Between Blood and Shadows

by Forevermore

Rating: mature
Tags: Adventure, Gilda, Tragedy, Sad, Nightmare Moon, Princess Luna, Gore, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark
Length: 5150

A tale of bitter rivalry, love, loss, and betrayal.

Ever wondered about the history of two of the most iconic characters of Clockwork? The brave and witty Long Shot, commander of Meteor Squad, and the ruthless, calculating Warfather, unstoppable warrior-priest. This is their story.

The story of how these two paragons of war came to be. Of how they met and their bitter rivalry began. This is a story of love, hatred, loss, shocking betrayal, warm tenderness, and horrible, plaguing nightmares. This is not a tale for the faint of heart.

(A prequel to Clockwork delving into the dark, haunted histories of Long Shot and his rival Warfather. Warning: this story gets dark, REALLY dark. If you're looking for a lighthearted tale of quirky steampunk and lovable goofballs. This. Isn't. It.
But it's not Cupcakes, so don't worry about it.)

Published 2012-06-27 21:54:02 UTC
Last updated 2012-06-27 21:54:02 UTC

Ch. 1 Initiate

Initiate opened his eyes and rolled off his bed to the floor far below, flaring out his wings at the last second to land silently on the polished stone. The chamber in which he had rested was filled with bunks teetering five beds tall, filled with sleeping griffons of all ages and kinds, ranging from the old and weary, to the young and bright. Nearly five hundred in total forced to sleep in the cramped space of what had at one time been a vast dining hall, back when the Crimson Citadel was a haven for the weak and the sickly.

In modern times, it housed the Red Order, those worthy individuals who had been chosen to serve the Dragon God Carniferous in this life and the next. Initiate smiled and strolled out of the room, careful not to wake his fellow hopefuls as he took his leave of their shared bedroom. One of the first rules of the Order: “those who cannot raise themselves in time for breakfast will not be receiving any”, and the black-feathered griffon was never late.

The halls of the Citadel were constructed of rusty red sandstone, mined from quarries long since dry, and bedecked with the riches and trophies of five-thousand years of glory. Banners of enemies defeated in the glorious days of combat, fangs and tusks from creatures and foes felled by mighty heroes, and the dented, bloodied weapons of champions who had foolishly tested their might against the Hierarch. Initiate grinned savagely as he passed the chipped, broken fang of a dragon, freshly wetted with blood by a disgraced hopeful who had been forced to carve himself for others’ glory, seeing that he would have none of his own.

Many of the hopefuls bore such scars, having found themselves disgraced due to either weakness or insubordination and made to embolden the spirits of others by adding their life’s essence to the glory of the Citadel. Of all the hopefuls in all the millennium since its founding, Initiate was the only of the Order to have gone for more than a year in Carniferous’ service and not bear the horizontal lines of a bleeding along his talon.

The dining hall was a pavilion set in the central courtyard, surrounded on all sides by high, thick walls mounted with turrets and sentinel towers. The grounds inside had been turned to sand, all evidence of nature’s might purged from the surroundings by cleansing flame. The thick red canvas decorated with golden patterns and pictures depicting the exploits of Carniferous and his champions throughout history. A reminder of the legacy hopefuls were expected to uphold.

Beneath the protective covering were numerous oaken tables, the smallest stretching nearly one-hundred feet from end to end. Atop them sat a feast fit for a king. Platters of fresh fruit, cakes and pies of every sort, oceans of pudding and cream, and at least a hundred different dishes of every kind of meat. Smoked turkey, roasted quail, strips of bacon, and stacks of beefcakes a griffon high.

Initiate ignored the richer dishes and instead selected a light meal of toast, bacon, and a slightly generous helping of eggs. A glass of spiced wine and several cups of water completed the meal. He knew from experience that the heavier foods were a trap set for the weak, who would soon find themselves vomiting over and over again as the rigorous training of the Order took its toll on their overly-burdened stomachs.

Despite his early rising, Initiate was far from alone in the courtyard. Many of the Order’s veteran members already sat at their places, eating and chatting with their fellows as they waited for the sun to rise and Morning Trials to begin. A few other hopefuls had managed to beat him there as well, though from their slumped postures and haunted eyes, it was clear that they had spent the night here in an effort not to be late. Poor fools, their exhaustion would be their undoing during the day, particularly if the Hierarch was feeling particularly vicious today.

