard to tell the words apart from the loud grinding of his teeth. “I don’t have that much on me—”

Lyra waved her hooves. “Say no more. I absolutely trust you. You will send Spike over with the money tomorrow, and if you don’t, no biggie. I’ll wait until you’ve left Ponyville, and then take them from Twilight. She’ll be so glad to pay me out of her own pocket.”

The wind blew harsher for a few seconds, whipping the free ends of Lyra’s coat around her, and all she felt was a murderous warmth, the likes you’d find in a full-grown, dragon’s belly or an incinerator. Then Raegdan nodded, took the flowers from her, and the heat was gone.

Lya wiped her hooves at a job well done. “Welp, last sale and all. Good luck on your date. I’ll be leaving, just as soon as… I start feeling my everything,” she said, tucking into her coat and back into her corner.

“It’s not a da—Forget it.” Raegdan held the bouquet of flowers straight and away from him as if it was a rabid animal. He moved a single step away, and stopped rigid. “Can I ask something before I go?”

“Yes, that is their normal smell,” Lyra assured him. “I didn’t hide them under my pits.”

“Funny.” Raegdan wasn’t smiling, staring at the bouquet as if it held a knife under his jaw. “Just out of curiosity. What is the… preferred thing to say when giving flowers?”

The neck of the coat was wrapped around Lyra’s head, and she had been exhaling into it for warmth, half listening to him. Mostly, she was day-dreaming. In her imagination she was wearing a hoodie; black, warm, and woolen. The monstrously tan coat would be gone, piled in a garbage pin, accumulated filth foaming up its waist. And as it would look up and shout “wear us!”... She would look down and whisper “No!”

Wait, what did he ask again?

The moonlight and distant lamplight illuminated him in a perfect angle to see his face—or what he didn’t hide behind that mask. One eye, the brow in a semi-circle of fear. The mouth almost without lips the way he strained them together, and the hint of the burns everypony whispered he was hiding under them.

His stance, strange and alien as he was to her pony eyes, was familiar in an absurd way.

Take a young colt. Give him unclear directions , and then leave him alone to find his way. Let him stumble for a few hours until, desperate now, decides to ask for help. Watch as the colt realizes how little it knows, how almost nothing was ever explained to him. The colt is lost, scared, and doesn’t know where to go and what to do. And its afraid to tell you that. So it asks, pretending to want to make sure, playing a role like an actor on a stage to hide behind it.

That’s what she saw.

She did not want to spend more time out here than she had to. She wanted to go home and pester Bon-bon into making her hot chocolate. Remove a few thorns from uncomfortable places. Take a hot bath. Annoy Bon-bon into making her a second mug of hot chocolate.

But Rarity promised her a warm hoodie. Beyond that, Lyra was a professional. When she took on a commission, no matter how much she was paid or the context, Lyra always gave it her best. Perhaps this job had nothing to do with music, but in a way it was about music all the time. There would be discordant notes if she balked, and she would not have that happen. She had one good thing, two if her friendship with Bon-bon counted, and she would not disappoint it.

And she didn’t want to shove her head among trash bags again when she found out through the grapevine what had happened. Jokes aside, it smelled, and now so did she.

She sighed as she stood up, and moved in front of him. “Alright. First things first. You don’t hold the flowers like that. You’re not going to stab her with them. Now, she won't probably know you bring them, it’s a surprise, so keep them behind your back, and when you take them out—Don’t slouch!—and give them to her, you will not say a thing. Especially not what I heard you trying out. Not even if it’s your life on the line. Just smile. No, try it again, this time like I’m not something you want to eat. Better. And if she says something like, ‘they are beautiful’, then you—’”

The lighting was low and comfortable. Candles and low-setted lights gave the restaurant a warm mahogany hue, almost reddish gold at places. Soft shadows cushioned the corners. Luna enjoyed it all, especially the bright sparks of candle flames across the restaurant floor, reminding her of stars. She felt she fit here.

It was all Luna could do not to stare at the rest of the diners. Half of them had chosen tables near the roaring fireplace, basking in its warmth and yellow light. The other half had chosen tables near the glass windows, and all too often they would turn and stare outside.

Where there was a clear view of Canterlot mountain outlined against the stars.

In her previous beliefs and experiences, almost everypony would have gone to their beds by now. But no, the restaurant would make a good profit this evening by the looks of it. Even as she watched, still unable to tear her eyes away for too long, a young couple strode outside after a very light and quick meal, eager to continue their night someplace else. The door closed behind them, and, her heart racing, Luna saw them both make a small pause despite the cold to look up at the starlight. Almost like a silent prayer.

It was as if watching her own most feverish and secret dreams slowly become true.

It wasn’t the first time Luna noticed something like this. In the last couple of days, ever since the paralyzing shadow of fear had diminished with Raegdan’s return from the Everfree Forest and the absence of explosives, she felt a change. An assurance that the world was now less threatening and she could enjoy it rejuvenated.

And in these couple of days, with the axe dangling over her neck gone and forgotten, she had been noticing miracles. At a window store she spotted telescopes for sale. Actual telescopes, made for night sky watching, sold to the common pony. Ponies sitting on porches during the night. That mint pony with the lyre, naming her melodies after stars and signs. A book in Twilight’s library cataloguing the best places to watch passing meteor showers and giving advice on which locations to select to avoid rushes and overcrowding.

Rushes and overcrowding! Of ponies, to watch the night sky!

There was still fear of her night. It had, in no terms, vanished or greatly diminished. The book, for instance, made note of some places to avoid as they were too close to danger, accidents and attacks that had been made… but ponies still went. Still rushed from what she read.

The rare pony would still only gaze at the stars for scant minutes at best under normal circumstances, and few would consider the idea of spending more of their night outside than needed. But even so, that was so much more than she expected. How much more could she give if she made the nights safer? She should be rushing herse—

She stopped, closing her eyes and mind to further thoughts. Slow. Steady. She would not burn herself out again. She would take no more deaths to herself, no more blame. She would raise her Guard until it rivalled and surpassed the Solar Guard in numbers and ability. She would not repeat her past mistakes with the Thestrals.

There was a pang of pain in Luna’s heart, almost imperceptible. What if you repeat it with him? it asked. She ignored it. It was a pin of doubt, not worth spending time on. She would take what she was given, not take by force. She was wiser now. She finally knew better.

One of the waiters, the same on that was patiently waiting a respectable distance away for them to call her, had led them to their table in a semi-secluded area. Far enough from the other patrons that they would have some privacy, but close enough to not be isolated and comforted by the soft, soothing chatter of ponies. Raegdan had never gotten the chance to speak; the pony at the entrance called for their waitress as soon as they appeared at the door, and seconds later they were seated.

She found it considerably strange at first how a small restaurant in Ponyville had a chair and table able to accommodate both him and her despite their height differences. It did make some sense once you calculated Rarity into the equation. A more careful look after that showed off more of Rarity’s touches that Luna would have thought possible.

The restaurant itself seemed to be in disguise. Cloth and paper wrappers tinged the overhead lights. The chairs and tables had been covered expertly so as to hide their frame and make them seem plushier, while the curtains that covered certain walls and giving the room this undeniable softness proved to be no more than unmodified cloth. It fell in waves in such a way though that it was almost impossible to tell.

Luna wondered how many ponies were here to see the two of them, and how many because of the unique chance they were given because of Rarity’s plotting to have a romantic night with their other half.

Raegdan across her was almost a faceless, reddish shadow, the only light part on his the reflection of the brightest candles on his pupil and his cufflinks as he rested his hands on the table, fingers dressed in his gloves and interlaced.

It was a big reason of why Luna spent some time examining her surroundings. She was giving him some time to calm down, or truth be told, to give some to herself. Here they finally were, after a small, silent trek through silent Ponyville, and she had no idea what she was supposed to do or say now.

Part of her hoped Raegdan would do something. He would, would he not? What if it was she who was supposed to begin… their talk? She glanced at the waitress, hoping to get a hint on whether she was supposed to call her and begin their orders.

He must have known something about how to progress. She was certain. He had arrived at Rarity’s fully prepared, holding a beautiful stash of flowers for her, presenting them to her with unexpected eloquence, and a smile that Luna safeguarded in her heart and dare not revisit for fear of dulling the memory.

Luna wished she held those flower now, if only to have something to keep busy with or talk about. Alas, Rarity kept them at her place, telling Luna she would bring them to her residence later.

Raegdan kept his eyes on the table, not looking at her or giving her a semblance of what her role was. She did what she always did when she didn’t know. She let the shadows cover her and half-hide her in case her stony facade crumbled and revealed her weakness.

After a minute or so he was messing with the tableware set in front of them, the empty plates, and the silverware. She watched him prod the sharpness of the fork tines with his gloved fingers. He tested out the thinness of the paper towels, and, exhaling nervously, he glanced towards the exit while his finger tapped the empty glass in front of him.

The waitress, a young mare with her rose mane wrapped in a ponytail, was at the side of their table at once. Luna almost suspected a teleportation spell, but no, she was an Earth pony.

“I am so sorry, Princess, Sir. Your appetizers will be here shortly, but of course you’d like something to drink first. May I suggest some spiced, hot wine to remove the chill of the evening?” The waitress voice was soothing and quiet, fit for lulling ponies to sweet sleep.

Luna made a mental note that tapping the empty glass was a sign towards the personnel. Raegdan must have known—or perhaps more accurately, had a similar tradition in his old home or he had seen Celestia do something similar. That would explain his surprise at it working. Customs were always so confusing for her as well.

No more than half a minute later the waitress had returned with a ceramic, covered jug. The waitress poured into two mugs, ceramic as well. Luna leaned her muzzle forward, soaking in the warm vapours and the smell of spices.

Raegdan lowered his mug quickly, spilling a drop on the table. He breathed inwards, mouth open and trying to cool it by rapidly inhaling. “Okay, when she said it was hot, she meant really hot!” he said, pouring water into a tall glass and drinking it hastily.

Pursing her lips, Luna blew across the surface of the mug. The steam danced and new ribbons rose as soon as she stopped, and with them the aroma of spices became overpowering. She sipped carefully, allowing the tiniest amount to drip into her mouth. The taste of sweetened wine, cinnamon, and nutmeg, unfolded on her tongue.

It made its way down her throat and into her stomach. True to the waitress’ word, she could feel it warming her up. She settled for a few minutes in the basking of the warmth and taste.

“This is very pleasant,” Luna commented to her closest friend almost unconsciously. She tensed for an instant at her first words of the evening, discounting her stammering thanks when Raegdan gave her the flowers. She pushed the awkwardness away with a little effort. It was a better ice-breaker than anything she could have come up with otherwise.

Raegdan’s head turned left and right, his eye weaving across every corner and surface as he misconstrued what she meant. Luna did not correct him.

“I… suppose it is,” he committed in an unsure tone, after some deliberation. “The important part is that you like this place. You do like it, right?”

A smile graced Luna’s lips, and she felt much more at ease. Nothing wore down anxiety better than helping somepony else fight down theirs. “Very much so. The wine, too, which is what I was actually referring to. Are you not going to drink any more?” She noticed he had laid it to the side after two shallow sips.

His finger pushed the mug a centimeter further away from him. “Too rich in taste for me. And I’m not forgetting that you haven’t removed the threat to my groin if I start drinking again.”

Luna almost spat her drink out. She had completely forgotten that. She used a napkin to wipe her chin delicately—Red Dawn’s lessons paying off—and voiced her mirth as choked laughter. “I think we can… waylay that one for tonight.”

He glanced at the still steaming mug, only to shrug. “Maybe. It’s easier to keep as it is that diving back only to have to get out again. But then again...”

“You could also remove your gloves. It’s too dark for anypony to notice.”

“You are supposed to eat here,” Raegdan responded.

“I don’t mind—”

“No. Gloves stay on.”

Feeling the conversation die, Luna racked her brain for a way to continue it, but was saved by the return of the waitress. “Princess, Sir, your appetizers. Please, enjoy.”

As she spoke, pushing a small lock of her mane behind her ear, two new plates were laid in front of them with an astounding degree of efficiency and graceful movements while replacing their wine mugs with tall glasses of high class, non-mulled wine.

Luna supposed she was describing their dish, but she only caught half of it as anxiety had returned at the suddenness of the moment, questions buzzing in her mind on whether she had to move, help, or comment back.

She inspected the plate. She had caught the word scallops, and she found it slightly strange that ponies in the mainland had a taste for fish-food. In her experience so far, it was an acquired taste of coast and river villages, borne of necessity, but Luna would be the first to admit she was a little behind on current events. Apparently, the practice had spread.

The scallops were served on a bed of fruit slices, fruit she wondered if she had ever tasted before, and marinated with dressing and onions, accompanied by a sweet smell. Appetizers was the right word. Her stomach silently rumbled, craving the delicacy in front of her.

“We haven’t ordered,” Raegdan said, confused, and Luna looked up, sparing a last glance at the plate in front of her. Perhaps it had been for the best she hadn’t given in to the urge to take a bite. They knew almost all, but almost wasn’t all—

The waitress finished placing their previous mugs on her serving cart. “Your dinner and menu reservations had already been placed by Miss Rarity, Sir. If you wish to make a different order I can bring you a menu.”

“No, no. That’s alright,” Raegdan cut her off. “Rarity’s choice will do fine. As long as there’s no hay in it, it will do. Thank you.”

The waitress left them alone again, and Luna turned to her food. It was just as juicy and even tastier than it looked. She was about to comment about it to Raegdan, when she noticed what he was doing.

“Raegdan,” she chided him quietly, taking care not be heard by the other patrons and hoped he hadn’t been noticed by them already. “Do not use your fingers to pick them up. Use your fork!”

He did as she said, but not before, Luna noted with distaste, sucking the juice out of his fingers. “Sorry. It felt easier.” He barely chewed as he ate, almost swallowing each piece whole.

Luna kept eating, assuring him it was alright and an easy mistake. Yet Raegdan remained silent, and after a few minutes Luna noticed how he was sullenly watching her fork move. She used it to pierce the scallop from above in an angle as she had been taught, and rested it on the plate’s side as she chewed. Raegdan, meanwhile, always kept his gripped, never resting it down. The tip circled the air in unrest.

“Is something the matter?” Luna finally asked. “If you are not enjoying the food…”

“I’m eating, don’t I?” He swallowed another piece to prove it to her.

“Is my fork seducing you? Are those naughty, naughty tines too wide open for you?”

His palm covered his mouth just in time to stop him from spritzing her with half-chewed seafood. “Heavens, you will be the death of me,” he breathlessly said after drowning his laugh against his glove.

Luna bid him to lean over. She cleaned the area around his mouth and mask with a napkin while he wiped his hand clean. She did it with nary a thought apart her usual worry of infection on the wounds of his face that he kept out of sight.

Rarity lowered the binoculars and held them against her chest. She let a loud sigh out as satisfaction and what she saw warmed her far more than her dark green clothing and the bush’s leaves.

“Aww. It is just like in ‘Wither Heights’,” she crooned, before hurriedly replacing her binoculars. She didn’t want to miss a single moment.

Her magic brought the cup of warm coffee to her lips after she took the first victorious bite out of her glazed, warm donut. Pinkie Pie is a saviour, she thought. If only I could figure out how she could have possibly guessed I would be here...

“No. Just… noticing something,” Raegdan finally said, pointing at her plate. “You are eating differently. Like Celestia.”

Luna blushed, feeling pleased, despite her skepticism of whether it was meant as a compliment. Luna wrote it off as him feeling admonished. “Thank you. I’m glad that my lessons with Red Dawn have stuck. I would have scarcely noticed the resemblance myself if you hadn’t brought it up.”

Despite his previous statements, Raegdan reached for his wine glass after all. “Yeah. It’s just as well. You’ve been spending almost all your waking hours with them. It would be such a horrible, horrible shame if it had gone to waste.”

Luna smiled, hoping to tease him a little. “Perhaps we should arrange some lessons for yourself. If we are to do this more often, then you should be able to tell when to use the fork at the very least.”

Raegdan lift his finger in a gesture that meant for her to wait a second as he guzzled the glass empty. “No, thanks. I get enough of their company during training and when we leave for hunts. I don’t want any extra time with them.” He replenished his glass, holding his hand palm up when the waitress made a motion to approach.

“It would do you good,” Luna insisted. “You barely speak to any of them save Leaf Stream, and that is mostly trading sharpened words or, if I understand correctly by the complaints I overhear, the two of you acting out a two-pronged assault on whoever pony lags behind. You would benefit greatly from them knowing you as more other than the figure that relishes punishing them. They could be your companions.”

He frowned at the thought as if it was loathsome. “I really don’t want them to be. Don’t we have enough friends as it is?”

Luna couldn’t help the smirk on her lips. “Oh yes. We are absolutely swimming in abundance. We are positively spoiled for choice!”

“I have you,” he said, and just like that she silenced.

“Oh.” That was the best she could manage. “Could not that change?” Luna proposed after feeling calmer. “You care for others, like me, Twilight, Cadance, and more. Why not them?”

“Are you kidding me?” he asked, slightly affronted. “What do they have in common with the rest of you?”

“One that comes to mind, is that—” Luna was interrupted by the approaching waitress who was eyeing Luna’s empty plate and Raegdan’s that had gone untouched for a while.

“May I serve the soup, Princess?” The waitress asked, shuffling her hooves slightly. Luna realized that the mare had been waiting in the periphery of her sight for some time, and was anxious over interrupting them.

“Yes, of course,” Luna said, though it didn’t feel like it. Plates of hot soup replaced their deplenished appetizers, and Luna did not bother even listening to what it was made of, her spoon stirring the milky liquid absently.

Her tail barely swishing, lest she annoy their customers, the waitress left once more, carrying their used plates, to discreetly await nearby. Luna held her tongue until Raegdan and her were alone.

“As I was saying, you care for those you do because you know them. No more, no less. I do know that you care for our guards as well, as much as you deny it. Tell me true,” Luna challenged, scooting closer to him over the table and pushing her soup aside before her dress accidentally stained. “Would you care about Spike if you had never met him?”

Raegdan’s puzzlement deserved to be enshrined. He looked at her as if she spoke mad gibberish. “What kind of question is that? Of course not.”

“Therefore,” Luna said, leaning back and relishing a victorious spoonful at last, “all that mattered was that he was close to you. A quality that can be potentially shared by anypony.” She frowned, and wiped her mouth. “A little too much leek, I believe. Or is it just me?”

Raegdan held the spoon in front of his eyes, the light reflecting on it giving the silver metal a bronze hue. “It’s the spoon that’s getting to me. It’s going to take ages to finish it with this one. Don’t they have larger ones? Maybe I could just drink it in one go out of the bowl.” He let the spoon sink in the soup, as if half bored at the prospect of eating it. “And I’m not sure I get the point of what you are trying to say. Sounds like what Solid Charge or one of the rest would say rather than you,” he added, his left hand nervously tapping on the table.

“I may have taken a few ideas and views from them as they seem worth testing out,” Luna admitted. “The point was that everypony is, or can be, equally important and thus worth knowing.”

She paused for a second, feeling a mysterious wave of slight nausea rising up from her chest. When it petered off, she continued. “It is a thought, is it not? And you could afford to take it slow. Do you even taste what you eat?”

“No. And I like it that way, thank you very much. It really helps when eating someone’s foot,” he said with a wide, proud grin before settling down in a comfortable silence.

Luna enjoyed her dish, taking pleasure in each warm spoonful. Her friend ate with his usual method, rarely letting anything stay in his mouth longer than needed until it could make it down his throat.

He had noticed the bread left for them, and he ripped into it, seeming to take far more joy into it that any delicacy or carefully prepared meal. He was chewing thoughtfully when he spoke, quietly. “It doesn’t work like that though. Everyone being important. That’s stupid.”

“Oh?” Luna rested her head against her hoof, waiting to listen. “Where do you stand your reasoning on claiming that?” she asked, genuinely curious for his retort.

Raegdan clapped his hands together, clearing them of crumbs. He gestured towards one of the two candles on their table, his palm hovering next to the flame. “Let’s take this candle. It lights up our table and gives us this sense of... luxury and warmth. It is important because it does these things for us, right? But what if we sat over there?”

The table he was pointing at, near one of the distant corners of the restaurant, had its candles lit, but was empty.

“What would this candle be to us then? Just a pinprick of light that has nothing to give us. It could burn forever or gutter out and die, and it would make no difference. Same as those back there.”

“But you know it is important,” Luna argued. Speaking honestly, she saw his point, and something in her, too abstract to call a voice and too indeterminate to call an instinct, told her not to contest the point. “Their value is still valid. They are only waiting for a pony to take a seat.”

Raegdan spread his hands, palms up. “So what? We already have our candle. And if we were outside, what then? Should we care for the candlelight when all we can do is sit outside and watch others who have plenty of that? It would be great for them, but us? A fart would have more value. It could at least warm your nostrils up for a second.”

“The candles would still burn their light nevertheless.”

“Whether this burns—” His fingers surrounded the flame and snuffed it. Luna heard the flame sizzle against the leather, and wisps of blue-gray smoke rose mournfully over the extinct wick. “—or not, doesn’t matter at all. No. This candle was and would never be important if we didn’t sit here. It’s as simple as that.” He relit it using its brother on the other side.

“You could change your seat.” The words escaped Luna before she knew she had thought of them.

Raegdan paused. “What?”

“The candles. They matter if you are able to move and change your seat. You’re not obligated to stay in one seating.”

They both viewed their surroundings. “Well,” Raegdan said, baffled. “I never said my example was perfect. Not every allegory is gold.”

Luna soaked a piece of a bread slice in her soup and brought it to her mouth. “Perhaps. Let’s talk of something else. How about a game?”

“I have one, I have one,” Luna cheered, laughing and clapping her hooves together in excitement. “The sea. Go!”

Raegdan scoffed at her challenge as he sat sideways on his seat, one arm draped behind its back. “Hah, easy. Alright. I was walking down a beach, searching for any old boat I could repair,” he started, raising his finger up and demanding attention. “Suddenly, a guy popped out of a huge conch shell. He was old as hell, and his beard reached down to his belly. His naked belly, let me add. If being covered in barnacles was not enough, he had a ton of shrimps tangled in his beard.”

“Shrimps lived in his beard?”

“No. So, as you can tell, he didn’t quite emit the fragrance of lemons and rose petals,” Raegdan continued, ignoring her giggles. “So, out of the conch he comes—farting so hard and long I thought there had to be another guy in there playing a trumpet—sees me, and says that he will grant me three wishes because my heart was pure.”

If any of the other patrons were annoyed or perplexed by her loud laughter, Luna did not know nor care. “Oh, m-my stars. W-What did you d-do then?” she asked, barely able to articulate, after wiping her tears with a napkin. She kept it at the ready for more.

“Tripped him and stole his pants.”

A fresh, dry napkin replaced her used one and Luna pressed it against her mouth, hoping it lessened the volume of her laughter. “W-Why would you d-do that?”

Scratching the back of his neck, Raegdan stared anywhere but Luna. “Obviously because I didn’t have any myself. I think I remember I needed a torch in a hurry and had nothing else to burn, before that part.”

“How many times have you had to put fire to your own trousers?”

“So, your turn?” Raegdan deflected. “I choose sleep.”

She tapped at her chin, thinking. “Sleep, sleep… I believe I have one that might suit the purpose. Stalwart Shield, before he became part of our Guard belonged to the Royal Guard, correct?”

“He keeps telling everyone about how I kicked him once like it was a medal I gave him, so yes.” Raegdan nodded with deadly seriousness.

“A thought occurred to me approximately six weeks ago. What if he was numbered under those with false theological beliefs about the status of my sister?”

“You mean if he thinks she is a god?”

“Goddess, but yes.” Luna smiled in anticipation. “I decided to test this. I delved into his dreams, filling it with the trappings of religion. Icons, books, altars and temples. But no being to worship. I gave him an empty frame that would be filled by his subconscious.”

Fully leaning on the table with both elbows now, Raegdan’s fingers met in front of his lips in thought. “Nothing but sun and Celestia’s butt as far as the eye could see, right?”

“No,” Luna winced. “It was nothing but moon and my butt as far as the eye could see.”

Twin slap sounds met her reveal. Raegdan had covered his eyes, and the laughter was disguised by a deep, intermittent growl as he forbade it from climbing higher than his throat. Some of the closest patrons shot a few worried glances and chairs scraped the floor as the closest ones made sure they had a clear path to the door.

“Y-You appeared in his dream, didn’t you?” Never had a person made a query that sounded this much like pleading.

“It would have been a sin not to. Pun not intended,” she added after a second’s thought. “As soon as I materialized Stalwart Shield gave off a scream that could make a Diamond Dog’s head explode. You know the one. Like yours the other—”

“Yes, I know the one, thank you,” Raegdan gnashed through his teeth. “Raven let me know as well.”

“And then he started trying to hide everything behind his back lest I see it.”

“Hide what? Wasn’t there a temple and all?”

“Indeed. But it all took place in a dreamscape wherein the impossible is feasible. On the other hoof, every loud thought or fear of his would materialize, conscious or subconscious.” Luna waited, giving time to Raegdan to think it over. He blinked, stared vacantly, and then barked loudly in laughter.

“I put an end to it when Stalwart Shield manifested an intricate statue of my front half in his right hoof, and the equally life-like statue of my back half on his left. Did you know that in dreams it is attainable to create golden buttcheeks that quiver and jiggle with every motion?”

The plates and silverware danced in a pummeling rhythm provided by Raegdan’s fist. “Oh heavens, that explains so much. He’s been hiding from me! He probably thought you’d told me.”

“The potential for entertainment in the future is limitless. If we let him know you have been informed and play a pretense of misunderstanding his intentions, we could have a lovely time.”

“I win this round though. The keyword was sleep, not dream,” Raegdan reminded.

The pony at the entrance of the restaurant was thanking a leaving couple for their patronage. Luna had taken note of him, and had been aware, waiting to watch so she would know how to respond when leaving.

“Dreams are the logical outcome of slumber and should be incorporated into the keyword. The fault lies in how you failed to properly define your challenge.”

The couple thanked the proprietor as well, and Luna almost turned away, figuring out it was simple after all.

“Maybe I did because I knew, I fucking knew, you would get yourself disqualified. And I was proven right. I’m finally in the lead on a game for once. Stop being salty.”

Then, the stallion helped his date into her jacket, and when they were done they exchanged a quick kiss on the lips before going through the exit, side by side.

“Could we have that?”

She didn’t mean to speak out loud.

“Salt?”

“I don’t mean that! What I mean is—is… I meant to s-say that w-we… What are we here for?” Luna stammered, ignoring the molten cores that were assuredly nested in the space between her cheeks and teeth. “You know that this was arranged so this could happen.”

Raegdan ducked his head. Luna followed his gaze, and for a moment she believed she spotted his hands shake. If they did, they stopped before she could be sure. The tips of his fingers pressed hard against the tablecloth, almost clawlike in their shape, and unmoving.

“I thought we were having dinner,” he said, his mouth an almost invisible straight line.

“You are playing the fool,” Luna said, supporting her weight on her front hooves placed on the table. She leaned forward. “I saw through your flustering. You knew how to act when you appeared with flowers. You knew from the very beginning what I wanted. I want this. Us. I want… I want…”

She was drifting to him slowly as she talked, her magic slowly moving candles and plates aside to make space for her in between. She closed her eyes as she moved close enough, her lips lightly pursed.

A finger pressed on her muzzle, sudden enough to give her pause. When it pushed her back, she obliged unconsciously.

Why fight it? She had tried, and had been rejected.

Raegdan did not look upon her as the whispers and fears hounding her claimed he would. There was patience, stretched and thin, and if she wished she could see more, a benevolence to what she had articulated, she would heartily take this fatigued sentiment over the alternatives.

“What do you want, Luna?”

He sounded as hurt as she felt.

Her hoof moved in a semicircle, encompassing their surroundings. “I want what they all have,” she vented. “I want some normalcy, I want—”

“You want what they have and you never did,” Raegdan interrupted her. “You want… something I can’t give. But you want to try anyway because the best option you have is the one person on the planet who looks as different as possible from—”

“This is not true!”

Only the constant reminder of reserving her pitiful magic and not making a grand show of how little she had any more kept Luna at bay, stopping her from creating a massive spectacle. If she had her full abilities, if she didn’t have a reason to restrain herself…

… She was glad she no longer had her old power.

“Maybe it’s not,” Raegdan conceded. He ran his hand over his head, and Luna sorely missed how he would do it without that black cloth on his head. For a second she missed the sight of him running his fingers through his hair in frustration more than anything else.

“But there’s a little grain of truth in there, I think. What do you want, Luna? What do you expect? A kiss and then we go back, and… then what? What will change? We tried that. You can’t, I don’t care about it, what is left? Do you just want to show off that you have someone, is that it?”

She breathed deeply through her nostrils. She was in public, and would not let her composure lost where ponies would know and mock. “Mayhaps. Spike wanted to show that you are his, if not to others then to himself. Is it a sin to share his desire?”

Raegdan nodded. “It might be,” he said, and it hurt. “They don’t like me, Luna. Spike is one thing, no one could keep anything against him, but you—”

“They don’t like you because you make it so!”

His palm hit the table. Pale shadows danced at the tremors. “And that’s what I am supposed to do! If something goes wrong, then I can be blamed. If they claim you are being influenced they will point at me instead of thinking of Nightmare Moon! If we need to do something drastic, then I can do it and no one will blame you because they don’t believe you have much control over me. They have to dislike and hate me, not you!”

“Expendable.” Luna spat the word out with all the hate she could muster.

“If it comes to that. Right now this situation is a joke, the pet that dreams of being more. No one really believes it. If it becomes reality it will only make things worse for you. Why are we even talking about this? We have too much on our plate as it is.”

“Not as much as we used to. The Tree of Harmony is gone, remember?” Luna reminded him.

Raegdan lowered his head in shame, almost. He should, as far as Luna was concerned. One of their major goals accomplished, and he thought she wouldn’t understand they had far greater freedom now?

“They are gone! The Elements are finally gone!” Luna sighed in relief. “I no longer have to fear them. Why should you still have to play this role? There is no need anymore! We can—”

“Celestia hasn’t said anything,” Raegdan interrupted her.

“So?” Luna questioned, not understanding why that should matter. Why he kept his thoughts on Celestia still, why when he told her again and again—

“I—no.” Luna shook her head, swallowing the knot in her throat. “There are a hundred reasons we haven’t heard from her.”

“If Celestia hasn’t said anything at all about the Elements losing their power, if she hasn’t raised the alarm, then there are only two reasons. Either she hasn’t noticed or nothing happened to them.”

“You mean…”

“We don’t know what the Tree, if anything, has to do with the Elements!” Raegdan hissed, lowering himself down as if whispering to Luna’s ear, a fake smile plastered on his face that Luna tried her best to copy lest anypony watching.

“But you destroyed it. You did it yourself, it’s broken. The whole cave came down, you said! It’s gone!”

“It might have nothing to do with them after you and her took them off it or it might be where they draw their power from. Or, and we didn’t think of that, it might be it has already charged them and they can still be used.”

She pressed her hooves on the table as hard as she could to still their shaking. “They might still be able to be used… What do we do? What do we do?”

His hand gripped her hoof, and the other one followed suit. His touch helped. “What we did before. Listen, as long as you keep your head down you will be fine. Nothing has happened so far, right? Worse comes to worst, it takes all six of them to use them, that hasn’t changed—”

“No!”

She spoke too loud. Some ponies were turning to stare, and Luna pretended to lean closer to Raegdan. It worked perfectly. Already, they were all turning their heads away, steering away from her personal life to a degree that would work to her benefit.

“We a-are not h-hurting any o-of t-them,” she stammered. It was like climbing a mountain while an avalanche was speeding down towards you. She had believed herself to be safe, and now…

She could remember almost nothing. Just a feeling of weightlessness at most, one that stood like a curtain covering the beast behind it. But it was a curtain as fragile as a web, one she could easily pierce through with the merest attempt.

And when she dreamed, she could not control her own dreamscape. She was not outside the dream, free to shape and sculpt it. She was trapped in it, and could only conform to the shape it took.

When she dreamed, she lived it again. There was no breathing, no beating of her heart, no pulse. No sight, no sound, no sun nor stars to measure the passage of time. It turned a moment into an eternity.

She had kept trying to scream and cry, but she no longer had a mouth. She could only scream in her head, and so she did. It never helped. All she wanted was to scream, to vocalize her rended heart until her throat bled and she could no longer move and unconsciousness claimed her.

She knew why this had happened to her. She knew all the reasons, all the victims, all the charges and excuses. And after spending a thousand years there, she had come out of it with one conclusion; It wasn’t fair.

There was no mercy. She had no body to tire. There was no relief. Just voiceless screams and a timeless, senseless void. She shrieked nevertheless, she begged and pleaded with thoughts as hard as steel, and nothing came out of it. Nothing ever would. The world, the universe, life, magic… they all didn’t care.

She wondered sometimes, how long had passed in the world until she went mad in there? A century? Two?

Less than a week?

“Luna, if it comes to that—”

“T-The g-g-girls a-are to stay un-unharmed,” Luna reiterated. The pressure of her eyelids were the only safeguard against the threat of tears. “If it’s… If it’s a c-choice between me going back there a-and them being h-hurt… You… You don’t h-hurt them! Not one of them!”

She felt his fingers brush against her cheek and then into her mane, massaging her scalp and the base of her ear. Foul leather texture, but it was his fingers, and that was enough. “I won’t. Don’t worry about that. Besides, you have a shield. As long as I’m around, you are safe.”

“We don’t even know if your immunity is enough to s-stand against them!” she almost sobbed, the speed at which everything becoming bleak once again overpowering her.

Light as a feather, his fingers opened her eyes and she saw him smile softly at her. “Yeah we do. The Tree didn’t manage to stop me, did it? The Elements have the same magic. You will be fine, Luna. Trust me. And hey, they still the actual things, right? All we need is get one of them. That’s all.”

She trusted him. She was going to be fine. She had been so far, much longer than she had thought possible. “Yes. I am… I am better now. It might prove to be nothing either way. Maybe Celestia hasn’t noticed or there is nothing to tell her what happened. It might have worked for all we know. We are fine. Fine.”

“I think we’d better go. Go home and get some sleep, what do you say?”

“I agree. I’m sorry, I… I hoped we could do more. Make more of this night. I hoped… for so much.”

His finger playfully tapped her muzzle. “We still had our fun. Maybe we will repeat it again, who knows? Some time in the future, when… things have changed.”

“With a different outcome, one wishes,” Luna said, hopefully.

Raegdan’s smile hid behind a black cloud. “Luna, I don’t think I can—”

Luna lowered her head, thinking that she shouldn’t have hoped, when Raegdan’s palm caught her chin.

“I don’t think that’s out of the question. Sure. We’ll see sometime in the future. Right this moment, there is another matter that demands your attention.” Raegdan raised his arm, signalling at the waitress.

“Can I help you, Sir?” the waitress asked. She glanced at Luna, frowning at the way the Alicorn slightly heaved before her eyes widened. She shot Luna a precocious wink, and turned back to Raegdan, misunderstanding completely.

“Can we get our dessert really quick before we leave?”

“Dessert?” Luna asked, perking up.

“Certainly. I will bring them up right now.”

“W-What’s the dessert?” Luna asked Raegdan after the waitress left.

Raegdan half-stood, peering over everypony’s heads. “I should have asked. Well, I can’t see that clearly from here, but it looks like large bowls of dark chocolate,” he said, almost laughing. “And they… oh. No, I was wrong. Now they are pouring the chocolate. Heavens, are they trying to murder us by sugar?”

“Oh my stars! Can we get seconds?” She imitated him and looked over the seating ponies, ignoring any thoughts of propriety. She could just make out the bowls that Raegdan talked about being loaded on a tray, and a quiet squeal of glee escaped her when taking note of the size.

“You can have mine if you—” Raegdan’s hands ran over his pockets before he swore in his language.

“What?”

Raegdan sat down, leant forward, and urgently whispered to Luna. “I completely forgot to take any money with me! Now what?”

Luna covered her eyes with her leg and burst out laughing, feeling much better.

“That was a fucking disgrace,” Raegdan grumbled as they walked side by side.

“I do not understand why,” Luna said honestly.

“I’m the guy. I’m supposed to be the one who pays the bill. I had one job!”

“Oh, is this how it goes? Let’s take this road. It’s longer, but this dress hangs too low and I would rather not ruin Rarity’s hard work on a dirt path.”

“I… think? Yes. Yes, that’s how it goes. I’m supposed to pay the bill and—I didn’t pull your chair for you to sit, did I?”

“You did not.”

“Fuck!”

“Was that an important part or custom?”

Raegdan lifted three fingers. “Two jobs. I had two jobs.”

“That’s three fingers.”

He lowered two of them, leaving the tallest of them still standing and pointing upwards with the fist’s top towards himself. “I was saving this one for me; I deserve it.”

“If you are worried over some kind of ridicule, then I would not dare reminisce recent events,” Luna advised. “Besides, I did not pay either. You can be the one to go over tomorrow and pay our debt if it means that much to you. It is wonderful how accommodating everypony in Ponyville has been so far, is it not?”

“I suppose there must have been a reason that Twilight has been singing its praises,” Raegdan conceded, kicking a pebble with the animosity only reserved for those not possessing a groin to aim at and hoped double the force would be a good enough trade.

“My sister must have had a good reason to send her here, after all.”

“It is the closest settlement to your old castle, that’s why.”

Luna lost a step and fell behind. “That… That can’t be simply it. This place is special.”

Raegdan shrugged and kept his pace, two steps ahead from her. “It’s not that different from other villages and small towns according to her.”

“It’s not?”

“Nope. In fact,” he said, shaking a finger upwards, “she claims it’s not even that different from how they used to be in your time. That’s another reason she liked the idea of us coming here. She thought you’d feel more comfortable than Canterlot.”

“They are all so… nice here. I thought it was because of Twilight or-or the rest of them,” Luna confessed, glancing at the wooden structures around her, bewildered.

The point was that everypony is, or can be, equally important and thus worth knowing.

How could her voice sound so natural when she felt her windpipe constricting? Or was it her chest where she felt that undeniable pressure building?

“Then… Does that mean that… everypony has always been like… them?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? People don’t really change. Mostly they just pretend to be otherwise.” She couldn’t see Raegdan clearly anymore. Her vision, her precious eyes that hadn’t let darkness keep any secrets from her for so long were finally failing her. She barely saw the shadowy blurr that was his arm move next to his ear in dismissal.

“Don’t get me wrong, there are pricks here as well, but from my experience you find them mostly in bigger places,” Raegdan continued. “This is more often than not as good as it gets. That’s why the city pricks rush to such places when the shit comes flowing. It’s easy to take it from these guys. Though you might have a point. I think this place is probably among the best you can get.”

They matter if you are able to move and change your seat.

She hadn’t. She moved but never sat down, never knew them. She moved from one to the next, ignoring the candlelight and—

You forced me and my friends to help you and you do not even remember? My friends, my brother, got eaten by those worm monsters! You told us to make noise to attract them back and then you left. You left us alone to become their meal! Where were you?

She wasn’t there. She didn’t care. Why should she? She didn’t know them, they didn’t matter, they were nothing. But if they were like the ponies she met here… Did she… Did she drag a Rarity out to her death? How many Twilight Sparkles died when she lead them to the dark, how many brave guards like her very own had she killed when—

I don’t want to die, please, help me, somepony help me!

She had done this so many times.

Mom! I want to go home! Mommy! Help, help!

When the image from the sonic device had shown the twin foals in her womb, the love shared in the wordless look the expectant parents shared was almost palpable in the air. Luna could almost feel it setting on her like gentle snow. They were just… parents. Parents who loved their children already.

Spare my children, please, they are too young, please!

Children like Rarity’s sister. Applejack’s sister. The young pegasus filly that followed them. Young Spike.

I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, dig me out, out, out, outoutoutout

All of them candles, and she had been the wind that blew them out without ever noticing the warmth, the light, the love, she just moved and moved and moved, flames guttering out wherever she went, gargling in blood, because she did not care, she did not know they were all special, she didn’t want to know they were all special, they were all special, they were all like this place, like the ponies she knew, like her guards, like these precious mares that became her friends, and she never cared, never cared, never cared—

Spike, for some unfathomable reason that Twilight would never be able to unearth unless she thought for zero point one seconds, wanted to stay up over his usual bedtime and keep her company. Weirdly enough, he kept her company in the library where they could watch the door and not their little flat upstairs or the kitchen.

No questions or jests were done. If there were, then the other one would ask why the first questioner stayed up as well, and neither of them wanted that. Instead, they just drank tea after tea. And every now and then, they visited the bathroom in turns.

Their vigil came to an end with Rarity’s weight crashing onto their door full force.

Spike and Twilight were not given time to ask any questions. If the sight of Rarity sweating and shivering hadn’t given them pause, then Raegdan’s entry would. He was carrying Luna in his arms, the Alicorn tucked into a tight bundle with what must have once been a beautiful dress now covered in mud and torn at places. He kicked the door that led to the basement open, and slammed it close with his shoulder.

There was a minute of silence, briefly broken by the heavy footsteps as they descended behind the closed door. Then just silence.

Then Twilight spoke. “What in the name of Tartarus happened?”

“I don’t know!” Rarity wailed, breaking out of her stillness. Her leg reached blindly for support, and Spike was there in an instant to guide her to the couch.

A hastily reheated cup of tea later, a few pillows to support her, and the ruination of every tissue Twilight had, Rarity was finally in position to speak in non-breaking syllables. “Everything was going… not perfect, but good enough!” she rushed out. “There was no-no… They left the restaurant laughing!”

“Was it an attack? Did somepony try to hurt them?” Spike asked. He picked up a hammer Raegdan had forgotten on the counter and sneaked to the side of the window to peek out of.

“No. I… At least I don’t think so! Careful with that, Spike,” Rarity cautioned. “They were on their way here, I was coming along from some distance behind, and suddenly Luna collapsed, just… I think she was saying something, she was crying as well, but Raegdan picked her up and send me ahead to make sure the door was open.”

“You sure did,” Spike said, picking up the broken hinge from the floor.

Rarity turned to Twilight, tears trembling at the end of her eyelashes. “Twilight, dear, I swear I never meant for something like this to happen. I thought I took every possible measure to make sure they had a good time, I never imagined—”

Twilight shushed her, and gave Rarity a brief hug to help calm her down. “It’s fine, Rarity. This is not your fault. Let’s just wait and see what’s wrong first, alright?”

“Yes. Yes, of course, darling. A princess is in need of help, this is no time for me to fall apart.” Rarity took a deep breath, standing up to her height and former behavior again. “Do you think we should go see how she is?”

They both glanced at the door, unwilling and unsure if their presence would be welcome. Spike walked up to it and placed his ear against the wood, listening intently. The two unicorns waited patiently while the baby dragon listened in and blinked in surprise.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Spike warned, backing away.

“Why not?” Rarity questioned.

“I think they’re shouting to each other.”

They waited, and Spike’s claim proved itself true. Angry shouts from both sides, with nothing clear enough to understand. Like a thunderous stormfront, the voices grew louder until there was no ignoring the venom and malice in them.

The door was hammered open by Raegdan’s forearm and he walked out, gritting his teeth bare in an ugly grimace. He swivelled around, holding the door by the edge.

“You go ahead and bury yourself with them if you care so much. It will save the rest of us time since you want to kill yourself in fucking guilt. Like a fucking moron!” he roared down the stairs before slamming the door with all his strength and heading for outside.

The basement door was open again as he made it to the front door, Luna standing at the threshold. The fur on her face was matted down with wet streaks, letting everyone know she had been crying, but now her eyes burned.

“At least I’ll die a moron and not a monster, not like someone else!” she screeched back at Raegdan, her bellow almost deafening Twilight.

Raegdan paused, his hand on the door leading outside. He half-turned, as if his blind, covered eye was able to see Luna, and responded so quietly it might as well have been a whisper.

“A few dead kids too late to say that, isn’t it?”

There was a moment of quiet that stretched forever in the space between Raegdan and Luna. A second later, Luna broke it. “I don’t want to see thee ever again.”

“Fuck you, too,” he answered.

The doors slammed shut behind each other as one. Luna vanished back to the library’s basement, and Raegdan was swallowed by the dark outside.

The front door fell down, startling Rarity enough to let out a small yelp of fright. The basement door was slowly creeping open, the repeated loud hits breaking the latch hole apart, rendering it unable to hold the door closed anymore.

In among a terse silence they heard Luna’s quiet sobbing make it up from downstairs, barely audible and heart rending.

Rarity covered her muzzle with her hooves, ready to begin crying herself. “This is my fault, my fault, I didn’t want this to happen, I didn’t mean for this…”

Spike tapped nervously at Twilight’s side, begging for attention. “Twilight, does that mean he is going to leave again? Where is he… What are we gonna do?”

Twilight pulled herself together. She had been as shocked as the other two were, but knowing there was no one else to look up to for guidance spurred her to action, as it always did. “We will fix this. Rarity, calm down. I need you and Spike to go downstairs and talk to Luna. Calm her down, ask her what happened; make this right. Can you do that, Rarity? Spike?”

The white unicorn nodded so fast her head was a positive blur. “Yes. Anything. We will fix this, darling, you are correct as always. What about you?”

“I’m going to go talk to Raegdan. Come on, let’s go!”

“Raegdan! Raegdan, wait!” Twilight yelled, not wasting frivolous time caring for the fallen door behind her. She looked left and right, trying to get a hint of which way she should run. The night was pitch black and cold, and with no sign of where Raegdan could have gone.

“Raegdan!”

“I’m here, Twilight.”

Twilight quickly turned around. Raegdan was sitting on the ground, his back resting against a stack of unused lumber from all his previous work that he hadn’t cleared out yet, everything but his head and shoulders hidden as he sat.

Twilight sat next to him, her relief palpable. She was afraid she would have to chase or search for him in the Everfree or even… she didn’t know where, and it didn’t matter now. He was right there next to her, gazing up at the night sky. His previous anger had faded away, replaced by a quiet sadness.

Twilight confessed her fear. “I thought you would have left.”

Raegdan didn’t answer, not until a few more seconds passed, and his voice was almost heartbreaking, unbroken enough to make sense only through force of will and bitter familiarization.

“I have nowhere else to go.” He swallowed, his throat shaking, and let his head hang. “I have nowhere to go… I walked out and—and I couldn’t think where to go. You all have your own lives. All I have is Luna. I have nothing else. If she doesn’t need me anymore then what is there left for me?”

Twilight swallowed, holding back the wave of grief, still unaccustomed to consciously thinking on how much loss he had suffered through. It was almost as if the wall he put up had crumbled or… or one of his masks finally removed. “I was afraid you would have ran into the Everfree Forest or something. That you were mad enough to leave and… live alone, like Zecora, perhaps.”

“If I could do that I would have done it already, don’t you think? When you left and after Luna returned instead of... “ He put his palms over his face, covering his eyes and muffling his voice. “I can’t. Not again. I don’t want to be alone again. If Celestia hadn’t put up with me, if she had forced me to leave, I… I don’t know…” She heard a sound come from his throat that she had only heard once before, behind a closed door, a sound that he didn’t manage to drown.

“Raegdan…” she murmured soothingly, laying a hoof on his thigh.

He threw his palms down, uncovering his eyes, the streaks of tears obvious and swarming with more, his fingers curling in beseechment to the unknown. “What am I supposed to do now that Luna kicked me out, Twilight? Where am I supposed to go? What will I do?” he said, trying and failing to hold his sobs back. He ran a palm over his eyes, and left it there, hiding his tears but not his crying.

“She’s not… Raegdan, she won’t. And even if she did, which she won’t… You could come live with me!”

Raegdan’s body shook, either in a silent, great sob or a silent bark of laughter. “With you? Really? Did you think of that for a second?” he mocked.

“I like having you here. I told you!” Twilight insisted.

“Yeah, right. For a week or two. Can you imagine having me live here forever? Forced to run behind me to make up for my fuck ups? What if I hurt someone you care for, Twilight? What then?” he asked. “You can’t… You won’t. You’ll tell me to leave.”

“I won’t. I promise, please, don’t… don’t cry, I swear I won’t—” Twilight felt like crying herself. Raegdan wasn’t supposed to, to… He was supposed to be steel! To hold on, no matter what! Her eyes prickled each time his breath hitched, and she felt her chest clutch in pain to see him so afraid of what might be.

Raegdan bent his knees, bringing his legs closer to his body as if trying to find comfort and one of his arms hugged them to his chest. “Your mom and dad will do the same, and Celestia won’t take me in again, not after I screwed up things with Luna—”

“Princess Celestia would never do that,” Twilight interrupted, and believed it wholeheartedly. Princess Celestia would quarter Raegdan, no matter what he believed, and she would do that because she wanted to, not because he had nothing else—which wasn’t true!

Raegdan continued on as if he didn’t hear her, his panic and despair growing by the moment. “—and I’ll have to go somewhere else. I’ll be alone, even if I don’t go through… Heavens help me, I can’t! I’ll go crazy, and then—and then—I’ll have to kill myself or else—And if something happens to Luna, if something goes wrong because of the way I fucked up I will go crazy. I’m barely hanging on, I keep seeing things, hearing things, remembering things, I can’t, I can’t—”

“Enough! Raegdan, look at me. Look at me!” Twilight exhorted. She wouldn’t hear this, she drew the buckingline at this kind of talk. She used her hooves to turn his head, and the sight broke her heart. He looked… shattered, worse than he ever had looked, even after receiving the worst of his injuries.

She remembered the moment when that knife had gone through his eye, and the moment he fell. That was him taking as much as he could and standing up despite it. But this? This was him taking more than he could! He was ready to fall and stay down.

“Answer me. Yes or no: Do you care about Princess Celestia? Do you love her?” Twilight ordered.

Raegdan’s voice and lips trembled as he tried to choke out an answer. He gave up almost immediately and simply nodded.

“Even now? Or when you were so angry with her? At the height of your anger?”

Raegdan shook his head. “I.. I never hurt her. Never would. I wasn’t… I wasn’t really angry with her. I-I mean I was, but not really, just-just wanted her to know that I was and then I couldn’t—I didn’t want to stop and think…”

Twilight smiled, with an equal tinge of sadness, awareness, and pity. How can he be so old, she thought, yet more of a child that Spike sometimes? “So, as much as you disagreed or angry you were, you still cared. You still loved her. No matter how blindingly angry you could get with her.”

Raegdan nodded again. He was still tearing up, Twilight noticed. And he shivered. She had seen him covered with snow, half dressed, but he never shook like this.

“Then why shouldn’t Princess Celestia be feeling the same? And if her, then why not her sister as well? Raegdan, I think you should go back inside to Luna. You had a disagreement—”

“Fight. It was a fight. A real one, Twilight. I said… I said things to her. And she said… she said she doesn’t want to...”

“A fight,” Twilight acquiesced. “Friends fight sometimes. It’s not right, but it happens. Then both sides sulk a little before they get back together and resolve their differences. Luna wouldn’t want to lose you, Raegdan. She cares for you, same as you care for her, as Celestia cares, as Spike and I care. You wouldn’t leave her, would you? I know you wouldn’t, no matter what. She said things to you as well, and look at you. Look what the mere idea has done to you. She loves you just as much. I’m sure she feels just as horrible right now.”

“But…”

“But nothing.” Twilight stared straight into his eyes, letting nothing but certainty show in her stare. “Take a few minutes. Calm down. Then we will go back inside and you two will talk it out. You will both apologize to each other, and accept that this might happen again.”

“The things I said—”

“She’ll forgive them. Like you will forgive the things she said in turn. I heard quite a bit, I know what each of you said,” Twilight told him. It’s amazing how you worry like this over a few words, yet I’ve seen you aim kicks at her head when doing one of your little mock-up fights, Twilight thought, trying to make herself feel some levity that she could show off to Raegdan, without success.

“What if she doesn’t, Twilight? What if she tells me to leave for real next time? What if I end up alone again?” he wailed, crushing her heart.

“She won’t. She won’t say that,” Twilight repeated, and she stood up, raising herself up on her hind legs in order to hug him, covering him as much as possible in her embrace. “And you won’t be alone again, Raegdan. I promise.”

Raegdan started crying anew, trying to cover up his face and stifle his sobs.

“It’s going to be okay.”

“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know!”

“It will be okay. We’ll figure it out.”

“I’m trying. I swear… I’m trying… but it’s so hard. It’s so hard. Everything scares me. I’m trying to protect you, but I don’t know how. It’s all the same. Everything’s the same. I can’t tell them apart anymore. I can’t tell them apart…I’m so sorry, little one. I’m sorry I left you… I’m so sorry...”

“It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Twilight held Raegdan in a protective embrace, a complete reversal of how it always had been. They stayed like this for a while, ignoring the cold. All that mattered to Twilight was listening to Raegdan’s breath slow down, and his heaves stop. She held onto him with all the strength in her limbs.

Somepony cleared her throat. Twilight wasn’t surprised to see Luna had come out or that she looked as horrible as Raegdan did, her eyes bloodshot. Rarity and Spike were waiting behind her, illuminated by the light coming out of the library, near the broken down door.

Twilight tightened her hold for a fleeting moment, and then slowly let go of Raegdan. She walked back to Rarity and Spike.

As she passed by Luna, Twilight smiled encouragingly at her. Luna didn’t smile back or even look at her. She stood, grim and quiet. Twilight believed she would do the right thing however. She believed that Rarity and Spike managed what they set out to do.

“I am here to apologize.” Luna bent her head, clenching her eyes shut.

Raegdan didn’t answer. He didn’t even lift his head.

“I was angry at myself. No, hated myself. Still do, I believe. I… never thought in such ways, and all this anger, all this despisement I felt had to be directed somewhere,” she continued. “And I directed it to you when the real target was me. I was wrong, unfair, and a hypocrite to demand that—”

“That’s enough,” Raegdan said, lifting his head.

“I’m sorr—”

“Stop,” he almost begged, quietly. He lifted himself up. “No apologies. I don’t want any. Just… are we okay, Luna? That’s all I want. Do you still want me to leave?”

Luna shook her head hard, two fresh tears sliding quickly down her face. “No. Never.”

“That’s all I want,” he said, letting out a sigh of heavy, deep weariness.

Twilight doubted if anypony could tell how much he had broken down only minutes before, and a wave of worry struck her. She had thought that one way or another, wrong way or not, Raegdan had ways to deal with his issues and choices, in the long past or recent. Now, she suspected that all he managed was to keep the lid on while he crammed everything inside.

“Let’s go get some sleep then,” Raegdan proposed, the lid solidly back in place and his previous stocky presence returned. “And Luna?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry. For everything I said.”

Me t—” Raegdan bent and covered her mouth before she had time.

“Bed; I’m tired,” he insisted, and Luna smiled and nodded, following along.

Twilight, Spike, and Rarity moved aside, letting them go in first. When they went down the basement, Luna using a simple spell to keep the door closed enough, Spike punched the sky in victory and jumped as high as he could.

“See?” he asked Rarity, who laughed lightly in similar relief. “I told both you and Luna! Dad never keeps grudges or is angry at his friends! Never!” he insisted in exhilaration.

“No, he isn’t,” Twilight agreed, and she had to give Spike credit for the observation. Raegdan was never really mad at anyone he cared for. Only for a few minutes at worst. Then he forgave everything. All of it.

It only added to her new fears of how much was raging beneath the surface.

Interlude 16 - When the inn's-a creaking don't come-a peeking

Two months ago

Eventide had been waiting in the small alcove on the wall for over forty minutes, nested in the shadows near the ceiling and keeping her eyes narrowed lest her presence be betrayed by her yellow irises. Her attention was primarily focused on the corridor and any possible sound other than the constant hammering coming from the room at the other end. Through that, she always kept an eye on the window across, waiting for the signal.

After a minute or two Drum Beat flew in the distance, his dark shape and Thestral wings unmistakeable among the pegasi Royal guards crossing the sky. He performed a double loop, and Eventide knew everything she needed to know: Cast Iron had finally fallen asleep, and he was the only one who would have real reason to come here. As for any others, Drum Beat would be in position shortly to keep them at bay.

Cradle Song and Broken Gust were already in position. Young as they might be, they had learned silence and stillness. Everything was in place.

Time to have that talk.

She walked into the newly built smithery; another of the castle’s largest rooms located near Princess Luna’s tower, this one had been reconstructed with a forge to serve this purpose, part of the large changes done to accommodate the Lunar Guard. Quarters, training halls, armories, Princess Celestia would not raise an objection against whatever her sister needed or desired, and it hadn’t been all that much all considered.

Time and grief had given them all lessons to learn. Still, more time was needed to know if any of them had been the right one.

The air inside was a scorched creature of humidity and smoke. The strange forge burned, leeching every spark of heat it could strangle out of the fuel available for its use. The smell of molten metal was pounding her lungs, her breath stolen and stifled by its heavy, strange weight, making her feel dizzy for a few seconds.

Metal in all its forms ruled here―metal and heat. Cast Iron worked relentlessly, even the most basic of creations filling him with joy and pride. His obsession made sure that the fires would be lit almost all day. Then you had the other one...

Well, the other one was the reason she was here.

The Thestral working in front of the anvil was rippled with muscle, proof of his strenuous regimen. His coat was gray, and his mane black, making him look as if he was covered in ash and soot. The fact that he often was perplexed matters even worse.

Steel Edge would spend all of his waking hours in here, trying to regain his confidence as a blacksmith, with the rest of his few hours spent sleeping. Even his meals would most often be delivered by Cast Iron, as he returned from his own rest, or from another pony, be they of the Guard or the castle staff. He had lost one thousand years, and his craft and skill had been surpassed. New tools, new ways, new alloys. Steel Edge was forced to learn his trade anew.

The reason Eventide knew all this was that, besides keeping eyes on him, she had been sent letters from her fellow Thestrals: Silverwing had written to her detailing everything that Steel Edge had asked, said, and learned during his short time back with what remained of their race, the last clan of Thestrals that was basically no more than a breeding mix of what was left down the centuries.

In Eventide’s opinion, Steel Edge should have stayed there. But no, the dunderhead had insisted on keeping his oath of service to Princess Luna, even though the Princess had no desire to see his sorry self again. Silverwing had been a fool—one who, in Eventide’s opinion, should have stepped down long ago—to allow him to come here where Princess Luna had no other reprieve in the eyes of her sister than to accept him, even if still refusing to meet him in person.

Maybe it would have been preferable that her fellow Thestrals had let him go and then arranged an “accident”. It would have been so much easier for everypony involved. Him included.

But easy had not been a Thestral option for a thousand years now. They had to take the hard path, always. That was their choice.

She hoped Steel Edge would take the easy path. She did not want to kill him. She had known his name since she was a filly. In a sense, it would be like killing family. An uncle you kept hearing about but never met. She would do it if he forced her, but she would not enjoy it.

… Maybe a little. After all, if one of the old Thestrals had been more aware then perhaps she wouldn’t have needed to suffer that fate.

Eventide waited until there was a long enough break between the hammer blows. “We need to talk,” she said, her cold voice a sharp contrast to the hot, sparking embers.

“A moment,” the stallion said, making no sign that he had been unaware of her presence.

He struck the white-hot metal two more times, and then used a pair of tongs to sink it into a bucket of water, accompanied by an almost inaudible sigh of revulsion, steam almost hiding him from sight. He picked it out in a second, and set it aside to cool the rest of the way off. It was just a misshapen piece of metal as far as Eventide could see.

Steel Edge finally deigned to look at her, standing still like a statue. He creeped her out if she was honest. He seemed almost like a mechanical clock come to life with the way he moved and went through his daily routine, and a sense that he could stand still and waiting for yea—

Right, Eventide reminded herself. He has been.

“Am I going to be allowed an audience with Princess Luna?” he asked; it was his usual opening whenever he talked with anypony.

Her response was the same he was always told. “No. But I’m here to talk to you about something relating to that.”

No affirmation that he had listened to her, and only after a few moments did Eventide realize he was simply waiting for her to elucidate further. “Go back home. Return to the others, do your craft there, and don’t ask anything about Princess Luna again. Do you understand me?”

There was a beat of silence between them. “Yes,” Steel Edge answered.

“Will you?” Eventide asked, riddled with doubt.

“No.” He took a half step closer, and Eventide wondered if he meant that as a threat. He was making a big mistake if it was. Just because she had to crane her head to look him in the eye did not mean she feared him.

“I will not leave. I took an oath to my clan and the Princess, to serve as her personal guard until I am no longer able to. I’m still able, so my oath dictates that I stay and serve, one way or another.”

“She doesn’t want you here anymore,” Eventide insisted.

“Furthermore,” Steel Edge continued undeterred, “I wish to know more of the fate of my fellow companions. I have asked of them multiple times. The only answer I have gotten is that they died, no matter whom I ask. I will know what befell them, no matter how many times I have to repeat the question. If nopony truly knows, then I shall ask Princess Luna herself. May I have an audience with her?”

Eventide huffed in annoyance. “You’ve gotten really good with modern Equestrian really fast, haven’t you?”

“I had nothing else to do,” Steel Edge answered, and for once there was a hint of emotion in his voice. “My… Our people spurned me. I had no recourse but to learn the modern language in hopes of finding out why. I did not. This is another one of my questions.”

“You’re not going to do us the favor of going away, are you?”

“No. Not until my questions are answered.”

Eventide made a slow circuit around the workshop, playing at looking around while in truth wasting time in order to think. Steel Edge didn’t complain or ask her to return her attention back to him. He stood as he was, watching and waiting.

Silverwing had left the choice up to her, dirty coward that he was. Better that she make it, he wrote, since she was right next to Princess Luna and would have a better viewpoint. That was why she had been given such a detailed—and boring—report on everything Steel Edge related. To have as complete a picture as possible.

It served her none. Her choices had always been the same few. Either she told him nothing and worried about a possible ticking bomb—she did not trust that stony facade, she arranged a small accident or just killed him outright and took the fall herself, or she told him everything, which would most likely end with her needing to kill him either way.

Letting him talk to Princess Luna had never been an option.

Fine. So be it. She made her choice. She would give him a chance to have his answers and live, as miniscule as it was. If he chose wrong, and she bet her freedom he wouldn’t, she would kill him right there and then. He had been good. That was why he had been chosen to accompany Princess Luna. But that was one thousand years ago, and Eventide lived her life the way he had spent less than a week.

She had been pushing quite the old age for a Thestral anyway. She didn’t want to die in a cell, but it beat the alternatives she had avoided so far. Lying on a cot in a dungeon and waiting for age to finish her would be easy.

“These are your questions then? How the others died and why we don’t want you around?” Eventide specified.

Steel Edge nodded, silent as ever.

“Then I’ll answer both of your questions right now.”

That actually got to him. He took two steps back to the anvil, placing his hoof on it as if seeking comfort from its solid mass. Steel Edge was definitely not expecting her to know the answer to the first part after all. It was what every Thestral always said when asked. The guards that Princess Luna recruited from the Thestral Clans one thousand years ago all died. She never told us how. We don’t ask.

It was completely true. Princess Luna never told the Thestrals what her brief Guard’s end was, and everypony who heard of this assumed that it meant they were as much in the dark as well as everypony else.

But the Thestrals had always known.

“Six days after you left on your journey as her elite guards, Princess Luna returned to tell us that all of you were dead. She had a few keepsakes of your friends with her. Small things, all of them metal, all of them burnt and charred. We took them, and her task done she left again.

“The Princess continued her duty, traveling Equestria, hunting in the forests and the deep places. She was savage. Unrelentless. She didn’t rest a single day from what we can tell, like a mare obsessed, and with that obsession came madness. There were tales, and none of them spoke of gentleness. Not to her and not from her. As if she no longer was a pony.”

Steel Edge interrupted her. “I know all this already. This is all what I’ve been told, but nothing more.”

Eventide had started pacing as she began the story. She stopped now, watching the massive Thestral with the corner of her eye. “Did they tell you what happened next?”

He nodded, and there was still disbelief as he recounted what he had been told. “Nightmare Moon. About forty years after I was gone in that… space. She… It lasted for two years. Then it was gone. And now Princess Luna is back.”

“What they didn’t tell you, what nopony else knows, is what happened twelve years after Nightmare Moon was banished.”

“Which was?”

“An old earth pony came and found our ancestors. She was there, you see. The only pony that survived, due to sheer luck and the last vestiges of guilt.”

“Alright, kiddo. Take all these to the batponies over there. Make sure you don’t spill anything,” her mother said as she lowered the tray, filled to the brim with beer mugs, for Strawberry Sunrise to carry. “And don’t talk to them much, alright?”

“Why not?” Strawberry asked, with a little bit of whine. She was at that rebellious age where her parents’ knowledge and instructions no longer seemed wise to her. She’d rather do what she wanted instead.

Her mother ducked behind the inn’s counter where she could talk at Strawberry Sunrise’s height and not be seen doing so. “Because they are batponies. I don’t know if you should be spending time with them. You don’t know what they are up to out there. And if they are like their… preferred princess, then keep away,” she warned.

“They said they were her guards, like the ones the white princess has,” Strawberry said. She had asked what they were when they first came into their inn sitting all alone on the crossroad. She had never seen their ilk before.

“Guards,” her mother scoffed. “Nothing like the Royal Guard. So listen to your mother. It’s perfectly clear what she’s got them around for,” she added with a roll of her eyes directed towards the ceiling.

Strawberry felt her face heat up, and without meaning to she stared up as well. The lantern hanging from the chain on the ceiling was swaying more than usual, and if she focused her ears and listened carefully enough she could just make out a rhythmic thumping sound. Her budding imagination, spurred by her recent grown spurts, added more sounds. Grunts that in her inexperience were not clear if they would be painful or pleasurable, perhaps accompanied by the sound of kisses. She had never been kissed, but she had seen a few ponies do so. Not from up close though, and it seemed like sloppy stuff to her, noisy probably—

Her mother’s hoof on her bottom broke her out of her fantasy. “You get going and serve, and then do some cleaning before you go to bed,” she repeated, with an anger in her eye that told Strawberry that her mom had figured out what she had been thinking of. There was probably a talking to going to be delivered to her tonight after all her chores were done.

With the heavy, wooden tray on her back and walking slowly as to not drop it, she made her way to the large group of Thestrals, dodging tables and chairs moved out of place and the few patrons that had no choice but to stay at this late an hour. There were over a dozen of the not-pegasi flyers, almost filling the small inn’s hall by their own. They all looked so exotic to her. Their membranous wings and slitted eyes should have been scary―she had imagined them being scary―but they were not.

They were mostly lean, all of them filled with supple muscle that she could see pulled taut and shining under the fire-lit lanterns. She bit her lips, fighting more of the thoughts that her mother would forbid. How would their wings feel, she wondered. She had felt a pegasus mare’s wings once, the lady kind enough to let her touch, and they had been amazingly soft. Their leathery wings would be unlike them, she guessed. She believed they would feel warm.

She thought of the princess up in one of their rented rooms, and the large stallion she had dragged behind her. Curiosity burned in Strawberry as she served the last mugs to the Thestrals, keeping her head low as to not stare. She glanced towards the stairs leading to the few rooms they rented, with half-formed plans of crawling up there and quenching the curiosity that was firing her up.

Plans she couldn’t go ahead with thankfully, yet she felt disappointed all the same. The Thestrals seemed absorbed in their small talk, but the the dark stairwell attracted their eyes as often as it did Strawberry Sunrise’s, if not more.

Her work done, she discreetly sat down at a table near the stairs. She could have a good view of these strange, new ponies, and with her face half-hidden by her hooves as she rested her head on the table nopony would be able to tell if she stared too much. Even if she was seen in the dark, they might think her asleep.

Transfixed in her thoughts, she couldn’t tell how long she sat there. Long enough, and with probably everypony aware of what she had been doing if they had paid attention to her. She didn’t hear the hoofsteps of the pony coming down the stairs, and the movement of the large, dark coat at the edge of her vision almost made her heart stop.

The other Thestrals quieted down as their comrade joined them silently. They still talked, but it was fake. They’d speak with nopony paying attention to them, and even the speakers focused on the newly returned pony.

“We saved you a beer,” the Thestral closest to the newcomer said, pushing the heavy mug with his folded wing.

“Thanks,” the very large Thestral said, and downed half its contents in a single go. “I needed that.”

“You’re welcome, Fervor,” the other one responded quietly.

He was far larger than the rest, heavy and broad, and lines of fur missing from his coat. Scars, Strawberry guessed. She had seen ponies that had been in accidents or survived a timberwolf mauling, and they were like that as well, especially when the wound didn’t heal as well as it should. It took unicorn magic, she had heard, to heal well enough that the coat would grow back.

The Thestral straight across from Fervor, a lanky tall one with his head covered in bandages, glared at him as if he was a disgusting bug. Fervor spotted him and raised an eyebrow at his direction. “Something the matter, Reed?”

“You should have told her no,” Reed said. His voice was almost impossible to hear, his lips and teeth barely moving.

“Why?” Fervor asked. Strawberry couldn’t tell if he was honestly curious or making fun of the other one.

“You know why!” Reed spat.

Strawberry whipped her head to look behind her. She heard something or so she thought. Like a pony taking a deep breath before diving in the river. The stairs were empty. The stair’s landing in front was cloaked in shadows, despite the nearest lantern. It had to have been running low on oil. Nopony was on the steps either, despite the young mare swearing she could hear a creak. All she could see where the lines of shadow from the banister against the barely lit wall and steps.

A shiver ran down Strawberry’s spine. Her mouth was dry, and she couldn’t shake that feeling that somepony was breathing down her neck. She scooted to the side a little, further against the wall, and felt a little better with her back facing the corner of the room. She turned her attention back to the Thestrals.

“—then you could have told her if you wanted. How about you take a look at yourself first, huh?” Fervor was saying, waving his mug around. “It’s not your concern whether I cheat or not, so stop playing at being my moral guardian!”

Fervor sighed after his rant. He stayed silent, enduring the disappointed looks of most of the Thestrals around him. “I know what it looks like,” he said, taking his second wind. “But you have to face reality. Any of us might be next, gone in a flash just like Steel. The way I see it, he was lucky he was buried in the process. If I get a chance to have a good time until my turn comes—and with the rate she is pushing us already that won’t be long—I’ll take it. My advice to you all is to do the same while you have the chance.”

The Thestral next to Fervor shook his head in surprise and shock. “What, you mean she decided to work her way through all of us?” He looked up the steps with an expression of longing that made Strawberry feel uncomfortable. She slunk lower.

“Not what I meant,” Fervor growled, stealing the beer from the smaller, perverted Thestral. “You know what annoys me? She just... sat there completely still, you know?”

“Well, you are the peasant,” a joking Thestral smirked. “You didn’t expect her to do all the work, right?”

The one called Reed banged his hoof on the table, hard enough to draw attention but not loud enough to summon the eyes of everypony in the inn. “That is quite enough on the subject! We are dropping this, and that’s that!” There were nods at this.

Fervor drank from his new mug, nursing it thoughtfully and staring back at Reed. He was working his way through something, everypony could tell. They all waited, the trepidation rising. When Fervor spoke he whispered, but the large Thestral group was so quiet at this point that Strawberry heard him clearly all the same.

“I think that was her first time.”

Strawberry Sunrise felt her cheeks burning red.

The joker and a few around them burst out in laughs. “Oh, my sweet sunrise. You not only bagged a princess, but a virgin princess? Good job, Fervor. Here’s to deflowering the white one next ti—”

The hoof of one of the other Thestrals who hadn’t laughed struck him across the cheek. He lost his grip on the mug he had brazenly raised and it emptied all over him and the table. “Shut up, you idiot! Think for once before you speak. She is still a princess,and she is still your leader! I have no idea what your clan was thinking of to choose you lot unless it was to get rid of you. Is this what you think you should be doing?”

“Right. We should arrange turns and a curriculum,” the one who Strawberry had labeled as the Pervert announced loudly. “Dibs on teaching her how to use her lips to—”

This time the hoof that punched the speaker belonged to Fervor himself. The Thestral’s eyes burned with anger as he stood over the half-dazed Pervert, his hoof trembling and pulling it back with great effort.

“Let’s get this straight,” Fervor growled, enraged. “She didn’t—”

The double slam of the inn’s door as it opened and closed again startled everypony.

“Strawberry!” her mother called out from behind the counter. “I told you to lock the door before the wind picks up! Where did you go?”

“Sorry! I’m right here, Mom!” Strawberry shouted back, getting up from her seat and feeling as if she glowed as much as one of the lights she had seen a unicorn make once with the amount of embarrassment she felt suffusing her at being caught eavesdropping.

“Crap! How long has that kid been there?” One of the Thestrals asked the others. She didn’t know who, not with her back turned around as she rushed to the door.

Her mother was right, she had left it unlocked.

Strawberry spent the next few minutes pestering her mother—as she would call it. In Strawberry’s point of view she was making up for her small blunder and being an excellent, helpful daughter. The fact that it kept her away from the Thestrals and any awkward questions barely passed her mind of course.

Mister Rhubarb, she noticed, had his head turned sideways, his ears flicking with every burst of the harsh wind they could hear outside. Strawberry knew him well. He didn’t have any fields of his own, nor any other skills, so he spent most of his time here, getting work as a farmhoof from the surrounding farm owners who would gather up at the inn every now and then as a convenient meeting point.

“That doesn’t sound much like wind, does it?” Mister Rhubarb said to nopony.

Strawberry’s mother was busy gathering what blankets and sheets she had available. Even disliking somepony did not mean she would cast them out or let them sleep on the cold floor. “It’s just a few branches from the nearby trees breaking up, nothing to wor—”

Strawberry could scarcely remember what happened next.

A massive tree trunk had gone through the front door, she remembered that. She remembered that more of them had piled on the roof because that’s how Mister Rhubarb broke his back when one of them pierced through and fell on him.

She was unsure, but she thought that she had ran to one of the windows. She couldn’t remember who pulled her away when thick branches smashed on them, blocking them off. She did see somepony get pierced by them when he or she tried to break through a window or the wall—she couldn’t remember which—but she could never forget the sound of what seemed like a forest slamming itself on what had been her home, piece by piece.

She didn’t know how long that had lasted. How much time the Thestrals spent trying to find a way out or to lift the tree off Mister Rhubarb without success. She knew the noise of the storm stopped only when the fires started.

They were everywhere, or so it seemed to her. Everything burned, fire flowing like water. Tendrils of flame licked at the walls and the ceiling, burning debris falling from all sides only to be replaced by more wood throwing itself to the fire, feeding it. There were screams, and hers were the loudest.

She screamed even more when the fires reached the barrels of oil in the back. She almost tore her throat out when she saw her mom trying to protect her by the fire and the shattering bottles by covering her with her own body while blood seeped from the glass shards on her face.

There were no screams left in her after Fervor himself—she remembered his face clearly, how his tears did their best to clear the smoke out of his green eyes—pulled Strawberry away from her mother and pushed her towards the fireplace and the tight confines of the chimney. Her mother was crying too, but she was urging her to go, to climb, to run.

She remembered being scared. Not wanting to go. She remembered the Thestrals doing their best to keep the smoke and fire away from them while her mother told Strawberry her goodbyes, last words that Strawberry would never remember. She remembered many of them falling to the flames. She didn’t remember if Fervor was one of them.

But she remembered the sensation of her mom’s last kiss on her brow with perfect clarity. She remembered that much at least.

Going through the chimney was an ordeal she re-lived in her nightmares. Only in her dreams the chimney was without end. A huge tunnel of burning stone and flowing smoke that she had to climb towards a starry sky she could never reach. The hope of the pain’s end so clear yet so far, while behind her everything she knew and loved choked and burnt.

She made it out somehow. She must have made it down from the roof in some way. She managed it without getting burnt too much. She thought she tried to shout to her mom that she made it, but she wasn’t sure, even if she did do it, if she could be heard. The deafening roar of the fire was the only sound of the universe.

Strawberry ran away from it. She ran away from the hungry roars, from the screams of timber and ponies, from her life crumbling behind her. She ran.

She ran and almost fell upon the princess.

They looked at each other forever, both still as statues.

“I didn’t mean to,” the princess whispered.

“My mom… My mom is in there…” Strawberry answered. She should be hating this mare with the stars in her mane, she should be screaming, crying up a storm, but all she felt was numbness and a massive weight on her. It whispered to her to stop, close her eyes, and let it all be gone.

The princess shook her head, as if denying the reality even while illuminated by the red glow of the fire. “I didn’t… He shouldn’t have kept his wife a secret! They shouldn’t have laughed at me! I just wanted… I just wanted… I am not at fault here!” she wailed.

All Strawberry could feel for her was sadness. No pity, no hate, no dislike. Just sorry in a vague way. Anger was too much for her to call now, and no other feeling arose. She could do nothing but look at the princess who ranted insanely. Too young and shocked to say it in words, the truth was known to her at that moment:

The princess was mad.

Silver horseshoes tore up the ground as their wearer spoke of unfairness to Strawberry. The thick chestpiece heaved up and down as the mare bellowed of having nothing to Strawberry. The ebony crown on her head was a dark silhouette among the stars as she cried for her constant sacrifices to protect ponies who never knew harshness to Strawberry.

When she finished, her teeth bared in hostility, Strawberry couldn’t do much. What was left? Her heart and head hurt so much she was surprised anypony could still live, let alone stand when there is this much pain. What else could she do to or tell the mare in front of her? What other option was left?

Each step closer to the princess was more painful than the last. Her legs were starting to ache in agony, and she didn’t dare look down where her coat was no more. She approached the mare nevertheless, raising her hoof and placing it over a silver shoe.

“I’m—”

The marble floor cracked under the force of Steel Edge’s hoof. His features fractured like glaciers under a spring sun, threatening to reveal the contempt he felt through the deep scowl he was hiding beneath. “You will stop. You will leave. That is enough,” he declared, each syllable as clear as polished ice.

“If that is what you want,” Eventide said. Even as she said that her eyes momentarily searched the tall rafters above, and she could almost hear the leathery creak of Thestral wings stretching. She was not leaving this room without a resolution, though Steel Edge did not know that. “I thought you wanted to know.”

“What I wanted was answers. True ones, not mockery and lies. I would appreciate you leaving me to work now that you had your laugh,” the large Thestral said as he turned his back on her and filled a bucket with coal.

“You believe I am lying,” Eventide stated.

The barely filled bucket crashed down, emptying what few contents it had. “Of course I believe you are lying,” he shouted, incensed. “If this had happened you would not be here. From what I have been told the Nightmare was atrocious, but it was not really the Princess. Not so with the tale you weaved. Our people would want to have nothing to do with her,” he asserted, the right edge of his lips twisting. “Not if she had killed our—my…”

Eventide watched as he picked each piece of coal with the end of his wing, one by one, and deposited them back. Slowly, methodically, and using them as an excuse to keep busy while not doing much of anything. She could empathize with the feeling.

You didn’t learn the whole story at once. You were told little, just enough to appreciate the harshness that Princess Luna endured while you underwent similar hardship. They dribbled down the stories, the lessons, the words she had said, until…

… Until life happened and death came into play. Until you lost something important, like your husband and love of your life. Until you broke down and all illusions shattered. When you had nothing, nothing but tears and the roar in your heart demanding to leave this heartbreak behind, to abandon everypony. That’s when they told you everything. That’s when they tore down everything you thought you knew and built you anew.

That was when they would take you to look at the moon. At the shadow on it, distant and away from everypony. They would remind you of all the harshness you had lived through, all the pain, and then your loss. They would bleed you alive. And then, when you were nothing but an empty shell…

… They would remind you that you still had so much more than the Princess had. That you barely scratched the surface of the centuries she lived this way. That you had ponies to turn to and share your loss with, to understand you and be with you. That you, despite everything, were not abandoned or left alone by them. Not like she was.

Had Steel Edge lost enough to understand? Eventide’s guts said no. He hadn’t. He wouldn’t understand. Not the way she had with the scorching iron of grief. She needed a similar path, but different if she wanted to give him a chance of living through tonight.

She asked him the question that she had been asked as well.

“What if it was our fault?”

The bucket was thrown to a wall. Steel Edge’s chest heaved with heavy breaths. “Thou wouldst besmirch thy trials and tribulations for the sake of—”

Eventide smiled faintly where a part of her wanted to smirk vindictively. “Blame. Where to lay it?” she asked rhetorically. “You could lay it entirely on Princess Luna for breaking, for every single death. You could choose to blame Princess Celestia for focusing on her kingdom and not her sister. You could lay it on the ponies of Equestria for their failings. You could lay it on us for knowing and doing nothing.”

Steel Edge’s eyes were filled with the heat that missed from his demeanor. “We knew nothing of the sort.”

“We knew that she was alone. That was enough,” Eventide said, and raised her wing in a gesture of silence. “Come here, I want to ask about something,” she beckoned, guiding towards where she had first found him standing.

There was no hint of heat on the dull piece of metal. If anything, it was cool to the touch. Eventide swiveled it around at the end of her wings as she brought it to a convenient workbench, trying to work out what it was meant to be with no success. It resembled more a piece of clay a foal had played around with than any work meant to come out of a blacksmith’s hooves.

A wince of disappointment danced across Steel Edge’s face when it landed on the wooden surface. “I’m going to make a wild guess and say that this didn't turn the way you meant to.”

“... Correct.”

“What was it supposed to be?” she asked. That was the one thing she certainly did not know.

There was a beat of embarrassed silence. “A spear head.”

Eventide checked it from the left. She examined it from the right. She got an aerial view from the top, and lifted it up to see it from below. Eyes wide shut or wide open, it made little difference. “Most spears I have seen… don’t really curve like that, you know. It’s like it’s trying to stab its owner,” she commented.

“I have noticed,” Steele Edge answered dryly.

“Of course, that wouldn’t be a problem seeing it has the pointy end of a brick…”

Steel Edge coughed.

“Now, I’m no blacksmith or doctor, but these knobs here look like cancer growth—oh, they flake off. That’s… unhygienic.”

“Is there a point to this?” Steel Edge asked while eyeballing his avant garde spear with the obvious desire to chuck it off to oblivion.

“Sure,” Eventide said. “You used to be good. What is the reason for this regurgitation?”

“I am… I cannot help it,” Steel Edge responded after a few moments of sullen silence. “I am trying, but I am overwhelmed. I used to work with an open furnace, my anvil, and my hammer. Now we have… this, and alloys instead of honest iron. Alloys that need special treatment that I know not off, temperatures and oils, new tools, new tempers… I do not know where to begin!” he exclaimed through grit teeth.

