Upon a Pale Mare

The cough of the beggar was lost beneath the screams of church bells,

The veteran pushed herself upright with her wooden leg, and she moved to stretch her wings. In her mind she felt them extend, but the dirty burlap she cloaked herself did not shift. That little motion, that desire for space, was but an old dream that still held on to her being, where her wings used to be. Habits often fail to die, like the old war mare.

She was very, very old now.

How she wished she could die.

The church bells rang out, their seven chimes calling out to the city. They sang out the tides that once belonged to the sun, each resounding clang like a shout, barks that demanded order and obedience.

She recovered her battered sign from beneath her grimy pack. She propped it up against the marble church behind her.

The sun did not slowly creep up from behind the city skyline, as it had done so long ago. No, it shot up like a stone flung from a slingshot, and the moon tumbled down as if kicked.

The streets were filling up, the notes of horseshoes on cobblestone played this mornings music, with voices arranged harmoniously between small moments of peace.

The music in volume and vibration strengthened. Ponies moved in the beggars direction.

Her eyes widened.

Quickly she shifted her blankets to reveal the worn half-sphere that often supported her weary head. She took it into her lap, and tenderly ran one hoof along its length. Long ago, this object might have caused her to shed a tear, but she no longer had any to give.

She flipped over the tortoise shell, and placed it on the side walk before her. She tore her eyes away from its emptiness.

One couple of silent church goers passed the beggar, and went up the marble steps.

She did not look at them, only at their shadows, slithering over uneven stone, juxtaposed to her empty shell.

Another group passed, speaking with hushed words.

She watched a few bits pass through her vision. They clinked against the dry spine within the shell, and sent a shiver up her own. She raised a hoof in gratitude. Many more passed. Few would breathe upon the beggar even the smallest sigh of kindness.

The heavy doors of the church slammed, all the church ponies hidden carefully beneath roof and steeple. The streets fell silent, and she would have some moments of peace.

She took the shell in her hooves again, and cradled it in her forelimbs. The change rattled softly inside.

She rocked herself and the empty shell back and forth and back and forth, staring at the sunlit patch of uneven stone at her feet.

But it became dark, and she looked up. Two figures stood before her, their backs to the morning sun, their faces hidden in shadow. Her old eyes made out a patch of silver on each horse's chest. Words left their muzzles, but their spoken tongue to her was long forgotten, and upon her ears was little more than gurgles and hissing.

She paid them no mind, she stared at the ground and clutched her tortoise shell.

Suddenly rough hooves grasped her and yanked her upward, and her hooves were ripped apart.

Her eyes still cast down, she saw it fall to the stone.

The tortoise shell was crushed beneath the hooves of the shadowy strangers with their strange badges.

The change was lost amid the dust.

She let out a roar, a stream of curses and foul words. But the guards only heard gurgles and hissing, and were assaulted with unwelcome glimpses inside the beggar's mouth. They saw, long ago her tongue had been cut out.

She ripped her cyan and wooden limbs from their grasp, her clouded rose eyes lit with fire, spittle leapt from her lips. She promptly punched both of them in the face. They staggered, but her strength was only a fragment of what used to be.

Rough hooves pummeled her cyan body, and forced her down the the ground.

The shards of tortoise shell cut into her skin, as her face was slammed into cobblestone.

The mares discovered that they could not shackle her remaining forelimb to a wooden leg, so they took her under the armpits, lifted her up, and dragged her away.

At first she did not struggle, letting her body hang limp within the grasp of the law.

But then, as she was pulled from the front of the church, the haze was lifted from before her eyes.

The cardboard sign that read What is Loyalty? was like a splash of mud upon the church of bright white marble, brighter than the sun. Woven within architecture were elaborate carvings, and expensive jewels. Above grinning golden doors, upon its face it bore a single stained glass window. A kaleidoscope eye, menacing in its size, its iris painted with a thousand rainbows stolen from tears of ancient and long forgotten gods.

As the guards dragged her away, she saw what had been taken from her so long ago.

Rainbow Dash saw, as she flapped the wings which were no longer there.

She saw, in the center of that kaleidoscope eye, the bolt of lightening that was hers. The bolt of lightening that was once ruby, fasted to a collar of purity and gold.

The element was afixed in the center of the eye. It was no longer ruby, but black, and inky roots of shadow extended from it, and were wrapped about the building, pulsating in time with the beat of some unseen heart.

The tears that were lost to her for so long, came forth remembered.

If anypony within the church heard her cries, it was of no concern to them.