Initiate remembered the time an unfortunate soul had had his eyes sewn open and been forced to fight a cockatrice baretaloned after he was caught sleeping at the breakfast table. His statue still decorated the walls, a warning to all who would risk Carniferous’ disfavor. The young griffon remembered his own battle with the cockatrice, it had been the last time he felt true terror. Its skull now adorned the trophies he hung around his bunk.

The tables filled slowly as more and more hopefuls trickled in, interspersed with senior Templars and even a number of Battle Bishops, those who were second only to the Hierarch himself. Interspersed among the general crowd of lion-eagle hybrids were a number of more specialized species. Mutants who had failed to receive the blessing of Carniferous and were forced to bow to the mighty royus for any hope of immortal glory.

Disgusting hybrids of tigers and crows, vultures and cheetahs who fed off the dead, and falcon-leopard abominations, all brought in as slaves from coastal villages and forced to compete for their freedom. The survivors became hopefuls, the losers (any who survived) were fed to the beasts in the Pit.

The Hierarch himself, a magnificent spectacle of crimson feathers and golden fur, alighted at the head table, set upon a dais so that it overlooked all others. Carniferous’ Flame, an intricate collar of silver fangs inlaid with crushed rubies, glimmered at his throat, the only decoration a member of the Red Order was allowed to wear.

Initiate grinned savagely, the Hierarch’s presence signaled that breakfast had officially commenced, and little more than half of the hopefuls had arrived. Eyes glinting with malice, the griffon tucked in with a will.

Breakfast was a largely boring affair, three-thousand griffons eating their hearts out while more than two-hundred looked on with starving envy, lined up just outside the pavilion. A few of the more malicious hopefuls taunted the unfortunates by making over-exaggerated smacking noises and throwing food at them.

An hour passed, and the Hierarch rose to his talons, signaling the meal was over. The clattering of knives and forks on porcelain dishes filled the air as the Red Order rose as well.

“Children of Carniferous,” the Hierarch spoke with quiet malevolence, his words ringing with the power of Carniferous’ chosen voice. “As many of you have learned, the Rite of Combat is fast approaching. The worthy shall ascend to the true ranks of the Order, and the unfortunate will be cast out, branded forever more as failures.”

Initiate willed his beating heart to be still as he hung on his master’s every word. The Trial of Combat would pit the hopefuls against each other in a grand melee, the survivors of which would be inducted officially into the Order. The dead would become fuel for the pyre when they offered their blood to Carniferous’ endless hunger.

The Hierarch nodded once to himself, then folded his talons before him, the others following suit.

“Carniferous, Dragon God of Carnage, Bloodshed, and War,” he spoke in the ancient language of worship passed down from the First. “Grant us your favor upon this day, that we be worthy of you. And let us be stricken down should we falter in your name. So let it be.”

“So let it be,” the crowd echoed before dispersing to go about their duties. Some to the kitchens, others to the practice fields, still more simply returned to their quarters, to await the call of the Hierarch should he have need of them.

Initiate cleared away his plate, dumping the dirty dishes on an unfortunate before taking to the skies. His natural roost, his safe haven from the world, and his spiritual center was located atop the Citadel, a place no normal griffon could reach. As he alighted upon the cold stone, wind whipping at his wings and feathers, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Soon he would leave behind the shackles of slavery, the darkness of oppression and poverty, and his life would become that of a griffon befitting his power. His cruelty. His courage. To join the Order was not only to revel in the service of the Dragon God, it was to become the elite of the Empire, the creme of the crop.

Those who survived, those who proved themselves, would become legends among the populace. The lowest of them would hold the rank of centurion, be given command of entire armies, become the pride of their fellows and the envy of their enemies!

Initiate smiled and settled himself down to meditate, his duties could wait. For now, he must prepare his soul to welcome Carniferous. The young griffon closed his eyes and breathed deep of the sharp mountain air. He felt his heart slow and his muscles relax as every worry, every fear, flowed out of him and was swept away by the cleansing wind. The void welcomed him, and the slave-turned-acolyte allowed himself to sink into the darkness. Then the memories came...

A nameless slave cracked open his eyes to the sight of yet another mutilated pleasure toy, thrown into his cell to remind him of his eventual fate. The stench of piss and excrement filled the air, mixed with the sweetly-rotten taste of rotting flesh. The slave raised himself to his talons and rubbed at his eyes to wake himself fully.

He did not bother with preening, his feathers had never been cleaned, nor would they. The lord and his soldiers said the smell and taste of their fluids on his body only excited them more. The slave doubted this, but who was he to deny his masters’ their pleasure?