He told her nothing that she didn’t know already. Neither did she ask something she didn’t know the answer to. “What about Cast Iron? Have you asked for his help?”

The way he turned his head away from her was answer enough.

“So you won’t ask for help. Too proud or too afraid to let others know you are not good enough. I can’t help but notice that you never get rid of your failures in a way nopony would never see. You leave them around. I wonder if you are hoping perhaps that somepony will see and offer a bit of advice. After all, if they decide to give you that help…

“And while you wait, where is Cast Iron? He knows you can’t possibly learn by your lonesome, even though you do your best. Why hasn’t our Commander Solid Charge checked on you, why haven’t others spoken up about how nothing is made any faster, why hasn’t Raegdan asked what is going on with you, why haven’t I told the others you are just wasting space in here as you are?”

She approached him, caring not for personal space. She whispered into his ear. “Do you understand what I am trying to point out, Steel Edge? Do you see the resemblance? Do you see where the blame must be obviously placed?”

The large stallion stayed quiet. He blinked, gazing at nothingness for a minute. Shaking his head, the damned serenity rebuilding itself on his face, he searched around him as if anchoring himself. He mumbled. “It is not my… I am trying—”

Eventide shrugged. “I suppose that you do,” she allowed. She waited a moment, expecting him to nod or something, but then remembered who she was talking to. She moved to leave.

She kind of waited for him to speak up before she left. It would have been anticlimactic if he didn’t. “Do you really believe it was our fault?” he asked.

She didn’t bother turning around. She was certain Steel Edge had his back turned to her, so she kept hers to him. “Everypony’s fault, one pony’s fault, nopony’s fault… I think it’s a moot point, personally. It is done. We should look after ourselves and undo our failings, not lay them on others. What do you think?”

It felt stupid, but Eventide looked back. To her surprise, Steel Edge was staring at her.

“I think…” he said, turning back to his failed creation. “I think… I’m just a blacksmith.”

Eventide had been waiting in the small alcove on the wall for hours, nested in the shadows near the ceiling and keeping her eyes half-lidded lest her presence be betrayed by her yellow irises. She waited while Cast Iron came back to work a few more hours and all through the evening. She waited until she saw both minotaur and tall Thestral leave together, exhausted and heading to their beds.

After ten more minutes of patient waiting she went into their workshop. She looked up at the tall rafters, and whistled. Cradle Song and Broken Gust came down slowly, both of them working every muscle in their body, getting rid of the kinks.

“What are we doing with him, then?” Cradle Song asked, pressing his braided red beard between his hooves. Water dribbled down.

“Depends on how he acts on the following few days. We’ll keeping an eye on him. I assume he didn’t say something he shouldn’t to Cast Iron, did he?”

“Nah, we would be all over him if he did,” Broken Gust said as the two young ponies followed their elder on the way out. “He didn’t say a thing. He spent all evening having Cast Iron show him stuff. It was boring.”

“I found it interesting,” Cradle Song said. “I always thought that when they put the hot metal in water they were done. I didn’t know that they reheated it after and let it cool on its own.”

“Go and apprentice with them, then,” Broken Gust said. “Let’s see if you find it as interesting if that stupid beard of yours catches fire.”

“Respect the beard, please.”

Eventide broke off the typical bickering. “What did he say?” she asked, curious that Steel Edge had finally acted.

“Who to who and what?” Cradle Song asked for specifications.

“Steel Edge. When he asked Cast Iron for help. Did he say anything?”

“Meh,” Broken Gust said, flapping her wings impatiently. “Something about taking responsibility for himself and all. Was that important?”

“Maybe,” Eventide allowed. “We will see.” Truthfully, she felt… satisfied, though a little hesitant to let her guard down entirely.

Cradle Song was the smartest of the three young ones who were with her. They all were, but Broken Gust was too enamored with her new amore, and Drum Beat preferred to spend his time hoping he would be somepony important. Cradle Song just let things happen, almost as if he was too bored to shape them, and that meant that he had a knack of noticing things.

“He is going to ask if we will tell Princess Luna that we know,” Cradle Song said, fighting off Broken Gust’s attempts to grab his beard. “He will want to know if she is going to take responsibility herself. What do we tell him then?”

“Way I figure it, we will do the same as today,” Eventide said. “We will tell him the truth. That we will, when we think the Princess is ready.”

“And when will that be?”

Eventide shrugged, giving them the last answer she would before stepping back into the main palace where they would no longer talk freely of this. “When she comes to tell us herself.”

A moment that Eventide thought would be never. Not when confronted with the cold princess she first saw near a coast and knew more of when healing in a hospital. She thought then that that day would never come. But then again, she thought wrong all too often. When the Princess massed her guard, young ones, inexperienced ones, discarded ones… She thought it would all end badly, especially with the young mares from Ponyville around.

“Stop pulling my beard!”

“Is that your beard? Are you sure? It looks like a tail, and that whole thing does look like a butt.”

“That’s my fa—Respect the beard! ...I am very conscious about it.”

But maybe that was exactly what the Princess needed. She wasn’t like she was before. It was a small change, but it was there. Perhaps the day of truth would come after all.

Ch. 45 - Taken

Spike rushed through the front door with Applebloom trailing behind him. “Twilight, are you still here?” His yell echoed in the library.

“A minute, Spike!” Twilight shouted from behind a bookshelf. She half-crawled out, her magic juggling a bright point of light and a dusty book. “I found where the fourth volume of Rebrand’s ‘Bullion and Booty’ series had gone. One down, seven to go!”

Applebloom flicked an ear in interest. “Is that a pirate book?”

“It’s a metallurgist pirate book!” Twilight corrected giddily, hugging the novel she had worried over. “It’s one of my favorite series.”

Spike’s groan of sheer disappointment told everypony how highly he rated it. “It’s the most boring pirate story ever. Every time Bullion finds or loots treasure, you get to read a treatise on where it was excavated, how it was forged, its Bridle Hardness Number—”

“It’s called learning with fun,” Twilight grumbled. “I wanted to start it over. Spike, do you know if somepony borrowed them and didn’t sign the ledge or did we forget anything in the boxes?”

“Dad and Luna checked them out.”

A relieved breath flew between Twilight’s lips. “Oh, thank Celestia. Then they probably have the rest of them down in the basement.”

“Yeah, looking below surface level is a step in the right direction,” Spike mumbled while staring guiltily at the dirty shovel that somepony had left next to the door leading to the library’s basement. “Twilight, Applebloom and I are going to meet up with Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle and—Applebloom, stop!”

Keeping up a spell as easy as a light was almost negligible to Twilight, so much so that she would more often than not unconsciously move it to the side rather than remember to banish it. It wasn't a dangerous spell, until a child unaware of the properties of it tried to swat it out of boredom.

Luckily, Spike’s warning made Applebloom’s hoof freeze halfway there. Twilight’s flow of magic snapped, and the spell flickered off and vanished.

“Uh… was ah doin’ something bad?” Applebloom asked guiltily.

Although relieved and knowing she never touched it, Twilight couldn’t help but check Applebloom’s hoof for any marks. “You never touch a light spell, Applebloom. It could hurt you.”

“What, really?” Applebloom asked in shocked wonder.

“Nothing serious in most cases,” Spike added. “Usually it just shocks you as soon as you get close enough, but if you stick your hoof in it, it can electrocute you something fierce. It really stings.”

“Huh.” Applebloom gazed at the space the spell used to occupy. “Ain’t that strange? Ah’d reckon it’d burn ya instead. Why does it do that?”

Twilight took a deep breath and stood straight in preparation to give a detailed explanation… until she made a face and proceeded to stare at the same spot. “Why does it do that?”

The insistent snapping of claws in front of her muzzle split through the murky haze of thoughts and calculations in her head, bringing her back to reality. “What, Spike?”

The baby dragon glanced at the clock on the wall. “Only two minutes. Super attentive today,” he stage whispered to Applebloom, making her laugh. He continued in a normal tone: “We’re heading off to meet the others. Do you need anything before we go?”

“Oh. No, nothing, Spike, thank you. Luna and I need to leave as well and meet Raegdan soon. Are you sure you don’t want to come along? It’s your furniture we're shopping for.”

“Stuck around you, Luna, and Fluttershy, choosing what to buy?” Spike pondered loudly, tapping his foot. “Hmm… Nope, I’m not crazy enough to do that. I’ll let Dad have the fun instead.”

“Okay, fine,” Twilight grumbled while the two children left, and shouted behind him as he closed the door: “You are the one missing out on all the fun! Luna and I are going to bond and it will be amazing!”

Rarity’s hoof tapped a rhythm that she had heard Pinkie Pie sing once, though remembering the lyrics would be an impossible task. It had been astoundingly catchy however, and the artistic side of Rarity mourned the fact that for Pinkie Pie it had probably been nothing more than a spur-of-the-moment song, now dead in the wind.

The minotaur was covered up to his waist in gray splatters that failed to dry no matter how much time passed. The reason probably was that pure water was barely less viscous. Ditzy was… worse off.

“I got you, I got you!” Ditzy triumphed at the fat blob of what could be charitably called soft mud, dead center on Cast Iron’s forehead.

The minotaur grinned and scooped up Ditzy’s former shot, turning it into his. Ditzy whooped and started running around, below, and over the table and chairs, avoiding Cast Iron’s attempts to smear his goompy hand over her head.

They both laughed and giggled so hard, they almost didn’t hear more ponies entering the kitchen.

The cackling commotion of the couple came to a close.

“Ditzy, I’m going to take Dinky and Stormdrain to Sugarcube Corner. Do you mind?” Mint asked.

“I don’t mind! Bring us some muffins!” Ditzy replied, one eye on Dinky, the other easily tracking Cast Iron and his sneaky attempts to inch closer. “Have fun!”

“If we have half as good a time as you, it’ll be great!” Mint’s smile twinkled merrily.

“Bye bye, mister Cast iron!” Dinky’s hoof kept waving until she was out the door.

The minotaur waved goodbye, the non-cement dripping off his open palm and on his trousers. “Bye bye, Dinky! I love that kid,” Cast Iron said to nopony, making Ditzy smile proudly. “I suppose I should get back to work,” he sighed, wiping his hand on his clothes, mortifying Rarity.

She couldn’t help herself; she had to interject again. “Cast Iron, dear, are you certain you don’t want me to pop over and ask Raegdan to come over and show you how to mix the cement?”

“No, Miss Rarity. I think I know what went wrong,” Cast Iron said, and to his credit, he sounded as if he believed it this time…

Rarity considered the kitchen floor that was all over the place, except on the floor. “I’m sure you do, but even so, a smidgen of instruction couldn’t hurt,” she insisted while moving to open a window. The cement dust in the air was starting to make her dizzy.

She throttled her head out, taking deep breaths of cold, clean air. Rarity slowly opened her eyes with a satisfied sigh, and she managed to spot Spike and Applebloom bouncing merrily on their way towards the edge of the Everfree Forest. Now, she had known that the girls wanted to visit Zecora again; Sweetie Belle had asked her to take them there just this morning, but only now the thought crossed her mind that she should be slightly worried.

Would the three impatient fillies succeed in finding a replacement to be their escort, and if not, would they be wise enough to leave it aside? Rarity was not certain that they would, and Raegdan’s threats to chastise the elder sisters’ behinds aside, she had taken his warnings that ‘something needed to happen only once’ at heart.

“Cast Iron, Ditzy, I’m going to have to leave for a little while,” she said while putting on her winter jacket. “I think my sister and her friends may get themselves into trouble again.”

“Oooh, Dinky told me all about that. I’m glad my little muffin knows to let me know where she is at all times,” Ditzy said with the enviable assurance of not having a minor heart attack everytime somepony started a sentence with ‘Your little sister today…’

“They’re not going to go into the forest after last time, surely.” Cast Iron blinked, trying to get into the headspace of pre-teen girls and his brain doing a hasty reset. “I’ll come with you. Sometimes an animal from in there will decide to edge out if it thinks it’s worth it.”

“I’m coming, too!” Ditzy cheered. “We can be the… Cutie Mark Crusaders’ Cutie Mark Crusader Guardians!”

“No.”

Twilight would strangle Luna before the hour was done if this trend continued.

“It is bigger,” Luna repeated.

Twilight’s hooves trembled, a mere inch before reaching for her own mane and pulling it out. “Size. Does not. Matter,” she reasserted for the tenth time.

“It does.”

“It does not!”

“Are you truly attempting to convince me that there is objectively no difference between this—” Luna spread her hooves a few inches apart “—and this?” she finished as her hooves reached almost a foot apart.

“Not in this kind of thing. Everypony knows it!” Twilight insisted.

The starry mane flicked to the left, accompanied by a bored rolling of the eyes. “Don’t be foolish. They just say that. Of course it does.”

“No, it does not! Look, I can prove it!”

Before the stunned store owner knew what was going on, Twilight pounced. She grabbed the large blackboard from the window behind him, wiped the ‘The boss has been discorded - Winter Sale at 30% off!!!!!’ sales pitch—growling at the demonic abuse of the exclamation mark—and scribbled her own calculus:

“First, we measure how much pressure the mattress can withstand before deforming, the rate of deformation by p.s.i.—”

“How did you do the dots?” Luna asked.

“—and calculate the maximum limits. We will need to take into account the pliability of the bed springs and factor in any bending. Knowing all that and already having Spike’s height, weight, and favorite sleeping position, we come up with this formula—”

Fluttershy was only a few paces away, trying to decide between bunny or squirrel decorated covers. She looked into the heart of the math, and the math looked back.

“—which proves, mathematically, that this is the best possible bed for Spike when taking into account the previous results, his growth rate, and the average lifespan of a bed in this price range.” Twilight rested her chalky hoof on the foot of the bed with a self-satisfied smile. “What do you say to that?”

Luna pointed at the bed she had been championing all along. “This one’s bigger.”

“I just said that size doesn’t matter!”

“Fine. It’s softer, too.” Luna pressed on the mattress to prove it. It looked as if her hoof was being swallowed by the material.

“And this exact property goes against what we want!” Twilight didn’t quite scream, but it was a close thing.

Luna tilted her head in curiosity. “Comfort and fun?”

“Proper back support!” Twilight screamed. Oh, Luna was so strangled.

Unnoticed by both princess and librarian, Fluttershy was making notes of all the covers, blankets, sheets, and pillows, she had chosen, and was bringing them over to the store owner along with a request for help.

“Excuse me, could you show me some simple beds for a young colt, about this height?” she asked, extending her left wing the appropriate distance. “Nothing too extravagant, we will probably need a new one soon; he sneezes too often.”

Luna and Twilight kept bickering behind her even while the store hooves were preparing everything for delivery.

Spike picked up another blade of withered grass and mailed it to Applebloom out of sheer boredom.

“Stop that,” Applebloom whined. “My mane is full of them darn things.”

“We’ve been waiting for ages,” Spike counter-whined, dropping on the cold ground. He breathed out a few puffs of flame every once in a while to warm his hands, careful not to start a fire. Everytime he did it Applebloom scooted closer, shivering as the bite of the wind nearly froze her in place.

“Scootaloo’s probably having trouble convincing her aunts to take us to Zecora,” Applebloom unnecessarily explained again.

“You should have asked Applejack or Big Mac,” Spike suggested. He breathed out more flame.

“They got too much work at the farm.” Applebloom’s pout slowly left her face as she gazed towards the Everfree Forest and the path that lead to Zecora’s hut. “Hey, your dad’s there!” she excitedly said, pointing with her hoof.

“Huh? No way; he’s gone shopping with Twilight and Luna,” Spike said, yet he still lifted himself up enough to see.

Applebloom was right. In between the trees there was a certain shadowy figure that Spike was all too familiar with.

“Aw, Twilight’s gonna kill him. Then Luna’ll bring him back and kill him again. What’s he doing out there?” Spike wondered loudly. Raegdan was too deep in the shadows of the Everfree to see him that well. He looked as if he was watching something.

Spike huffed, having figured out what his Dad was waiting for. He wanted to see if Spike or Applebloom would make the mistake of going in the Everfree Forest without notifying anypony or any escort. If that’s what it was, then he was sorely underestimating the intelligence of the Crusaders. None of the three fillies had even raised the possibility of visiting Zecora without following Raegdan’s instructions to the letter; not while he and his palm were still in Ponyville.

“Let’s ask him!” Applebloom yelled.

“What?”

“Yer dad!” Applebloom grinned. “He ain’t gonna say no. He’s the one who said we shouldn’t be going in there on our lonesome. Ah mean, we would be safest with him rather than anypony else, don’t ya reckon?”

Spike wasn’t completely sure if his dad would be up for it, but he had to admit that Applebloom had a point, and that Raegdan would help if Spike asked. Before he could voice his opinion, Applebloom was already at the forest’s edge.

“Hey, Mister Raegdan, we got a favor to ask!” she called out.

“Slow down,” Spike shouted, doing his best to catch up on his own two short legs.

As the two of them approached rapidly, the figure started moving towards them. The closer the two parties got, the more details Spike noticed about the figure.

It was too short. At first he chalked it up to distance.

And there were more of them; five more came out of the foliage like ghosts. In their shock, Applebloom and Spike stared numbly as the figures surrounded them.

Leaf Stream found him sitting on the stairs outside, of course. She knew that some stallions preferred to wait outside rather than go through the ‘horror’ of shopping, but in her opinion that made them look more like dogs that had been leashed outside than any macho delusions they might have had of themselves.

She approached the bane of her existence, and had to bang her hoof on the ground a couple of times until he looked up from his lap. Great. He was either sleepy or feeling sorry for himself again.

“You brought it?” Raegdan asked.

“Gee, fho knowth?” Leaf Stream said through the cloth caught in her teeth. She dropped the bag. It landed with a rich jingle. “What do you think? Did I?”

Raegdan nodded, and reached for the bag. “Thank you. I appreciate that—”

She hit his hand away, a wicked grin on her lips. “Nuh-uh. Not yet. First we’re talking reimbursement.”

He nodded and made that circly motion of his with his fingers that meant to hurry along. She was all too happy to comply. “Alright! First of all: interest. I’m thinking… one hundred percent?” she endeavored.

He stilled for a moment, deep in thought. “I’ll need three months, then. Two month’s salary won’t be enough,” he said. He was staring down the road at the ponies going about their business.

Leaf Stream scowled, unnoticed and ignored. “Fine. Interest still applies though. And I want something extra since you had me go through all this hassle. Next time we do combat training you will stand there and let me wail on you for however long I want. No stopping until I say so.”

Now he was seriously pissing her off. Just nodding along and everything. “It will have to wait until we get back to Canterlot. They don’t want us to do any training exercises here since the last one.”

“Fine,” she spat, feeling frustrated enough to nearly start punching her own face. Or his. It was a far more tempting target. She kicked the money bag.

Move on. That was the ticket. Ignore him, go back to Broken Gust, whine about being hungry and feeling cooped up until she got the hint. Usually it took saying ‘I am hungry’ and that was enough for Broken Gust to rush her off for a picnic or a restaurant.

Any mention of wanting to stay in or ‘relax’ on their own and… well, everypony else in the house would be bribed away or kicked out and… stuff would happen. All Leaf Stream wanted was to spend another day feeling like somepony good and wonderful really cared for a pegasus that couldn’t fly. Leaf Stream was determined to enjoy this temporary turn of events as much as possible until Broken Gust realized she had far better options.

A second spent here was a second she would regret later on.

She slumped her plump rump down, sitting next to Raegdan and poking him in the ribs to prod him to scoot over a bit rather than taking all space for himself, miserable egoist that he was.

Leaf Stream peeked into the shop through the front glass. Princess Luna, Fluttershy, and Twilight Sparkle were arguing over three different beds each. Well, she said arguing, but Twilight Sparkle was doing her lecturing thing over a straight, rigid bed fit for a dungeon, and yes she was drawing math on a blackboard with a piece of chalk, Princess Luna was pontificating in a similar manner—minus the graffiti—next to a lush, puffed up, princess-sized bed, and Fluttershy was quietly making arrangements for the delivery of the simple, foal-sized bed she had chosen while the other two were distracted.

Sneaky; she applauded that.

“What do you need all these bits for, anyway?” she asked Raegdan.

Raegdan pulled one of his pockets inside out. She noticed it had holes stitched shut and nothing else. Obviously, none of his money went to getting new clothes until there was nothing there to actually stitch together. At least he washed them. He smelled so ripe when wearing the bleeping armor for too long, she was thanking Celestia every day she didn’t have to smell au de Raegdan more often than needed.

“I’m broke. Between the building materials, the fines, and other things I’ve had to pay for, I’ve blown through everything I’ve saved so far. I have money in a bank, but it’s in Blueblood’s name, not mine, and… I’m saving that for something else.”

“Uh-huh… Yeah, I know about your little outing with the Princess the day before yesterday. Seriously, who doesn’t? So this is for what? Do you think that if you take her there for round two you’ll score base faster?”

He shrugged, not taking the bait. “I’m paying for everything they buy today. Thank you for… I really didn’t know who else to ask.”

Leaf Stream blew a raspberry. “You totally did, you just didn’t want to ask anypony else. I bet it was easier to ask a loan from somepony like me rather than risking it, am I right?”

There it was, a small coal burning in his eye again. “I think we’re done here. Isn’t your girlfriend waiting for you? You should hurry. It’s not like you can fly there.”

“Oh, thine arrows, swiftly and without recourse do they wound,” she sassed, bringing her leg over her eyes. “And thus, maimed, I weep. And thee, victorious, sulk like a bitch.”

Raegdan tied the large bag to his waist and waved her off, getting comfortable on the stair he was sitting on. He didn’t even care to respond back, just went back to staring at nothing with the patience of a potato.

Now, nopony would be able to say it was her fault that her hoof managed to nail him right on his jaw in a stealthy uppercut. If he had been paying attention he would definitely be able to block it or avoid it. Or, you know, he wasn’t missing an eye. It was totally the victim’s fault.

Leaf Stream stood up as he sputtered a few select words through the fingers holding the lower part of his face. “Now, I don’t know what happened. Maybe you spilled the milk, maybe ate somepony’s leg, but stop your little theater play. You do remember we are leaving in two days, right?”

“What has that got to do with you being a cun—”

She smacked him on the back of the head. “The point being, cyclops, that it’s gonna be months until Twilight and Spike see you again. If you keep acting like a mopey prima donna, what they’ll remember is that nopony on either side enjoyed being around each other. Keep in mind what we talked about, alright? You gotta shore up your act, and not just for a few days.”

He huffed, and turned away.

“Problems in paradise?” Leaf Stream questioned.

Raegdan swiftly turned back, an incredulous look in his eye. “In what?”

“With your old lady,” Leaf Stream specified.

The eye narrowed in bewilderment. “...Applejack’s grandmother?”

“Princess Luna, you idiot!” Leaf Stream bellowed, aiming another hoof at his face that he deftly avoided this time.

“We… had a disagreement,” he admitted. “A fight. I’m not sure how things… stand at the moment.”

Leaf Stream huffed. “Seriously, I get why you’re worried. Let’s face it: not only are you dumb, you are so ugly you put a bag on your own head. But you’re barking up the wrong tree here. If she was going to kick you out then she would have been sane enough to do so long ago. As it stands, it looks she is stuck with your bagged wonder.”

He turned away again, this time deep in thought. “So… This might not actually be a problem?”

“Do you have a problem with the princess?” Leaf Stream asked him straight out.

“No,” he said. There was a tiny hesitation that Leaf Stream wouldn’t have noticed if she was paying anything but her complete attention.

She ignored it for now. ““If the roles were reversed, if she had done what you did and you did what she did, would it be for you?”

Raegdan’s spine snapped straight. “No…” After a moment he turned back. “You’re probably right. I’m… Thanks. Just… thanks.”

Leaf Stream smiled in satisfaction. “You are welcome,” she said, before covering her mouth in a hurry, feeling ashamed. “I mean, don’t mention it, you big-headed jerk.”

CRACK. CRACK.

The booming claps of thunder cut through the chilly air like a scream, and for a moment Leaf Stream would swear she heard the ghost of one. They didn’t have the raw power of other explosions she had become increasingly privy to, but this one carried a connotation not of force but of danger. Like a knife with your own name etched on a blade found in a dark dream. They filled the world for the second they lasted, the second cutting deeply through the first, seemingly coming down from the heavens themselves, even while Leaf Stream could swear they had exploded from the direction of the Everfree Forest.

She was set to ask what the Tartarus that was now, right after that first second where every bone in her body had frozen in sudden fright, but Raegdan was faster. He was moving after the first cloudless thunder roared. Leaf Stream suddenly found herself off the ground, the door that was at her back now rapidly approaching her face. There was a swivel, and a thick shoulder placed itself in front, forcing the door open. The arms that were holding her threw her in and she skidded all the way to the princess and the librarian.

Twilight and Princess Luna opened their mouths in unison to speak. Raegdan didn’t give them the chance.

“Stay in here!” he ordered loudly. “Stay away from the windows, get down, and hide!”

“What was—” Twilight tried to say.

Raegdan shouted a word in his own language to Princess Luna. It was short, crude sounding, and it sounded almost like the bulk of what he usually said when he switched to it. If it was a swear, it was one that heckled the hairs of the Princess’ coat.

Princess Luna’s magic wrapped around Leaf Stream. As she was dragged through the air—and wasn’t that a pang in the heart—she saw Fluttershy, Twilight, and the shopkeeper fall prey to the same fate as Princess Luna’s magic barricaded doors and windows, and pushed them behind the thick counter.

“Hide!” Raegdan ordered again, and slammed the door behind him. They heard him shouting out on the street at the ponies of Ponyville, his shouts strong enough to hurt anypony’s ears. “Everyone inside, now! All of you, hide, and don’t come out no matter what!”

Ch. 46 - The shortest route between two points

Rarity saw six of them.

She would have known it wasn’t Raegdan even if it was just one. None of them were as bulky as he was, nor as tall.

Raegdan never wore clothes covered in dark green and brown splotches. The mask he always wore since his stay in Baltimare’s hospital was more a silk bag with holes than these… metallic imitations.

And of course he wouldn’t go around holding what seemed to be at a glance a too short, thick, metal, curvy stick with both hands.

Seemed. Rarity was afraid it was more than a stick.

She had left the little hidey hole where she, Ditzy, and Cast Iron watched Spike and Applebloom from. At first there had been a blossom of hope in her chest. Mayhaps a certain somepony could have friends of his own kind again. Mayhaps those people were lost, like Raegdan was, and ponies could give them help.

Rarity had been galloping her way to them almost as soon as they appeared. For as much as she had been hoping that this was something good, Raegdan’s exhausted and pained voice cut through her ears in memory.

Trust me, if you see something intelligent pop out of thin air, don’t try and talk to him or her. Either kill them before they get their bearings or run as fast as you can. Preferably run, and don’t stop until you can run no more.

They surrounded Spike and Applebloom. One of them lunged for Spike while the other lifted Applebloom off the ground while she tried to avoid another. Spike blew great puffs of fire in front of him to drive his would-be captors back. Up until Applebloom was caught. Spike, always so brave and a little hero at heart, tried to rush to her aid and was pulled into a bear hug. A hand kept his jaw closed and head turned away, stopping him from flaming those around him.

She had never ran as fast as she ran this moment. If she could bring this speed to the Running of the Leaves, Applejack and Rainbow Dash would be choking on her dust. She passed by the first of them, ignoring him or her. Rarity also ignored a surprised gasp.

All she cared for was the two children struggling in the hold of these brutes!

She couldn’t tell if they were male or female, and had no way or desire to judge. She jumped, turned, and kicked with her back legs. Her hooves made a ‘thunk’, like she hit a thick plank of wood. Whether they were wearing some sort of armor beneath these ghastly patterns or not, that kick was felt just fine.

Applebloom almost made it free, but the biped kept its hold on her even as it fell, keeping her tight to its chest. It landed on its back, and Rarity was about to go and kick it in the head until it learnt you don’t spook and rough-handle a young lady like that.

Before she could do that, another one approached her, forcing her to back off in self-defense. She had managed to get among them and momentarily take down one of them by sheer element of surprise, true, but now they were all around her. A kick came from her blind spot, and the wind was knocked from her lungs as she fell to the ground.

A roar of pure rage reverbated in the air. Rarity glanced back.

The minotaur was in a run, his hooves sparking against hard stones as he dug them in deeply, giving himself as much thrust as possible, and the large knuckles of his hands pounded the earth like a drum. There was a speckle of gray behind him, Ditzy Doo trying to catch up, but all Rarity had eyes for was the blood-lusted Cast Iron she witnessed for the first time.

His eyes were dark, and spittle flew as he thundered towards the would-be foalnappers. Completely unarmed, but for his two large, pointy horns and his massive weight, strength, and mass that was speeding faster and faster towards them. He roared once more in a final challenge, threat, and warning for what was to come. He lowered himself, letting his horns lead the charge.

The biped closest to him raised the metal stick it was holding. It rested the back of it on his shoulder, put his cheek against it, and pointed the blunt, narrowing end towards Cast Iron as he was almost on him.

The stick jerked, and Rarity winced at the crack of thunder. A spark of fire flashed out of its end.

A spray of blood bloomed out of Cast Iron’s chest. Cast Iron stumbled, almost tripping over himself as he came to a forced halt by the impact. As he straightened up, Rarity saw the hole in his chest, an ugly crater of broken, torn up flesh that wept blood.

The weapon thundered again. Rarity screamed.

The hole opened like a startled eye or an ugly tear on soft silk. The flesh surrounding it pulsed like the surface of a disturbed lake. Red droplets rained outwards in a concentric spray, forming an ephemeral hollow cylinder than tapered down as its sudden flow died. The ravaged wound now gaped open, and in a throat-clenching moment of pure horror, she could see behind him as if she gazed through a keyhole. Then the flesh’s ripples seized, and blood rushed out, flowing through the gory wound.

Cast Iron curled up, his hands grasping the stomach wound as his teeth gritted and his eyes clenched in agony. He started keeling over from the pain. He was falling so slow, like a venerable tree that been cut down. A slight plume of mirage or smoke danced equally slow out of the biped’s weapon as it followed him.

The minotaur didn’t make a sound until he landed on his back. He gasped, loudly and in pain, and the world returned to its normal pace.

Ditzy was there, her coat bloody. At first Rarity feared she too was hit. The mare rushed to Cast Iron’s side, her legs trying to hold as much of him as possible in a desperate hug, clinging on him as if pleading for him to stay. Her short, soft feathered wings were trying to staunch the blood in vain. There was screaming. From Ditzy in front of her. Applebloom behind her. Muffled sounds from Spike’s direction.

Her throat burned. Rarity realized she was screaming, too.

Cast Iron twitched.

His fingers dug the ground in front of him. His elbows tried weakly to push his bulk up.

Rarity cried. It was the bravest act she ever saw. She could tell by his hissing, ragged breaths and his eyes the kind of deep agony he was in, but she could also see the determination. He was hurt, he had been pierced through, he was bleeding out a river, and he was still trying to get up and reach them.

The biped that hurt him took a step forward, his weapon now aiming at the minotaur’s head. Cast Iron ignored him. He only had eyes for the ones he was trying to save.

“Don’t! Please! For all that is holy, please, please don’t!” Somepony screamed. Rarity realized halfway that it had been her.

The shooter turned his head to Rarity at her pleas. Then he saw Applebloom and Spike behind her, who were crying. Then he looked at Ditzy, who got covered in more of Cast Irons blood as she tried to stem the bleeding with her wings, though it didn't look to be working at all.

It was hesitating, but its weapon barely moved. The biped repositioned the back end comfortably at his shoulder, and the weapon became still as a rock. A thin finger passed through a small ring at the bottom.

The hand of another biped snatched the front of the weapon and ripped it upwards. The owner of the hand spoke angrily. Rarity couldn’t understand a thing it was saying. It gestured behind them, and shoved the one that hurt Cast Iron towards the others. Strong arms—strong but not as thick or as strong as the ones she had been more familiar with—wrapped around Rarity’s barrel and pulled her to her hooves.

The other biped stood over Cast Iron. Ditzy looked up, tearing up and shivering in fear, and Cast Iron weakly tried to raise his arm over her in protection.

It pulled something out of one of its pouches and knelt next to Cast Iron.

Rarity wasn’t going to let them kill a gentle, brave soul. She wouldn’t let them get away with this, she wouldn’t allow them to hurt Ditzy, Spike, or Applebloom like they did Cast Iron! She focused her magic, and every stone of adequate size or not in sight started to rise up—

One of the other bipeds pointed at her glowing horn in alarm, warning the others in a clearly feminine voice. Something hard clobbered Rarity in the head, and her magic shorted out. She saw stars, and felt her stomach churning while her vision blurred.

The last thing she saw before she blacked out was the biped kneeling in front of Cast Iron and placing something on one of his horrendous wounds and forcing Ditzy’s hoof over it.

Up. Down. Up. Down.

Her insides quivered, and that sickening motion helped none. Rarity licked her lips, and tasted metal. The vertical movement continued, and as it did she could feel the curls of her mane rushing back as if blown.

Her legs would not move. She tried again, feeling panic rise along with her awareness, and realized they were tied up. So was her torso. She was tied up on something. She felt a cloth wrapped around her temples and tried to use her magic to pull it off her.

The hollow end of one of the bipeds weapons pressed on her head, right below her horn. It abruptly brought her back to reality. She waited for the flash of fire and the pain it would bring.

It didn't come.

She looked up in fear. The one who aimed at her looked down at her. Rarity realized she was tied on the back of a smaller biped than this one. She could actually see through the glass of the upper portion of his mask from that angle. His skin was dark brown and glistening in sweat. It raised three fingers, lowered one them, then pointed at her horn.

She nodded in perfect understanding, and that seemed to be enough. The weapon was lowered.

Rarity turned her head, trying to catch a glimpse of her surroundings, hoping, and at the same time fearing, that she would see Spike and Applebloom. They were going down the path that she… Was it the one that led to Zecora? She should know, she had gone down it so many times. Only last… last…

Somepony had been hurt. Ditzy… no. No, Ditzy was there, but it hadn’t been her. It…

Were they going to Zecora now?

She didn’t know what to think. It was so hard to start, even. Were they going to attack Zecora too? Had they already? Should Rarity risk shouting a warning when they got close enough?

She never had to make the choice. They suddenly veered into the trees, and tore through the vegetation, fast but barely disturbing the foliage and ducking beneath low branches rather than push them away. The one that carried her on her back had no backpack like the others, but she spotted one of them carrying it. They were moving quickly and silently, sidestepping from left to right as they avoided soft ground and preferred to hop off rocks, roots, or hard, dry ground at worst.

She saw there more than the number she had seen at first, but barely got a glimpse of them and didn’t have time to count before most of them took off in different directions in teams of two. How many had there been when Cast Iron got hurt? Eight? More?

Applebloom and Spike were in the front, tied up with thin cord like she was and carried by two of the bipeds. Rarity smiled bravely at them in the short eye contact they had, trying to lift their spirits. They were going to be fine, she tried to promise without words.

The pain that had been building behind her eyes flared up. She retched, soaking the back of the person carrying her. She heard him shout, and the leader glanced back, raising his arm and stopping them all.

He moved in front of her, but she couldn’t read what little she could see of his masked face. Everything blurred all of a sudden. A light flashed into her eyes, hurting her, and she tried to shy away from it. A strong grip turned her head straight, and the searing glow burned into her other eye, blinding her completely.

One of them was speaking but she couldn’t tell if he was angry or disappointed. The sound of her own insides emptying crowded her ears. She felt ground beneath her hooves. They had put her down, and an attempt to stand upright made her throw up again.

She hated every moment. She hated being seen like this by everypony. Most of all she despised being seen in a moment of weakness by these…. bastards!

They didn’t rush her. They waited patiently for her to be done, and even allowed her some time to bring herself together, inhaling deeply and ignoring the acidic bile in her mouth. One of them wiped her mouth and cheeks with a cloth, and then offered her a drink from a metal canteen. She wanted to say no. She wanted to spit it back to their faces.

But it wasn’t just her here.

Applebloom and Spike were looking at her over the shoulders of the biped they had been tied on. Fear was etched on her faces. She smiled, painful as it was, and mouthedthe words ‘It’s going to be okay’. She rinsed her mouth and spit the vile taste out. The biped pushed her to drink another sip, forcing her almost.

They tied her back on his back, and he moved in front of the small group, running next to the leader who kept his eyes on her half the time.

Her friends would soon come running through the forest; she knew it. She would play the role of the damsel in distress for a few hours once more, this time doing her best to protect the kids with her, and then they would be saved. Her friends would be here.

She tried not to think of Cast Iron, who ran after her as well.

Her cheek stung. She snapped her back straight, realizing she had almost fallen asleep. The one that ran next to her had slapped her awake. She did her best to keep the blackness away. Not because she feared him, but because of Applebloom and Spike. He could go to Tartarus for all she cared.

In fact, she would insist.

It would be fine. Twilight was smart. The moment she saw—she talked to Cast Iron, her minotaur friend was still alive, she would know to be careful.

More of that woeful noise from somewhere around them. Only four of them were here with them. She wondered where the rest had gone, what they were doing. Was this the first time she heard their weapons go off in their forest or had she missed more of them while she was… She shook her head and regretted it instantly, the pain returning in full force. She had no idea how long it had been. She wasn’t sure if she had aware the whole time.

Applebloom and Spike whimpered at the cracking sounds. Rarity did her best not to. It wouldn’t do if the two young ones saw the fears the sounds of the weapons brought up mirrored in her.

They must have been fighting off Timber Wolves or something. Her friends would be fine. Everypony would be fine.

Raegdan was going to reach them any minute now. They really mucked up when they decided to take Spike. Rarity had seen Raegdan angry, and she knew that everything she had seen in the past would pale when he got here. She wouldn’t stand in his way this time, not for them, not after what they—

Not after what… what happened to- to…

Suddenly the leading one raised a fist, and every one of them stopped. He made a quick hand gesture that Rarity didn't understand and they formed a circle, weapons directed outward. Rarity was quickly slid off of the one carrying her and she, Applebloom and Spike were huddled together in the center of the circle.

Something rustled the trees. Clicking noises, like nails tapping on glass, sounded around them, close but strangely quiet. One of them knelt next to Rarity, his weapon also hovering over them but aimed outwards, not at them.

The kneeling biped looked up at the trees, and he said something. As one, all of the bipeds also kneeled, their weapons aiming for the higher branches. Two of them fired, and Rarity and the children flinched.

It fell down fast, like a shadow. Glimpsing through the legs of the people around her, and covering the eyes of Spike and Applebloom with her front legs as she hugged them to her, Rarity saw what the bipeds killed.

Long, thin, hairy legs, much longer than most arachnids she had ever seen proportionally had. Eight eyes, small like pebbles and scattered almost randomly around the front of its face, over two pairs of vicious, glossy fangs the color of wet tar. It screeched as it died, gathering its legs over its strangely hairless, wrinkled body, over twice as big as a very large pony.

Another of the bipeds shouted, and then the weapons started firing while the trees shook under the weight of dozens of legs. The bipeds started moving, shooting while enlarging the circle. Almost every single shot would be followed by branches breaking and bodies thumping, while the bipeds walked on, undeterred and coldly efficient.

Step. Shot. Death. Repeat.

The one-sided battle cut off suddenly. There was a shout, an order, and a wait. It was during this that Rarity realized that the kneeling biped had bent over her and her charges, placing them under the shadow of his torso and spread arms, covering them.

Rarity looked around her. She saw the leading one, standing over an arachnid corpse and examining it. Rarity swallowed dryly at the number of corpses around them. That many monstrosities, that large, and none of their captors so much as flinched at continuing to walk through the Everfree Forest.

One of them was chuckling as he showcased a spider’s fang that had broken off during the brief fight.

The leader swished around as if he sensed Rarity looking at him. His weapon rested on his side, kept on one hand, while his other dug into a pouch, digging out something as he crouched in front of Rarity…

She opened her eyes. They were walking again, once more tied to their backs, though a bit more gently positioned this time.

Any minute now. Raegdan, and Princess Luna, and Solid Charge, and the rest of the guards, and her friends…

Any minute now…

They were stopping, and it took a few minutes for Rarity to realize they were preparing to rest for the night in the Everfree Forest itself. It didn’t make sense to her. It had been only… It was midday only a couple of hours ago.

Wasn’t it?

The bipeds set up their camp quickly. Efficiently. More of them appeared from different directions. Rarity blinked, and every one of them were eating. One more blink, and some of them were lying down while others took watch. In the distance, terrible howls and shrieks echoed through the darkness.

Nopony came.

They allowed Rarity to stay with Spike and Applebloom. Brought them together on their own, actually. Rarity pulled both of them close and promised them everything would turn out alright. She wiped their tears, and was brave for them.

“Everything will turn out alright,” she swore. “It will be over before we even know it,” she insisted, not letting the throbbing pain in her head show on her face.

“Wh-What a-a-bout Mister Cast Iron?” Applebloom sobbed, pushing herself against Rarity’s chest. “I-is he… Is he d-dead?”

Rarity shook her head, and ignored the stab of fear when their guard, a male with a gravel voice as far as she could tell, almost rose up at the sudden gasp of pain her shake brought her.

“No, Applebloom. You saw him move, right? I did,” she lied, unsure now if she remembered correctly. Everything was turning into a blur as time passed. “I bet you all the gems in the world that this is why they haven’t reached us yet. They found him first and took him to the hospital. He will be fine. He was bleeding a lot, but he is big and strong. Minotaurs are superbly tough.”

Rarity took off her winter jacket, a harder task than she was used to without using her magic and no easier with her head pulsing along with every movement, and dressed Applebloom in it, tying up the ends of it as much as she could so as to not flop around her much smaller form. She tore up one of the pockets and used it as a handkerchief to dry up the children’s faces.

“Our friends will be coming for us soon,” Rarity promised, wiping Applebloom’s cheeks of tear trails and dust. “Applejack isn’t gonna let these brutes go without acquainting them with her apple-bucking muscles, will she?” she joked, and Applebloom and Spike let out a laugh. It was small and half-forced, but it helped. Just like Pinkie Pie had said.

Their guard had been digging into his backpack. He stood up and approached them, holding something that she couldn’t see in the darkness of the Everfree Forest. He… unfolded it, and put it down on the ground near them. Spike reached out and picked it up. It was silvery, and extremely thin, but Rarity supposed it must be a sheet to cover themselves for the night.

“Thank you,” Rarity said quietly. It was a courtesy that she didn’t expect, much like the surprising meal they fed them, so as much as she despised them for what they did, she had to thank them. It could easily have been much worse, and she had to think of more than herself.

If it was just her, she would have torn it to strips.

The guard identified what she meant, and nodded, always keeping the darkened lenses of his mask on her. Treated with some courtesy they might be, but they were still prisoners.

“Nopony has been really hurt,” Rarity promised to Spike and Applebloom once more, tucking them all under the lightweight, silver sheet. She shushed away the fuss they tried to make over her. “We might wake up to find ourselves back at home tomorrow, and won’t that be grand?

“Sleep, and everything will be fine.”

Applebloom fell asleep first. Spike managed to hold on for a few minutes more. He rubbed his claws together, and glanced aside to the biped guarding them as if afraid of being overheard.

Rarity blinked, and when she opened her eyes again Spike was swaying as he sat, almost asleep by exhaustion. She must have had a… moment to herself, but the little darling stood awake and waited on her.

“I heard them talk,” Spike said, talking as low as possible. One of his hands was petting Applebloom’s mane, soothing the filly’s sleep.

“Me too,” Rarity whispered back, afraid of waking Applebloom. “But I can’t make heads or tails of what they say. You should get some sleep while you can, Spike.”

The baby dragon nodded. After a few moments of silence he spoke again, hesitantly at first but with the words pouring out in a near unintelligible flow as he went. “When… When Twilight made Dad stop seeing us, I… I, uh… I stole something of his. I mean, nopony ever asked for it, so I didn’t tell anypony that I had it…”

“It’s alright, Spikey. Your dad wouldn’t mind,” she assured him, glad that he was thinking of something else than their current situation. She wished he would go to sleep. She wanted to sleep, and escape this excruciating headache for a few hours.

“Twilight had given him a dictionary a long time ago. He used to carry it around for years, making notes on it. So he could learn Equestrian better. I have it,” Spike continued, lowering his head. He glanced at the guard briefly. “I only learned most of the words and I don’t know how their sentences work, but…”

“You can understand what they are saying?” Rarity whispered, surprised.

“A little; I never actually tried to memorize everything. Just bits and pieces. They keep saying something about ‘a door up north’ and, uh… I think they are arguing about something. I got some words like ‘orders’, ‘wrong’, ‘fire’, ‘home’, and a word that I think means ‘punishment’. They are talking about pain too, I think? They seem to be hurting from something. Have you noticed how they keep holding their heads?”

Rarity was very careful not to gulp. “Go to sleep, Spike,” she urged him. “Raegdan might not even speak the same language as they do. It’s probably nothing.”

Spike looked unconvinced, but his gaze softened as he glanced on the bandage wrapped around her head.

“Okay.” The baby dragon lied on the other side of her, opposite from Applebloom and as close as he could get to Rarity’s safe presence as possible. “Dad is coming, right? He will save us... right?”

“Of course he will. He saved Twilight the last time something like this happened, didn’t he? Remember? You told us the story yourselves. In the library’s kitchen?” Her hoof ran over his fins on his head and his back as she spoke in her most soothing manner. “We had tea, and you told us the story. You told us how he protected you, and we all laughed and were excited to meet him…”

Spike had fallen asleep. She didn’t see when. It had happened during one of her blinks.

Rarity was afraid. It had been hours, a day, and it seemed nopony was coming for them despite her promises. As far as she knew at least. She had heard too many times the echo of the horrible weapons in the forest. Who could tell that her friends hadn’t tried to come for them and… and…

Step. Shot. Death. Repeat.

She closed her eyes. She had an inkling what the door that Spike mentioned was. If she was right, they might never see their home again. Their friends. Their families. She missed Sweetie Belle so much. Celestia knew if she would ever see her again.

Rarity fell asleep.

And dreamt of Luna.

Rainbow Dash came back in through the same window she had flown out of, thankful that nopony had closed it despite the evening cold. She had been flying non-stop and the weight she carried made her journey no easier. She would have gone through the window whether it was closed or not, and she wasn’t in the mood of having a nurse pluck glass shards out of her exhausted flank.

She landed on the floor of the Ponyville Hospital’s waiting room, still flapping her wings slowly to avoid any cramps. The full saddlebags weighed her down, but she refused to show how unbearingly heavy she found them.

“I flew all the way to Canterlot and back, and boy are my wings tired!” she announced.

Pinkie was the only one to raise her hoof. “I got it,” she proclaimed with just a brief, flickering smile.

Rainbow Dash looked around her. Everyone was still dour and grim, just like when she first left hours ago when the daylight was still bright. Twilight and a nurse ran up to her, and Twilight’s blessed magic took the saddlebags off her back.

“How much blood did you get?” Twilight said with some wonder, hefting the saddlebags.

“All they could spare. Better safe than sorry, right?” Rainbow shrugged. “Or is it too much?”

The nurse shook her head. “I have to get this back to the doctor Hewn Laurel. The patient is in critical condition.”

Rainbow winced. She spotted Solid Charge sitting near the doors, Ditzy petting Dinky’s mane as the filly had fallen asleep on his right, and Mint and Stormdrain on his left with haunted eyes. Solid Charge’s expression was completely vacant and he sat motionless, staring at the doors leading to the operating room.

“Is it that bad?” Rainbow asked Twilight quietly while the nurse ran off.

Twilight nodded. “Cast Iron’s right lung collapsed, and he still has severe internal bleeding.”

“Still? I thought they got the metal thingy out!” Rainbow protested.

“They did, but it hit a rib, and the metal and bone fragments did a lot of damage. They are still… trying to remove most of them,” Twilight responded emotionlessly.

Rainbow’s wing rested over Twilight’s back. “Hey. Cast Iron’s still fighting and we’re getting the others back. Come on, chin up, okay?”

Twilight actually took her advice, raising her head up and standing straighter as she took measured breaths. “Sorry. It’s just that…”

“That…” Rainbow prodded.

“I’ve been in their shoes,” Twilight answered, looking away. “It’s scary. Being taken away by strangers, not knowing what is going to happen to you. Wondering if they will try to hide their tracks by…” She clammors down, holding her lips tight so they don’t utter the word she fears so much.

“Hey, it’s okay!” Rainbow repeated, feeling awkward and speaking slowly as to avoid putting her hoof in her mouth. “Look, tell you what,” she bargained, leading Twilight back to the others while nurses behind them were picking up the blood and rushing through the doors. “We’ll go after them in the morning ourselves if we don’t hear back from Luna and Raegdan.”

Applejack huffed from where she sat, her hat covering her face. “Yeah. Sure,” she spat. “Good luck doing that.”

“What do you mean?” Rainbow asked, turning to her.

Applejack tilted up her hat and showed off her swollen shut black eye.

“Alright.” Rainbow nodded sagely. “What did I miss?”

Normally, she would have difficulties taking the scenario she was presented with as real, but circumstances being what they were she could only stand there with a slacked jaw as Applejack raved wildly and used some language that was… a teeny bit more harsh than she usually used. Though considering how Pinkie put her hoofs on her ears with practised ease, this must have become a rather common occurrence.

“So let me get this straight.” Rainbow Dash pointed at Applejack. “After all we were told, you and Big Mac tried to go after these people who can shoot metal, uh… arrowheads?” she questioned, glancing at Twilight for help.

“Bullets. Like a sling’s ammunition,” Twilight immediately supplied.

“That. They can shoot metal bullets from Celestia knows how far—”

“Allegedly shoot—” Applejack tried to bluster.

“Did you see the holes in Cast Iron? A small pony could squeeze through them,” Rainbow Dash yelled. Fluttershy looked in worry at Solid Charge, away but in yelling distance, and shook her head at Rainbow. Alright, hoof in mouth done already. Maybe now I can relax, Rainbow thought grimly.

“You and Big Mac try to go after them,” Rainbow continued, “and Solid Charge stops you—”

“Big Mac has a concussion and a broken leg!” Applejack barked. “And mah baby sister is still gone!”

“Please don’t shout,” Fluttershy begged.

“Dude!” Rainbow pushed Applejack back to her seat, getting muzzle to muzzle with her. She lamented the fact that she couldn’t be gentle, that she couldn’t act like an understanding friend. But Applejack didn’t need kindness. Their friends would have tried that. So there was only one other course for her.

“Better a lame leg and a shiner than leaving your sister an only child, okay? It’s Applebloom, I get it and I’m one hundred and twenty percent behind you, but that guy—” she pointed at Solid Charge, “just stopped you from running into the Everfree and getting killed. His best friend almost got killed, you think he would have let the same happen to you?”

Rainbow made a note to remember how much she owed Solid Charge for beating the daylights out of two of her friends. She had seen Cast Iron. One friend like that was one too many.

“Ah’d have thought you’d be itching to go with me, not stop me,” Applejack barked out.

Rainbow shook her head. “Kinda learned to take it slow first. Otherwise I end up throwing ponies out a window,” she said through her teeth, managing with great force not to stutter at the memory of glass panels breaking.

Applejack returned Rainbow’s furious stare in equal measure. “Ah’m going out there at first light,” she resolved.

“Right. We all are,” Rainbow said. She backed off and took a seat of her own, the hard hospital chair feeling like a cloud mattress.

“Princess Celestia is taking measures of her own, too. Don’t forget that,” Twilight tentatively reminded the still fuming Applejack.

“Sure,” Rainbow said, flexing her wing muscles a little, and wincing, not at the pain but the memory of cold fury in the Princess’ face when Rainbow told her what was up. “She’s sent pegasus guards to scout around the Everfree Forest’s perimeter and beyond, and she’s gotten a force ready to move out at first sighting.”

Rainbow decided to skip the part where she was going to tell them that it’s super hard to spot somepony from the sky when he’s hiding under trees. Or the part where she really doubted there were enough pegasi guards to make sure nopony managed to get through.

What you don’t know, you can’t blame Rainbow Dash for.

After that, it was a long wait, filled with sullen, and fearful, silence. Nopony wanted to go to rest. Twilight and Applejack startled Rainbow with the unmoving, quiet intensity they stared out the window with, almost as if trying to pierce through the darkness of the night that had arrived and manage to spot their loved ones.

Rainbow couldn’t allow herself to have a similar meltdown. Celestia knew how many teeth gnawed at her own heart. Not only those gone, but the condition of her friends right here, right now. Not to mention the coolest minotaur she had ever known. If there had been one similar shoulder for her in the Lunar Guard it had been Cast Iron. The guy was not a fighter and he felt good about it.

Which made what happened an exceedingly cruel joke. Rainbow didn’t say that outloud though. She stood resolute, cracked her jokes, and smiled as if this was no biggie.

Somepony had to.

Doors opened and closed round the clock. Nurses and doctors moved in and out, and a little further away from their time-locked space ponies came into the hospital, seeking answers to satisfy their curiosity, and were shown out again, pronto.

Rainbow didn’t know how, but suddenly Twilight spun her head to look towards the door behind them as it opened, as if knowing beforehoof. Rainbow, and the rest, followed her gaze.

Princess Luna stood at the threshold. Her coat was dirty and speckled with thorns and scratches, and her eyes betrayed her exhaustion. She walked timidly into the room, and Twilight was on her immediately, followed by Applejack just an inch behind. Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Pinkie hovered behind them.

“Did you find them?” Twilight asked breathlessly, the previous hope in her collapsing like a tower of cards in a storm.

Luna hesitated, her eyes jumping left and right, and that was enough for Twilight and Applejack both. Twilight shut her eyes, but Applejack rushed forward, anger and frustration battling her anguish.

“Why are ya here if you didn’t find them, then?” Applejack shouted in Luna’s face. The sleeping ponies near Solid Charge startled awake, and the minotaur himself slowly rose up, paying attention but not approaching. Rainbow found herself struggling to hold her friend back, her teeth battling the pull of Applejack’s tail hard enough she felt a couple of them move.

“We—We will,” Luna insisted, raising her front leg in front of her and gulping as if afraid. “But they were wary of being followed. They split apart, laying false tracks and doubling back over and over. By the time we were certain one trail was false there were two more, and it- it’s still the Everfree Forest. We kept being... We have a plan. I-I just came by to find out if—How Cast Iron is doing first. I was… I was wo—”

“Still dying,” Applejack mercilessly cut in. “Just like mah sister, Spike, and mah friend are still gone.”

“Applejack!” Twilight snapped, and Rainbow tried to help by pulling the strong earth pony back and away from the Princess, giving Twilight some space and hoping Twilight would be able to defuse the situation and get some proper answers with her modern—probably certified by a board of education—egghead ways.

“What plan?” Twilight asked.

Rainbow sat next to Applejack in a corner of the library, some distance from the others.

Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Twilight were huddled together on a couch, watching silently as Raegdan pulled one piece of metal after the other out of a box. Each one he rubbed with a cloth and some dark, tar like substance until it almost got absorbed by the metal itself and turned it dull and dead to light. His clothes were still trailed with cuts and streaks of blood, but he paid it no mind.

He was working like a machine. Armor piece out, dipping the cloth, rub, check, refine. No pause, no break. Complete focus on what he was doing.

Taking advantage of the quiet and the morbid attention on Raegdan—Twilight especially was looking at him so intensely it was almost freaky—Rainbow had a bizzaro talk with Applejack. It was like she had gone into a mirror world where she was the sane one. Usually, it was the other way around.

“Ah know ah messed up,” Applejack admitted with an expression like she just bit into a sour apple.

“Well, don’t say that to me!” Rainbow hissed in Applejack’s ear. “Do you know what you sounded like?”

“Pretty sure ah do.”

“Pretty sure you don’t,” Rainbow retorted. “Do you realize who you said that to?”

Applejack blinked in confusion. “Ah thought Luna doesn’t want us to pay attention to the princess stuff—”

“Not that,” Rainbow cut her off. “Look, picture this. It’s before she got banished, Luna goes off to help one village or another, putting her life on risk, and what she hears instead of thanks is—”

“Same horseapples ah just spurted.” Applejack blanched. She clomped her hooves on her eyes, wincing as her black eye didn't like that very much. “Consarnit, she tries to help and ah almost bit her head off in return…”

Rainbow patted her friend on the head in the most condescending manner possible. Damn, it felt good to be the one doing that for once! “On the bright side, she didn’t yell at you like she used to, so, hey, progress!” Rainbow said cheerily, teasing Applejack.

“It’s Applebloom,” Applejack repeated once more, same way she had been doing ever since noon. “She’s not supposed to… She’s supposed to go to school, do her chores, play, and have fun, not… not… Ah’m scared out of my mind, Rainbow.”

“I hear ya, and Luna does, too.”

“Right.” Applejack huffed, took a deep breath, and sat straighter. “Right. Gonna apologize and gonna trust her. If she says she can get in contact with any of them when they fall asleep, then that’s how it is. It’s a good plan. Good plan…”

Her skin under her coat drained almost entirely of blood. She turned to Raegdan, hissing loudly enough to be heard but not enough to wake up Luna from where she slept up on Twilight’s bed.

“Raegdan? What if… What if she doesn’t manage to talk to any of them?”

Raegdan held a piece up to the light of the lanterns for a few seconds, turning it left and right to judge it. He placed it next to him and began work on the next one, his eye barely flickering to acknowledge Applejack. When he spoke his voice was devoid of any warmth.

“Spike Applebloom too young. Will be exhausted fast. Easier to carry than keep awake to walk.” Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie exchanged looks at the clipped and barely correct wording.

“Yeah. Okay. But what if Luna doesn’t manage to find them or… or get in their dreams or something?” Applejack insisted worriedly.

“Then they are dead,” Raegdan said with casual finality, still absorbed in his handiwork.

Rainbow stood up at once, getting in front of Applejack. “Come on, that’s a teensy bit overboard,” she snapped. “Going to all that trouble to grab them alive and then just… Look, they’ll be fine, okay? They will be just fine!” she insisted, speaking mainly to Applejack and Twilight.

Raegdan shrugged. “Know soon,” was all he said, and he kept working.

A few minutes passed: three or four, no more than that. Twilight was watching Raegdan like a hawk watching a hare, and Rainbow watched Twilight like a pony watching a hawk watching a hare. Twilight’s eyelids narrowed more by the second before widening in surprise.

Twilight gasped. “You blame yourself…”

Raegdan grimaced at that and picked up a pauldron.

“He does?” Rainbow asked.

“About what?” she and Pinkie Pie chorused together.

Twilight pointed with her hoof. “That’s why you don’t dare to hope that they are okay! Because you think it was your fault and that if you do something wrong… Hold on…” She pulled her leg back to her chest, her eyes vacant as she got lost in thought for a second.

She stood up with a jump. “You think helping Cast Iron was a mistake!” she shouted, but Raegdan didn't acknowledge that at all.

Twilight waited a few moments, and then crossed her legs in front of her chest, raising her muzzle but still having to look up at him. “Well, you shouldn’t,” she categorically said. “He would have bled to death without you there, and you can’t know if you would have caught up to them either way. Raegdan,” she insisted, trying to catch his eye. “It was the right thing to do.”

“Noted,” Raegdan responded dryly.

“May I ask a question, please?” Fluttershy raised her leg almost up to eye level. “What if Luna talks to them but… they don’t know where they are or where they are heading?”

“You think they might have bags over their heads?” Rainbow followed up, and quickly turned to Raegdan. “Eh, no offense.”

“N-No. It’s just that the Everfree Forest is huge and they can’t see the sun or moon through the foliage…” Fluttershy continued.

“Luckily, that is not the case.” Everypony turned their heads towards the stairs.

Luna walked down the steps, with a slight wobble and with her eyes even more heavy than before she slept. She sat opposite of Raegdan.

“I have good news and bad news. The good news is we know their direction of travel. They must have been heading east according to Rarity’s descriptions of the spiders she saw, so that they can make their way north when they get to the eastern border of the Everfree Forest.”

“Is everypony alright?” Applejack cried out, moisture dangling at the edge of her eyelashes. Luna smiled softly, and the apple farmer fell flat on her stomach from sheer relief.

Twilight raised her voice. “What’s the bad news?”

“There are ten of them at least. They are all armed with what Raegdan has described as fast-firing weapons, are well equipped, and must be highly trained and experienced by the way Rarity described their engagements. We also know their final destination,” Luna darkly said. She turned to Raegdan, a hint of fear creeping on her face. “Raegdan, Spike was able to understand some of what their captors were saying amongst themselves. They mentioned a door…”

Raegdan exploded into action, kicking the metal pieces of his armor away from him and rushing for the front desk, roaring, “Map! Map, now! Compass,” He threw everything to the ground as he frantically searched. “Where is compass?”

“Third drawer on the right,” Twilight shouted over him even as her magic brought a large, folded map of Equestria from a high shelf. Raegdan pulled the whole drawer out, emptied it out on the desk, and trashed everything else once he found the compass.

He flipped the desk over, spilling everything off it onto the floor and brought it upright again, spreading the map on the surface. The desk screeched as he moved it using his body weight, the brand new floor getting gouged as he roughly shoved and aligned the map with the needle pointing north. He threw his arm straight, pointing at the wall in front of him. His eye kept looking up and down.

A moment later his fist mashed on the map. “Closer! This won’t work!” he yelled demandingly. Almost instantly, Twilight pulled a whole load of maps, scurrying through them trying to find a proper one.

When she found one, Raegdan ripped it out of her magic hold and unfolded over the previous one, aligning it. His hand pointed at a direction again. He glared at the map, and his hand now hovered over it.

It portrayed only the area around Canterlot with much more detail than the previous one. Rainbow, peeking from the side, could make out hills, villages, Ponyville itself, and of course the Everfree Forest. It was a gray area of unknown with only its borders drawn in a deep green and bold, black letters warning of danger.

Raegdan’s palm struck this map again, followed by a loud swear in his language.

“What’s the matter?” Twilight asked, strangely calm in the face of Raegdan’s frustration and cold anger than emanated in waves off him.

“Too much of a head start. Know where they go but can’t get there before them!” he growled. His finger followed the curves of the Everfree Forest, bringing their attention to the way it grew to the south and north, making any hope of skirting the edge and getting to the north-east an exercise in futility.

“I can,” Luna said suddenly. “Flying over the Everfree is a risk, but I can reach there—”

“No!” Raegdan shouted, punching the table. The compass fell to the floor, shattering.

Luna narrowed her eyes. “I can fight just as well as you. Better, I’d say.”

“Not against this!” Raegdan bellowed. He was gripping the corners of the desk so hard that Rainbow would bet good bits that he might be splintering it off any second now. “You don’t know how. You go there, you die!”

“Princess Celestia can help,” Twilight said. She stood on her back legs so she could get a better view of the map, and pointed to the east of Canterlot Mountain. “This is the direction they are heading, correct? In order to get there they will have to cross this empty belt here where the trains also go through. There is no cover. Princess Celestia can have a small army waiting for them, and if you follow their tracks today you can be there and block them from retreating in case—”

“No,” Raegdan interrupted Twilight. “No Celestia. No army.”

Twilight stared at Raegdan’s hard expression, flabbergasted. “Are you being serious?” she whispered. “Spike is in danger, and you don’t want the Princess to help? After everything?”

Raegdan shook his head. “Think!” he gnashed through his teeth. “Captives can be turned to hostages,” he explained harshly. “Go there, see an army waiting for me? I’d use them to get through. Don’t let me? I’d kill one to show I mean it. Celestia will break, one of them will die, and we will never see them again. That’s if she doesn’t try something on her own and gets killed. Don’t know if guards can even stop them. They’ll rip through them.”

Applejack’s legs couldn’t keep her up anymore. She used the desk as support, and brought her hooves to cover her face as she sobbed quietly in despair. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy hugged her, and Rainbow spread her left wing as far as it could go so the tip could rest on her friend’s shaking shoulder.

“Then what? We just let them go?” Twilight asked, blinking away the stinging tears that tried to make it to her face as well.

Raegdan turned back to the map, his shoulders dropping as he let out a tired breath. His head moved, following all possible routes.

“Straight line,” he said after a few moments.

Luna’s heard perked up. “No!” she forbid, making her way back from the window she had moved to. “That is madness!”

“Only way will work,” he mumbled. “Need to be ambush, and need to make them think it got nothing to do with captives. Everything else kills little flame.”

“Oh my gosh!” Rainbow Dash took to the air and got right in his face. She had enough of this. “Stop talking in riddles and tell us straight what is going on!”

“This idiot,” Luna pointed at Raegdan with her silver shoe, “plans to navigate the Everfree Forest as if it was a shortcut!”

“Sea Breeze did it,” Raegdan pointed out, reminding them of the Lunar Guard with the broken off horn.

“Yes, she did. After days of panicked running as they tried to cross the Everfree Forest in one of its narrower points where they got lost. Compasses don’t even work all the time in there.” Luna’s hoof landed on a part of the Everfree Forest close to Ponyville. “They were doped up to their eyeballs in potions and had magic, and still didn’t make it out whole. And you want to go through all of it! Nopony has ever gone through the area you want to go. That’s the heart of the Everfree!”

Raegdan didn’t budge. “Have own compass. Can’t get lost. And you gone there.”

“Yes!” Luna shrieked. “And when I did I was far stronger, yet I still had to backtrack to avoid being killed!”

Raegdan shrugged. “Only way will work.”

“Can I ask a question so we don’t jump right back into another mystery session?” Rainbow demanded, landing on the desk in front of Raegdan. She looked down on Luna who was breathing hard. “What exactly is this ‘heart’ you are talking about?” She paused for a moment. “It’s not a literal heart, is it? Please tell me there’s not a giant heart in there.”

Silence reigned as everypony waited for Luna’s answer. The Princess suddenly looked far smaller as she shrunk into herself, her forelegs catching the end of her tail in a childlike way of comfort.

“It- It’s not literal, of course,” she said after a few seconds, trying to laugh at her attempt of a joke. The cackling sounded almost mad and more like gasps. She took a few seconds to recover. “I… don’t know what is there. I didn’t get close enough. It’s like… It’s like there’s an endless war, a small valley under the shadow of a mountain warped into a slaughterhouse. Who would dare come within a stone’s throw of that? I just stood and watched as hideousness clashed with atrocity, wave after wave.”

“Hold on. Mountain?” Twilight asked after a moment.

“I don’t remember there being a mountain in there. Did somepony put one in there and forget to tell me about it?” Rainbow asked dubiously.

If there was, she would have seen it, obviously. Celestia knows how many times she had watched the Everfree from the highest vantage points. It had dips and crested hills, but nothing really poked up above the trees.

Luna’s hooves massaged her forehead as if the action could reach beneath her coat and skull to smooth her frantic mind. “There is not… To make it simple, there is not just one Everfree Forest. Under the one you see lies another. There are caves, holes, crags and canyons that lead down to it. And what lives down there… The topmost Everfree is the harmonic one where there is a kind of balance. The deeper layer is nothing more than a feeding ground...”

“It really goes that deep?” Twilight questioned with reverence.

“Phrasing,” Rainbow commented.

“Enough that a mountain can be hidden under the surface?” Twilight kept talking, ignoring Rainbow and her pearls of wisdom.

“Yes, but apparently that is not enough that your stupid father won’t understand that this is suicide.” Luna turned to Raegdan once more, fuming. “Don’t you get it? It’s not even a shortcut! You cannot go through it when you have to face a constant stream of monsters, and the deeper you go the more chasms and uncrossable ridges there are!”

“I’m going to Canterlot,” Twilight announced after a minute of deep-thought silence. She stood without a shiver of doubt. “We need somepony to be there to stop them. Princess Celestia might have a better idea of what to do if I tell her everything we know. I’m going to get the balloon ready and go there tonight.”

Rainbow dashed to Twilight’s side. “I’ll come with. With me pulling you’ll get there much faster.”

“Aren’t you tired?” Twilight asked.

Rainbow’s legs shook a little at the reminder. “Heck yeah, but we don’t have time for naps, do we?”

“Well, it'll take some time to prepare the balloon for liftoff. You can rest your wings until then,” Twilight said, and Rainbow quickly jumped on a couch. Never let it be said she wasn’t obedient.

Twilight paused at the door before leaving, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Applejack following along. “I’ll ask the Princess to get her guards ready where we talked about. If… If you figure something out, fine. If not, we will be ready.”

Raegdan and Luna were still over the map, discussing their options.

“What if I take our flyers and we just make our presence known to dissuade them from advancing too fast? You might be able to catch up with the rest of our guards,” Luna proposed.

Raegdan shook his head. “Might change course. Can’t go after them or let them know we there. Get shot. Die. Twilight’s balloon, can it carry me?”

“From what she showed me it is magic, not a hot air balloon. It won’t rise an inch with you in the carrier. What if we take the same route but deviate further north to catch up? There’s a chance we could give their rear guard the slip if we are really lucky.”

Raegdan thought about it for a minute, scratching the front of his neck over the cloth mask. “They go faster. Better ways to deal with anything in there. We will be slowed down. Still,” he sighed, “probably best solution. I go alone. Won’t let Spike gone without trying. You go with Celestia.”

He sat sullen for a moment. “Keep back and watch. If it seems like Celestia chooses to let them go rather than risk their lives… Don’t let Spike go through.”

“I—You don’t mean that I—” Luna stammered. “You can’t ask me that!”

“Spike doesn’t go through. Won’t live my life. Understand?”

Luna nodded after some hesitation. “I understand.”

Rainbow seriously hoped that Raegdan hadn’t just talked Luna into doing something suicidal in an attempt to save Spike. That’s… what it had to be. Yeah.

That’s what that was.

They stopped talking for a while. When Rainbow felt her eyelids getting heavy and her mind getting number she knew it was time to get up and find Twilight, rested enough or not. She jumped off the couch and stretched. Raegdan was still bent over the map. She headed for the door.

She should try to think of something useful to do while on their flight. She understood perfectly how and why everypony felt as if lifting a house on their backs, herself included, but if they kept like that they would talk themselves into giving up all hope.

Velvet, perhaps? Twilight would probably be all too busy with Princess Celestia, but if she had figured out the mare enough then Twilight Velvet would have to be sticking near the princess for more news. Maybe she would be able to have a little talk with Applejack, keep her in some semblance of peace like she did when Rainbow had needed the help.

Yeah, Velvet would do the trick.

Raegdan spoke up just as Rainbow reached for the handle. “Rainbow. Hospital has blood stores, right?”

“Uh, sure. But they didn’t have minotaur blood. That’s why I had to rush to Canterlot and back. I swear, I must have made that first trip in minutes,” she explained, still proud of the fact that she was the only pegasus who could manage that, and unwilling to admit she never wanted to try that record again. She thought her wings would fall off, and Princess Celestia did… something that made her feel all energized for the trip back.

“But they have a lot of pony blood?” he insisted.

Luna raised her head. Rainbow was pretty certain she had been busy planning an argument to go after Rarity and the kids on her own, despite what Raegdan claimed. “What are you planning?” she asked suspiciously.

Raegdan smiled a terrible smile.

“Inhospitable, rough terrain. Filled with monsters. Seen it before. I know exactly how to go through. Trick is doing it without killing everyone.” He turned to Rainbow. “Get Luna’s guards, want to talk to them before you leave.”

“They’re not going to enjoy this, are they?” Rainbow predicted.

Raegdan laughed an insane laugh.

Ch.47 - Let the feast begin

The steep darkness of the Everfree Forest remained unchanged even though Luna could feel—with the abstract, tumultuous link she had never truly understood—that the moon had sunk beyond the horizon and the sun was already peeking out. Yet no sunray would penetrate the roof of skeletal branches and dark, almost black, green leaves. The cold fog radiating off the ground would not dissipate, and the shadows would only become fiercer.

She stood near the precipice of a deep, irregular hole that led beneath to what she would always think of as the true Everfree. Her armor, so rarely worn, grated at her. She never bore its burden enough times to become accustomed to it, unlike Raegdan or her Lunar Guards. It was plain and pragmatic as theirs was: curved sheets of steel that hugged her form with barely any decoration apart from her sigil and the scuff marks that hadn’t been beaten out. Part of her was glad for the underlying runework that kept it as light and comfortable as it was. The rest of her despised its existence as it was one more reminder of her weakness. She hated that she needed that magic to help her, that her own was so greatly diminished.

Raegdan stood still near her while her gaze was locked to the entrance they would make use of, on guard for movement beyond it. He was watching the forest around them, his eyes dancing from stirring leaves to shaking branches. His armor, black and mute, almost made him another of the shadows lurking under the gnarled treescape. His cloak, identical to the one he gave to her, a composite of dark earth and forest colors, converted his silhouette to a piece of the landscape, a tooth of darkness that jutted out of the earth.

So simple and elegant the camouflage that their enemies also employed. She hoped that when the moment came she and Raegdan would prove they had more tricks up their sleeves than they did.

Every now and then his hand would dance over the bandolier strapped across his breastplate, the weapons hooked around various belts across his waist, arms, and legs, and the straps of his backpack, recounting his weapons and supplies, and making certain of their hold. When the running started they would not have the luxury of stopping to replenish anything they lost.

Minutes passed, and Luna was certain, as far as she could be, that the sun had completely risen. “The sun is up,” she let Raegdan know. The darkness around them remained as it was, wrapping itself around Luna, and it would until the sun rose in a more optimal angle.

Her companion gazed around him even so, taking in the frigid blackness and nodding as if he could tell the difference already. He paused for a moment, staring behind him with his torso twisted, but shrugged in indifference when Luna questioned with a glance what he had taken notice of.

“What are the chances this works?” Luna asked after a few more minutes of silence, tasting the bitterness still lingering on her tongue. She couldn’t focus as Raegdan did. All she could think of were her guards, their names blazing across her mind like ephemeral, fragile fireflies, off to complete their perilous objective somewhere north-east of them. Sent off as if they were disposable. Just like she had done herself when she knew but a sliver of what she did now.

The response was immediate: “It will work.”

“They won’t be ready for what they face. We may return to see none of them again,” Luna said, disguising her dismay as a statement of fact.

The breeze picked up in strength. An eastern wind, streaming across the backs of tortured trunks with a serpent’s hiss. Raegdan raised his arm, watching the cloak caught on the thick, metal bars on his forearm flutter with cold professionalism and nodded, satisfied.

“Maybe,” he allowed and lowered his arm. He stepped closer to the gap, his fingers opening and closing with impatience. “But it will still work,” he continued.

She knew that it would. All Raegdan’s simple plan required was blood and flesh. It did not matter whose. She hated the callousness of such decisions, almost as much as she hated how well acquainted she was with them.

Hate so strong it almost surpassed how she hated her own lying.

Luna wasn’t afraid of revisiting the depths of the Everfree Forest simply because of the dangers it hid. She was afraid because that was where she had broken.

She didn’t want to go back to that.

Fear is an honest beast. It’s ponies that ain’t.

Leaf Stream remembered the twinges running across the back of her neck when she was picked to fight in the arena. She remembered the moment as she looked through the exit and out at the dust dancing on the edge of the sunlight, when she realized that she was sent out there to kill or die because of… she didn’t even know. Pride? Faith? Simple old stupidity? She went nevertheless. She ignored the possibility of her own death and the truthfulness that she was being ordered to murder with ease. So much ease.

It’s three versus one. We are trained by the best. We have right on our side. He’s evil and we’re good. Every possible excuse to hide behind, to convince themselves their loss was impossible, that there was nothing to fear. Then she went out in the arena, with hundreds watching her and cheering her on like a hero, and two minutes later she was much wiser than she was two minutes before.

Numerical superiority doesn’t equal victory. Training doesn’t make you invincible. Righteousness won’t stop your bones from breaking into dozens of razor-sharp shards. The good guys bleed as much as the bad guys.

And fear is an honest beast. When the lies break apart it is there to remind you of reality: You could die. You might die. You will die.

But ponies don’t like being as honest as fear, so they bury it under lies again.

Broken Gust landed next to Gobrend. She ignored the griffin and his mumbling as his talons dug inside his medical satchel, and trotted her way to Leaf Stream. The wingless pegasus saw her marefriend-out-of-duty-hours-only coming, and shooed Tick and Tack away with a flex of her hoof. She even had Trixie, who was serving as her personal nightlight, make herself scarce.

Minus the light, of course. The whole mapping business would be quite tricky without it.

“We found another entrance,” Broken Gust reported, a little out of breath but smiling in satisfaction nevertheless. Her Thestral eyes were alight in the gloom like a feline’s, fitting all too perfectly with the suspicion Leaf Stream harbored; namely, that she had become her chew toy.

Leaf Stream nodded sternly and gazed at the front of her hooves. She had laid open the map she made of their relative position and a few landmarks. Two empty circles were already marked down, with the addition of one large cross that mocked her. She glared down at the offending symbol as she asked in a bitter tone:

“Are we sure it’s an entrance and not another dead-end cave?”

“Of course not. But signs point to yes,” Broken Gust said with the gusto of a fortune ball, and she turned to display a series of shiny scratches on her armor. They were deep, far deeper than Leaf Stream was fine with. She hoped that had been a solid strike and not merely a glancing claw mark.

Broken Gust continued on, with a smile on her face that made Leaf Stream seethe. “If you check my... tail you might notice a couple hairs missing.” She winked and shook her behind as if it was a joke, as if Leaf Stream really had the capacity to feel more loss. It made her blood boil.

She scowled, unable to admonish Broken Gust in any other way. “That was… boss’ level of stupid.”

Her marefriend shrugged, uncaring or unaware of how alarmingly easy it was for Leaf Stream to picture those claw marks on her soft body rather than the armor. “We need to be fast, we check fast. Have we got enough?”

Leaf Stream fought off the urge to narrow her eyes or scowl. Instead, she kept her expression carefully neutral as she examined Broken Gust. She was too… chipper, overly so, and darting in her movements, but it was more like she was snapping into place rather than moving naturally. And her eyes…

“Yeah, you’re fine.” Leaf Stream acquiesced, reinforcing the lie, and Broken Gust’s posture eased up. “Tell me where it is,” she ordered softly, and marked her map according to Broken Gust’s instructions.

Three entrances were found so far, spread from south to north. It would have been the best scenario possible if it wasn’t a nightmarish one from the beginning. Dawn would come soon, and the Princess and Raegdan would begin their insanity just a few minutes after the sun had risen. They were cutting it close enough as it was. Good or bad, time was running out.

That bucking cross mark. She swore, if it infected the rest and they turned out to be crosses as well she’d do... stuff. Horrible stuff. With matches and— and she was threatening a piece of paper.

“Everypony, gather up. We got all we’re gonna get,” she called out.

The team leaders came from around, leaving the guards they were in charge of to cover their perimeter. Sunrise Storm, Eventide, and herself were all that remained with the absence of the two minotaurs. With two of their heavy hitters gone, and not just of their team but the Guard as a whole, Short Order took charge of the four ponies left as a temporary measure, seeing he was the most experienced one. He shuffled along as well, his good eye striking from one edge of the clearing to the next.

Leaf Stream struck her hoof against the metal of her opposite foreleg as a call to attention. “Plan time. We got three positions scouted out. You all ready to deal?”

The silence betrayed the sentiment: Nopony was.

Not that it was hard to miss. A cursory glance and she could see her fellow guards sweating in their armor despite the magic weaved in them and the cold morning air. The way everypony’s eyes flickered at the slightest creak of the gnarled branches around them, the way their heads hung low on their necks and their hooves shifted restlessly. The same sense that was crawling up Leaf Stream’s spine had already deeply embedded itself in theirs.

Leaf Stream spat the kind of curse that, had she a horn, would make cow milk curdle for the next decade.

Instead she opted for politics. She went over the plan once more, praising the simplicity of it. All they had to do was go to the entrances that led to this ‘under-forest’ and saturate them with the smell of blood, leading as many monsters out as they could, and then let their blood frenzy make short work of each other. She made no mention of how extremely outnumbered they would be if this worked or that the plan in simpler words had them bringing half the Everfree’s monsters on their heads.

She reminded them of the training they underwent, the gruelling months they persevered, with most of it under live fire. No one brought up how it was only that—a few months—or that they focused on ambushing and ending fights quickly, not open confrontation.

Magic, armor, weapons, their unique equipment and tactics. She brought it all up, one by one, reminding them of how much they had but not of how much more they needed. More bodies, more time, more help. Their magic was mostly utility, their armor nowhere near invulnerable—as Broken Gust had exhibited—their equipment mostly in Canterlot, and their tactics ill-suited for the task at hand.

Leaf Stream didn’t lie once. All she did was not reveal her inner worries and what fear whispered in her ear. Little by little, her words drowned out the whispers the Lunar Guards heard themselves and soon they were strumming along, lying to themselves on their own.

The dark was now imagined as their ally. The clawing trees and thorned roots were now places from where they’d spring, not the monsters. The fog snaking and weaving around them, muting their senses, worked for them. The opposing view was unthinkable now.

It was exactly what should be done in order for them to have a chance and it was one of the worst things Leaf Stream could think she’d ever do in her life. How appallingly easy was it to become monstrous?

As easy as nodding when they ordered you to kill because that was the right thing to do.

“Raven!” Leaf Stream yelled, and the wolf-like Diamond Dog came to her side like a… well, a trained, eager soldier. That’s what any smart pony would say. Not the other thing.

“How are we doing on beasties around here?” she asked, tucking her map away. Behind him, ponies were gathering their gear, filled with determination and bravado.

Raven raised his helmet’s visor, uncovering his long snout in order to sniff. He grimaced in distaste at first, but kept going despite the aroma he must have been assaulted with. The Lunar Guard needed to operate in the bucking Everfree Forest at night, and they simply didn’t have the luxury of time to deflect constant attacks. So measures had been taken. Measures that would assure that Timber Wolves would stay away in the very least, and hopefully more than just them.

Leaf Stream hadn’t been exactly ecstatic when she had been given the pot, and she was hitting a bullseye on the ‘mortified’ scale of emotions when Princess Luna explained to her what she should do with it. Leaf Stream would rather contemplate suicide rather than go ahead with it, but knowing she was sharing the pain made it easier. She gathered the Lunar Guards, lined them up, picked up a branch, dipped it in the horrid, horrid liquid… and proceeded to ‘bless’ them all, sprinkling them with delight. She explained the smell, source, and reason right after as a special alchemical potion made by that crazy zebra that lived in the Everfree.

Hopefully, nopony would ever guess the real source.