A lowly slave was he, nothing more than the scum beneath their paws and the sand in their sleeping eyes. Said slave grinned as he tore a rib from the unfortunate’s carcass, stashing the makeshift weapon into his feathers, where it would not be seen easily.

Eight winters, as long as he could remember, he had spent in this cell, far beneath the master’s castle, high in the mountains of the Empire. It was whispered by slaves newly bought from the markets that any who won a Rite of Challenge against their master would be freed by the Emperor himself. What they did not know is that the master of this castle would never accept such a thing, and any slave who tried would be killed. Slowly. And in front of his friends.

The cub breathed deep and found the void within himself, the place where he could go that the world ceased to matter. Where emotion, pain, and the rhythmic, feral pounding of his “betters” could not reach him. The cold nothingness of the void welcomed him, as it always did, and the slave smiled. Soon everything would end. Soon his soul would fly free in the wind and his troubles would be past. Soon...

Initiate cracked open his eyes. Something was shaking him. Something with claws.

Moving with speed born of rigorous training and numerous brushes with death, he grabbed the offending appendage and snapped it with cruel efficiency. The griffon who had dared to interrupt his meditation squawked with pain, which was quickly cut off as he was bodily thrown over the edge.

Initiate narrowed his eyes and plunged after, slamming into his would-be attacker like a small, feathered bullet. Knocking the breath from the other’s lungs and stunning him. In the midst of the chaos, he managed to recognize the other griffin as a Templar in the Order. One who had overseen Initiate’s early training and had taken particularly sadistic pleasure in forcing the inexperienced cub into battles with overwhelming opponents and powerful monsters.

For a brief moment, Initiate seriously considered letting the bastard splatter all over the ground. Deciding it was in his best interests to at least find out why the prick had disturbed him in the first place, he gripped the bigger griffon around the waist and flared his wings. Their descent slowed significantly, but the strain of holding aloft a fully-grown male griffon was beginning to take its toll on the ten-year-old Initiate. With an exceedingly casual air, the cub loosened his hold and allowed the Templar to fall the last thirty-feet to the ground below, landing with a dull thunk! as Initiate himself alighted smoothly upon the warm sands.

“What do you want, Templar?” The cub asked, watching with polite interest as his superior pulled himself out of the hole he’d made and began nursing his injured wrist. The Templar shot him a look of pure hatred before producing several rolled bandages from his waist pouch and binding his wrist.

“The Hierarch,” he growled, “has called all hopefuls to the Ring of Rage for the Trial of Combat. You’re late.”

Initiate knocked the much larger creature out with a swift, surgical punch just behind his left ear. The beast dropped like a stone. Satisfied, the cub turned west, toward the ring of red sandstone several miles distant, beyond the Citadel’s walls and across the valley.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said to the Templar’s prone form. “If there is anygriffon left alive when I get there, I’ll simply kill them as well. Nothing will stop me from taking my rightful place at Carniferous’ side.”

With a final nod, Initiate spread his wings and leaped into the air. The sun was high, and the crows were singing, ‘cause somepony was gonna die!

---Carniferous, rege unguibus ad bellum, et alas ad gloriam---

The Hierarch watched behind hooded eyes as the hopefuls spilt their life’s blood onto the sands of the arena. Of five hundred candidates, only half remained. And they were not doing well.

The tournament had started out simply enough. He had called and the hopefuls had answered. The dissension had not begun until he ordered them to kill until only one was left standing. Some had tried to flee, those were dead. Some had tried to take this opportunity to attack him, those were also dead. The rest had accepted their fate and resigned themselves to witnessing the deaths of their friends.

“A good batch, this year.” The Blue Bishop, one of seven who served as the Hierarch’s inner council, whispered into his master’s ear. “But I do not see any sign of your chosen, Your Holiness.”

The larger, older griffon waved the bishop’s concerns aside. “He will be here,” he murmured in his quiet voice. “He was meditating atop the Citadel when last I viewed him, and he is not one to be late.”

“The Rite began twenty minutes ago!” The Violet Bishop hissed. “Face it, Dread Hierarch, your Chosen has failed and you must surrender the funds to my project.” His smile held no warmth. “No sense in paying for the education of a dead unfortunate.”

The Hierarch did not answer as a small, feathered bullet slammed into the center of the arena, kicking up a cloud of dust and stunning the combatants to stillness. Screams and shrieks erupted as half a dozen hopefuls exploded into a gory mess, a single, dark blur in their midst.

“I believe,” the leader of the Red Order murmured to his dumbstruck companions, “that my Chosen has arrived.”