Raegdan le wee-wee. She was so glad she wasn’t a Diamond Dog.

The visor came back down, sliding smoothly on its well-oiled hinges. “I can’t tell,” Raven gruffly said. “The way the wind blows, everything east of us knows where we are, but we won’t get any warning.”

“It will make things easier,” Sunrise Storm spoke up, overhearing. “It will carry the scent of blood further east, covering more of the area we need.”

Leaf Stream scoffed. “More effective, sure.” But not easier at all. “Alright, time to get serious. We are gonna start from the southernmost entrance and make our way north. That way we won’t accidentally pull anything too close to Ponyville. Sunrise,” she commanded, her confidence rising at the way the tall earth pony mare straightened, “I want you and Eventide to form up our arrow. Get the twins, Smoke Ring, and Stalwart Shield ready with the blood packs. Red Dawn, Snared Wish, and Blank Slate will be our wind, so I want them covered while they do their thing. Short Order, that’s your task. Everypony got all that?”

They all nodded, resolute.

“Then let’s pick up the rest of our crap and get going!”

As ponies worked, losing themselves in the thick underbrush, Leaf Stream got a hold of Broken Gust. She bit on her wing, firm yet softly as to not break the thin skin, and dragged her a little way off. Someplace near where they could have more privacy yet still be close enough to the rest of their fellow guards in case of an emergency.

Broken Gust looked around with interest, her lit eyes flickering with amusement. “As much as I would love to, I don’t think this is the time or place for a quickie—”

A hard shove interrupted her and a fuming glare silenced her. “I want you to go back to Ponyville. Now,” Leaf Stream ordered, inciting the last word with as much urgency as she could.

Her order, a demand really, was met with a blank blink. “But… I can’t,” Broken Gust flustered out. “We’re all needed here.”

“That isn’t true though, is it?” Leaf Stream forced herself to pause for a deep breath. “I want you to go and stay back with the others.”

Broken Gust wrestled with confusion for a moment before speaking up, pleading almost. “What? Why? Did I do something wrong? If this is about this scratch, the armor still works fine, it didn’t hurt the enchantments, I swear—”

“I want someone competent back in Ponyville in case any critter manages to slink its way over there. Stampede might have stayed back to help keep some order while we’re gone,” Leaf Stream said, icily and quietly, “but like it or not he is too old. I want you to bring Limit Breaker with you as well. He’s too young for this.”

“That… doesn’t sound quite right…” The perplexion on Broken Gust’s face faded away under a stream of intense reasoning going on in her head.

Leaf Stream scoffed. “Why not? If Solid Charge can lounge around worthlessly, just being a beefy, sullen blood bag for Cast Iron to suckle on when he needs inner moisturizing, then why not let you—what?”

Broken Gust’s expression became soft as the confusion simply sloughed off her at once. There was something approximating pity in her eyes. Leaf Stream barely had time to consider if it was worth working herself into a state at what that might be about when Broken Gust quickly nuzzled her. Her lips caught the edge of her muzzle in a quick, barely-there, yet so tender, kiss.

Broken Gust pulled away all too soon. “Cast Iron and Solid Charge don’t share blood types,” Broken Gust said with a brittle smile. “And you’re too obvious.”

It took a second for Leaf Stream to realize that Broken Gust knew of the deception they had put over Cast Iron. Her throat gurgled with a nasty, choking feeling. She gulped it down along with the rest.

“Alright, then. If you ain’t going back… then it’s off to getting killed for the both of us.”

Broken Gust chuckled. “It won’t be that bad!” she said, ever the optimist. She sobered again. “You really worry that much over me?”

Leaf Stream shrugged. What was there to say? Apart from trivialities which, let’s face it, neither of them would want to dawdle in right now. Last thing Leaf Stream needed was getting another slice of humble pie.

It was overrated.

“You know,” Broken Gust slowly said as she secured her helmet tighter and made sure the straps around her wings were secure, “I only ever got with you because I’d either get in between somepony’s legs or steer myself crazy at some point.” It was very matter-of-factly spoken. “It’s not like you were the best catch personality-wise.”

Oh, hey, remember when we thought getting our wing bones slowly grinded down to confetti was the worst torture imaginable? Good times, jolly good times! We should have another go.

Leaf Stream told her inner jerkwad to shut up. She was busy as it was with not flinching back in pain. She didn’t need the sass, thank you very much.

She knew, of course, and she had never been under the assumption that it had been anything else than what Broken Gust described. Still, it was nice to pretend, wasn’t it? She hoped it could have lasted longer though.

All Leaf Stream wanted in return for being Broken Gust’s night ride was to be able to cuddle with her. To cuddle and pretend that the warm body she was clinging to could hear the words she mouthed but never voiced.

“Yeah, I know.” Leaf Stream put up a lazy grin. Thankfully, it didn’t crumble instantly.

She wouldn’t let herself be pitied, and she wouldn’t let Broken Gust harbor any guilt for breaking it off. She was a bucking saint for keeping up with somepony as… as little and petty and broken as Leaf Stream for as long as she did. She would have the jugular out the ass of anypony who said otherwise!

Broken Gust’s Thestral wings spread again as she turned away, ready to fly off and join her group. “I’m just telling you so you know how stupid that whole deal was,” she said, her wings starting their first flap and raising her in the air. “Telling me to leave and playing the ultimate jerk when I’ve already fallen in love with you? You’re a few weeks too late for that to work, sweetie buns.”

Lips met lips in a fickle, brief kiss that meant all too much for how short it was.

Somepony in the distance was scratching the metaphorical vinyl to oblivion.

Broken Gust blew a kiss and… vanished. Like a dream. She just went poof. Or at least that’s how it looked to Leaf Stream. Brain felt wonky.

Leaf Stream took a step. Then another. Then she opened her mouth and shouted, as loud as she dared in this grim, dark forest. The only answer possible to the fulfillment of her deepest desire:

“You damn moron! You jinxed us both!”

The roots delved deeper than mere hunger.

Hunger was the faint outline before the true need that cast that pale shadow. The mad, scrambling nails in its head that urged it forward with a purpose beyond satiating itself weren’t starvation. It was engulfed in phantom sensations of bones crunching between its teeth, of blood flooding the inner walls of its bleating mouth, of its stomach gurgling lovingly in an all too brief sensation of fullness. But it wasn’t hungry!

It didn’t want to feed to satiate the hunger. It wanted to feed for the sheer act of it.

The putrid scent, with its metallic undertones and sweet bitterness, was howling out for it to come. It was flowing all around it; encompassing it. It inhaled deeply, the crusted orifices of its nose pulsing along with its weak heartbeat. It had to follow or the scratching nails in its head would drive it beyond the madness it lived in and to death. It had to. The body was weak and couldn’t hope to support its head, but the weakness of its legs and torso wouldn’t stop it or slow it down.

It had dreamed of stronger legs once. Of muscled appendages, a strong body, and the absence of its cravings. When it awoke, it had found itself being attacked. It relished the mewlings that predated the gnashing. It had been a good feeding.

Its mouth opened, and as the tongues lashed out for purchase among the rocks above, it couldn’t help a strangled cry. It had heard the same from the tiny ones, those that had almost no flesh and such brittle, snapping bones, make that noise when it took them in its mouth. It felt it fitted it. That this was the sound it should make. It made it almost constantly, repeating it, its own song.

The tongues pulled, and dragged its useless, half-blind carcass up the crevice and the larger spaces between rocks and ground. Its cloven feet pushed ineffectually against stone, trying to speed itself up. It was close, so close. It wanted marrow to spill over its teeth. The pain went away when bones cracked and their owners wept and cried and screamed and howled and gurgled and begged and died.

The wet muscles flexed and pulled taut. It slobbered all over, its tongues running over carcasses that it ignored. It didn’t want dead meat, it wanted live meat. Meat that could scream for it so it didn’t have to. It could sense them move, right there at the edge of its cragged vision, there where the darkness was not as dark.

Outside.

Had it ran at the outside once? Had it ever ran? Had it been able to look up? To stand?

So much of it. So much of everything. Of the upside and of bones dressed in their meat and drenched in blood, so much blood. It sensed, more than it saw, a whole bunch of its coveted morsels hover in the air, the flapping of their wings sending wafts of sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet bitter smells over it and down the dark world it never called home. Waves of its competitors made their way here from afar even now, the scratching of massive amounts of claws and more vibrating through the ground and up its distended belly that ran flat to the ground.

They couldn’t see it as it stood silent and immobile in the threshold of the cave, its zig-zagging waves of black and white on its coat, remnants of a past life, hiding it. Its tongues lashed out, and grabbed one of them, pulling it in immediately. The rest of them tried to hold it back, but it wouldn’t have it. It needed to feed, it needed to chew, it needed the scratching to stop!

They bucked up. They bucked up badly.

It wasn’t anypony’s fault. The only mistake was trying to do too good a job in too short a time. They ripped open packages of blood, flooding earth and rocks with litres of it. They did their best to funnel the smell down the craggy passages.

And they barely waited for a response. Like idiots.

Then they went to the next one. They had decided that the first one had been a fluke after all. Again, like idiots.

Two in a row, that’s what they believed after a few minutes of waiting at the second entrance. Either the plan wasn’t working or they were standing in front of dead end caves and tunnels. They laid all their hopes at the last of the three entrances. Like— you get the idea.

Third time in a row, and they grew complacent. What kind of smug idiots stand around in the Everfree Forest and gaze at a hole in the ground without paying attention to their surroundings? Nopony bothered remaining alert at the sounds around them any more, and Leaf Stream failed to think of putting up anypony as a sentry. She wasn’t alone there, sure, but like it or not she had been put in charge.

And she bucked it all up.

Leaf Stream had no doubt that the blood scent had reached down below. If she had to guess, it drove them to a frenzy. She imagined droves of them, trying to climb over one another in their fervor to reach their prize, oozing through the tunnels and underground caves like clogged arteries. By that point, the Lunar Guard had moved on, and the creatures below had a fresh scent to follow. And then a third one. While the Lunar Guard relaxed above, a swarm was gathering below their feet, bloating in size and ferocity.

They dug their way up to them.

That’s what they did, but it wasn’t how it happened. It was like an explosion, an eruption of a geyser of dirt and crumbled rock. Dust rose up like a volcanic cloud, descended like a torrentous wave, and hovered around them like poisonous fog, weaving around them in tangled shapes.

A deafening wail filled the silence, tearing it apart.

It wasn’t anypony of the Lunar Guard that screamed. It was the… the things that clambered out of the shattered ground. Some of them were freakish amalgamations that spat in the face of nature, stingers and claws and feathers stitched together in a single body. Scales glinting beneath thick fur, and venomous fangs dripping in beaked mouths. Toothless worms with fleshy, knotted snouts, and insects bred with reptiles and mammals.

Others were worse, recognizable by a single body part but leaving to imagination what the rest was. There was a pony’s face on one, but it was placed on a scabbed chest like a tumor, sporting jagged, broken teeth that should never have been in a pony’s mouth. She didn’t know what the second one she saw was supposed to be, but Leaf Stream immediately hated its mother for not drowning it in a river at birth.

A wave of sickness and diseased smell prefaced them along with the shrill screaming. Screaming as if they were in pain, piercing their ears. Or perhaps they were mocking the prey before them, giving them a glimpse of what was to come. They were climbing over each other—slashing, biting, stinging, tearing and shredding, killing and maiming each other in their bid to reach the ponies in front of them.

Leaf Stream shouted orders, failing to overcome the cacophony, but the Lunar Guard still performed as needed. They retreated among a denser patch of trees where each formed space could be defended by a single pony if need be.

The monstrosities and predators of the Everfree Forest streamed out of the ground like pus out of an infected wound. They covered every inch, slowly worming their way to them. Their numbers allowed the Lunar Guard the breather they needed to get in position; otherwise they would have been slain in seconds. For every pair—or more—of eyes that spied them there were a dozen claws and teeth ready to feast on an unaware target, slowing their advance.

All too soon, however, the lull before the storm passed. There was a moment of stillness as the coveted meal was discovered, and then the tide swelled and fell upon them.

They tried to hold on, to do some damage, to cut, wound, and slay, before they retreated. To follow the plan. But, like an oozing sludge, the horde was spilling to their sides. Slowly, their left and right were being closed off.

Leaf Stream was ready to call for a retreat when she realized too late that they had expected their opponents from the wrong side. Their back was now to the eastern edge of the Everfree Forest. They could run, and they could, with luck, make it out on the fields where they could outrun any pursuers.

But then this ravenous mob would aim for the closest hub of activity. Leaf Stream could almost see the sparkling lights of Ponyville and how it would attract these things like moths to a flame.

She didn’t give the order.

Spells flew over their heads from the back and side, crashing among the horde with varying degrees of success. Horns sparking like fireworks, and tongues of flame and pure magic raining in various colors. Somepony—she only saw the flicker of a silhouette—tried to cast from up close to make their spells count.

Fickle fireflies of silver and gold gathered around a horn, a pale light that barely illuminated the focus of magic it was being absorbed into.

A humongous head, pale and skeletal, pushed itself out of the darkness and fog. A giant of dull bone and sharpened edges, made out of rot and the remains of death, clamored for the living. Branches snapped as it made its way to them from its great height, scratching ineffectually at its milky, blind eyes. It roared in madness, opening a lipless, gaping maw of jagged teeth. Noxious green fumes of decay and poison exhumed with each breath, and the giant reached to tear down the trees that gave them their defence and stopped the tide from falling on them with all its weight.

The unicorn stood its ground.

There was a single burst of magic. It was a braid of light, silver and gold melding into each other and spreading apart. The motes of light and magic centered on the gigantic shambling corpse, some of them landing on the monsters that dared to stand too close to it. Smoke rose from flesh, scales, and bone. The dead thing, white, gaunt and powerful, tried to wipe the magic off its torso, only managing to spread it further. The magic ate its way inside it, and, like a tree splintering apart, the giant came crashing down.

The magic flared for a second. There was a small point of light, a horn bathed in the purest and most powerful of magics. It lasted for a few moments, full of glory and power, before the horn broke apart.

The tide surged anew.

She didn’t give the order.

Leaf Stream heard a pained scream, and no more magic was cast from that side. She didn’t see anypony run back. Only Tick and Tack trying to cover one more side, stop one more wave, and nopony bothering to call for help for the wounded that did not exist.

Red Dawn, large and strong, now paid the price for his gifts; his size stole some of the speed and agility other, smaller pegasi had, and he was cut down by a scythe-like appendage. He fell down, gazing in shock at the eviscerated remains of his wing before screaming in horror and agony.

Gobrend fought to drag him away from seeking talons and back to safety. Red Dawn’s right wing had been split apart, hanging in place by a half-serrated muscle and left a dull, red smear on the ground behind him as he was dragged. The griffin was also covered in blood, but Leaf Stream had doubts that it belonged to him. She knew Red Dawn wasn’t the only injured.

Her own side burned, blood blinded her right eye, and her back was torment. The weight of the armor was pressing upon the remains of her wings, and she knew that the runes had been destroyed, that she had been cut deep enough that the leather beneath was ruined. She didn’t dare think of what the pain meant. She kept fighting, hoping that the tightness of the padding she wore would slow the bleeding, or keep things that were meant to be inside, inside.

Two paces west from her was Limit Breaker. The young pony’s mouth was biting down on the handle of a back lance. It was a heavy, solid piece of metal, covering the pony’s back like an extra layer of armor and coming to a wicked point a couple of feet beyond the pony’s head. It was made to turn an earth pony into a charging blade, letting them dispose of its weight easily if they had to.

Limit Breaker growled a battle cry through his teeth and charged. Unlike most, the Lunar Guard had theirs made less like a lance and more akin to a wide, wicked sword, meant to slice and open wounds left and right instead of only piercing a single target.

Limit Breaker was lit like a red torch, black spots flickering and rising in the fiery aura of his extension of earth pony magic. His hooves broke the ground beneath him. With his erratic strength he drove deep into the side of a scaled beast resembling a humongous snake with its spine outside its body, almost cutting it in twain.

The serpent shrieked and flailed, crushing the monsters close to it, but Limit Breaker held onto the back lance a second too long. He was thrown into the air, amid a crowd of grasping appendages. Leaf Stream expected to see the young pony—only a colt, truly—ripped apart. He would land in the snarling sea that tried to swallow them all, and he would be devoured in a gory fashion in seconds.

Eventide appeared in the last moment. She weaved like an aerial dancer between blades of keratin. A screech of metal ruled over the battlefield as she failed to dodge all of them. A rain of blood and torn metal splattered over the raging horde. Her flight almost faltered. Only grim determination pushed the aged Thestral ahead, her wings pushing her forward even as her eyes rolled to the back of her skull and her jaw slacked, coughing blood.

Eventide and Limit Breaker crashed behind the Lunar Guard’s dwindling, battered line of defense. A barked order from Gobrend sent Raven off to retrieve them and bring them medical aid.

She still didn’t give the order.

Leaf Stream rushed to fill the void that the Diamond Dog left. She swore unheard, the din of battle and eerie shrieks making it almost impossible to hear even herself. She wondered if she’d stay alive long enough to tell Princess Luna of the glaring oversight in their training and tactics.

The Princess and Raegdan managed to work together as one in fights, both of them always seemingly reading each other’s mind. That cooperation however came from intuiting what each would do through massive experience. They drilled their guards on how to move and when on certain occasions and with set strategies, true… but they never thought of another single, simple fact:

They had both been accustomed to working alone and it was all they knew. Working out a system for communicating in cases where they had to operate in silence or they couldn’t speak had never been so much as a passing thought.

Leaf Stream ran to where Raven used to be, and she had no way of telling Shaded Swirl to watch his left flank now that she was gone. She had no way of telling the others to cover them, no way of being heard over the dissonance of battle. There was no communication, no chance of working together apart from guessing and doing their best with that little slice of the battle each took in.

The monsters died almost as fast as they popped up out of the ground, mostly to each other. Scant minutes, and the air was already filled with putrefaction and the rancid stench of entrails gushing their secretions over the ravaged earth.

The former bartender was shocked to discover he had been without anypony at his side in the last few seconds. He searched for Leaf Stream instead of looking ahead, even as Leaf Stream tried to shout warnings that he would never hear. His eyes met hers and found her doing her best to warn him even as she tried to defend herself; and then slowly, as if in a dream, he turned to see ahead.

Leaf Stream backed off to another pair of trees, finally realizing that their ring of defence had shrunk even more than she had realized and was almost caught in the open. Shaded Swirl didn’t.

Jaws, powered by naked sinew and bleeding from self-made wounds, closed like a trap where Shaded Swirl’s head was.

They met a bubble of magic and stalled for a few moments before bursting it. Stalwart Shield’s magic only lasted for a second, but it was enough for the Royal Guard trained unicorn to throw Shaded Swirl to the ground. He tried to raise another shield to buy them another precious second of life, but the blindingly fast tendril of a vine-like creature knocked him unconscious, blood leaking profusely from his face. He fell over Shaded Swirl as if trying to defend him with his last conscious act.

His body trapped Shaded Swirl where he was. The earth pony tried to bring his legs down to stand, but Stalwart Shield’s weight pinned him to the ground. They would have died then and there if not for the magic that formed around them.

Short Order was shouting. His body trembled as he threw the weight of two ponies back to brief safety. He was bleeding from a hundred places, bearing a thousand wounds. One of his legs betrayed him. He fell to one knee. Leaf Stream was barely close enough to hear him now.

“Retreat! We have to get these youngsters out! We can’t hold, we can’t—”

Snarling jaws with teeth the size of fractured swords snapped around where Short Order was standing. Then they lifted, gulping in satisfaction, and Short Order was no more. The only sign that the old veteran had ever been there was a splash of blood and the lower part of a back leg.

She had to give the order!

But if she did this would happen to Ponyville or another innocent farmhouse that littered the fertile valley. Yet she could see their own fate if she didn’t, the bloodshed and screaming forming a pattern of such clarity that it was as trustworthy as when she was still whole; the way she used to be able to tell the currents of her flight, now she could see how this fight would end. She could see how nothing they threw at the baying tide would change the outcome. How running would end up with them dead either way and more death born from their actions.

Damned if she did, damned if she didn’t.

They needed a way out. Something they hadn’t tried, they hadn’t thought of. Fighting or running wouldn’t work—

The Thestrals and the pegasi that could still fly were trying to weave around and prod the horde’s attention away from them. Needing space, they flew around the treeless area near the cave.

Leaf Stream saw Snared Wish flying and fighting, sweat pouring from her mane and blood from her side.

And she saw her caught by fleshy tendrils, dragged into the mouth of a nightmarish face of a zebra-like mutation, just its mouth the size of a buffalo, the body itself the emaciated remains of a newborn foal. The teeth smashed down like gates, snapping through metal, flesh, and bone.

The scream of pain reverbated over the battlefield. One of horror echoed it from the line of ponies.

Mouth, my mouth, bones and teeth and blood and crunching, sweet crunching, can’t hear my screams over the crunching—

It could taste it. Metal and grime layered around it, the sour taste of sweat and skin underneath, and deeper, just a little deeper, the frantic beating of its heart and the blood swirling in its veins. Shredded fragments of hair and hoof danced across its taste buds along with the intoxicating promise for more lingering on them.

Blood flowed from one of its tongues as the rest of the morsels tried to cut the other tongue loose, but it didn’t care. Blood was blood, pain was pain. It tightened its grip and pulled harder with the rest of its tongues. Almost there, almost there. Teeth clacked in anticipation, tight lips tried to reach for the succulent flesh. They struck and kicked and hurt, but it was so close to biting again, just one more bite. One bite through its spine, that’s all it wanted. It opened its mouth and cried, cried in need, cried for the food, cried for itself. Bones and blood, bones and death, death, death, it wanted death…

There was a flash of pain, and one of its eyes ceased its mad seizure. The other persisted for a second or two until it became too hard to continue. It was hurting, not much, but in a deep way, like… somewhere in its head. Almost as bad as the not-hunger—

There was a pony-sized morsel staring at it. Blue, a light blue, a blue that brought the sight of water and sound of wind in its mind, and a horn as broken as the last victim it tasted. The blue one was crying, and it wondered why since it wasn’t biting it. It wanted to bite it.

Something rose from the depths of itself. Not a thought, it wasn’t quite able to think like that, but an emotion. It wasn’t fear and it wasn’t hunger. It left it wondering what it was.

It saw one of them carrying a long piece of wood with a silver end. They dashed for it, losing them when they changed course for its blind side. The pain flared again. And then it died off. The pain was leaving, fading, fading just like its sight, like the tastes in its mouth, like the smells…

Shame. It is shame. Shame for thinking of hurting her.

The scratching faded too. It died off. It stopped.

Najee

Free at last…

“Burn it all down!” Leaf Stream ordered.

“What?” Trixie and Trailblazer were the only casters left. Stalwart Shield couldn’t be awakened—Gobrend had only shaken his head when she spared a glance at the fallen guard—and Short Order was…

They were the only two left. Tired and spent. But they were all she had.

She looked at the rest of their losses. Shaded Swirl was still wailing over the body of his wife. Luckily for Snared Wish, she had fallen unconscious at the first touch of the torch on the bleeding stumps that used to be her legs; Tidal Wave and Smoke Ring were both missing, having been lost somewhere in the fight. Leaf Stream knew what happened to one of them, but she didn’t know to whom.

Red Dawn wasn’t the only one whose wing had been mutilated. Blank Slate was in an almost similar condition, but the strange half-breed still had enough presence of mind to overpower the pain and fight, though grounded. Tick, however, didn’t, having gone to shambles and crying over the body of her twin sister.

A small trickle of blood poured from Tack’s neck despite the gauze meant to keep her torn, ravaged throat together. With a twinge of remorse, Leaf Stream wondered if they had actually left the hospital with any blood to use.

It didn’t matter. There wasn’t much of a chance they’d make it there, right?

“Burn it all down. Everything that is dry and can burn, must burn!” Leaf Stream insisted, knowing they only had a few moments left. There was nowhere to go, and any second now the stream of monsters would encircle them.

“We will be trapped with nowhere to go…” Trixie said, looking ready to cry.

“Better we burn to death than we let those things eat us or lead them to Ponyville! Burn it. All. Down!” Leaf Stream screamed.

Trixie turned to Trailblazer. He didn’t look scared, only exhausted beyond all reason. “Do you have anything left in you?” the mare asked dubiously.

Trailblazer’s smile was faltering and clinged to his face with great effort. “For fire? I got enough to wow you, my lady magician.”

The two of them stepped up together, their horns struggling to dredge up the remains of their magic. “If the great and powerful Trixie is to go—” Trixie swallowed the sob that climbed up her throat but let the tears fall free, “—then she’ll go as she lived.” The fireworks flew, brilliant flowers sparkling against bark and dried leaves, igniting flames of red, blue, and yellow.

“Encore.”

Twilight was too far away to see the blaze burning at the edge of the Everfree Forest and the smoke of dry kindling would not be seen from that distance. Pinkie had a bad feeling, but it was lost among the multitude she kept feeling ever since last night. Rainbow Dash had her eyes set straight to the east and the destination they would soon embark for.

Stampede saw, and the old, retired captain of Canterlot understood far more than the populace of Ponyville did. While ponies asked each other if they should get some pegasi to push some rainclouds over there, he was gathering carts and ponies who were fast and strong, along with doctors and medics.

Solid Charge didn’t see the smoke. He was holding a hand gone still, and weeping.

As for Luna and Raegdan, they didn’t either. They had already gone below, slowly and quietly making their way to the dark below.

And the two ponies who followed them didn’t see it either, though Fluttershy did think she caught a whiff of smoke. She wanted to mention it, but Applejack warned her to keep quiet. They went down the hole, and followed Luna and Raegdan into the belly of the beast.

Ch.48 - Descent

Applejack tugged at the rope tied around her waist. She hurriedly picked up the slack as Fluttershy, at the other end of the rope, slowly made her way to Applejack through the dark.

The rope coiled beside Applejack’s hooves, counting down the meters. When she reached down to the last two Applejack put a waiting hoof up for Fluttershy to touch.

The Pegasus’ nerves were frayed, as were Applejack’s. It wasn’t just the dark and the fear of whatever was scuttling around. Neither of them had brought food or water; their mouths were as dry as the cavern walls enclosing them.

When they heard ‘underground’, they expected something to the likes of the Diamond Dog tunnels―lit in some capacity and relatively near the surface. This place wasn’t. It simply wasn’t. Not even close.

She should have brought supplies! All Applejack considered was the rope she always carried and two cloaks she borrowed from Luna’s wardrobe, the weird splotchy ones. She would give them back. She didn’t steal them. She just… needed them. She’d make up for them.

The rope was their one grace that stopped them from losing each other more than once.

Fluttershy’s muzzle touched Applejack’s hoof. The Earth Pony pulled her friend into an embrace. “Ah gotcha, sugarcube,” she whispered encouragingly.

“I’m okay,” Fluttershy assured, hugging back with equal strength. “I didn’t find anything on my side. Maybe we missed a passage on the way?”

“It’s fine, sugarcube. Ah found where to go already. Follow where my hoof is pointing, about a meter in front of us. Careful, it’s on the ground,” Applejack instructed.

Fluttershy shuffled forward carefully. A loose pebble clinked loudly a dozen times on its way down a vertical shaft. Applejack and Fluttershy tensed, not daring to breathe. They waited for a minute, both of them letting out relieved sighs when there was no response.

“Climbing down in the dark. If that ain’t fun, what is?” Applejack joked.

“Oh my. Are we sure they went down this way?” Fluttershy asked.

Applejack chuckled. “Trust me, Luna and Raegdan went down this way. Ah’m sure of it.”

Inwardly, she agreed with Fluttershy on the general sentiment. Sometimes there were two, three, four, or even more passages to choose from. A grim choice to make when you can’t see them all or the echoes lie all the darn time! They’d been lucky so far. They picked the wrong path a couple of times, but always the din of combat dancing through the darkness would point them back in the right direction. As long as they were close enough.

Applejack was pretty sure she got it right, either way. Just to the right of the hole—and she wasn’t going to mention this discovery to Fluttershy—she found something that was growing cold and went splotch when she prodded it. They had gone down this way, and it had been blocked before. Wasn’t the first time, probably wouldn’t be the last either.

Applejack announced she was going first. She put the rope up on her back, and slipped down the edge, her back hooves searching for something to stand on. This is hard. Borderline impossible, she thought, grinding her teeth in frustration.

A couple minutes later she realized it had been impossible. That climb wasn’t made for a blind Earth Pony. Her leg found an edge and she stupidly put her full weight on it without testing it. It crumbled under her, and she followed it on its fall, her perilous balance on her hind legs betraying her.

She maddeningly scrambled for something to hold onto. She might have yelped or screamed. The falling rock brought more down, and above it all an Earth Pony screaming profanities her grandma would empty the entire pepper shaker into her mouth for.

Applejack’s head hit the wall on her way down. Her legs were bruised and cut from blunt and sharp edges. Her ribs creaked loudly when she landed on a groaning pile of stone.

“… You hurt?”

Yes, she did hurt, thank ya kindly. Applejack shook her head, and the pain on her head registered sharply, adding to her aches. She pushed herself up and she almost fell anew. She couldn’t see a darned thing, but if she did it would all be spinning, she was sure.

“Applejack, are you hurt? Please, answer me!” Fluttershy cried from above Applejack.

“Ah’m okay,” Applejack shouted back. She heard Fluttershy let out a deep sigh of relief. She placed a hoof on her head and pulled back as soon as she felt it throb. It was wet and sticky. “As okay as somepony going down a rockslide head first can be,” she murmured to herself.

Applejack carefully crawled off the shifting pile of rocks she had been standing on before something else fell again. From here, she could hear the distant dying echoes she had come to associate with Raegdan and Luna. The twangs of spells, the sharp flap of wings, and the piercing crack of metal against flesh.

She looked up, out of habit more so than because she had a chance of seeing anything. “Fluttershy, ya think you can—” She was about to suggest that her friend try to hover down her way with as much care as she could. She stopped.

Something shrieked.

There had been plenty of such noises, but always remote, always muffled by bedrock and distance. Screams, kicking, scratching and dragging, crunching and grinding, always echoing from far away.

Not this time. This one sounded way too close for comfort.

“Applejack…”

“Fluttershy, ah think you should start coming down no—”

An avalanche of roars, blurring the line between anger and need, followed the solitary screech. Applejack felt a sense of pressure, as if an immense claw descended from behind them, narrowly fitting the cavern and the air itself recoiling in horror before it. Dirt, rock, and stone groaned under its weight, the cut of its claws, its speed.

An endless mob united under a single want and with a single purpose.

Fluttershy’s squeal almost covered the panicked clopping of her hooves. Applejack yelled as loud as she could to guide Fluttershy back in the right direction again lest she get lost in the dark in her panic. Applejack shouted—pleaded!—for Fluttershy to just jump, to fly her way down. She had no idea if what was coming was really that close, but she was certain it wasn’t far and that time wasn’t on their side.

Her friend flew. But it was pitch black and Fluttershy had never been the greatest of fliers. And blind like this, not even Rainbow would have stood a chance.

Fluttershy tried to keep away from the walls. She felt her hoof brushing against one, and backed off. She couldn’t see there wasn’t space behind her or the extruding rock on her left side.

Her wing bone snapped in half.

The powerful jaws lurched around Raegdan’s torso with enough strength to partially deform the thick steel cuirass. The stone-scaled monster violently rippled its long body, thrashing wildly as it seeked to undo Raegdan’s grip on the edges of the tunnel’s mouth that held him out of its lair.

The creature resembled a pale eel with blind, atrophied eyes. Needle-like protrusions laid at the end of strong elongated jaws. It was large enough to swallow a pony whole. Its head alone was almost twice as big as one.

Luna held a long-bladed dagger in her magic and aimed for the eel monster’s eye. It made for a challenging target. She didn't want to stab her companion or allow his body to disrupt her magic’s grip of the weapon.

“Will you please fucking kill it already!” Raegdan barked out.

“Hold still!” she impatiently yelled. The dagger’s point weaved left and right. Raegdan’s covered head aimed for her voice, blind as he was in the darkness.

“Are you fucking kidding me? How!?” he roared. The monster’s mouth tightened its grip around him, screeching and undulating in harsher waves.

“Squirm less!”

There was a dull pop, like a walnut cracking. Raegdan’s left arm and shoulder socket parted ways. The disbelieving exhale of his lungs rushed out of the helmet as the pain of a red-hot poker nestled comfortably in his joint.

Raegdan dryly swallowed. “Alright. Fuck this. I had enough.” He released his hold of the side passage's edges. Without nothing to hold onto, the eel was free to pull Raegdan into the darkness and out of Luna’s sight.

She cast again her small mote of light, a barely visible point of lesser dark that only served to give shape to their surroundings. It hovered at the mouth of the tunnel and slowly inched inside.

Her ears perked up at the hiss of dislocated air behind her.

The dagger swiveled around her in a one hundred eighty degree arc and buried itself in the cranium of a rock-eel lunging for her. She pulled it back out, ignoring the greedy hold of the sucking meat and sinew, stabbing over and over, plunging it underneath the soft flesh of the jaw hinge.

The eel fell broken on the floor amongst the carcasses of the rest of its kind, writhing in illucid searing agony. Luna reared up and brought her armored hooves down on its head, ending its torment with the crushing of its skull.

She kept going, stomping the underbelly of the beast as the Princess worked out her frustrations. Her loud swears possessed both quality and quantity. Her roars were crashing waves in her own ears. Luna stopped, waiting for the swells of her chest to cease. She needed a moment, both to breathe and for the tunnel vision to fade, to stop seeing in shades of shaking red.

She stumbled and slipped on the viscera and secretions that pooled around her.

It didn’t matter. They were dead; five corpses littered the ground, a sixth in the making beyond the walls. They won. They won and their prize was to continue while fatigue was slowly piling.

There will be more. Luna groaned at the thought. Would they even be able to give the kidnappers any pause by the end?

The sound of ripping sacs and snapping bones echoed in the endless tunnel. She looked up in surprise. She was certain the eel-like creature was dead, she had turned its head into ugly mush, so what—

A fresh nightmare burst from the formerly untouched chest of the eel. It screeched out a warped newborn cry. The bald, shiny head lacked eye sockets but had a mouth filled with teeth. It was covered in muculent goop and blood. It gazed around with all too much awareness.

Luna screamed in disgust and fright and instinctively backed away as the black-carapaced nursling scampered away using two gaunt appendages and a barbed tail. It scurried up the incline and away from Luna.

Her dagger was out of the parent’s skull and impaled on the skittering horror’s back in one smooth motion, killing it.

With careful steps, and keeping her eyes on the largest corpse for more surprises, she approached the tunnel Raegdan had been yanked into. Hoping she would be heard, she hissed with care: “Raegdan, be wary! Some of the creatures are either infested or impre—”

“Holyfuckingshitwhatthefuckisthiskillitnow!”

“—gnated,” Luna finished, waiting for the frantic sounds of steel against flesh become less squishy with each strike until only sharp thuds of metal against stone and wet plops could be heard. “Are you done?” she asked wearily.

A sharp thud. A wet plop. “Done.”

“Is it dead?”

“Dead.” Another thud, duller this time. “Very dead.”

Luna collapsed against the wall and watched as Raegdan crawled blindly out the elevated gap. He laid on his back with some effort, breathing equally heavy. “None of them ran off, right?”

“None,” Luna replied. She was so tired already. She wasn’t going to go over whether it was worth it or not to keep their back clear as Raegdan obsessively insisted again.

She reached for the whistling silence of the moon that always occupied the back of her mind. It wasn’t nighttime yet, but it would be soon. A day fraught with struggle in this twisted maze had gone by. They hadn’t reached below yet, and what a grace would it be not to have to.

They had headed mostly to the north and east. They were making good time. If they found the right passage, perhaps they could make it without ever seeing the Deep Forest.

Raegdan rammed his shoulder against the wall a few times until it was obvious he wasn’t getting the results he needed. He scooted his way over to Luna and presented his left arm. “Some help here?” he begged, sounding on the verge of being sick.

Luna made sure her hold of Raegdan’s arm was secure. She struck from below and near the shoulder. The bone moved like a lever and was forced to rest back into its socket with a muted crackle. Raegdan hissed in pain and cradled his abused arm. He fell back down and Luna followed.

“We should take a minute. We have…” Luna grabbed her canteen and took a swig, “earned that much,” she concluded with a chuckle and a relieved smile that was a pale display of the euphoria she usually felt after a won fight.

“Heavens, I didn’t think there’d be this many. I hoped more of them would have been dragged off,” Raegdan panted. Luna cast errant thoughts aside lest they distract her, and let tension and muscle fatigue fade as she relaxed her body and allowed weariness to slough off. Her guards would be fine. She had to believe that.

Raegdan stood up with a weary groan after a minute passed, and, groping his way back, found the tunnel he had collapsed out of. He slowly climbed up inside it, dagger in hand once more.

“What are you doing?” Luna asked, getting up herself to retrieve her dagger.

“They can’t have had only one exit. This has to lead somewhere. I want to check it out,” Raegdan groused. “We’re not going down as fast anymore or to the direction we want. Not enough. I think we picked the wrong way. We turned west again.”

“We don’t want to leave the main paths,” Luna warned. “It’s a veritable labyrinth of entangled crossroads, pitfalls, and dead ends outside of them. I say we move on. Our path may twist right again.”

“I’ll take a look either way, see if it crosses into another one. If there’s nothing here we’ll backtrack to the previous fork and take another tunnel.”

“The one with the poisonous fungus or the one that breathed and had eyes?”

“Flip a coin. I’ll be right back.”

Luna let him go, allowing herself more rest. She moved across and peered into the other sideline where the eel creature that had attacked her emerged from. With the aid of the little light she cast her vision was almost as clear as during a bright day. The short, round tunnel led to a chamber. What concerned her were the myriad signs of intersecting tunnels along and beyond that one in shadowed edifices.

Either this creature made use of a number of ambush points indeed, or there were more of them that could pop out of here soon.

This might not have been the best spot to stop.

On the other hoof, Raegdan might have it true. These trails might lead deeper and those snapping eels would surely have dug more exits. If he found one to a side passage they might save more time.

She inspected the path ahead, dreading the surprises that were yet to come. “If we continue this way, that is,” she muttered to herself.

Luna knew they still had a ways to go until they escaped the suffocating enclosures and the tiresome, scorching humidity. They had been relatively uncontested so far. All that had been left behind were the weak and the ambushers that had no skill in pursuing their prey.

With her ear against the stone, Luna could almost hear them. The true dangers that stalked these stone paths. A great mass, their footsteps shaking the earth. A predator of unfathomable size flexing a muscle lazily, claws scratching the rock as it brought its prey closer to its grasp. How great their numbers must be to hear them so clearly even now.

Somewhere behind her, pebbles rattled and loud breathing and groans echoed. They were being followed for a while, and the pursuer was getting closer. She had tried to increase their pace. Raegdan refused to.

“We should have ran from some of these fights instead of insisting on facing them all,” Luna breathed quietly, pushing thoughts of what awaited them further beyond aside. “We could then have avoided what comes after us. It’s almost like Raegdan wants—”

Hold on a second.

They didn’t lose what followed because Raegdan refused to move faster than he did, cleared the way ahead, and was strangely unconcerned about what followed and leaving anything alive that could have potentially impeded…

Oh. Oh no. He didn’t. He didn’t!

He did, didn’t he?

Her armored companion slowly climbed out to the main tunnel again. He crawled and made his way to the floor, this time gingerly reaching for it with his fingers to make sure it was there. Once down, he bore his discarded backpack again and sat to catch his breath.

“Raegdan,” Luna prompted, gazing up the incline, recognizing the increasing scuffle and menacing growling as the frightened mewlings they truly were.

“Yeah, what?” he lazily asked.

“How stupid do you think I am?”

Raegdan froze mid-way standing up as if she cast the most potent flash-freeze spell.

“Well?” she challenged after a few sweat-filled moments on his part.

“Look,” he explained as if it was paining him. “I’ve played this game a thousand times before with Celestia. I’m not about to start playing a round with you, too. That’s a rhetorical question because no matter how I try to answer, I’m fucked.”

“Most certainly,” Luna agreed. She took a few steps up the incline and fortified her spell of light, infusing it with enough magic to shine like a lantern. The luminescence was brilliantly blinding in this deep darkness, akin to a lighthouse’s beam.

She inhaled and called out loudly enough for her words to reach out undistorted. “We know you’re there! Come to our light!”

The tentative scrambling ceased for two seconds and then jumped to a mad dash. Every now and then there would be a small exclamation of pain as somepony would trip or hit against a jutting rock.

All too soon she was presented with two mares that stared at the light as if it was an object of worship, the pure fear etched on their faces slowly melting away like snow in the presence of the sun.

“Oh, thank Celestia, we thought we lost you for real! We got turned around and-and… How was Ah supposed to know there’d be so many tunnels?” Applejack hoarsely cried on the edge of panic. A frayed rope hanged loosely on her back, half-covered by the ripped cloak that Luna knew Applejack didn’t own.

Fluttershy almost threw Luna down when she scrambled on the larger pony for dear life. She hugged Luna’s neck as if she never meant to let go. “I’m ready to go home now, I’m ready to go home now,” she was chanting quietly, not daring to blink.

Luna glanced at Raegdan as she patted Fluttershy’s back. She spotted the other half of Applejack’s cloak on the Pegasus’ left wing, used as a very shoddy bandage that had gone bloody. At least it had worked well enough, and whatever wound it covered had stopped bleeding, though what Luna could see of the flesh was raw and burning red.

“I imagine this is the part where you planned to say, ‘Gee, Luna. Who would have thought they’d follow? Golly, you better take them back and I’ll go ahead on my own. Don’t want to waste time,’” Luna pressured.

Raegdan’s poker-faced helmet gazed back. “Is that a no, then?”

“No, it’s a yes. Of course I agree with your stupid idea. Prance off and die, with all my blessings,” Luna hissed in ridicule of the insanity proposed.

Applejack raised her hoof. “Hey, can Ah say something mighty important before you two—”

Luna pushed the girls away, letting them huddle on their own under the light, forgotten at once.

“I s’pose that’s a no…” Applejack said.

The brief lapse into anger that was the first wall of defense Luna had built a long time ago crumbled. She had known this moment would come ever since she woke up and realized that with the poison gone so was her strength.

“Tis I, is it not? You believe me too weak, too diminished!”

Raegdan uncrossed his arms. He looked at her in disbelief. “You think this is why? That the problem is you?”

“What else is there to think?” Luna bitterly said.

“Maybe that it was me and not you that held a knife on little flame’s throat because I heard something I didn’t like?” he clamored, raising his arms. “That it was I who abducted you out of a hospital and almost got you killed? That Cast Iron is dying because I didn’t do my job? That Night Lilly did die because she did my job. And now, you fucking insist on coming with me to do my job, and this doesn’t tend to end well for the sorry fuckers who try to clean up my messes, does it!”

Raegdan’s hands reached for the back of his helmet in clawed, shaking shapes. He spun around as if to leave only to turn back after a couple of steps, now pleading. “Look, I’m only trying to do you a favor—”

Luna interrupted him. “And I don’t get a choice on whether I accept this ‘favor’? You think I want—”

Raegdan interrupted back. “It’s better if I’m on my own—”

“—to leave you alone as if I possess no awareness of—

“—you don’t want to go down there again, anyway—”

“—my own faults or yours? You wish me to—”

“—so sue me for caring. Take Applejack and Fluttershy back, and then you can—”

“—abandon my friend, alone? And you presume to call this a favor to me?”

“—head north so if I don’t get to them in time, you—”

“I am not leaving you on your own, get it through your thick skull!”

“Damnit, woman, will you let me finish a sentence?”

“My apologies. Your grievance rings true. You should have the chance to excuse yourself,” Luna gracefully said after a moment. “You have ten seconds to give me one single argument that you would listen to were our roles reversed. You may begin.”

Raegdan stalled, his rigidity fading as the seconds passed. “I… I don’t need help here, so—.”

“Time’s up! And absolutely not!” Luna declared. “There shall be no more debate. If you never cared if I asked for help or not,” she insisted, striking her hoof against his chest, “then you’ll be treated the same and you’ll have to learn to like it!”

“What about the rest of what I was say—”

“The rest is bullshit!” Luna roared.

“Whoah, nelly,” Applejack muttered in awe. “Ah s’pose we ain’t botherin’ with keeping quiet no more, huh? That might not be a good idea if you’d let me explain...”

Raegdan remained silent for a few seconds, not acknowledging Applejack at all. “I don’t care if it is. It’s not like it matters, because you only have two choices now, Luna: Either you take them back to Ponyville and stay safe or you drag them down there with us,” he announced.

Luna gritted her teeth. “If you weren’t my best friend, oh, the ruination I would bring upon your scheming butt!”

Applejack and Fluttershy idled nearby, watching Raegdan and Luna. They had managed to get this far with no water, no light, and no supplies of any kind. Luna was impressed, though she’d not let them know. Raegdan was in the right. And yet...

Time floated by, shaved second by shaved second, and still she remained undecided. Anger gnawed at her, anger for and towards all of them—Raegdan, herself, and the two girls. She turned to the two young mares.

“One question arises: what would possess you to regard shadowing us a good idea?” Luna duplicated the expression of fierce disappointment that Celestia rarely, but effectively, mobilized.

“Ah sure as heck wasn’t gonna sit back while mah sister is in danger,” Applejack mumbled, avoiding eye contact. “Fluttershy caught me following ya, and… shoot, Ah thought that since she just gallops over to the swamp at her leisure, me and her woulda been able to keep at yer tail… But listen, we got more important stuff to talk abo—””

A quick hush from Luna silenced the pouring rationalization that she was in no mood to hear. “Applejack. Fluttershy. What you have done has only endangered yourselves. You’re forcing my hoof. I gave orders to my Lunar Guard that I promised myself only scant days ago I never would give again. I won’t allow their trust in me to go to waste because you idiots didn’t think—”

Luna forced herself to stop. She kept the anger at bay with great effort. It wasn’t the two mares’ fault.

“You won’t take them down there,” Raegdan said once more, and he had her dead to rights.

“I shall return you both to Ponyville post haste; Raegdan can’t and won’t wait for me. He will continue on his own. I don’t blame you for this. I only hope I will not have a change of heart if he’s hurt or killed thanks to my absence because you—” She forced herself to stop, ignoring the foul taste on her tongue left by the words she uttered. Keeping quiet, she regained her calm and allowed the implications and weight of the situation sink in the girls’ minds as she stared down at them forbiddingly.

Applejack exchanged a look with Fluttershy, and both of them glanced behind them at the endarkened journey home.

“Ah don’t think that will work.”

“I… I don’t think it would be right either way…” Fluttershy muttered. “What if you don’t, Princess?” she suggested, strength—her usual level at least—again present on her face.

“What?” Luna and Raegdan chorused.

“I mean, um… we’re here already, so wouldn’t it be almost the same if we continued on?” Fluttershy wondered.

“What Fluttershy’s tryin’ to say,” Applejack interrupted, “is that there isn’t any reason to take us back so late in the game. What if we go the other way out, ya know? We skip the arguing all hoppity like, and nopony has to leave anypony behind.” A smile fit for a clown whitened the dark. “Which is what Ah’m trying to get at—”

“You are proposing,” Luna said slowly, trying to understand, “that we allow thee to… tag along?”

“I think it’d be better, too,” Fluttershy interjected again. “It’s safer if we all stick together.”

“Yeah, because if we ain’t—”

“I… No. No!” Luna shook her head. “That puts our mission in peril. We must focus our efforts on reaching the young drake, Rarity, and thy sister on time, not you.”

“That’s enough of that!” Raegdan said loudly, stepping in between Luna and the girls. “You two are going back with Luna, this isn’t a fucking deba—”

Applejack sidestepped around Raegdan, ignoring him with practiced ease that made him furious, and addressed Luna. “Yes, yes you gotta focus on that, and we understand what it all means for y’all, Ponyville ain’t breeding idiots. Yet it ain’t fair that Ah sit at home twiddling mah hooves all pretty like while you…” Applejack cast her eyes around at the walls bearing down on them, “...y’know.”

“We, um, wanted to help,” Fluttershy said. “We might not be very useful—this place is really scary—but we think…” Fluttershy exchanged a quick look with Applejack. “We think that you need somepony to go with you to remind you it’s not just you two alone when it’s hard or dangerous. And that ponies recognize that what you do isn’t easy.”

“And somepony had to warn ya about—”

Raegdan was ready to argue further, but Luna raised a hoof for silence. There was no need for him to waste his breath. Luna was already nodding, feeling ashamed, terribly small, and foalish.

She remembered the day she started on her path well. Celestia standing in front of her, almost blocking the door, as Luna made her claims that she was ready, that she wanted to go and offer her strength to other ponies. She wasn’t ready, and she had no idea what mires of despair she would descend to.

Applejack and Fluttershy however? They knew far more now than that silly little Alicorn did then. If Luna knew half of what these mares did, she would have never walked out that door. She wouldn’t have been strong enough.

The girls ran into this umbral underworld without hesitation. She had no right to deny them. Not when they were right.

“We shall continue on. Together, all of us. Applejack and Fluttershy speak true.”

Raegdan stepped in front of her, trying to hide the girls out of her sight behind his mass. “Now hold on a second, Luna. This is a bad idea. Think about it a second.”

“Think.” Luna tilted her head. “Think,” she repeated. “Yes, let me think. I think I know better than everypony here about what awaits below. I think that I’m the Princess and you’re the guard under my orders. And I think I already made plain what we are to do.”

Raegdan straightened up. “You’re not fucking serious.”

“I assure you, I am ‘fucking’ serious. This is an order. Do you remember what that is? What you swore to obey were I to give them? Now hop to it, my guardsman.”

“Can Ah say something before we go marching?” Applejack asked. She pointed up the gentle incline. “About where we came from—”

Luna nodded and slipped back into the now, sentimentalities and principles exiled to where they wouldn’t affect her senses. “We won’t go that way, not yet. We shall move back and try another path if this one is truly misleading us. Stay close and stay behind us. Raegdan, if you could take point—Applejack, stop moving your hooves like this, I assure you, I am paying attention to you.”

“No, you ain’t, because Ah’ve been trying to say this for ages!” Applejack barked, bursting with impatience.

“Which is?” Luna asked, now curious.

Applejack pointed to the path behind them. “Ah think all the monsters are on their way back home!”

“Can’t be,” Raegdan argued, standing straight. “We’d know. We’d have heard them.”

Applejack pointedly looked around her, taking in and showcasing the grizzly scene at her hooves. “Well, Ah’m just at a loss as to how to explain this in-ex-plicable phenomertron—”

“Phenomenon,” Fluttershy corrected.

“... Phenomenon. It couldn’t be that y’all were making too much ruckus yourselves, now could it?”

Luna pressed an ear against a smooth portion of the nearest wall while Raegdan eased his backpack off. He took an unlit torch out, his right hand securing his hammer, and watched the darkness behind them distrustingly.

“The stones agree with them.” Luna stepped away from the wall, looking shaken.

“Ah ain’t a liar if you didn’t get it yet,” Applejack protested.

Raegdan made a calming motion, his eye glued to the darkness. “No one’s saying that, little apple. It might only have been a couple of stragglers. Leaf Stream and the others were supposed to buy us more time.”

“What if something went wrong?” Fluttershy questioned.

Luna and Raegdan traded dreaded looks. “I’m going back to check,” Raegdan decided. He struck a match and the torch blazed into life, painting the tunnel in hues of washed out yellow.

“I shall scout our way forward,” Luna said.

Raegdan and his sphere of light turned around a bend and were gone, his footsteps impossibly silent despite his bulk and armor. The reddish light was visible for a short while until it too finally vanished.

The magical flare of light diminished and floated to the ceiling, nesting inside a crevice from where its glow was hidden and only a suggestion of illumination could be made with it. The princess made haste towards the opposite direction Raegdan went. A blink, and she was gone as well.

The wait was shorter than Applejack would have liked. The silence broke, and the shrill wails began anew, once again close enough to not be mistaken. First one, then others joined the rising cacophony.

Applejack glanced to Luna’s route, pondering whether to wait or take Fluttershy and run.

There were more high-pitched screams and growls so cavernously deep they rattled the bone. Still waiting in place, Applejack and Fluttershy concentrated on making them out, what they were, how close they were. Among them, even as they escalated in intensity and volume, Applejack could tell the clean sound of metal impacts. These clanged loudly and rhythmically.

It came closer.

“This way, assholes! Come on, follow the light! I’m here! Right here! Come get your dinner!”

“He doesn’t mean us… does he? Please don’t mean us,” Fluttershy pleaded, shifting in place.

The uproar continued but seemed to stall, perhaps even moving slightly further away if one dared to hope. Minutes passed while this flimsy hope became more solid, and then Raegdan emerged into their faded well of light. The new scars on his armor might have been a trick of that pale light; they hoped it was a trick.

He halted, breathing roughly, indicating he had been dashing like a madpony. “They'll come back this way any moment. Is Luna back yet?” he wheezed.

“Not yet,” Applejack replied. Raegdan moved with a new, exhausted limp, wanting to catch up to the Princess, and Applejack and Fluttershy followed. Only a few paces away, Luna found them again with alarm on her face.

A few exchanges later, each one more frantic, Luna and Raegdan figured out a few things:

One. There was an outpour of creatures following right behind them. The only reason they’d been safe so far was that the monsters kept throwing themselves at one another and possibly spreading through all tunnels like water flowing down a labyrinthe of pipes.

Two. Raegdan had managed to stall the closest ones by the skin of his teeth, making them think he had run down a different path, but that wouldn’t last.

Three. Luna had found that the tunnel forward turned all the way around. It probably looped back to where they came from. And she could hear more monsters coming from there.

Four. Now Luna knew that the monsters have managed to get in front of them as well. They had followed the path they believed their prey went down on, and were about to be proven right in a turnabout way.

Conclusion. They were standing in the middle of a meet-up they couldn’t survive. Or, as Raegdan put it:

“Fuck me!” He kneeled on the ground, emptying his backpack and looking as if he had a conniption.

“We still have options,” Luna said after a second of tense stillness. “We’ve got one route remaining to us. If it’s clear—”

“I don’t know if it’s fucking clear!” Raegdan roared. “I know it’s tight enough to work as a noose. Get rid of everything. We’re only taking the bare essentials!” He helped Luna undo her saddlebags and started digging through them.

Applejack’s ears flicked to the side. The commotion was getting louder, and louder meant— “Not to disturb y’all or anything, but Ah think they’re getting closer!”

Raegdan, swearing under his breath all the while, quickly lit another torch and lead the way. A small treasure trove of supplies and weapons was left behind as he clutched the severely diminished backpacks in just one hand. They reached the place they’d met up before, and pointed to a hole on the right that Applejack hadn’t noticed before.

Applejack could hear the approaching, scuttling noises that had hounded Fluttershy and her. Like wet fabric dragged across coarse sand and nails along the inside of your jaw.

Luna paused next to Raegdan to stare towards the source. “They know we’re here.”

Raegdan let out an almost silent, awkward laugh. “Oh, you can bet your ass they do. Luna, you go in first, then these two. Get in,” he insisted, pushing her.

Then he ran to a hole on the opposite side of the passage, a few feet over the ground. The torch swooshed loudly as he fanned it to brighten the flame, and he threw it as deep inside as he could.

He waved for them to hurry up as he stood next to the entrance, waiting to help them up. He kept looking back and front as if something could be on them at any moment. Luna took the two bags they had kept, both of them barely half full, and crawled in.

Fluttershy went next, ready to comply but hesitant. “Are there a lot of them?” she asked, openly nervous.

“Just a couple hundred, no biggie,” Raegdan hissed. “Just go!”

“What if they’re small enough to follow us in?” Applejack asked.

“Then they’ll eat our legs first. Heavens, move already!”

Luna half-turned from inside, her eyes suddenly brightening in crescent cerulean light. “You two follow me right now and stay close!” she ordered, keeping her legs bent and crawling in the low-ceilinged space.

Applejack took her turn behind Fluttershy. Metal scraped the rock both from ahead as Luna crawled and from behind her as Raegdan followed. Applejack didn’t have to bend her knees as much as Luna or crawl like Raegdan was almost forced to do. She could hear the dry dragging sound approaching ever closer.

Drrr… Drrr…

She followed the hint of Luna’s light ahead, until she noticed that all noises behind her had ceased. She looked back, the pale rays of bitter light allowing her to see Raegdan holding a finger in front of where his mouth should be. He slowly, very slowly, curled his finger down and placed his palm down with utter care.

“What?” Applejack mouthed, not daring to move a muscle. The feeling of danger she felt ever since she and Fluttershy jumped into that darned hole in the ground intensified to the point of being a physical weight. She was suddenly aware of drops of sweat running down her face and of the almost oily consistency of the air. Her ears bent in fear with each ever-increasingly distant scratching coming from Luna and Fluttershy.

Raegdan’s hand lifted off the rock, making a shooing motion.

She shook her head.

The light was gone. She could no longer see a thing. All was darkness.

Drrr…

Applejack carefully scampered forward, stopping when she felt Raegdan’s breath hissing on her cheek through the pinholes of his helmet.

She spoke with the lightness of a ladybug’s breath.

“What…” She swallowed, wishing she could dare to close her eyes even though having them open revealed nothing. “Is wrong?”

Drrr…

Raegdan answered back. Applejack held her lungs still in order to hear him.

“They got my leg. Keep. Moving.”

There was a second or two of peace.

Drrr…

Then Raegdan was dragged back violently fast.

Metal-born sparks almost blinded Applejack as Raegdan’s armor grinded against the tight passageway. Raegdan covered three meters back towards the entrance in the blink of an eye. His arms reached for the sides of the tunnel as he was surged on his back, his fingers reaching for any hold.

He found one. Light started flooding the tunnel as Luna from up ahead strengthened her spell for an instant. Raegdan was barely illuminated by the light, Applejack’s own shadow not letting her see more than the outlines of his upper torso at most. Further along there was movement and coiled terror taken form.

She saw narrow heads, shaped almost like sesame seeds. Jaws wide open, and they kept opening further, and further, and further, until they were brushing against the floor of the cave. Shadowy limbs rippled like seaweed. And further behind there were more—hairy limbs and chitinous ones—all reaching for their next meal as they swatted at each other.

Pain and panic painted Raegdan’s scream: “Go! All of you go! Luna! Get them away now! They’re coming in!’ His helmet seeked Applejack’s eyes even as the outcrop of rock he was holding on cracked and barely managed to re-adjust his grip before he was dragged further back.

“Little apple, run!” he grunted through teeth gritting with effort. His arms shook as he fought to pull his body up even by an inch. His torso twisted, trying to follow up the rotation of his leg as the pulsating darkness attempted to tear off what it had caught if it couldn’t pull it to itself. He screamed in pain. “Just… run! Run, you damned moron, run! I’m fucking dead, save yourself!”

Her hooves were scared into motion.

Applejack knew that running away was the wiser option, but Granny would have her tushy served on a tray, all piping hot from the thrashing she’d give her, if she got a whiff that Applejack turned tail and abandoned somepony. Especially when she could still help.

The sparks Raegdan’s armor produced before and the rebounded light were enough to guide her. She vaulted for Raegdan’s chest.

Applejack relied on memory of recounts, having never seen the stuff in action. Her teeth found the little ring and, as Rarity had described Raegdan had done, she pushed the small lever with her hoof. The ring came off easily and the metal lever popped out, ringing against the wall.

Applejack’s teeth caught the segmented metal orb in a tight grip. She uttered a prayer in her mind, faster than Rainbow Dash would ever even dream of being, that this wouldn’t end with her mouth turned to mush. These things had timers, right? Long ones, please? She darn well hoped that Rarity’s flowery and extensive, detailed exposition hadn’t been filled with purple prose where it mattered.

Raegdan’s one eye met hers. Judging by how it widened, her hopes about the timer diminished. Oh, well.

“Oh—”

She whipped her head, and gave it the best throw she could, using all her experience in lasso throwing to send it just beyond where she believed the tunnel’s entrance was.

“—shit!”

A second passed and nothing happened. Raegdan’s efforts redoubled, managing to drag himself with Applejack’s help almost back to where he had been when he got caught. Another second passed.

Applejack started worrying. It was nifty that she got it wrong and it did have a timer after all, but how long would it take for the darned bomb to—

The explosion blinded her completely. She fell on her side, her hooves covering her eyes and her mind reeling from what the flash had exposed to them. Of shapes drawn like stretched caramel melting under an unforgiving sun, bones in arcs that shouldn’t support weight, and the mad, broken eyes of ancient, screaming souls scratching through their prisons cells for a crack that might lead them to a mythical freedom.

Applejack tasted earth, gravel and blood, and her nostrils were clogged by the same dust that stung her sightless eyes. The stone around them grumbled and roared like a wave turned tsunami or a stream transformed to a raging river. Everything shook, and it still hadn’t stopped, a true earthquake. Shouts assaulted her ears, but the deafening thunders smothered them.

Somewhere beyond the light, darkness, noise and silence, boneless wraiths screeched their dragging, damaged screams through impossibly long maws.

Her senses were gone and assaulted at the same time. Blind vision was flooded with red fire, her ears made no sense of any sound and yet were battered from all sides. Her bones vibrated so hard she barely realized that she was being dragged, that there was a coil tightening around her ribs. She fought against it, kicking wildly.

The grip tightened even more, and she now recognized the cold of metal against her chest. Raegdan’s shout overpowered the tumult, telling her to stop fighting, to move, move, move! He was shouting non-stop, for everypony to run, to run, to run because the world was coming down.

The tunnel was falling on their heads. Debris rained on her, and she forced herself to kick harder in a desperate bid to help and avoid being trapped. One of her hooves was pulled out of a cascade of stone that tried to hold her with a malicious grip.

A blurred glimmer, blue and indistinct, shone ahead, floating over an eye of darkness. A blob of yellow, recognizable and familiar, called her name.

“Go! Go deeper!” Raegdan shouted, Applejack’s fear reaching a crescendo at the recognition of panic in his voice. “Just jump!”

Luna, she could almost make out Luna, grabbed Fluttershy and vanished into the hole. Raegdan’s mad dash brought them to the lip of the well, rocks falling on them all the while, small, then bigger as the collapsing wave reached them. Her brow ached and felt wet.

Raegdan dived into the bottomless pit without a second thought while Applejack and Fluttershy screamed.

Their fall was broken softly by what Applejack found out later was a dead body. There had been no time to delay. Luna pulled Fluttershy behind her with her magic, dragging her into another burrow and Applejack followed. She could tell from the shaking and noise that the pit they had jumped into no longer existed.

From that point on all sense of time had gone.

There had been nothing but trembling shadows and darkness as Luna’s light played and danced across jagged, sharp rocks, casting crude and distorted shadow puppets of stones grown to mountains and the monstrous silhouettes of the ponies themselves. Steadily, they dragged on, their speed sluggish, the effort leaving them wheezing through grit and thick dust. The only sounds their labored breathing, poor Fluttershy crying in pain, and the grinding sound of backpacks being dragged behind them or pushed in front.

Every now and then the light ahead would vanish and be replaced by tumultuous flashes of spellwork. There would be a few moments of rest in the dark and then the light would return, and with it the crawling, Luna breathing a little heavier up front. The light would vanish again, just long enough for Applejack and Fluttershy to crawl over slick, wet stone. Sometimes, Raegdan would be left behind, distant screeching sounds of metal and beasts reaching them long before he rejoined them, every time taking longer, every time catching up with more effort.

They crawled. They climbed and fell through natural chimneys. They slipped through perilous passages. They ascended, then descended, ultimately ever downwards. On and on, for what could be an eternity while a poisonous claw kept scratching their minds with the image of a dead end and another collapse. Entombed alive. Entombed alive. Entombed alive. There would never be a way out.

A crack on the rock blazed with the hint of light.

The crack became a hole.

The hole an opening.

Raegdan’s fingers caught the edges of the opening as he fell. He hung from the ceiling for a couple of seconds, his head twisting left and right. He let himself drop, landing on his feet almost silently, bending his knees and crouching on the floor as he absorbed the force of the landing. He laid still and held his dagger, ready to spring into action.

“Clear,” he whispered after a minute of tense wait. He sheathed the dagger and reached up with both hands. Fluttershy fell through first and he caught her, depositing her on the ground instantly. Applejack jumped next.

They had arrived into another tunnel, but this one was wide and tall, much like before. The back of it led into the darkness, but a few meters down the opposite direction it took a turn, hiding the source of the light that had pulled them in.

“Ah almost forgot how not being afraid the roof will fall feels,” Applejack announced, taking a deep breath. Big mistake. There was still a lot of dust and dirt in here as well. She coughed it all out.

Raegdan’s eye zeroed in on her in a heart-stopping instant.

“Admittedly, that mighta been a tad mah fault,” Applejack conceded. He still stared on. “Ah couldn’t think any—”

“Stupid,” he growled, correcting her. “Stupid! One isn’t worth three. You cut your losses!”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Nice way for a fella to say thanks…” she mumbled.

“Nice doesn’t matter! You could have killed everyone for the sake of one. Never do something that stupid again,” he finalized.

It was a well-rounded, researched, and very axiomatic—thank ya, Twily— argument. Applejack gave it the due it properly deserved.

A big wet raspberry. “Dear Mister Kettle, Ah’m writing this here letter to ya to bring to yer attention the color of your hiney—”

Raegdan’s eye almost flashed red. Applejack was certain the hurt one did turn crimson before he closed the eyelid. “Don’t you get it yet? The moment I know I can’t help you any of you, I’m gone. I’ve done this before and to people I liked a hell of a lot more than you. Next timeyou better run, because I will.”

Luna landed on her own, her wings spreading to slow her fall and Raegdan stepped away from Applejack. With a nod of her head, Luna stealthed into the shadows behind them while Raegdan vanished towards the light, both of them gravely silent. The two young mares were left behind once more.

Applejack’s own plan of taking stock of her many bruises and pains—and especially the thick crusted blood that had dried on her forehead—was quickly disposed of. Too many of the… fluids that had been rubbed into or otherwise stained her coat were not her own.

New plan: Don’t throw up.

From the side, near the wall, Fluttershy whimpered quietly. Applejack’s glanced over automatically. Fluttershy was leaning against the wall with no strength of her own to stand. There was fresh red upon her yellow coat.

Applejack was there instantly, helping Fluttershy to sit down. Delicately, she looked for the source of her pain. She found it on Fluttershy’s left wing. She had suspected that the long bone that supported her wing had snapped in two, but Fluttershy didn’t really seem hurt enough for that.

Or perhaps she hadn’t felt it, in the shock and adrenaline of the whole chase. Fluttershy was neurotic at the best of times, and that disguised the pain that should have clued Applejack in. It only got worse after the rigors she went through. The jagged edge had pierced the thin skin. Fluttershy’s yellow feathers were stained red and soaked so deeply they sagged under their own weight.

“Oh, sugarcube… Why didn’t you say something?” Applejack bemoaned.

Fluttershy answered though self-bitten lips. “I-I didn’t want to be trouble, and we were in the dark and didn’t… I didn’t want to slow us down… I’m sorry.”

“No offense, sugarcube, but that was mighty stupid—Raegdan! Luna! Come here, quick!—but we will fix you up now, don’t you worry.”

“It… It really hurts…” Fluttershy wailed meekly.

Luna and Raegdan were back immediately, rushing madly only to find them sitting together. There was annoyance on the Princess’ face that lasted only until she spotted the broken wing. Applejack gave them a brief explanation.

Carefully, they lowered Fluttershy down on her side. Luna inspected the protruding bone, and Raegdan pulled out a pitifully small satchel of medical supplies. They cleared the laceration on her wing of dirt and dried blood. It started to bleed again, and disturbing the wound brought fresh waves of pain.

“Fluttershy,” Luna soothed, “we need to push the bone back into place and set it. I’ll do what I can for the pain, but I cannot completely expunge it.”

Fluttershy whimpered, shaking her head in denial while dust-born coughs wracked her body, making her shiver in agony with each one.

“I’m sorry, but you must endure,” Luna insisted.

“I don’t… I don’t want to…” Fluttershy cried. “It hurts…” Raegdan kept Fluttershy’s wing carefully spread and open backwards while he pushed away her cheek every time she tried to glance back at it, stopping her.

Applejack moved closer. Her body almost touched Fluttershy’s as she slumped next to her friend. “Sugarcube, Ah know you’re hurting but it’s gonna be hurting a world worse if we don’t fix it. Just a snap and it will done, okay?”

“Please, no,” Fluttershy begged, blanching at the description. Bad wording there, Applejack admitted.

Raegdan brought his hand in front of Fluttershy’s muzzle, holding something. “Here, bite on this,” he instructed. “Look at Applejack and nothing else. It will only last a second and then you will be too numb to feel the rest. It will pass in a moment. There won’t be pain after that, it’ll be the memory of pain. You can deal with that.”

“I—”

A small bundle of cloth was pushed between Fluttershy’s teeth. “I will be done in a second,” Raegdan promised, looking straight into Fluttershy’s teary eyes and holding her chin. “One touch, and then it will be done. It will only take a moment and then we’ll bind it, okay?”

Fluttershy nodded in a daze. “Only… memory after...” she repeated. The light from Luna’s spells reflected in the suddenly semi-hazy surface of her eyes.

Raegdan smiled at her, petting the top of her head. “It’s just pain, little yellow. Just pain. Pain can be ignored. You can do it. Are you ready?”

Fluttershy nodded once, twice—Raegdan’s hands forced the protruding, broken bone back under the flesh where it belonged and straight in line with its other half. Fluttershy hadn’t really seen how bad it was, and none of them had told her.

Fluttershy screamed. She bit on the cloth so hard her neck muscles stood out, and she cried out a heart wrenching shriek, only drowned by the thick roll of cloth. Raegdan kept her wing straight, holding it from the furthest edges, while Luna’s magic danced around it carefully, avoiding contact with Raegdan. Bright blue magic cocooned the wound, pulling the skin together and healing it. Bandages along with wooden sticks taken from short quarrels followed soon after, binding her shattered wing.

The whole process lasted well over the moment they had promised. Fluttershy had fainted seconds afterwards, although Applejack suspected that Luna’s spells were the reason for that.

“Could have done that from the start,” Applejack commented drily.

“The abrupt shock would have brought her back to her full faculties. Now she can at least sleep off some of it.”

“Is her wing going to be okay?”

Luna hesitated before replying. “I hope so. It needs proper care. For now, this will do, although flying is naturally out of the question.” Luna sighed and turned to Applejack after a last thorough examination of Fluttershy’s poor wing. “Right, next one.” She pursed her lips.

“Next wha—”

Applejack’s forehead was unexpectedly splashed with water from Raegdan’s canteen. She shook the liquid out of her eyes, a renewed sting burning over them and her vision became clearer. Raegdan’s hands grabbed her head roughly and kept her still, his fingers prodding along and coming off painted red.

“Are you feeling dizzy?” Raegdan asked, checking her head from all angles and pressing gently on her skull with his fingertips at the same time as he searched through her mane.

“The way you twist mah head back and forth, yeah. Loads.”

“How about your breathing? Any difficulties?” Luna asked, her face uncomfortably close.

“Mah throat’s parched, but apart from that I ohmygoshah’mblind!”

A bright light beamed in her eyes, leaving spots in her vision.

“Her pupils are normal,” Luna announced in front of her, invisible after the assault she commited. “No concussion.”

“Just a cut. Not enough for stitches,” Raegdan’s blurry head said to blurry Luna, blurrily nodding at Applejack. “Bandage. First clean it or it will get infected. Her, too.” He looked down at both him and Luna, taking in the dark blotches all four of them were covered with that Applejack refused to acknowledge what her intuition told her they were. “We should wash too.”

“Dry caverns are not renowned for their bathroom facilities,” Luna commented.

“There’s a small waterfall coming down from above just outside,” Raegdan pointed out. Moonlight shone beyond the large stone arch, and faint smells and sounds of the outside world flowed in.

Raegdan sat next to Fluttershy. “I’ll bring her along when she wakes up.”

Luna was waiting for her at the exit’s threshold, looking outwards with an expression of emptiness. The faintest of breezes blew through her mane that once again shone with stars, capturing a small meteor shower among her hair and making it drift with golden sparks in her wake.

As Applejack approached Luna smiled at her with an outlandish sparkle of nostalgia.

“We’re here then, eh?” Applejack felt a shiver at the idea of looking with her own eyes at what was expected to be the worst of the worst.

The Princess’ smile widened. “The deadliest corner of Equestria. Welcome to the true Everfree Forest.”

Applejack walked out of the tunnel. She fell on her flank in amazement.

“Woah,” she breathed. “It’s… It’s beautiful!”

Author's Note

Chapter 49 is coming soon (Monday at the latest, I presume).

Ch.50 - Epipotheo

Branches whipped Luna’s armored form as she ran. She held her wings up, protecting and keeping steady her unconscious cargo. She had lost a number of feathers from her exposed wings, and the trailing scratches and the blood only made it easier for her pursuers to track her.

She had gotten only a glimpse of them, and that was probably more than what would be afforded to ponies not gurgling their own blood. They were lightning in earthen stripes, latching onto trees or dashing through undergrowth with equal grace. Luna couldn’t tell how far behind her they were, too focused on evading them to be afforded the privilege to consider.

Reaching a gorge, Luna paused long enough to inspect what lied below: The ravine was deep and thick with foliage that hid its bottom. The opposing edge, however, a small flying jump away, was a welcoming open area. An empty, large dining room where the buffet would soon be laid out if only she was foolish enough to head for it.

She dove among the razor splinters of the gorge, her teeth gritting in anger and her horn sparking in readiness.

The princess fell like a short-lived comet with a seething inner core. How many times had she repeated herself to Fluttershy? Everything in this hellhole existed only for one purpose: The Everfree Forest had to feed. But noooo, one pretty sparkling light couldn’t possibly be a danger to the pegasus on her back. She just had to touch it, like a moth reaching for the dancing flames!

Shed her

This is my fault, Luna thought, her eyes darting at all sides in search of refuge. She heard water trickling beyond the tight confines of the ravine and headed for it, a dagger silencing a slithering serpent in her way. All she could think of was Raegdan’s promise he’d catch up. She had to take him at his word for the sake of the wounded pegasus on her back.

Nopony will know

It erupted out of the earth: An old terror that had been locked in the cellar, forgotten by you but not having forgotten you in turn. It spoke in a buzz of screaming wails for Luna and Fluttershy. It was old, ancient, riddled with marks of victory and countless victims. It didn’t reach for them as it was upon them, around them, in them, almost there, almost, almost…

Now Do it now

Luna teleported. Only a few meters away, just far enough to not sap her strength. She zipped out around a boulder and out of sight. The tranquility of the forest returned. The ancient stalker was gone as if it had never been more than a wisp, a fantasy. Luna ran faster, harder. She forgot about it already, having more fearful prospects to worry about.

Can’t carry her forever Not here Not now

He lied. He lied to her before and he may have lied again. She trusted that lie for the sake of this stupid yellow pegasus on her back that she ought to have—

Nopony will know Nopony ever did

No. That was the Luna of a thousand years ago. The Luna of a few months ago. She couldn’t be that anymore. She needed to be better, and she was better, and life would be better―sweeter, easier, and happier. She only needed to give it more time. It would work like everypony said. Any day now. She couldn’t go back to how lost she was. Never again.

Luna stopped running. There was quiet. Either she had shaken them or she was herded into a corner. She lifted her wings higher, holding the comatose Fluttershy in a protective cocoon, and made for the ravine’s exit.

Fluttershy stood still. She didn’t tremble, squirm, or fidget. Her chest barely moved to indicate she breathed while Mother inspected her newly appeared Cutie Mark.

Mother would stand on one side, making a show of actively not staring at the Cutie Mark her daughter had earned. She’d do a side glance, coughing in disappointment before walking to the other side and repeating. Mother would then circle back in front of Fluttershy at the other side of the table and try to catch Fluttershy’s eyes from behind her pink curtain of a mane before shaking her head and repeating her inspection.

It was like a game of sorts, one that neither found joyous. Fluttershy had learned to be patient. She’d also learned to not put up any fuss when Mother decided to educate her on how to be a Proper Pony. Mother didn’t like being interrupted, not when she was Right.

But… Fluttershy’s Cutie Mark gave her something important, and she wanted to keep it.

Mother sat across Fluttershy with a big, weary sigh. Mother always did that so ponies would know how much Weight she carried.

“This simply will not do,” Mother said.

Fluttershy pouted. “I like it.” Mother’s hoof slammed the table, and Fluttershy shut her lips tight.

“This has to be a mistake,” Mother mumbled. Her hoof tapped the table at an increasing rhythm.

It stopped.

A smile, very small like all of Mother’s smiles, pulled on Mother’s lips. “Of course. You simply have it all wrong, Fluttershy. Your Cutie Mark is—” Mother sighed with Weight once more, “—butterflies, and everypony knows how fragile you are. A light touch and—”

Fluttershy lowered her head. She tried to tune Mother out, but Fluttershy knew it all by heart by now. Mother had always been insistent on teaching her daughter how to be a Proper Pony, and that included a long list of Fluttershy’s weaknesses and what she should stray away from among all the other Litanies. Fluttershy’s lips moved imperceptibly, mouthing along how Fluttershy needed to be wary of causing other, more Proper, Ponies trouble. How she should be aware of how clumsy she was, always ready to apologize for what her clumsy wings, her clumsy legs, and her clumsy tongue wrought. Clumsy. Clumsy. Clumsy.

“—meant to display your… delicate way of flying,” Mother concluded. She waited for Fluttershy to agree.

Mouth dry, Fluttershy’s best attempt to reply only made Mother sigh deeper. Fluttershy took a deep breath, losing some of it in stuttering exhales, her muscles spasming with the effort it took to not run and hide. She remembered the bushes, like dark green clouds: Soft, but not as soft as clouds, and a warmth unlike them, as if the small branches held her in a protective embrace; they smelled better and kept the light out, making Fluttershy feel so safe for the little time she played in them.

She wanted to see bushes and trees again. She wanted to see the animals, both big and small. She wanted to walk on the grass and smell the flowers. She wanted to not be up here: The sun was always too harsh and everything was so… so wide! There wasn’t any place you could be… safe. Like a bird’s nest. Not even the birds stayed up in the sky forever. They sang and lived and slept on trees and ground. Why couldn’t she?

“I-I don’t think it w-was a mistake. I-I… I know what my Cutie Mark is. It’s not… flying.”

Mother wouldn’t have this. Fluttershy kept her head low again, letting the words pass her by, the admonitions, the list of Sacrifices Mother had made, the embarrassment she would face if her daughter revealed herself to have never been a Proper Pegasus.

For anypony else, that was an impossibility; impossibilities were unknown to Mother.

Fluttershy was pulled off her chair and into Mother’s cloud-like embrace. “We’ll fix this, Fluttershy. As long as there’s faith, there’s a way.”

“But… I-I like my Cutie Mark.”

“You think you do!” Mother spat ‘think’ as though it were an abomination.

It wouldn’t surprise Fluttershy to find out it was. Many things were considered an abomination to Mother. Mother knew what an abomination was and what wasn’t because she had an instinctive dislike of abominations. She could always figure out what was and what wasn’t, based on what she didn’t like.

Mother took her to the east terrace where she spent most of her time. She sat on a small cloud that was white, fluffy, cold and wet. She forced—guided—Fluttershy on one next to her.

“All we have to do,” Mother instructed, “is say the Words, and it will go away in due time.”

“I… I d-don’t want it to go—”

“You will say the Words, Fluttershy.” Mother’s eyes ran over Fluttershy’s reedy frame with disdain. “You will say the Words every morning with me. You will say them until this… Cutie Mark goes away and you get one fit for a Proper Pegasus, or you’re blessed and properly understand what it truly means.”

“But—”

“Fluttershy! You are a Pegasus, not some Earth Pony that crawls in the dirt like a— like a—” Mother stopped, took a deep breath, and exhaled. “... Unicorns cast spells, Earth ponies tend the land, and Pegasi sail the sky and soar towards the sun. Now, pray so you’ll get back on the right path. Pray until what’s Wrong becomes Right.”

Head and heart low, Fluttershy began reciting the Words. She prayed every morning; she prayed every afternoon; she prayed when the sun set; and she prayed whenever Mother didn’t believe she prayed vigorously enough. The Words came, an unstoppable tide, and—

… Was it truly unstoppable?

“I don’t want to,” Fluttershy whispered, raising her head. “I don’t believe like you do. I don’t want my Cutie Mark to change.”

Mother stared, trying to understand who this pony standing in front of her was, because it certainly wasn’t her daughter.

“My Cutie Mark doesn’t define me.” Fluttershy pointed at her chest, finding strength in her defiance. “I define my Cutie Mark! I like animals; I like being on the ground; I like when the leaves shield me from the sun; I like lying on the grass; I like my Cutie Mark; I like being me!”

Mother wisped into nothing, her wide eyes the last to vanish. The terrace also vanished, and the sun lost its harshness. Fluttershy was back on the ground, butterflies—the same butterflies which had carried her!—dancing around her, and birds singing amongst the trees.

“You… You refused her. She was your mother and you told her you’re not who she wished you to be.”

Fluttershy whirled around. Luna sat slack on a soft patch of grass.

“Princess? But… You’re not supposed to be here yet. I’m still too young for…” Fluttershy sat down, petting a squirrel that wandered close. She blinked, and her hoof was running down the soft plumage of a duckling. “This is a dream, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Luna said. “A nightmare, I believe. But you…” Luna looked at Fluttershy the same way Mother had: scrutinous, trying to decipher who exactly she was speaking to. “You didn’t know it was. For you it was reality. It could have been real...”

Fluttershy hid beneath her mane, holding the duckling close. “When did I fall asleep?”

“There was a golden light. You believed it safe, and allowed it to approach you. It fell upon you in a moment of distraction. It leeches on you as we speak, keeping you sedated and easy prey as to drain the fragments of your magic at your end. I carried you to a secluded area. It won’t survive your awakened mind.”

“I couldn’t tell I was—am dreaming,” Fluttershy said, picking a dandelion. “It didn’t seem strange that I was living it all again…” She blew, and a hundred thousand seeds floated away in order to become the stars.

“I… I owe you an apology. I had thought of you as… as little more than a coward, and I’m… you humble me.” Luna bowed her head.

“But… It didn’t happen like this!” Fluttershy said, gasping as she remembered reality and not what her dream insisted had been true. “My mother was never like… She was becoming more… intense as time went on, but I left home and—I never stood up to her like that! I was a coward! I showed her my Cutie Mark and then she—she sent me back to Summer Flight Camp the next year, and I stayed in Flight School until I finished, but… Did she think my Cutie Mark was so horrible? Since then?”

“You were fighting against the magic, and your mind presented your struggle thus. Your mother was harsher because the magic was fighting back harder, attempting to break you.” Princess Luna helped Fluttershy stand up. As she did, Fluttershy’s gangly legs filled out, becoming stronger and more sure-hoofed.“These dreams and the past share some similarities and some contrasts, like you and I do. But for now, the most important thing to do is...

“Wake up.”

Fluttershy inhaled, yawning and rubbing at her eyes. She felt immensely refreshed, the tiredness she had before gone. She blinked, willing her eyes to work. There was a fleeting glimpse of gold, defervescing as soon as she caught sight of it.

By the smell, she could tell she was inside a large hollow tree. She flinched at a slight movement at her side, but immediately relaxed: Luna was slowly stretching from where she had been lying, a weak light flickering at the end of her horn. Luna yawned too, but the bags under her eyes showed her time had been anything but restful.

Fluttershy stretched her wings out of habit. A sharp wave of pain echoing from her broken wing brought her to the ground, whimpering as she curled in on herself. Her stomach groaned. It took a while until the nausea passed.

Luna slowly rose in the exact same weary way Fluttershy had seen Applejack’s grandmother stand up from a bench, ready to begin the long journey home while lugging all her bags after a long day at the market.

Fluttershy broke the silence between them, sorrowfully saying, “I didn’t mean to touch that light. I thought it was safe...”

“It’s alright. Just be more careful from now on,” Luna warned, grabbing Fluttershy’s front leg from the elbow and lifting it up. A golden light flittered along Fluttershy’s fur with the motion. “The magic hasn’t dissipated yet. If it gets a chance it may well attempt to take you once more.”

Fluttershy nodded and meekly followed after the Alicorn, hoping against hope she hadn’t disappointed the princess too much. Luna made it abundantly clear that Fluttershy was to keep her head down and do nothing but follow, yet her disregardfulness nearly thwarted their survival. In the event that there was danger, Fluttershy was to hide or run; she’d only get in the way in a fight.

Every movement Fluttershy made was pronounced with a golden glow, practically making her bioluminescent. Fluttershy sighed. Luna didn’t have to be so harsh. She was never going to be as brave as Rainbow or Twilight or any of her friends; she knew that. Despite this fact, Fluttershy came here all the same.

Just like the little gardener in the story, afraid and away from home, yet she moved forward to be there for her friends. That had to count for something.

… Right?

A river, wide and capricious, unlike the one that passed near Fluttershy’s home, flowed some meters beneath the semi-covered area they’d found in the embrace of a hidden gully. The water was unexpectedly loud in a way that made Fluttershy feel… safe. And, for once, she had an open view. There was precious little growing near the riverbanks and Fluttershy could see further than she had been able to since they’d entered the forest. She felt like a predatory stalker, setting her ambush near the waters her prey would sup from, blissfully unaware of the trap they’d walk into.

Spotting the discarded saddlebag, Fluttershy moved for it with an eagerness to display some kind of usefulness. “Will we keep heading for the mountain in a straight line?” she asked, hoping to fill the silence.

Luna nodded. “Yes. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can—Move!”

Luna’s armored mass tackled Fluttershy. She crashed on the ground, her tortured wing absorbing the impact. Every vibration produced a soundless gasp of unimaginable pain. She blacked out for a moment.

She raised her head, her stomach still heaving and her mouth full of bile. Screeches and wails of tortured metal resounded as Luna fought a feline nightmare of claws and fleshy, tail-like appendages that ended in wicked spears.

They tumbled and rolled over each other, the panther-beast raking its claws all over Luna’s backplate while it did its best to scrape out her guts through the mail with its hind legs. Luna, holding it close, kept it from aiming for her unarmored areas—like her face—with the bladed tentacles.

Both opponents roared and shrieked. Luna was able to gain the upper hoof and held the snarling beast down, trapping the long tentacles under its own back. She raised a free hoof, her armored shoe glowing with the same magic that rolled down her horn.

A second feline beast lunged at Luna from the side. Its huge displaced maw opened wide enough to grab Luna’s armored neck, and though even its pincer-like teeth couldn’t pierce the enchanted steel, it gave a good attempt at breaking the princess’ neck.

With her off it, the first beast’s tentacles got loose. They whipped freely around as the cat snarled and attacked Luna. They circled, gaining speed. One of them pinged off her helmet. The other found a chink in the armor, and sunk deep. Luna cried out, the pain causing her to stumble.

The tendril pulsed for a bit before withdrawing itself, a sickening white ichor dripping from the tip.

Blood stained the grass as the overpowered princess slowly lost the fight. She kept throwing them off, only for one to pounce back as she tumbled with the other. The beasts were taking turns savaging Luna so she didn’t have room to breathe.

Fluttershy watched from behind the safety of some rocks and ferns. She could see that Luna wasn’t doing well at all, no, not at all. She gulped. She had to get out there and help. She took a deep breath, and pushed her shaking legs to stand. Maybe… Maybe a distraction? But Luna said…

As if listening to her, Luna glanced at Fluttershy. She kept her attention on the beasts, while she calmly said, “Help me,” almost like Fluttershy was somepony she trusted. Somepony who could help.

Fluttershy jumped out from behind the rocks, screaming at the top of her lungs. The beasts turned to her, and Fluttershy dared them, advancing with a growl copied out of Rainbow’s book.

It worked. One of them turned to her, the other seemed confused as to who to pay attention to.

Luna’s eyes rolled to the back of her head for a second. She staggered. The second feline beast decided to ignore her and turned its attention to Fluttershy, whips thrashing the air menacingly.

Fluttershy backed off. The moment she did, they growled impatiently. Their hind legs’ claws caught the earth.

Golden lightning ran along Fluttershy’s spine, dancing along the edges of her wings and arcing down to her hooves in a spectacular display. The beasts howled in fright. They retreated rapidly.

Tightening her lips in order to hide her fear, Fluttershy pushed forward. She hoped the errant magic would continue its fireworks show. She edged closer to the beasts. Closer, closer. They kept their distance. Just a bit more, just a bit more and their nerves would fail them, she knew it. They were about to quit and run. They recognized this magic.

The glow vanished. Whatever switch commanded it had been flicked off.

The beasts growled. Fluttershy had gone too close, and the magic was no longer there. Every muscle went taut as they prepared to pounce.

Luna straightened, forgotten behind them. Her lips had gone white and her eyes burned. Her skin was a sickly green hue. Her horn flared with magic. She moved with speed, one moment there, the next behind the beasts. Luna’s legs wrapped tightly around one of them. Her magic caught the other one and dragged it close. Fluttershy wanted to cheer like she never cheered before.

But then Luna, holding the beasts close, threw herself and them together into the river below.

“Luna! No! No, no, no, no!”

Fluttershy shouted the Princess’ name as she ran. Caution, like the discarded saddlebags, was forgotten. She frantically searched for a place where she could climb down, tears of frustration running down her face as she cursed her battered wing. The river ran ferociously, taunting her.

She galloped like a mare possessed, ignoring the stabs of pain as she followed the whitewater river. Minutes later she saw one of the panther-like beasts dead, either drowned or having hit its head on the rocks that jutted out among the rapids. So far, still no sign of Luna.

How heavy was the armor Luna was wearing? What if Fluttershy passed her by while Luna was trying to reach the surface? What if she was on the wrong side of the river?

She kept going and shouting. She knew it was stupid―Luna would have her hide―but what else was there to do? Nothing had surfaced so far, so she kept going. Maybe nothing came for her because she was so loud? Hopefully… In a place so paranoid, a lone pony crying out could very well be a trap.

She’d take it. Oh goodness, she’d take it if that was the reason. Only for a little while, only until she found Luna, please.

Just… Please let Luna be okay.

Fluttershy ran for what felt like hours yet she saw neither hide nor hair of the Princess. She couldn’t… She couldn’t have gotten caught beneath something or hit her head and drowned, right? She knew that could happen; she avoided swimming in rivers ever since she learned of these dangers. Luna was strong, though. Luna knew what she was doing.

At the end she literally tripped over the unconscious Princess.

Luna had made it to shore on her own, most of her armor gone, stretched between water and muddy dirt. Fluttershy guessed she took the parts off on her own. The helmet and the thick back covers were gone. She spotted one of the abandoned armored shoes in the shallow still waters. Thousands of insects hovered over it, dancing in the air and on the surface of the water they used as a breeding ground.

Fluttershy did not even waste the time to rise from her fall. She crawled, her face caked in mud, and pulled Luna completely out of the water. Moving her a few meters was a struggle that left her breathless and quaking in pain. She put her ear over Luna’s muzzle; she felt her breath, rapid and short. Fluttershy shook her, calling her name. Nothing.

Remembering the poisoned barb, she checked the wound. There was a rivulet of blood streaming out of the circular hole. The tiniest drops of white were mixed in, foaming like pulp at the top. It seemed to blacken the blood in contact with it.

Panic started to set in. She didn’t want to see another pony poisoned, not like…

Wait. Maybe...

She wiped her eyes clean and looked. She wondered if it was possible: Yes, Luna’s horn was glowing, if only faintly! It was weak, so weak that it was almost imperceptible, but she was using her magic!

Fluttershy giggled and danced a little jig on the spot. She was healing herself! She was fighting the poison even while unconscious, like she did when Pinkie ate the poisoned sugar and Luna found out what the poison was by tasting it. Luna was going to be okay! She only needed to drain all the poison...

...out...

Oh, no. No, no, no. If Luna was unconscious while she fought the poison, what was Fluttershy to do? She couldn’t dare wake Luna up. It might make the poison worse… or would it be worse to leave her as she was? She had to move her too, but… she was too heavy for her to pull, and with her injured wing she couldn’t carry her on her back. And even so, where would she go? Luna knew how to find shelter. Fluttershy, on the other hoof, had no idea!

Out of the foliage, a massive white form emerged, and Fluttershy screamed in fright and threw herself over Luna. The creature, bigger than a cart, ignored her and headed to the water. More of them followed. Fluttershy shut her eyes and whispered for help, over and over.

Nothing happened. She peeked.

They looked like massive slugs hybridized with long worms. They were rippling with fat, and had rings of bruised purple spots at their sides. One of them squeezed its body, a tightening motion like a pony flexing all their muscles simultaneously, and long barbs bristled to poke its brethren away from trying to steal its turn at drinking from the river. They drank with long proboscides that poked out of their mouths.

As each drank its fill they returned to the rest of their herd, looking to each other for protection. All of them ignored Fluttershy and Luna, despite plenty of them eyeing the two ponies with wariness.

Fluttershy watched, fascinated.

Luna had repeated herself so many times that Fluttershy had believed her, and Fluttershy’s experiences thus far only served to cement the thought: the Everfree Forest was a monster-infested den and breeding ground, pure and simple. But…

The humongous slugs that weren’t quenching their thirst hung back, forming a rough circle, their barbs creating a protective wall. One of them moved, and from the center emerged smaller ones―juveniles, judging from their size―the rings at their sides mere pokes and slits that looked like they had never been used.

An adventurous one moved further away from the herd. One of the adults made a booming, bass sound towards it. The youngling ignored it and the adult seemed to contemplate going after it before finally deciding for the safety of numbers.

They were herbivores: They munched on fallen branches, leaves, anything within reach, picking the ground clean as they went. And it… it made sense. As dangerous as it was, the Everfree Forest―the one on the surface and the one underground―was still a forest at the end of the day. A weird forest, but could there be a cause for this? Fluttershy, in deep thought, splashed at the river water as if testing it.

The surface Everfree Forest looked so different: Spooky and scary, like a skeleton. A forest can’t choose to be… scary, though. Maybe? It wasn’t a spooky skeleton; it was… it was emaciated! If things kept falling, seeds and saplings and burrowing animals that were so needed, if soil was drained down here constantly—and wasn’t that which made the lights above so visible, like sun rays dancing through dust?—if the waters siphoned precious minerals and vitamins away only for the Underfree to eat them up...

No wonder the surface looked like that. It must have taken hundreds of years to degenerate to such a sorry state. Fluttershy would bet all her belongings that the Everfree Forest above was on the greener side a thousand years ago.

Forests have needs. Even the healthiest forests need fire to renew them, to expose the undergrowth to sunlight. Fluttershy wondered how many times ponies had saved—or punished—the Everfree Forest by stopping any natural fires for fear of the monsters within rushing for the safety of the countryside. No wonder it got so drained and stopped expanding.

This place wasn’t a… a nightmare or a prison or a hell of some kind. It was a forest. Filled with animals. An ecosystem which had rules of its own. And monsters… she had met monsters. She had taken care of monsters. They were just animals. Big, dangerous, and very, very clawy animals, but animals all the same.

And Fluttershy had a cutie mark that she loved, one she would prove to herself was true and useful, even if what she had said to Mother was but a dream. She spotted the smaller slugwyrm which had wandered away from the herd. A lone target for every predator. A part of the cycle.

Fluttershy smiled. She could convince an under-the-weather hydra to take its pills, each head separately. This? This would be easy.

Luna’s last words before going down that cliff were for Fluttershy to help her. Well, Fluttershy thought, steeling her nerves, she’s about to be helped harder than she has ever been helped before!

And it would be kind to do. That little youngling looked so cute!

“Cookie! Go back in the middle, please.” Fluttershy ordered from atop the biggest of the herd, a grizzled veteran she had named Bristleback. Poor guy was missing an eye but he was as tough as nails.

Fluttershy sprinted to Bristleback’s tail towards one of the younglings. The rascal wasn’t behaving. “Cookie, get back in place, now! Daisy? Daisy, keep an eye on Cookie before the name becomes too unfortunate, please? Cookie, listen to Daisy, okay, my little snugglepus?”

Cookie quickly crawled next to Bristleback and reached up with his proboscis, nuzzling Fluttershy back. “Who’s my little cutie pie? Who’s my little cutie?” Cookie squeed. “You are! Yes, you are!”

The young slugwyrm—she was getting fond of the name—chirped and followed behind Daisy, a female on the verge of maturity if Fluttershy guessed correctly. He almost looked like he was springing, reminding her of Pinkie Pie. Every now and then he’d wave with his thick proboscis at Fluttershy as if wanting her to see that he was doing as told and wasn’t he doing such a good job?

Fluttershy waved back every time.

The herd had been quite content to let Fluttershy and Luna join them after some convincing. Fluttershy felt quite safe. Sure, there was the occasional rustling, and eyes peered from the deeper shadows, yet nothing dared attack the herd. And with Fluttershy keeping watch, there had been no slugwyrms left behind to attract unwanted attention. So they were left alone.

The herd headed northeast. They didn’t mind being prodded towards a certain direction as long as they could fill their bellies on the way. Still, it was weird how she had to appeal to them repeatedly to head north. It was as if they took every chance to check if she had changed her mind. Fluttershy speculated it was simply them knowing something she didn’t.

There was a lot of that going on.

Like what was happening to Luna. She laid behind Fluttershy, nestled in between the creases of Bristleback’s body, unmoving and breathing weakly. Most of the time the Alicorn was dead to the world like this, sleeping or losing her frail grip on consciousness. At other times she would sit up with glazed eyes and collapse—dead to the world—again. She was catatonic, watching nothing, her mouth opening and closing with the crackling snap of her dried, weathered lips. Her eyes were foggy, and every now and then a drop of blood would trickle from her nose.

Her horn glowed all the while, however, intermittently as it did. Sometimes strong and steady, others weak and stuttering. If it was trying to signal a message, then what Fluttershy got from it was that Luna wasn’t doing well.

She didn’t know how to help Luna. A pegasus couldn’t magic out venom. She had to reach somepony that might know what to do.

Her task was obvious.

Coaxing the slugwyrms to move faster and as steady northward as they’d go, Fluttershy made preparations. She could tell they wouldn’t take her all the way. She’d have to be ready.

Hardy vines and strong roots could work as twine and rope. The bigger slugwyrms provided plenty of strong branches as they cleared the path. She convinced one of them to let her have some of the succulent berries she spotted. Her mouth watered at the sight of them, her stomach growling, but she had other plans in mind.

Fluttershy finished the crude stretcher on top of Bristleback. She fluttered off, dashing for the undergrowth with berries in hoof, and came back with a new, boar-like friend to help her.

When the time came that the slugwyrms would move north no longer, she moved Luna on the stretcher, and with her new friend, Plumba, dragging it behind her, she made for the mountain.

This had to be what Luna referred to as the “Heart” of the Everfree Forest. Fluttershy was certain.

Twilight had recently gone on one of her discourses, where she’d always be so passionate and fawn adorably at knowledge, even when she was the one teaching it; they tended to bore the rest of the girls, but Fluttershy liked them: they were Twilight’s way of sharing what she loved.

If only some of the things she shared weren’t so frightening!

Twilight explained that magic was everywhere. She called it ambient magic, and it just floated around ubiquitously like pollen in the springtime. But sometimes, that magic would clump up and behave unpredictably. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, you could tell by the very pale, almost unnoticeable, buzz of the air. It rarely covered an area bigger than a large room.

The trees in front of Fluttershy were shrouded in a thick, blue glow, massing like a mist. She could almost see currents in it. It stretched as far as she could see.

She tried to remember how bad it could have been if they made the plunge, according to Twilight: she remembered the dreaded words “transformative thaumaturgy.” She hoped its portentousness only extended to a coat color change, but she was under the impression it was a flight of fancy to hope for such a force to be so benign.

Entering the mist probably wouldn’t be a good idea. The slugwyrms had a reason they didn’t want to get close. Even Plumba was fighting the straps around his chest whenever she wasn’t actively soothing him.

No monsters had bothered them for ages, either.

She checked on Luna: She was not okay. She hadn’t been for some time. Keeping a brave face for Plumba’s sake, she had him follow her as she walked the treeline. It had to stop somewhere, right?

An hour of walking later, she started to have doubts. Despite them she trudged on, at one point facing a dilemma: would she risk both of them to reach help or keep vigil over Luna as she either lived or perished.

Thankfully, she wouldn’t have to make that choice.

She found a passage.

The fog of nocuous magic had a tunnel carved into it. Fluttershy didn’t see it until she was directly in front of it. The semi-solid air was clean and untouched by magic. It was as wide as about two ponies standing side by side and a bit taller than Princess Celestia. It pierced through, following the gentle inclines and avoiding trees like it had chosen the easiest, yet at the same time straightest, path to the mountain.

Fluttershy’s inhibitions about the serendipity of this path were erased at the sound of a pained wheeze of breath. She removed the makeshift ropes from Plumba, putting them on herself, and sent him off. The last thing she did was make sure Luna was held tight on the stretcher, using her cloak to ensure she wouldn’t slip.

She followed the hollow path.

It was like a ride through a secret haunted house. Always careful not to overstep the boundary, the sights she witnessed at her sides slowly filled her with dread.

This heart of magic wasn’t empty: Creatures moved in and out endlessly. Expectant mothers returned to deep dens, birds rested in ancient nests to lay their eggs, and birthing cries dully filled the mist, turning them to a distant, ethereal chorus.

And the eggs would hatch. The newborns would burst out of the dirt. The children would take their first steps and their first flights.

Their parents absent. Their hunger, cold, and fear ever present.

Beaks would grow or change shapes. A youngling would come out seeking sustenance from the bodies of others, and they would respond by manifesting claws and teeth where there used to be none. Wounds would heal and what allowed them to be harmed in the first place would be replaced or improved. A fallen fawn-like newborn rose up, standing on six legs. A spider scampered away from a seeking mouth, suddenly able to camouflage like a chameleon. A lizard lost its tail and it was replaced by flames.

Yet, just like Fluttershy, so too would those new creatures veer away from their birthing grounds: the hearth and home that gave them strength might also be their end, so they abandoned it in order to surfeit and shelter themselves where it was less hazardous.

And the next wave would rise out of the ground, out of the eggs, out in the dark, sometimes more dangerous, sometimes completely different.

Fluttershy urged herself to go faster.

She was sweating a storm. She was almost running, and pulling Luna was no easy feat, not while making sure she kept the stretcher steady. Not while her muscles pulsed with agony, sending waves of pain up her mauled wing. Not when she didn’t know if one of the newly born might covet her. Not when the smallest slip might make her something not-a-pony anymore. The fear of this fate made her heart pound.

Fear was weird at times. Fluttershy was well acquainted with it. She feared a lot of things, some real, others mere concepts. But oddly, fear could be fought off with fear: Fear begets bravery, after all.

Luna started gasping in pain. Fluttershy’s fear was gone, concern taking its place and making her ignore any possible threat in this place.

The errant nosebleed had become a flood, the blood infected, dark and murky. Luna’s mouth was bleeding as well, her lips cracked and oozing droplets of blood, her gums a ghastly pallor and her dilated pupils almost wiping out all traces of white in her eyes.

Her horn was stuttering with broken glows of pale blue.

“Luna? Luna, can you hear me?” Fluttershy said, reaching to stroke Luna’s forehead. She was feverish. Before it got worse, maybe she could buy her friend some time by cooling her down. She didn’t have cold water, but they were bound to meet another river or stream, and until then perhaps she could make due with—

An arch of gold formed between her hoof and Luna’s horn.

She was trapped in an inferno of viscera and violence. The walls were hideous bodies that writhed and corpses that were gnawed on. The stench of blood, acrid and blasphemous, filled her nostrils. Shrieks and the wet gurgles of organs splattering the red mud assaulted her ears.

Scream and pain, scream and death, scream and victory, scream and food.

Fluttershy screamed too. She screamed and ran; she screamed and closed her eyes; she screamed and plugged her ears with her hooves; she screamed and stopped breathing.

Silence.

When the silence persisted, she peeked. It was all there yet: the horror, the madness. The abominable beasts and the horrifically mutated chimeras. The bloodletting. But now it was muted, blurry. It thrashed erratically, as if time hiccuped. There was almost no color to anything.

Except the blue Alicorn, fighting with hooves and magic. She was unburdened by the unconjoined time. Claws vanished and appeared, aiming for her, and she avoided them by a hair’s breadth. She evidently hadn’t been so fast or skillful every time: Her body wept with a thousand wounds.

A giant scorpion’s pincer made for her, and her magic sliced it at the elbow. The head of the creature was crushed under her hoof. A mutant horror, eyes and beaks and beaks and limbs fell on her. She fought and cut, she detonated its limbs, she took the pain the beaks delivered even as they breached her flesh. She killed and moved to the next, no different from the beasts surrounding her: All killed without prejudice, without thought, without reason. Meat sundered, blood spilt, life extinguished, all in this festering vortex of malice.

Everything fought and killed beside her. A vast melee that seemed to have no side, no objective but kill. Kill. Kill!

Behind the Alicorn, the mountain loomed. In front of the Alicorn, the forest roared.

Luna fought alone. Why, Fluttershy knew not. The Princess was only distinguishable from the monsters around her thanks to being the only spot of color in this gray world. She fought. She killed. She screamed. She cried.

“Luna!” Fluttershy shouted, and her shout was the voice of the heavens. The earth shook with her voice, the monsters around her flickered away.

Luna turned, and saw her. Fluttershy lifted her hoof. “I’m here!” she shouted again. “Can’t you see me? Are you okay?”

The Alicorn blinked. She stopped fighting and looked around her, dazed. “You’re…” she stammered. “You can’t be here! No one was ever—”

The plains of slaughter vanished.

It was a clearing in the Everfree Forest of the deep. Wide and open. The mountain was close, far more resonant than Fluttershy ever saw it, but not as close as before.

In the middle of the clearing was a rock. Fluttershy wouldn’t have noticed it save for the life and vibrancy it had. It was gray as rocks are, yet it seethed with importance. As if it was the only thing that was real, the only thing that mattered.

Luna burst from the edge of the clearing, her coat soaked crimson. Twin paths had been cleared upon her face from the tears pouring down them. Luna’s pain was obvious, her muscles at the end of their fortitude. But fear of what lay behind her pushed her on. She forced her body to work, and she ran. She ran as if hell itself was at her heels.

The rock waited patiently.

Luna reached it, but she never saw it. She tripped, despite Fluttershy crying out a warning. A warning swallowed by the dream. Luna fell. Her chin met another rock, and blood erupted from her muzzle. Another wound; another reason to bleed.

Fluttershy approached, shouting with no voice. Luna never saw her.

“I can’t,” Luna muttered, tears streaming down her face.

“Can you hear me?” Fluttershy asked, a question not even she could hear.

“I don’t want to. Not anymore,” Luna continued, sobbing. “I won’t win. I tried, and they nearly killed me. It won’t ever stop. They’ll keep coming, and I… I can’t. I just want to go home...

“But she’ll ask. She’ll ask and what will I say? How can I face her after what I’ve done?” Luna dug her hooves into the ground as she gritted her teeth. “She will judge. They all will judge. Not enough, never enough!” Her horn ignited, and the rock groaned before collapsing in on itself, naught but a fleck of dust carried away on the breeze. “They did this! Where are they? Safe and warm, and… and… damn them! Damn them all to Tartarus. Damn them for making me live a nightmare!

“You win. You win!” Luna lifted her neck, still lying flat and broken, and screamed over and over: “You win! You win!”

Her head fell back to the earth. “Your way, then...”

Fluttershy didn’t know what to say. Not to this misery, this defeat. Even if she could be heard, what did you say to somepony who was so… so…

Broken?

She said nothing. Didn’t even try. She simply sat next to the Alicorn, and hugged her.

Luna’s eyes snapped open, locking with hers. “You’re…” she stammered. “You can’t be here! No one was ever—”

Fluttershy knew that all color and all life had fully returned. But it didn’t matter. It would never matter here.

Everything was gray because that was the only color to find, apart from the distant blue orb that made you shiver with loneliness and want. There was silence because sound didn’t exist. There was nothing to smell, not even the ash-like dust that stirred from the desiccate bed beneath her hooves.

She felt alone and cold. More than she could ever imagine, more than she would ever think possible. She shouted, and she knew her voice would never be heard. Talking, shouting, begging would be absolutely pointless: You wouldn’t be heard. Not because of a magic that could fade. Not because there was no one here at this moment. No. Because this was the truth of this place: There was nothing for you, save to covet the blue world, your home, hovering in the distance, and know that all you wanted and craved was in sight but out of reach.

Fluttershy still gave it a shot. She didn’t ask for help; she called for her friend.

“...Luna?”

And her voice was there.

“This was earned,” Luna said, yet she was nowhere in sight.

Fluttershy jumped, spinning as she tried to locate her friend. “Luna! Where are you?”

“I’m here.”

“I-I can’t see you...”

“I’m here. You’re standing on me. What could be me. What I became. I never stepped hoof on the surface. I could never even see our home, but I could almost feel it, like a pull. Or maybe I imagined it.”

“You’re—”

“What I earned. I deserve this.”

“Luna, no.” Fluttershy said. “What this was, it was a mistake. Princess Celestia never meant for this to happen to you.”

“But I still deserve it. I tripped, Fluttershy. I tripped. That’s all it took. I tripped and became a nightmare for it. I failed so many throughout my life, you and your friends taught me that. All that was… I still believe I did the best I could. It wasn’t good enough, though. But this last mistake and the one before that, the fire and the betrayal… I tripped. I tripped long before that rock in that damned forest. And this is my debt: Eternity. To live forever, in the hell of my own making, alone.”

“No. This is… This is a dream! Do you remember? Like mine! The venom is trying to beat you, to beat your magic. Don’t give up, Luna. You can beat it, it’s just a dream!”

“No. You and your friends were the dream. I can see that now. I never left. I went mad, and I dreamed I was free: Walk. Breathe. Have a friend. But I know what I did. I always knew, and not even my madness would let me escape my hard-earned hell. I know exactly how I failed, how easily I ruined what I should have held close. All so I can better appreciate this torment.

“It was a nice dream, Fluttershy. I’ll miss it. I’ll miss you all… ” The stars, dim already, vanished one by one, evanescing like candlelight mournfully snuffed out upon reaching the vestige of the wick.

“It wasn’t a dream! You do have friends. Raegdan is waiting for you!”

“A dream.” The light of the sun, so far beyond, faded to nothing. Frost alighted upon the tips of Fluttershy’s wings.

“We all care about you!”

“A dream.” The marble of green and blue became smaller, fleeing from the moon.

“Your sister loves you and waits for you at—”

“A dream! It’s all a dream!” Black. All black. All nothing.

“I am not a dream!” Fluttershy rebutted. “Do you remember Harry?”

“Your… bear?”

“Do you know why he visits twice a week?”

“For a… massage. I… I saw—dreamed—it.”

“Do you remember what you told me? ‘I would have never dreamed this even in my craziest dreams.’ ”

Luna’s voice waned in its resolve. “I… I’m apparently unhinged enough to do so.”

“Remember when Raegdan found that dress a couple of days ago that Rarity was making, hoping to one day show it to Princess Celestia?”

“He… stole it and wore it to dinner for a laugh.”

“Would you, of all ponies, imagine somepony being that silly? Pinkie was a part of it, tell me how.”

“She… She arrived late because she had stolen the clothes Rarity was making for Raegdan, and wore them to that same dinner…”

“You were laughing so hard you couldn’t breathe. You didn’t even eat. Was this how you imagined being happy before? Would you ever dream such dreams?”

“I…” The darkness which threatened to consume everything began to scatter. Fluttershy brought a hoof before her face, discovering she had been trembling. Luna, fearful, said, “What is happening? Something’s happening.”

Fluttershy looked behind her. The sun, previously a distant orb of white was now on the moon’s horizon, huge and warm and golden, shining on the moon that slowly grew lush green plains and towering mountains, the blue of the sky smiling down upon the land.

“The sun is rising,” Fluttershy said, tilting her head.

“There’s never a… The sun doesn’t rise here...”

“It does now,” Fluttershy said, a small smile on her muzzle. Luna was now no longer just a voice, but her form was so faint Fluttershy had to squint to make her out. The Alicorn looked at the sun with widened eyes. “It’s tomorrow.”

Luna’s gaze never left the sun, but her ear flicked in response. “...It is?” she whispered.

Fluttershy walked next to Luna, observing the sunrise alongside her. “Yes. You may have tripped, Luna, but that was yesterday. It’s a new day, and we’re here for you, to help you stand back up. And if you ever fall again, we’ll be here for you tomorrow as well, and all the days after.”

A tear rolled down Luna’s cheek, shimmering like a silver star. “There are no new days here. There’s nothing here, no one was ever...”

“Then how come I’m here with you?”

Luna groaned. She opened and closed her mouth as if trying to speak. Fluttershy squeezed her soaked cloak, the only way she could think of to carry water since she had left their possessions behind, over Luna’s mouth. She had taken the liberty of cleaning the unsightly grime and detritus from Luna’s matted fur as the Alicorn rested. A smaller piece of cloth was on Luna’s forehead, remaining cold, the fever thankfully abating.

“Luna? Can you hear me?” Fluttershy asked gently.

“Yes…” Luna croaked.

“Do you know where you are?”

“The Everfree Forest.” Luna kept her eyes closed, and still seemed out of sorts. Her speech was slurred, and her limbs moved lethargically. “The one I really don’t like.”

“Do you feel better? Is the venom gone?”

“Almost. The poison’s almost gone,” Luna answered, shaking. She reached up, and Fluttershy leaned into the hug that Luna so desperately needed.

“They’re not here…” Fluttershy whimpered.

It’s not fair. She thought that as soon as they made it to the root of the mountain, their troubles would be over: Applejack and Raegdan would be there, both solid and dependable—both in very different ways but always sure of what to do—again both in very different ways.

“They will be,” Luna affirmed. She limped for the steep, bare incline. She had regained a little strength, and she insisted it was enough to walk by herself. And when Fluttershy argued about what they should do if they came across monsters, Luna said she’d make do. She always did.

Luna pointed up. The mountain lay before them. It looked inhospitable and lifeless. Nothing but rock and hard shadows, going ever higher. It made Fluttershy’s heart tighten with dread in a way nothing else so far had. The Everfree Forest held the lingering threat of a violent and messy death over your head, but the mountain seemed to shape the weight of a noose around your neck; perhaps this was why Fluttershy suddenly found it so difficult to draw breath in this place which disconcerted her so.

“We should ascend,” Luna said. “We might be able to spot them better when they arrive or they us. I don’t want to stay here either way: We’re too close to the Valley.”

Fluttershy shivered. She was glad the mountain’s mass hid it from sight. She had seen enough in Luna’s… dream—or memory?—of what lay in that valley. Of the unending charnelhouse.

She couldn’t help but morbidly wonder, though: What brought that to pass? Why would the creatures of the Everfree Forest slay one another in the hundreds in a senseless abattoir? What possible reason to exist could it have?

Everything else made some sense. Even the Heart, as a way of adaptation, though Fluttershy still had qualms about the changes she witnessed: Flight, stealth, numbers, all these were a better way of propagating a species, but in almost every case, the Heart encouraged offense, ferocity, and size. Were these truly the optimal survival tools?

Or were the Heart and the Valley connected?

Fluttershy had devoted herself to understanding the animals in her care, and even those that weren’t. But she wasn’t sure she truly understood the Everfree Forest in spite of her observations. What other mysteries lay hidden beneath the canopy?

She glanced back. The forest lay behind her and below, shielding its secrets. The columns held the stone roof as they always did. Flying forms and lights of gold and silver filled the air. It remained as it always had been.

Maybe there was nothing to understand. It was inscrutable because there was nothing behind the curtains; life was an end in and of itself, and here, death was only incidental.

Luna stopped to glance back as well, noticing that Fluttershy had lagged behind. “Do you see them?” she asked.

The secrets or our friends? Fluttershy asked herself. “No,” Fluttershy said, answering all three questions. “Do you think we’re high enough?”

The rock ceiling was a long way off. “Enough to be safe, but I’d like to go as high as I can. You may stay here and wait. I will search for a way to reach an exit once Raegdan and Applejack make it to us.”

“I’m coming with you!” Fluttershy called out, running behind Luna. “You’re not well enough go alon—”

With a sharp snap and a grinding groan, the mountain swallowed them.

Fluttershy, screaming in fright, fell down a stone gullet, her head hitting a squishy surface that throbbed. She fell down, slipped smoothly on a vein-filled tongue, and landed on a rock with her broken wing.

She barely registered the tsunami of agony before her brain collapsed under its weight.

“...Fluttershy? Fluttershy. Fluttershy!”

Fluttershy opened her eyes. She could see only blackness.

Her back was on fire. All sensation in her wing had deadened.

“You’re awake! Oh, thank the stars! Fluttershy, whatever you do, stay where you are. Stay on the rocks.” There was a rumbling, the sensation an avalanche thundering through the air around them. Luna went silent for a moment, but Fluttershy could hear her shifting in the darkness. Something moist and cartilaginous brushed against Fluttershy’s hind leg, causing her to seize in place. “They have no eyes, no ears, but I think they can feel what it feels.”

Fluttershy whimpered, her heart thundering in her chest. “Luna? W-What happened? Where are we?”

“I’m… I am so sorry, Fluttershy. I should have realized when Solid Charge told me about the third one. I should have realized. I shouldn’t be… I was too afraid to even think of this place. I should have seen it!”

“Luna, you’re scaring me. Where are we?” Stone crunched under her hooves, and Luna sharply urged her to stop moving.

A light flickered to life, courtesy of Luna’s horn.

Fluttershy saw them: she saw the black tentacles that were their bodies―some thin and others thick―the orbs of flesh which constituted their centers of mass, the flowers of teeth sprouting inside the jagged, cross-like wounds that parodied mouths. They slithered and clambered, glistening slime left behind their prodding feelers.

“We were wrong.” Luna’s voice trembled. “Fluttershy… Another Leviathan was here all this time, and nopony knew. Charybdis wasn’t the fourth...”

The Mountain pulsed.

The Mountain groaned.

The Mountain fed.

Ch. 51 - The Servant of the Harvest

Luna’s light flared once more. The slavering congestion of blackened, leather arms came and left, leaving naught but the throbbing, broken musculature of the walls that reached outwards, ravaged limbs seeking the comfort of their caretakers in vain.

“In a void, the draw of a flame would go unheeded by them,” Luna noted. Letting the light fade, she turned to Fluttershy. The droning buzz, like blood pumping through contorted, titanic arteries, seemed to become stronger again in the darkness. “Anything?”

“I… I don’t know…” Fluttershy said. “I mean, I’m not sure, but… I can’t tell them apart. They look absolutely the same. Even if a litter of bunnies are all the same color, you can always find something to tell each of them apart: the length of their legs, the tufts of their tails, the shape of their noses…” Fluttershy drifted off, deep in thought. “But… there’s nothing like that with these. No difference at all.”

Luna sighed. “So we remain uncertain if it is the same patrol or if they are the latest in a long queue…” The light returned to life, and Luna stared down the large corridor the monsters kept coming through.

The first few minutes had been paralyzing. Luna and Fluttershy hadn’t dared to step down from the stone debris that had come down along with them, clinging to the safety of invisibility it gave.

But Luna had seen these creatures before; one thing she remembered vividly was how they had been cleaning their host of foreign objects. If that was true here as well, then their refuge was only temporary.

Fluttershy shivered. There was no other possible way out save for where the monsters came from and where they went. The hungry gullets they had been swallowed down were gone, clenched shut by thick muscles. The room they were in, if it could be called that, was barely more than an incline that led to grinding, gnashing musculature and bone growths. A broken mutated mouth that had been blessedly stuffed with a rock fill.

There had been a few times where one of the... starfish-like creatures would set out to clear off the debris, only to suddenly stop. It would scurry off, its task unfinished, the teeth left to wear down the stones on their own.

Fluttershy’s eyes were drawn to them. If it hadn’t been for the rocks, if the monsters had cleared that before, that’s where they would have fallen. She couldn’t keep herself from wondering if they’d wake up in time. If they’d wake up halfway being… chewed up...

She dry-heaved. She wanted to get out. She felt as if she were being eaten. She didn’t want to be eaten. It was worse than any big dragon she ever imagined or saw. The Mountain had swallowed them, and this, all this was nothing more than the digestion process. She had to get out, she needed to get out!

Get out, get out, get out, there had to be a way out, there had to be, she had to get out, get out—

“We’re getting out, Fluttershy. I promise. Calm yourself. You have been brave and strong, I just need you to be brave a little longer. We’re getting out…” Luna assured, her voice soothing water upon Fluttershy’s brow.

She found herself pressed into Luna’s chest. The princess had pulled her close at some point, and Fluttershy had been babbling, spitting and crying onto her dirty coat.

“How…?” Fluttershy said, her voice weak and strangled.

Luna held Fluttershy’s at a leg’s distance, letting her stand by her own power. She pointed at the arterial corridor, where the monsters kept coming through. “We will wait for them to come again. After they have passed, we shall make a run for it. Stay with me, and everything will be fine.”

“But… there’s nowhere to go!” Fluttershy whined. She wiped her nostrils. “It’s… It’s too big! They’ll catch—”

“Our advantage lies in its size, Fluttershy. They cannot be everywhere at once. Look at—Fluttershy, look at me!” Luna grabbed Fluttershy’s face, forcing her to look her in the eyes. Fluttershy quivered in her hooves, but made no move to fight her. “Please! You are astute. You are valorous. You carried me through the Everfree Forest on your own, without suffering a single scratch. We shall escape, and you shall guide us. No, stop, stop shaking your head! You comprehend beasts unlike anything I have witnessed. This mountain? This is a defilement of one, but it is still a beast. We need to get to its skin, and then I will cut us out. You can do this, Fluttershy. You can lead us out.”

Fluttershy shook her head. “I—I can’t. I don’t know where to start!”

“Think. Collect yourself, and think. If I was hurt like before, if there were no fiends to worry about, what would you do?”

“I’d… I’d just search for a way out.”

“And if you had no time? If you had to get me out as soon as possible?”

Fluttershy inhaled, and closed her eyes. She ignored the gnashing sounds. She ignored the faint crimson glow of veins among the surrounding architecture. The way they sometimes almost formed shapes. The way they burned enough to just hint at their presence when the light was gone, like ambers hovering in the darkness.

She tried to imagine ways to navigate inside a bunny if she was as tiny as a germ. She could listen for the heart, but that would only show her where not to go. Moving away from it wouldn’t necessarily be the fastest way out, depending on the direction she took. Besides, they couldn’t hear a heart either way. She couldn’t decide if the Mountain had one… or many.

There were natural paths in and out of a body. The esophagus, the stomach, the large and small intestine. She shuddered, not wanting to think more in that direction. It was hopeless. How would she recognize them from the inside, anyway?

Luna looked at her with hope when Fluttershy opened her eyes again. Yet Fluttershy had no answer to give, no hope to share. The veins behind Luna’s star mane twinkled, mocking her, grinning with malice at—

“What if they’re veins?” Fluttershy asked aloud. Luna’s expression turned to one of mystification, but Fluttershy continued before she could speak. “What if the tunnels are like… arteries, veins… capillaries?”

“It’s… It could be,” Luna slowly said. “How does that aid us?”

Fluttershy thought fiercely. The Mountain would be different than a normal animal. Obviously, these tunnels weren’t really blood vessels, but the starfish-creatures operated akin to white cells for it. “The Mountain might have more tunnels nearer the skin. Like capillaries feeding the skin, so that the creatures inside it can go in more places around it. To protect it from diseases—other creatures—or pull food inside. Like us. But whatever it wants to keep safe, it… it should have fewer paths leading to it. Like you said, it’s too big. They might not be able to be everywhere at once.”

Luna understood her immediately. “The more tunnels we see, the more paths there are to follow, the closer to the edge we are?”

Doubts suddenly assailed Fluttershy. It was possible… but that didn’t mean probable. There were a hundred other ways it could be. She didn’t know, she couldn’t guess just by what she witnessed in a tiny corner of this titanic body!

But… They had to get out. And… And Applejack and Raegdan would sooner or later make their way to the Mountain as well. They had to get out and find them, they had to warn them!

Fluttershy nodded, disregarding the lead ball of desperation in her stomach. “It’s… Yes. Maybe.”

Luna set her jaw. She watched the next eldritch procession make its march in front of them. Fluttershy turned to the opening they had come in from with dread, her teeth gritting against each other. Any moment now, they’d wager their lives on nothing else but a fancy, the first notion that popped into her mind.

This happened depressingly often in her social circle. She hated what that said about their life choices.

Luna bowed down, her back legs settling on the rocks. A pebble rolled down. Both of them held their breaths. The seconds ticked by, stepping aside to make space for minutes.

As one, Luna and Fluttershy launched for the open passage. Fluttershy felt the gooey surface for the first time. It gave beneath her weight. It was springy. It was all kinds of horrible. Second step. Third. Fourth.

A repugnant sound hollered all around them. It was sharp, demanding attention, like the scream of a newborn. It was bass, like a lion’s roar. It was repeating, like pulsing migraine. The veins in the walls became more pronounced, lighting the regurgitating view around them in crimson swathes.

And then came the thumping. From all around, discordant and overlapping. Like a thousand drummers, each striking their own atrocious beat on leather-bound percussion instruments.

Luna pulled Fluttershy along, yelling to run faster. Fluttershy caught a glance of Luna's eyes, threatening to be blinded by sweat, and what she saw there urged her to push harder. She demanded everything her muscles had, and more.

Fluttershy could see them now, in her mind’s eye. She knew what that drumming was with the surety of the doomed. Hard, powerful limbs, moving like whips. Bruising their host’s innards as they barreled forwards, pulling at hard, bone-like extrusions and pillars of flesh to propel themselves even faster.

For the daring morsels that were running free. The two ponies they knew with pinpoint accuracy where they now stood, their every step betraying them. The insect they could feel crawling on their host’s skin.

They went down a declining path. Jittering mounds, quivering and squirming, were in their way, forcing them to jump and avoid them in their gallop. It was too much on its own, and the unsteady ground made it a certainty it would happen. Fluttershy fell again. She slid down an endless chute, long enough that she ran out of breath to scream.

Then she was in the air, for a second only, cocooned in the dark. She fell, one more time, and came down with a splash. The liquid fell heavy on her, pulling her down to the depths, away from the air her starving lungs begged for.

Fluttershy surfaced, gasping and crying. She couldn’t see anything, she couldn’t see Luna. There was light, the eldritch light of the bulging veins as they took forms and shapes which scratch at her sanity to behold. As they laughed and howled at her. There was writing on it, writing she couldn’t read but could understand. It buzzed in the back of her brain, and it was the foulest sensation, like parasites nesting and eating at her skull.

She was alone, in a river of blackish brack. There was a film of filth, and floating collected muck. Something plinked in the… the blood. She didn’t know if that’s what it was, but she knew it wasn’t water. It felt like blood. Smelled like blood. Tasted like metal, choked her like copper.

And something was there with her.

She felt a pinch.

It was small, like a nibble. She lifted her front leg, and saw it in the deadlight. White and slithering, an exact copy of its larger brethren that hunted for them, save for its dead-like pale skin. It was almost like a squid. It had wrapped itself around her leg.

The pain flared up, and she saw the blood squeeze away from the center of its mass, where the pain came from, where it was grabbing at Fluttershy with all its meager might. It was taking bites out of her!

Wailing, she tried to kick it off with her other hoof. She splashed in the water, howling for it to get off.

More of them. She felt their tentacles suck at her body, clutching on, their teeth digging in. On her back, her legs, her belly. One of them got entangled in her long mane, and its small teeth flashed only an inch away from her eye before it decided to bite on her forehead.

They were eating her! Fluttershy screamed, or tried to. She was panicking. Her efforts to shake them off only threw her back under the surface, and they’d just jump right back, returning to their meal.

The river pulled her along as she fought. She saw the small tunnel the current was pulling her in, like an entrance to a deeper hell. At its bottom, she saw them, even through the dark red waters. So pale, smaller than those on her, but large in numbers. A nest of babies, babies that needed to be fed, that craved more than the blood offered to them, their feelers reaching out in need of her and the sustenance she would provide.

She managed—somehow—to catch herself from the edges of the tunnel. The current pulled her, pushed her. The white squidborn were still biting at her, the ones in the cavity crawled on the walls of the tunnel to make their way to her if she wouldn’t go to them.

Fluttershy screamed. She had nothing left. Screamed, feeling she had been screaming all her life. Luna! Luna! Somepony! Anypony!

She was pulled away from the vile tunnel. She tried to fight, to get something—anything!—off her! The hungry children, the pushing river, the pulling force! She couldn’t take it, everything jostling her, everything wanting a piece of her, tearing her apart to do so!

Suddenly, she was on solid ground, if it could be called that. She vomited long and hard, casting out unnameable fluids from her stomach. Strong hooves shod in steel stomped around her, crushing the jaws that had been on her after kicking them off. The biting stopped.

Fluttershy laid there, weak and tired. Mucus and tears ran down her face. Blood from her forehead mixed with them. She’d never cried like this before, never so intensely. She realized that she hadn’t stopped. She was still sobbing.

"Get up. Fluttershy, I know it hurts, but get up! We must go!" Luna yanked her up, pushed her forward, forcing her to move despite the wounds, the teeth marks, the missing coat and flesh, gone to the stomachs of others.

This wasn’t right. She’d always been a good pony. She’d always helped everypony. Why did this happento her? How could it? What kind of universeallowed this horror to happen, to coexist with the life that sheknew? How could both be real?

Almost blinded by her tears, Fluttershy ran. She followed Luna as she whipped her head around, choosing paths in a light where Fluttershy could scarcely see a few meters ahead. Turning left and right, her tattered magic pulling Fluttershy whenever she missed Luna changing course or when she staggered. One of Luna’s eyes was always on her, her magic petting her gently, a promise not to let her fall again.

The drumming, the cursed drumming. Close. So close. They passed another opening, this one on the roof, and the drumming was there with them in an instant.

They were on them. Two of the octopi, avatars of madness, flailing darkness, and black holes surrounded by a fanged halo. She felt one’s tentacle on her back, muscles like steel tightening up to squeeze.

No more, no more eating me, please don’t bite, please don’t bite, please kill me first—

Geometrical shapes of magic formed in front of Luna’s horn. The light brightened, and a ray of blinding blue light cut a line between the two creatures. They split in half, the walls behind them oozing from their deep, thin cuts. The smell of burnt meat assaulted Fluttershy’s nostrils, almost as soon as a deadened wail seemed to originate from all around them.

Was it the Mountain screaming? Or simply squiggling at the tiny discomfort, the unbelievable tremor of the impossible tonnage they were trapped in enough to almost deafen them?

Luna sagged, her face ashen and her horn dull and brittle. Now it was Fluttershy who pulled at her, who urged her to move, to stand, to run.

They reached another hub, at least five other paths laid before them. Luna pointed, and they ran. Another, same as before. They continued on forward. Another, seven paths around them. Eight. They reached a dodecahedron of connected valves, and a tinge of hope sparked in Fluttershy’s heart.

Another one. Another. Another.

Then one with just three options available to them. They went the wrong way.

Fluttershy turned to Luna. She was soaked with sweat, the light on her horn barely enough for Fluttershy to get an idea of the general shapes in very close proximity. She hadn’t been able to run straight for a while, mostly pushing herself along the wall for stability.

She waited for Luna to point, to say where next. She didn’t. Luna just lifted her head, her eyes meeting Fluttershy’s despite the curtain her dirty, thrashed mane made. A long lonely strand of hair fluttered in front of her mouth, her heavy breathing making it dance. There was a small smile on her lips. So small. So sad.

No. No, that didn’t make sense. They were doing fine. They had to be going the right way... They—

The spark of hope perished. Fluttershy was a fool to let it exist. It had swallowed them already!

“Please,” Fluttershy pleaded the unknown in a whisper, almost a prayer that would make Mother proud. “Somepony, please help!”

The drumming was upon them. From behind them. From the left. From the right.

Luna stood, shaking. Her horn brightened, and it illuminated the tides coming for them. The organic corridors had transformed into veins, and black, coagulated blood rushed towards them to cleanse them. A cylinder half-formed in front of Luna’s horn before it dissolved.

“I don’t… I don’t have any magic left...” Luna whispered.

Fluttershy blinked to stop the tears from starting again. “You said we could get out.”

“I—”

“You promised!”

The drums closed in. Luna inhaled deeply. “I did,” she said. The drumming was felt in their bones, now. “Run,” Luna urged, and with a gentle finality pushed Fluttershy forwards, to the only path left. “One more day. Go. Go!” Luna’s horn flared. There was a crackle as a fissure formed on the horn, but Luna pushed on, magic shaping around her marred bone.

The bright beam slashed, fed by magic that Luna believed she would no longer have. The tide broke like darkness on a lighthouse’s shore. The dark sea pulled in… and more of them surged on.

Fluttershy ran in a broken gait, just like Luna, both of them trying to stay ahead of the dark waves coming to drown them. Broken gasps of pain, as if every flash of magic that she somehow managed to still cast was ripped out of her soul, came from Luna. Fluttershy fled into the hungry darkness, refusing to look behind her.

If Luna was even close or had stalled behind, Fluttershy didn’t know. She didn’t look. She didn’t dare look. There was shame. There was refusal. There was the buried fear that Luna would shield Fluttershy with all she had. There were all the things Fluttershy had ever believed in. But above them all was the terror, and it was a tower tall enough for its shadow to blacken all in Fluttershy’s mind. All but the pure, desperate wish to escape pain and death for one more second, to take one more breath. She… She had to run!

Just like Luna told her to. Luna told her to. Luna told her to. Luna told her to. Luna told her to. Luna told her to—

There came drumming from in front of her, the thumping of heavy weight upon the writhing floor. It was coming closer, unseen. The flimsy trails of light now far behind her and too weak. Fragile. Dying.

The drumming was coming for them from all directions now.

They were on her. On them. They tried. They tried so hard.

She closed her eyes and whispered a final apology to the friends she failed.

...

The drumming passed her by.

Fluttershy opened her eyes, only to be blinded again. Ferocious light and fire fought back the Stygian shades. Obsidian sinew fell apart in pieces, screeching and giving space to the fire and heat. In that brief moment she saw him, picking up Luna with an expeditious tenderness.

The next second, when the heavy cowl of darkness had covered them again, she felt his arm wrap around her and carry her off, his fast, wide strides a blissful shake on her bones. The armor cut her, making her bleed, but she didn’t mind. Couldn’t mind.

The drumming followed, not as close, but rapidly closing the distance. More severe. More angry. Demanding penance.

Raegdan ran. He inhaled deeply and dug deeper into the bottomless reserves he seemed to possess, going faster despite their combined weight. Fluttershy saw light ahead. Not the light of an exit, but red ribbons of danger and attention. They reached the threshold the light came out of, and Raegdan all but dived through it.

“Close it! Close the door!” he ordered as he passed through. The drumming was almost upon them. Fluttershy could feel on her coat the air being displaced by the massed tentacles.

There was a sloshing sound, quick and wet. Mighty muscles wound tighter than steel, sealing the opening like a sphincter. The drumming became muffled, and then stopped. The door that protected them remained untouched.

Raegdan dropped Fluttershy and Luna, only for him to whirl around and scooped the Alicorn in his arms. “You got here first?” she gasped.

Raegdan shook her in front of him. “You got here second! How the fuck did you manage that?”

“Oh, I’m sorry! Was it a race?” Luna half-yelled in disbelief.

Raegdan pulled back, raising his arms in semi-protest. His shoulders shook with sudden mirth. “If it was…” he teased.

“No! You are not turning being eaten by a mountain into a point of pride! Do you have the slightest idea how worried I was!”

The large figure shrunk into itself. “Yes…” he quietly admitted. “About as much as I was.”

Luna sighed in exasperation, save for the smile that sold her out. “Come here,” she said, and Raegdan scooted closer. Luna patted his back as she soothed him with gentle words, the much smaller pony calming the giant figure as if it was a colt.

Fluttershy cast her gaze away, suddenly feeling that she was intruding on a very private moment.

Someone crept up at Fluttershy’s side. Fluttershy didn’t see her till she was on her on account of her matted coat and mane, tinged so red that she had been almost invisible in the crimson light of the room. That reassuring smile and the sparkling green of her eyes, however, couldn’t be dimmed.

“Howdy, sugarcube. Ya holdin’ up alright?” Applejack asked gently.

“No,” Fluttershy answered. “I’m not.”

Fluttershy fell on her friend, sobbing in relief and anguish of the sights she’d seen, of the tolls demanded on her mind and body, the pure agony of the memory of teeth ripping into her. But mostly, she cried because her friend was with her again.

Applejack held her just as tight, joining her tears. “Some—Some bandages! Something. Help me here, Fluttershy’s hurt!”

She let herself be lost, finally falling into a healing, soothing darkness.

A stained cloth got wrapped around the last of Fluttershy’s most surface injuries. The bite mark, barely deeper than the coat vanished from sight. Fluttershy could yet see it somehow.

She turned her attention to Applejack instead. Her friend was a mess. Cuts, tears, even patches of coat missing, the mess underneath hidden by stained bandages. Where Applejack didn’t have her coat or mane covered in crusted blood, there was dirt and dried sweat. She looked nothing like the Applejack whom Fluttershy knew, not with her hitches of pain as she moved or the way her shoulders seemed to tremble under a terrible weight.

But she’d smile every time she looked at Fluttershy, and Applejack would reappear once more.

“You look… terrible,” Fluttershy commented, fully knowing that Applejack knew what an understatement that was.

“Y’all don’t look ready to dance on the catwalk, either.” Applejack finished dressing Fluttershy’s leg with the last of the bandages, huffing. “That oughta keep ya together till we get ya to a hospital. Nothing Ah can do about infections. We’ve all been soaking in a bit of an… un-hy-gien-ic environment.”

Fluttershy tried to count the number of stitches and bandages across Applejack’s body and failed. They might almost be as many as there were on her. “You need a hospital, too.”

Applejack raised her hoof, showcasing her torso. “Got bit pretty hard, right on my flank. Almost got mah leg torn off. Ah’ll keep for now. Ah’m just a bit low on fluids, if you get mah drift.” Applejack’s shoulders sagged further. “Ah feel awfully tired, and Ah can barely walk before Ah feel like dyi—falling asleep. But Ah’m fine otherwise, promise.”

“It's just… We’re so lucky to have found you—that you found us!”

Tilting her hat back, Applejack raised a brow in amusement. “No offense, sugarcube, but luck had nothing to do with it. We heard you screaming your head off.”

Applejack cast her eyes across the large room they were in. Fluttershy did the same. Clumps of red pustules operated as lamps on the ceiling, bright as the caustic redness they were filled with. The room itself was huge, at least thirty meters per side of its hexagonal shape. At every other wall there was another organic door, all three of them shut tight. One of the walls was at least three times wider than the rest.

Yet, despite its scale, the room was claustrophobic: Extrusions lurched out of everywhere. Bone-like hardpoints, shaped in columns, boxes, circles, and pyramids, covered with thick tissues and nerve-like filaments coming out in bundles from everything and everywhere. They rose from the floor, the ceiling, the walls. Some of them seemed to have grown out of each other, leaving just enough space for a pony or two to walk among them.

“Raegdan says it was inevitable ending up here, as long as we ran long enough. He reckons this place’s like the… the brain of sorts. You understand what this mountain really is, right?” she asked.

Fluttershy nodded hurriedly. She didn’t want to hear it repeated. Knowing was enough.

“Right. Only, it’s not the real brain. It’s more like where the brain and the body are told what to do, if Ah’m getting it right. Ah figure it’s kinda like a town hall, so it’s smack down the middle with all roads leading to it.”

“Oh,” Fluttershy said, a wave of dizziness hitting her hard as she realized that they had been heading deeper into the Leviathan because of her.

“Ya okay, sugarcube? You seem a mite green in the gills.”

“I’m… I’m okay. Just—I was thinking. What about the doors? Won’t the monsters try to get in?” she asked, nodding towards the puckered muscles they had come through.

“What, that? No worries!” Applejack’s grin had returned in full force. “That’s for show!”

Fluttershy blinked, speechless.

“They ain’t gonna get in even if we have the door open. They stay outside. It’s pretty freaky how they’ll just stand there. We closed them anyway. It’s safer. Might be because the room’s important. Maybe they’re afraid we’ll break something if they do or they’re afraid they’ll break something if they start a fight in here.”

Fluttershy examined the space around her again. “Umm… But this doesn’t really—A brain?”

Applejack rose up from where she sat. She hissed at the motion, and her pallor got worse. She slowly stepped away, each step an obvious and painful hurdle.

“We found something. Something that Raegdan thinks is mighty important. Let’s get some food in y’all, first. We still have nuts and chocolate left, if you don’t mind them being a little muddy. Or waterlogged. Or thrashed about. Or sat upon. Or fallen off a waterfall. Or—”

Raegdan animatedly whipped one arm around his head in a very bad imitation of lasso throwing.

“Now picture it: riding on my back while I run and jump around, whooshing left and right, the birds buffeting air all around us, and she keeps the rope circling and catches a birdie flying drunkenly around while we’re jumping off. I was certain we would plummet down in the water, but the crazy apple actually nailed it! She had one single attempt in her sleeve and she didn’t even break a sweat!” He finished his excited description with a celebratory catching of a nut with his teeth.

“And plain hooves no less!” Luna commented, visibly impressed. “An enviable feat.”

“Yeah, she was awesome. Sure beats riding a slug all day long,” Raegdan mocked, throwing a reassuring wink Fluttershy’s way that removed the sting of his words while his raised arm hid it from Luna.

The princess sputtered. “That’s not all she did—and I’d love to see you attempt it in turn! Fluttershy accomplished so much more!”

“Like falling asleep twice?” Raegdan’s voice was sickeningly sweet. “Dreamland, dreamland, having fun in dreamland,” he sang, finishing in a heavy bass voice that was as deep as it was offkey.

“Fluttershy was able to penetrate through the subconscious firmament—”

“And in the meantime, my little pony here survived a mad dash through a forest while all the critters came after us because she was bleeding like crazy. Look at her! She’s still kicking. Made. Of pure. Iron.”

Luna was starting to fume, which seemed to only feed Raegdan’s smugness. “Why are you acting as if it’s a contest? It is not!”

Raegdan waved a finger in her face. “If it was, you’d be losing.”

She smacked the taunting digit away. “I would not, you tiresome ape.”

“You know, it should be a contest,” Raegdan said, scratching at his cloth mask. “Yeah, let’s count it in. When we get home we’ll take our scorebook and give me the sweet, sweet win—”

“This doesn’t count!” Luna roared, tackling him.

“Foul! Foul! My win—is defiled by—violence! I get ex—tra points!” Raegdan shouted, each break in his triumph punctuated with the squish of his head against the floor.

“That’s not a rule! You’re getting nothing but my hoof!”

“I’ll endure, just like Applej—ow!—ack endured the hellish journey so that I—not the eye!—could emerge victorious—I’m not saying uncle, you lost fair and square!”

They tumbled together until Raegdan managed to get on top, pinning down Luna’s hooves. “Heavens, I’ve missed you,” he said, smiling.

Luna’s surprise made her cease her struggles to get him off her. “We haven’t been separated that long.”

“You know what I mean. This.”

“...Spending time in the bellies of Leviathans?”

“Being just us. No one else. No… ‘lessons’ and others busting in and, you know. Stuff.”

“Stealing me from you, you mean?”

“I—No, not… It’s not how it should be, that’s what I—”

Luna moved her head up, her muzzle coming closer to Raegdan’s face. “Did you miss this?”

“...What?” he asked, voice gruff.

“This.”

She headbutted him.

She rolled him over, pinning him down. “The moon princess reigns supreme! I declare your motion for more points null and void!”

“You little cheat!” Raegdan’s smile split his face. “You want to play hard?”

“I always play—whoa!”

Fluttershy’s laughter slowly dissipated into a tittering as the two contestants ran out of steam until it was interrupted by a loud, long burp. She covered her mouth, ashamed. “Sorry!” she squealed.

Raegdan stared her down forbiddingly as he sat back up. “That was the grossest thing that has happened, ever,” he declared, leaning back against the wall with enough force to make it go splooch.

Applejack looked up, her expression dour. “It’s fine, sugarcube.” She returned to the portion of nuts and chocolate that was her share.

Fluttershy used the next few quiet moments to look closer at Raegdan. Applejack looked like a pony who had been run through a cheese grater. Raegdan… There were holes and dents so deep in his armor it was a wonder he could still wear it. The thick breastplate had caved in with a pattern and thickness that was all too similar to that of the tentacled fiends outside. His helmet was missing a horn.

Raegdan turned back to Fluttershy. “Jokes aside, heavens know how you managed all that. I would never have expected it from you. You’re just so… quiet, you know?” He waited for Fluttershy’s bashful nod of the head. “Whatever. Not the first time I’ve been horribly wrong about you girls.” He paused for a moment and reached for Fluttershy’s head, messing her mane as he usually did to Twilight. “I owe you a big one for helping Luna. Next time you need something, anything, just ask. You need someone dead? I’m your—”

“She didn’t return a bag you lost!” Luna protested. “You don’t own me, I own—Fine! Applejack, I am indebted to you for keeping my Raegdan safe for me. Request it and it shall be yours.”

Applejack stared at the floor. “It’s okay. You don’t have to do anything.”

“Hold on! Fluttershy carried your assthrough the forest.,” Raegdan objected. “I was the one who carried Applejack’s. Why would you owe anything to her? She didn’t do nothing!”

“Celestia knows, I did worse than nothing,” Applejack muttered, hanging her head.

It took a few seconds for Applejack to notice the complete silence that immediately surrounded her. She glanced up and was surprised to find them all staring at her with worry. She never meant for them to hear that. The orange pony looked away from them.

Raegdan tapped at his armor as if knocking on a door. “Something wrong, little apple?”

The question haunted Applejack. She covered her eyes in shame, but not before Fluttershy had seen the tears start to fall when her friend glanced at her.

“Ah’m so sorry...” Applejack whispered to Fluttershy. Her lips trembled and she shook. Her stuttered inhale was broken by hiccups. “I should never have dragged you with me! Ah’m an idiot, a stupid pony who thought that… that I could… I promised you we would be alright, and I lied!”

Fluttershy reached for her friend. “Applejack, it isn’t—You didn’t force me to do this. I wanted to be here.”

Applejack made a noise between a pearl of laughter and a sob. “Yeah, you did. Ah lied where Ah shoulda told the truth and told the truth when Ah shoulda lied. All because you weren’t going to say no to coming with me, and Ah knew it. So you wouldn’t go back to the others and get ‘em to stop me to tell me how stupid Ah am.”

“I cannot place a way this is possibly true,” Luna interjected, frowning.

“Well, it is!” Applejack stomped her right hoof down, the left one rubbing her eyes, hiding the tears until she could brush them off. “Look at us! Trapped in here, everypony hurt so bad, and… this was supposed to be a shortcut! I ruined it! Ah’m gonna lose Applebloom because I didn’t want to—” She stopped suddenly, tightening her jaw.

“Didn’t want to what?” Fluttershy gently asked, tears forming in her own eyes at her friend’s pain. “Applejack, we came because we wanted to get her back. Her and the others.”

“Yeah. That’s what Ah said.” She glanced back, and winced in shame. “Because you’d believe that. I… I lied.

“... Mah sister’s gone, mah friend’s gone, Spike’s gone, Cast Iron’s in the hospital, and Ah’m as useful as a colander on a sinking ship. Somepony told me that mah sister was gone, taken, and Ah couldn’t go after her or help in any way. Then Ah learned it might be his people, and for all Ah knew, it was his fault. Ah know that ain’t fair! Ah thought it though. I thought many things. Ah kept thinkin’ how Raegdan was all ‘Little Flame,’ this and ‘Little Flame,’ that. And Ah kept wondering if he’d even try if Spike wasn’t the one who got nabbed.

“Ah was making excuses, because Ah knew that Ah had no place being here. Ah told you one excuse, Ah kept telling myself another… Ah’m sorry for that, Fluttershy. I’m sorry Ah lied and did this to you.” She looked up at Luna, who stared at her with an unreadable expression. Applejack lowered her head, averting her gaze. “Ah’m sorry Ah lied to you, princess. Ah meant what we said, that it ain’t just you no more, but… but Ah didn’t....” She sobbed harder. “Ah’m sorry Ah made us lose everypony!”

There was silence. The only sound was the ebbing crying of Applejack. Luna looked at Fluttershy, and the pegasus shook her head. She wasn’t sure what she was saying no to, what she was denying. Luna, however, must have understood something. Her expression softened.

An empty nutshell struck Applejack’s cheek.

Raegdan sounded honestly disgusted. “How come I’m the one called a monster when you ponies keep throwing your empty shells back in the mix?” He put a peanut in his mouth and spat it out again. “Heavens, did one of you just suck the salt out and throw that back in? Really?”

“Raegdan…” Fluttershy gently warned.

“I’m looking at you, Luna—”

“Raegdan!” Luna hissed demandingly.

Raegdan repositioned himself, placing one elbow on his knee. “Well, she’s not exactly wrong, is she?”

Applejack almost turtled her head into her body. She covered her face with her hat, her breath hitching.

“We done fucked it up. It’s not just your fault, though, little apple, so stop crying.” Raegdan spread his arms, showcasing their surroundings. “You can plan and hope all you want, but then reality jumps in and bites you in the ass.” He began scratching away a patch of dried dirt with an index finger for a moment. Just when the others came to think he’d said all he was going to say, his voice once again punctured the silence, more pensive this time, almost crestfallen. “We took too long before we gave up on trying to track them. We took too long to plan and prepare. We took too long to get down here. We took too long, and now the best we can hope for is that we’ll manage to live through this. I’m… sorry, little apple. You’re right. We lost them.”

“We…” Fluttershy’s throat was dry as a desert yet her eyes felt as if they housed oceans. “We can… We can catch up, right? You can catch up to them. If we get out of this mountain fast enough, if we…”

She turned to Luna for help, and found a mirror of her bafflement reflected, though more subdued, on the alicorn’s face. She knew—as Luna knew—what she wanted to say, what she needed to make her friend understand, that there was hope, always could be, but… she had no idea how.

A gurgle originated in Applejack’s throat that escaped as a fierce wail of loss. She collapsed to the floor, holding her hooves over her muzzle as she shook with despair.

“It’s my fault! It’s all my fault!” Applejack cried, inconsolable. Fluttershy was there right away, holding her, desperate to somehow share Applejack’s pain, to hold it herself-, but she couldn’t. Her friend, drained and weak bucked in Fluttershy’s hold nonetheless, as if trying to turn against herself.

As Applejack grieved, shouting and howling at the futility of every bruise, every cut, every brush with death in this forgotten, accursed plane, Raegdan grew flustered. He almost reached for Applejack before shying away immediately afterward as if the crying mare was made of fire. He moved towards Luna and then backed off, reconsidering.

Finally, he pulled his helmet on, like a shield, and paced a few steps away. Then he paced back, heading resolutely for Applejack.

“Or I’m wrong,” he loudly declared.

It was sudden enough to give Applejack pause. Raegdan immediately grabbed that moment of silence and spoke quickly, like a salespony trying to get rid of the last of their stock.

“I don’t believe we’ll get to them in time. I never really believed it from the very start. That moment, when you save someone at the nick of time? When you push yourself to the end of yourself and there’s a happy ending? It doesn’t happen. I’ve never seen it happen. Not… No matter how many times I tried.”

Raegdan’s working eye moved from Applejack to Luna and then to Fluttershy.

“That’s not the case with you, though, is it. You’ve… done it. You’ve managed to actually pull off the impossible. You’ve rushed off to save the day and did it. More than once.” Raegdan and Luna shared a nod. “Even saved me along with Luna once. So…” He drifted off, unsure for a second. “So maybe you girls are doing something right. Might be you’re just lucky, but you’ve fucking done it. Maybe, just maybe… you can do it again?”

Applejack sniffed. She rubbed her eyes dry and then took her hat off the top of her dishevelled mane. “Ah lied to you. Why aren’t you angry?”

“If you want to beat yourself up over it, do so. You think I haven’t been lied to before? Girl, I don’t even care about your real reasons.”

“Neither do I,” Luna said. “It’s of no importance. Your actions matter more. And your actions tell us you want everyone returned safely home just as we do.”

“You believe we still can make it? Get mah sister, Rarity, and Spike back?”

Raegdan straightened up. “No,” he said with complete certainty. A moment passed. “Do you?”

He could have been pleading.

When Applejack turned to Fluttershy, Fluttershy only nodded, a smile of trust building up on her lips.

Applejack put her hat back on. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She made a motion as if to speak… and then stopped.

She had no answer.

“I… I want to apologize. For Applejack. She didn’t…”

Fluttershy’s words died on her lips. She’d plucked the courage to pull Raegdan aside, and she felt herself wither when his attention was wholly focused on her. Getting under his shadow as he bent to hear her better wasn’t helping either.

“Didn’t what?” he asked.

“She, um… Applejack is a good pony. She—”

“Yeah, I know that. Is that all?”

Gather your courage, Fluttershy. It’s just a small bit, anyway, so it should be easy to take hold of. “She knows she did bad. I’m sure she does. Sometimes, when ponies—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Raegdan grunted with disgust. He glanced back where Luna and Applejack were absorbed in their own conversation. “She broke. So fucking what?”

Fluttershy had to will her jaw to close so her lips could touch and form words. “That’s not what I m-meant. Applejack is strong, but—”

“But nothing. She broke the moment her sister was gone. Solid Charge had to blacken her eye, and she still didn’t take a second to really think. The only reason she fell apart now was you.”

“M-Me? What did I do?”

Raegdan shrugged. “Plenty, both of you. But mostly, you were there. She had to keep herself in one piece for your sake. Up went the facade of pretending she had a plan, that she was brave, that she knew what was doing and she could handle whatever came along. Then, when you were gone, she did the same for me. I… Even I had a doubt or two at one point.”

Fluttershy was getting the rough shape of what he meant. “And when all of us were safe—”

“Safeish,” Raegdan said, doing a balancing motion with a flat hand. “Yep. She’s probably fine for now. As falling apart goes, I give that a three out of ten.”

“You’re not mad at her then, are you?” Fluttershy asked, wanting to make certain.

“She’d be getting the same treatment as her sister if we weren’t where we are. That was stupid as hell. Dragging you here doubly so. I have no idea what she was thinking.” A short pause. “Well, I know exactly what she was thinking and I’d have done the same. Still a stupid fucking idea. How did she expect to help her sister anyway? Toss apples at the kidnappers until they dropped dead?”

Fluttershy raised her hoof in objection, wincing at herself for daring to do so. “Umm… You admitted that you let us follow…”

Raegdan made a mocking impersonation of shock. “Oh, no, I’m a hypocrite! How will I ever live with myself? Stop chuckling and leave the emotional crap for another day. If we, somehow, have a happy ending, then I’ll make her rue the day. If not, it won’t matter. Come on.”

She followed after Raegdan. They approached the others who met them halfway, coming to stand in front of the black rectangle they were to be shown.

“What is the importance of this item?” Luna asked, nodding towards the rectangular object. It was a few hooves wide, and a little over half of its width tall. It was relatively thin and carved out of what seemed to be a single piece of obsidian. A rectangular block that had its edges smoothed to hemispheres, apart from some notches and extrusions near the bottom of the sides.

Applejack pointed to one of the organic extrusions near the middle of the room.

“We found it inside that. All but an edge of it was covered under layers of skin,” she said, showing her tongue in disgust. “We had to take our time pulling it out. If you get too aggressive here, the things outside get riled up.”

“And what is its function?” Luna asked. “Has there been somepony else here before us? Is it an artifact that can aid us or a weapon we can use?”

“Raegdan. Give it a poke, please,” Applejack instructed.

Raegdan poked.

The stone came alive.

The darkness brightened, with a light that was still black. White threads squirmed out of the stone, puffing out like smoke and turning into worms that squiggled into shapes. They ran about, half-forming a design before becoming entangled with each other. They trembled and flickered, vanishing and reappearing. The dark surface went full-white for an instant, and then the stone was once again cold and lifeless.

Luna examined the dead surface closer. “That was obviously magic, but there are no runes that I can spot. No enchantments either, though that may have been the last remnant of its short life.” She pulled back, turning to Raegdan. “I think you killed it.”

“Right. Y’all think that, but...” Applejack said, and this time she brushed the stone’s side herself.

Applejack poked.

The stone came alive again, but this time there were no worms. They had been replaced by beams of white light that sped across the surface and marvelously formed a rectangle of orbiting ribbons. The very surface that they ran on changed, formerly invisible micro-tiles rotating on non existing hinges to reveal symbols that hid beneath them. In mere seconds, the stone was covered in alien writing.

Luna was speechless. She prodded Raegdan beside her, never taking her eyes off the obsidian. Her expression was an equal mix of wonder and fear. “Raegdan…” she gasped, shaking him.

“I can’t read it,” Raegdan answered at once. “It’s not my kind’s.”

Applejack raised her hoof. “It has more tricks than that. Just one more touch, and…” She tapped the stone, forming a short-lived ripple of blue. The alien characters vanished as the entirety of the surface rippled in a cascade of tiles like dominos. A moment later, the writing was in Equestrian.

“There we go,” Applejack announced. Immediately deflating. “Interesting and all, but not quite what we need right now, is it?”

Fluttershy couldn’t help her curiosity. She forgot entirely about the pain, the exhaustion, the fear. She squeezed between Luna and Applejack, and read from the top:

System on standby…

Ping received.

862.349.000 units since last connection. Attempting to reconnect...

Connection established.

Notification sent / Administrator:contact_established.

Critical Patch received. Updating…

Patching…

_Initiate Int-Com

Int-Com denied. NEXUS does not respond.

_Send Message:3821 / Address: All Hubs

Communication denied.

_Send Message:3821 / Address: All D-Hubs

Communication denied.

Patching…

_Send Message:3821, tag “Critical.” / Address: All Hubs; All D-Hubs

Communication denied.

_Display patch log

Patch log on screen 92.

1.000 units since last command. Awaiting input_

_Abort patch update

Patch tagged Critical. Updating…

_Abort patch update / Protocol:Preservation override

Patch tagged Critical. Protocol:Preservation invalid. Protocol not found. Updating…

_Shut down Transreceiver:0001-7321

Request denied.

System Transreceiver damaged. Switching to Transreceiver backup:32.

Updating...

_List all Biome-Regulator critical areas.

Display on screen 92.

_Display Biome-Regulator facility map. Overlay number of backups of shown areas

Display on screen 92

_Cycle message:001, tag "Last Communication."

2.000 units since last command. Awaiting input_

System Cortex:436 damaged. Backup 1 to 11 damaged. Backup 15 to 32 damaged. Switching to Cortex:12

System Growth Control:222-11 damaged. Backup 1 to 9 damaged. Backup 29 to 31 damaged. Switching to Growth Control:10

System Bio-Repair:V3GA damaged. Backup 1 to 31 damaged. Backup 32 partial damage. Switching to Bio-Repair:32

Warning. Systems Operation Status offline.

Systems damaged. Unable to identify damage. Unable to identify repair requirements.

1840 units since last command. Awaiting input_

System on standby...

Patch complete. Initiating protocols…

Protocol:Expansion active. Cycle Biome-Regulator:Reproduction / N:00000000

Protocol:Tribulation active.

System on standby…

46.758.230.000 units since last command. Awaiting input_

User detected.

Fluttershy had reached the last line and watched it flash, from a brilliant white to a tame gray in repeat, in morbid fascination, when she realized that Luna had finished reading as well.

And she was furious.

“This—This was constructed! Somepony made this! Somepony unleashed it!” Luna ground her teeth, volume slowly rising.

Raegdan had moved to one of the rectangular cartilages on the nearby wall and was slowly teasing away an edge of the sheath that covered them. He shrugged, the dagger he was using nipping here and there.

“That looks to be the basic gist,” he agreed.

“All of… Every day I… Raegdan, whoever built this, we have to find them.”

“I hate this as much as you, Luna, but… is that really a good idea?” Raegdan calmly said. He bent down to examine his progress up close and peeled a bloody section away.

“A good idea?” Luna repeated in disbelief. “Certainly better than just letting it be! Don’t you see what this Mountain is?”

Raegdan stopped and turned around. He spread his arms. “A gardening tool.”

“... What.”

“That’s what it is. Like a shovel or trowel. You have to… dig up the earth and soften it up before you get your own seeds growing, right?” He waited for a confirming nod from Applejack. “See? Farming. Gardening tool.”

Luna shook her head. “The sea Leviathan. The Badlands Leviathan. The Mountain of Minos. Charybdis. This! Somepony sent them, and I do not discriminate against a stab in the chest, whether it was made by a dagger or a butterknife!”

“I know, I know!” Raegdan said, raising his hands in a placating manner. “But if this Mountain is what I think it is, then I still insist we do nothing.”

Luna covered her face with her hoof. “Why?” she demanded, bewildered.

“Morals. I believe wholeheartedly that this is the right thing to do when the shovel we have to worry about is large enough to uproot an entire city in a single scoop,” Raegdan answered.

“Oh.” Luna let her hoof fall. “I… had not considered this point of view.”

“Really? I can’t stop crapping myself over what their equivalent of a sword would be.”

Applejack leaned to whisper to Fluttershy. “Spoken like a colt that ain’t taken the time to compare a rock maul to his hammer.”

“If this isn’t a weapon, and we already killed one,” Luna slowly said, “then why cower now.”

Raegdan pointed at the obsidian rectangle, still alive with light. “That’s why. That thing sends and receives signals. Last thing we need is whoever shits these out to see that one of their toys popped just after they got notification of a new user.” He turned back to what he was doing before, as if the conversation never happened.

“But we cannot be certain as to whether such a message would be received or if there’s anypony out there to receive the message, do we?” Luna said challengingly. She scanned the room as she said, “It seemed to me that communication, according to this… stone journal, was erratic, to say the least.”

Raegdan glanced back. “Was it? Or was it just to whoever was here at the time? Too many things we don’t know, including how much of what we know is a correct translation. Let’s not take everything in it as gospel.”

Fluttershy watched him peel another piece of the wall away with a wet squelching sound that made her gag while Luna did her best to kill the Mountain with her stare. “Umm, what are you… doing there?”

Raegdan had made a big enough hole to wiggle his arm in. It went in as deep as he could reach, and when he pulled it out it was coated in lumps of semi-solid pus. He flicked the ooze to the ground, the smell it released on impact horrid beyond description, and dug back in. Fluttershy almost threw up, and even Luna seemed to eye the exit with a debating expression.

Applejack barely flinched, returning a stare at Fluttershy that said, “Welcome to my world.”

“That thing must have a way to give commands,” Raegdan explained, unaffected by the vile stench. He focused on whatever he was touching at the moment in a clinical manner.

Applejack looked down on the stone still in front of her. “Do something,” she croaked at the tablet and waited a moment. The stone tablet did nothing new. “I don’t think it listens,” she said. “Must be because it has no ears and all.”

“If it takes vocal commands, it might need its original language or a certain word first,” Raegdan said, and groaned. “Oh heavens, I swear, this thing has little tongues on the inside! Absolutely disgusting, eugh,” he mumbled.

Luna spoke after a sullen moment. “You do realize what is possible if your previous statements are true in this scenario? That any such question might notify the owners of this devil?”

“There’s a difference between poking and stabbing. I hope, at least. And at this point we either do something or wait in here to die. Look, help me out instead of just watching me practice proctology, will you? I need a… a thing to talk to it with.

“Imagine buttons on a rectangle, one button for each letter. I’m looking for something like that. Or another similar stone; anything built from a material that doesn’t… splooch. That ‘screen ninety-two’ it mentioned would be good too.”

Luna approached to help. “It boggles the mind, the delusions under which you operate,” she said, and mimicked Raegdan’s accent, making her voice sound as bass and rough as possible while pressing her hoof on a surface in search of irregularities. “‘Luna, we don’t want to attract attention. Luna, I’m booping their nose. Luna, I have no idea what went wrong!’ ”

“I don’t sound like that,” Raegdan groused.

“A tad too high-note, but nailed ya overall!” Applejack shouted from her corner where she searched beneath an array of twitching muscles.

Fluttershy asked to make sure she understood, returning to the tablet. “But if it still needs its own language, how will you ask it?”

“That’s no problem,” Raegdan said, moving to the next extrusion, his glove gleaming with puss. “We can copy the previous command. All I want is for it to show us the map.”