Initiate roared and jeered in mad fury as he slaughtered his bunkmates, his fellow students, his friends with merciless abandon. The cub spun, dashed, and whirled, a broken sword in one talon, a shattered shield in the other. The other hopefuls had been allowed to equip themselves from the Order’s armory, most choosing to shroud their bodies in steel in a vain attempt for protection.

But the Initiate was naked as the day he was born, protected only by his speed and his cunning as he danced the dance of wolves and demons. The Hierarch narrowed his eyes, was it some trick of the light he saw, or was the cub glowing?

“ ‘The Blessing of Carniferous’,” the Blue Bishop hissed, “on a mere child?”

The Hierarch smiled and leaned back, lacing his talons in front of him. If this cub could draw the eye of their Hateful Master with such ease, than things were going to be very interesting when he was grown.

The Initiate was untouchable, blades bounced from his flesh, arrows changed course as they neared him to spear their shooters, and those who drew too close bled from their eyes and impaled themselves on their own spears as fear consumed them.

“Carniferous,” the cub roared over the din, his voice echoing over the Ring of Rage and straining the ears of the watching Order, “free my soul!”

Insane, frenzied laughter echoed over the mountains, startling the crows from their roosts and shaking loose stones from the slopes of Carniferous’ Spine. Farmers looked up from their fields and mothers ushered their cubs inside, they did not understand what went on in the Crimson Citadel, and they did not want to. But even the most simple among them understood one thing: whatever was going on, it wasn’t their concern.

The Hierarch smiled, only one among the hopeful stood tall. His sword and shield had broken into innumerable pieces long ago, his feathers were soaked with blood, and his eyes gleamed with malice and hatred. Around him were the bodies of half a thousand possible candidates, a feast for the crows. The Initiate smiled and met his master’s eyes, then threw back his head and screeched his victory to the heavens. The red sun was high, flocks of crows blackened the sky, and the Red Order pounded its approval into the ancient stones of the arena, their howls mixing together into one great, raw roar.

Hail Carniferous, hail the Dragon God!

Ch. 2 Long Odds

Long Shot scrambled up the hillside, hooves digging for purchase in the grassy turf. The unicorn colt’s face was wreathed in smiles as the afternoon sun beat down on his smokey-grey coat. Today was the day! The day Father would come home!

The colt giggled like a filly as he crested the hill. Below him spread the village of Canterlot, a loose assortment of wooden houses, grass huts, and the occasional granite garden wall. It wasn’t much to look at, he knew, but the colt had called this place home for almost six years and there was nowhere else he would rather be.

Below, the pegasus army assembled on the Field of Valor. Long Shot had always loved to watch them muster, his father had often told him that the pegasi were the truest of warriors, and that it was their determination and bravery that protected Equestria from the monsters of the Everfree Wilds.

Long Shot smiled and closed his eyes, letting the wind tussle his mane and caress his face. He’d always loved the wind in high places. It made him feel as if he could almost fly.

The feeling darkened his thoughts for a moment, but the sight of a thousand pegasi rising into the air quickly swept the melancholy aside. The colt gasped and dug his hooves into the ground as the fierce winds produced by the ascending ponies buffeted him.

With the recent encroachment of the Timberwolves on frontier pony settlements, Princess Celestia was ordering the army in to deal with the bandits. Long Shot’s father, Reaching Shadows, was returning on the same day from his patrol near Stalliongrad.

With a peal of unnatural thunder, the pegasi departed, passing overhead as the stunned colt followed them with his eyes as far as he could.

Long Shot let out a wistful sigh that soon turned into a grunt as something large and fluffy tackled him to the ground. The colt squealed and rolled with the force of the blow, throwing off his attacker with practiced ease. Picking himself up, he turned to face the assailant.

Scuzzy, full name Scuzzy Bastard, a roguish young griffoness with matted black feathers and tangled grey fur. On a daily basis she reeked of spilled cider and stale food and she was constantly fighting with anypony she came across, winning more often than not. Oh, and she was Long Shot’s best friend.

“Sup, pipsqueak?” Scuzzy grinned, making a show of preening her feathers with a talon, though her efforts produced nothing more than a stream of insects and bread crumbs.

Long Shot returned her grin and set his hooves apart in a ready stance he’d learned from a book. “Not much, Scuzz. Watching the pegasi go off to war, waiting for Dad, and kicking your flank up and down this hill.”

The griffoness laughed and popped an unidentifiable morsel into her beak, crunching down on it with reckless abandon. “Is that so, groundling?”

The unicorn’s horn glowed with power and he charged, but the older creature was ready for him. With motions so deliberate they looked in slow motion, Scuzzy fell to her back, raising her hind legs to propel the reckless colt over her and down the hill. Chuckling dryly, she dived after him, pulling him out of his wild roll and into the air by his armpits.

They flew like that for a time, enjoying each other’s company and feeling the wind rush past them. When her arms grew tired, the griffoness alighted her passenger upon the spongy turf of a freshly-plowed field before flying off to find a comfortable cloud. When she returned, cloud in tow, she found the unicorn studying the dirt with a determined look.

“You know, Shotty,” she called out to him, “I might be fine eating the occasional worm but I don’t think that fits in with your pony vegetation principles.”

“It’s not ‘vegetation’,” Long Shot answered absently, “it’s ‘vegetarian’, and I’m not looking for worms.”

Scuzzy shrugged and plopped down atop her cloud, watching her only friend through half-lidded eyes.

Half an hour passed before the griffoness finally grew bored enough to ask her friend what the hay he was doing.

“What the hay are you doing?! You’ve been staring at the ground forever! It’s dirt, it’s not going anywhere!”

“But that’s where you’re wrong,” Long Shot told her.

Scuzzy blinked and hopped to the ground. “Say what now?”

The unicorn pointed a hoof towards the fresh soil. Peering at it closely with her telescopic vision, the griffoness could see he was indeed right. Moving at an almost imperceptible pace, the individual grains were indeed rolling to the south.

“So what’s it mean?”

“It means the ground is eroding,” her booksmart friend informed her. “In a few centuries, this entire place is going to wash out. Maybe even the entire valley.”

“Ha, that’ll be a sight to see.”

Long Shot shrugged, “Maybe, maybe not. I’m sure Princess Luna will figure something out before that happens.”

Scuzzy looked at her pony friend, “How come you always say Luna when you talk about the princesses? Most ponies ever talk about their precious Celestia, who raises the sun and makes everything pretty.” She said the last bit with an exaggerated expression of overwhelming love and joy.

The unicorn shook his head and started trotting away, back to the village. His companion hopped back on her cloud and followed him with lazy beats of her wings.

“I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong, Scuzz. Princess Celestia doesn’t make the daytime pretty, she only gives it light. The day would be just as beautiful without her. But Princess Luna, she creates the night!”

Scuzzy made a few half-hearted gagging sounds as her friend’s eyes lit up with wonder and adoration.

“She decides which constellations get to come out, she even makes knew ones! She paints a different picture every night in the heavens for ponies to enjoy, and she doesn’t ask for anything more than somepony to look up at the sky and say ‘Wow, that’s beautiful.’”

The griffoness shrugged and flipped over to her back, closing her eyes as instinct guided her path. “I don’t care. Your pathetic pony princesses could never compare to the might and awesomeness of Carniferous!”

It was Long Shot’s turn to make gagging sounds. “That ‘Dragon God’ you’re always going on about? If he’s so great why doesn’t he ever show himself?”

“Because, fool! He’s too vast and powerful for mortal minds to comprehend. If he showed up than he’d crush the entire town under his claw and not even bother to scrape it off his scales before going on his way!”

“Oh, please. Nothing’s that big.”

“You’re just jealous because your pretty pink pony princesses are weak and tiny.”

Long Shot glared at his friend. “Don’t go insulting the princesses! They’re the nicest, gentlest ponies ever and they’ve always made everypony they meet feel like they’re important! Why, Princess Luna’s shaken my hoof six times!”

Scuzzy snorted from behind her cloud. “Only because you kept getting back in line that one time she came to Canterlot to talk to the mayor.”

The unicorn smiled proudly, “And she shook my hoof every time without complaining!”

A muffled snort was her only reply as the pair continued on their way in silence.

---Imádkozom hozzád Luna, hogy a bátorságom soha ne rendüljön meg és szívem soha ne hibázzon.---

Evening Sparkle was a young, studious unicorn mare who lived on the edges of Canterlot in an ancient tree she’d converted into a house using magic. It was to her that the ponies of the small village turned when they were confronted with problems that could not be solved with wit and might.

Long Shot raised a hoof and knocked politely on the red door. There was a series of muffled curses from inside, followed by a blinding flash through the windows and the sound of glass shattering.

“Um, Ms. Sparkle,” the colt called, “you alright?”

A pretty lavender unicorn poked her head through the door, “I’m fine!” she yelled. “Perfectly fine! Everything’s. Completely. Fine.”