“What map? You never mentioned a map!” Applejack shouted in outrage.

Fluttershy’s eyes hunted for the right line: _Display Terraformer facility map. Overlay number of backups of shown areas.

“He means this one,” she said, and tapped the tilted tablet to attract Applejack’s and Luna’s attention. The tip of her hoof touched the underscore the command began with.

The line flashed green and was then copied under the last flashing message that finally stopped going on and off. It shone once in a brilliant white wreath, and then a new empty line was formed beneath it, waiting patiently.

One of the lit abscesses on the ceiling blazed harder at that same instant.

“That wasn’t me!” Fluttershy yelled, knowing full well that it was.

A haze of red formed beneath the lightened up ceiling. In that fog of light, tiny pinpricks of white appeared and started circling. More of them formed, thousands. They changed colors, leaving a transparent tail behind them as they rotated. The stars rotated fast, becoming a mesmerizing blend of colors and dots.

Everypony moved closer to the spectacle of light.

Raegdan counted the heady boils above them, pointing his finger as if not to lose his place and muttering under his breath. “Eighty… ninety… Oh. Screen ninety-two, starting from the center.”

“What the… Oh my golly, that’s the map?” Applejack asked. She looked where the projection emanated from. “Why’s everything in here so consarned disgusting?”

Shaking her head, Luna backed off. She had been staring at the map with intensity. She blinked hard, stopping herself from rubbing her eyes with her soiled hooves at the last moment. “It hurts to look at it.”

“It keeps blurring, and… and the lights just jump wherever,” Fluttershy complained, taking her eyes off it as well.

“No kidding,” Applejack commented, peeking under the protection of her hat. “And that little hiccup it does when it finishes its spin makes me feel like my teeth are coming loose.”

Raegdan leaned closer, one black iris reflecting the intense light in the depths of the helmet’s eye-slit. “No. It hiccups a moment after it starts spinning.”

“Can you read it? The faster we get out...” Applejack sat so she leaned against one of the smoother, drier extensions of the floor. She could tolerate the sordid lights easier from a distance. “I have no idea where to even begin. Doesn’t it hurt your eyes to look at it?”

“One eye, so half the pain.” Raegdan glanced up, at the pulsing red globule on the ceiling. “Something’s broken.”

“I surmise our chances of fixing it to be close to nil,” Luna said. “My knowledge in the field of living mountain biology is fairly limited, as one could probably guess.”

“The stone said ‘damage.’ Maybe it’s not just a map. It could be a live update of the mountain. Like a mini map. But it can’t make the updated view come to life. Too much is malfunctioning, broken. It’s stuck in a feedback loop. However…” Raegdan moved closer to the derelict, so-called map, refusing to flinch. He watched the crippled imagery spin a few times.

“Just for a moment, it shows the mountain as it was before it got damaged. Luna, look! You see that right there? When it starts its spin, it’s obvious, but there are bits when you can see it even during the spin. That whole gold section going up, that must be where the Mountain was damaged. You can see it growing and then it resets. It’s the only thing that remains steady in the other jumble, and the map worsens along with the damage.”

Luna examined the room around them, taking in the walls and ceiling before turning her attention to the transparent vision. Each rotation took about half a minute of painful blurriness and sharpened, hop-jumping lights and shapes. Luna and Raegdan examined the map for about ten painful minutes before the Princess spoke up:

“This location is quite distinctive. I think… About one third of the way in, your waist’s height.”

Raegdan examined the map, patiently waiting for one of the half-seconds it was free of painful flashes and ghost images. The image rotated again and again. “It looks like this room, but there is…” Raegdan finally looked away. “...There is no wall.”

Luna and Raegdan stared together at the widest wall of the room.

“Huh,” they chorused. They turned back to the map.

“It’s big. Really big. You don’t think it’s a stomach again?” Raegdan muttered loudly.

Luna was tapping her chin. “It may be? Or it may not be. It can’t consume as Charybdis did. We would have seen signs. These concentric circles, did you notice them? And there’s a large exit at the bottom. Can you tell which direction it leads?”

Raegdan tilted his head as if he was thinking. He put one arm up, pointing at a direction like a compass and turned to look at nothing. “South...east. Southeast. I think that leads to the valley. Saw it, by the way. Don’t recommend.”

“You approached it?” Luna’s eyes, full of concern, flicked over Raegdan’s broken armor and Applejack’s torn up body.

“I flipped them off from afar and ran for the mountain. Kind of funny in hindsight: I thought I was heading to safety. Hmm. I don’t think going back to the monster buffet would help, but that damaged section… It went up pretty high before the map gave up the ghost. It could reach close enough to the top, and if it’s damaged…”

“If it’s damaged it might mean a guarded area.”

“And a guarded area means they might not want to risk more damage. We might be able to use it to our advantage, like this room. Or, I’m speaking nonsense. We’ll have to make it up as we go, but we need to go sooner rather than later.”

The rolling of Raegdan’s shoulders as he briefly checked the closed doors spoke volumes. The way they had come in through was now irrevocably blocked. There simply wasn’t any other way out of the room.

Luna abandoned the map and approached the wall. It was almost a hundred meters wide, and the flesh it was made of was taut and shiny. She slowly walked along it, stopping when she reached the leftmost side.

“Is this mechanism similar to how you operate the doors to this room?”

Applejack nodded. “Yep. It looks like a pimple ready to burst, but pressing it opens and closes the doors. I never pressed this one. I worried it would open a door that was hidden behind the muck.”

Fluttershy felt her muscles shaking. She knew what was to come. More of that horrid running, more of rushing blindly into the dark while teeth shined in the shadows. All she could think of was home. Sweet Ponyville, her cottage, her friends and animals, and how much she wanted to wake from this nightmare.

Struck by a sudden understanding, Fluttershy stared at Luna and Raegdan, who were conversing in low tones, speaking of paths and planning routes. Fluttershy looked at them, first one, then the other. She blinked a few times. Strange. She thought what they had meant was more like a longing for normalcy. Not this combination of feelings she could never put into words.

No more than… that simply saying “I want to go home.”

Oh, Celestia, what she wouldn’t give up to be back home.

Raegdan took a deep breath. “Is everyone ready,” Raegdan began to say, but no sooner did he open his mouth when Fluttershy’s hoof struck the bursting sack. She knew what she wouldn’t give up. Her friends.

“Sweet heavens, give a warning first, girl! I didn’t even pick up our stuff yet!”

“Sorry!” Fluttershy squeaked.

The wall made a groaning sound and then there was a rip. A small divide appeared in the center of it, meters away from them. It quickly folded shut again with a snap. A trembling pulse travelled down the edges, the muscles thrashing but unwilling to move. Only a small section slowly managed to lip its way down, folding unto itself from the middle of the wall’s height, near where they were.

It stopped when it was barely over a meter wide and a few centimeters tall.

“Let me guess. It has a cramp,” Applejack said, watching stone-faced as the muscles quivered.

They approached the opening carefully, Raegdan in front and holding a single dagger with the tip pointing down. He held for a few moments, ready for anything to come through. With nothing appearing, Raegdan crept nearer, motioning for them to stand some distance away.

Applejack tilted her head, her ears perking up. “Don’t y’all hear that?” she asked.

There was noise floating through the opening. A hum, but as they approached and paid more attention, it became more than that. There was a rhythm of sorts, a shuttered stutter. It sounded too much like…

“A song?” Fluttershy incredulously asked.

“It sounds so…,” Applejack started.

“Sad,” Luna declared. “It sounds... sad.”

“Like somepony crying and singing at the same time.”

The melody came and went, rose and fell. It made each pony take a step closer, pulling them in. It caught a thread in their soul and reeled them in. Step by step, they came closer to that hauntingly beautiful sound.

Raegdan led the way, his steps hesitant and in dread of the song. It was as though the tones unnerved him more than anything else they’d seen or heard so far.

He pushed his torso through the opening. His back nestled against the top, and his arms pushed the bottom. The quivering muscle slowly gave in to Raegdan’s trembling efforts. Luna went through first, squeezing through Raegdan’s arms and under his torso.

Fluttershy helped Applejack make it through, Luna catching her from the other end.

Fluttershy went in last.

Book beginnings and book ends. As when they first came into the Underfree Forest and gazed out into a cavernous world of wonder, so they did now. But where there was playful light and majesty of stone, now was a vast cathedral space of bloated, gruesome, blackened flesh.

There was a sort of light here. Sickly pale yellow, a diseased spirit that showered them all. Pale clouds hovered above and beyond, a smog of wisps gathered like a carrion swarm. A light drizzle fell on them, an oily substance that coated everything.

Fluttershy strutted into the fog, pulled by the music that had hooked deep into her brain. The sick shroud parted easily before her. The light behind her penetrated deeper, unobscured.

She saw the eggs, glistening and throbbing with heartbeats of their own. Their surface was leathery and wet with mucus, like an egg whose shell had been carefully removed, the membrane left untouched. They varied in size, some barely taller than a pony; but others were gigantic.

Fluttershy thought there were only a few dozens of these pods. Not true. There must have been hundreds. They reached as far as she could see, forming a maze and vanishing into the darkness with no sign of lessening.

And the music, Fluttershy realized, had never stopped. It kept going, a siren’s cloying, deceptively matronly call.

The very walls were forming the notes.

The groaning of the bulging membranes was a violin chord. The beating of a hundred thousand hearts was the drum beat. The gurgling of arches of vine-like nerves, veins, and entrails, hanging far above them and forming a sky full of spider-webs of viscera were the wind instruments. On them hang even more of those pods. And over them there could be even more. Scratch that. There weren’t hundreds of them. There had to be thousands.

And the singing came from the cocoons themselves.

Cocoons. Fluttershy could see them. She could see the contractions and bulges behind the skin. The closer she got, the clearer it was. The interior sweltered with a liquid so brightly white she could almost see it in this dark. She saw the shapes dancing inside the closer she got.

Four legs in that one. A slithering body in the other. A huge shape, contracted into a fetal position like a baby, in one of the giant ones. A dragon’s skeletal jaw in another; mere lines, like a stick figure formed of a million threads, in yet another.

Her hoof touched the pulsing surface of the last one. It was warm and oily.

Beat. Beat. Beat.

The skin sloughed off under her touch. It revealed another layer, fresh and transparent, yet thick and hardened. The milky liquid swirled, and the singing soared as the shadow’s threads mimicked her, reaching for her hoof from the inside. The shadow edged closer, a hint of red coming her way—

Raegdan hand wrapped around her hoof and pulled it back. “Don’t touch them,” he hissed. He let her hoof drop, gently.

She took hurried steps away from the cocoon. “I just—I only meant to get a better look at it,” she said, and she knew her mouth talked a straight lie. She didn’t want to look. It was the song; it called for her to go to the… no, not a cocoon after all. She had them right at the beginning. They were eggs.

But something was wrong with them, there had to be. That singing, that humming voice of a million? It called for help. Whatever were inside, they were hurting. It wasn’t a song. If it was, it was one only a soul of cruelty would enjoy.

“You don’t want to look. Leave it be,” he warned. His eye ran down the egg, top to bottom. Even with the helmet on, Fluttershy had no problem imagining his lips curl in contempt or distaste of what he saw.

“...That’s not a song, is it?” she asked. She wished she hadn’t asked.

Raegdan paused. Fluttershy would bet bits that if she had asked something like this the day before he wouldn’t answer. “Don’t know,” he’d say, or shrug dismissively and walk away.
But he must have thought of her differently now.

“Have you ever heard anyone try to scream while underwater?” he asked, quietly.

“N… No...?”

His shoulders shook once as he tried to keep a cynical chuff of laughter escaping him.

Raegdan turned away from Fluttershy, leaving her. “Nothing?” he asked Applejack.

“There is nothing here!” Luna fretted. She was running her hooves up and down the side of the opening, searching for another watery sack. The wall had closed.

“It should be here!” Applejack’s hooves struck where the fleshy button would be located on the other side of the wall.

Luna huffed. “In retrospect, all of us walking out together was a mistake. Have you ascertained the nature of these eggs?”

“They’re eggs,” Raegdan responded with a shrug.

Luna turned to face him, blowing a tuft of mane out of her face. “Truly, this is the kind of detailed and enlightening report that should be expected from Twilight Sparkle’s circle. You’d make her beam with unchecked pride.”

Raegdan made an oval shape with his hands. “They are eggs.” He opened the oval, the fingers squiggling like a calamari’s tentacles. “Baby monsters come out.” He made a crude, headless approximation of a pony. “They eat us. What more do you want?” Brushing past Luna, Raegdan approached the wall, saying, “Let me give this a try here.”

Grabbing hold where thick muscle ropes collided with others, Raegdan gave his best shot at separating them. They refused to budge, but so did he, unyielding to the fact that he was trying to overpower a set of muscles that were bigger than his entire frame.

Needless to say, he wasn’t winning.

“Um…” Fluttershy meant to only build the courage to interrupt, but just that was enough for Raegdan, Luna, and Applejack, to turn their attention to her. It was… weird. “I don’t think they are monster eggs. I… I mean, they might be, but not the same ones we saw. There was a—a pool or river, and it was full of little ones. Very little. These eggs are too big.”

“That they are,” Luna said thoughtfully after a second’s consideration.

“They’re all different sizes, too,” Applejack pointed out.

“What will they give birth to, then?” Luna asked, glancing at Raegdan.

“Baby monsters,” he answered without a beat, backing off from the wall and shaking his tired arms. “And they will want to eat us. Have you ever seen a newborn that’s not hungry? This isn’t budging. We have to go forward and pray this place is a no-no area as well.”

Luna sighed, and nodded. She took the lead, her horn dark, and guided them through the hedgerows of eggs. Raegdan was following closely behind, while Fluttershy did her best to help Applejack keep up.

The sounds got to Fluttershy even harsher as they creeped through the dense plantation of eggs. Nevermind the strained noises the milky white flesh made as it toiled to contain the liquids and writhing bodies within. It was the sounds they made. The unborn, singing their pain as they passed, the shrill getting louder at their passage as if they knew they were there.

“Pay them no attention, sugarcube. Just keep yer head low and keep walking,” Applejack whispered.

“They’re… ” Fluttershy tried to make a cohesive explanation through the tears that welled up, eventually quietly saying, “They need help, Applejack…”

“Ah know. You can’t help them, though. Don’t look at them, not now. You can cry for them when we’re out.”

Fluttershy nodded. How could she stop her eyes being pulled at the movements as lithe, pained limbs would knock on their prison?

Applejack also refused to look at them, her eyes locked on her front hooves. Luna’s head quickly passed them by, searching only at the random “paths” they made, her focus only in front of her. Even Raegdan did the same. His neck was bent harshly, staring at the floor as if he was affronted by it. Every now and then he’d look up and around, almost confused, and hurriedly look back down again, his shoulders sagging as if he was caught doing something shameful.

Fluttershy couldn’t do it, no matter how she tried. The singing, the screaming, was in her head so much it might as well have been coming from her. She didn’t stop herself from looking. At least… In the very least, she could witness...

And that was why she saw it first.

The serpent that hovered above them.

The fog broke in waves around the behemoth, yielding before it. It soared in the air that it emerged from, silently and almost majestically, segment by nightmarish segment born out of the darkness and fog. No part of it touched the ground of flesh; it swam through the air with the grace of a serpent through smooth autumn waters.

When its face turned to her direction on its pass, all Fluttershy saw was a black void, like the mouth of a cave or a burrow. That was all its head was a closed off cavern, flat and terrible. A body whose only purpose was to inhale and designed itself to the utmost of that purpose. Flaps of skin bloomed away from it here and there, with one of them embedded with an eye, a ring of red and the dead dark pupil of a shark.

It was a hewn lump of corpulent flesh, hewn from blackness and putridness. It was a cancerous mass of black death; lumps of folded skin corrugated over its body and across its head.

Skittering, clacking spears twitched along its length like a centipede’s legs. They came to a fine point that continued on, delicate black spears that shone with a terrible promise.

Its broadside revealed to her more of its segmented body, with each segment housing a capsule of gel... or were they blisters of clear dark red fluid? On it soared, crossing a dozen meters in a second. It felt laboriously slow, the deceiving speed minuscule against its mass. And as it approached she saw how most of these blisters contained a body, a corpse, half-digested or down to the last few bones, or—somehow worse—perfectly preserved and looking peacefully asleep.

Fluttershy froze in her horror and revulsion. She felt that she was seeing the face of the Mountain itself. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t scream. All she could do was stand in Raegdan’s shadow as he looked back at her as if sensing the unspoken shriek that begged to make it out of her throat.

He turned, following her gaze, and to Fluttershy it was slow, even though he turned with all the speed most ponies didn’t believe his mass was capable.

But the serpent was faster.

He turned, only to witness a wall come crashing down, its tubed head impacting the ground in front of him and sparing him by a foot of less. The chamber shook and the eggs around them wailed in misery as the living hammer’s vibrations ran through them.

Laboriously, it raised itself up and flowed up again, its titanic body pulling its head back into the fog and darkness. Never once did they see the titan’s body touch the ground; always keeping to the air like a phantom. It came down and left. As it left, the eye looked at Raegdan for a moment and immediately dismissed him, missing the ponies huddling behind him.

It vanished as quickly as it appeared.

And there was no trace of Luna, save for one of her stained silver shoes.

Raegdan fell to his knees. A small, broken sound came out of him. He breathed “No,” at the edge of tears, over and over, pleading for time to turn and make it so Luna was in front of him again.

Applejack and Fluttershy were also shaken to their core. It had all been too fast. Too sudden. Luna was there, right there, and then she was gone. The princess wasn’t meant to be gone like this. She was too strong, too defiant for that to happen.

Raegdan took a deep breath and screamed, a roar of loss and rage. It went on and on, a single roaring cry that grew stronger until it died. Then he took another breath, deliberate and deep, and screamed again.

Applejack left Fluttershy’s supporting side and ambled towards the howling biped. She reached for his shoulder, so easy to reach the way he’d fallen on his knees.

“Raegdan, we—”

His heavy, steel bracer struck the side of her head. Applejack’s lips split open on her own teeth. The force of the blow made the hairline cuts on her face start bleeding again. Applejack fell down, her consciousness vanishing for a moment.

Fluttershy rushed forward and put herself between her friend and Raegdan. “Stop! Raegdan, it’s Applejack. It’s Applejack!” It was a mistake, she knew it had to be. He was confused. He lost his senses for a moment. He was sick, in his own way, and they needed to guide him back to reality.

She honestly believed this, even as Raegdan’s hand clamped like a vice around her throat with a speed that would bring the serpent to shame.

“You!” Raegdan said. The coldness in his voice made Fluttershy shiver. He talked to her as if she was less than nothing—No, not even speaking to her. He spoke at her. “You and all your promises.”

“We—I-I didn’t...” Fluttershy pleaded. Yet, she saw the serpent first, she thought. She saw it a second or two before it struck. If she hadn’t been too scared to freeze for that one second, maybe… maybe then...

Maybe Raegdan was right.

His grip tightened, and those thoughts vanished. His fingers dug deep, piercing her like daggers. He lifted her with one hand before savagely throwing her back down to the ground.

Her broken wing was crushed between the pulsing ground and her body. She would have screamed at the fire that re-awakened on her back, but Raegdan’s fingers let no air in or out of her lungs. Everything hurt.

He lifted her up once more.

No, no, no, don’t do it, please don’t—

She transcended the desire to scream. The agony she felt was beyond that. It enveloped her like a blanket of silence. The needled bites quieted, their pain too minuscule now. For a few moments, there was only her and the daggers twisting into her whole being.

He lifted her up again.

When Raegdan slammed her down again, she barely flinched; she had reached her limit. She couldn’t feel pain beyond what already ravaged her.

“You took her.”

He didn’t raise his voice at all. That was the worst part. No anger, no hate. Just a sole statement of fact.

Fluttershy’s lips begged for him to stop. No, that wasn’t so, she never would wish the slightest harm on Luna. She was sorry, so sorry, for being a scared pony, for not doing more, that Luna was—

Raegdan’s other hand gripped her broken wing at the base; the image of Leaf Stream’s naked, torn back rushed to her brain that started to ache from the asphyxiation. She tried to scream in despair, but nothing could make it past her throat.

“I’ll take everything from you. From all of you.”

“Don’t touch her!”

Applejack’s hooves clanged mightily against Raegdan’s armor. Before he knew it he was thrown off Fluttershy. He fell on one of the cocoons surrounding them, breaking the membrane, a slush of grimy liquid drenching him.

Applejack was about to curse him when pain flashed at her hip. A trickle of fresh blood ran down her leg; one of the stitches, perhaps more than one, had snapped.

She turned to Fluttershy at her hooves. “You alright, sugarcube?”

“No,” Fluttershy whimpered. She coughed, and each cough made her throat ache again. She breathed in gratitude even for this fetid air. Her wing was senseless. It felt dead. Applejack helped her up, finding strength in her adrenaline-fueled state.

In fact, Applejack was pulling at her quite urgently, her eyes fastened behind Fluttershy.

Fluttershy looked back.

The egg that Raegdan had crashed into had deflated. The layers of skin had fallen on him and the previous occupant of the egg, who surprisingly was very much alive. A struggle was ongoing as both Raegdan and the newborn tore away the membrane that trapped them.

Raegdan got out first.

The newborn escaped right after him.

It was naked. Not of clothes or coat, but of skin. Muscles glistened, some half-developed, some tearing up from the demand on them. A layer of fat was slowly seeping down. Fluttershy could see its exposed heart beating, even as it took a step on bony feet and its intestines fell out of its unfinished ribcage. Long chains of short bone protrusions, connected together with muscle and ligaments, whipped around. A skull that was a fusion of a feline and something smoother, more tamed, grinned in the short intervals of its horrid screaming.

Two eyes, small and piercing, in the most beautiful shade of blue, met theirs for a moment. Eyes full of awareness and suffering. They felt as if their owner wanted to tell them something, something important, but then they became clouded in anguish and despair.

Skeleton-like whips, dozens of them and most of them circling around the tormented creature as if it was hugging itself, wrapped around Raegdan.

The biped grabbed the whips around his waist. With a callous ease he snapped them off, the ligaments popping like weak firecrackers. The creature screamed in pain, and he ignored it. Off they went, one by one.

Raegdan raised one of them and inspected it, all the time in the world at his disposal. He bristled at its sight. He swivelled around, his boot crushing and splitting the fallen innards. His hand grabbed the beating heart and squeezed even as he pulled it out with a brutal finality. The creature slumped dead with none a sound.

“It had fingers,” he growled with a sense of wonder. “It had fingers,” he said loudly with a sense of realization. “It had fingers!” he roared with a sense of pure fury, emotion finally reaching him.

He turned his back at them, facing the darkness and the gestating army before him. Any weariness or exhaustion seemed to have shed off. He stood, a small, metal pebble inside a mountain.

A pebble that calculated how to best grind down the immensity before him.

His arm shot to the side; it pierced through an egg taller than he was. He pulled it out, dragging a mass of cut-off veins and arteries along. The liquid gushing out soon turned to a pink torrent.

“Come on!” he yelled. “I’m here! Come and get me! Come back and get me!”

He struck another egg. His hands ruthlessly ruptured the thick membrane, reaching for the incubating creature within, mangling it to death before it had time to understand what was happening. Then another, and another, breaking them open methodically. He didn’t care if they were large or small, if they were monstrous or almost pony-like. He barely made sure he killed the creatures within, settling on tearing out organs and snapping necks, the paralyzed mewling ignored as he moved on and on.

Applejack stopped watching a long time ago, pulling Fluttershy away from the very beginning. It was only the pegasus’ refusal to turn her eyes away that kept her looking back until Raegdan and his mad slaughter was lost in the dark and fog. All that remained were the screams of agony and the screams of maddened rage.

Somepony had to witness and mourn for them and their suffering. For all of them.

A few moments, seconds, or even minutes or hours later, they saw the dark shape of the serpent. A shadow in the dark, swimming in the air with a hunter’s urgency.

They felt the shock as the serpent’s head dived downwards.

The screams stopped.

The singing continued on.

And a few seconds later, the drumming of hundreds of tentacles hitting the ground thundered from all directions.

Author's Note

Surprise, fellas! New chapter. Bet you thought it was dead. Haha. No.

I know I finished this one in a cliffhanger. I know, very out of character for me. The next part is already written so it will be here in a VERY few days.

Now. This thing is all kinda dark, so I thought I'd share a goofy little alternate scene, written by SirReal, one of my lovely editors, and also author of his own stories. If you, by any chance, want to read a story about his character who is also present in this fic, Gobrend Grasstalon.

ALTERNATE SCENE:

"H-Harder, daddy," Fluttershy whispered, grasping Raegdan's armored arm.

Raegdan blinked owlishly, the rage leaving his eye, replaced with bewilderment. "What?"

"What?"

Applejack shook herself out of her daze, rubbing her head and wincing. "My word, old boy, but you pack quite a punch. Why, I do believe the force of it sent two of my molars off to discover new and uncharted lands! Good show, I say!"

Raegdan frowned. "What."

"I can tell you're really pent up right now." Fluttershy traced his arm with her hoof, biting her lip. "Y-You can be rough, if you like. I don't mind..."

"You've gotta be shitting me!" Raegdan roared, thoroughly done with whatever THIS was. His grip tightened around Fluttershy's throat, and the pegasus winced. "I've got my hand wrapped around your throat. I nearly caved your friend's head in—"

"And you've put on a wondrous show in doing so, old boy! I can scarcely feel my right hindleg!"

"—And I'm going to kill you," Raegdan continued, ignoring Applejack.

Fluttershy panted heatedly, rubbing her hindlegs together. "That's kinda hot..."

Raegdan growled, his eye wild with anger as he threw Fluttershy to the floor, leaning over her. Fluttershy looked up at Raegdan innocently. She hid her muzzle behind her forehooves, blushing as red as the esophagus-like walls surrounding them. "W-What are we gonna do on the rank, bloody, pus-filled floor, Raegdan-senpai?"

Just before Raegdan could do something he'd regret, a crackling BOOM split the air. The ceiling came crashing down, and with it the creature that stole Luna away. "FOUL FIEND, THY RECKONING COMETH, AND HER NAME IS—" Luna, who had flown in after the beast, which now lied motionless on the floor, looked at the group, finding Raegdan straddling Fluttershy. "R-Raegdan!? What is the meaning of this! What are you doing to Fluttershy?" She alighted upon the ground, storming toward the biped, who was caught between amazement at her survival and shame at having been caught hurting the ponies who'd helped him.

Raegdan hurriedly distanced himself from Fluttershy, who gave a disappointed huff, approaching Luna. "Luna! Heavens, I'm so happy you're okay!"

Luna pressed her face into his. "Don't give me that nonsense, ape," she said through gritted teeth, glaring at him.

Raegdan shrank away from her, looking at his feet like a scolded child. "I promise you, I can explain. I-I thought you'd—"

"So you went for a hussy like her!?" Luna shouted, pointing at Fluttershy, who waved back, happy to simply be acknowledged. Raegdan blinked. "Am I not good enough for you, you filthy, stupid, sexy beast!?"

"Oh, COME ON!" Raegdan exasperatedly exclaimed, thowing his hands into the air. "What the hell is happening!"

"You. Me. Right here. Right now," Luna said, narrowing her eyes. "We're going to finish where we left off."

"Luna, what are you talking abo—" He was cut off by Luna shoving her tongue down his throat. Like, damn, she was getting in there.

One of the fallen beast's sacs stirred, something within pushing and scraping at the surface. Eventually, it gave way, and out of it poured a large, golden-skinned man. He gasped, drinking in the air greedily. He wetly slapped a limb against the ground. "I live... I LIIIIIIIIVE!"

Fluttershy and Applejack watched on in fascination and horror respectively as the man stood up on two shaky legs. "A-Another Raegdan!" Fluttershy said, her eyes widening.

Applejack, donning a tophat and monocle, pulled the pipe from her lips to say, "Quite plain-looking in comparison, I must say. Welcome to the world of the living, chap!"

The man wiped the gunk out of his goatee, making a disgusted sound as he shook it from his hand, panting in exhaustion. "How long... was I in there for?"

"Oh, just for two hours since Chapter 50, I think," said Fluttershy, circling him like a shark.

"By that, she means it's been nearly a decade, my boy."

"A-A decade! My fan fiction! The forums!" He looked at Raegdan and Luna, who were otherwise preoccupied, observing the armor scattered across the floor. "And I ought to finish Interlude 7 at some point..." he muttered, pushing Fluttershy away, who muttered something under her breath, before crawling away on all fours, as Eastern Europeans are wont to do.

"What was that about an 'Interlude 7,' " Fluttershy asked aloud, turning to Applejack, who had set up a table and was drinking from an empty tea cup alongside a flea-ridden rabbit and a young blonde girl in a blue dress.

"I haven't the slightest, my dear," Applejack said. "Twisted as it is, it's all Greek to me."

Ch. 52 - Even Should the Stars Be Out of Reach

Applejack’s leg seized up. Despite the farmpony’s best attempts, she could do little more than drag it uselessly behind her. Fluttershy had to restrain her friend, who was almost bawling in despair, from punching her leg—as though to force it to work under threat of violence—and breaking more of her stitches.

Fluttershy glanced back the way they came in trepidation. She bit her lips, uncertain, and glanced at the webbing above them. She hadn’t told Applejack, but ever since the drumming left them behind, the vicious warning clangs of the black waves, she’d been seeing movement above them. Not much, just shadows moving inside shadows. It was hard to tell, especially filtered through the wisping fog, yet she was sure they were up there. Trailing them, perhaps, or not, but vigilant nevertheless.

Not a problem, she tried to convince herself. Not a problem as long as they stayed there. No, the real problem was Applejack.

The Mountain shook again. Applejack didn’t feel it, but Fluttershy did, like all the previous times it happened while they were running. A tremor passed through the floor and up her bones, threatening to fully awake the agony slumbering in her wing. It came and went, like it did before.

Applejack was leaning left and right as they walked, her sense of balance non-existent. It hadn’t worried Fluttershy too much, at least until Applejack had turned to Fluttershy in a semi-confused state, and Fluttershy noticed her pupils. One of them a pinprick of vivid green, the other large enough to overtake her whole eye.

Fluttershy’s own wing was gnawing at her. Every step brought increasingly larger waves of pain, especially when she used the legs on the side of her broken wing. It would have been enough to make her cry in any other circumstance. Not anymore, though; not when she could think of—and had experienced—much worse fates than a broken wing. More pain than what she felt right now. She could take this. She could live with this, but not the kind of pain that made her mind almost buckle when Raegdan lost himself and went mad. She could still feel his hands wrapped around her throat.

Raegdan and Luna had been right. She and her friends had no idea of how harsh the world could be, and they would have been better off not knowing. She didn’t envy them this knowledge in the least; she didn’t want to have ever obtained this knowledge, either.

She thought of Raegdan again as Applejack sat miserably on the ground. “If… We could go back. Raegdan could carry you if—”

Applejack shook out her hat to get rid of the gunk on it. “He isn’t there,” she said, slurring the “S” like a snake. Applejack didn’t seem to notice.

“He… He might be—”

Snarling, Applejack threw her hat down on the ground, making the pegasus flinch. “He ain’t there, Ah told you! Ah told you, Ah… Didn’t I? That ain’t the guy you knew. If he’s alive he’ll hurt you. If he’s d-d-dead…” She stuttered off. “Luna could carry me. Where’s Luna? Luna!”

Fluttershy closed her eyes tightly. “Luna’s gone, Applejack. Remember?”

“Gone?” Applejack said in surprise. “Where did she—oh. Right. Ah thought Ah dreamed that up. When did that…?” Applejack put her hat on and stood up. “Right. Ah ain’t much for anything, but by golly, I’ll walk. Ah can walk. Ah ca—n… walk. Ah’m getting you out of here. T-Then we’ll see about the rest.” Applejack pointed forward. “Map. He pointed at the map. Didn’t he? Are we going there? Fluttershy? Is that the right way? Ask—Ask Luna. She’ll know.” She hesitated. “Ah didn’t dream that too, did I?”

Fluttershy’s hoof was up to her mouth. She spoke hesitantly, as if trying to block the words coming out. “I… I think that’s the way. I’m not sure. And Luna and Raegdan? We’re abandoning them? W… We can’t…”

Her friend looked lost. Applejack’s lips trembled. She bit them—hard!—and her face became set. The confusion faded. “You gotta get out.”

“We can’t!”

“Darn it, Fluttershy, what else should we do! Luna’s gone, Raegdan’s lost his marbles and got himself killed, we’re still trapped, and—and—and…” Applejack dropped down again.

“Applejack…”

Applejack lied on the ground. “Tired. Gotta… Gotta sleep. You go on. Scoot.”

“I’m not leaving without you!” Fluttershy shouted defiantly. “Get up or I’m staying too!”

Applejack chuckled, sluggishly, and stood up again. “Big lug was right to be like that,” she almost laughed. “You gotta be insane in order to choose.”

“We should go back, Applejack. Maybe they’re okay!”

The farmer pony sniffed. “Nope. Ahead. Or Ah fall asleep. Right here. Get… Get out.”

Fluttershy thought hard. She tried to remember as much as she could. She tried to imagine what her other friends might do. What Luna might do. What Raegdan might do. She even tried to imagine what Princess Celestia would do.

And she couldn’t. There was no right answer here.

“Only until we find if that’s where the exit is, okay?” Fluttershy begged. “Then I’ll go back and find them.”

Applejack wiped at her muzzle. Snot was left hanging from her dishevelled coat. She shook her leg until most of it flew away, wiping the rest of it on her side with a surrendering sigh. “We’re going that way,” she said, pointing towards the would-be exit. “My decision. Mah fault if it’s wrong.”

Fluttershy couldn’t stop a snicker coming out even though there was nothing that was funny.

“What?” Applejack asked.

“You sound exactly like Raegdan. Or Luna.”

Applejack winced at the comparison. Then, with a slight smirk she said, “Oh stars. Heavens help usssss.”

She and Fluttershy laughed together for a short time. They cried for longer, Fluttershy half-carrying her friend.

They hid, for all the good it would do, behind a cluster of pony-sized eggs. Away and in front of them there were mountains.

The largest of them must have been about fifty meters tall. It had tops and inclines, jagged edges and cliffs, boulders growing out of its rocky surface, and sharp rocks at its bottom.

It was an exact copy of the Mountain they were in.

Around it, there were several smaller twins. They formed a spiral of sorts, as far as Fluttershy could tell, with the largest in the center and spiraling out to increasingly smaller versions.

Upsetting as that sight was, what made Fluttershy’s hair stand on end were the corpses littered around the edges.

Dozens of the tentacled monstrosities lied on the ground, unmoving. All of them had been opened up, carved by an elegant, artistic butcher. The closest one to Fluttershy had its limbs cleaved in two, hacked apart and arranged in a star pattern. Its mouth was torn open, the lacerations reaching all the way to the ground. The jaws were pulled apart, spread like petals. Its insides had bloated up, turning themselves inside out, and poured out of the torn orifice. The limbs were slowly seeping some kind of mucus wherever they’d been cut, piling up and coagulating.

Fluttershy watched carefully, wanting to make sure of what she’d seen. Not that she’d be surprised if it was true. The brutality and anguish this Mountain seemed to feed off was without end.

It happened again. The exposed organs trembled slightly as the creature breathed. It was still alive.

I know what you are: You’re a caterpillar. A fragile creature wrapping itself in a cocoon so it can grow. But when you open your eyes again, when you come back out into the world, you’ll be different. And not like a butterfly.

She followed the deep, wide groove with her eyes until it faded out of view. It led to the Valley, she was certain of it. She wondered why there hadn’t been mountains erupting from the Everfree Forest yet.

Maybe the Mountain was sickly and its progeny were sick too. Or maybe they grew really slowly. Maybe, one day, there would be hundreds of mountains all across Equestria.

Yet all that didn’t matter in the least. They didn’t matter like how the movement above that hadn’t ceased didn’t matter. Like how it didn’t matter that she had spotted two more of the serpents, or how she had finally realized that they didn’t fly, that they were little more than appendages of the Mountain itself, their ends connected to the walls. That didn’t matter, the same way the agony on her back didn’t matter. The pain of grief didn’t matter.

All that mattered was that they should circumvent the mountains lest the babies feed. All that mattered was that Applejack had fallen asleep and Fluttershy had to wake her back to reality, back to trudging through pain and fear to an exit that might not exist.

She did, and Applejack rose obediently. She was confused at first, thinking she had fallen asleep at her fields and night had caught on. She caught up quick enough, like she did every time it had happened so far. She didn’t forget too much.

That’s a good sign, Fluttershy thought. She didn’t know for sure, but she had masterfully convinced herself that it stood up to reason.

Around they went, painfully slow in both ways of the word. Everytime the serpent stirred close—and it did often enough—Fluttershy led her friend so they would cower behind the largest egg close to them.

It couldn’t sense them like the tentacled monstrosities could. It relied on sight instead, and this made it less and more frightful at the same time. Yet every time it failed to spot them. It would hover over, tapping its legs melodically against the leathery surface of the eggs. Sometimes, it would pierce them through. The impossibly sharp tip would wedge into the egg, the black spear almost pulsating. Then it would pop out, leaving nothing but a tiny, surgical pinprick and a trail of amber liquid.

A few times, Fluttershy and Applejack had run across the remains of an egg, leather folds discarded and often chewed. Only once they saw a serpent bent over the remnants, lapping at them like a thirsty dingo at a watering hole. When it was done it bent upwards, imitating a silent choking, only to regurgitate a new egg, shining with phlegm.

It took its time piercing the new egg, then. The spears would tremble in excitement, its pustules of prisons pulsating. It took its time making its choice.

When it was done and gone, Fluttershy and Applejack rushed off before it could return. They only delayed for a second, long enough for Fluttershy to see that the new egg was empty.

They continued on. They had been seeing the serpent less and less, as if reaching the end of its territory. This spurred them only to be more cautious, fearful of entering another’s.

They found the end of the chamber at last, meeting the same old wall that was everywhere: meat, muscle, and sinew, blended together and rippling with veins. They followed it, hoping they’d find something. Applejack fell down a few times, and while Fluttershy tried to reassure her friend, she grew heavier and heavier considering the pegasus’ own exhaustion. With Applejack’s mumbling growing unintelligible at times, and the worrying state of her mismatched eyes and her limp leg, Fluttershy wondered if Raegdan had broken her in some way. A small part of her, the part that wasn’t terrified of him being gone and leaving them alone in this awful place, was thankful that he could no longer harm them or anypony else. He couldn’t hurt her, or Applejack, or the child he’d abandoned ever again. He was finally able to rest in peace. Him and Luna.

They expected something to the likes of a titanic rip on the wall, like an open wound. If not that then perhaps a small passage, a fissure that would narrowly let them through.

Instead, and not much to their surprise, they found a button. Just like the one that let them in here.

Fluttershy was the one to press it while Applejack stared at the wall and mumbled loudly. Fluttershy couldn’t make the words out, but she knew it had to have been a rough prayer of sorts. A pleading, to whatever force there might be or hear them, to give them a break.

If there was one, it heard them for once. The wall bared itself open, a section at least as wide as the one that was first supposed to open on the way in.

Beyond it lay darkness, every now and then parted by a red light as strong as a dying star. There wasn’t a room waiting for them here. It was a corridor, large enough to let through ten ponies striding side by side.

“Do we go?” Fluttershy asked.

Applejack spared a forlorn look behind them. “Go,” she said with a pained rictus stiffening on her face.

The corridor was long. It went on for seemingly forever, bending lazily like a river, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right, sometimes up, sometimes curling around to places they could have sworn they’d been before. Smaller caverns led away regularly, their uniform repetition making Fluttershy feel she was wandering inside a castle of flesh and bone.

It probably did go forever. It might have been going around the mountain, serving as the main artery. Or it could have led to a proper exit, like a guarded gate of a castle but an exit nevertheless. Whether it did or not, Fluttershy and Applejack wouldn’t find out.

Their way forward was blocked by scarred tissue. It was as if the very flesh and bone that made the mountain had melted and ran down in rivulets. In the paltry light, they searched for another way forward.

Applejack tripped and fell with a pained cry. Fluttershy rushed to help her up.

“Your leg can’t keep going like that,” she said, ignoring her own myriad injuries. “You should rest for a bi—” She landed on her own muzzle, having tripped herself.

Applejack prodded the ground with her hoof. It gave way.

“Ssssomething. Here.”

The surface they stood on was like an elastic membrane. Fluttershy prodded it carefully, and she found a hard, cylindrical rod under it. It wasn’t the only one. A number of objects were hidden away.

“Do we… try to take them out? It might be something like that stone,” Fluttershy said.

Applejack nodded warily. Her ears flicked straight, listening for any reaction as she prodded harder. “Ah don’t—don’t know. Try.”

Fluttershy’s efforts to tear open a hole by pulling did nothing. “I can’t pull it off,” she said, giving up.

“Knife?” Applejack questioned. She had almost nodded off to sleep again while waiting on Fluttershy.

“I think Raegdan and Luna had the last knives. I didn’t think to… Do you have one?” she asked, hoping against hope that there was something they could do.

Applejack shook her head, unsurprisingly. She glared at the thick film, and a hard grimace settled on her face. She bowed down, and grabbed it in her teeth, chomping as hard as she could.

Fluttershy couldn’t help her sound of disgust.

Despite the oozing liquids gushing in her mouth, Applejack kept working her teeth, her neck pulling the skin to the limits of its tension, shaking it back and forth like a rabid dog tearing at a hunk of meat. As soon as her teeth worked through she started over again, until Fluttershy and she could finally spread it open.

They came face to face with the grin of a white skeleton.

It was bipedal, and it was huge. Larger even than Raegdan himself was. Not terribly so in height—though there would have been a distinct difference if the owner of those bones stood next to the armored guardsman—but in girth and width of the shoulders as well. The bones themselves were thick, as if the biped was made to be able to lift tons of weight.

At first, of course they believed that they found the skeleton of another of Raegdan’s kind.

Then they saw the teeth.

They were the teeth of a shark. The huge skull was filled to the brim with them, the ones further behind carrying a wicked, serrated edge. Fluttershy’s imagination made it worse when she envisioned them in a living mouth, hidden behind red lips and ready to be revealed in a cruel smile.

Fluttershy worked her tongue for a few moments, her mouth suddenly dry. “Do you think they were trapped here too?” she asked Applejack. If they had been, that didn’t bode well for their own chances.

“Fluttershy,” Applejack said tiredly behind her. “Fluttershy, look!”

Fluttershy followed Applejack’s gaze. The wall to the side of the blockage, over two meters above the ground, sported a giant hole.

Giant, indeed. It was wider—by far!—than the humongous corridor they had followed so far. It flowed upward in a steep angle—but not impossible to climb! Torn flesh, healed but forever scarred and mutilated, swamped with lacerations that wouldn’t stop bleeding and drainages that never stopped flowing, laid across its length.

And at its very end, small, faded, and so precious, was a circle of dark sky filled with stars.

“It’s the outside…” Fluttershy breathed. She had… She’d lost all real hope that they’d actually make it! She didn’t think it was actually possible…

She cast her eyes at the skeleton. The way he was facing this grand tunnel to the outside, the way his knees were buckled under him, almost as if he had fallen to his knees, exhausted and spent, only to die.

The size of this tunnel… the sheer volume of it… Was there enough magic in anypony to do something like this?

Or did it cost him more than that?

“Thank you,” she whispered to the skeleton. She wasn’t sure if he did it for them, for ponies. If he was the one who had first called on the map and injured the Mountain. If he sacrificed himself for their sake or if he had reasons of his own that ponies never factored into.

But she’d be grateful to the unknown person, who died with nopony ever knowing why, for the rest of her life.

Applejack called her over, standing to the side of the wall beneath the lower point of the hole. “You first. Okay, Sugarcube?” She lowered herself down, in preparation.

Fluttershy was hesitant to step on her friend’s bandage covered body. “...Maybe you should go first?” Applejack looked and moved as if unable to lift her own weight.

“You first. Then help me up.”

It took a large hop from Applejack standing on her hind legs—Fluttershy could not believe her friend had strength enough for that!— and all the thrust Fluttershy’s remaining wing could provide for Fluttershy to make it. She turned around and reached down, precariously holding to the edge. Applejack lifted her hoof as high as she could.

There was no way to reach low enough.

“H-Hold on. If I half-climb down you could try reaching for my back legs,” Fluttershy suggested.

Applejack didn’t respond. She moved away, sitting down next to the skeleton as if he had been an old friend.

“Applejack?”

Her friend moved her hat to cover her eyes and laid down.

“Applejack!”

“Just… gonna close mah eyes a bit. You go on. I’ll be… with you… all the way.”

“Applejack!” Fluttershy shouted until her chest was sore and her throat hurt, but her friend wouldn’t answer back.

What was she supposed to do now?

She had two choices. Get down again and stay with Applejack, no matter what. There would be nothing she could do to help her friend and chances were that if Applejack didn’t answer back out of stubborness, then she wouldn’t be able to make it up again. Not these couple of meters that were so beyond her reach without her wings. She could go back. Try to find Raegdan. Try to find Luna.

But they were gone. They were d-dead. If she… There was nothing to find.

Or… Or she could go out on her own. She’d be able to climb up easier—and it was a daunting climb even so, thousands of slippery meters on a steep incline—and from that point all she’d have to do was head north. There would be guards. She could find Twilight and Princess Celestia, medical help, and they’d come back here and get Applejack out.

The latter option made sense. It made so much sense. It wasn’t like she could do anything else. There was no help coming, so she’d have to go get help herself. She had to.

Right?

She wanted to leave so badly. To get out of this constant drop from one horror to another. She wanted to go home!

But to go home meant leaving her friend behind.

Was this… Was this really the sensible thing to do?

Or was she making excuses?

She didn’t know, she didn’t know, she didn’t know, she didn’t know, shedidn’tknow! How do you choose, how do you make that choice, how do you say yes to turning your back and not go mad, and not regret it for the rest of your life, not carry the shame and blame for the rest of your life?

Fluttershy started climbing. It took her hours.

She didn’t look back once.

Fluttershy reached up to drag herself a few more paltry centimeters. She felt nothing, and in her sapped state fell forward. She grappled the ground in sudden panic, preparing herself for another slip, more progress lost, more—

She touched grass.

She was out.

There were trees around her. Real, full trees, and not even the kind that signified she was still in the Everfree Forest. The winter had cloaked most of them, but there were fir trees and green, sun-doused moss.

A soft wind blew, making her shiver and causing the wounds and tears on her body to sting, but Fluttershy didn’t care. She laughed, feeling free like she never felt before. The only thing that could compare was when she found her Cutie Mark! She twisted around herself, inhaling deeply the forest smells, the wind! She looked up at the stars and they were so, so beautiful!

She was out! She was out! She laughed, laughed in her freedom and absolute relief that flooded her, until she fell down, still giggling madly, tears pouring from her eyes as she pressed her hooves over her muzzle, quivering. Her eyelids got heavy, and she closed them to rest them for a moment.

Fluttershy fell asleep. There had not been an ounce of strength left in her. The whip of fear was gone from her back, and her body had run out of endorphins and adrenaline to keep her going. She was dead to the world without even realizing it.

Somepony breathed next to her. Fluttershy wondered who it could be, her eyelids were made of stone.

There was a deep, muted thump coming from somewhere, beating like a heart. Thump. Thump. Thump. Sometimes there was a pause, long or short without rhyme or reason. It driveled on like a broken clock.

The unknown pony jostled her, and a heavy tail flicked her back legs. She sat up, her exhaustion more manageable but somehow deeper.

Applejack snored lightly next to her. The dying embers of a small fire lay next to them, keeping them warm. A burning smell filled the air, wood and coal, and something else mixed in between.

Fluttershy looked around in disbelief. There, laying against a tree trunk was Luna, peacefully staring at the stars.

Feeling her heart sink, but not surprised, Fluttershy made her way to the Princess of the Night and Dreams. For a pained moment, she thought it was real. Maybe, in a way, it still was.

“Hello,” Fluttershy said. “You’re looking well.” It was a falsehood, but it was kinder than the truth.

The Princess’ mane and coat was matted with a resin-like saliva. She laid in a way that had to be uncomfortable but she was either too tired or incapable of adjusting herself to a satisfactory stance. Her eyes were sunken beneath her dulled, cracked horn.

The corner of Luna’s mouth moved in the barest hint of a smile. “Thank you,” Luna croaked. Her voice sounded papery and dry. “I’m glad to see you safe.”

“Me too,” Fluttershy said, sniffing. She wouldn’t cry, not now. She’d cry later, spend days and nights weeping, but now she had to be strong. She always wished, privately, to be a stronger pony. But if that was how you became strong, she’d rather stay meek forever.

“You should lie down and rest,” Luna advised. “Stars know, it won’t be easy to reach aid in this state. Recollect your strength.”

Fluttershy rushed forward, embracing Luna. The princess felt cold, the dredged muck on her coat scummy and miasmic. The Alicorn weakly patted her side, the smile pulling harder at her taut skin.

Fluttershy pulled back after a very long time, rubbing her eyes. Applejack was still asleep, and she questioned what that meant. She wanted to wake her up, hear her friend’s voice one more time, but she hesitated. She was afraid that she might not be able to wake her or that this whole dream would pop if she did, like the fragile bubble that it was.

“I don’t see Raegdan,” she said aloud, noticing his absence. “Is he… not here?” Did he have dreams? Did he appear in them, she wondered. Or was that vision of madness and rage the last image she’d carry of him? The final ending she’d have to share with Twilight?

“You can hear him, can’t you?” Luna said, closing her eyes. Her eyelids sunk with drowsiness. “Be wary. He is in... a mood.”

And she was gone, lost to a sleep that Fluttershy didn’t dare disturb. The thumping continued, now more attention-grabbing. She walked towards it, going around a copse of hugging trees and thorny bushes. It reminded her of the dreary drums, the slapping of tentacled appendages and the gnashing of hungry teeth, but as she came closer it became clearer it was nothing like that. It was common and predated both life and death.

He was digging.

He knelt in the center of an empty space, rocks and bushes torn from the ground and thrown aside. He held a flat stone, using it like a spade, carving up the earth and dragging it back, a mound of dirt already piled high next to him.

His armor was torn to shreds. Where before there had been dents, now there were gouges and terrible marks that promised grievous wounds for the body where the armor had failed. There were torn up lines, with razor-like edges reaching inward or outward, tinted a rusted red. He was less dressed in armor and more wrapped in bent and beaten iron, like a sardine in a can that had been trampled three times over, and once more.

He was like a toy soldier that had spent a lifetime passed on from neglectful owner to neglectful owner, refusing to throw it away until all limbs had broken off and the body cleaved in two.

Raegdan’s bandolier was completely empty of explosives, just like the life in his eye. He didn’t even glance at her, his focus on the grave alone, if at that; truthfully, she’d wager he was anywhere but here, lost in some dream or nightmare of his own, his body an automaton that would work despite the pain and trauma.

And it was obvious how much trauma had been piled onto him. She recognized the smell that hovered around him; she’d smelled it so rarely, mostly the few times she’d been careless with her stove. His armor was filled with grunge and blood, most assuredly his own, and in the dark recesses of his armor there was the source of that smell.

“Hello,” Fluttershy said hesitantly.

The large, narrow stone sunk into the earth with a final, dull thunk. Raegdan’s hand stayed on it, unmoving. His head turned slightly, the beaten helmet’s dents making the shadows on it even more malevolent.

He turned back and continued digging. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

She could imagine this being his afterlife; a literal translation of his life. Eternally digging graves with his own hands, always for others and never for him. It sounded like a punishment, and what did that mean for the life he had led? How many graves had he dug?

Fluttershy stood, her legs shaking. Should she… apologize for leaving him? Would he apologize for hurting her? Did he even care, either way? Did she care? The old her would, but the one that had been… tortured by him, no matter why or how—there never would be a reason good enough—didn’t believe she did.

Not so strangely, she didn’t feel as ashamed as she thought she would be when a tiny part of her had wanted him to never come back out to the light ever again.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

She had shared Twilight’s reasoning once upon a time― that he was sick and lost control. Even that notion flew out the window: Fluttershy had treated animals that were mad with fear or in pain and sought to hurt whatever made their insides ache so. These poor animals lost control.

Raegdan had looked at her, and knew exactly who he was looking at and what he wanted to do. He didn’t lose control. He changed his mind.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

“At least you did as told in the end.”

He didn’t sound angry. He didn’t sound happy. Thankfully, he didn’t sound dead toned either.

“That’s the only reason I hauled up Applejack,” he solemnly said, his look rooting her at the spot. “No more. I owe nothing more. My debt to her is paid.”

Fluttershy’s heart hammered against her chest.

Hauled up? He saved Applejack?

Fluttershy walked up to Raegdan, her eyes wide as saucers. It couldn’t be true. This was a dream. This was a dream. They were dead. She had fallen asleep and it was all some mad joke fashioned from the corners of a diseased mind.

Raegdan grabbed the hoof that tried to poke into one of the holes on his chest. His head swivelled towards her.

“You’re alive…” Fluttershy said, dumbstruck.

He titled his head. “You don’t care for me enough to conjure me up out of guilt.”

“B-But Luna… Y-You…”

He turned away from her and went back to digging. He stopped using the stone and used his large hands to pull roots and pebbles out.

“Who is this for?” Fluttershy asked, fearful of the answer.

Raegdan paused. “Who knows?” he answered after a thoughtful moment. “It could be for any of us.”

He reached over to his side. His cloak was sitting next to him, folded around and tied in a makeshift bag. He dragged it closer, undoing the knots.

Fluttershy pulled back, horrified.

What she had seen so far, had been going from worse to worse. But she was out now. It should have been over, yet it wasn’t. She had moved from the horror of darkness and stone, to the undoing threat of magic and savagery, finding herself at the heart of darkness; a heart made out of every little nightmare and bound in one, wrapped in alien sinew and eldritch weaves.

But, she now realized, the strongest of horrors was the simplest.

She had never seen one before; how could she? Raegdan was the only one she’d met, and he wasn’t young, not young at all. Yet she could identify what she was seeing all too well: She could tell from the gentle, soft chin and the round face. The short locks of hair, the smooth skin. The little fingers at the end of the remaining hand. The blue eyes, so brilliant even in death.

It was a child. It used to be a child.

Fluttershy was amazed to find that she still had tears to shed. She wished she had more, a river of them, that her drained body would use her blood if it had to, anything to cleanse that heartbreak from her.

What they had gone through was horrible beyond words. That a child had… There was no feeling of betrayal that was deep enough to express how… how…

How unfair the world could be.

Raegdan moved the tiny body as if it were a relic. He deposited the child at the bottom of the hole, naked and nameless. He packed the earth back handful by single handful. Slowly and with the care of a concerned parent that might wake their child from their light sleep. He had saved the rocks and gathered even more, placing them over the shallow grave like guardians.

“We…” She sobbed and had to start again. “We should say something,” she said.

Raegdan stood up. He was holding one last stone in his hand. He opened his palm, letting it drop and clink off the rest. “I hope I got you out, kid.” He sighed. “Don’t… I’m sorry if I didn’t. I swear I tried. Go home.”

He turned and left, picking up his cloak and flicking it in the air a few times, leaving Fluttershy alone in front of the grave.

She stayed there for a long time, trying to think of something to say. The night ended, and the dawn passed her by, the golden light showering her over the horizon.

Eventually, she left without saying anything at all.

What was it I said to Luna? She asked herself. Something about… That there is hope. A new day. But for some, there were no more days. Sometimes… there was no hope, she realized, as the new day’s sunrays broke the horizon and washed over her.

A small tongue of fire, a brief flicker of a dot, lit itself and died far away among the distant trees, right below the rising sun.

It couldn’t be! It was a trick of the light, a—a—

She ran back to Luna.

The Princess was exactly as she left her. Applejack had woken up at some point, but her body hadn’t moved. Only her green eyes, heavy with exhaustion and grief, were open. Raegdan had his back turned to Fluttershy, feeding dried up branches to the fire and coaxing it to full life again.

“I saw them!” Flutteshy shouted. Nopony seemed to move or care much. “I saw them!” she repeated, excitement filling her up. “I saw Spike’s flames, I know I did! Applejack, they are here! We got out in time! They must have been delayed too! We can still reach them, Applejack, we can still take back Applebloom and the others!”

Applejack’s expression was astounded and disbelieving. The mare slowly realized what Fluttershy was saying, and life returned to her. She pushed with her legs to stand, a wide smile—hope!—coming alive and—

The toe of Raegdan’s boot struck Fluttershy’s muzzle. She felt her nose break. A second kick landed on her belly, slamming her against a tree.

“Raegdan, stop! Stop!” Luna screamed outside the haze of gray that Fluttershy occupied.

Raegdan ignored Luna completely, towering over Fluttershy like he was a reasonable adult putting down a stupid filly. “You want more? You want to play the hero? What are you going to do, huh? Throw rocks at them?” His hand reached behind his left thigh. “Oh, wait. I have this. Do you want it? Play the little hero with a little flashbang?!” He shook the holey grenade in front of her nose like a dog treat.

“P-Please...” she begged, sniffling blood and mucus.

The sole of his right boot pushed her head down into the frosted dirt; he lightly pressed his weight into the side of her face, not enough to hurt, yet all she felt was gratitude that he chose to step on her face rather than her wing.

“They are gone. You lost.” Raegdan’s weight vanished. He moved to the fire and knelt back down again, his attention returned to the fire as if the past few seconds never happened.

Fluttershy looked to Applejack and Luna for support, but there was none. Luna wouldn’t look her in the eye, and as for Applejack… Fluttershy almost felt guilty for giving her hope.

Nopony was going to say anything more. It was over. Fluttershy wiped the blood off her muzzle. It didn’t seem to bleed that much. It might not be broken after all.

Staring at the blood on her hoof, she said to Raegdan’s back: “Y-You said you owe m-me.” Chills ran down her spine. She was afraid of what could happen if she continued. She could taste the acidic difference between fear and dread.

Raegdan’s head snapped at her.

“‘I owe you for helping Luna.’ You told me in that room. I… I want to call in that favor. I want you to tell me, truthfully, if there is anything... anything we can still do. If we can follow them or… or let Princess Celestia know where they are. If we stop we stop because we c-can’t do more, not because we g-gave up—”

He had been crouching by the fire, but when Fluttershy blinked he was towering over her. She was scared; her wing tingled with pain-riddled memories, the pain rushing back. She almost thought she was safe because Luna was there, but… that didn’t stop him earlier.

“You die with them or live.”

A single choked sob rang out. Raegdan swivelled to look behind him, tensing as he forgot Applejack was there. “What kind of choice is that?” she whispered.

Raegdan’s answer to the farmer was to storm off in disgust.

To whom the disgust was directed, it was hard to tell.

Fluttershy sat next to Applejack, thinking. Applejack herself was staring blankly into the fire. There was nothing the pegasus could do about Rarity. Her white-coated friend was beyond her reach. But Applejack was here, and she’d have to… somehow help her through whatever was coming.

Fluttershy’s mother would urge her to pray. Fluttershy could hear her as clearly as the sparrows singing on the branches above her. One of them came to land on her extended hoof, singing to her of the dark time’s passing. At least that’s how Fluttershy imagined it.

She brought the sparrow closer and laid a kiss on the top of its tiny head. Mother’s voice died off. She motioned her request, and the little sparrow flew and landed on Applejack’s hat, singing its song.

Thoughts of her tormented wing dashed in her mind for a moment, but she pushed them aside. She didn’t care if she lost it or could never fly again, even as little as she did it. It was a small price to pay.

They were out of the dark.

“Fluttershy?” Luna called from her little huddled corner. “Could you… help me up, please? I’m… I’m getting cold,” the Princess requested, tense and expecting defiance.

Fluttershy was thankful for the distraction. Anything that stopped her from thinking. She gladly helped the Princess to her hooves. She wasn’t sure if—whether Luna should be blamed for anything, really.

Luna let you come along to what she knew to be beyond you, her ravaged body reminded her. Luna let Raegdan do anything he wished. She watched as he terrorized you and hurt you.

…Could she blame her for not doing enough? Was it Luna’s fault for not stopping everything bad happening?

Wasn’t this the spoiled ungratefulness that pushed her to Nightmare Moon?

You don’t blame her for not doing enough. That wasn’t what happened here, her body continued. Yet it wasn’t her body. It wasn’t somepony separate. She didn’t…

Fluttershy was tired and sick of it all. She wanted no more of this. No more dark and bad, red, miserable thoughts.

Only a few steps away Luna tripped, her legs wobbly and unsteady. Fluttershy tried to help her up, but the Alicorn was too heavy and Fluttershy too weak.

Fluttershy called for Raegdan.

Silence.

This time Luna called, with all the strength she could muster. Raegdan again didn’t respond. Didn’t return.

As if he wasn’t there.

“Did… Did he leave?” Fluttershy asked nopony in particular.

Applejack was shaken out of her stupor. “And leave Luna on her own out here? Where would he— No. He wouldn’t…” Luna’s ears perked as she turned to Applejack, who almost made it to her hooves. “He said there’s nothing we can do!”

Luna, struck by an immediate understanding, nearly began hyperventilating. “No, no, no,” Luna chanted. She dragged herself after him on shaky hooves, letting out a cry of pain before falling to the earth once again, but her exhaustion didn’t deter her. “He can’t do that, he can’t… They’ll kill him! They’ll see him coming, the sun is at their back! Raegdan! Raegdan!”

Fluttershy didn’t know what to say. She wanted to say he shouldn’t have, but on the other hoof… Rarity, Spike, Applebloom…

Fluttershy held the panicking princess before she hurt herself. Her kicks were so weak and her thrashing pitiful. It was child’s play to hold her almost entirely still even for Fluttershy. She spoke soothingly, trying to reassure the Princess, but Luna was too caught up in her desperate hysteria to listen.

“Liar! Traitor! You promised me, you fucking promised!” she yelled. She yelled until her voice broke. Still, she tried―spitting out air into the nothingness and the silence―to thrash and reach him.

Luna’s cracked horn glowed. Sparks bloomed around her, and a white hot light blazed at the edges of the cracks. Luna was sweating and the veins of her neck stood out.

The shadows shook as the sun moved, a small tremble, and then it stopped when Luna’s scream of pain bellowed out of her.

Luna collapsed to the ground, her blue mane falling limply around her shoulders, no longer shining with the wondrous stars above. She looked smaller than before. Her horn smoked, shimmering with a convalescing light at the depths. “I can’t…” she said, panting. “I can’t do it.” She looked surprised at her own words, furrowing her brows as she shook her head. “He’ll die because of me. Because of me…”

The sun had frozen in the sky.

Then, with a swiftness only employed by Discord himself when he played with the celestial bodies, the sun dove to hide behind the distant mountains. The moon soared to take its place, and then flew higher, crowning the night sky.

Luna looked up with gratitude, the tears in her eyes reflecting the stars perfectly. “Thank you, sister,” she whispered. “Thank you for trusting me.”

Ch. 53 - HC SVNT DRACONES

The brushwood stirred at the edge of her tired eyes.

“Motion at east, southeast. Unidentified,” Jackie mouthed alongside her signals, her breath rising in front of her eyes.

A faint clicking of acknowledgement sounded off. She waited, ready to aim.

Another click, and she momentarily glanced for the signs; “Non-hostile confirmed.”She nodded her understanding. “Just some stupid fox…” she grumbled under her breath.

A scant few minutes later she felt a nudge on her shoulder.

“Change of guard,” Anthony said. Deep weariness etched the lines in his aged face even deeper.

Jackie quickly traded places. “You don’t look like you slept,” she prodded after a moment’s thought.

“What clued you in?” Anthony smiled as if it was an effort. “I hate being so close to a Gate. Troy, of course, couldn’t give less of a shit.” He nodded towards the post north of them where Troy, bushy eyes and joyfully rested, waved from. “Yes, fuck you too, Troy. Anything noteworthy, Jackie?”

“There might have been a fox.”

“It better have fucked off. I’m too tired for frolicking forest critters. Bambi’s screwed in the mood I’m in.” Anthony pursed his lips. “Girl, I… you get what I meant, right? What I didn’t actually mean.”

“I do. I’m alright,” Jackie quickly responded. She hovered over Anthony for a second, searching for some small talk, a comment to add. When the older man didn’t add anything more either, she made her escape to the center of the camp where a concealed fire was burning.

Everything the long watch had managed to make her forget and ignore was waiting for her.

William reached for the white alien’s eye. The poor thing drew away, her tenuous balance failing her. William quickly grabbed her and steadied her before she fell.

The alien’s large azure eyes moved frantically from William’s roughshod hands on her coat to his face, her jaw shaking. William removed them hastily. He turned to Miny, a deep and tired disappointment carved in his face.

William was a big man. Nowhere near as tall as the sergeant, but wider and more robust, with a large torso and thick arms. Half his face was lost in a thick, tangled black bush, and he looked like a haggard barbarian or a thuggish biker. But when a smile and a laugh settled on him he transformed into a joyful young Santa Claus, as he much preferred to be.

“Miny, some help here?” he asked in a gentle low voice.

Miny was the pixie elf next to William’s Saint Nicholas, being short and lithe, with a rough, hewed haircut.

She snapped her fingers, drawing the alien’s attention to her, and then Miny covered one of her eyes with a palm. Slowly, she repeated the motion for the other one, pointing from herself to the adult alien after she was done.

The white one did as she was bid. William shined his flashlight into her eyes, one at a time. He instructed her to hold one of her legs on the air, and he smiled in satisfaction as the captive alien hesitantly did so. She followed all of his pantomimed instructions.

She even smiled shyly back at William, who beamed even further. She spoke at the two children huddled at her sides with what seemed to be encouragement in her strange language. Shaped bulks of wind formed out of her throat and whittled to an undulating musical tune in a tilt like a rising melody. It had taken some time for them to realize that the aliens weren’t repeating the same sound over and over, but that there was a rich—but subtle—variation. She appeared to finally be at ease.

But Jackie, who watched from the sides and refused to take part in this charade, wasn’t fooled. She saw it all in that strained pull of the adult’s lips, in her unblinking eyes that jumped to their rifles between every action.

The white alien―girl, woman, perhaps a mother as a few had guessed―was scared shitless.

Jackie admired that alien. She hid her fear well for the children’s sake, but she had done more than that. She had, somehow with no words, managed to win over William and Miny. Perhaps, Jackie reasoned, that fearful, sensitive, “oh-help-me-I’m-so-visibly-scared” move the white alien had just pulled wasn’t made in the spur of the moment. It wasn’t the first time William had examined her. The alien made obvious how vulnerable she was at every opportunity.

It’s like I’m watching a soap opera. Jackie wouldn’t be surprised to learn this alien was a Broadway talent if they had anything like it here.

William feared their prisoner was concussed, something that made Jackie frown. Sure, her eyes looked normal enough in comparison with the younger one, but who could tell how their strange large eyes really worked, and she did display other similar symptoms apart from that: loss of balance, weariness, throwing up… They had to slow their pace for her.

You brilliant girl, you, Jackie thought. Nothing that someone couldn’t pretend, huh? Maybe a bit of it is real enough, but if you know we want you alive and healthy, why not play it up a little? You’re probably hoping someone’ll swoop in and save the day.

She liked her. Jackie had been caught in that alien’s spell as surely as Miny and William were. The alien was smart, and she had rushed to the defense of children that—Jackie was as certain as she could be—weren’t hers.

The remaining medical examination passed in silence and the aliens were left in peace at their designated space. A small circle that contained them among a larger circle of the camp.

Leaving the center of the camp in swift strides, she slipped through the dense tree trunks, trying to stay unnoticed by the others.

“—all I’m saying. A nickname. Something that ain’t Ruthus.”

“Ruthus suits you just fine, I’d say.” Curry quipped, finishing his search for an unblemished weed from the forest floor and biting into it, humming delightedly.

“You think I want to be called Ruthus?”

“That’s your name.”

“And Adam is yours but we call you Curry.”

“And?”

“Look, I just want a nickname too. Any nickname. I can’t be tied down by my parents' stupid decisions, a man has dreams. I need a name that shows how desirable and manly I can be, so git.”

Curry looked thoughtful for a couple of seconds. “This reeks of insecurity, Ruthus.”

“Then just call me by my last name. My dad calls me by last name. Bale is tons better than Ruthus. All I need is you to do it until it sticks. Come on.”

Curry shook his head. “I can’t do that, man. Not in good conscience.”

“What?”

“Have you seen the people living here? They might try to eat you!”

“... Bale, hay bale. Oh ha ha, what a master of comedy you are.”

Curry spotted Jackie and waved her over. “Let’s settle this. Jackie! Hey, Jackie!”

“See, she gets to not get called Jacqueline,” Ruthus murmured sullenly.

Oh, boy.

Jackie stepped heavily towards them. She hated it when they tried to include her in their inane talks. Everyone kept doing it. Jackie, come here. Jackie, do this. What do you think about this, Jackie? Wanna play tic tac toe, Jackie?

Maybe socializing the bare minimum was a mistake. She set a precedent, and now it was almost impossible to completely excuse herself and display an air of professionalism. She feared she had already ended up as the team mascot.

“Does he look like a Bale or a Blade?”

Ruthus’ eyes widened in sudden joy. “Holy shit, that is a cool nickname…”

“Ruthus?” Jackie asked for confirmation. She hoped they hadn’t noticed her wincing as she heard the cringey nickname. “I’m not sure how—”

Curry snapped his fingers, cutting off Ruthus from mumbling “Blade” to himself in increasingly macho tones. “Ruthus. See? She didn’t even think about it.”

“That’s baloney and you know it, you railroading son of a brothel ma’am—”

“Can I go now, please?” Jackie asked, suddenly very tired.

Ruthus turned to her, and really looked at her. She fidgeted under the intense examination even as his face softened.

“It’s not just the kids, is it?”

Jackie paused. She was going to say no, and for a moment she considered sharing her concerns. She fixed her stance to parade rest, choosing to be silent.

Ruthus sighed. Curry sighed. Both of them with an air of tiredness. They glanced at each other, shaking their heads. Suddenly, they didn’t seem as much at ease as they’d made her believe to be.

“Don’t let it get to you, Jackie. This happens.” Ruthus said, shrugging.

“Yes. It happens,” she parroted and left, tuning them out.

She made for the southern edge of the camp, a compact thirty meter area, nestled among trees and rocks. Half the number of their team was standing guard at all directions, covering each other in criss-crossing fields of fire and allowing everyone else to truly rest their mind and body. It was as safe as they could make it.

Jackie would have very much liked to sit down and have a good cry on her lonesome. The marvel of a lifetime—of a near-immortal lifetime—turned into a freakshow of shame and guilt. She didn’t believe herself to be suited for Janus anymore. She had been certain that she wouldn’t regret her decision no matter what would happen to her. She’d never given a thought to things she might have to do though.

She got hold of her backpack and pulled out the gun cleaning kit. She deftly disassembled her rifle, splayed its parts on a thready piece of fabric, and started brushing and blowing the accumulated dust and burnt particles away. Busywork, to keep her out of the way.

The night had been dark and the foliage blocked what little light the stars and moon gave. She was too far from the small fire in its dug pit. It was only for the comfort of their victims. Their prisoners. The civilian casualties.

Her teammates were good people. She trusted them as much as she could trust anyone.

She simply didn’t trust herself anymore.

While her hands worked, she found her gaze inevitably drawn northwest.

There was a mountain, and on its side rested a city, glowing silver with golden burnishes.

What a wonder it was to drink in, to meet a species so similar yet so different. Aliens. Honest to God aliens. Even better than the aliens she had believed in, separated by them by a distance much grander than that of the void of space. The answer to the great question of loneliness… And what did they do with such a gift? What did she do?

Jackie knew she’d have to speak to a therapist after their return. She looked forward to it. To unburden her mind, to have a direction given rather than hooks pulling her whatever which way.

Her hands were shaking. The headache she felt wasn’t just anger and stress, and it flared, saying hello in letters of hot brand iron. She dug in her pocket for her allotted dose.

She unfolded her shaking fist. A quarter of a pill. She shouldn’t have forgotten to take it, it wasn’t as effective when you gave the pain time to build. Oh, the things she would do for half a pill and the relief it would bring, things that needed tall bushes to hide behind and would shame her parents.

When she began her first tour of duty as a member of Janus Division, Jackie tried to endure the Gates without the starting packet from home base. After the pain became unbearable Jackie had taken Miny aside, as she was the one in charge of the pharmaceuticals, and promised her twenty-four hour access to her tongue for life, or any other preferred body part, if she only let her have one, just one, of the highly concentrated pills Jackie so foolishly scoffed at.

Luckily, Miny was neither a lesbian nor an opportunist. She gave Jackie a halfsie—the only one Jackie ever had, and what an ecstasy it had been—and then kept Jackie regularly prescribed like the rest of the team.

She gulped the quarter-pill down, and the pain faded back to the soft headache instead of the splitting migraine it was. Jackie sighed in relief, still daydreaming about the complete absence of pain that was now as distant as a childhood dream.

She chortled mirthlessly. It wasn’t the pill she wanted. It was the freedom from a bad choice it had given her. Right now, she’d gladly gulp down a couple of them, overdosing be damned.

Gun parts were still strewn around her feet. Her focus was all over the place. She picked up the pieces, slowly bringing them together. No need to hurry. The longer it took, the less chance of anyone else trying to—

A loud warning cough among loud steps.

No, why would she be left alone?

She ignored the footsteps behind her, as she did the hand that landed on her shoulder.

“Keeping busy, Jacqueline?” she was asked with a quiet merriness.

“Sir,” she replied, cold enough to make the Captain pull his hand off her before he was burned.

She had found the team to run like a well-oiled and extremely efficient family unit. It was an odd balance that relied on fragile fostered relationships. Their ranks were a chain of older brothers and sisters, each looking out for the younger and directly older than them, with the sergeant being the mother hen who was always there at every step of the way with either reprimands or a soothing hand.

And then there was the Captain; standing apart from the group, the distant patriarchal figure. Respected. Commanding. And in a small corner of their mind, daunting.

She liked him, and for his part he seemed to like her. He had been a mentor, teaching her the intricacies of life in this unit she now belonged to, taking her by the hand and showing her how to reforge herself, to build a core that could weather the isolation of the Gates. But his company was now a sour reminder that made her close into herself even more.

Jackie felt a hint of that dread when he sat next to her, close as if he wanted to share body heat in the cold of the night, almost as soon as she felt his sidearm squeezing expertly between the seams of the armor she wore beneath her fatigues.

She could feel the lines of the pistol’s metalwork; the small scratches on the muzzle, the little stubby front sight, and, most forebodingly of all, the angle the Captain held it at. One shot, and the bullet would pierce through her soft intestines and then her lung as it went straight for the heart.

She remained still, her pacing breath leaving faint foggy traces.

The Captain was looking down at her assembly with a smile, the gun hidden between them. “I saw you leaving our guests in a huff,” he commented. His dirty blond locks kept his eyes in shadow.

“I wasn’t aware this was a crime, sir.” Her voice didn’t tremble, but every breath caused the gun to dig anew at her side.

“It’s not, but it’s not like it matters,” the Captain answered. He smiled, crows’ feet forming at the end of his eyes, too deep for his otherwise smooth skin. And his eyes... His age was always there, a young man with ancient eyes. “I’m only looking out for you, Jacqueline. You’re keeping in mind that there are five Gates here, right?”

“I don’t see how that matters,” Jackie said. The pulsing headache that grew with every step wasn’t going to let anyone forget. If it wasn’t for the pills God knows how they’d be able to keep walking instead of running to the gate to make the pain stop a second sooner.

The Captain raised the fingers of his free hand one by one. “Let me remind you of the basic schooling; one Gate, no magic. Two Gates, the weird is almost common. Three Gates, there might be psychics or superhumans, or pigs might fly in the sky. But five… five and above is where true magic lies.”

The fire sparked inside Jackie, and she growled affirmatively. The gun twisted against her as a reminder to quench it down. There was no one else close enough that she could see without turning her head—and even if there was, what would they do? It wasn’t her they would help.

If she was in their shoes a few days before, she wouldn’t either.

The Captain turned and looked at her with such intensity that she had no choice but to stare back. A ray of moonshine traversed the maze of branches, casting a mask of light across his face. Their eyes locked in a struggle, his the color of an old burnt forest and hers the blue of a blooming Morning Glory. “You were watching our guests. Then you ran off, Jacqueline. Something on your mind?”

It finally dawned on her what he had been searching for. “No,” she said firmly. “Do you seriously think they’re poking around in my head or something?”

“Heavens know that they could,” he answered with an easy shrug. “Maybe all the young lady guest needs to do is wait until she clears her head. Maybe she doesn’t. Is that why you’ve been acting strangely? Are you fighting her compulsions? Tell me, and I’ll help y—”

“You can’t be that stupid!”

The Captain frowned. After a few moments of chewing on her statement, he holstered his gun. Jackie couldn’t comprehend why he did so, even as she watched him do so and rest his palms on his knees as if enjoying the cold night wind.

But she wasn’t stupid enough to think for a moment that he couldn’t have it back in his hand again in an instant.

“Would you explain yourself for this stupid man’s benefit, Jacqueline?” he asked as if he was emotionally hurt.

She stood up, full of outrage, and hissed it all out, caustic poison leaving her system. Damn the gun. Damn his years of keeping them safe and led. And fuck the glint of pity in his eyes!

“Guests? Guests? They are prisoners! We’re playing with words to make it palatable, and pretending we didn’t kidnap children! I joined because I believed I was keeping our world safe. Not to take children away from theirs!” she screamed.

Jackie panted as though she finished a marathon. The Captain was looking up at her, and his expression, before he hid it behind his palms, simply crumpled.

A towering shadow emerged from the trunks behind him. “Captain,” the sergeant’s deep voice rumbled.

“Get everyone back to their rest, Darry. Apologize to the men for me. We’ll try to keep it down,” the Captain breathed, his face still hidden.

Sergeant Darry hesitated only a moment then nodded, not that the Captain could see it. “Yes, sir.” A step later he hesitated again. “She’s a good girl, sir. Ain’t nothing in her for no hoodoo to catch on to.”

“No, I don’t think there is, either. Can we be left alone? Please?”

There was no answer but fading footsteps.

“You know why we’re doing this, Jacqueline.”

“I do. But is a ‘what if’ boogeyman worth a child’s life? Much less two?”

“Do dead worlds, Jacqueline? Is one kid worth that boogeyman? That small dragon is the only link we have to The Dragon. That is what we entered a Gate for. This is where it finally took us. What else were we to do?”

Jackie threw her hands aside, completely lost. “Something else?” she half-pleaded. “If we can’t think of another option did that give us permission to take this one?” she questioned. The Captain stared at her, an emotionless mask covering him once more. “It’s our war, not theirs.”

Her Captain huffed and stood up. “It’s everyone’s war. Heavens help me, Jacqueline, I agree with you. What we're doing is rotten and wrong. And we will see it to the end nonetheless.”

Jackie nodded. In another life, she’d have saluted and obeyed her orders. She used to be a good soldier. Until the man in front of her taught her not to be. “‘We don’t hurt anyone if we can. We don’t make ourselves the bad guys. We don’t take the easy road.’ You said that. Your words. We weren’t to do a soldier’s work, but far more.”

He glanced at her with an exhausted shake of his head. “Why can’t you just trust my decision, Jacqueline?”

She paused.

“I do trust you, sir. I trusted you when you said we’d not be invaders and killers. That we would do this the right way. The only way. When you refused to leave Anthony back despite the rules and carried him yourself. When you broke the rules to save people that we didn’t even know. When you dove in the storm after me. I trust you. What I don’t trust is the judgement of the person who took children and killed someone for trying to save them.”

He laid his palm on her shoulder. “You have to let this go, Jacqueline.”

She grimaced. “With all due respect, sir, you should have stopped it. You had a gun. Then I wouldn’t have to let go of anything.”

His lips formed a line holding back anger. “You’ve never led a team, Jacqueline..” With insulting casualness, he pointed at her, his other hand still on her shoulder. “You know what it means to be in charge? Making a choice and sticking to it even when you get second-guessed every step of the way. That’s what leadershave to do, and I do this so you don’t have to. Your job is to do as I say. What’s done is done. No more of this, you hear me?”

It was done, but this wasn’t the peace he thought it would be. “It’s not all done, though, is it?” Jackie reminded him. “What about the kids? Is this the only way or is it that the numbers scare us? Two children versus dead worlds, and it scares us shitless. You know it’s wrong, you admit it. I… I think so too, Captain. Is this the only course we have or it is just convenient?”

The Captain had turned his face away, his hand rubbing at his face. “That’s not fair, Jacqueline. It’s not fair to me, and it’s in no way fair to you.”

He balked. He drooped under a sheet of weariness. The Captain was gone and what was left at his place was a young boy playing games he wasn’t grown enough for.

The view was reversed and she saw herself, a young girl playing at games she wasn’t grown enough for. She stepped closer to him, reaching for his shoulder.

“No, that wasn’t fair to you, sir. I’m sorry. Just… Why don’t we make it a vote, sir? See if anyone else has ideas? Why don’t we all talk about what to do instead of dancing around and avoiding the issue as if it will get worked out on its own? I don’t think there’s a single person in the team who’s content with it. You, most of all.”

He shook his head, gently pulling her hand away. With each word he retreaded his presence and conviction. “No. No, I’m not letting someone else make this choice in my place because it’s easier. I’m sorry for taking up your time. Go get some rest before we move on.”

Jackie caught his arm over the elbow, stopping him from leaving. “What are we even going to learn from this child dragon? Even if he’s the same species doesn’t mean he’ll know the dragon we’re looking for! What are they going to do to him? Figure out what hurts him, what kills his kind?”

“Just questions, Jacqueline. I’m… For heaven’s sake, we won’t hurt a child! Maybe a few tests, but they can’t—they won’t!”

“Aren’t we hurting two of them already, sir?” she said softly.

“We’re leaving behind the small one with the bow on her hair. We’re not monsters.” He tried to pull away from her, but she wouldn’t let him. There had to be a way, perhaps not to make this right but to make it less wrong.

“Why not question them now?”

His smirk was a sad little thing. “It takes a bit more than a few hours to learn a language, Jacqueline. We will bring them both back when the big wigs are done, I swear. Even if we have to do it ourselves. I promise you, you and I are coming back here.”