“Your head is stuck in the door,” Scuzzy deadpanned.

Evening looked down at herself. “Stupid intangibility matrix!”

The mare disappeared as she pulled her head back through the door. There was another flash of light and the door swung open, revealing Canterlot’s resident magic expert in all her glory. Evening Sparkle was lavender in color, with a dark red mane, permanently crossed cyan eyes, and a cutie mark made up of seven stars. If it were not for the perpetual expression of complete annoyance with life on her face, she could have passed for any other noble unicorn.

“Sup, crazypants?” Scuzzy asked, marching inside without an invitation, bringing her cloud with her.

Long Shot followed, smiling apologetically at the slightly frazzled mare.

The inside of the tree was quite spacious, rows of bookshelves lined the wall and a dozen mysterious devices were set out on tables scattered about the floor. Half the ceiling was covered in scorch marks, the other in glaring pink frosting.

“How did you get frosting on the ceiling?” the colt asked.

Evening teleported away, reappearing atop a precariously perched ladder in the center of the room with a fresh cake in one hoof and a knife in the other. She began scraping frosting off the ceiling and onto the cake. “I needed cake.”

Long Shot shook his head and brushed a few crumpled pieces of parchment off a cushy armchair and sat down. He’d learned long ago not to question the older unicorn’s quirkiness, it usually ended with a twelve-hour long lecture on pudding followed by a week of smelling like dog food.

Through sheer force of will, he managed to retain his seat when Evening teleported next to him and a professional-grade carrot cake landed in his lap. Long Shot eyed the pastry warily, the last time he’d eaten his friend’s cooking he’d grown gills for a month.

“Don’t be a weeny!” Scuzzy shouted at him, she’d moved her cloud directly overhead and was watching the cake with open greed.

“You want this?” The unicorn asked her.

Scuzzy ran her tongue along the edges of her beak, “No.”

Long Shot threw the cake at her.

The griffoness laughed and snatched it deftly out of the air and bit into the concoction with relish. A moment later, her feathers turned white and her fur a striking shade of blue.

Evening looked up quizzically, “That’s not right.” she murmured, tapping a hoof to her chin. “It was supposed to turn her into a seapony.”

“Stop screwing around, Evening.” A gruff, familiar voice grumbled from overhead. A of green flames erupted in the center of the room, disappearing a moment later to reveal a ferocious-looking young dragon.

The creature was easily twice the size of a pony, with royal purple scales and rounded, crimson spines. His lithe, muscular build spoke of great strength and greater speed.

“Hi, Pyre,” Long Shot greeted him, waving a hoof fondly.

The dragon acknowledged him with a nod before stalking over to his mistress, moving on all fours to avoid knocking over the tables with his impressive wingspan.

“You know what he’s here for,” he growled to the unicorn, craning his neck down so he could look into her eyes. Even crouched down he was still a head taller than her.

Evening pouted, “Aww, you’re so boring Pirey-wirey. You know that things have to move according to schedule!”

A food-stained scroll appeared out of nowhere.

“And according to my schedule, right now is cake time!”

Pyre took the scroll in a claw and looked at it. “Evening, this is a grocery list from the garbage that you scribbled ‘I love my plot’ on.”

The mare nodded enthusiastically. “Yep yep yep! I love my plot.” She froze and the scroll crumbled to ashes as she turned horrified eyes on Long Shot. “Foals shouldn’t read such things!”

Pyre face-clawed, Scuzzy burst out laughing, and the colt felt a slow blush begin to creep up his cheeks.

“Moving on,” the dragon murmured. “Long Shot’s here for his appointment,” he turned his blood-red eyes on the little pony, “aren’t you?”

Long Shot gulped and nodded nervously. Something fluffy settled around his shoulders, he glanced up to see that Scuzzy was staring at the wall while her tail squeezed him affectionately.

Evening’s expression morphed instantly into one of melancholy.

“Of course,” she murmured, sad eyes looking over the colt. “Right this way.”

The young unicorn nodded again and followed the mare down a previously hidden trapdoor to the treehouse’s basement. A cavernous room lined with tree roots and loose soil held in place by their mistress’s inexhaustible will.

Long Shot allowed himself to be strapped into the familiar machine; the hum of gears and clanking of pistons filled the air.

“Are you ready?” Dr. Sparkle asked, her voice noticeably devoid of emotion as she pulled on rubber boots and set a pair of ruby-tinted goggles over her eyes.

The colt closed his eyes. “To live or to die,” he murmured, “it’s all in good fun.”