This time he pulled harder and he slipped through her grasp. “Why are we not giving talking to them a chance first?” she yelled desperately.

He didn’t even slow down. “Not in a world of magic. We’re leaving as fast as we can.”

“Maybe the dragon learns fast. Maybe he has magic powers that can help. Maybe the other ones do. It’s magic, right? Who knows what they’re capable of. You said it.” She caught up with the Captain, not giving up.

The frustration built. Couldn’t he see he was walking right in her footsteps? He was seeing an incoming threat and his vision constrained to the one path he thought he had to take. To take the shot, to… She took the shot herself, and what had that made of her?

“If you spent any time with them you’d have seen how he follows everyone’s lips!” she called out, brimming with self-loathing and unsure if she was truly talking to him or herself. “I swear, he can tell what we’re saying. We could at least figure out, all of us together, if it’s worth it to—”

The Captain stopped in his tracks. His arm was on her, the tips of his stretched fingers touching her shoulder. “He does what?” he asked, his ancient eyes wide.

The Captain clapped as he walked into the centre of their camp. He jumped on a dirt mound that put him higher and called out loud. “Everyone, gather round. There are changes in the plan.”

If anyone wondered why their Captain spoke so strangely articulated and slow, they didn’t question aloud. They saw his hand pass across his chest, momentarily performing a sign—a loose “gun hand” with the pinkie lazily pulled out— and then another.

Silence

Follow

Jackie stood a bit outside the circle that had formed, minus William and Minny who stood by the prisoners. Jackie’s back rested against an old grey trunk, her height similarly increased by a large root that rose like a wave out of the ground. She was high enough and at the right angle. Anyone looking at her would see her watching the Captain.

“I know we all thought we were going to have an easier path ahead, now that the majority of the monstrosities seem to be behind us. Unfortunately, we were wrong. The inhabitants of this place know where we are. They are coming to save our g—the prisoners,” the Captain announced. Brows furled questioningly, but everyone kept quiet. “We will need to move faster.”

The Captain’s eyes met hers. She slowly turned her head to the left by a hair’s breadth and then to the right.

She saw his Adam's apple convulsing up and down. The proof of his discomfort was a cool kiss on a burn wound. He still was her Captain.

“We can not keep our prisoners with us. They slow us down. We can not let them tell anyone where we are heading. Sergeant!” the Captain called.

Sergeant Darry, standing easily above everyone else, stood at attention as sharp as a cadet fresh out of boot camp. “Sir!”

“Kill the white one and the girl child. We are only taking the dragon.”

Jackie closed her eyes, but the sight had left its imprint. She’d never forget the terror she saw in the child’s eyes. They stood on the other side of the shimmering coals, illuminated in pale red hues. The small dragon had turned to his compatriots who hadn’t been able to understand what was to happen to them.

So much for the chances of dragons being inherently evil. No such escape for their conscience. His trembling lips broke Jackie’s heart. He was just a kid. Just a little kid.

Jackie nodded. She heard the rousing commotion cut short as the Captain cancelled his orders. She strode forward and pushed herself in front of her gathered teammates. Whatever happened next, she was partly responsible.

“Gotcha, little dragon,” the Captain said as he crouched to the child’s level. “Let’s talk, okay?”

The dragon looked around, taking in the small crowd of armed men and women encircling them. The Captain remained smiling and a non-threatening distance away, yet the dragon looked back at him with undisguised fear and distrust.

Another gesture, and William and Minny herded away the quadruped prisoners behind them, leaving the child dragon to face the Captain on his own. The dragon panicked. The Captain grabbed him, ordering the prisoners to remain but no closer than they were.

He waited for the child to calm down, pretending to be interested in something to his left and allowing the kid time to wipe its face and stop sniffling.

Anthony offered his canteen and an old, threadbare handkerchief. The dragon made use of both, and returned them with a word in his own language. After a moment’s hesitation, he spoke again.

“Thank,” he said to the Captain in front of him.

The Captain talked slowly and enunciated each word carefully. “You don’t have to fear.”

The little dragon’s eyes narrowed. He stood up straighter. “F-Fear no,” he said, the tremble almost imperceptible.

The white adult shouted unintelligible words. The dragon spoke a few words at her and exchanged gestures that intrigued Jackie. How strange his mannerisms were; nothing like you’d expect from quadruped races to evolve. She found that exaggerated shrug especially... boyishly cute.

“Good. We’re not going to hurt you. Hurt no. Pain no. Understand?”

The dragon glanced at the white adult and the female child at her side that watched through the legs of the men keeping an eye on them.

The Captain snapped his fingers. “No. No hurt. Not them, not you. Understand? No pain. Safe. Forever. All time. Safe. Okay?”

The dragon nodded hesitantly.

The Captain kept his smile on. “You know a few words, at least. We can work with that.” He examined the two other prisoners, rubbing at his lips. “Why do you know our language and they don’t?” He pointed at his own lips when the child frowned. “Talk. You speak. They don’t. They no speak,” he clarified, pointing back at the quadrupeds.

The dragon’s eyes flared with defiance. “Father.”

He spoke the word proudly. He straightened his shoulders as he said it.

The answer slapped the smile from the Captain’s face.

“Father speak. Father…” the little dragon hesitated for a few moments before pantomiming writing something on the air and then reading a book.

“Who is… Father?”

The dragon seemed to be thinking. He pointed high, straight at sergeant Darry’s head so far above himself. “Father big more. More, more.”

“And is father… here?”

The child nodded. “Father help.” The dragon’s claw pointed at himself then the other two. “Free, Father you leave. No free, Father you hurt,” he said and pointed at the Captain. The child paused as the Captain rose and backed away from him with shaking steps, a hand over his mouth. The kid smiled proudly. “Father fear you no. You good fear father. ”

“Sweet baby Jesus…” Sergeant Darry gasped, his dark skin turned ashen. He addressed the Captain. “It can’t be what it sounds like, right?”

Jackie understood why the usually unflappable sergeant reacted this way. If the child was saying the truth, they had an actual, very big, adult dragon coming after them. God knew if bullets would even slow him down if they were as big as in myths—

Oh.

Oh shit. Oh crap. Sweet Jesus and Mary in Heaven, have mercy on us. That wasn’t what scared the sergeant

The little dragon spoke their language. His father had taught him their language. How would a dragon know the language of a world that wasn’t theirs—

“Break camp! This is now an Ender scenario!” The Captain panicked. “Gather your gear, leave behind everything that will slow you. Burn it and bury it. We leave no trace of who we are or where we’re from. We’re gunning for the Gate and we don’t stop for nothing until we get there! And get your safeties off! Anything or anyone that tries to stop us is killed on sight! Don’t conserve, just shoot! Move, people! I want us running in less than fifteen minutes. Go, go, go!”

“What about them, sir?” Sergeant Darry asked as men scrambled about.

Jackie had bent down to pick apart her own backpack. She hurriedly swivelled around. The Captain held his hand over the holster of his pistol. Sweat had broken on his face, and fear had nested in the eyes jumping from adult prisoner to adolescent. He locked eyes with the huge eyes of the little girl with the bow.

He gripped the holster.

The white unicorn-like alien sprang forward, dodging William and even outdoing Miny’s reflexes. She bobbed and weaved around the sergeant and threw herself forward, her no-longer innocent-looking horn leading the way towards the Captain, snarling in desperate determination.

Jackie slammed the butt of her rifle into her face, bringing the alien down. A thin rivulet of blood peeked out of the new contusion behind her horn.

Jackie realized she had been holding her breath. She let it out in a tremble. Victor lowered his own gun. Liam held his at a half-ready position.

Her knees felt just about ready to give up.

“For fuck’s sake!” William growled as he reached the alien’s side at her feet. “Can we stop breaking her skull for a minute?”

“Victor, Liam.” Sergeant Darry’s right hand was raised in a placating gesture. “Put your guns away, both of you. It’s over. Jackie, you holding on, girl?”

“I didn’t shoot her, sir,” Jackie said in relief, licking her dry lips. She dropped her rifle, letting the 2-point sling catch it and shook the adrenaline out of her shaking hands.

“Cálmate, chica, it was charging at the boss,” Victor nonchalantly told Jackie. “No one would blame you if you did.”

“And you think that’s all the excuse I need, huh,” Jackie hissed.

The Captain stepped in between them. His calm features turned from Jackie to Victor. “She’s a little over one meter tall at the shoulder. I think I could have taken her."

Victor shrugged. “Por si las moscas, Capitán.”

The Captain’s left eye twitched, then his voice dripped with honey. “Thank you, Victor. But loyalty to me or the team shouldn’t blind us, not to this point where we excuse overkill against innocent people.” He patted Victor on the back and moved out from between them.

“Ship has long sailed, amigo,” Victor mumbled.

“How is she?” the Captain asked William who was daintily examining the adult’s skull.

“How am I supposed to know?” William frowned. “Do you know how much damage their brains can take before they develop a life-threatening edema? A clot? Because I don’t! That’s the second time we’ve tried to pop her head open, for God’s sake!”

“William. Take a breath.” The Captain knelt next to the broad man, and unseen from their prisoners he breathed: “The kid can hear you.”

William did as the Captain urged, then faked a cheerier tone. “She’s going to be fine. Okay. Not hurt!” He dropped the cheer when he lowered his voice. "She lost consciousness and she just threw up. She’s nauseous. These are not healthy signs, alien brains or not.”

“Can she walk?”

“Yes. And so can a man shot in the gut. It’s not a good idea to do so either way.”

“Then carry her.”

“I—” William shook his head fiercely. “I don’t know if we can!”

The Captain’s features were firm. “Then we’ll try. We’ll carry all of them. Give the little girl to Mark, and Victor can carry the dragon. You can carry her and watch how she’s doing.”

“... I would like to stay behind, sir. She should be given care by someone who knows what to do with her, not me. I can take her to that mountain city, they’ll have doctors or hospitals, or I can head back where—”

“We can’t afford to let an Ender know more about us than what it might already know, William. If it gets you…” He let the silence hang heavy over their heads. “We take them with us,” he finally said, standing, “and no one stays behind.”

The Captain’s shoulders sagged. He addressed the sergeant next to them. “Ender or not, we don’t hurt anyone if we don’t have to. Rescind the shoot on sight order.”

The sergeant ran off, shouting instructions and barking as soon as he spotted the slightest sign of slacking. Their younger prisoners fought and struggled, unwilling to be tied up and saddled on the backs of the ones who would carry them, trying to reach the adult’s side instead.

Jackie pulled up her backpack, trying to ignore her trembling. The backpack sagged limply, almost weightless. She had thrown off everything apart from ammo, water, a couple of flares, the almost empty personal medkit, and the few working gun part replacements.

She couldn’t believe no one had reprimanded her or smacked her yet. That she had been forgotten in this whole mess. She rubbed her temple, her skull throbbing. Nevermind. Perhaps it wasn’t so unbelievable. They were so fucking close everyone had to be sporting the mother of all migraines.

The little dragon had gone berserk. He kept breathing out gouts of flames, and there was no stopping him. Anything they tried to block his mouth with he either bit through or melted. Whoever walked behind Victor would have to make sure they kept some distance or they’d end up with serious burns.

She hoped the mostly-naked forest was dense enough to stop anyone from noticing the tongues of flame.

The sun.

The sun that had risen less than an hour ago vanished in an instant, replaced by a crescent moon that soared high in the sky.

This wasn’t possible. This couldn’t be possible!

Five and above is where true magic lies.

Jackie crossed herself. She wasn’t the only one.

“Captain… this can’t be about us, can it?” Mark’s question pulled them out of their shock and in the grim reality they faced.

Jackie looked to the Captain. Almost everyone else was still looking upwards and arguing to explain the unexplainable as some kind of mass illusion, or pointing their weapons to all directions in the newborn darkness in anticipation of an army of fire-breathing demons to come down on them.

She doubted anyone else apart from her and sergeant Darry noticed the Captain take a second to glare daggers at the grinning dragon.

No. Surely, this wasn’t done on purpose. They couldn’t move the planet for three people.

No. They were… their villages were of wood and stone. They flew and moved things by magic, but they were small. It couldn’t be the horse-like people. That left the Dragon. Did he really possess that kind of… of sheer power? But why…

Why help them hide better?

“Set up a vanguard and a rearguard," the Captain ordered. "Main force surrounds the prisoners. I want the column spread. If this little dragon’s breath is a portent of what’s to come then I don’t want us bunched up. If something attacks the center, the vanguard and rearguard will perform a pincer as it retreats. We have to slow down as long as this,” he pointed at the sky, “is happening. But if it isn’t for us… this might be our lucky break.”

“What’s the protocol if the front or back gets attacked?” Curry asked.

“There might be an Ender. The rear and front are expendable. Don’t get taken alive.” The Captain huffed. “How many radios are still working?”

“Five, but we only have four batteries left intact.” Sergeant Darry raised one of them on display.

“Give me one, and you take the other. Vanguard and rearguard take one each.”

The shock of what happened to the sky was soon delegated to a tertiary concern. Choosing who would be in what group took precedence. The orders were everything. What was the movement of the planet compared to an entity that had killed billions and was coming for you?

They started moving again. Jackie watched the main force move ahead as she was left behind.

Ruthus and her were the rearguard.

The moon shone barely on them, its light cold.

Not everyone would go home if the Captain could help it. That was the plan, after all. She wondered if she could... if she was given the chance… What would she choose to do when they were at the Gate? If she had a chance to grab one of them and split?

“Any chance you want to start calling me Blade?” Ruthus grinned hopefully.

The moonlight shivered among skeletal branches, casting shadows that piled on one another and formed umbral mounds that naked eyes couldn’t pierce. With each step the shadows shifted, following along and skirting to a different trunk, a different thicket, a different rise and decline.

It had been a couple of hours since the sun set shortly after it rose. The surge of adrenaline had long faded away. The lack of sleep was getting to Jackie, but not as much as the droning pain of the Gates. Every increasing throb in her head was another step that would take them closer to home, the dwindling distance trumping the chemicals in their system.

There was movement in front of her and she brought her rifle up. Ruthus did as well, a hint slower than what Jackie would have expected him to. The pain was getting to him as well.

As sergeant Darry’s tall form approached and became visible, Ruthus and Jackie kept their rifles up.

“Four,” Ruthus called out.

“Six,” the sergeant responded, giving them back the number doubled minus his number in the group. It always seemed a tad too over-the-top measure, but not anymore.

Five and above is where true magic lies.

The suggestion that there was need for such measure, and even more than the team already had it established before this, freaked her out if she thought over it too much.

“All’s well back here?” the sergeant asked.

“Nothing as much as a shaken leaf, sir,” Ruthus answered along with a quick salute. “Not that there’s enough leaves to shake. No changes since the last check-in. Is there something wrong with the radio?”

“No issues, count our blessings. I’m only checking on you in person. Seeing how you’re holding up.”

“Still going strong, sir,” Jackie reported. “We’ve set trip-ups every fifty meters. Set a fake trail of twenty meters every two hundred. Rework our follow vector—”

“—by thirty degrees every five minutes. Every trick in the book.” He frowned despite his words as he looked them up and down, but said nothing of it and marched along with them. “The Captain doesn’t want you boys—and girls—to relax yet, but this dark boogie-boogie might have had nothing to do with us. Standard practice would have been to assault while under shock and awe and the sudden darkness. If it was for us, assuming it’s not a natural event, they missed their window. Still, keep alert. Just because it’s not for us doesn’t mean something else might not try to use it to its advantage. I’ve had enough spider monsters and rock crocodiles for the rest of my life a week ago.”

For a while it was silence as always, keeping vigil and waiting for the next check-in. But of course, the sergeant didn’t choose to linger after checking on them without purpose.

“Could you give us some space, Ruthus?”

“Blade.”

“Give us some space, Ruthus.”

The thick-built man nodded in resignation, obediently moving four meters to the side. Sergeant Darry shuffled closer, almost whispering in Jackie’s ear.

“You put a fire under the Captain’s arse,” he casually said. Jackie stumbled for an answer for a second, her brain screaming to know what exactly was she thinking with, only to calm when she spotted the sergeant’s teeth shine white and bright through his wide smile.

“I’m sorry for disappointing you, sergeant.”

“It’s not what you said,'' sergeant Darry assured her, shaking his hand as if to scare a fly. “It’s when you said it. Destroying the team’s leadership and chain of command isn’t an activity you should entertain in the goddamn, fucking field, Jackie. What the fuck were you thinking?” His dark lips had pulled up, showing his teeth.

Jackie winced. “Lots of things, sir. Not… not this, though. I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry,” she admitted. Her stomach churned. A whiff of bile rose at her nose, and she burped in disgust. As soon as it did, the subtle but telling smell was gone.

“Well, thanks to you, now I have to juggle all the balls you dropped my way like a court jester.” Sergeant Darry dragged the words out but they came faster and harsher as he kept on. “Forget all the fires you lit among the others that we didn’t need. You know what the Captain’s been saying, Jackie? What you caused? What he’s thinking? He wants to recommend you for team captaincy, you absolute ninnyhammer!”

They walked in silence for a few seconds. Jackie spotted a bird jumping in flight from among some bushes and stopped her rifle from coming all the way up for it.

She cleared her throat. “That’s a joke, right?”

“Do I look like a stand-up comic to ya, girlie? This is serious. He’s off to getting himself locked up in a little cell till his brain melts through his ears.”

“Locked—How the hell do recommendations work?” Jackie wheezed.

“You point at someone good, write down your points, and recommend them. The crucial point that our Captain doesn’t want to recognize is how crazy his reasoning will sound.”

“It is crazy! I’m greener than a baby’s first crap compared to almost everyone else here, and I also… you know.”

“Nice way of putting it.” The sergeant flashed a short-lived—yet dead—smile. “But the Captain says ‘we’ve forgotten that when the Templar Knights started out they were protecting people on the road to Jerusalem. Too much sword and not enough shield’. He might be right, but that doesn’t make you anywhere near a decent choice.”

“I… I know I’m not.”

“No, you aren’t. You think it’s because you don’t have the skills or experience. Yet even if you do get them, even if you get all the experience in the world, you’ll still make a lousy team captain. Do you know why that is, Jackie?”

“Because I’m the type to choose to destroy leadership mid-mission?”

The sergeant’s disappointment deflated, leaving traces of pity. He rubbed at his eyes. “I get what the Captain’s going for, but the powers-that-be back home… The times of trusting a long winded road because you believed God and righteousness were on your side are gone. Progress is the new god. What is demanded is immediate action, and answers that can be used; steps forward. What good is faith in your men if they don’t give you results? And if one of them is babbling moral nonsense that’s unfit to the grander mission, who’s to say immortality hasn’t driven them crazy? That dementia isn’t settling in? Best to get rid of them. Results, Jackie. Rational decisions. Never take too many risks, never do something just because it’s right if it doesn’t have benefits, never put your trust in someone over the immediate—”

“Collateral damage to an efficient operation. What is the life of one or four people in the grand scheme of things?” Jackie filled in with a pout of her own.

“Not as nice a way of putting it, but correct. Right or not, it’s what is expected, demanded. We hide our brightest moments under the rug, but when the chips are down the swords must be drawn and the shields put down.” Sergeant Darry let out a weary sigh, rubbing the side of his face. Tiredness and worry had slumped over his face. “Maybe I’m just a cynic. Just promise me that when he sits you down to discuss this you will do everything you can to convince him not to go through with this stupid—”

A faint crackle came from his belt. The sergeant covered his left ear with his hand. “Speaking of which… This is Two. Rear guard is—”

He stopped as he glanced to his right. Ruthus was gone.

Ch.54 - The Reaper

Ruthus was gone.

No sound. No sign. No nothing.

The radio crackled ominously as the grim-faced sergeant brought his rifle to bear with Jackie following suit. He slowly rotated around, Jackie covering his six.

The minuscule radio garbled as loud as thunder. “One, this is Two. Lost contact with Nine. No visual of hostiles.”

He signed for Jackie to search the ground.

Kneeling, Jackie took off a glove and pressed her naked palm against the ground. It was cold. Hard. She dragged her fingers, collecting dead leaves, pebbles, and twigs. They crinkled softly. She had heard no such sound coming from behind them or their side, nothing apart from their own. Even if they had been talking—

But had she been hearing just their own? Had there been an echo that didn’t belong to the forest?

Their own steps were clearly laid out if she looked for them, but no others.

“Anything?”

“Nothing yet,” she shook her head, briefly digging into an almost emptied pouch on her side. She lit one of the flares she had saved, bathing the area in red light.

“No tracks yet,” the sergeant reported. “No, we didn’t hear anything. He just vanished, sir. Permission to—Yes, sir. We’ll wait for you.” He glanced briefly at Jackie. “Now ain’t the time, girly.”

“If something took Ruthus it already knows we’re here,” she replied absent-mindedly.

She spared a glance at the sergeant. She spotted his agitation on his concave lips. The sergeant was a large powerful man. Large powerful men don’t deal well with feeling powerless. For herself, everything suddenly slipped back into place. She had clear objectives, where shades of gray, white, or black, didn’t matter anymore. No hard questions that tore her apart, not even whether Ruthus was alive. It didn’t matter to the job she had to do. She was… focused.

Under different circumstances Seargeant Darry’s mutter of, “Stupid magic voodoo horseshit…” would make her chuckle.

She didn’t believe it was magic. She’d seen magic, even if from a distance, and this… this felt otherwise.

Jackie was vividly reminded of her ninth birthday. Her parents took her and her best friends at the time—what were their names?—to a magic show. The magician pulled Jackie up along with one of her friends. He counted cards and gave them to her, telling her to keep them tight. He did the same with her friend.

Then he swished and swooshed, speaking magic words and making her parents laugh. He asked for the cards back, telling Jackie to count hers back.

She ended up with more cards that she originally had, her friend with less.

Everyone applauded the “magic.” To a nine year old, it was simultaneously miraculous and mundane. Yet she hadn’t liked the swooshing. If it was magic, why did he have to wave his hands like that?

Because it was a diversion, of course. The magician made everyone think the magic happened before the end. But the trick had happened long before. When he counted the cards, doing his funny prattle. When he didn’t give her the cards he had counted that they’d never noticed. The trick was set before the magic happened.

Ruthus’ disappearance felt like that. A trick had been pulled on them. But when had it been set?

And where did the cards go?

“We shouldn't move off too far, Jackie.” The sergeant broke her out of her thoughts. Looking back she saw he was following. “Wait for the Captain if you do find something. Strength in numbers.”

Strength in numbers when they had been split up on purpose. Why was even the Captain leading the rest of the team here? Jackie thought. The purpose of a rearguard was meant to keep the main body safe, not the other way around. Why spread them out only to come running at the first sign of trouble?

She followed their own tracks, two sets of disturbed and cracked leaves, highly visible if you knew exactly where to look.

She soon found the third set of tracks. They reached up to a tree, and then stopped.

She ran the tip of her finger across a rock, feeling a fresh scratch.

Ruthus weighed, what, seventy kilograms? And that was without his gear. If something managed to drag him off without a sound then it had to be big. But even a large tiger would be unable to drag him off with no tracks. Some of those things in there had been smart, but this smart? And strong enough to take down and carry Ruthus quietly?

Her search was interrupted a few tense minutes later when the majority of the team—vanguard notwithstanding—was with them. The captives were kept in the middle. Slowly, never losing direct eyesight of each other, the team expanded out, looking for tracks in the darkness, the flare having burned out.

“You heard nothing?” the Captain asked Jackie and his sergeant as their teammates passed them by.

“No, sir,” they chorused.

“Nothing approaching? No hint that he walked away? No… magic whoosh?”

“We call out even when we take a piss, so we all know he didn’t just walk away. Ruthus was on the right flank, about five to six meters away from us. Sergeant Darry walked next to me, between me and Ruthus. Sergeant’s a big man, so he did block my view, and I was mostly focused on our left flank and back. Still, Ruthus was there, he was practically right next to us. Then he… wasn’t.”

“We were talking, Captain. We let ourselves be distracted. I fucked up.”

“Find Ruthus, not who’s to blame. There’ll be time for that later,” the Captain said with an angry frown.

Jackie nodded towards Liam and Victor. “They’re looking in the wrong direction.”

The two men frowned questioningly.

“Monster or pursuer, that way would lead back to their village or back to the darker forest. Can you think of a better place to start?” Sergeant Darry commented.

She pointed in the opposite direction.

“The tracks stop by this tree,” she said, tapping the trunk. “Anything heading west or north we’d’ve seen.… But, if you use the trunk to block immediate line of sight for those couple of seconds, even if you make the slightest noise from where it would have been Ruthus slacking a step or two behind…”

“Then you head away from their nest,” the Captain finished.

“Away from where we’d expect them to go.”

“And if it was, say, a spider that grabbed him and took him into the trees? Or magic?”

“Then there would be no tracks and we’d be wasting our time. But if there are tracks…”

The Captain turned to the sergeant. “Makes sense to me.”

“If it was a critter, it would take a real smart one to do all that,” Sergeant Darry responded.

“They got Ruthus without a peep. They’re smart enough.” The Captain scratched at his chin. He turned to Liam and Victor who had stopped. “What are you waiting for? Didn’t you hear her? That way. Find him.”

Two minutes later Victor called out.

He had found tracks.

“What do we have?” The Captain asked.

Sergeant Darry’s black finger, almost invisible in the darkness, pointed a shallow gouge on the ground. “See those drag marks? From our own boots. You can see the sharp imprint at the end.”

“Way more this way.” Miny rose up holding a few broken twigs. “Whatever took him was clumsy.”

“It wasn’t clumsy when it grabbed him,” Jackie pointed out, frowning.

“Masks on,” the Captain ordered. “Keep an eye out for lights, weird patterns, and for heaven’s sake, if you smell anything, call it out. Same for strange or very loud thoughts. And keep an eye on each other for suspicious behavior.”

Liam shouldered Jackie. “My last filter’s out. Do you…”

Jackie handed over one of her last three, watching the quiet man replace the thin disk wafer in his mask before putting it on, the seamless connection made secure on his helmet with the lightest of clicks. She checked his lining for holes and he did the same for her.

As the world constricted, her breath echoed in her ears like a wave heard from underwater. The darkness became more oppressive, as if the light feared to tread through the lenses. She inhaled, and the smells of the forest―bark, sap, and cold night air―were gone.

They formed a rough circle, keeping the prisoners safe in the middle, Jackie and Victor at the front.

They followed a trail that became distrustingly obvious as they went on for over a hundred meters until Jackie raised her fist.

Jackie kept staring. It might have been only a play of the shadows, but she could swear, the tree she was looking at… had it been as thick before? Or was it just her mind playing tricks on her, turning branches into fingers?

But at the next blink it was just a normal tree again, naked branches waving in the stiff night breeze. She signed for the group to continue.

They walked on, even more on their guard and with hairs prickling on the back of their necks, until she motioned again. The prisoners were moved further back, and they walked the last few meters forward to finally find their lost companion.

He was standing up, his forehead resting against a tree. He looked as if he were playing hide and seek, ready to finish counting down at any moment and turn around.

The blackened puddle at his feet proved otherwise. His rifle had fallen from his grip, soaked through, the safety still on.

The Captain reached for his shoulder and shook it gently. Ruthus rocked in place, his boots slipping from where they stood, yet without causing him to fall. A rictus of grief clouded the Captain’s face for a moment before he masked it with an expression of grim determination. He took hold of Ruthus’ head, a palm resting on each temple, and pulled.

Once he dragged his eye socket out of the branch that propped him up, he gently laid him down with Miny’s help.

Ruthus’ neck was broken. It could have happened when his throat was ripped out. The left edge of the wound was cut, the sharp serration of teeth evident, but the rest of the flesh had simply been pulled away by force.

Liam had sat at the base of a tree, dropping his weapon and covering his face. Curry, following the sergeant’s nod, knelt beside him, gently cajoling him to stand again.

The rhyme that Liam kept chanting was foreboding and creepy enough of its own. Eight and One and Two, something’s gotten through... It brought a chill to the spine, telling of graves and butchered cities.

Whoever had come up with this as a rhyme for children was hopefully shot before Liam’s world met its unfortunate end.

“Victor, Mark, eyes on the trees. The rest of you, ground circle linesights,” Sergeant Darry ordered.

“Some kind of feline or canine?” the sergeant suggested to Curry, pointing at the torn throat.

“Too small of a wound. It carried him unnoticed. Another kind of spider would be my guess. The pincers are small respective to their size. Maybe. This is a mess. It might be a claw wound the way it’s all mangled,” Curry retorted. He squeezed the body’s lower spine. “I think his back was broken. The skull’s sunk in as well. I can’t tell what it was that killed him.”

Jackie pictured a spider. Not like the ones before, but bigger and more lithe. Hairless, with a black carapace and with sharp edges, long legs poised to cradle its victim. She could almost see it slithering down a strand, a breath’s distance from her, and grabbing Ruthus. It could have just as easily been her.

But what was really taking her attention was the trail they had followed. It stopped dead here, and fuck the pun.

Once again, there was no sign of anything.

The Captain didn’t care for the trail. He was busy gazing at the dead body, silently rubbing his own palm.

“Captain?” Sergeant Darry said softly, placing his large palm on the Captain’s shoulder. “Are you alright, sir?”

The Captain’s head shook as if stirred awake. He glanced at the sergeant’s hand and sighed. “I’m… thinking.”

“We should figure out our next move,” Curry suggested quietly.

“Hmmm…” The Captain turned his attention back to their fallen comrade. He weakly raised a hand towards the grisly scene. “Someone gather Ruthus’ personal effects,” the Captain said at large.

Sergeant Darry approached him. “My money’s on a critter, sir.”

“Mine’s not. Magic, no magic, the world plunged in night, the Dragon’s here and yet no Dragon to be seen, and a good man wasted for… One of my men is dead by what you think is a ‘critter’ that’s smart enough to do what exactly? Does anything make sense to you?”

The sergeant shook his head. “None. But like you said, sir, if it was the Dragon or the locals, that’s not what they’d do. I’m telling you, it’s an opportunistic freak. It probably got scared and dropped Ruthus when Jackie lit that flare up, dragged him here, then scampered off when we got too close.”

“Fine guesswork is still guesswork.”

“I want to take it down. It might come after us again, and it’s not a distraction we want—”

“Don’t bullshit me, Darry.”

The sergeant huffed a tired sigh. “It killed one of our men, sir. Can you blame me?”

The Captain pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes. What killed Ruthus wasn’t it.” He let out a frustrated breath. “What do you want to do?”

“Just take a walk. All on my lonesome, I’ll bet I’ll make for a juicy looking prize. But I’ll be waiting for it this time.”

“And if I say no?”

“Your decision, sir. It’s what I think is best, that’s all.”

The Captain considered for a few seconds. “I’ll give you a half hour, forty minutes max. If the Dragon is truly on this world then every second counts.” He activated the radio. “Eight, this is One. We’re about two hundred meters south of the rearguard's last stop. Find a place for us to hunker down. I want some clear space if possible. Quick as you can, please.” He swivelled back to look at the corpse. “Watch your six, understand?” He said to the sergeant.

The sergeant nodded. “I’ll keep my radio on your personal channel, sir. I’ll find a good place to hunker myself and get it first. I’ll bring back its head.” He left with big impatient strides, quickly vanishing through the dead foliage.

“Heavens, please give me this one,” The Captain whispered to himself. He raised his hand to his ear again. “This is One. Location? Two five north east of stop? Yours or ours, Eight? Alright. Sounds like it will do, Eight. We will be there shortly. Make preparations and safeguard the area. Watch the trees and keep visual with Seven at all times,” he warned the radio. “One out.”

The Captain stepped away, leaving them to sort through the corpse.

Jackie swivelled her head to the north as she caught the... feeling of a sound rather than actual noise. The sergeant on his hunt, surely, making sure nothing was around the perimeter first. She looked, but all she saw was more dead trees, weak short branches hugging a trunk like fingers. He was… stealthier than she remembered.

Across her, Miny unclasped Ruthus’ tags and carefully went through his personal belongings, few that they were: an engagement ring that he wasn’t wearing; a folded bucket list he kept sealed in plastic―a list he had proudly declared unfinished and ever growing on more than one night around a fire; a few more bits and ends he kept at his pocket that meant nothing to anyone but him; a button; a rock with carved initials; and a photo of a man he kept printing anew before each excursion beyond the Gate.

For her part, Jackie was busy examining the corpse that her mind very carefully referred to as such and not Ruthus.

The back of the heels were scratched, yet not as high as she’d expect. Whatever dragged him did so from a high enough fulcrum that the corpse’s heels were dragged on a steep angle.

A glove was missing. A pouch seemed to have been torn off and gone. The radio in his ear was nowhere to be found. His pistol had lost its magazine. Buttons had vanished, and other bits and pieces had disappeared as well.

Victims of a brief struggle or a violent hastened trudge through the forest, that’s what one would normally think. Yet, how come they hadn’t actually run across any of them on the trail?

Miny stared at the photograph, her legs crossed and her other hand rubbing the ring. “Does anyone know whose ring this is?” she asked.

Curry turned his face away. He had been close friends with Ruthus. Jackie was very careful in keeping her face set as stone.

Jackie had never asked. Yet even so, everyone had been almost desperate to tell the newbie the secrets and treasures they should have kept close to their heart. They’d corner her every few weeks, one by one, and talk and talk. She listened, but she had never been sure what to do with what they told her.

I’m going to ask her out this time, just as soon as we’re back. I’ll charm her boots off. Me and her, across the worlds. It’s fate, you see? And one day I’ll give her this. And I’ll say, “I knew you were the one for me since I first laid eyes on you!” And she’ll be so impressed at how romantic I am, she’ll say yes. Maybe we will take one last mission, and when we find a good place we’ll desert and stay there. Be together forever. Till death do us part, and it won’t do us part for a long, long time. She will say yes. She will. She will, won’t she, Jackie? Jackie, why are you laughing? That’s romantic, right?

“He thought it’d make a good luck charm,”Curry said.

“He was a kid at heart, wasn’t he?” Miny lamented as she passed her fingers across Ruthus’ eyes, closing them for good. “Damn idiot…”she murmured, her voice tight. She clutched the ring and the photo for a second, and then passed them to Mark who folded them in a piece of cloth.

The white alien female on William’s back patted the sad man’s shoulder and whispered gentle sounds. The grief in her large eyes, grief for the loss of those who hurt her, was almost enough to make Jackie discount any possibility of her people being responsible.

They couldn’t afford the time to bury Ruthus or set a pyre. They laid him in a more dignified position, his head covered with dried leaves and leafless branches over his body.

The previous order no longer had any meaning; No signs of them should be left behind. They all knew the body would be disposed of soon by the forest’s denizens, but there would be remains, pieces of cloth and others. They stripped him naked and burned it all, a feeling of robbing the dead of their dignity covering them.

Jackie apologized fervently to the dead man as she helped lift his legs. She should have…

Done what? she mourned. She found him. She did her part. They were colleagues, not friends.

And perhaps that was what the sergeant had been hinting at. The fault she had. Yet she’d always choose this way. She’d never bury a friend if she didn’t have to.

Someone would have said a few words before leaving if the distant shooting north of them hadn’t set them on a frenzy of motion, the Captain shouting for the vanguard to answer while they ran for their position, prisoners on their backs and rifles at the ready.

There had been only three shots.

And no answer on the radio.

“Eight, this is One! Respond! Seven, respond! Troy, Anthony! Anthony, fucking answer! Two, what’s your position? Did you hear the gunfire? Two? Two, this is One! Two, respond! Damnit! Two, I don’t care about damn radio silence, respond! Two! Two! Heaven’s damn you, Two, don’t fucking do this to me now!”

Jackie paused next to an exceptionally large trunk. The Captain’s body language was controlled and precise despite his hurried language, and his head swivelled from side to side, taking in everything. A gesture and a word would hurriedly restructure their line, keeping them all in each other’s line of sight, their positions flowing chaotically yet without leaving an opening.

The same vanishing trick wouldn’t work again under the Captain’s direct command.

“Marker from Eight,” Miny called out. “It points the same direction.”

“Verify it’s not been tampered with,” the Captain instructed. “Look for Seven’s verification marker. Jacqueline, it should be in your area.”

Jackie traced the ground with her eyes, finally spotting a pair of fletched sticks positioned randomly in a very precise way. “Seven confirmed,” she answered back.

“Ten meter advance. Move the prisoners to the back left flank. William, how is she?”

“They’ve all been pretty quiet since poor Ruthus.”

“Fuckers know exactly what killed three of us and they ain’t talking,” Victor growled. His brows behind the visor of his mask were angled in rage. “We’re trampling into the unknown instead of—”

“Instead of what, man?” Curry interrupted him. “The boy can barely speak a few words.”

“That dragon might be faking it. Vaya tela. If we didn’t spend our time showering it in candy and actually got it to spill…” He spoke through gnashed teeth, loud enough for everyone near him to hear him clearly.

“I see where this is going and you better shut your goddamn mouth before I put a bullet in your ass for implying what I think you’re implying,” Curry hissed.

Victor shook his head. “I’m being realistic. To think Ruthus called you a friend,” he said contemptuously.

“You shut your fucking mouth!”

Ignore him and do your job, Jackie told herself. Her heart was thumping wildly. She was on the rightmost edge, and she wasn’t going to lose her focus and be another man’s death any time soon. She scanned everything around her, every loose pebble, every root, every gnarled tree-trunk. Everything was knives and teeth. Every sharp turn of her head made her stomach leap to her throat as she expected to see a pit of fire burning inside a huge maw. Every branch above was a spider’s leg. Every shadow hid an assassin of smoke and pale white blades.

She was as shaken as everyone else was. It’s one thing to believe you have at least a semi-handle on events, that fuck-ups might happen but ultimately you and your team would be on top. It’s an entirely completely different beast when you’re unsupported in the middle of enemy territory, your teammates dropping left and right, and you still have no idea what is happening. Panic hadn’t settled in yet. It probably wouldn’t, they were trained, they were soldiers, but it was making a nice comfy groove to perch on and watch from.

The whole time she felt eyes on her. Like a panther was watching her from the trees, patiently awaiting the moment the back of her neck would be in its maw. She should call it in. There was something, a presence. But it was less than a shadow. Just a feeling. A dread. A sense of doom.

Miny kept glancing back. Victor’s head swivelled sharply from side to side as if he had been trying to catch sight of something. The Captain would pause and intently stare at the shadows.

Everyone felt the same. No one voiced it or called it out. If they started doing it they’d only trample in the forest for hours.

The wariness of the absolute unknown made her senses blurry. It was a miracle she saw it.

Even as her brain dismissed it as sap, she leaned closer to inspect the torn bark in case of it being another trailmark. Then she spotted the eyelid, a drop of blood clinging on the eyelashes.

She tore the breather off her face, fell on her knees, and threw up.

“Breach! Breach!” someone yelled. She was too busy puking until she was dry-heaving to pay attention to who it was. Hands tried to pull her up by the armpits and she fought them off, pointing towards the offensive sight.

“Not gas,” she retched, and pointed. “This. This…”

“Holy shit…”

“Is that—Jesus, is that a fucking face?”

“Christ, they used the tree like a cheese grater—”

“Get the kids back for fuck’s sake! William, wake the fuck up!”

“Everybody back in order! Victor, Miny, Jackie, Mark, search the area. Keep line of sight with me. Find them, find their tracks, find who did this. Jacqueline, I need you to stand up and work, girl. We need everybody.”

“Y-Yes, sir,” she stammered. She was empty and every joint ached, pulsing to the beat of the Gates. God, that wasn’t a good way to go. That wasn’t a good way to go at all. Poor… Troy. Or Anthony. Neither of them deserved that.

Her face itched.

“W-We should run…” Liam stammered. He hunched in place, making himself small. “We should all run.”

“Back in position, Liam,” the Captain commanded harshly.

Jackie put her hand on a rock on the side to push herself up. She closed her eyes. Oh, fuck me, please don’t tell me this is what I think it is… She raised her suddenly wet hand, ignoring the handprint she left on the rock.

“We could just hunker down right here, that might not be a bad idea…”

“We can’t ‘hunker down.’ What if there’s someone after us?”

“Bitch, have you been paying attention?”

“It’s him!” Liam said, his voice rising above everyone’s else. “The Reaper is here! He’s hunting us!”

The Captain put his arm on the man’s shoulder. “Liam, this isn’t the Reaper. It’s not him. If there was an Ender after us we would be dead already. This isn’t the first time we have lost someone. It sucks, but it’s part of our job. We’re almost at the finish line, hold it together.”

Jackie’s hand was smeared with liquid that was tarrish black under the starlight. Traces of yellowish fat floated in the drowned canals of her handprint.

“Captain’s right,” Mark said. “I wish it was the Reaper, Liam. We can deal with a guy.”

The stone was large. Jackie would find it impossible to lift, let alone use it as a weapon. But something did. It was covered in gore. Not just blood, but the thick ichors and oils that laid beneath a man’s fat layer. There were minuscule white fragments, and she could only falsely believe they were broken parts of teeth like the one she was looking at.

Liam frantically swivelled in place, screaming from one masked face to another. “He isn’t just a guy! He’s been here the whole time! You think you can pretend he’s not? You can feel him! It all goes wrong! You make a wall to-to defend yourself and he uses it to trap you. This is what he does! He made the song, he has been among us for years. God, why do you think he left Ruthus like that? Why do you think he tore… fucking tore and left for us to find—”

Curry placed his arm around Liam’s shoulders as the man crumbled, sobbing like a child. He threw off his mask without care, and sunk his face into Curry’s shoulder.

Jackie saw them clearly. Two shallow trenches, dug by dragged bodies side by side. Dead bodies. She wasn’t going to let a fool’s hope blossom. The mud on the ground that hadn’t seen rain for days spoke all too loud.

She pointed, feeling something of what Liam had claimed. That it was all going to go wrong if she spoke up. That it was all going to go wrong if she didn’t.

There was a hint in the air. The presence of a smell, putrid and unclean. Of a body washed in the spoils of the dead, coppery and abhorrently sweet.

“Tracks,” Jackie said. She was heard, despite being barely louder than a whisper.

The Captain stepped in the lead, removing and replacing his magazine after a short showy inspection of how many bullets it held. The full thirty plus one in the chamber. Magic or not, Ender or not, they had quite some high-caliber firepower on their side.

And whatever killed their brothers was near.

“We find our people. Then we head for the Gate. This is just terror tactics. Soul-wrenching and despicable, but in the end nothing but a veil to hide weakness. To make us think they could take us even if we all stand together. I reckon we will all stand together. That we will lose no one else. That the tables are about to turn, and quite harshly at that. You want to stick around or are we going to go home already?”

Jackie stood up.

Mark straightened up.

William nodded.

Miny held her weapon ready.

Victor pounded his chest twice.

Curry stepped up.

Liam followed behind him after a moment’s hesitation, fiddling with his weapon’s strap. “I’m sorry for losing it there, sir,” he said meekly, not raising his head.

The Captain gave him a gentle smile. “Nothing wrong with fear as long as it doesn’t guide you. Form up. Keep the prisoners in the rear.”

For a moment they dared to hope.

Antony was on his knees against a wall of rocks, cradling Troy. Antony’s head dipped low, almost forehead to forehead with him. His hands surrounded him, and Troy held onto Anthony with equal fervor.

William’s disjointed movement to dash to the front to check on them halted in its tracks. He pulled back and bent down, pulling the two children close and covering their eyes, the adult alien at his back speaking in calm tones.

What laid before them was a mere puppet, its face pulverised. It hung onto another corpse with no will of its own but the thick branches that had been pierced through his wrists like nails. Troy’s head was backwards, his neck a mess of lacerated flesh and shredded bone. Two rifles laid crossed before them, like a marker.

It was a desecration, a mockery, a message.

"Joder!"

Victor’s loud swear made Jackie jump. The man screamed a train of profanities as he kicked the ground, launching loose dirt and pebbles like a shotgun. He was left to peter out on his own, his outrage a communal cleansing for all of them.

“Not an animal or monster then, for sure,” Curry said, asserting a definition that Jackie didn’t agree with.

Victor had put his forearm and head against a tree, breathing heavily. “Now what, boss?” he asked, his muffled voice still pulsing with anger.

“We lay them down properly,” the Captain said. “And then we move on.”

“Move on?” Victor came close and spat at the Captain’s face. “What, no more splitting us like bait?”

The Captain turned his back to the man's bile, directing Miny and Mark forward.

Victor’s hand grasped Mark’s with the speed of a lunging cobra. “He was my friend. I’ll do it.”

Jackie turned away when the first wooden stake was pulled out. God knew she wasn’t squeamish and she had seen more than her fair share of stomach-churning things, but that was when it wasn’t people she knew. People she liked. Because when it was… it was no longer easy to pretend that the torrent inside her was anything other than a howling mourn.

She focused on other things instead, trying to drown out the squelching noises with a flood of visual details. She examined the guns instead. She picked up Antony’s rifle, noting that it had been his that fired. She could smell it on the barrel and feel the feather-like diminishment of its weight. She passed it to Mark, taking up Troy’s rifle. This one hadn’t been fired, and yet the barrel was damaged, bent slightly as if it had been used like a club. The grip—The grip was covered in old stained leather, like the hilt of a sword.

This… This wasn’t Troy’s rifle.

This was Sergeant Darry’s rifle.

He made the song, I know he did. God, why do you think he left Ruthus like that?

Sergeant Darry had thought he knew how whatever killed Ruthus hunted. He was confident he could kill it. Because… if you know the patterns of your prey, it’s easier to hunt. That’s what a hunter does. Observe your target, learn its behaviours. Know how to strike. Know when to strike.

And what did this particular team of the Janus Division do when they came across a dead member?

Miny and Victor pulled Troy’s body away from Anthony’s, tugging at an unseen string that had been tying the bodies together. A small pin made of black metal sparkled in the starlight as it shot off from between the two bodies.

“Bomb!” Jackie yelled at the top of her lungs.

Jackie closed her eyes as she tackled Victor and Miny away from the bodies and down the shallow trench.

There was a click.

And the world was bathed in the blinding light and noise of a flashbang.

A flashbang, otherwise known as a stun grenade, is a non-lethal explosive device, a designation which doesn’t demerit its use in lethal engagements. On detonation it releases over seven million candela units of light, blinding everyone in range for a period of five seconds or more. The strong flash doesn’t require the victims to look straight at it.

The crack of thunder was almost instantly followed by a wet splash, like a wave crashed down on Jackie’s side. Her tongue tasted a few drops, pungent and alarm-invoking.

Jackie’s attempt to throw herself over her comrades ended with her lighter frame bouncing and her falling on her back. Or so she… She couldn’t tell. There was no sight, no sound, she was lost in a ghost realm of white grain. She felt stone shatter near her, too near. She made herself as small a target as possible. Her rifle was useless; she had no idea who was shooting. For fuck’s sake who’s shooting? Friendly fire, friendly fire! butsomeone was already shooting and everyone else might be dead already, she didn’t know, someone was shooting, and she was blind and defenceless!

The noise a flashbang produces is no less incapacitating. At over 170 decibels, it temporarily deafens nearby victims. Moreover, the “bang” disturbs the perilymph in the inner ear, causing loss of balance.

A bullet found Jackie.

Her armor, the glorious, itchy, complain-about-but-don’t-remove armor saved her life. It didn’t save her rib, and it replaced her breath with agony. Jackie gasped once, then twice as her belly almost caved in—a couple of centimeters higher and it would have gone through the gap and she’d be ten grams heavier right now. She wheezed in the white blindness, praying no more bullets would come and tear through her shattered armor.

Fuck this, she thought.

The hazy outline of a boulder became her cover. Bullets ricocheted off it, sparks flying. She waited patiently for an eternity that lasted less than three seconds. The relentless hail ceased for a moment, and she grasped the window she was given. Jackie fired back at the darkness, shouting warnings for her counterfire as she let loose.

She caught a glimpse of something stirring in the darkness beyond the wood scraps her bullets teared off the trees. The moonlight reflected on a strip of metal, vanishing as Victor and Miny added their own blind yet devastating fury.

The trees bled sap. Fresh kindling covered the forest floor.

There was no hostile to be seen, dead or alive. The prisoners were gone as well.

Mark’s perforated body lay still atop a growing blanket of blood. William had fallen on his back, sputtering blood from his mouth, soaking his beard. A black dahlia bloomed in his stomach.

Curry’s forearm was leaking; everything below the elbow was simply gone. The man was blindly tying off the horrid stump as he huddled behind a tree. Liam was at the other side, similarly taking cover, keeping pressure on his neck at the edge of his shoulder, his uniform slowly reddening, his face like ashes and his eyes unblinking like a man caught in his own nightmare.

The Captain was down, a deformed bullet embedded in his helmet.

“Move up,” Jackie whispered through dry lips, quiet enough that she couldn’t hear her own words over the existing ringing in her ears. Military objectives and goal markers ran through her brain in lieu of conscious thought. Identify the enemy force. Secure the perimeter. Triage the wounded.

“Move up!” she yelled loud enough to be heard by the two people at her side. She didn’t know what hit them, with their own weapons no less—where did that flashbang come from, no one carried one—, but there were wounded out in the open.

They leapfrogged their way forward, one person moving, two covering. Miny ventured to rush to Curry’s side, but the man shook his head as he tightened the improvised tourniquet, nodding towards William instead. Miny fervently unloaded the meager remains of her medpack around the large man as she knelt by his side.

Curry directed Victor and Jackie forward past him, his remaining hand laboring to hold up the rifle. “Get the bastard,” he rasped.

Victor and Jackie moved carefully, each step revealing another danger-filled half-meter of darkness to them. Step. Step. Step.

Before they covered more than a couple of meters, faster than they could react, a rifle’s stock swung at Curry’s head, pulping it between the solid steel and the tree.

He slid to the ground, instantly dead.

Jackie and Victor bolted around the tree. Jackie from the left, stepping over the cadaver—refusing to think of it as Curry anymore—Victor from the right, triggers almost squeezed.

She saw nothing.

“Contact!” Victor yelled, his rifle bursting into action.

Swiveling, Jackie saw it and added her own firepower. A glaze of drab colors recoiled from the multiple rounds piercing it. It grew larger, then smaller as it was brought down.

It snagged on a branch and stopped moving.

Jackie dashed in front of Victor and grabbed it. It was a large piece of fabric, torn and shredded even without the scorched bullet holes, made up of different pieces in earthy hues. A horrid scent reeked behind the stronger sweeter smells of dirt and sap.

Another magic trick, Jackie thought, giving a grudging moment of respect to the misdirection.

Victor’s grunt of pain didn’t surprise her. She expected it the moment she had the cloth in her fist.

She spun, bringing the rifle up.

A giant armored demon loomed over her. It’d tower over Victor if he wasn’t on the ground, dead to the world. It’d even tower over the sergeant if he were here. It was clad in twisted, blackened armor, crusted blood covering the tortured metal. A hellish stench permeated the air around it—rotten sweetness and a putrid foulness.

Her heart thumped harder at the sight of this living nightmare.

It tore the rifle out of her hands and tossed it aside as if her grip was made of gossamer. It pulled its right arm back, wielding a rifle by its barrel like a club.

Desperately, she threw herself on her back, just fast enough to feel the near miss cross the tip of her nose.

Jackie’s lungs deflated on impact. Before she could inhale she saw the gun axe through the air straight for her chest. She rolled sideways, barely escaping the chop that bore into the grass.

Desperately, she kicked the side of the giant’s knee in response. The armored clad giant grunted and almost buckled, falling on one knee over her. She kicked at the ground, hastening to move away, reaching for her sidearm at the same time.

The holster was empty.

The monstrosity threw a jab.

Her nose exploded in pain, broken. Her mouth filled with blood from her lips and tongue, cutting themselves against her teeth. Her body was shocked to stillness.

The giant gripped the rifle like a javelin over its head, rearing to bring it down on her sternum.

Miny leaped on the giant from the side. Immensely smaller she might have been, but her momentum was enough to bring the giant down sideways as she fell upon his upper torso. They rolled on broken leaves, Miny managing to lock her legs around the throat. She caught its right forearm in an armbar, pulling at it to immobilize the limb.

Miny should have been able to dislocate the arm at least. Break it, even. She started twisting.

Jackie saw her handgun lying a couple meters away from her. It must have gotten loose while she was rolling on the ground. The moon shone like a beacon on the steel.

The armored giant brought the captured arm to its chest, reversing the direction Miny expected resistance from. In one smooth move it reversed directions again, spreading its arm out as it rose up to its legs. It brought its arm, and Miny’s back, against a tree with tremendous force.

Jackie’s mad crawl almost had her handgun in reach.

Miny lay gasping on the ground. The giant’s right arm was limp, hanging low and dead.

Almost there. Almost. She’d grab it. Turn around. Shoot. The bullets would perforate the metal armor easily from this distance. Almost there!

A grip tightened around her ankle. She got yanked back in a quick pull, her ankle twisting painfully. She grabbed hold of a piece of wood and tightened her grip around it as she was dragged backward.

She added the speed of the creature in the strength of her own arms and shoulders. The end of the makeshift club landed squarely on the dark helmet’s side. The giant staggered and loosened its grip.

Hard breaths echoed from inside that helmet. Ragged, hurried. Exhausted. The exhaustion was visible all over the giant’s form. The sunken shoulders. The bent back. The legs that had to work twice as hard for solid footing. Its body language spoke of being near ruin.

Behind it, Miny was strenuously lifting herself up. Jackie quickly got up on her feet and struck again. The wood landed with a hard thump squarely on the giant’s palm. It pulled at it, seemingly feeling no pain, and Jackie let it have it.

The giant wielded the heavy weight as if it was a rolled-up newspaper and Jackie was the fly. Its swings were massive, each with enough force behind them to pulverize her.

If it wasn’t for that, she’d laugh at how easy it was to avoid them. The speed of each swing was impressive enough, but the way it pulled back telegraphed where and when it would strike. A small jump back, a nimble sidestep, a swift bow, that was all it took as the strikes kept on coming, each one slower than the next, each breath louder from the metal helmet.

Each step inching her closer to the dropped handgun once more.

“Now!” Jackie yelled when she was almost on top of the weapon.

Miny stomped the back of the giant’s knee at Jackie’s behest, forcing it down again. Jackie dove away, rolling on the ground and grabbing her sidearm. As she took aim the giant’s left hand grabbed her arm holding the gun from below the wrist.

It snapped her forearm like a twig.

Her raw scream of pain was cut short by its palm on her face. It thrusted her, comically similarly to how it wielded the makeshift club just moments before, until the back of Jackie’s head met a solidly planted tree.

The pain-filled stars she was seeing turned to black.

A sudden harsh cough of her lungs brought her back to reality. She had lost consciousness for a few seconds. Her broken arm screamed at her. Next to her, something was tapping rhythmically.

She turned her head, the effort almost herculean.

The armored devil held Miny by the scruff of her neck. It pulled her back, almost lifting her, the woman dead to the world and her face puffy and red. It brought her forward again, smashing her against a bloodied tree trunk. Up. Down. Up. Down.

Each time Miny’s battered arms trailed limply behind her.

“Stop…” Jackie said.

Slam.

“Stop!” she said louder.

Crunch.

She forced her knees to work.

Splat.

She lifted herself a bit, mostly by pushing her back against the tree behind her. “Stop!”

Miny flopped to the ground. A red bubble popped on her ruined nose. Still breathing. She was still alive. Maybe.

The devil came for her.

Jackie’s unbroken arm crawled for her belt, for her knife, and held it in an icepick grip. She still had a chance. She drew and pounced, scrounging up what strength she had remaining.

The blade’s tip met the thick breastplate straight on.

And slid off, not leaving even a scratch.

A vicious knee to her stomach doubled her over. She had never become so much aware of her intestines and how bruised they could feel. Her cracked ribs vied for attention as well. Her helmet was ripped off and thrown aside.

Suddenly, her face was plastered to a tree, the rough bark biting at her right cheek. She heard the demonic giant adjust its footing on the grass, then its hold on her shifted. The elbow locked above her head, ready to push her downward and against the bark—

Hewing her face to shreds.

Jackie’s eyes widening, her breath shivering, the face of the broken helmet loomed into view, and her brown, frightful eyes saw into the black visor.

It did nothing for a beat.

It looked back at Miny. Back at Jackie. It leaned closer.

“Let your last thought be this: you were weak, and all your friends perished for it.”

The voice was hoarse and rugged. There was a small hesitancy, as if the language came unaccustomed to his tongue.

She knew then, as she was staring at the little dragon’s father, it never had been the Dragon coming after them. How and why all their reactions were for naught, how all their actions were deftly confounded. That Ruthus’ radio had never been accidentally lost. It had been a person, a human, all along!

Jackie’s working hand gripped the man’s wrist. “Wait. Please, wait!” She vainly tried to pull his arm away.

The helmet tilted. For a moment, the man behind it seemed to hesitate. He took a deep breath, as if to steady himself. “It won’t hurt for lo—” He stopped.

Violently, he pulled Jackie off the tree and onto him, spinning around in one smooth move. His mammoth hand moved to her neck, the thick gloved thumb and fingers pinching her larynx. Jackie’s maimed arm smacked against the steel the giant man wore, eliciting one more unwelcome scream from her.

She felt him—her sight seeing nothing but black spots of pain thanks to the abrupt maneuver—haltingly sidestep towards the mass of the tree next to them.

“Not one step further,” said the Captain’s voice.

Jackie gulped the pain and blinked until her eyesight returned. She saw the Captain barely standing, propping himself up against a tree with a free arm. The other one held his own sidearm, the one she had felt pressed on her waist only hours ago. His helmet was missing, and his blonde hair was crusted with blood. But his old eyes were furious and his outstretched arm didn’t waver.

“Let the girl go. Put your hands where I can see them, hug the ground and maybe I won’t blow your brains out.”

The grip on Jackie’s throat tightened. She was forced on the tip of her toes as the giant figure hid as much of its mass as possible behind her.

“I know you’re getting every word. Last warning.” The Captain adjusted his aim.

“Take the shot,” the gruff voice said over Jackie’s surprised ear, speaking the words she’d have said if she could have pulled in the breath to form them.

“You think I’m bluffing?” the Captain roared. “Let her go!”

“No.”

“You think I’ll miss the barn for the chicken?” the Captain said almost incredulously.

Hey, now, Jackie irrationally thought. No need for that. She was certain of what was going to happen, and she didn’t want to think or dwell on it.

“Maybe you don’t see as well as you pretend to. Maybe you think that I could rip her tiny throat out the moment you fire.” The man’s voice had lowered to tones of velvet cream mixed with gravel. “But you won’t. That’s not what your kind does.”

The grip was almost suffocating her now.

“But if you drop your gun, maybe I’ll come for you instead. Rush in before you can pick it back up. Maybe the girl will run off and live, or I could throw her at you and I’ll run. That’s the heroic thing to do, isn’t it?” the man growled.

The pistol’s muzzle wavered.

The fingers on Jackie’s throat curled even tighter, the leather tips digging deep.

“John?”

The fury in the Captain had been replaced by old grief.

The pressure eased at once. Her feet touched the ground solidly again.

“...Scipio?” the man asked.

Interlude 7 - Twisted

Author's Note

I have deleted the content of this chapter as it offered too little, and in retrospect is missing far too much of the point I was trying to make, nevermind it was done in a way that I currently dislike. Show that didn't get its point across, and horrible telling.

Rest assured that you're not losing anything and this could easily be classified as filler the way it was written. If you wish to read what was here before all you have to do is send me a PM and I'll send you a link to the original Google Document.

Interlude 7 - Twisted

Interlude 12 - The reality of her duty

“Congratulations on your throne once more, sister,” I say, my smile reaching my ears.

“Oh shush, Luna. First of all, this is for both of us. Second of all, it’s not a throne. We are one small fiefdom out of many,” Celestia says, pouting at my teasing.

I put my hoof in front of my mouth, faking a gasp. “You fiend! You haven’t even warmed your seat with your tush yet, and you already dream of conquest? Who’s next in line? One of our neighboring lords? Will Equestria be forcibly united beneath the iron hoof of Lady Celestia?”

My sister’s hoof strikes the back of my head. “I said shush, you insolent peasant!”

“Hey, I thought we were in this together! I’m being cooped!”

“I believe the term you were after is a coup, Luna,” Celestia laughs.

I look around the main hall. Celestia already plans to expand the small keep into a formidable castle, one that will be able to house possible refugees in case of another mass exodus from the Everfree or any other cause. But this is to come later. She’s not even keeping the customary guards near her. Every pony able to hold a weapon has instead been reassigned to where he or she can be useful.

“Your seat of power seems empty,” I tease.

Celestia shrugs. “I have some ponies to aid us. A few messengers, a few guards. There’s no need for more. I doubt there will ever come the time we can’t make it on our own.”

“Our own?”

“Of course,” Celestia says, nuzzling me. “We’re in this together, right, sister? You are a grown mare now, and it would be wrong to treat you as anything less than my equal. I think we should begin with establishing proper relations with our neighbors, and proposing a way of warning each other to danger and sending aid so that we—”

“Actually, sister, I was thinking of doing something else.”

Celestia stops instantly. “Really? Do tell.”

I do tell her. I share my plans of going out there on my own, taking on her old responsibility of protecting ponies and hunting monsters that threatened them. Her face darkens with worry, but I press on. I tell her how I plan on making the roads between our villages safer, how I intend to weed out nests of dangerous creatures, and how I can bring warning to attacks since I will be further out.

Celestia doesn’t respond immediately. She goes near one of the windows, the one that has the Everfree Forest in view. Even now, it encroaches closer to us. Each year it grows a little more, and with it the danger it brings. It is a wonder that this area is as surprisingly safe as it is, but other places are not so lucky.

“No.”

I don’t shout or complain. “Explain why not.”

“ ‘Why not’?” Celestia almost shouts. “Luna, you are only nineteen years old, and you want to travel out in the wilderness by yourself? You can’t. Your place is here, with me. I’m not letting you go out there to die, do you hear me?” Her eyes glisten and her voice trembles, but I close my eyes and ears to that pain.

“You said I’m a grown mare. You said I’m your equal. Was that a lie then? Am I still a little filly, unable to achieve anything on her own?”

“I never said that!” Celestia shouts. She wipes her eyes even though there are no tears, and breathes deeply before continuing. “I’m still older than you, and I know a few things more than you do. I’m asking you to do as I say because—”

“You will always be older than me,” I interrupt her. I’m the very image of stillness and reason. If I shout or act immaturely in any way she will use it against me, and I can’t lose this battle. “Does this mean I will always have to do your bidding? Is this your equality?”

“No, I mean that—”

“Am I always going to know less than you, and have to bow down to your wisdom like—”

“I love you and I don’t want you to get hurt!”

Celestia finally loses it. Tears streak down her cheeks and sits down on the cold stone. I… I can’t stay away. I go near her, and hug her. I’m still smaller than her, still so much smaller. If I am to grow like her it will take me years to reach her height. For now, I am barely as tall as a normal pony, and her hug is the world. Not this harsh one, but one that is safe and warm.

“Just stay here with me, please, Luna,” she begs among her light sobs. One of the guards she mentioned peeks from the threshold and I wave him away. “Please. I will raise the sun every day, you will raise the moon every night, and we can stay here together. Please.”

I allow the hug to continue a few moments more before I pull myself away. “Celestia… Sister, I can’t. There’s more to our marks than raising the sun and the moon.” I hold her face between my hooves and force her to look at me. “You are meant to guide these ponies to a brighter tomorrow. To be their light and hope. That is your duty. Mine is to go out there. I am meant to be out in the dark and bring as much of your light into the night as I can, to make it as safe as it is in my power to do. That is my duty. To be a pale reflection.”

“No, no, no…” she says, crying fully now, and hugs me again. “You’re not a pale reflection, don’t say that again, please don’t. You’re the stars and the moon. You have what I can give you and a thousand thousand more lights of your own. You’re my Luna, my little sister… Stay, please stay. Luna, please stay…”

I want to. I want to stay so much. I want to stay here where it is safe, where we can have food brought to us, where we don’t have to sleep on the ground, and we don’t have to beg. I want to stay with Celestia. I want to, I want to stay so much it hurts.

“I’ve got to go, sister. This is my duty…”

The castle is behind me. I know that Celestia watches out of one of the windows. She is sure to be able to see me as I stand on top of this hill. I don’t look back. My resolve would break if I did. I do this for the right reasons. I do this for her.

I wait for the sun to go down. It creeps down to a sunset, and for a minute it freezes in place, not moving, the wondrous colors staying still for longer than they should. Celestia tries to keep the sun up as long as possible, to delay me from leaving, but she has to lower it and she knows it.

The sun is gone. Now is my turn.

I close my eyes, and I feel the moon. I feel her peace and quiet, and use her stillness to ease the turmoil in my heart. I let myself get lost in her, feeling limbless and serene, floating among the stars. I call her to come out, playfully, and it’s almost as if she laughs. She teases me for a moment, like she does every time, wondering which of her dress, her shapes, she would wear, but it’s only a game. Her habit is ingrained in her deeply, and won’t break her routine unless I ask her to. I do this now. I ask her to let me see her whole and light my way this first of nights. She obliges, and I love her so much.

Almost as much as Celestia.

I open my eyes, and the night welcomes me, with all its sounds and sights. It begins. It finally begins. It’s so beautiful. The stars fill the cloudless sky, twinkling so bright despite the full moon. Her light is so soft, a silver blue that is so restful, and everything has changed, dressed in the shades of the night. Even the air itself feels different. It even smells different. It is beautiful, and everypony is missing it. They cower behind locked doors, afraid to go outside where they feel blind and exposed.

Not anymore. Not with me here. I will make it right. I smile at the moon, and give her a silent promise. Give me a few years, and everypony will see you and love you as I do, I tell her. I make sure my saddlebags are secure, and my supplies safe. I recount my weapons. Daggers, sword, spear. I bring my spells to mind. I am ready.

I spread my wings, and fly into the night sky.

If I heard crying behind me, I give it no notice.

I open my saddlebag and take out a few hardtacks to eat while I sit next to the tracks I’ve been following. Hard as always, maybe more, it has been some time since I got them after all, but filling. I check my saddlebags to do a recount. I’m running out of food. Even taking advantage of the summer berries, roots, and fruits, my rations have been almost bled dry, and autumn is almost upon us. I won’t be able to rely on foraging to fill my bland menu anymore.

It’s no matter, I think as I chew happily. It’s been over a month. I will go back and resupply at the castle. Our castle. I will rest on a bed again. Have a few proper meals, hot and tasty. And best of all, see Celestia again. I grin at the thought. I’ve missed her so much. Maybe we can go flying together, or have some other fun. Maybe, I hope as I take the last bite, she’s missed me enough to allow me to sleep with her on her bed, like we did when I was a filly. I might be grown, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be allowed to act a little childish every now and then, right?

I take a long drink from my waterskin. It’s almost empty as well. No matter. I will find something sooner or later. I’m not going thirsty. What I’m more interested in now is these tracks. The sooner I get finished with them, the sooner I can start on my way back home.

Home. We have a home.

Right, tracks. Something big, very big. Heavy as well, especially at the front. It has a tail as well, and it tends to drag it. The prints are almost circular and there’s not much in the way of identifying marks, but they are so big and deep even a blind pony could follow it. Whatever this thing is, it must be dangerous.

I pick up my things and continue my hunt. It likes to stick on paths, natural or not. That makes it easier for me. I’ll catch up in no time. This is what I think for some time, until I reach a fork in the path.

Strange. Did the beast get lost? The prints are all over the place, as if it was running around back and forth. It is easy to make out which direction it went in the end nevertheless. All I have to do is follow the prints that are on top. From what I can see it went to the right at first, heading deeper into this forest, and must have gone for some distance, further than I can see. Then it came back and took the left fork.

I should follow it, but I’m curious. Did it change its mind or did it see something at the other path first? Maybe its path was blocked by something worse and it decided to retreat? I decide to follow the right path for a couple hundred meters, see what I can find out.

I see all I have to see a few meters down the path. The ground is softer here, the dirt staying softer under the shadow of the trees instead of getting baked by the sun. It was hunting something. I look closer. Something small. Quadruped. I find a clear print.

It was hunting a pony. A young one. Not on my watch. Not when Luna is around. Not—

The beast went down the left fork afterwards. Did its prey escape and give up or… or did it catch it and went back on its way?

Please, no. No. Let the child have escaped. Please. I’m coming, young one. I’m coming. Please, be alive. Be alive. I’m here, I’ll save you.

I run, praying all the while.

I heave, and everything I ate and drank ends up pooling between the roots of a tree.

The child didn’t escape.

It didn’t escape. I was too late, I wasn’t here, I was supposed to protect them and I… I wasn’t here. If I had woken earlier or didn’t waste time on the road, if I did anything at all to be here sooner, then—

Oh stars, this poor child. This poor little colt. I wipe the tears away. I need to gather the remains and…

“Get away from him, you bucking carrions!” I blast a branch nearby with a magic bolt and the crows fly off and away from the colt’s head. They fly to the top of the trees, and wait patiently for the chance to continue their late night feast.

I rush to the remains, and see that I was too late. Again. One of the eyes is gone. I gulp, and feel my stomach tremble even empty as it is. There’s- There’s not much left. Just the head, some of the...

I can’t endure thinking about it. I empty one of my saddlebags, and use a blanket to reverently gather everything. I make sure I even wipe as much of the blood from the ground as I can. I won’t leave anything for the predators and carrions. Nothing. It all fits into my small saddlebag, and my heart breaks.

I stay there for a few minutes, weeping helplessly. I shouldn’t stay here, the blood will attract more predators, they will come for me and the sad cargo I carry. I should leave, but I can’t. My heart is shattered, and I can’t move until I cry my pain out. I sob, I scream, I curse, I beg for this vile act to be undone, no matter the price. Nothing helps. The colt is still dead.

Nothing left but to carry it… home. Take it to its family. Oh dear stars, the colt’s family. What am I going to say? How can I give them these sad remains? I close my eyes and hold back one last sob. I have to do it. It’s my duty. I found the child, and I need to bring it back. I need to find the village it came from. There must be one nearby.

I reach the fork and take the same path the murderous beast took. If I’m lucky I will find it on the way, and have some small comfort to give to the family. Only if I happen upon it though. The family takes priority. The news I have to give them. Stars, I never thought of- I never dreamed that I would have to do this. I didn’t think of it.

It’s what I chose, and what I have to do. Celestia did it a few times as well. I remember it well. Every time she spent the night muffling her crying, trying not to wake me as she held me tight. I pretended I was asleep. I didn’t know what else to do but let her take any comfort she could by holding me. I wish she was here so she could hold me again.

The colt must have lived near here, unless it was part of some caravan or travelling group. I should check the nearest village. I’m not completely sure where I am at the moment, and the night doesn’t lend itself well to making out landmarks. If that is the Canter mountain over there then maybe I am close to Huffington. I’ve been there with Celestia before. There was this old mare that baked us a pie.

The more I think about it, the more sure I am. I mustn’t be away at all. If I follow the path I should end—

No. Luna, you idiot, no. No! How could I do this, how could I be so stupid! Fly, I’ve got to fly, I’ve got to make sure!

I walk among the lit torches and the crying ponies. They all look at me strangely. Hostile. They’ve got this right. I failed them, even if they don’t know it. I should have thought of the village first, make sure I gave warning, but how could I ignore these little tracks? How could I have given up on a child?

An older stallion with a dark blue mane holds himself better than the rest, and he seems like he would be friendly enough if it wasn’t for what I suspect has occurred tonight. “Excuse me, could you tell me what happened?” I ask quietly.

“What does it look like?” the stallion answers bitterly. “Another monster, more dead. Five this time.” He eyes me up and down, and like everypony he stares at my starry mane. He frowns. “Came in the dark, like they always do. Too bad your sister wasn’t here.”

“You know me?” I ask, surprised.

The stallion spits on the ground. “Hard to forget you or your sister. It’s not like the world is filled with horned pegasi. Is she still alive? How come you’re not with her?”

“I travel alone now. I… I’m hunting down monsters, warn villages of attacks if possible. Do what I can.” I feel like a hypocrite. I did nothing of the sorts. I failed.

The stallion’s expression hardens as he obviously thinks exactly the same. Then his expression changes to surprise and revulsion. “Young mare, what in the sun’s name do you have in your saddlebag?”

The blood seeped through and stained the dark fabric. Sweeping all that blood was a mistake. The bag drips, slowly, and the smell is overpowering. I didn’t notice it before or got too used to it.

I take the saddlebag off, and lower it down carefully while the stallion watches with hard eyes. A few ponies around lift their crude weapons a little higher. I open the saddlebag, and take out the grizzly blanket.

“I found tracks in the forest. They were made by a pony, a young one. I followed them, but it was too late by then. I gathered the remains.” I unfold the blanket. “Did this colt live here—”

A high pitched scream interrupts me, full of pain and misery. I look to the side, and see a mare screaming and crying as she tries to reach the body. Ponies hold her back and try to turn her aside, but the mare won’t have it. She sobs uncontrollably and shakes her head in denial, begging the ponies around her to tell her it’s a lie, that her colt is fine, that it isn’t him, but she tries to reach the body anyway because she knows the truth.

She faints at the end. It’s a mercy for everypony involved. I don’t think I could have watched her a second longer. “That was…” I say needlessly.

“Piper’s mother,” the stallion says. “Now both of her children are dead.” He turns away. “It would have been better if you had left him in the forest. At least then she could have hoped he got lost and ended elsewhere. She would know he was dead, but a part of her would always hope, ‘what if?’ Now you took that from her.”

“I’m sorry. I tried, but—”

“Yeah, I bet you did.” He watches with haunted eyes as a couple of ponies quickly pick up the pieces that used to be a colt. The stallion turns back to me and his face twists in anger. “You tried, and fat load of good you did. Piper’s dead, the hydra ate his brother as well as others, and it left with it’s belly satisfied and in peace, but you’re here saying that you tried, so it’s all okay, isn’t it? That’s great. You tried.”

“I’m sorry, but—”

“Just get out of here,” he says, dismissing me with a voice that betrays his utter exhaustion.

I can’t leave like this, I can’t. I have to make them understand. I tried, I really did. I didn’t want this to happen. “Please, you don’t understand. I’m… I’m trying to make it all better, I really am. It’s why I am out here. I want to make the night safer for all of you, and I will do whatever it takes until you can all stay safely outside and see the beauty that I—”

The stallion pushes me, hard. Every pony stops what they are doing to look. “Get out of here,” he hisses in a whisper.

“But—”

“No. You get out of here, you never come back, and you take your idiocies about the night and shove them up your flank!” He speaks quietly so the others don’t hear him, but the hate is obvious in his eyes, and the rage as well. “Don’t you dare say to me that you expect forgiveness or absolvement. You wanted to hunt monsters and warn ponies? Well, you failed. You failed, and this? This is your fault now. You made it your fault. So get out of here before I decide I should take out the blame for what happened on you.”

“Listen, please, next time I’ll-”

“My sons are dead!” the stallions roars to my face. There are tears at the corners of his eyes but he doesn’t let them fall. “Go! Just go.” He begs, as if any more words will turn him into a sobbing wreck. What else can I do?

I leave.

I found it.

I found the fucking hydra. Two days and two nights spent awake, searching for the smallest sign of its passing, killing lesser beasts as I rampaged through the forest, but I found it. I fucking found it, and it will pay. It will pay!

Six heads. Six pairs of jaws seeking my flesh. Ridiculous. It doesn’t stand a chance. I’m not here to fight it. I’m here to make it suffer. My weapons are caught in my magic, hovering next to me as I fly around the snapping teeth. Three daggers, one sword, one spear. All that I need.

The daggers zoom for a separate head’s eye each, seeking the brain behind. I don’t have to be so refined with the others. The spear and the sword are long and sturdy enough to reach their target from any path, and they move with force that I’ve never wielded before. Five heads fall down dead.

The one head that is left alive howls in pain, both physical and emotional. Its brothers, or sisters, I don’t care, are dead! It cries out its pitiful roars for them to wake up, and they don’t. It even bends down to prod them with its snout.

It’s screams are music, but I’m not done yet. Magic gathers at my horn, and I launch it. It crashes on a head, one of the dead ones, and it explodes in a shower of gore. The sight makes the last living head’s scream reach a new crescendo.

“Not so funny seeing your family desecrated, is it, beast? Hold on, we’re not done yet!” I promise. It sees me fly around and its mourning fury is directed at me, but only fleetingly. One more head explodes, and the hydra screams. Again. Again. As soon as the pain stops, I bring it back anew.

The heads are gone, and the hydra bleeds profusely. It’s going to die soon, but I won’t let it go gently, I won’t let it fade to death from simple blood loss. I avoid its teeth once more, and my horn pierces its back.

There is no spell for what I want to do, none that I have learned or created, but I have so much more magic than everypony I ever met, save perhaps my sister. I focus on what I want to do, what I want my magic to bring. Pain. Pure, undiluted pain. I want the hydra to suffer in agony. I want it to feel its skin burn, I want it to feel its flesh shredded, I want it to scream!

“Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die...”

I stop, my exhaustion finally catching up with me. I have no strength left to strike the hydra. No. No hydra. That’s not a monster. Not anymore.

There is nothing left of it. Nothing recognizable anyway. Just… chunks of meat, some of them sizzling, others frozen, most just torn apart with teeth and hoof. I’ve been beating on the last head for the last ten minutes. There is nothing left, it’s not even recognizable as such. Just a mess of bone, meat, blood, and brains.

It’s done. It’s done. It’s dead. It’s finally dead.

The ponies are still dead. The colt is still dead. I’ve achieved nothing. Nothing.

I take my weapons and leave the slaughter behind me in a daze. I can barely walk in a straight line. I rest against a tree for a moment before I try again, and I stumble on my way once more. I need to find a lake or a river, a waterhole or something, to wash off the blood. My coat is completely covered in red. Then I should… I should…

I should make sure the next village is fine. I’ve learned my lesson. I can’t be there for everypony. The many must take priority. Even a colt, an innocent colt, must be set second to the potential many. This could have been so much worse if it was more than one monster. I was lucky. This could have been so much worse. It… It wasn’t so bad all considered. Just need to be more careful next time. Keep my head straight. That’s all.

That’s all.

I’ve got no rations left, but that’s okay. I will find something on the way. Now I need to keep on. I can’t go back to Celestia yet. That would be childish and irresponsible. I have work to do. My duty is calling to me. I need to move as fast as I can. Always move. I don’t have time to stop. I can’t stop. I won’t stop.

It’s getting colder. Autumn is almost here.

I throw more wood to the fire. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to endure the cold of this damned winter, but at least I don’t feel even the slightest trace of hunger anymore. There’s plenty of water too. All I have to do is melt some of the snow around me, and there. As much water as I could possibly want.

I’ve drank much of it already. I keep boiling it and drinking it while it’s almost scalding hot. Anything to fight off this damned cold. I hope this blood I spat out is just a result of the cough tormenting me, and not anything worse, but I can’t be sure. Everything hurts, and I don’t think it’s just the cold. I think it’s something worse.

I can feel my insides like a tangible pain, as impossible as it seems. My joints ache with the slightest movement, and all I have to do is look at my legs to see what has happened to me. I haven’t eaten anything in weeks. My body is eating itself, and my muscles have shrunk.

I’m slowly starving to death. If it wasn’t for the evidence of my own eyes, the hurts that ail me, and the knowledge that nothing other than water has passed my lips, I would scarcely believe it. There is no hunger. Just a desire in the back of my head to lie down, huddle closer to the fire, shut my eyes, and wait for the end.

Maybe I should head back. I can’t make it through the winter without supplies. The roots are hidden under the snow, the berries and fruits are gone, and the fields are empty with every pony having gathered their harvest.

I… I could ask for some food from a village. I could knock on a door, and beg them to feed me, help me, save me, maybe let me stay for a day and sleep out of the cold and the wind…

I can’t. What if there has been a monster there that I wasn’t there for? What if somepony got lost in the woods and I wasn’t there to find them? What if I have been there already, only bringing back a corpse and apologies?

I don’t want to do this again. I don’t want to bring back another corpse. I had to do it twice more after the first time. I can’t do it again. I can’t hear them scream, I can’t stand the accusation in their eyes when they look at me, the way their tears ask, ‘why did you fail again? What’s your excuse this time?’

No excuse. The best I managed so far was a shrug and to say, “ponies die.” It made her cry harder, but it turned her away from me at least. That was a blessing. I didn’t know what else to say. I did, but I doubt telling that mare to keep a closer eye on the rest of her family lest she let them die as well would go as well. But the temptation to do so was so strong.

I’ll just leave the body the next time. Just drop it and go without saying anything. I know there will be a next time. I’m not good enough. I try, but I know that I’m not good enough. It doesn’t help that these ponies are so useless! Why do they let each other out of sight? Why don’t their lords use their soldiers more efficiently? Why don’t the guards do their bucking job?

Stars, it’s so cold.

It’s never been so cold before. Never felt it like this at least. I know why, but that doesn’t help me. I need food or else I’ll die. Either from the cold, hunger, or simple lethargy. I feel ancient, and as if I’ve lived so much longer than I should. I shake my head to throw these thoughts away. That’s the starvation talking, not me. I don’t want to die. I don’t. I want to live. I want to survive.

I could go back. Back to Celestia, and cease this madness. I can’t do this. I can’t. I’m only nineteen years old, what was I thinking? What do I know? I can’t believe I fought Celestia tooth and hoof so I could spend my nights freezing and hungry. I’ll just go back and…

What will I say? When she asks me why I changed my mind? How will I tell her that so many ponies are dead because of me? How can I possibly excuse myself when I failed to do so so many times already?

What if she decides to come out here in my place?

No, no, no! No, she can’t! She won’t be able to do it, she won’t, not even her. It’s too much, she will break, she will cry, she will hurt! I can’t let my sister get hurt, not like this, I can’t let her feel like this. She had her share of this pain already, and it’s better me than her. I can do it. It’s just winter. I can take it. A few more weeks, and then it will be spring, and there will be food everywhere. All I have to do is be patient.

I shiver once more, and sneeze. I pull the blanket tighter around me and try to inch closer to the flames. I’m not sure whether I’ll make to spring. I’ll try, but I don’t hold high hopes. The cold might get me before that. I wonder if they’ll ever find my body, fallen over cold ashes, or if something will have eaten my corpse before they find me. If Celestia will never hear anything about me again, and will spent her life wondering what happened to me.

I don’t want to die. I don’t. I don’t. I need to hold out, I need to be patient. Just a little more. The worst is almost behind me. I just need to endure. It’s almost over. Either I make it or I don’t. Either way, it’s almost over.

Something moves to my left. I instantly turn around, my horn charging with magic. Squirrels. It’s just three squirrels. That’s all it is. Stars, I thought I was going to die, that something was on me sooner than I expected. Huh. Look at that! How strange. They carry acorns, one each, and do my eyes deceive me or are they… They do! They offer them to me. Precious little things, they must have realized my peril and offer me their food.

Three acorns. That’s all I have to eat now. I suppose I could use some rocks and my spit, and make a paste out of them. Three acorns. I will have to lick it off the rock, it won’t be enough to even fill a spoonful. Still, it’s more than I had a minute ago. It’s more than I have eaten in weeks.

I glance at the squirrels. They seem to smile at me and each other, like they congratulate themselves for their charity. Look at them. Such plump squirrels. I bet they have burrows full of acorns, and now that they have brought me one each they pat each other on the back. Then they will go back in their holes, where they’ll be warm and safe, and stuff themselves full of their food, getting fatter and fatter…

My magic snaps the necks of two of them. The last one manages to get away.

I take a dagger out. I have no idea how to do this, but I’ve heard that griffins eat meat. So do minotaurs. If they can do it, I can do it too. I won’t need the head. There’s no meat on it anyway. Off it goes.

Legs as well. Not the thighs though. There seems to be enough meat on them. Stars, I haven’t even tried it, but I already feel like I’m about to regurgitate. No, I don’t care if it’s meat. I will eat. It will let me live. That’s enough.

The tail goes next. The coat… The coat is an issue. How do I take it out? Do I shave it? I think for a little while. Maybe if I do a cut vertically here, and… yes, at the legs as well, then if I press the tip of the dagger beneath I can get a grip and—

That’s disgusting. That was disgusting in every sense of the word, but there is no trace of fur left. Now, I suppose I will use a sharp, thin branch and… No. No, what about the insides? Can I eat them? I doubt it. Maybe I can, but I think they will make me sick at the very least. Even as bad as my situation is I can’t fathom eating their intestines and… what they contain. I could, but I really don’t want to go through with this only to throw it all up again if I get sick.

I open them up, and very carefully take out their insides. Huh, they are hollow like a doll now. They don’t even look like squirrels anymore. This will make it easier. The less I think about what I’m doing, how I’m paying their charity back, the better.

I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but I don’t know what else to do. I don’t want to die out here in the cold.

I wash them off with plenty of water and skewer them. Then I place them next to the fire and wait. It took me a while to figure out I should be turning them around every little while. In the end, I may have cooked them more than I should have. The meat is almost black as charcoal, but I didn’t want to take chances.

I hesitate before I take the first bite, but the knowledge of the void in my belly wins. I have to. I have to. I take a small nibble and seconds later I ravenously rip the meat from the tiny bones with my teeth. They taste like the best meal in my life. The sense of chewing food again, the juices in my mouth, the feeling as it slides down my throat, my stomach finally getting filled. It’s heaven. Food. I’d forgotten how it feels to eat. It’s like a tangible difference that only now is made plain to me, the one between living and slowly dying. Finally, food. Life.

If only I had caught the third one as well.

I can make it. I can make it through the winter. All I have to do is be on the lookout for animals. Even if I don’t find them… Yes, that will be appropriate. I hunt monsters anyway. It won’t do to let all the meat go to waste. Even the worst of them have to have something on them that’s edible. I’ll figure it out.

I take a last look up at the branches in hopes I see another squirrel, but no luck. No other animal either. Nothing but stars up there.

I forget my troubles of a few seconds.

Doesn’t matter. I think I can go to sleep now, and let my body do its best on digesting a meal after all this time. I throw some more wood in the fire, and lay back with the last blanket I have left. I left the other one behind, at that village. Shame. It was just blood. I could have washed it in a river and it would have helped keep me warm now. The disgust and any other feelings I had over it have withered against the cold. That was a mistake I won’t do again.

This is easy. I can do it. I have everything I need. As long as I’m not horribly hurt or my weapons and tools break, I can stay out here on my own for months. Years even. What’s the need anyway? I can raise the moon from everywhere, not that anypony really cares if I do or not, they stay locked in their warm houses every night anyway. Now that I can feed myself there will be no problems. Everything will be fine. I can… I can do it.

I burrow into my blanket and try not to weep, but I can’t. The tears come. Soon, I start crying like I never cried back when I was a filly. I can’t help it. I’m scared and alone. I keep seeing that look of surprise on the squirrel's face, the instant of fear on that last one before it ran. I want to go home. I want Celestia. I want my big sister. I’m cold, and I’m still hungry. I want to go home, but I can’t. I can’t go home. I chose this. I chose this.

I love you and I don’t want you to get hurt!

“I don’t want you to get hurt either, Celestia,” I whisper before I drift off to sleep.

Ch.49 - Firmament, Fury, and Fathomless Depths

They were hanging off a huge cliff, or the wall, of an impossible cavernous world. A protruding balcony allowed the view of a horizon that shouldn’t be, cradled in the dark of a starlit night that the sun had never chased away.

A noticeably warm wind blew their way, an impossible comfort in winter. Smells burst in her nostrils like crackling seeds, strong wafts of spices and sweet sugar. Leaves, dandelions, and multicolored blades of grass rode on a hundred currents above the trees, each of them on criss-crossing paths. A small gust almost pulled Applejack’s hat from her head and she looked up.

There was a sky, its shades of purple and magenta overlaying the grays and browns of stone and dirt. Waves of silver shimmered through the air, breaking randomly like sea waves splashing on rocks, soaking the overcast with a foam of falling stars. The land beneath was bathed in almost kaleidoscopic hues, everchanging waning textures and patterns. The hue of a full moon night rose above them while in the distance lustered the almost vibrant red of a descending twilight, only to suddenly ripple in swaths of a golden dawn before the dark fell again.

The ground beneath was littered with trees of a thousand different kinds, most of which she didn’t recognize: Some were tall and thin, some short and stout, and every now and then, like a stray dot on a great canvas, was a humongous beast of a tree, wider than houses and reaching for the closed sky.

Most of them blossomed and bore fruits. They shone and absorbed all light, huge connected specters that almost formed recognizable shapes out of the land, vines of greenery and riches, from where she stood. Other strands were bare or torn, broken and trashed, but even they carried the promise of life as either leaves or tree sprouts struggled for light and dew.

Specular waters shone like mirrors across the forest. Dark amethysts that were lakes and emerald rivers that snaked among the trees. Ribbons of blue silk fell from above, waterfalls without beginning or end. The rushing waters of a river, or several, flowed towards a waterfall. The waters reached the cascading pillar and climbed upwards, flowing up and up, rising into the sky, drilling into the stone and clawing at the world above.

The titanic world-cavern was blotted with massive pillars of stone that held up the irate sky. Huge stalactites kissed the ground, their bases lost among trees and in the depths of lakes and riverbeds. Winged shapes circled them, in swarms or lonely flight paths, ranging from small flocks to almost dragon-sized creatures.

Applejack looked up, and realized she was standing on the side of one herself. She felt so small, a foal in the belly of an ancient, immeasurable titan, and stormed to the side to see as far behind them as she could. There was no end to them. They went in all directions, until they were lost in hazed and shimmering lights.

There was more: Pillars of towering, golden, effervescent light chased each other like colts in a field; Clouds of glowing dust motes roamed the sky, and bubbles of lazy ice blue wantonly floated up from the ground; Colors everywhere, metallic and chromatic, imbuing each other and everything around them with unearthen hues.

And far on the horizon, a drab, colorless silhouette cut an imposing presence by its nakedness. A wide mountain rose away from them, its peak beyond the limits of the short sky, its outline marked upon by the descending lightning bolts currently burning even beyond it. It looked so close, only a few kilometers away, but unreachable and forbidden by more than distance alone. It was abominable in its simplicity in this anomalous world of colors, but the sheer weight and reality of that mountain made it a welcome addition, grounding the otherworldly plane Applejack now found herself in.

“Delightful, is it not?” Luna asked, also taking in the sight.

“Finest landscape Ah ever laid mah peepers on, that’s for sure,” Applejack answered, licking her dry lips. “Not what anypony would expect, Ah bet.”

Luna hummed in agreement. Her right wing spread out, the leading feather pointing up.

“Never forget that behind this beauty lies danger. See above, beyond the lights that shine upon us? You can see them if you strive: dark veins and pock marks on the ceiling of this forest world. Each of them a route that leads here, more often than not through a treacherous fault or ravine—and to death, unless one is unlucky enough to be ‘saved’ by the insidious magic of this realm. ‘Tis why we take this path instead of the one above where the danger would be less yet the journey more time-consuming. On hoof, we would only find our literal downfall in almost complete certainty, and, should we survive the descent, still have to wade through this land. Better we choose it of our own will than it be forced upon us. We had some time to prepare, and we can move with even more speed when we have no fear of finding ourselves someplace worse.”

Thinking about it, this made quite some sense to Applejack now. Kinda like a band-aid: Rip it off and get it over with. It was a little crazy to decide that you’d come down on your own volition when you had a small shot of, ya know, not, but it’s not like it could get any worse. Not unless…

“What if y’all fall through another hole and end up in a third Everfree Forest?”

So that’s what an Alicorn looks like when all her hair heckles up. Huh.

“Let… Let us dismiss the possibility of this. For my mind’s sake,” Luna pleaded, heading to the left where a gentle waterfall fell near enough the precipice they stood on to splash the edge of it.

“Maybe it’s Everfree Forests all the way down.”

Luna shivered, and it wasn’t because of the cold water.

Applejack did her best to keep her thoughts shallow and focused on the now as she washed, gray dust and black sludge running down her hooves.

Luna cleaned herself quicker than Applejack, and set on using thread and needle on herself. There had been a long gash below her chin, earned sometime during their crawling, claustrophobic journey through narrow ducts and passages.

Applejack stared at her trembling legs. She’d rather do anything other than that again. Even the most laborious, hardworkin’ days at the farm were child’s play compared to that experience. She’d rather go tell a napping dragon to hoof its hoard over. Or go find an ancient castle where an ancient princess with a chip on her shoulder hides and give her a list of all the ways the sun is better than the moon. She threw her face into the waterfall, gulping down great big mouthfuls of water.

Applebloom isn’t here, but this is the road to her. Applejack kept repeating this line in her head until she calmed down. Rarity’s with her and Rarity will take care of her and Spike both. Deep breath and then focus on helping, not needing help.

Consarnit, they wouldn’t have to do the same to get up top, would they? She huffed, pushing the thought away. That was in the future. For now there were more urgent matters. She went back to cleaning the stubborn gunk out of her coat.

Somepony tapped her shoulder, admittedly spooking her. Raegdan was waiting patiently when she turned. Fluttershy was on his side, looking slightly nauseous and leaning on his leg for support. Raegdan pushed Fluttershy over to Applejack.

“Help her get cleaned up, and take care with the wing. Less it moves, the better. Where’s Luna?”

Applejack pointed to the side. Raegdan moved away, walking the edge with most of his attention on what laid below.

“Hey, sugarcube. You feeling better? Are you still in pain?” Applejack asked her friend.

“Yes. No! I mean, not that much! In pain, that is,” Fluttershy quickly seesawed. “It feels numb now and it’s better. I’m… sorry I didn’t tell you how bad it was…”

“Ah’m real sorry Ah dragged you along, Fluttershy,” Applejack said.

“Umm, I could have said no,” Fluttershy commented.

“Oh, come on now, Fluttershy. Ah wouldn’t have managed to get even halfway through the Everfree if it wasn’t for ya.” Applejack pulled Fluttershy where she previously stood and starting helping her wash up. “ ‘Sides, tell me this here view ain’t worth it!”

“It is very pretty,” Fluttershy admitted with full admiration, her eyes following a ribbon of yellow gold that melted to silver rain when it touched the stone ceiling.

“Ya better get an eyeful while you can. If Rarity’s just half dirty as we are and she sees ya on top of that, she’ll lock the both of y’all in the spa for days. You won’t get out till you’re more pruney than Granny Smith!”

“Oh no,” Fluttershy gasped. “The scrubbing!”

Applejack snickered along with her and they soon both grew into outright laughter, taking the joke further and further, making light of all their friends’ reactions until they could both no longer hold their roaring laughter at bay.

Their sojourn through the earth was forgotten, their pains wiped away, and their fears retreated. When this moment was shared with their friends, Pinkie would smile, proud that her grandma’s little tip against fear was remembered.

But for now, the Everfree Forest in the underneath resounded for the first time with a sound of happiness it had never heard before. The sky lights above the two ponies stalled for a second, as though confused, and then sparkled in bright, flashing colours of warm orange and soaring yellow, as if laughing alongside them.

Raegdan and Luna laid prone at the edge. The blue waters of a lake simmered below them, disturbed by the rushing waterfall.

“How high do you think it is?” Raegdan asked.

“I thought you said you ‘have it’,” Luna commented drily, her hooves making air-quotes.

“Alright. I get it. You’re sore I’m looking out for you,” Raegdan retorted bitterly, turning his head.

Luna scowled. “‘Sore’ is certainly a word. As are ‘looking out’, I would suppose.” Her expression softened a smidgen. “Do not misconstrue me, there will be far more words at a more appropriate time, but… I am touched by your concern, mainly. But I retain my right to be upset.”

“I’m… Okay, what does that mean?” Raegdan asked, confused.

“Tell me true: If I were to request the penalty for throwing yourself into a suicidal cause, would you pay it? Or was that oath always meant to be a deception designed solely for my benefit?”

Raegdan faced her gaze only for scarcely a second before looking back down again, silent.

“I believed you. That you’d never lie to me,” Luna said.

“That wasn’t a lie,” Raegdan mumbled.

“No, it was another word. ‘Pretense’ maybe. ‘Justification’ could also work. You’d enjoy ‘distraction’ mostly, I believe.” Luna released a heartfelt sigh. “But like I said, I believe I understand better now. ‘Forgiven’ is not the word I’d use... but neither is ‘unforgiven’.” She turned her sight back to the bottom. “I think this is too high a jump for you. It must be over forty meters to the surface.”

Applejack measured the distance easily enough. She had an eye for that kind of thing. She could tell how many apple trees would fit in a field in a glance. “About fifty meters at most, Ah wager. Give or take a couple meters.”

“See, fifty puny meters,” Raegdan said, indicating Applejack with a jerk of his head. “That’s practically nothing. I can pee that far.”

“Um, you’re not really thinking about it, are you? It’s really dangerous.” Fluttershy sidled to the edge, peeked down, and when the vertigo hit her she backed off with a quick meep. “So high…”

Raegdan scratched at his chin, his helmet resting beside him. “It beats climbing down from over there.” He pointed at the furthest side where the only climbable section was a sheer vertical wall that ended a half-dozen meters over the lake. Sharp rocks protruded at all directions around it.

“Luna can fly all of you down, but I have only two options, and falling in water beats a stone-bed safety net. Besides, I distinctly remember seeing one person take a dive from a cliff higher than this one so I know it’s doable,” Raegdan continued.

Luna’s doubt and mistrust of this route was plain as day. “Did he survive?”

Raegdan scowled. “Yeah, the fucker. I had to go all the way down where he landed to finish the job. Anyway!” He stood up dusting himself off absentmindedly, the steel of his armor clinking dourly. “If he made it while flailing like a chicken, I don’t see why I can’t. If I dive properly.”

“How much do you know about diving?” Luna asked suspiciously as she stood up.

“Practically nothing. I’ll ‘wing’ it,” he said, his fingers bent in air-quotes.

“What if it ain’t deep enough?” Applejack asked, imagining Raegdan’s legs sprouting up from a very shallow lake like a carrot. “Or there are rocks under the water?”

Raegdan moved to the face of the cliff behind them, tapping a boulder almost half his size. “Luna, give me a hand with this, will you?”

With the three of them together—Applejack couldn’t just stand aside when she could be useful, she had the hind legs after all—pushing the large stone to the edge was easy enough. They had chosen a part where the waters below seemed deeper. Luna gave a push with her magic, and the boulder slipped over the side.

It fell straight, almost whistling as it cut the air, building up speed. They could see its shadow on the waters where it would land. The shadow grew as it came closer.

Then it grew even larger than the rock itself.

When the boulder was a dozen meters above the water, a gigantic fish jumped out. It was over twice as long as Raegdan was tall. Its scales were light blue and glinting with the sharpness of silver. The eyes were patches of blackness, and there was no hint of a mouth to speak of. It soared in a straight line, ready to meet the falling stone with its face.

When the stone was almost upon it, the fish-creature split in half. A line formed vertically between its eyes, and it opened up widely, revealing a nightmare of spiral-set teeth between its halved torso. It let loose a warbling shriek that tore at their eardrums. The rock fell lower and the moment it was within the body-jaws they slammed shut so fast that nopony could hope to follow the movement.

The rock was crunched into a thousand fragments, most of them ending in the fish-creature’s stomach. It fell back down in the water with a graceful, acrobatic somersault and barely a hint of disturbance.

“Right. Everfree Forest. How could Ah forget?” Applejack humphed after a few minutes of stunned silence.

Luna blinked for the first time since the fish appeared. “I… That was new. I wonder how many of them are down there.”

“Raegdan can do his dive and find out,” Applejack suggested.

“Hilarious,” Raegdan commented. He knelt down, searching for a way to get to land without getting near the water. Unfortunately, even though the natural column they were on was almost on the edge of the small lake, it was still some distance to the shore.

Luna wore the remaining saddlebag on her back. “Let’s keep it simple. I’ll take down the girls and then come back for you with a rope. I should be able to carry you that way, as tiring as it will be. You’re first,” she said, turning to Fluttershy.

The Pegasus climbed on Luna’s back, mindful of her own broken wing. When both were ready, Luna spread her wings and soared in the air. Applejack moved to the cusp of the edge to watch. The princess lifted off with a few strong flaps of her wings, gaining height and speed slowly.

Fluttershy glanced back at Applejack and then immediately did a double take. She looked up, alarm and horror wrestling for dominion on her face. Screaming won as the unexpected newcomer, and she did so almost directly in Luna’s ear which caused the Alicorn to swerve sharply to the side at the sudden assault.

A terrible beak oriented sideways, as of an ant’s pincer mandibles, snapped at where the two ponies had been just a moment ago, followed by a quartet of bloodthirsty claws.

They started making themselves known over the noise of the small waterfall―huge bird-like creatures with long, feathered necks with the black glossiness of tar, and two pairs of legs that ended in eagle-like talons. Long tails weaved behind them, pointy horns gleaming at the sides of the heavy, swinging appendage. They would almost look like immense crows crossed with dragons if not for the cluster of solid red eyes, numerous as a spider’s, that took over most of their faces.

Applejack looked up and she saw more clamber out of unseen ridges in the pillar higher than them. They scrambled on the rocks, leaving gouging trails behind them, and let themselves fall or soared into the air. They were silent apart from their wings slicing the wind, until one of them loosed a keen wail and its flock mates joined in.

The shriek pulsed in everypony’s eardrums, building up until Applejack found herself on her knees. It felt like a drill was working itself in the back of her brain. It was a siren that screamed to her to stay still and surrender to the predator.

Luna hovered paralyzed in the air, her hooves ineffectually pawing at her ears in an attempt to keep the noise out. One of the malformed crows lunged for the easy kill. It shrieked in hungry triumph, only to cry a pained wail when a crossbow bolt punctured one of its many eyes.

Next to Applejack and unaffected by the agonizing shriek, Raegdan was reloading the small crossbow as fast as he could, unleashing another bolt before shouting, “Luna, go into the forest and head for the mountain! We’ll catch up, go! Follow the plan and I’ll find you!”

The Princess stalled for a second. The monstrous crows had now spotted Raegdan and Applejack, and Raegdan dug another bolt among the breast feathers of the closest monster that attempted to divebomb them. “Go! We’ll be right behind you!” Raegdan roared one more time, and Luna flew masterfully among reaching claws and between heavy tails, dodging them all and heading for the thick cover of the canopy.

Many followed, but equally as many crows stayed behind, eyeing the remaining pair and clicking their mandibles hungrily. Applejack and Raegdan ran for the cover of the tunnel.

Sharp claws descended upon them. Raegdan rolled to the right, getting up and running without losing a beat. Applejack jumped to the left. She narrowly escaped the claw only for the crow to peck at her with its wicked mandible.

Her right hind leg kicked the beak with enough strength to chip it, propelling her forward in a burst of speed. Applejack was absolutely certain that one hurt. It also infuriated her hunter to a greater degree. The crow cawed dazedly and angrily behind her, and Applejack ran, her heart pounding.

They made it just in time, diving to the floor as another of the Deep Crows crashed on the opening, screeching and struggling to get through the entrance that was too small for it to comfortably enter. It snapped its beak at them, narrowly missing Applejack. She gulped when she looked at the gouge it left where she stood mere moments before.

Raegdan took the opportunity, while the crow was trying to attack Applejack, to slip to the side of its neck. He brought his arms around its head, grabbing the mandibles. They clicked open and shut trying to catch the biped’s fingers but their curve left enough of a space for him to safely hold them.

The monster bird twisted its head, and Raegdan pulled it along even further. It screeched in pain and slashed at Raegdan with one of its front talons, cutting at his armor. The crow managed to find an opening at his thigh’s side, piercing through the thick fabric around his waist and drawing blood.

Raegdan still held the crow’s head by the mandibles and crossed his arms over his head, forcing the neck to twist even more as he stepped in front of it, the movement almost dance-like. Each attempt to bite at him failed as Raegdan redirected to the sides, using the momentum to twist further.

“Break, damn you. Break! Fucking break already!” Raegdan shouted.

The crow wailed in pain, its eyes open wide. Raegdan put all his strength into his arms, pressing one leg on the tunnel’s wall for resistance. He let out a half-scream in a final effort.

There was a crack, and the crow fell silent, its body thumping on the ground. Its head lolled limp and its eyes remained open, but the life behind them had been snuffed out. Applejack turned her head away at the miserable, quiet whimper. It had just been an animal doing what it was born to do.

The corpse of the crow covered the exit, effectively working as a barricade against the rest of its kind. It moved when some of its fellows shook its body from the other side, but none of them tried to clear the entrance and make an attempt themselves. It seemed that, for the time being at least, they were out of sight and out of mind.

Raegdan threw his helmet at the wall, almost striking Applejack and scaring her out of her mind with the sudden near-assault. He went berserk, hitting and kicking the walls, the fresh corpse, whatever he could reach. He was shouting, and no doubt swearing, in his own language.

The frightful tantrum lasted only a couple of minutes. After one last kick to the dead monster’s head, Raegdan’s arms hanged loose, his whole frame sagging. He moved to the opposite wall of the tunnel from Applejack and fell in a sitting position, drawing his knees near him and bowing his head between them.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“No harm done,” Applejack responded, and Raegdan let out one bitter cackle. “Any reason ya didn’t just whack it on its head with yer hammer?” she asked after a minute of silence.

He pointed deeper into the tunnel with a half-hearted effort. “They’re still coming. Blood will only bring them here faster.”

She held for a moment, but there was no answer coming. “Why are we not leaving yet?”

He shrugged. “We can’t. The birds will kill us out in the open. We have to wait for them to get bored and leave.”

“And if they don’t?”

“I don’t know.” Raegdan’s hands cupped the back of his head, as if to contain his reason lest it abandon him. He spotted Applejack’s hat that had fallen off her head at some point and picked it up.

A minute passed.

“If they leave…” Applejack hesitated. “If they leave, then what? How do we get down to shore?”

Raegdan shrugged again. “I don’t know.” He looked up at her, straight into her eyes as he passed her hat. All she saw was surrender. “I don’t think we have anywhere to go anymore.”

It had been at least an hour, but the crows were still outside. They seemed to have claimed the outcrop as a resting spot if not a new nest. Very few were sitting outside the blocked passage, but many more of them flew at spitting distance from the ledge. Applejack could see them flying past, through the unblocked part of the exit.

Mostly, however, she had been spending her time as far in the back of the tunnel as the light allowed. Sometime in the last couple of minutes her patience had been rewarded, if she saw fit to use the word ‘rewarded’ cynically.

“Ya hear that?” she asked Raegdan.

Halting his unsuccessful attempts to whittle pieces of one of the few torches he had kept into bolts—this type of wood wasn’t meant for that—Raegdan tilted his head. After a few moments he nodded. “Time’s nearly up.”

“We gotta do somethin’, already!” Applejack proclaimed. She pointed at the backpack sitting next to Raegdan. “Don’t we have anything we can use to get out?”

Raegdan opened the backpack. “We have some nuts and chocolate as rations, spare water, a few bandages and other medical stuff, a few steel hooks and nails that are used for climbing, a flask of oil, a small hammer, a crowbar…” He closed the backpack and continued in the same deadpan voice. “A pile of useless sticks that will break on impact, a crossbow with no bolts, a hammer, three daggers, a few bombs, and a pony I can use as bait. What do you think sounds most useful?”

“You didn’t bring any weapons?” Applejack asked in bewilderment.

“We did,” Raegdan nodded. “They’re in Luna’s bag.”

“Can’t you blow them up?” she almost pleaded, pointing at the source of the cawing noises.

“Alright.” Raegdan struck his palms against his thighs and spoke firmly. “Let’s suppose I had more than I do. Let’s suppose by some miracle I end up killing them all. Let’s suppose the outside was clear! What next? See who gets closest to the water before being swallowed by the Revenge of the Salmons?”

“Ah thought you had a plan!” Applejack hissed, feeling betrayed and shaken with the realization that dawned on her. “You told Luna we’d catch up!”

“She would never leave otherwise.” He half-turned to face Applejack. “I’d have spared you this if I could but there wasn’t any time. Two of us get to live. That’s not bad at all. Make your peace with being one of the two that don’t,” he said as kindly as she’d ever heard him.

Her lips trembled. “So… That’s what we’re doing? We are waiting to die? That’s your plan?” Her throat felt constricted, and her lungs labored to draw breath without giving into crying.

A dagger was pulled from its sheath. “We could try fighting through the mob that comes. I doubt we’d make it, not if I have to watch for you too. Even so, we’d have to make it to the surface again, and neither of us can see in the dark. I’m sorry, little apple, but I don’t think there’s a choice of saving you. The monsters probably will be quick enough though not gentle, but… if you want... I can end it painlessly before they get here.”

The glinting edge demanded all her attention. “And you?” she asked through dry lips.

He shrugged once more, sheathing the blade and breaking the spell. His eye stayed on her for a few seconds, cold and calculating. “Nevermind what happens to me after. We’re talking about you.”

Was that how it was going to end? Those were her choices? Either a surrender akin to going to sleep, lights out, pull up the blanket, and shutting your eyes or being torn apart and—

“Little apple, listen. I… meant to tell you, about your…” Raegdan started, reserved.

Applejack stood up with a snarl, pacing back and forth. “Ah’m not giving up! Mah sis is out there somewhere scared outta her mind waiting for me and Ah ain’t disappointing her. And you sit back down and stay away from me. Ah ain’t said yes!” she yelled, taking a step away from Raegdan.

For his part, he sat down again. “Promises are broken, little app—”

Applejack pulled her hat back, shouting fiercer now. “Ah ain’t been made a liar yet, and Ah ain’t gonna start now. We promised to catch up? Then that’s what we’re doing. Now come on! There’s always a solution. Buckle up and let’s get to work instead of this giving up talk.” Her teeth pulled her torn cloak aside and she dropped her weathered rope on the floor. “You got climbing hooks, ya said. Can’t we sneak out and climb higher and find some other passage? Get to a column thingy that doesn’t end in water, get back down, and then find Luna and Fluttershy?”

Raegdan bent his head wearily. “There are still the birds waiting for us outside. Stealth is out of the question, and if we try climbing they’ll peck us dead. For heaven’s sake, you think I’ve been taking a nap this whole time?”

Applejack ignored him and kept thinking furiously. There had to be a way out of this mess! What would her friends do? Twilight would have teleported herself and everypony else down to the lake shore but Applejack didn’t have any fancy horn. Rainbow Dash would have flown straight through, faster than these darned avians could react. Again, no fancy wings. Fluttershy might even have been able to convince these featherbrains to take her side by now. Rarity might have been able to do some magic of her own, though most probably she’d knit a bridge down, and the less she thought about what Pinkie would have done the better.

What did Applejack have? A knack for bucking and rodeo sports, and a propensity to be honest, and in her honest opinion she had no way to get out of this little hovel by herself. She couldn’t kick every stupid overfed crow out there, and even if she could she had no idea how she’d swing her way to shore without getting her flank bit by—

Her breath hitched. She had a rope. A coil about a dozen meters in length, already frayed after being tirelessly dragged through caves full of murderous rocks, but a rope nonetheless.

And she knew quite a number of rodeo tricks.

“Ah, uh… Ah think Ah have an idea,” Applejack interrupted him.

“Is it to throw ourselves into the lake?” Raegdan sourly asked from where he was slumped.

“That’s just about the gist of it.” She offered a full smirk at his surprised face. “So it’s right about yer level of bad ideas. Wanna give it a shot?”

“Yep, it’s official. This here’s the worst idea an Apple’s ever had. At least if it doesn’t work, nopony will ever know. And if it does, Ah ain’t tellin’.” Applejack pulled her legs tight around Raegdan’s neck from her place on his back, taking care not to choke him.

“Can you make the throw or not?”

“Ah can make any throw, don’t ya worry yer pointy little head.” Applejack pulled the hat tight around her head, making sure it wouldn’t fall off. She checked the lasso’s knot once more and eyed the end of the rope twirled around Raegdan’s arm. “You just hold on tight.”

“As long as you’re sure,” Raegdan said with a hint of hope that made some of her unease evaporate. He hefted his hammer with his right hand. In the left he held one of his hand bombs, the metal ring already pulled off. As soon as he threw it, its magic would return and start counting down the seconds.

“Oh, shoot, you’re making me blush! Let’s get this done…Now!”

The gray canister flew over the exit’s opening and bounced on the rough stone outside. Numerous sets of numerous eyes followed its trajectory, their predatory instinct guiding them. One or two of the crows took to the air, and one landed in a crouching, ready position.

A flash of blinding light accompanied by thunder exploded into existence. Pandemonium reigned as the crows lost their minds. They flew off, crashed, and squawked a storm, many of them falling into the waters below.

Predatory fish jumped to the bountiful harvest in a feeding frenzy, tearing flesh and feathers and turning the waters white with foam and red with blood.

Raegdan, with Applejack as a backpack, had come out running the instant the world flashed white. He zig-zagged among the disoriented Deep Crows, evading talons and swishing horned tails.

“Over there!” Applejack shouted. The one flying behind the one there, Ah can get that!”

A crow was petering by the edge on its own, and Raegdan beelined for it. His hammer came down on its skull, knocking it unconscious if not dead, and he rammed against it and pushed it off, throwing one more victim to the jaws below.

As it fell, so did they. Raegdan held fast onto it, the crow’s body beneath them. Their weight rested on the body for a second, and Raegdan jumped off it and forward, getting them closer to the target she chose.

He yelled something, and though Applejack didn’t hear what he said through the squawking bedlam she knew what her part was. She was already swinging the lasso.

She threw.

The lasso crowned the crow’s head that was flying over and in front of them, and down around its neck. As they fell the noose tightened. The monster shrieked in surprise as it took their weight. Their previous, limp ride continued on its own, abandoned. It splashed in the waters of the lake, and whether it was still alive or dead became a moot point as the school of fish started taking bloody bites out of it.

Applejack and Raegdan were still in the air, one end of the rope around an unwitting flyer, the other around Raegdan’s left arm that had gone pop really loud. Applejack saw the shore getting closer as the crow’s surprised, circled flying slowly brought them towards it.

They were nearing the water as well. Their ride was slowly losing height, perhaps due to their weight or maybe… She glanced up and locked eyes with a couple of the crow’s multitude. The crow was sizing them up, uncertain. It was only a matter of time until it tried to charge, throwing them into the waters below.

She glanced down again, meaning only to measure the distance, and saw a familiar shadow following them. Silver scales broke the waters and then dived deep, building momentum for the leap.

Applejack warned Raegdan extremely efficiently, with a high-pitched scream and pushing his head to look down with strength only a smidge less than it would take to break his neck. “Incoming! Incoming!”

“Fuck!” Raegdam swore loudly. He swung his legs forward and back, doing his best to swing them like a pendulum at the end of the rope.

“This isn’t helping!” Applejack screamed. Despite Raegdan’s attempts they would never build enough momentum to evade the jaws that would come for them as soon as they lowered enough.

The shadow beneath the water’s surface lengthened.

The hand holding the hammer swung back.

The fish breached the lake, water drops springing ahead of it like pearls across silver.

Raegdan threw the hammer at the crow’s head.

The crow screeched in pain and shook its head as it fluttered around in confusion. The sudden movement threw them barely out of the course of the snapping jaws. Time slowed for Applejack as she saw the interconnecting teeth, sprouting from a fleshy, halved torso, close less than a hoof’s distance from her head.

It’s just going to try again, her logical side echoed. Raegdan doesn’t have anything else to throw, the logistical side said. The illogical part showed her an image of trying to throw a bomb either up or down and how bad it could go in a very humorous and gory manner. Practicality shouted out for her to do something.

She wasn’t sure what, but muscle memory rose to the challenge.

While the carnivorous monster was still in the air, hovering next to them for one deadly second, Applejack held tight with her front hooves on Raegdan. And kicked.

She wasn’t sure what exactly happened later. She suspected that the rope simply gave up the ghost. Thankfully, they were on a great arc heading for the shore courtesy of the unwitting boost they got from the seafood-that-wasn’t. Unfortunately… Not close enough.

They plunged into the deadly waters. It was cold, the chill cutting deep. She wondered how the water could be this cold without freezing to ice.

Applejack let go of Raegdan and tried to make for the surface and air, but Raegdan’s hand grabbed her and held tight. She tried to swim harder, but she wasn’t a good enough swimmer to carry them both, and with Raegdan’s armor they sunk even faster.

Precious bubbles of air burst out of Applejack’s mouth in frustration when, almost immediately, Raegdan’s palm wrapped around her muzzle. They touched the bottom of the lake, landing among rocks and seaweed. Clouds of sand rose around them as they stirred the untouched lake bottom.

As the dust clouds covered them Raegdan pointed up. Applejack managed to catch a glance before the muddied waters hid everything from her view. She saw the light scattering through the waves above, sparkling in hues across the bodies of the monstrous fish swimming above them, their torsos opening up as they bit huge chunks out of the crows’ bodies, and sometimes each other, near the surface.

The dust clouded all from her view. Applejack couldn’t see anything. She felt Raegdan pulling her through the water. Her lungs were already burning. It was as if they had been lit on fire. She hadn’t taken a good breath, she had no idea how long it had been since she had filled her chest with oxygen, it burned with fire and need…

Applejack tried to breath. Cold water rushed in her lungs, and instead of quenching the fire it made it grow stronger. It was pain like no other. Everything grew dimmer, darker.

It hurt. She wanted to breathe and she couldn’t. Just to breathe. One breath, just one to make the searing agony in her chest leave. She tried again but more water came in, cold, painful, and suffocating.

Her mind jumped back to a glinting knife edge and she wondered if she chose wrong.

As if she summoned it, a silver streak jumped out from among the blur and clouds. It was there for a second, She felt more pain, as if her legs were torn from her or a jagged piece of wood savagely ran across her midsection. Mists of red floated in front of her and she closed her eyes.

She thought of Applebloom. Applebloom laughing, Applebloom playing, Applebloom back on their farm, with Applejack there no longer, but Applebloom back and safe.

Her torso was a shape defined entirely by cutting pain and sharp need. The cold was everywhere, dulling her, and then it was not. Instead, the wind blew on her with a gasp, freezing her even worse.

Applejack opened her mouth once more and vomited a torrent of water. Coughs wracked her body, rattling her bones, but she didn’t care. She gasped and air flew back into her lungs. She coughed it off again but then she breathed more, and more, and—

Air! Air, air. Air, air, air, air, air, air...

She opened her eyes, ignoring the stinging pain, both in her eyes and her ribs. Somepony was crouched over her, arms still half-wrapped around her but no longer pressing her ribs to push out their contents by force. A helmet lay thrown to the side. A dark shape moved at her, hiding everything, and her lungs were forcefully filled with air again. The shadow pulled back and the light became too much. She shut her eyes, wincing, and spat out more water.

She tried to move and her insides stirred as if they wanted to get vomited themselves. Her throat convulsed and cold water rose up her throat again. She spit it out, the pain lessening as she did, replaced by dullness. Something forced her on her side, shifting her so she could retch her lungs empty again.

“I thought you drowned!” somepony said, and it sounded as if whoever spoke had been a step away from starting to cry. She couldn’t make heads or tails of where she was, what she was doing, why it all hurt so much…

She remembered the rush of iced water in her lungs as if it had been a foggy dream. When had that happened?

“Stand still, for heaven’s sake, stand still. I’ve got it. You’ll be okay, I promise. We need to find somewhere safe, so don’t bleed out, okay? Don’t die on me, not now.”

It was all a blur. Taste was strange, as if she had spent days suckling on a salty ice cube. Everything was unfocused, blurry shapes with dull colors save for the bright, colorful ones that flew above her.

She saw large columns sprouting out of the earth or from the stone sky above, and memory prickled. She knew that. She almost knew where she was. Everything hurt, and she was so tired… When was the last time she slept?

The world roared. Lazily, she opened her eyes again. The columns burst with movement, as if a cyst broke inside them and fluid pus puked out, screaming on its way. The column that towered over her, those further away, every one of them, all came alive, crawling and jumping out of every crevice, heaving and screaming like newborns.

“We have to go. We have to go now! Can you walk? Little apple, wake up! Don’t fall asleep! You have to help, I can’t keep carrying you! Get up!” Somepony was shouting at her, and she wanted them to stop. She wanted to rest. She had a long, tiring day.

They moved her. How rude. She hurt and she wanted to sleep. She was cold enough, tired enough. She wanted to lie down, stop thinking, and wait for warmth to come.

She felt leaves brush around her coat. Was she back at her farm? Was she sleeping on an apple tree like Rainbow used to do sometimes? Everything became so green.

And the noise behind her. So hungry, whoever it was. Somepony should feed them some grub.

The rush of wind on her mane felt nice. As if she was running without actually running.

She felt herself falling and her fall was broken by the crunching of leaves and springly branches. Somepony picked her up again, their struggling breath roaring in her ear.

She fell asleep.

Ch.01 - Prologue

Twilight focused on the apple before her. She took note of every single detail, every scratch and imperfection on its skin. Her eyes traveled over the clipped stem, stalling as she memorized the direction and curvature, and let her sight rest over the single tiny green leaf curling on top of it. She stood completely still, the only part of her given to motion were her eyes, the irises moving erratically as they zeroed in on each tiny dimple and discoloration. Twilight's horn lit as she picked up the object of her scrutiny in her manipulation of the magic field, and gently, oh so gently and carefully, rotated the apple one eighth of its diameter to the left before restarting the whole process.

The operation proceeded smoothly. It was slow going, sure, and she would have to repeat it twice over, so she could entrench in her memory the bottom and the top of the apple from their respective views. Success hinged on the meticulousness of her actions, and Twilight Sparkle, personal student of Princess Celestia and protege extraordinaire, would not be found wanting.

At least not for the 18th time in a row.

She shook her head, the smallest shudder possible so as to not dislodge or blur her vision, and removed these petty distractions from her mind. Magic was calling. Success was calling.

After a great ,unknown number of minutes, time spent being one of the unimportant aspects of her venture, she felt ready. The red, shiny apple now existed in two places at once. One was right in front of her. The other rested in her mind's eye, ready to be manipulated and mirror its changes to its material brother.

She closed her eyes. Everything she needed laid right in her perfect memory. She channeled magic in her horn, slowly and subtly bringing change to the magic field that clung on the seemingly spotless flesh of the fruit before her. Spotless, she scoffed. She knew every weakness and sore that lay on that apple. And now she would take away the one that dared to affront her so.

Her spell ended. This was it. The fruit of her labors, in a most literal way, was right in front of her. She opened her eyes slowly, exulting in the approaching view of her triumph.

The apple was orange.

It wasn't red anymore. It was orange. Orange as in orange, the color that isn't yellow. The color that the apple hadn't changed to due to her failure. Again.

Eighteen failures in a row.

The young filly picked up the apple in her hoof, and with a bellowing cry of rage, not a high pitched scream -the distinction was important- chucked that Celestia-damned apple to the furthest reaches of the Canterlot Royal Library.

The eleven year old unicorn took some satisfaction in that throw. She made it as far as six reading tables away. That was a new record at least.

Well, that one and the eighteen fail-she would not think about that!

She pouted and looked down at her book. 'The Illustrated Illusion Instruction Itinerary' by Pipe Dream. The theory section had been practically inhaled, and the book was open on the practical exercise section. Page two.

She looked around. The library expanded over most of a whole wing of the Castle, the rest of it shared by the Royal Archives and some rooms and offices for their attendants. The shelves were stacked high, up to 5 times a pony's height with small rolling ladders positioned intermittently around. The library space was separated into smaller wings, each wing containing a category or sub category of a subject on their own, with small walled spaces that formed reading sections for ponies to bring their books and read in silence. Each reading room, she knew, was enchanted with a sound dampening spell that kept noises down, both those that came from outside the room, but also from outside to inside.

Having heard, and caused the deafening, echoing explosion of sound that came from the fall of a book from it's shelf to the stone floor, she understood why. Giant rooms with hard surfaces turned themselves into acoustic chambers that could bombard somepony's nerves every time anypony just walked around.

She was in such a reading room right now. Nopony else was around which was a small miracle by itself since this room, being the closest one to the entrance, was usually the first in line for anypony to put to use. But for hours now it had been her sole domain. Well, not just hers. She did have some company with her. Which explained why they were left in peace for so long.

The apple, now sporting exciting new bruises, was placed in front of her again. She looked up and saw the tall, bipedal form of her bodyguard, friend and surrogate father, titles not ordered by importance, gently bend over at his midpoint as he rested his hands inside his crude jacket's pockets and used one of his long legs to hook and drag a stool beneath him in a coordinated movement that baffled her every single time. That kind of balance on two legs was just plain unnatural.

Raegdan's black eyes, smaller that any pony's, locked into hers as he examined her.

"Someone is getting frustrated." He said in his broken accent. It was getting better but the curious mix of the hard and soothing tones of his mother tongue were still there beneath it all.

"Oh, no, what possibly made you think that?" she mocked.

He gave no answer beyond narrowing his eyes a bit and quickly turning his head to watch as her manipulation of the field evaporated from the apple, turning it back to its natural red. "How many times have you tried this so far?"

Twilight's young face frowned in defeat. "Eighteen." Her horn lit up furiously once again. "Well, I am getting it now though. Just watch."

His hand whipped out and grabbed the apple before she could begin her ministrations. "I think not. You should stop."

"I can't stop!" she protested. The very thought filled her with indignity. She wouldn't let a stupid apple stop her from completing her homework assignment. That's what students who did not wish to be mentored by Princess Celestia any longer would do. "I have to finish my homework."

He threw the apple up in the air in a straight line. As she followed the motion, he caught it again and threw it up again and again in a single handed juggling, each time giving the apple a new rotation that nevertheless didn't affect its straight orbit upwards.

"You cast the spell eighteen times so far. Tell me", he asked, "did you cast the same spell the same way you did on this try as you did on your first one?"

"Of course." Raegdan kept launching the apple at the air, slowly increasing the height and speed of rotation. It was starting to actually wobble a little, she noticed. He had to make small adjustments to his hand's position to catch it before it landed on the table.

"I see." He furrowed his eyebrows as he thought. "So explain to me. Why did you think you would get a different result than you did on your first one?"

She was mystified at this. The answer was plain after all. "Because I would cast it better."

More throws. "Did you do exactly what the book told you to do the first time?"

"Yes." Another question with a self evident answer. She always did as the books said.

"Exactly as the book said? Did you follow every little detail?"

"I cast the spell perfectly. I am sure I did." Watching the apple was kind of relaxing actually. The spins were getting very intense and really affecting the fruit's balance. It was fascinating in its own way.

"I believe you." He assented. "Now, I want you to answer this next question carefully. I am a little dumb and I might have missed something so..."

"You are not dumb," she said annoyed.

"Well, I am at a lot of things. This might be another one of them. Now, my question."

She waited. He threw the apple up one last time. He quickly brought his arm up and caught it mid descent with a satisfying "thwap" sound as it made contact with his palm. He crouched himself down on her eye level.

"If you cast the spell perfectly the first time, how could you cast it better on the next seventeen attempts?"

Her brain lurched. Slowly it started working again, though not before stopping her from doing a charade of a fish trying to feed.

"Just, you know. Better." Ok, maybe she needed a few more seconds for her brain to go back to full power.

He drew his torso back. "If it didn't work as it was supposed to with a perfect casting then there is only one reason it didn't. You made a mistake."

"I did not make a mistake!" she protested. "I cast the spell exactly as the book instructed and the spell's composition in the book is perfectly correct. There is no mistake in the spell."

"You misunderstand my little one." He placated her. "I didn't mean that the spell or the book had a mistake."

She puffed her chest. Darn right there was no mistake. Books do not make mistakes.

"I meant that it was you who made a different mistake altogether."

So that's how balloons feel when the knots untie. "What."

"You are trying to turn the apple yellow right?"

"Actually, I am trying to compile the magic field that surrounds it into an selective reflective surface so that the naked eye sees a yellow coloration. The apple itself won't change at all.", she explained.

"Ha!" He pointed at her with one of his fingers, the rest of them curled into a fist. "But when you do that the apple turns orange instead."

"This isn't funny," she complained, "I have spent hours on the same spell and I have nothing to show for it." She frowned, rubbing her face with a hoof. The repeated failures and frustration were getting to her. She could feel her eyes dampen and fought back the urge to cry.

Raegdan's face turned worried and he quickly hurried off his seat. He placed himself next to her and started stroking her mane with one hand, the other lightly scratching her back at that place, right between her shoulder blades, that she could never really get on her own.

"I'm sorry my little one. I didn't mean to make fun of you by laughing. I just meant that I think I know what went wrong."

"You do?" This made zero sense. Raegdan had absolutely no magic in him. He couldn't manipulate the magical fields in any way, shape or form. Best he could do was disrupt it with his touch. He had no idea how it felt to have magic flow through you or the sensitive pressures in was shaped under. All he had was what he had garnered from her studies as he escorted her around, mainly in magical theories.

It was another one of his tricks to helping her actually that enabled him to know as much as he did without having a sense for magic. Every time she happened upon a subject that gave her trouble he would have her give him a lecture about it.

She liked that one. It made her feel like she believed Princess Celestia did when she taught her. It was a type of make believe game that worked wonders for her understanding of the subject she would struggle with. Attempting to explain a magical theory or anything else, say history, to Raegdan would quickly either reveal her own holes in her knowledge or even more astonishing, facets of facts she had read would connect with each other and shine through in a sudden burst of understanding.

Was it any wonder then how infuriating it was that he often found answers to magic problems while unable to make use of it?

"Yes I do my little one." he hugged her close to his warm body. "And guess what, I got the answer for you all packed in your favorite form."

"What do you mean?" she asked from her snugly position.

Raegdan didn't answer with words. Instead, he reached for a book she hadn't noticed on the table before and brought it in front of her so she could read the title.

'Basic Painting Techniques and Color Theory' by Dry Brush.

She felt like screaming. She couldn't believe how simple it all was once she read about color mixing. It was so stupidly simple and terrifyingly brilliant how the spell worked once she had more proper context that she could hardly hold her voice in.

Too bad she was in a library. Making some loud noise would be so satisfying right now. She looked next to her at Raegdan as he skimmed through a book about the old Caravan Trade Guild. What did he do to express his own frustration? Ah, right...

She gritted her teeth and growled like he often did. Much better.

Raegdan put his book down. He picked up the yellow apple and held it up proudly, its real coloration returning with his touch fizzling the spell off it.. "See, I knew you would get it in the end. You always do. Plus, all that practice helped you cast the spell almost instantaneous."

"For simple objects, sure." She groaned. "I can't believe I didn't see the problem before. I cast the exact same spell on a white page and it worked. It was so obvious."

"Everything is in..." he faltered. "Twilight, is there a word for when you look back at something you did and see the wrongs after the fact?"

The dictionary in her mind flipped over a few pages. "The word is 'hindsight'".

He pronounced the word a few times to himself. "Everything is obvious in hindsight?" She nodded at his questioning look. "You got it now, that's important."

"How did you figure it out anyway?" she asked curiously. "I don't remember anything like that in my lessons."

He grinned. "Ah, I got the edge on you on that because of my kind's education." Twilight stopped reading what was in front of her and instead paid extra attention to Raegdan's words. If she was right he was going to let slip a few rare words about his past life.

"It's actually early in our physics education where we learn about how light is actually made up of," he made a waving motion with his hand hesitantly, "wave things, I don't know the correct word, each wave a certain color. So, when you look at the apple you just see the light that reflects on it which has had some of its waves absorbed by the apple so instead..."

She followed the hesitant explanation and completed the thought. "So instead of seeing white I see the apple as red." He nodded. "So I see the white page as white because..."

"Because white surfaces reflect light without absorbing waves."

Understanding dawned. "So, it really works like color mixing. When I cast the spell I added yellow to a surface that had no coloration so it became yellow. It didn't work on the apple cause it was like mixing red and yellow and it turned orange. But when I just took the red out..."

"Yeah, that's about it. Though I guess the spell does a lot of the translation between how you define color and what the light waves really are." He seemed to be pondering on that.

All of this sounded extremely interesting to her. And she bet Princess Celestia would think the same too. "The way this spell is made I think it was put together by trial and error to figure out the color changes. You should share all that you can remember about light with the Princess. Knowing how light works is safe enough isn't it?" She tried to entice him. Oh stars, it would be so great to know more about his kind's knowledge of physics.

Raegdan alternated between looking at her and the apple in his hand. He is thinking about it. Come on, come on, come on, say yes, say yes, say yes...

"It seems harmless enough I guess. But then, make the right spell and you could use light to cut through steel as if it was mist."

...She did not just hear that. There is absolutely no way you can do that. Can you?

"Then again," he continued, smirking teasingly at her, "you could use the same principles to see the building blocks of creation and measure them."

She was thirsty. When was the last time she drank anything? Her mouth felt as dry as the badlands.

"You can do that?" she whispered. She was being pranked, she had to be.

"No," he admitted. Hah, she didn't fall for it. Twilight still felt oddly disappointed though. To be able to do that... her thoughts were interrupted when he continued "I don't know the exact science needed behind building those kind of devices. But with magic and knowing what you want to achieve? I guess you guys can make some pretty good imitations of our stuff."

'See the building blocks of creation and measure them'. Of course his kind didn't have magic. If they did it would be unfair to the rest of the world. From the precious tidbits Twilight could get from Raegdan, his unnamed kind were on their way of becoming gods.

He breathed deeply and turned back to her. "I'll write some stuff down and get it to Celestia I guess, along with my notes on biology, when I am done with them. Now, homework. What's next?"

Biology? She'd ask about it but previous attempts told her that once he changed the subject away from his kind or himself he would clam up on any following questions. Instead, she turned over to page three of the practical exercise section. Then she quickly flipped through a few of the next. "I am gonna need a multicolored object for most of the next exercises. I have to manipulate the spell so I can change colors selectively in various numbers and combinations."

Raegdan scanned around. "I'll go find something. Wait here for me. I'll be back in a couple of minutes."

"Ok, dad," she sang.

Raegdan paused on his way out and flashed a wide smile at her, showing off his sharper cutting teeth. She blushed as he turned around the shelves.

She didn't really mean to call him that. It just popped out every once in a while. She knew he wasn't her dad, her real dad lived just outside Canterlot. Raegdan himself escorted her to her parents' home weekly. At least, Raegdan didn't mind, nor did her dad when Raegdan told him about her increasing habit to do so.

She had overheard them without them knowing about it. Raegdan was... timid about it. Almost ashamed actually. It was very jarring because he wouldn't hesitate to stand up even against Princess Celestia and make snarky comments about her... size. To see him fidget and worry across her relatively tiny father was one of the weirdest sights of her young life. Her father had picked up on that very fast however and reassured him.

"A father's main job is to protect his foal. The way I see it, you are there every day, all day, doing my job. I think you earned the right for her to call you dad every once in a while. Just understand, we wouldn't mind seeing her here a little bit more often, eh?"

It cut off some time from her studies but Raegdan made a point to bring her to her parents every chance he got for a long enough visit or even sleepover. It made her family much happier and even with the increased contact she had with her parents again the slip of the tongue increased in volume.

Worse, she was pretty sure she called Princess Celestia 'mom' before she fell asleep last night.

She needed to take those thoughts out of her head. She picked up the book Raegdan brought her and turned to the color theory section again. She gave off another growl for good measure. That felt really good. Aggressive and challenging. Come at me, laws of magics and science. You are no match for my brains.

She spent the next minute revising the chapter, taking care to growl at every paragraph.

"Shameful."

Twilight dropped the book as she jumped her way up towards the ceiling. She could feel her heart thumping a fast beat as if it was practicing for a new career as a drum soloist. Shaken, she looked behind her seat to see an old unicorn mare looking down at her. The sneering mare's mane was a deep pink with a few lighter and gray hairs peppering through while her coat was a pale yellow. Twilight tried to get a glimpse at her cutie mark but the unicorn was dressed in a long white coat that covered it.

Her demeanor didn't instill a lot of hope in the young student that this would be a happy meeting but she opted to remain courteous as she had been taught. "Excuse me, can I help you?" she asked as politely as she could.

"Look at you," the unnamed mare said with contempt dripping from every syllable. "Not only do you bear with that thing's presence, you even adopt its crude mannerisms."

Twilight tried to rebuke her, "His name is Raegdan, he is my friend and..."

"A name!" the mare exploded, disgust in her face. "That monster is not fit to have the same dignity that is afforded to a pet. And you!" Twilight had to cross her eyes to keep the offending hoof in her sight as it was placed not a centimeter away from her muzzle, "You call it a friend? I knew there were even unicorns who could fall so low but to see the Princess' own student do so? Are you so starved for attention you cling to a thing like that? Imitate it so it will grunt its approval to you?"

Twilight realized what this was all about. The offended mare was either a noble or part of their supporters. And one of the few things that almost everypony of Canterlot's Nobility would agree on was their utter disapproval of someone not of their ranks enjoying any kind of recognition from the Princess. Twilight herself was an often coveted target for their ire those last two years. Every move or word of hers would be misconstrued as a fault or insult towards them or the Princess at every opportunity. There were only two things shielding her from almost all of their attempts to hurt her in any way they could conceive. The first one was Princess Celestia herself, with only the most conceited ponies even entertaining the thought to attempt anything near where Celestia could witness it.

The second was Raegdan. He kept her away from their attention by simple virtue of being a much more hated target for their anger. What they saw as a beast had been offered quarters in the Palace and had the attention of the Princess of the Sun seemingly on demand, joining her almost daily in her public and private activities. They harbored nothing but hate and contempt for him and Raegdan knew it. Of course, this being Raegdan, instead of the slightest attempt to mollify them he had decided to up the ante on his own ways.

But right now? He wasn't here. And this mare was determined to bring Twilight as low as she could while she was vulnerable.

Knowing what the pale yellow unicorn was trying to do wasn't offering her any ways to protect herself however. Twilight could only stammer and tear up as the noblepony twisted every trembling word that she managed to speak through the incoming tears to plunge her daggers deeper into her.

"I... I am not... not wasting Celestia's time..." Twilight struggled to pull the syllables out of her chest.

Her accuser's eyes were wide, filled with anger and malice. "You dare evoke the Princess' name without her proper title? You conceited, arrogant foal. You will be cast out of Canterlot soon, mark my words." Twilight's back was forced against the table, the mare's face only inches away from her, her mouth throwing spit on her with every sentence she roared at her. "Once I notify our Monarch of her student's," she said with derision, "remarks, you will be lucky if she just sends you packing back to your worthless parents."

Twilight did not believe her. Princess Celestia would believe her over this mare but a part of the little filly, a part that was growing in size and filled with fear and doubt was shouting 'what if she is right'. Twilight could do nothing to stop herself from crying while insults and condemnations were piled upon her.

"Stop... please, stop..." she begged.

The pink haired demon smiled wickedly at her and made a show of looking around. "I hope you have enjoyed your short time at this library you insolent riffraff cause you are not seeing it again once you walk out of here." Her triumphant smile was quick to run and hide however when an appendage unique in the lands of Equestria landed on her right shoulder and its unbelievably strong fingers dug into her coat.

"She is going to walk out of here alright. And do you know why? Because I don't want her to see why you won't be able to."

Raegdan had crouched low enough to bring his mouth next to the unicorn's ear, his other hand wrapped around her horn, effectively blocking her from casting any spell with his disruptive abilities towards magical fields. His face was expressionless but Twilight could almost see the pure hate bleeding out of his eyes and voice.

"Raegdan, don't do..." she tried to stop him from doing anything to make things worse for himself but he wasn't going to let her.

He whipped his attention towards her, taking in the horrible sight she was sure she was in, her face must have been covered in snot and her coat matted down with her tears. His pupils shrunk and the terrified mare inhaled sharply as his fingers tightened their hold. He lost his frightening visage and some warmth slipped in his voice when he addressed her. "Twilight, I want you to go outside and get the guards there to escort you to Celestia. I am going to be busy here for a bit exchanging... words with my new friend."

The casual way he talked about the Princess gave the mare some courage or enough indignation to speak up. "How dare you talk about our Princess like that you vile beast?" That turned to be a mistake as she once again became Raegdan's sole focus.

And he responded to her post haste by pulling her up by the horn, up on her back legs, only to bring her head back down on the table with unrelenting force, blood spurting from her broken muzzle in a splash around her head like a painted halo.

"Go now, Twilight," he ordered.

She didn't hesitate. She didn't want to see this. She ran towards the Royal Library doors, the mare's whimpers echoing behind her along with Raegdan's chuckles. She would do as he said. She would get the guards outside. But not to bring her to Celestia. That mare was horrible, but she didn't deserve to be left alone with Raegdan when he was like that. She would tell the two guards outside to stall him long enough for her to get the Princess here.

The Princess would be able to stop him.

Almost an hour later Twilight was cowering deep in a pile of cushions in Celestia's bedroom. She had used the luxurious bathroom to clean up and tried to rest as she had been told. But sleep escaped her while doubts and fears where buzzing inside her.

As soon as she burst into the huge Throne Room where Celestia was holding her Sun Court she quickly shouted out to the Princess as loud as she could over the bustling of the crowd. "Raegdan... A mare... he is going to kill her!"

That was all she was able to breath out in her exhaustion but Princess Celestia understood all too well. She paused long enough to give directions to her aides to cancel the rest of the Court and then teleported to Twilight's side, wrapped one wing around her and with another explosion of magic brought them both to her quarters.

"Where is he Twilight?" Celestia asked her calmly.

"At the Library, the reading section near the entrance. Princess, he..." Celestia shushed her with a wing and nuzzled her softly.

"It's alright, Twilight. Wait here and rest. I'll take care of it." And then she was gone in another teleport.

She hadn't heard anything yet from either of them. The absence of news and her fears were filling her up with dread. She shouldn't have told Celestia that Raegdan was going to kill that pony. Oh, he would hurt her enough but not outright murder her. He didn't do that.

Sometimes she wondered if that was because he didn't want to kill or because he wanted them hurting more. She removed the disturbing question from her mind and examined the white tiled floor of the bedroom in an attempt to divert her musings. The white tiles were large but smaller sections had been cut from them to make room for the flowing gold metal that formed Celestia's cutie mark. The same relief was mirrored identical right on top of it on the ceiling. Now that she thought about it, Celestia's cutie mark was all over her rooms. Her doors had the same design, the bed's wooden headrest, the white curtains had light gold stitching which she suspected would form the same design when they were pulled closed. Did Celestia ask for everything to be decorated like that or did some designer do it to impress her? Was it because of what the Princess called "poor phrasings" that made everyone think she wanted her cutie mark plastered everywhere in sight?

Her own poor phrasing might be what pushed Princess Celestia to be harsher than she should. What if she really hurt Raegdan in her belief she was stopping him from murdering one of her subjects? It would be her fault, hers because she overstated his intentions.

And even if she didn't hurt Raegdan... She did just betray him, didn't she? She sicced two guards on him, plus a couple others who were patrolling nearby and then sent the Princess against him. And the reason she did that? Because she couldn't defend herself from a verbal assault from an unknown mare. He rushed to her aid and she... tattled on him immediately.

Twilight closed her eyes and once again tried to get some sleep. She felt exhausted and the pillows were so amazingly soft and warm, saturated with mom's soft scent...

She was nudged awake an unknown amount of time later. The sun no longer shined through the windows so that meant she had slept the day away at least. Next to her, sitting on the bed was Raegdan, smiling sadly at her. At the soft white light coming from the scones next to the bed she could easily see the swelling around one of his eyes and the bruises covering half his face. Questions about what happened where forming with astounding speed but were all pushed aside so she could jump on him and hug him as hard as she could.

"Hey little one." He whispered, his voice as soothing as always when she was scared or alarmed. "Are you feeling better?"

"I'm fine." Twilight answered and kept busy for a while just holding onto him and nuzzling the side of his face that wasn't hurt.

"What happened to you?" His bruises were worrying her. She relaxed her hold on him, realizing that if he was hurt that bad on his face his body must have been as bad, she just couldn't see it with the clothes he wore. "How did you get hurt? Did Celestia..."

"No, she didn't have to kick my face in." He interrupted her, tightening his own hold at her. "When Celestia popped in she told me to drop her, so I did." From the tittering way he said that she could compose a scenario of how that drop occurred.

"And the bruises?"

"Well, the guards weren't going to just kindly ask me to back off, you know? I am impressed though, I didn't expect an earth pony to be able to do that kind of jump for an air kick." He gently rubbed his swollen eye.

"Did you hurt them?" The guards were sent to stop him because of her, she didn't like the thought of any of them having to be hospitalized.

"Nah, I just threw them around on each other and they in turn tapped me a few times while one of them was trying to drag the bitch out of reach." He frowned, glancing to the closed bedroom doors. "Don't tell Celestia I swore in front of you, ok? It just slipped out."

She giggled. At least nopony was really hurt. "I'm sorry I tattled you out," she apologized, her mood turning morose fast again. "I shouldn't have done that."

He unwrapped his arms from her, grabbed her and deposited her on his side, on top of a white pillow. "This is what you are worrying about? Really?"

She nodded.

He huffed and covered his face with his hands. He stayed like that for a few seconds before removing them and addressing her again. "Little one, you did the right thing."

She didn't say anything, just waited, her questions written on her face.

He got up from the bed and kneeled in front of her, putting their heads on the same level. "Listen, what I did, what I was going to do, was wrong."

"But you were just defending me from her."

"I was, my little one. That was right to do. But you know what I was going to do to her, right? That I was going to hurt her really, really bad?" He waited for her nod. "I am not a good person, Twilight, no, don't try to say anything. I am good to you and a few others but that doesn't mean a lot to everyone else now, does it? I would overdo it and she would have ended up in a hospital or worse, not because I needed to do so to protect you, but because I would enjoy hurting her too much to stop."

"I don't get it. You know you shouldn't do things this way. Why don't you just... stop yourself?"

He shrugged. "I can't? I don't want to? I realize I take it too far only in hindsight," he chuckled and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand when it failed to get the same reaction out of her. "Oh, come on, not even a little smile for remembering a tough new word?"

She afforded him a small fleeting smile. Very small. Barely curled the corners of her mouth. Raegdan's face lit up like the sun even at that little. Was it any wonder how she loved him when he would respond like this to her every tiny move?

"So I did the right thing?" she asked desperately.

He patted her head. "I heard what she called me, little one. Many ponies here call me a monster too. And sometimes, I kind of become one. I don't seem to mind that however, do I?"

"No," she agreed.

"Do you know why I don't care?"

She shook her head.

"Because I know that if I become a monster, you and Celestia will do the right thing and be there to stop me."

Ch.02 - I wrote a letter home today

Dear Princess Celestia,

My friends and I all learned an important lesson this week: Never judge a book by its cover. Someone may look unusual, or funny, or scary. But you have to look past that and learn who they are inside. Real friends don't care what your "cover" is; it's the contents of a pony that count. And a good friend, like a good book, is something that will last forever.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

§ § § § § § § § §

Twlight released her magic's hold on the letter and let it drop down as she covered her face with her hooves. She had been lying on her bed for an hour now, reading the same report over and over.

She felt certain she held the not-so-coveted number one rank of the greatest hypocrites to ever wield a quill top ten.

When she woke up this morning she set off on tackling the routines that involve keeping a library running on tip-top shape. Cleaning, stacking, organizing. Cleaning -though necessary- wasn't really up high or even mid-place of her checklist of fun activities but, oh boy, stacking and organizing were enjoying the view from their seat on-high.

To multiply the factor of enjoyment she was getting out of the experience she had decided to tackle her own personal items and correspondence after being done with the main library space. That meant, among a multitude of other things, that she had to gather and stack in the proper order all of the reports that Princess Celestia had sent back to her to help her fight off Discord's spell.

Every scroll was unwrapped, given a cursory glance to its contents and put in its proper order according to date sent. However...

When she got to this one she stalled. She smiled at the memory of the poison joke's effects. Enough time had passed that her brain glossed over how truly horrible it was and found some humor in it. Crude vulgarity of a floppy horn aside, the effects it caused on her friends were pretty hilarious, especially the fluffy Rarity.

But the letter's message stuck in her mind. It made her feel strange. Like she was... unappreciative?

Cruel.

Guilty!

And with all the pleasantness expected of an infested wound spreading open, memories and thoughts she had kept locked aside erupted to the front.

...a glistening red drop swell more and more till gravity won over and it splashed in the almost full bucket...

Twilight groaned and pressed her hooves tighter against her eyes. Did she really write that friendship report to the Princess? What was she thinking?

..."This is sick. I can't believe you can just... just..." her throat was sore from screaming. She kept backing away from him, away from that grizzly... thing. "Stay away from me! Stay away you MONSTER!"

Raegdan....

How long had it been now? She had stayed in Ponyville for about a year so that meant at least two years since then. All that time and no letters, no attempts to talk, not from Raegdan, Spike or Princess Celestia. She wondered about that, how none of them tried to bring it up before it made sense to her.

He always complied by her requests. If he believed she hated him and wanted him to remain unseen and unheard, he would do so. And force everypony else to it too.

She had been back to Canterlot a few times since she relocated to Ponyville. Most particularly when she and the girls attended the Grand Galloping Galla. She saw no sign of him and nopony spoke about him. It was like he was never there, as if he didn't ever exist.

Was this really the kind of mare she had become? She didn't even spare a second to ask about him. She just... let everything fade, all the times together, all the help and support. Because she never understood the lesson she had the gall to write about all those months away until today.

Well no more, she resolved. She looked around. Spike was still out shopping. She got hold of ink and paper and brought them before her. She was finally going to write the letter she should have written long ago and as soon as Spike got back he would send it.

Twilight Sparkle broke this. Twilight Sparkle was going to fix it.

'Twilight Sparkle couldn't fix a one breaded sandwich cause she is too dumb and cowardly,' the purple unicorn fumed inwardly while pacing back and forth in front of a napping baby dragon. She stopped, checked Spike for any signals of an incoming magic hiccup and then went back to making a liar out of her floor's wood varnish.

She had a beautifully worded letter in mind! A letter that would explain her reasons, communicate her fears, get her her grief across and petition for forgiveness. And then she touched her quill to parchment and it all went poof!

Unable to actually write a letter meant for her actual target without getting jitters even on her magical grip, she instead opted for a more common solution. Stripped to its basic essence it went like this:

§ § § § § § § § §

Dear Princess Celestia,

I bucked up. I want to tell Raegdan I am sorry for everything but I am afraid writing to him will not work. What do?

Your dumdum student,

Twilight Sparkle

§ § § § § § § § §

She sent the letter three hours ago and there was no answer yet. Of course, it was morally reprehensible to expect Princess Celestia to drop everything to answer back immediately but still... this was important.

She was considering the merits of writing a more eloquent version of the letter, one that reiterated the importance of a swift answer to her crushed self-esteem, when she saw Spike stir.

She was on top of him -slightly positioned to the left though, magic dragonfire is still fire- and excitingly watched Spike switch sides and keep on snoring.

Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, da...

Her pacing was interrupted when she heard the library door crash open and a voice call out from downstairs. "Hey Twilight! Are you here?" she recognized Rainbow Dash's voice.

She hesitated for a moment. She really wanted to get this whole thing sorted out but until she got an answer back from the Princess there wasn't much else to do. Maybe a small distraction would be good right now. Her nerves already felt like strings that had been wound up too far.

"I'm here Rainbow," she called back as she climbed down the stairs. "What's the occasion?" When she reached the bottom, she noticed that Rainbow was not alone. Rarity and Applejack had also come in and all of them had started making themselves comfortable at seats placed around the reading tables.

"Hey sugarcube. We were all gonna head out for lunch together and thought ya might wanna come with." Applejack had taken off her stetson and fanning herself as she spoke.

"Indeed." Rarity added immediately. "It is a lovely day, though a mite too hot for my liking, and it would be a crime to let it go to waste."

Twilight was appreciative of their invite, really and honestly touched by their unthinking effort to include her in their daily plans, but she had to shoot it down. She gave a short glance behind her at the stairwell she just came down from. "I am sorry girls, but I will have to pass. I'm in the middle of something-"

She was interrupted mid sentence by Rainbow's raspberry. "Pffft. You are always in the middle of something. Come on Twilight, it's just lunch, what will taking an hour off to eat cost you?"

Before Twilight could articulate a dishonest answer she was caught off guard by a loud yawn coming from behind her. Spike walked by her side, his hands scratching his sides as he fought over his drowsiness. "The letter's here Twilight. I'm telling you, this one almost came up wrong. Is it possible to have the letters send some kind of warning before coming through?" Spike was holding one of his nostrils closed and rubbing it as he raised the envelope up.

"I'm pretty sure that would only make you sneeze twice." Her eyes glued themselves to the envelope, her mind striving to come up with an excuse to empty the library from her guests.

Rainbow Dash's eyebrows lifted up. "A letter? Is that what you were gonna blow us off for Twilight?"

Spike, the horrible assistant that piped out mission critical info before she even had a chance to decide if she wanted it shared, answered Rainbow Dash. "Yeah. Twilight sent a letter back home earlier today. That's the response."

"Home?" Rarity inquired.

"Canterlot Castle."

"Oh yes." Rarity waved with her hoof in a dismissive motion. "I know that you and Twilight were raised at the Castle but the outstanding fact of it does tend to boggle and escape the mind."

Twilight was feeling her nonexistent patience running thin and she had trouble coming up with an excuse that wouldn't be rude or involve involuntary blind teleportations. "Spike, if you could read me the letter now, please?"

"Sheesh, alright, I will." He unraveled the parchment and yawned before starting to read. "Dear Twilight Sparkle. That's you. Ok, sorry, no joking, I get it. Dear Twilight Sparkle. I am very pleas- hey, give a guy a chance."

Twilight was too much in the grip of a self-made panic to listen to Spike. She held the letter in front of her and went through it as fast as possible.

§ § § § § § § § §

Dear Twilight Sparkle,

I am very pleased to finally receive this particular letter from you. I have always been firm in my trust of your character that you would not forsake one of the longest lasting companions you have had in your life for any time longer than what you needed as a mature mare to fully accept his, truly somewhat large, differences from what is thought of as the norm.

That being said, I wish this response would have come sooner. Raegdan had not been what I would term alright since your confrontation. But you know him as well as I do, my student, and he would accept no attempt to reconcile the two of you that did not come straight from your own heart. He claimed it was "a minor thing. Give her a week or two and everything will be fine," to quote him.

Twilight, I want you to know there is no blame to be given here to anyone apart from his own bone-headed refusal to be the one restoring your friendship. His set his expectations too high on you when you did not have the life experience to deal with this. When the weeks turned to months he tried to

I am afraid I have to be blunt about this Twilight and I will once again repeat that no fault for any of this lies on anyone else but him and me for going along with this.

In the end, the only thing that stopped him from gravely harming himself was his fear you would blame yourself.

Twilight, I know this surely upsets you but I assure you it doesn't have to. Yes, he had become very depressed and suicidal at times. But I am heartened to inform you that he is much better now. Raegdan has found a new friend and purpose. One that came into his life by your own direct actions. So worry not, Twilight. Even unknowingly you helped him in his time of need. He misses you terribly, I can tell, but has found new resolve to wait for you.

It is a resolve that I am glad is no longer needed. Your fears are unfounded, Twilight. Raegdan never held the slightest disgruntlement against you. He wants nothing more that to have you and Spike back. He never stopped loving his little ones.

Here is my recommendation that you asked for, my favorite student. Invite your friends to come with you both and stay in the castle for a few days. Raegdan will want to meet those special ponies in your life and I would like to know them more closely.

In fact, the Royal Guard is having a Tournament for a new position in my Solar Guard and it would be lovely for all of us to be together at it like old times. Spectating the Tournament like we used to do will surely help wipe out any misgivings and repressed thoughts and allow us all to remember and choose the good times we shared over the discontent of today.

Waiting to see you next at home,

Princess Celestia

§ § § § § § § § §

"Twilight? Oh, my Celestia, Twilight are you ok?" Twilight blinked though her tears. She tried to focus on the upset Rarity that was talking to her but it was hard to make her eyes move away from those words she kept reading.

She let the letter drop, no longer able to focus her magic enough to hold onto it. Through her hazy vision she saw Applejack come to her side and put her hoof around her shoulders. "Why 're ya crying sugarcube? Is... something wrong back home? Did something happen to your folk?".

Twilight tried to speak but she was choked by more sobs and cries coming up her throat. She shook her head, unable to speak, until she finally couldn't hold on the slightest semblance of control and threw herself against Applejack, her crying drowned against her coat.

Applejack held onto her, whispering soothing nothings at her ear, trying to calm her down. She felt another hoof rest on her back and, hesitantly at first, start stroking her. She couldn't see her, her eyes buried in Applejack's shoulder as they were, but she felt certain that was Rainbow Dash.

Terrible thoughts were parading across her mind's eye; scenes where the Princess walked into a room -too late to make a difference- to find bloody marks scattered around the floor or a pair of balcony doors spread wide open with no occupant in sight... she pictured a body dangling from a rope, its eyes cloudy and devoid of warmth staring right back at her.

She wailed and gripped Applejack with all the strength her forelegs had, desperately trying to hold her as a shield against these nightmarish images. "Months", wrote the Princess. She would have still been in Canterlot by the time he tried to, to do something to himself. She was right there and she didn't know and she caused it.

Apart from her bawling and whimpering nopony else in the library dared move or talk for a while. It was what she needed, she felt. If anypony tried to push her back into coherence of thought she would break down all over again. She left herself slowly quiet down, relieving the sudden ache that had bloated in her heart with her body crashing moans.

At some point she had obviously shimmered down enough -though nowhere near calm- for Rarity to attempt to talk to the other member of the library household.

"Spike, do you have any idea what happened?"

"No, but let me read that. If something happened to Raegdan..."

"Who?" Rarity did not seem to get her answer.

A few minutes passed in which Twilight had mostly exhausted her heavier sobbing. She shifted her face from Applejack's reassuring embrace and saw sweet little Spike standing next to her along with Rarity. "Twilight, it's ok. The Princess says he is fine and he wants to see us. It's ok, Twilight, please don't cry." Her adored assistant's eyes were humid, ready to start flowing like hers were.

Twilight let go of her friends and turned to face the scaled dragon she called her assistant and in truth was much more. "Oh Spike. It's not ok. If Princess Celestia says it's that bad you know it must have been much worse in reality. I hurt him, Spike. Raegdan could be dead and it would be my fault.", her voice cracked.

Spike stomped his foot on the wooden floor. "No, it wouldn't be your fault. Princess Celestia wrote so and she always knows what she is talking about. And it doesn't matter now. We are going back and we will see them both." His face was more resolute than it had ever been.

Rainbow standing at their side questioningly raised her hoof. "Uhh, sorry to interrupt, but what IS going on?"

Twilight made a few false attempts at explaining the situation before Spike spoke. "Just read the letter. You guys will get it easier then."

There was silence for a few minutes as the two mares stood next to Rarity who was already devouring the letter's contents as soon as permission was given. Applejack was the last to move away from her, giving her a small pat and a assuring smile. When all three were done it was Rainbow who spoke up again.

"Ok, it... it sounded pretty bad for a minute there but the Princess says this guy is cool again. Although," she hesitated a bit, plainly afraid she would set off her friend again "who is this Raegdan, Twilight?".

Twilight stared at the floor trying dredge up a short answer that would explain everything about what Raegdan was adequately. Spike unhesitatingly brought it down to the simplest terms possible.

"He is our dad."

"Spike, he is not our dad. We got no actual relation to him and it is disrespectful to call him that," Twilight told him crossly, her voice still hoarse.

"Really?" Spike challenged her. "Because I remember a certain lavender unicorn that called him that a lot of times."

"I was just a little filly then."

"Until two years ago? You really grew up fast then."

Twilight could actually feel the blood rushing up her face and making camp for an extended stay as she glanced towards their audience. "In fact, "Spike tapped his claw against his chin "I distinctly remember you calling the Princess 'mom'."

And there was the straw that would break her own back. "Spike," she hissed, "I swear, that is enough. If you do not stop right now..."

But the baby dragon had embarked on a journey fueled by the steam of feelings and thoughts that had been repressed for too long and wouldn't stop with a mere threat when under the protection of a watching crowd. "And how is that even disrespectful to either of them? They ate it up every single time either of us called them mom and dad. Well, they did 'till you got the whole 'decorum' nonsense into your head..."

"Spike, I said, enough."

"...and then you and dad," dragons were supposed to breath fire, not caustic vitriol as Spike was currently doing, "had a fight and never told anyone what the hay it was about, we never saw him again..."

"Stop!" she shouted to no avail.

"...and would you look at that? After all the stuff he has gone through for us and all we put him through, after just dropping him for no good reason..."

"I had a reason!" She roared. She had a flash of red dripping in her mind and felt more tears stinging her eyes. What had gotten into Spike? He was supposed to be helping her, not accusing her, not blaming her.

"If it was a good reason then you would have told us!" He shouted back. "You want to make it up to him Twilight? How are you going to do that? Just go up to him and say "I'm sorry mr. Raegdan"? Is this what you were thinking to do? Cause if you did, you might just as well use your horn to stab him right in his chest!"

Spike was taking deep breaths after his furious rant, tears making their way down his eyes. Twilight just stood still, waiting, looking at him, her own face covered with tears that were flowing free again.

"Are you done?" She asked almost whispering.

"Yes. I am done."

She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. This, this was her problem. Spike was right. She wanted to apologize to Raegdan but had she truly gotten over her issues or was this just a token effort to show herself she had learned something when she had only memorized the words behind the lesson and not the meaning?

She rushed forwards to embrace Spike in a hug. "I'm sorry. You are right. He has done his best to be like a dad to us. And it is right to show him our appreciation for everything by calling him dad. On occasion."

"It's not fair." He mumbled from his position against her chest. "I miss him and he won't answer any of my letters."

She never realized Spike was trying to keep in contact. Hay, she never even thought about it. One more blame to lay against her. She had forbidden Raegdan from making contact with either of them without considering Spike's feelings or wants in the matter. Spike, who unlike her, only had one single person in the world that would gladly accept the word "dad" from him. "I'm sorry Spike. I... I should have handled things better."

"It's not your fault." He sniffed, "The Princess is right. He could have answered me back anytime. He is just... sulking or something. I don't know."

She didn't concede to this. Spike didn't deserve to be abandoned because of her. "We'll fix everything Spike. You'll see."

"Everything?" He tightened his hold against her, little claws stinging her skin, desperate for any reassurance.

"Yes."

They stayed like this for a while. The lavender unicorn and the glossy scaled, purple dragon holding onto each other, giving and taking strength and hope from each other's close presence. Twilight indulged in the close contact, feeling Spike's waves of heat that seemed to follow his heartbeat. It was the calmness she needed right then.

Figures that the little drake would ruin the moment for her.

"What about Princess Celestia?"

She pushed him off. "Spike, I am not going to start calling the Princess 'mom'. It isn't right."

"Well, right or wrong she always liked it." He took a sit on a stool, wiping his eyes to dry them. "Just something to think about."

She huffed but smiled nonetheless. Maybe it was something to think about. Later. Much, much later. Right now she had other things on her mind so she turned around and...

Oh.

Right. Her friends were standing just over there.

"Soooo," Applejack drawled, "any chance we get a proper version of all that?"

They had moved into her kitchen, sitting around the table, everyone close to each other. Spike was on her left and Applejack occupied the seat on her right, her foreleg on Twilight's shoulder. She almost felt the earth pony's strength and resolve flowing inside her from this simple gesture. At the kitchen counter, Rarity was fussing with the tea supplies, choosing and blending tea varieties while waiting for the water to boil.

She had little time before she would have to talk. Her friends were worried after witnessing her breakdown and she couldn't leave them in the dark about this. At the same time she didn't want to voice certain things.

Take it from the start Twilight, a voice spoke in her mind, and you might be able to avoid saying things you don't want to.

This could work. If she played her cards right she might not have to share the reason that created the rift between her and Raegdan. In retrospect it wasn't one of her brightest moments. She had been driven by suspicions, conjecture and her own lack of knowledge. The girls might even not attempt to ask if they realized how sensitive that topic was for her, which she was certain they would.

Rarity brought the tea cups in front of them and took her own seat opposite of Twilight, next to Rainbow Dash. Twilight looked at everypony's face with a small smile that felt so very hard to keep from trembling. They were expecting a soft tale, she knew, a story of meeting each other, some life moments and an ending. She would deliver as much as she could to her friends but it wasn't going to be soft. And if she could manage it, there would be no ending told.

Time to start the show.

A deep breath for courage and off she went. "When I became the Princess' personal student I went to live in the Castle. Spike had just been hatched so he was already there, being taken care of. The Princess' schedule was not without its interruptions and she preferred to keep us close so she could spend as much time as she could spare teaching me." Everypony was nodding at this. They knew all this. Frankly, that was all they knew.

"I had been at the Castle for a couple of months and even I, as a little filly at that age, heard the rumors that were then floating around about a monster that the Princess was keeping imprisoned in the Castle."

"A monster?" Rarity questioned at the non sequitur.

"Nopony really knew what it was or how it looked exactly. Best description I could get was that it was taller than Celestia herself, extremely violent and that it was kept in the infirmary ward. I had thought about trying to sneak a look myself but I didn't want to jeopardize my education."

"Of course you wouldn't." Rainbow affirmed in the most non sarcastic way possible, may Celestia guide her tender muzzle into a sturdy wall.

"In the end it was just bunch of rumors and nothing to really focus on with all the new things I was learning. But of course, something had to happen to change that." Twilight kept her head down, staring down the rising steam from the tea. Was it cool enough yet? She didn't really feel like finding out, she would wait a few moments more.

"The monster was real and attacked you and you got to watch Princess Celestia clean its clock with massive magic rays she summoned out of her..."

She interrupted Rainbow Dash before she could get more into her battle fantasy. "No. Nothing like that. I was foalnapped." The tone of her voice was flat, as if she was simply commenting on a cloud's ability to store water in the sky.

Applejack and Rarity voiced their shock.

"Twily, that must have been horrible," Applejack said, her hoof once again was rubbing her shoulder. Twilight flicked her gaze towards her to see her looking terrified. It only took a moment to understand why. Applejack has been raising Applebloom more like her own foal than her sister. The thought of a filly being taken away just like that was a little too close to some of her own fears, she realized.

"How did someone manage to do that inside the Castle? Where were the guards?" Rarity was abashed.

Twilight shrugged and turned back to her steam gazing. "No idea. We never figured out how they managed to get in. I was asleep when they got me so I never even saw them coming. What we did figure out was that their plan went haywire when Celestia decided to come to my room unexpectedly and she raised the alarm immediately. We don't know what their original plan was but they must have changed it when they decided to try and sneak through the infirmary ward disguised as nurses escorting a sick foal."

"And nopony figured them out?" Rainbow's reaction at the incompetence of the guard to protect the Princess personal filly student was ludicrous.

"None. But the rumored monster was really there, right at the infirmary, and he saw them. And when he realized what happened he went after me."

Rainbow caught her meaning and guffawed. "Whoa, whoa. Hold on. You are telling us that the monster was that Raegdan guy?"

"That was him, yes."

"I thought we were talking about a regular pony!"

Spike fielded the answer to that. "We never said he was. Raegdan is not a pony. We don't know where he is from but there's nothing in Equestria like him."

"What is he then?"

"If you ever meet him feel free to ask him. Maybe he will answer to you," Twilight grumbled.

It was obvious that Applejack saw things wrong with the whole thing. "But why was he locked up? Better question, if he is that swell guy who cared for y'all why didn't he tell the guards or Celestia?"

"He didn't tell anyone cause he couldn't."

"Huh?"

Twilight explained further. "He couldn't speak our language yet. He had learned enough at that point to understand a lot of things ponies told him but he had trouble making himself understood so when he realized what was happening, instead of letting them get too far, he escaped himself and gave chase to the foalnappers."

"But why was a good guy like him kept locked up?" Rainbow asked.

"Remember that I said we never figured out how they got inside? Even while they didn't manage to escape?"

Rainbow nodded.

"And remember" Twilight pressed on, "how the rumors said the monster was very violent?"

Understanding dawned in all three mare's eyes. Rarity's white coat got a slight green tinge. "You mean that when he caught up to you he...?"

"Apparently," Twilight intoned, "Raegdan has some very stern views on the issues of trying to harm foals."

Twilight was scared. She was more scared than she had ever been on any stormy night when shadows formed into teeth and reached for her at her bed. Even more scared than she had been on the day she got her Cutie Mark, when her magic went all... too much magic.

She was shivering. She wasn't sure if that was because of her fear or the cold. A thin brown blanket covered her but it didn't offer much protection against the numbness slowly creeping up on her from the stone floor she was lying on.

Her eyes were closed shut. She didn't dare open them again and let them know she was awake. She could hear them around her. The soft swooping sounds from the pegasus mare's wings as she beat them up to warm herself and freezing Twilight even more in the process.

There were two more, both unicorn stallions. She had gotten a glimpse of everypony when she first opened her eyes, before the fear settled in. They were patrolling or just walking back and forth to pass the time, she wasn't sure. She heard them walk into the room they kept her in along with the pegasus guarding her.

It was a small room. In the weak light of a single lantern she saw only one entrance, no door of course, this building had either been abandoned or was left unfinished. No windows either. She had no way to know how long it had been since she lied on her soft bed back at the Castle, for once going to sleep with no attempt to keep herself awake reading. Nothing covered her prison's walls and the floor only held some trash and her miserable self, cowering in a blanket she was too frightened to attempt and coax around her more securely.

The two stallions had stopped outside the doorway, talking softly to each other and the mare. She heard the clip-clop of hooves getting close to her. It was the brown one, she knew. The other unicorn was large and menacing with his pitch black coat and mane but it was this one with his common look and skipping rope Cutie Mark that terrified her. Every time they walked in she could hear him coming to stand over her, his breathing becoming heavy and wheezing. He tried to take off her blanket before but the black one stopped him.

She wondered if they guarded her in shifts. Her heart almost stopped at the thought of the brown unicorn taking the mare's place.

Why did they take her? She didn't think they had done it for the money. Her family was doing well as far as she understood but nowhere near enough for a foalnapper to expect a rich ransom. Princess Celestia on the other hoof, could pay one. But they would have to be insane to do that. Blackmail the Sun Princess? How could they expect to hide from her once they made their demands?

She heard a tiny pebble crumble under her watcher's hoof. It took everything from Twilight to stop her ears rotating towards the sound or flattening back. He was leaning closer to her. Maybe they really were insane. Maybe they just took her because they could and there was no plan for any ransom. They might just kill her and be done with her.

The black unicorn and the pegasus mare weren't paying attention to their partner. They were too busy yelling at each other in that strange silenced way ponies took when they wanted to shout but not be heard at the same time. She couldn't hear them clearly from her position, they had moved too far along the next room and her attention kept diverting to the encroaching breathing.

She could understand a few words. Mostly bad words and swears she wasn't supposed to hear. The Princess' name, some others she couldn't make out, mention of some way of using her later, or just....

...did she hear him say "kill her"?

Twilight was ready to get up and start running and screaming, hoping somepony would get to her fast enough to save her. Before she could even start bringing her legs below her to lift herself up she heard the loud noise as did her captors.

Something hitting and wood breaking apart.

She opened her eyes, hope and fear blossoming together in her chest too suddenly for her to control her actions. She saw the brown terror ran towards his fellow unicorn that was taking command.

"You stay in there, guard the filly," he ordered the mare. "We will take care of whoever it is."

She saw them walk out of her sight. The burnt orange colored pegasus watched them go too when she suddenly turned around and saw Twilight staring at her with eyes open wide.

"When did you wake up already?" she said frowning. "Their freaking spell was supposed to keep you sleeping till delivery."

She walked over to Twilight and stood over her menacingly, wings spread wide. "You better keep your mouth shut and not make any trouble you little cunt or I will have to knock you ou-"

The mare stopped herself mid-word when she heard the commotion from the rooms behind her.

"The hay is that thing? Do something, hit it, don't let it come near me!" The brown one, Twilight recognized his wheezing voice.

There were flashes of colors and then she heard the other one. "It's not fucking stopping, my spells don't do squat. Don't just stare at it you idiot, move out of the way!"

What followed was a cacophony of bodies hitting each other and the floor. The pegasus was slowly making her way towards the room's exit, hesitating with each fresh sound of impact and pained grunt. A loud, roar full of agony suddenly pierced through, causing the mare to stumble back to Twilight's side against the wall.

"Ha, you didn't like that, did you, you mutant cow freak. You can ignore my spells but it's harder to do that to a hoof digging in your stitches, isn- OOF!"

"Granite, get the fuck out of there, it got hold of a splinter!"

"Current, get it off," the black stallion sounded desperate, "I can't hold it, I can't hold-", there was a resounding dry snap like a thick branch breaking. "MY LEG, IT BROKE MY-grrrghhh..." his cries faded out in a gurgle.

Twilight felt sick. This didn't sound like a rescue, this was like those monster stories her brother told her once to scare her. She looked around again, hoping a doorway or a window might have miraculously appeared for her to get away. No such luck, all she had available was the exit that lead towards the fight, her blanket and the petrified, wide stared mare next to her.

More sounds. Hooves, she realized. The survivor was running towards them. "Amber, Amber, come here and help me, it killed Granite, it just stabbed him right up his throat. Amber!"

The pegasus next to Twilight wasn't answering. Her head kept shaking left and right violently, lips moving in a chant. "It was in and out, this wasn't supposed to happen, it was in and out, this wasn't supposed to happen..."

The brown unicorn came into view as he sprinted towards their room. And an instant later she got a weak glimpse of what was chasing him as it leapt at him and drove him against the corner, right next to the empty open entrance and out of their view.

She didn't manage to see much in the little light that reached it. It was mostly a blur, covered in white and red, with a shape she had never seen before. But the way it charged the fleeing pony was what shook her. It was how she always expected the Nightmare in her room's closet to jump at her.

The sounds of fighting reignited, now coming from much closer, only a few feet from her, separated by a thin wall. She heard dry thumps and wet slapping sounds repeating themselves over and over. Until another pained roar erupted from the unknown assailant. She heard the unicorn's voice, muffled a bit but ecstatic. "How about that you sick fucker then? Unicorn horn in your chest doing it for you?" A wet thump was followed by a surrendering pained moan. "You enjoy that? I do! Is my horn big enough you psychotic monster? Oh, hey, let go, LET GO OF MY HEAD!"

He clearly thrashed around, trying to get away from his opponent's hold. Until, that is, they heard it speak, its words crudely uttered and filled with malice.

"Have Larger Horn Past."

The stallion started screaming for help again. "Amber, for Celestia's sake come out and help me. It's gonna eat me, Amber, help me, help me, help me, help..."

He screamed again, long and hard, letting go suddenly when a tearing sound filled the building.

Twilight couldn't bear to think what that sound meant even if she had the capacity to at the moment. All her thoughts revolved around the fact that this monster could speak. That it could understand. That it could think.

That she couldn't hide from it under her blanket.

She didn't speak or move. She just kept staring at the doorway waiting for it to come in at any moment now.

One minute passed.

The pegasus named Amber next to her shook off her pinning fear. She took a step forward and spread her wings silently. She spared a look at Twilight, still huddling under her blanket and whispered to her. "Sorry, kid, you are gonna be monster chow on your own. I'm getting out of here."

She tried to tell her to wait. To beg not to leave her alone. Instead she watched wide-eyed as Amber took flight and zoomed through the door in an angle with as much speed as she could summon in this short distance. If she had blinked, Twilight was certain she would not have noticed the strange claw thing grabbing Amber's wing from the side of the doorway and violently dragging her towards it, accompanied by the loud pop of a dislocated limb and a terrified yell.

She didn't hear Amber beg or scream for long. The beast hiding from her view gave her no time to do that. All Twilight heard was the rhythmic knocking of something hard striking the hard floor again and again and again.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.Thump. Thump

Thump.

She would have expected silence to reign again. That's how it went in the stories usually. But she could clearly hear the monster. Its breathing, deep and gasping, every attempt to inhale bringing it obvious pain. She heard it clambering up on its legs. She saw the bloody claws at the door frame's side as it held for support. And then she saw it.

It was tall. Taller than any pony excepting the Princess and even she might be shorter that it. It was forced to stoop to cross the door. Some short of open white robe was tattered on it, stained with dirt and blood, one of the creature's arms had bundled up a bit of it and held it tight against its chest. Below the thick robe it was covered with bandages. Or what remained of them. They had been torn in places, moved aside on others. Almost all of them glistening pink and red. Its torso especially was oozing with blood. How much of it was its own? A lot, she bet. The way it stood it looked ready to keel over any moment.

All of that blood was hiding its features like camouflage. She thought its skin might be light pink or brown, covered with darker pock marks and long jagged lines. It kinda reminded her of a minotaur she saw in the street once. Its arms were similar, though not so thick, and its legs longer, ending not in cloven hooves but something similar to its hands with shorter fingers. It didn't have a coat. Only a short mane at the top of it, now colored dirty bronze. Its face was peculiarly flat. She expected a long, open jaw filled with teeth, not those almost normal looking lips that were surrounded by fresh, deep red blood. Its eyes were so small. Maybe it didn't use its sight that much. If she stayed still and quiet it might pass her by. She just had to stay brave just a little more and keep her terror bottled down.

It looked straight at her and opened its mouth in a wide grin, revealing bloody teeth with small strands of flesh splattered on them. It could see her! She tried to burrow deeper in the corner between the walls as it stumbled towards her. The stale, dusty air was filled with a sharp, rancid smell. For a moment she felt a taste in her mouth, similar to when she licked her spoon clean after dessert.

As it came closer to the lantern she noticed the grin was gone. It looked strangely at her, almost sad. It knelt and reached for her and instead of grabbing her as she expected it to do, it just got hold of the discarded blanket in front of her and covered her trembling body with it, carefully tucking it under her for a tighter fit, using its one free hand.

It wasn't going to hurt her! It wasn't going to hurt her! The relief of that repeating thought finally let the tears she held back spill. Her unexpected savior had moved to her side, its back leaning on the cold wall. Its hand began to rhythmically pet her back, over the blanket.

In the gloomy half-light, listening to alien mutterings in an unknown language and laborious breathing, eight year old Twilight Sparkle fell asleep, comforted by a dying killer.

"When Celestia arrived at the basement where they tried to hole up she found him half-dead and blood-soaked, sitting next to me, still sleeping, wrapped in a blanket. He hoofed me over and followed her peacefully back to the Castle to be re-imprisoned."

"Re-imprisoned? He saved you and the Princess threw him into a dungeon?" Rainbow was shocked at this conclusion.

"Not for long. Turns out that whole business somewhat reversed the opinion she had about the strange monster they kept imprisoned and decided to give him a chance. The Princess told me the story of how he saved me and asked me if I was willing to help him learn to talk on my spare time while he would act as my very own personal guard."

Twilight felt tired. There was so much she glossed over and fibbed a few parts. Like the Princess' urging to report any threats he may make against anypony or her own fear of Raegdan at the beginning. She pressed on quickly.

"Raegdan didn't just stay on the role of a guard though. He was alone in a country he knew nothing about and even he craved to have somepony close to him. So, he soon formed an unofficial small family unit for himself with me, Spike and the Princess as its core members."

Applejack smiled widely at this, evidently eager to move on from the bloody tale she had heard. "That's so sweet of that big 'lug. He adopted all of you? He must be a real sweetheart."

Spike laughed at the description. "Don't get it wrong Applejack. He was amazing to a few of us but almost everypony else? Sweetheart was the last thing you could describe him as."

"What you mean by that little fella?"

Twilight answered her. "He has a lot of differences from ponies. There's a reason everypony thought he was a monster. Don't give me that look Spike, you remember what he did to that noble."

"I have got to hear that." Rainbow's own violent side shined through.

"There was a noblepony's aide, Plum Seat I think he was called, who was in a rush for some reason or other and instead of simply sidestepping around us on the hallways he opted to use his magic to push us to the side, hard enough to knock us to the wall. "

Spike chuckled. "Unlucky for him, he didn't notice Raegdan was right behind him coming to get us."

"Oooh." Rainbow said in anticipation of what was coming.

"The second after we hit the wall we hear a loud crack and see the unconscious pony slide down the wall opposite the one we were thrown against. Raegdan had gotten hold of him instantly and did the same thing to him that he did to us. Only he did much harder."

Rainbow and Applejack laughed. Rarity tried to hide her own smile behind her hoof.

"He was very violent if he saw the slightest need to. That noble's aide? He slammed him so hard against the wall that he broke two of his legs, dislocated the bone and ripped the muscle from the one leg he swung him from, broke his ribs and gave him a serious concussion. He got distracted picking us up and rushing us to the infirmary immediately afterwards, otherwise I am sure he would have done more. Plum Seat was kept in the Emergency Room for days and barely made it alive as it was."

The laughter stopped.

She exhaled an annoyed breath. She was afraid she was giving too much focus on only half of who Raegdan was but this was something she had to make them realize if they were to ever meet him.

"He is not a pony, but that's a only a part of it. Except Celestia herself, he never told anyone a lot about his kind or himself or how he came to Equestria. I don't think Raegdan is even his real name. And he is the first to agree that he is not... healthy. He has issues, a lot of them, and trouble controlling himself. But if he considers you friend or family? He will do anything for you."

Rarity was hesitant. "I don't wish to demean what he has done for you, Twilight. But he sounds very... unkind I believe is the most gentle word I could use."

"No. NO! You don't get it, that's how he is to others." Spike defended their father figure.

Twilight rubbed her head with a hoof. "This came out wrong. Is he violent? Yes. Is he unkind or cruel? Yes. Is he all those things to those he cares about and care about him?"

"No!" she emphasized with a strike of her hoof on the floor.

"You heard Spike say he was like a dad to us. He didn't just guard us and hurt ponies that treated us wrong. He stayed with us on every lesson. He helped me study and helped Spike learn to control his flame."

"It's true. I accidentally burned him like a hundred times and each time he would just put some salve on himself and tell me to keep going."

"Exactly! He would never, ever, so much as yell at us. No matter what. He was this big monster every mare and stallion at the Castle was afraid to cross and if I wanted to have a pretend tea party he played with me for hours, doing all the silly voices." Twilight's volume increased in excitement, this was the Raegdan she wanted her friends to know.

"He sat at the table with us and whenever the Princess wasn't paying attention he would sneak his dessert to us. He made sure we brushed our teeth before bed. He took me to visit my parents every time Celestia had a big chunk of her timetable occupied. He woke us up every morning with a smile. When we had bad dreams he stayed awake in our room next to our beds like a guard "to keep the nightmares away" as he claimed. "

"Let's be honest, " Spike interrupted with a smile, "he did that mostly with me. He would take you to Celestia's bed to spend the night instead cause he knew you liked that."

"Spike." She yelled, the treasonous blush reworking its way up her face. Spike himself just giggled at her stern admonition.

Her friends exchanged looks. In silent communication, it was Rarity who was chosen to speak up. "He sounds like a loving step-father, Twilight. But, with your description, you make it sound like beating ponies to death was a usual occurrence to him." Rarity's eyes locked with Twilights. "How did Princess Celestia allow something like that?"

Twilight's enthusiasm wavered. "He didn't - that didn't happen as often as it sounds. There was a serious episode every few months like the one I told you about at worst. But he was more patient for some time after and everypony was reminded by each occasion to be more cautious around him."

"Even so, darling. Why did the Princess allow him such leeway?" Rarity insisted.

"She didn't let him go unpunished. She didn't want to banish him or hurt him in kind, pain wouldn't really deter him from anything after all. She would lock him up in the dungeons in isolation for some time after a confrontation turned too violent." Spike nodded sadly along, probably reminded of the weeks he was deprived of his company. "And I think the Princess might have made a deal with him."

Applejack's head sprung back. "What kind of deal did the Princess need with somepony like him? She has a whole army if she needs someone beaten bloody."

"He knows things!" Twilight revealed, a flicker of her own thirst for the secrets locked in that stubborn skull coloring her voice. "His kind doesn't have magic as far as we know but they have technology and knowledge beyond our wildest dreams. He was no scholar or scientist but even so, just the basics of what he has..."

"What do we need that for? Magic is better, isn't it?" Rainbow Dash challenged.

"How about blood transfusions?" Twilight retorted. "We had no idea about treating heavy blood loss or blood types a decade back. Who do you think told Celestia about that? Or microscopes? Vaccines and antibiotics? Do you have any idea how many pony lives he has potentially saved just by merely letting us know about possibilities?"

Rainbow Dash cast down her eyes with a chastised sound. Twilight thought that she had better be thinking of her own visits at the hospital. A daredevil like Rainbow had enough cause to check herself in for minor injuries and it was too likely someday she might have her life saved by Raegdan's off-comment about him needing to store some of his own blood, "since we don't share Species Kind Type, never mind blood types with any of you."

Applejack and Rainbow sat in awkward silence, not daring to say something potentially badmouthing for a certain person. Rarity had the letter in front of her, reading it once again. She gently folded it again and put it in front of Twilight when she finished. "There is obviously more than meets the eye as far as your step-father goes, darlings," she addressed Twilight and Spike, "and it would be unrefined to form an opinion without meeting the stal- excuse me, person in the flesh. Thankfully, our wise Princess has seen fit to provide a way out of this predicament."

Twilight blinked the memories out of her eyes. "Of course, the invitation! I hope you can all come with us." She was an idiot. She didn't have to think about IF the girls met Raegdan. They would definitely meet each other and soon.

Rainbow caught the lifeline she was thrown faster than her Sonic Rainboom. "Are you kidding us? A chance to stay at the castle, meet this guy AND be one of the few to ever spectate the Royal Guard Tournament? Count me in!" Rainbow punched the air with her hoof. "I've heard the Royal Guards use all kind of real weapons there, no pansy padded mallets or blunt blades. Uhh, we are invited to that too, right?"

Twilight felt her mirth coming back with her friend's excitement. "They do. I bet you will love the show." She had forgotten entirely about that part in the letter, having things closer to heart to think of. Though certainly not her cup of tea -she looked down at the cold untouched cup in front of her- it had always been an entertainment, Raegdan's comments and jokes with Celestia, spike and herself, cracking them up to all but the most serious of wounds the guards suffered at each other's hoofs.

She left Rainbow Dash to her visions of clashing hoofs and metal. "Rarity? Applejack? Will you be able to come with us?"

"Darling, do you even have to ask? Of course we will. And I am certain Pinkie and Fluttershy will say yes as soon as we ask them. We are not missing this for the world."

"Yessir." Applejack nodded with a wide smile. "Though I'm more intrigued to meet the terror y'all would call dad than I am about a glorified rodeo. He sounds like a real character."

Rainbow Dash sputtered. "Glorified rodeo? That's what you think the Royal Guard Tournament is?" she said indignantly.

"Ah'beg your pardon?"

"This is how they take on new members in Celestia's Solar Guard!" she said excitedly. "They separate the best of the best, the wannabes from the already-it, the cream of the crop all together meeting in glorious matches, bashing each other by the dozens for a single spot." Rainbow hovered above Applejack, wildly kicking and punching at imaginary foes.

"Sounds mighty important." Applejack deadpanned.

Rainbow frowned. "Those guys can buck one of your apple trees so hard that everypony that bites one of them apples will feel their ribs hurting for a week."

Applejack shrugged. "I'll just buck whoever I need to straight up instead of messing with somepony's diet, thank'ya kindly," she said to Rainbow's exasperation.

Rainbow gave up on the stubborn earth pony and turned to Twilight.

"When are we going then?", asked Rainbow.

Twilight bit her lower lip. "I know this is really short notice but I really want to leave as soon as possible..."

Rarity reached across the table and silenced her putting her hoof over her mouth. "Twilight, we understand and do not mind. We will settle things with Fluttershy and Pinkie ourselves and we will all be on our way with the train tomorrow morning, bright and early. What do you girls say?"

"Not tha' much in the way of chores at the farm for me. Harvest's all done and everypony's ribs are safe. Big Mac and Applebloom can handle a few days without me." The orange earth pony declared tilting her hat back.

"Yeah, yeah, we are all in. Before we start packing our stuff can we go for that lunch first?" Rainbow held her hooves over her belly. "I'm starving. Tea doesn't really help with a pegasus' hunger, you know?"

Twilight giggled. "Thank you all. Let's go eat then. Spike can you please let-"

Spike saluted "Pinkie and Fluttershy will be notified to meet you up at 'Trot Cafe' asap commander Twilight."

Twilight moved to the main room and opened the library doors. "Ok girls. Let's head out then." Rainbow Dash zoomed out the door, fast on her way there.

Twilight's day had its share of emotional ups and downs so far. But as she closed the Golden Oak Library doors behind her and put up the 'out for lunch' sign one feeling was making its presence known more than the rest. Relief.

It all seemed so bleak and dark for a few minutes. But with her friends around her, supporting her every bit of the way, what could possibly go wrong?

"I told you that Twilight Sparkle is gonna fix this!" she thought to herself with a smile.

Ch.16 - Whoop, here we are!

Rainbow Dash waited in the guards’ mess hall. It wasn’t as large as she would have expected but it made sense in retrospect. The guards were working in shifts so only a part of them ate here at a time. As Rainbow believed, the hall was named after the food. It really was a mess. Except the fries. Those were excellent.

Everypony had become accustomed to seeing her eat here often enough for the last few days, sometimes alone, sometimes accompanying guards. She was still riding on the tail of her fame of her duel with Luna and she was doing her best to milk it for all it was worth. She had almost nailed most of the guards’ thoughts on Luna. She didn’t bother with writing down names. Rainbow believed that only a bad spy that wanted to get caught red hooved would do that; plus she didn’t remember most of their names. She could point and tell just fine though if she needed to.

She didn’t have anything concrete to point at them for however. There was quite a difference from trusting her enough to bash one of the diarchs in front of her and trusting her with knowledge of wrongdoing.

Most of the time she sat with guys and gals who disliked or mistrusted Luna and Raegdan. There was a lot of them, but she had noticed that as time passed, during which neither of them was antagonizing the Royal Guard or taking out their frustrations on them, everypony seemed to simmer down. Whatever Applejack did to keep them both in line worked wonders! Grumbles would rise up every now and then, but plenty of times somepony would pipe up and remind them that Princess Celestia trusted them and spoke well on behalf of both of them.

They might not be liked, but a wave was spreading through the ranks that maybe, just maybe, they might prove to be not that bad down the road. The story of how Raegdan saved Rarity from a griffin was making its rounds, even though a lot of details were unknown, as well as the story of Twilight’s abduction. Rainbow had made sure to slip in a few hints of what Luna did before her banishment. Some ponies had hit the books or even asked Princess Celestia herself. There was some newly rediscovered respect for them both circulating now.

Rainbow had hoped it would change the view everypony had of them radically. It wouldn’t take however, no matter how much she tried to discreetly push, as did Shining Armor, and Pinkie, in their own way.

Every now and then somepony would be quick to point out Nightmare Moon, or Raegdan’s assault on Celestia. If that was countered by the fact that both of these events had happened long ago then their behavior in the arena would make a comeback.

So yeah, as far as popularity polls went Luna and Raegdan were still losing, but at least not as much as they used to. There was a general disposition to see how they would act when they returned. A lot was riding on that.

Still, there were a couple of cases were none of this mattered. It was why Rainbow Dash sat alone on a bench near the wall when almost nopony else was around.

Smoke Ring came in, looked around until he spotted her, and headed right for her after loading up a tray for himself. The light gray unicorn sat opposite of Rainbow, his magic depositing his meal in front of him.

“Hey,” Rainbow greeted him. “How was your shift?” She noticed he had taken a large portion of fries. She started helping him finish them off quicker.

“Meh,” Smoke Ring answered, starting to work on his salad. “Boring as always. Stand in front of door, move along corridor, repeat. I heard you got yourself back into that cell two days ago. You didn’t mention that.”

“Twilight put me in for saying some bad words in front of Princess Celestia. No biggie.”

“How bad exactly?”

Rainbow fluttered her wings in an annoyed manner. “Bad enough. She only left me in there for like twenty minutes. Like a little filly that needs a timeout,” Rainbow grumbled.

“Still, better than staying in there for over a day like your friend Rarity left you, huh?” Smoke Ring remarked.

“Meh. Actually, from what Twilight told me, Rarity had left a message about where I was, in Twilight’s room. But then the whole thing with Spike happened so… Mind you, I still intend to pay her back for that,” Rainbow Dash said, smirking.

Smoke Ring snorted and almost choked. “Whoo, talk about bad luck! Listen, got any news from them- no, forget I asked. Last thing I need is to get branded as suspicious and ruin my chances. They are coming back soon though, right?”

“I think they are gonna be gone for a week or two more. Depends on a lot of stuff. I don’t know any details either. You’d think with Spike along they’d bother to send a couple letters. You are really anxious to get in on the action, huh?” Rainbow hit Smoke Ring on the shoulder with her hoof in a friendly way. She liked the guy. He was smart enough that he didn’t buy into Rainbow’s story but upfront enough to come out and say it to her in private.

“Can you blame me? Look around. I don’t want to waste my life away guarding doors. I joined the Royal Guard to do something worthwhile not… this!”

“And?” Rainbow prodded, flicking her eyebrows in a knowing manner.

Smoke Ring huffed. “And I want to make those pretentious bastards eat their words. Your talents and abilities are of no use to the Solar Guard. Don’t bother us anymore,” Smoke Ring said with a self-important, puffed out voice. “This Raegdan guy will give me a chance, right?”

“Why shouldn’t he? He doesn’t really care what your special talent is or if you can fly or what spells you can cast. He will figure out a use for you. They just want you to be able to do the job. Speaking of which, got anyone else interested?”

“I try.” Smoke Ring turned his attention back to his food. “It’s pretty hard. You remember Heavy Hoof? The Solar guard that Raegdan killed in the arena? His brother is a Royal guard. He doesn’t really say much against Raegdan or Princess Luna, I think he might be blaming his own brother for going ahead with the whole silliness in the first place, but the part where they cheered over his brother’s corpse didn’t stick well with him either. It didn’t stick well with anypony. Anyway.” Smoke Ring paused to take a drink of water. “He stays sullen but silent on the matter. His niece keeps coming over all the time however. So, the other guys keep seeing him try to comfort an orphan filly and…”

“Ok, I get it.” Rainbow Dash felt really bad about that filly. What has her name? Morning Dew? She had tried to talk to her once when she spotted her, but the filly asked her straight away if she knew “the monster who killed my daddy”. Rainbow admitted that she did and that’s all it took for Morning Dew to run away from her. She decided to let her go. What was she going to say anyway?

“Yeah. Word got around of what your tall friend said to the filly too.”

“Dang. Listen, Twilight told me about that. He didn’t mean-”

Smoke Ring motioned for her to quit trying to explain. “You don’t have to say a thing. I understand why he said that. I asked myself why he didn’t just tell her the truth and found myself stuck. I don’t know what I would have done in his place. Probably run. Most ponies don’t see it like that though. Some of them took his words literally.”

Rainbow stole a couple more fries from his plate, uncaring of his disapproving scowl. “This is so not cool. I want to have some good news for them when they come back.” She let her head plop on the table. “It’s not fair,” she whined. “Luna’s lived a crappy, lonely life and all she got in return is a cold shoulder from almost everypony. At best.”

“You really feel bad for her, don’t you?” Smoke Ring asked. His eyes were focused on his meal instead of Rainbow’s theatrics.

Rainbow lifted her hoof in the air. “Element of Loyalty and all that jazz. It doesn’t feel right that nopony shows any to her. I include me and the girls in there. There have been a couple of occasions where I’m surprised they didn’t kick our flanks with the stuff we pulled. Anything else? I gotta go meet up with Shining Armor.”

Smoke Ring hesitated. “Uh, there is something actually. Not a lot of guards heard so far but…”

“Come on, spit it out. What else could have happened?” Rainbow asked while getting up and flexing her wings.

“There’s another rumor floating around… about Raegdan, and this one is pretty nasty. It’s not a new one either but it’s really gaining ground with the latest incidents.”

“Ah, ponyfeathers. What do they accuse him of this time? Do they say that he collects ears like trophies or something?”

“No. They say he has eaten ponies.”

“There’s nothing here,” Leaf Stream pointed out.

“Not anymore,” Luna said, walking ahead. “Do you see that small area where nothing grows? That’s where they were buried. The village was right over there,” she said, pointing at the other side, across a small, empty field.

“Is there a particular reason we are here princess?” Applejack asked. She looked around or as much as she could in the dark. There wasn’t anything to see. She would never have guessed there ever was anything of importance here.

Twilight would probably gush about the passage of time and how everything changed. Applejack didn’t need to hear a lecture about that or really think about it. It was something she had learned a long time ago. Things change. Old things fade away or vanish before you know it, and new things come to replace them. It’s how life is.

Luna seemed to see much more than they did in these empty fields. She walked to the edge of the purported mass grave. “Not really. We were close enough and it felt… right to come here one more time.” She pointed on the ground with her hoof. “Raegdan, if you could please-”

Raegdan didn’t wait for her to end her sentence. He had been walking next to Luna, solemn and silent, always less than a step away from her. The moment she started her sentence he was already down on his knee and digging at the ground with his hands. Grass, roots, and rocks gave him some trouble at first, but he ripped them out of the ground easily enough once he got a good grip on them.

“I meant to make proper graves for them.” Luna watched intently as Raegdan dug. “I never did so. I returned and stayed here for scant minutes before leaving.” Applejack was glad that Spike and Rarity had stayed back at the cart along with the two minotaurs. Neither of them would enjoy this kind of topic.

“Why did you change your mind?” Leaf Stream asked.

Raegdan answered with a guess of his own. “You didn’t know their names, did you?” He pulled something brown and flat from the ground.

“I did not. I considered building something else instead, perhaps a memorial of some kind. I decided against it. I felt it would have been...”

“For all the wrong reasons,” Raegdan finished in her stead. He cleaned his find as best as he could with his fingers, removing the chunks of earth that clung to it. “Is this what you were looking for?” He threw it lightly up in the air so that Luna could grip it in her magic without his disruptive effect stopping her.

“Yes. It is strange what the mind chooses to remember. I can’t recall their names or if they ever mentioned them. I don’t know what the village was called either, but I clearly remember where they left their shovels even after all these centuries.” Luna examined their find. Applejack realized that it must have been a shovelhead; it was dented and rusted so much that she had barely guessed what it used to be.

“I can keep digging, see if I can find the other one,” Raegdan offered. So there were two in total. Luna must have told him the whole story rather than the extremely condensed version they were told. All Applejack knew was that a village had perished due to a plague and Luna had buried them all.

Poor gal.

Luna shook her head. “No. There is no point.” She let the rusted piece of metal fall. “There is nothing left here. I don’t even know why I insisted we come here.”

Raegdan was still bent down, supporting himself on one knee. “Perhaps because you did build that memorial after all.”

Luna looked at him, puzzled.

Raegdan’s dirt covered finger tapped at his head at the height of his temples. “Wood, stone, metal…” He picked up the discarded leftover. “They crumble eventually. Even if you had done as you wished you had, would we find anything here today? And if we did, so what? All that a stranger would see would be a few tombstones without meaning. The point would be to be remembered, right? Even a little. They have that at least. You remember them. Over a thousand years over and they are still remembered.”

“Yes. Remembered enough so we can find a piece of trash,” Luna said, bitterly.

Raegdan shrugged. “So? Someone knows they were alive once. That they lived here. That they died and that they were buried. It’s far more than others get. It will have to do. It’s better than any old statue or other crap anyway in my opinion. At the end, people care way more about them than what they’re supposed to mean.”

Luna sat down on the cold dirt. “What of those that I don’t remember?”

Raegdan sat down himself, next to Luna. Both of them ignored the two ponies behind them as if they weren’t there. “That’s something that could lead to a long discussion. Listen, we could argue about how their life had impact and they are still remembered somehow through the ripples they caused that echo even today and all that tripe. The truth however, as I see it? They are dead. They don’t care about memorials or anything. We can sit here all night and philosophize all we want, but in the end it would all be about us, and what we would feel and want. Not them.”

Luna lightly kicked a small pebble that rested near her hoof. “It feels like an excuse.”

“It’s a pretty good one though, isn’t it? Come on Luna.” He reached out and tousled her mane. “Ever thought that perhaps you can’t remember more for your own good? Maybe the mind isn’t strange. Maybe it’s just looking after itself and remembers as much as it can take.”

Luna froze for half a second. Applejack and Leaf Stream exchanged glances.

“Look, I’ll show you something.” Raegdan’s hands smoothed the ground as best as he could and then he started drawing lines using one extended finger. It was a senseless shape that he made. When he finished with the main part he started making a whole bunch of little holes in various areas around it, close together.

“There,” he announced.

“You need to pick up drawing again. You’ve become worse. What is this supposed to be?” Luna asked.

“A blood pool and splatter. I remember it perfectly. If I had colors I could paint it the exact shade of red. The sun shone right above my right shoulder so this, this, and this part, reflected it back almost pure white. Over here it looked almost pink because there were white lines beneath. At this point there was a small dent on the ground. These drops here?” He pointed at individual tiny circles, one by one. “They landed on small pebbles. There was my own handprint in red right here.”

“Do you remember when that was?” Luna asked. Applejack felt a little concerned and, judging by the way Leaf Stream’s body straightened next to her, so did she. Still, Raegdan offered to tell this on his own.

“No. See? I remember this but I can’t remember how it happened. It really bothers me. Eh, I probably split open my own head or something. Head trauma explains a lot, doesn’t it Luna?”

Luna chortled. “I wonder how I will be remembered.” She smiled slyly at him. “Or you.”

“Yes, the very same question burns in my soul,” Raegdan said, sarcastically.

“Right. I wouldn’t care about that at that point either, though… I never asked you before. Do you believe in an afterlife?”

Raegdan’s lips became a thin line and the muscles around his neck tightened. “My kind… A lot of them do. There’s a lot of… of possibilities. Not everyone believes the same.”

“What is the most widespread one?” Luna asked, her eyes scanning the fields in front of her.

Raegdan took his time before answering. His hands kept busy, scratching at the ground. “Simple version; Depends on how you lived your life. If you were good you go to heaven. If you were bad you go to hell.”

“What is heaven like?” Luna asked after a few seconds.

“Depends on who you ask. Popular version again is that it is a place filled with everyone you loved and cared for. No pain, no hurt. Just bliss among your loved ones and the love of… of god I guess. If there’s one. Pretty boring and unimaginative isn’t it?”

Applejack listened carefully. It wasn’t so dissimilar to what she personally believed, though she never thought about meeting a god when you die. That would be neat. She’d actually have somewhere to lodge some of her personal complaints, somepony who actually could do something about them. Heaven sounded pretty amazing.

“And hell?”

“How about we go back to the others instead of talking about this?” Raegdan suggested.

“Hell, Raegdan. What is hell like?”

Raegdan closed his eyes. His expression was briefly one of hate and loathing before it changed to surrender. “Torture. Pain. Lakes of fire. Demons ripping you apart. An eternity of suffering. I think there is an acceptance that they are big on ironic punishments down there. If you were guilty of greed for instance they might pour molten gold on you and stuff like that. Again, unimaginative. This is boring. Come on, let’s go. The sooner we reach the Thestrals, the better.”

Luna chuckled. Applejack couldn’t understand why. It sounded horrible. It was horrible. She hoped there wasn’t a place like that. She could imagine nothing worse. As they kept talking however, she realized that just because she herself could not didn’t mean that somepony else couldn’t either.

“Raegdan…” Luna started to say.

Raegdan cut her off. “Don’t. Luna, just don’t.”

“...what do you think heaven and hell are?”

Raegdan sighed. “I don’t know what heaven is. I don’t think about it. I don’t see the point.”

“But hell?”

Raegdan didn’t answer for a few minutes. “If it’s like what most of my kind thinks… I would prefer it to be so. It isn’t so bad when you think about it.”

“But you don’t.”

“No,” he spat. “Hell? I think hell is loneliness. Nothing but yourself. No one to love you, no one to care for you, no one to talk to you. Just... being completely alone until you finally lose yourself and then you just… are. A nothing that has nothing apart from a small part of you that knows and it won’t stop screaming.”

“Hell sounds… familiar.”

“Yeah, it does… It’s also asinine. There’s no cosmic judge out there. Trust me.”

Luna leaned closer to Raegdan until they were sitting shoulder to shoulder. She stayed silent for a minute before calling out behind her. “Applejack, I have a question. Do you care about those who died here over a millenia ago?”

“Huh? Uh, ah suppose ah feel bad that they all died like that,” Applejack answered to the best of her ability, caught by surprise as she was suddenly put on the spot.

“Are you taken with grief?” Luna asked. Sitting beside her, Raegdan had turned his torso to watch Applejack with a small bitter smile on his lips. “Do you feel the need to mourn or shed a tear for the dead?”

Applejack looked to Leaf Stream for some help in this unexpected line of questioning. The dark green pegasus just shook her head. Big help there. “Ah guess not. It happened too long ago.”

Luna kept her eyes on the ground in front of her for a couple more minutes before rising up on her legs. Raegdan followed suit. “Come. I am done here.”

Applejack and Leaf Stream followed behind them as they slowly made their trip back.

“I hope this trip down memory lane won’t turn into a repeat of what happened before, eh commander?” Leaf Stream said with a slight mix of sarcasm and plenty of worry. Applejack glared at her.

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Raegdan said without turning back to her.

“You know what I mean. Spike, the baby dragon? Remember holding a knife to his throat?”

All of a sudden Raegdan stopped right where he was. His hands tightened into fists and the right one trembled and jerked towards his hammer’s handle. Leaf Stream realized she pushed too far and took cover behind Applejack.

“Raegdan...” Applejack started.

The moment passed. Raegdan started walking again in wide strides, increasing the distance between him and the two ponies behind him.

“Hey, wait. Ok, I’m sorry, seriously. I was just, you know-” Leaf Stream called out.

“Let him calm down. Leaf Stream, just so you know, if you prod him like that again? I will not get in the way if he attempts to hurt you back,” Luna warned her severely before hurrying after Raegdan.

“Maybe tone it down a notch?” Applejack advised.

Leaf Stream gulped. “Yeah. I was thinking the same thing.”

Spike and Rarity waved at them as soon as they came into view. “That didn’t take long,” Spike said.

“There wasn’t much to do,” Luna answered, hopping on the cart. Leaf Stream climbed up next while Applejack headed to the front. Raegdan took off his helmet and gave it to Spike to hold. He threw the rusted piece of metal he dug out on the cart.

“Why did you bring that?” Luna asked.

“Souvenir,” Raegdan said with a wink, making Luna smile tentatively. “Perhaps we can try cleaning it when we get back.” He took his place at the back and they started on their way once more.

Two hours later, filled with the usual backbreaking workout, Raegdan called for a stop. “Don’t tell me that you are tired,” Applejack complained. “Ah’ve been pulling this thing through the dark, across mud and over holes with no complaint for three nights now and-”

“And you started complaining nonetheless,” Raegdan finished for her. “We are making camp here and waiting for daylight. We are too close and we don’t know what the Thestrals have been dealing with.”

“I thought we were supposed to be hiding from our pursuers,” Rarity said.

“Since we haven’t seen any sign of them, they might have called it off or never came after us in the first place,” Solid Charge speculated. He reached over the side of the cart and pulled down the tents. Raegdan got hold of Spike and put him down gently.

“You mean we travelled like this for nothing?” Spike said, aghast.

“A little caution is never unjustified young dragon,” Luna said. “Not seeing them doesn’t mean they are not out there.”

“Or maybe they relocated their ambush,” Leaf Stream said. “Did you think of that?”

“We did,” Luna answered. “One or the other, it matters not at this time. Eat something and rest. We will wake you up when it’s time to go.”

“Uh, yeah, about that…” Applejack said.

Twilight spent a few minutes gazing at the corridor she was in before knocking on the door before her. Honest Serenade was rich, no question about it. Her personal taste left quite a lot to be desired though. Everything around her had to do with war and battles one way or another. Old pony armors, Minotaur war axes, Zebrican spears, and more.

She looked at the wall at the right of the door. There was a shadow around the painting as if there used to be a much bigger frame hanging here. Honest Serenade must have renovated extensively -and relatively recently. She looked at the painting. The contrast to the rest of the decor was jarring. Fillies and colts smiled widely in front of a playground. Every frame had either a painting or photo of foals. Twilight hadn’t happened to see the same foal in any of them in her short walk here from the entrance at the floor below.

The juxtaposition of themes made the whole mansion creepy.

She knocked on the door. This was a waste of time, all of it, and the sooner she ended it the better.

“Come in already. My hallways can’t be that interesting,” the mare’s voice called from inside, jeering as always.

Twilight opened the door and walked inside. She expected an office. What she got instead was a strange combination between an office and a lounge area. Honest Serenade did not work behind a desk, small or large. Instead, she had a reclining couch for herself and a small, short table filled with folders, papers, and trays. A liquor cabinet was right next to her, the glass doors wide open, and a bottle out and opened.

“Welcome to my humble home Magic. Please, have a seat.” Honest Serenade’s hoof pointed towards the sole chair in the room. Like everything in here it shouted comfort. “Would you like something to drink?”

“No, thank you. I don’t intend to stay that long,” Twilight answered as coldly as she could.

“Suit yourself Magic. All the more for me.”

“I have a name you know,” Twilight protested.

Honest Serenade ignored her. A glass made its way to her lips under the guidance of her magic as she lied on the luxurious couch. “I’m glad you accepted my invitation Magic. I didn’t expect otherwise, but it’s always nice to see I’m right,” she giggled. “So where should we begin?”

“How about the part where you don’t concern yourself anymore with me, my friends, and my family? And yes, I include Raegdan in the last category,” Twilight demanded with anger.

The mare looked stunned for a second and her ever present cocky smile left her. It made its way back quickly enough. “Come on my dear, don’t lie to yourself. That’s too much like him. I thought you wanted the truth. Answers,” she said, presenting the word like a tantalizing morsel.

“I do, and I will get them. But not from you.”

“Then from whom? Him? You really expect that? I thought you were supposed to be the smart one,” she mocked.

“He has promised me, and Raegdan keeps his promises. He will tell me-”

The half filled glass barely missed Twilight as it was throttled past her face. Honest Serenade was baring her teeth at her. Twilight prepared herself to cast a shield if need be.

“That monster, that liar,” she spat, “doesn’t keep promises, not when it doesn’t suit him. You expect anything of real importance, anything that matters, to make it past his lips and be true? He will lie and use half truths, and when you call him out on it he will dismiss you as if you are insignificant. He will have gotten what he wanted long before that!”

Twilight scoffed and raised her muzzle at her. She managed to hold off the smile that threatened to break out when she saw how much that simple action angered Honest Serenade. “I believe I know him better than you do.”

“You don’t know him at all! Where is he from, Magic? What is his name? Why did he stop trying to go back to his own wretched home? Why is he so set on forming a guard under his own orders?”

“He will tell me everything when he is back. Now, if you will excuse me, I believe we are done. For good.”

“Sit back down,” Honest Serenade hissed, getting up and pushing Twilight back to the chair before she could dodge her. “You think you are the only one he made promises to? I’m trying to help you, I really am. The moment you realize all he deserves is a hole in the ground, the better. He’s going to use you for his own ends. He already is, him and that perverted bitch that sleeps with him.”

Twilight pushed Serenade away from her easily enough, making it a point to show off her stronger magic. Serenade and all the furniture in the room were pushed halfway across the room with a single flare of magic. “That is my adopted father and your princess you are talking about, and you will stop these accusations if you know what’s good for you!”

“Oh, ho ho,” Serenade laughed, her good mood returning. “Magic has teeth. I’m so scared, oh dear me, what am I gonna do?” she taunted. “You need to trust me Twilight. I’m talking out of experience.”

“I don’t care. I’m leaving.”

“Did you know that he has killed ponies?” Honest Serenade asked with a pretense of innocence.

“Yes, I did. It happened right in front of me if you forget. Now stop blocking the door or I’ll move you myself.”

“Oh, I’m not talking about that little thing. Not that I am trying to belittle the horrible ordeal you went through, but I’m talking about something more… recent.” She smiled wickedly into Twilight’s face. “Something a bit more grim. Perhaps something that a really tall pony doesn’t know about.”

Twilight paused. She couldn’t be talking about what she thought. Did she know or was she baiting Twilight into admitting something? She decided to play it safe. The last couple of days had been filled with deliberation and searching into her own heart. The chasm that divided her was still there, but with help from her friends and her mentor it had shrunk, and the bridges were restored. She wouldn’t allow this bitter, hateful pony to destroy that hard labor with nothing but conjecture.

That voice in her roared to know. It took a lot of mental effort to push it back.

“Whatever it is, I do not care to know. We’ve wasted enough of each other’s time.” Her answer wasn’t how Serenade had scripted this in her mind. Twilight gently pushed her aside with her magic and reached the door.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Honest Serenade spoke in a hushed whisper behind Twilight. “You can’t ignore something like that, you are not like…” Honest Serenade’s magic forced the door close again.

Twilight could easily overpower her but decided to try to the courteous, sensible approach first. “Please let go of the door. I want to leave.”

“You know! You know and you haven’t said a thing!” Honest Serenade was looking at her with hungry eyes. “Oh, you poor little thing. Now I understand what she did and why. Please, don’t let me detain you. You’re free to go,” she said, smiling pleasantly once more.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be of help,” Twilight lied as she walked through the threshold.

“Oh, on the contrary my dear. You have been of excellent help.”

Twilight hesitated. She should leave and not allow herself to get baited into a conversation that would burn them all. Still, she had one question that she felt it was safe enough to ask.

“Lady Honest Serenade… why do you hate Raegdan? What has he ever done to you?”

The white unicorn raised an eyebrow. “And here I was thinking I was being subtle,” she mocked, chuckling. Her expression turned serious and hateful. “He robbed me, Magic. He stole from me the only light I could ever have, and I won’t rest until I take it out of his sorry hide. You are defending a villain. You can find your own way out,” she said, closing the door.

Twilight made her way out of the rich mansion and took the road back to the castle.

Halfway there she stopped. She had found herself in front of one of Canterlot’s orphanages. Most of them were away from the centre, to the edges or even outside the walls of Canterlot where space was not such a premium. Except this one.

She stood in front and examined the building, ponies passing her by as she stood in the middle of the road. She remembered this being an old theater. It must have been repurposed recently while she lived in Ponyville. Was this the work of Honest Serenade? Is this what that caustic mare, whose eyes lit with fire when Raegdan was mentioned, did when she wasn’t plotting against him?

She could see silhouettes in the windows, small, energetic, and playful. They must be treated well at least. She wondered how many of them were the result of atrocities committed upon innocent fillies or how many of them could have ended up the same. Raegdan put a stop to it and Honest Serenade was obviously caring for the foals that were abandoned here. They should have been allies in a common cause. Friends.

She turned her back to the building and all its implications. At moments like this she could believe what Raegdan said.

Life wasn’t fair.

Rarity waited along with the others in the dark of the night for Applejack to come back from her battle. She was fighting alone, not for her, but for others. Rarity wanted to say that she wholeheartedly believed she could win. She wanted it so much, but even though Applejack had faced those opponents before she never did so while they had the proverbial home advantage.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the clopping of four tired hooves coming their way. It was Applejack. Nopony dared to ask. The minotaurs, Leaf Stream, Spike, and Rarity herself stayed quiet, waiting.

Applejack smiled.

Rarity and Spike hoofbumped. The minotaurs slapped each other’s back, and Leaf Stream started breathing again. “I can’t believe you got them to back down,” Leaf Stream said, shaking her head.

“Ehh, ah got some experience working in mah favor,” Applejack grinned. She pushed a low hanging branch off her path. “Ah managed to get them to agree to sleep for a few hours at least, but in return they want all three of you,” Applejack said, pointing to Solid Charge, Cast Iron, and Leaf Stream, “to keep watch.”

“That’s fine. We were planning to anyway,” Solid Charge said. “It will be good to do something useful instead of being babysat all the time.”

Applejack smiled awkwardly. “Heh, yeah, ah used that as one of mah points. Raegdan said he’s gonna have you eating those words five minutes into your training.”

“Color us surprised,” Leaf Stream deadpanned. “Ok boys, let’s take another look at the perimeter, and set up. We might be in a flying predator’s area for all we know, but this area is covered with trees dense enough so we’ll focus on…” The minotaurs followed behind Leaf Stream, paying complete attention to her.

“She’s not doing a bad job, is she?” Applejack commented when they left.

“I don’t like her,” Spike said, sullenly. “She keeps trying to spy on dad or making fun of him.”

“Spy on him? I haven’t noticed anything like that,” Rarity said, surprised.

Applejack snickered. “Well, you wouldn’t have the way you sleep like a rock. Oh Celestia, ya really missed something great. Leaf Stream saw Raegdan get up and go behind some dense bushes. She thought that was suspicious so she follows along. Next thing you know, she gets thrown all the way back to her bedding and Raegdan pops out, pulling up his pants, and yelling at her in his language. He must have kept going for ten minutes straight,” Applejack and Spike laughed together at the memory.

Applejack’s mouth opened wide with a deep yawn escaping her. “Ah’m beat,” she announced. “Sleeping during the day doesn’t quite agree with me. Ah’m glad we return to a normal schedule, let me tell ya. See y’all in the morning.” Applejack turned tail and headed towards her own little tent. Spike and Rarity followed suit behind her.

The sun pierced straight through Applejack’s eyelids and into her brain, waking her up like a bucket of cold water emptied on her head. She blindly reached with one hoof to her right for her hat. She brought it over her face, stubbornly refusing to accept waking up yet.

A lifetime of working on a farm had conditioned her otherwise.

She gave up, grumbling all the while she stretched. Eyes still crusted from sleep she stepped heavily over to the cart where their dwindling supplies were left. Hot breakfast was out of the question since nopony had thought to ask Luna or Raegdan whether a fire was permitted yet.

She laboriously chewed on a hardtack, still grumbling. She felt exhausted, but there was no way she would be able to get back to sleep, not yet. She hoped they were close enough to the Thestrals. A full day of dragging that gosh darned cart feeling like that would be like a journey through tartarus. She eyed the abominable cart and all its heavy cargo with pure loathing.

She looked around for some company. Luna and Raegdan were not in sight, which was not that unusual. They were either still sleeping or checking around. She hoped it was the former. Applejack spotted Cast Iron walking nearby, holding a spear and looking around, obviously on his patrol. She decided to let him be. Solid Charge and Leaf Stream were probably still on guard then. Spike was in his tent, she could hear him snore. Rarity…

Applejack put her head into Rarity’s tent. It wasn’t the extravagant monstrosity she had tried to bring along. Somepony -guess who- had switched it with something more tame and inconspicuous.

The point was that Rarity was not inside.

Maybe she should have been worried, but what went through Applejack’s mind instead was a feeling of wounded pride. Did she really wake up second to last? After Rarity? What was next? Finding out Rainbow Dash worked harder than her?

Applejack shook her head. She missed her cyan friend and the competitiveness they had. She simply had no fun at all the last few days. It was either running after the terrible two or breaking her back dragging that thing. One thing was for sure. When the Lunar Guard got more recruits from solving the Thestrals’ problem, then somepony else was pulling that darn thing for a change.

She was also getting a day off from running after Raegdan when they returned to Canterlot.

She headed towards where Luna and Raegdan had gone off to sleep. She frowned. Did they even get a tent with them when they headed off? Did they even pack one for themselves- no, wait, they did. It was the one that Spike used. Huh. She hadn’t thought of that before. That meant that they were planning to share-

“Turn around,” a hushed voice said to her.

What?

“Over here.”

What the… Applejack looked around the dense foliage she was going through. “Rarity?” She called out, without raising her voice too much.

“Shhh… over here.”

Applejack examined the trees and bushes around her. The white unicorn should be sticking out like an orange among a bushel of apples yet Applejack couldn’t spot her. “Rares? Where are you?” she whispered, feeling creeped out.

“Over here!”

Applejack walked towards where she thought the voice originated from. This didn’t feel right. She looked above her. The trees were forming an impenetrable canopy over her, letting almost no light through. It felt too similar to the Everfree Forest for her liking.

“Rarity?”

Something white and fast as a snake whipped around her head and pulled her to the side and down to the ground. A hoof gagged her, stopping her from -yes, she would admit it- attempting to scream her heart out.

Her wide eyes saw that Rarity, wearing that cloak that Raegdan had forced on her, had pulled her into the deep shadows of a cavity made by a fallen tree.

“Shh…” Rarity beckoned, her eyes looking forward. “Out there. Past them trees,” she whispered. The seamstress’ hoof left Applejack’s mouth, letting her breath easier. She pointed towards where she was looking.

“Do you see them?”

Applejack’s heart was hammering. She searched among the trees, looking for what Rarity had spotted. Sweat stung her eyes as the searched through every crook and cranny until they finally saw-

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Applejack whispered back, furious. “This is what ya almost gave me a heart attack for? I thought they found us or something!”

“Aw, but Applejack… Look! Aren’t they adorable?” Rarity cooed.

“Since when did you become a voyeur?”

“I beg your pardon!” Rarity hissed. “I actually found out something, but if you prefer to throw baseless accusations rather than hear me out then I can match everything you-”

“Ok, ok, ah’m sorry. What is it?” Applejack said, more out of a desire to not have a fight rather than any true curiosity.

“Watch,” Rarity ordered.

Applejack did as she asked. Luna and Raegdan were sleeping a few meters away from them, their only amenity a thin blanket below them. Raegdan was using a tree root as a pillow. Luna had settled with a better one. She was draped all over Raegdan, using him as a mattress and pillow in one. Her muzzle was buried in his neck. Both of them snore lightly in a funny, coordinated way. One of them would exhale while one inhaled. It made for a non stop buzzing.

“Watch for what?” Applejack asked after a minute.

“Just be patient Applejack. You’ll see.”

Less than ten minutes later Applejack noticed something. Luna was shivering. The shivers turned to shudders and she whimpered. She barely made that tear inducing, mewling sound before Raegdan’s arm went around her and his hand got lost in her starry mane. The trembling stopped and Luna half purred, half moaned, as her muzzle tried to work itself in a more comfortable position in a spot between Raegdan’s shoulder and neck.

“Hm,” Applejack said, discreetly trying to control the tugging at her heartstrings and not to say what she really thought. Like, perhaps, that Rarity’s observation was right on the bits.

“See?” Rarity exclaimed. “I don’t think he even knows he’s doing it. Oh, this is just precious. Remember when they caught us in that dungeon cell?”

“How could ah forget?” Applejack said, her newly found good mood threatening to vanish.

“Remember what Luna said? She mentioned a sleeping arrangement they were keeping secret.”

Applejack looked at Rarity. Then the sleeping pair. Rarity. Alicorn and biped. Rarity. “So when she said sleeping arrangement, she actually meant sleeping arrangement?” Applejack whispered, astonished. “I thought that they… you know!”

“I know!” Rarity said, sounding giddy. “I was disappointed too at first, but then I realized that this means I can give a hoof into making the pairing a reality. I’ll be known as the pony that helped a princess find the stallion of her dreams! Plus, this makes everything I wrote so far pure fiction which means I can really go that extra mile on the third chapter.”

Applejack cut her off before she could get too far. “Ok, Rarity, let me be clear about this. No! We got too much on our plate already without trying to play matchmakers- wait, chapter of what?”

“Oh come on,” Rarity begged, making puppy eyes at her. “You can’t take this from me Applejack. All I need is to throw a few hints, make a nice dress for Luna, arrange a romantic dinner for them when we get to Manehattan…”

“How about we keep our mind focused on actually getting to Manehattan without anypony getting hurt first?” Applejack counteroffered.

“Applejack, Applejack… my dear, ignorant farmer friend,” Rarity said with condescending smile. “Trust me, I know a thing or two more than you do. In fact, I believe that this is why Raegdan brought me along, though subconsciously, and not just what he claimed for.”

Applejack’s curiosity was prickled. “Ya know, ah never got that. Why did he bring you along of all ponies? Does it have something to do with why you and Raegdan disappear every now and then?”

Rarity made a show of examining her hoof. “Well, I’m sorry Applejack, but I do know how to be discreet when the situation calls for it.” She smiled widely. “Oh, who am I kidding? Listen, he-”

“-is very upset you go into all this trouble to get us to rest only to wake us up with your bickering? Yeah, you got that right.” Raegdan said.

Applejack and Rarity turned their heads to see both Raegdan and Luna standing right next to them, both of them trying to blink the sleep off their eyes and scowling at them. Luna’s mane was flying off wildly in different directions and Raegdan had a trace of dried drool running down among the short hair that grew on his face.

“Oh. Raegdan. Luna. We were just-”

“-disrespecting our privacy again?” he growled.

“No, no, heavens forbid,” Rarity said, trying and failing to laugh it off. “We-”

“-have five seconds to get out of my sight before I hang you both upside down from a tree and pretend you are pinatas. Four. Three…”

What peeved Applejack most afterwards, when her heart was no longer attempting to jump out of her throat, was the fact that Rarity could actually run faster than her if she put her mind to it.

Rainbow Dash was lying on the branch of a tree in the gardens. Bird jokes aside, she always preferred napping or lying at places like this. It wasn’t just a refuge from the heat. The rustling of the leaves right next to her ears always lulled her to sleep. It was all kinds of awesome.

“Hello Rainbow Dash.”

The pegasus opened one eye to see who was calling her, even though this timid voice could only belong to one pony. Yup, Fluttershy. “Hey Flutters. What’s up?”

“Oh, you know… the usual. How about you?”

“Peachy. I just found out today that there’s a rumor going on that Raegdan ate ponies. So, yeah. I had an awesome day. I can’t wait for the moment Luna gets back and asks me what I did about this. It’s gonna be so much fun,” she said with feigned excitement.

“Oh. Can’t you do something to stop that?” Fluttershy asked as she flew next to Rainbow Dash.

“Like what? Fluttershy, I can’t go and outright defend him. I spent days trying to convince ponies that I don’t like him. Even if I do, it’s just something that circulates around. I can’t find a single pony and make him stop.”

“Well… I guess all we can do is ignore it. It will stop after a while, won’t it?”

“I guess. Maybe I let it ruffle my feathers because, you know, it hits too close for comfort. Since he eats meat it was only a matter of time since some idiot started saying stuff like that.”

“I bet ponies will realize it’s a ridiculous notion and ignore it after a while,” Fluttershy said in a show of support.

Rainbow stared back, unimpressed. “Really Fluttershy? Really? It’s not that ridiculous, is it though? It’s not like they say…” Rainbow’s mouth remained open as she stared somewhere beyond with wide eyes.

Fluttershy looked behind her and saw nothing. She waved a hoof in front of Rainbow. “Umm, Rainbow Dash? Are you ok?”

“Fluttershy, you are a genius!”

“Oh, gosh. I am?”

“I know exactly what to do! Sorry Flutters, but I gotta go!”

“Um, Rainbow, before you leave… can I ask you a question?” Fluttershy asked quickly before Rainbow could vanish.

Rainbow abandoned her “ready to launch” stance. “Sure Fluttershy. What?”

“Just a simple question… Do you think Raegdan is really that good in a fight as they say?”

“What brought this on?”

“N- nothing. Really. I’m… I’m just curious what you think.”

Rainbow laughed. “Come on Fluttershy. Apart from the princesses, I don’t think there’s anypony who stands a chance against him one on one. Is somepony thinking about doing something stupid? I’ve seen my share of idiots thinking about starting something these last few days.” Rainbow smirked.

“I… uh… maybe.”

“Well, let them try,” Rainbow advised her friend. “Just make sure Applejack or Twilight is there to stop the idiot from getting killed.” Rainbow chuckled.

“Uhm, I don’t think there’s a need for it. I doubt anything will really come of it. Applejack won’t let him get into a fight, will she?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said with some disappointment. “I guess it’s for the best in the end. Fluttershy, I gotta fly. Catch you later for dinner?”

“Oh, yes. I’ll be waiting for you after sunset, ok?”

The sun was lowering down once more and Applejack saw no end in sight yet. At least she did manage to get a small nap. Luna called for another short stop during noon when she saw Applejack and the others who pulled guard duty getting tired. She wondered if she would regret that pause in their journey now. She had enough camping out already and they had to make the return trip too. It wouldn’t be half as bad if they could light up a fire at least and warm up during the night or get something cooked and hot in their bellies.

“We’ve arrived,” Luna announced.

“Oh, thank Celestia,” Applejack said with feeling. She looked around and saw nothing. She even checked the sky in case the Thestrals had something similar to Cloudsdale. No luck. “Uh, beg your pardon Luna but… ah don’t see anything.”

“I’m sorry, I misspoke. We are still a little bit away. Do you see that treeline over there?” Luna pointed at a dark forest formed of trees that looked twisty and gnarly even from this distance.

“Yeah.”

“Let us wait. You will see them soon.”

They waited. The sun vanished behind the trees and tall hills. When twilight started giving its place to darkness, the forest across lit up in lights of blue, purple, and red. The darkness and threatening branches that reached out had vanished, replaced by something mystical yet welcoming. Square silhouettes were revealed among the trunks and ponies burst out in the air above the trees, flying in loops and around each other.

“Whoah,” Leaf Stream breathed out, her eyes glued on the acrobatic flyers.

“What are we waiting for?” Spike excitedly asked. “Let’s go!”

They rushed towards the objective of their journey, their vigor renewed from finally seeing the end in sight. Everypony was looking more excited as with every step closer they could see more of the beautiful lights the Thestrals had hung among the trees. Everypony except Luna and Raegdan. Their eyes were flicking around, watching every approach. Raegdan even held his hammer in hand and his left hand was on the cart, ready to grab his shield.

“Everything alright?” Applejack asked.

“Just… being cautious. You never know,” Raegdan answered.

“You are being paranoid, darling,” Rarity said. “We made it just fine. What could possibly happen?”

Two spears pierced the ground not even a meter away from Cast Iron and Applejack’s legs. More of them grew instantly from the bushes around them, glowing eyes of various colours gazing down the long shafts. The metal points, wicked and sharp, closed around them. Previously hidden Thestrals dropped from the clouds above holding more weapons of their own, all of them turned on their group.

“Luna, could you please remind me later to make a rule against saying stupid stuff like that?” Raegdan said.

“Princess Luna, we apologize for treating you and your companions this way, but we prefer to err on the side of caution.” The tall Thestral said. He was past his prime but he still stood erect and his wings and legs looked strong. He had a short silver beard on his chin which made him look extremely dignified.

“Apology accepted Sir Silverwing. No harm done, though for future reference I would advise against asking the commander of my Lunar Guard to accept being chained,” Luna said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

“Next one who does that, I’ll break his neck instead of his leg,” Raegdan let them know, his helmeted head swiveling around, trying to take in all the sights.

They were standing in the midst of the Thestral village. It was… well, amazing was the only word that Applejack could come up with, but what really impressed her was that it was only temporary! The Thestrals could take it all down in a day or two, which they often did from what she got, and move elsewhere. She could scarcely believe that they did all this for just a temporary residence.

Their homes were wooden wagons. They were colored in muted colors but they were carved with breathtakingly complex designs. What looked like a twin arch from a few steps afar was actually an unbroken line of Thestral ponies flying in formation when viewed up close.

Ladders and bridges made of rope and wood climbed above and connected the trees like a web. And the lights! There were soft lights everywhere. Beautiful small lanterns that shone with a variety of colored lights, turning the area from a small clearing with wagons strewn about into a fairy tale.

“You look like a tourist,” Leaf Stream admonished Raegdan.

“I am a tourist. I feel like I’m in Lothlorien…” Raegdan breathed in amazement. Spike laughed at this.

“The what now?” Applejack asked.

“Nevermind. It’s not important.”

Thestrals were surrounding them, but not aggressively. In fact, they all seemed to be extremely joyous to see Luna. Everypony had bowed to her as she passed and their eyes always found their way back to her. She was treated like… like Princess Celestia was treated everywhere else in Equestria.

They even seemed to be pleasantly fascinated by Raegdan, despite the fact that their first impression of him was breaking the leg of a Thestral that got too close and uppity. Applejack could make out some of their whispering to each other. They were all impressed by his armor and how fast he assaulted one of their own ponies despite it. Some of them were making plans on getting him to spar with them.

Applejack wasn’t entirely certain herself how much of a good idea that would be.

“I have to admit, Sir Silverwing,” Luna continued as she looked at the crowd around them. “Now that I am here I’m very curious as to why you asked for my aid. Your ponies seem too lighthearted for there to be an issue as grave as your letter made it seem. Unless… is there another Thestral caravan that is plagued? Do we need to make haste elsewhere?”

Silverwing looked puzzled for a second before his face lit up with understanding, followed by hesitation. “I’m sorry to inform you my princess that… there is no other group. This is all of us.”

Luna’s mouth hung open at this information and she looked at the small crowd around them again. “So few? What happened?”

“Crap,” Raegdan whispered behind Applejack.

Silverwing adjusted his leather wings on his back and tried to settle better on his seat. To Applejack he looked like a pony that was trying to delay something as much as possible. “Princess Luna… with all due respect, you happened. To be more exact, Nightmare Moon happened.”

“Impossible!” Luna said. “I never touched a single Thestral!”

“Nightmare Moon never found us my princess. But when you were banished… somepony had to pick up the slack. While Princess Celestia and her guards did what they could, so did our ancestors. They delved into the dark places where you used to go and tried to take custody of your duty. Most of your hard work had turned to shambles in the Nightmare’s wake. Our ancestors did the best they could, but though they were tough and hardened by our nomadic lifestyle they were not you. Still, they did enough and learned a few tricks on their way. Even now we pick up our spears against the occasional horror that tries to rampage out of their dark places or alert Princess Celestia to them if we have no choice.”

Silverwing looked disappointed. “We understood you better through trying to follow in your hoofsteps my princess. In those fearful days ponies did not take well to us and what they considered our frightful presence and preference of the dark. There was the occasional attack but what hurt us most was the lack of understanding. We could barely trade for the essentials. Winters were hard. Between the beasts, the cold, and famines… we perished. It took centuries for us to swallow our pride and turn to your sister. She had been trying to help already, but there was little she could do if we did not accept her aid, and this time we did.”

His hooves spread, embracing the entirety of the village and the crowd around. “If not for her there would be nopony to welcome you here my princess. You are back now. At last, now we can stop and we can focus on rebuilding ourselves without sending our brightest to their deaths.” The Thestrals around cheered for Luna’s return and the end of the harrowed fate they put upon themselves.

She didn’t seem to enjoy it. She looked guiltily around her. “Yes. I am back.” She sighed. “Tell me, what of the monsters that plague you? The sooner I return to my duty, the better.”

Silverwing took a few steps away. The crowd in that direction split, revealing a number of Thestral homes with open doors. “There’s only one of it my princess. I shall show it to you tomorrow morning when we will be able to see it clearly. In the meantime, perhaps you’d like to rest after your long journey?”

“We would. Thank you. Raegdan, come along.” The two of them quickly went into one of the small houses made available to them.

Applejack left the others behind to settle their accommodations. Naturally, Rarity took complete control and began the search to find the best bed for herself. Applejack didn’t mind. Any bed would do after sleeping on the ground. What she wanted to do now was check on Luna and Raegdan. Both of them seemed… off.

She knocked on the door. Raegdan opened it, took a look at who knocked, and went back inside, leaving the door open for Applejack to come in. She closed the door behind her. There was a small table with a lantern on top illuminating the room. Raegdan sat cross legged near a wall. He had to stoop inside the small lodgings. It seemed too small with those two inside.

“Everything alright with you two?”

“We are fine,” Luna said. “There is no need to worry about us. Just-”

“Disappointed,” Raegdan finished.

Applejack frowned. She could have expected a little depression after what the Thestral leader told them, but disappointment? “Why?”

“The Thestrals are exactly what we need,” Raegdan said. “Did you notice how easily they got us surrounded? They know how to fight. They trust and respect Luna. They are just perfect. Damn it, so close....” Raegdan and Luna sighed at the same time.

“...And the problem is…”

“Open your eyes Applejack,” Luna reprimanded her. “There are too few of them. They don’t have the option to give us their best as recruits, not with the way they live.”

“Oh. So, then that means…”

“Yep,” Raegdan agreed, nodding. “The whole recruitment thing? That’s a bust.” He took off his helmet. “At least we get to kill something tomorrow. That will be a little fun.” He looked around with a sparkle in his eyes. “Heh, we are back on the wagon.”

Luna copied his examination of the room. “I don’t get it.”

Raegdan rubbed at his face with a hint of a smile. “Nevermind… Are you hungry?”

“Starving,” Luna answered without any enthusiasm.

“I’ll get us something to eat. I’ll be right back.” Raegdan wore his helmet and carefully made his way out, wary of the helmet’s added height.

Luna sat before the table, her eyes gazing a thousand miles away. Applejack approached and cleared her throat. It took the Alicorn a few seconds to refocus on her surroundings.

“Oh, Applejack. Forgive me. I thought you had left with Raegdan.”

“Nope, still here,” Applejack said, trying to make the atmosphere a little lighter. Her cheer met the crushing gloom around the princess and perished. “You ok there princess?”

“I’m fine. Just thinking.”

Applejack gave it another go. “The Thestrals are quite something nonetheless, huh? They really love ya too!” She walked next to Luna and nudged her shoulder in a friendly manner. “Admit it, ah bet it feels pretty nice to have ponies cheer and call out your name as you pass.”

Luna’s eyes flicked towards the door that led outside. “Not really. It feels like any moment now they will march in, say “just kidding”, and ask me to leave and get Celestia to come in my place instead.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t sell yourself short. They like ya!”

“There were caravans of Thestrals across all of Equestria. They used to travel everywhere and they were always welcome. Now there’s only one and they only survived because of my sister. I drove them to near extinction.”

“Hey, hey now. That’s not true. The Thestrals don’t believe that so why should you?”

Luna did not answer. She rested her head on the table, heedless of the hard surface, and closed her eyes.

Applejack’s ears fell, just like her mood did. She tried to think of some other way to cheer up the black hole in front of her. She failed to come up with something, except keeping her company. Luna kept silent.

The minutes trawled by. Applejack wondered if she should go out and get Raegdan instead. Maybe he could give a hoof here, or hand. She frowned. He should have stayed here and sent Applejack to get them some dinner instead.

The door opened and Raegdan walked in, holding a tray with plates of steaming hot food. “Sorry I was late. I had to do a detour. Applejack, you are bunking with Rarity and Spike next door to the left as you head out. They are bringing your own dinner there now.”

“Great! Ah’m starving. Hey, Raegdan, can ah talk to ya for a bit in private before I go?”

Raegdan ignored her. He put the tray down on the table and reached behind him. “Guess what I found,” he said to Luna.

Luna didn’t even bother raising her head. “I give up. What?”

“I’ll give you some hints. It’s brown, sweet, and you haven’t had any for days.”

Luna’s eyes widened and she hungrily examined Raegdan top to toe. “You have brought me chocolate?”

Raegdan revealed a very large bar of chocolate he had hid behind him. “Yep. You are getting dessert tonight- whoah!” Luna had jumped at him and he barely avoided her.

“Give!”

“Eat your meal first you crazy mare! Dinner first, chocolate after!”

“Don’t treat me like a child.” Luna’s jaws clamped ineffectively in the space where her target used to be before Raegdan pulled his hand back.

“Then don’t act like one. You can wait a few minutes til- gah, my finger!” Raegdan cried out in pain.

Luna spit on the floor. “Do you ever wash these gloves of yours?”

“Excuse me, you are right. I should have done laundry, what was I possibly thinking?” Raegdan said with sarcasm, whipping his hand.

“Give me that chocolate or I shall charge you for treason!”

“Come and get it you little chocoholic!”

Applejack left them at it and departed with a smile on her face. It’s not like they even noticed her leaving. They were too involved in their little game to do so. She chuckled at her own stupidity. She had actually thought for a minute there that Raegdan hadn’t noticed Luna’s mood. It was moments like these that she felt completely justified in sticking with them despite everything else.

She barely ducked in time to avoid a wooden cup. Good thing the Thestrals liked Luna or they might get upset when they see the damage they did to the walls and furniture as they bumped all over the place.

She closed the door behind her, and as she expected, came face to face with a small crowd of concerned, bat-winged ponies.

“Everything’s fine everypony! They’re just playing around, no need to worry,” Applejack shouted over the sound of breaking wood from inside.

“Is Princess Luna gonna get hurt?” a worried voice sounded among the Thestrals.

“Nopony’s getting hurt,” Applejack said, calmly.

There was a heavy thump from inside. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” Raegdan shouted from inside, his voice a little shrill. “Stop kicking me there!”

“You are fine, we fixed the padding. Now, to the victor go the spoils- hey, give it back!”

“I don’t think you’ve earned it my little ballbuster. Now, what are you supposed to do?”

“Magic.”

“Magic?” Raegdan scoffed loud enough for everypony to hear him clearly.

“Yes. Magic.”

“Holy mother of-”

The wagon rocked violently on its wheels, briefly leaning only on two of them for a couple of seconds, threatening to tip over. There had been a cacophony of impacts and splintering wood.

“Well, not Princess Luna at least,” Applejack said to the stunned crowd. “‘Scuse me, ah’d really like to get some sleep. See ya all in the morning.”

The first thing that greeted her when she went inside was the glowing face of Rarity getting right in her own. “Applejack, come! You must simply see these tablecloths! The design and stitch is just perfect!”

Hopes and expectations of settling on a soft, warm bed anytime soon vanished under the long winded, gushing praises that Rarity sang of Thestral art. Applejack missed her single pony tent and that beautiful cart where nopony was talking to her about needlework.

They made their way on a winding path that led up to a cliff that was overlooking the sea as Silverwing told them. He had assured them that the area was completely safe and they were going up there only so they could see the monster they had called them for. For the first time in days they were walking without worrying about hidden dangers or warily watching their surroundings.

Silverwing had slowed down to stay behind enough in order to converse with Raegdan, obviously eager to find out more about the strange being that always kept near his beloved princess.

“So, apart from her Commander, you also act as her highness’ bodyguard?”

Raegdan shrugged. “I do whatever Princess Luna needs done, from guarding her to sweeping her floors.”

“Must be tiresome,” Silverwing speculated, “despite how much she honors and trusts you. One wonders if you get time to rest.”

“The pay’s worth it.”

“Ah,” Silverwing’s mouth tightened. “I should have expected so. You must have asked for a great salary in exchange.”

Raegdan scratched his chin. He had found the time to cut and shorten the hair on his face this morning. Applejack had never seen him do that before. She expected him to use scissors, not bring a knife to his throat and drag it across his skin.

“I’m not really sure how much I get. Hey Luna, how much am I getting paid?” he asked.

“I’ve arranged matters with Celestia and the Treasury. You can keep whatever you find from sweeping my floors and any bits stuck behind the couches,” Luna said. There was chortling and giggling around them.

“Ok, so the pay is not that good after all. There are other perks. I’ll let you know when I think of one.”

Spike shouted down from up ahead. “Hey! We’re here! The view is amazing.” Everypony doubled their pacing.

It really was amazing. The sun shone over the sea. The sky to the east was overcast with dark clouds, making the sea take a gray-greenish hue that gave it’s place to a brilliant blue closer to them. Powerful, strong waves were storming the cliff far below them. They were tens of meters over the surface of the water. Applejack looked down. White foam faded away only to be renewed by another series of waves that crashed on the rocks.

South of them were the swamps. They hadn’t gotten into them. The Thestrals had made their brief home almost at the edge of them but not even they ventured into them without reason. They glowed with such a bright shade of green that it was almost unnatural.

North of them, Applejack could spot the curve of Horseshoe Bay. She wasn’t sure but she thought she could see ships as they sailed in and out. They were almost imperceptible dots at this distance.

What she didn’t see was the monster. “Where is it?” she asked.

Silverwing went to the edge of the cliff, naturally uncaring for the sheer drop that waited. He pointed to the south, towards the sea. “There.”

Applejack hadn’t paid attention before. It was just more sea and she had ignored the greatest portion of it. She couldn’t believe she had been so blind. “Wow,” she exclaimed.

“That’s a big whirlpool,” Solid Charge observed.

“It must be as big as Ponyville,” Rarity said, breathless. “Bigger even.”

“That’s it?” Raegdan was angry. “Is that what you brought us here for?”

“Yes,” Silverwing answered simply.

“I don’t believe this!” Raegdan stomped towards the end of the cliff himself. “A whirlpool. All this time for… for… what the hell did you expect us to do, huh? Change the currents? Or was it your idea of fun? Playing a little practical joke on Luna?” he yelled, furious.

“Please, calm down. I assure you, we meant what we said. There’s a monster we need help-”

“Hey, dad?” Spike called out. “I think the whirlpool is stopping.”

Cast Iron had brought his palm horizontally over his eyes, trying to see better. “He is right! It’s stopping.”

The Thestral leader looked both relieved and worried. “This is bad. We have less time that we thought. We believed it would stay there for a couple of days more. Still,” he said, eyeing Raegdan at his side, “you might believe this easier now.”

“What is happening?” Raegdan asked.

“Shh. Please, just watch.”

The whirlpool slowly died down completely. Everypony waited with baited breath. Leaf Stream had the sharpest eyes out of all of them. She was the first to see the massive shadow that moved beneath the water, even all those kilometers away. Nopony believed her at first, not until it moved close enough as it headed north, almost across from them and directly below the sun.

They couldn’t make the shape. It was so deep or perhaps just so vast that it was a blob, a formless shadow. Probably both. It crossed kilometers in a very short time. Either that or they were all too caught up to take notice of the passage of time. It could have taken a day to complete its short journey and all of them would have stood there, watching, mouths gaping and hearts thumping.

No matter how long it actually took it did stop. Almost across from them deep into the sea. They could see it moving, shifting erratically. For a few minutes they thought it was turning around, the massive beast hidden beneath trying to change directions. Then they realized it was settling.

The sea started churning. A hole formed and the water started going down a huge spiral. The maelstrom was back.

“It’s heading north,” Silverwing said, his voice shockingly calm. “It will reach Horseshoe Bay soon enough and when it does… It will eat everything in there. It will swallow and destroy every ship. Baltimare will be ruined without its port as will every village that relies on the sea to survive. Equestria itself will suffer with its greatest port destroyed. The lives that thing will directly consume is only the beginning. Even when it’s done… it will move across the coast. Up and down, with nopony to stop it.”

“Dad? Dad, you can stop this, right?” Spike said.

Luna’s wing was tugging at Raegdan’s arm. Whatever little hope they held for a positive answer was savagely destroyed at the sight of fear on Luna’s face. “Raegdan, this… this is a Leviathan! I… I couldn’t hope to kill one of them even before. They are too big, they are too strong! What- what are we going to do?”

Raegdan sat down, slowly and carefully, moving like an aged, trembling pony. His eyes never left the swirling mass of seawater. “That’s- that’s Charybdis… How- it’s real. It really existed! I- I don’t know. I don’t know. I have no idea!”