Every word is a part of a picture. Every sentence is (or can be) a picture.

The reader uses their imagination to put those pictures together, and the pictures weave together to form the intricate tapestry that is a story.

There are many kinds of stories in the world: comedies, love stories, adventures, tragedies. Stories of laughter and love, warriors and sorrow. Each story has a beginning, a middle, and an ending (though what story can ever be said to ever truly end? Tellers of tales throughout the long centuries would dare anyone to find such a story). The magic of the story begins with those oft spoken words, "Once upon a time…"

And then there are the best kinds of stories to be had, the ones that have a little bit of everything.

Faerie tales.

In faerie tales, there is a stallion. He may be a proud prince or he may be a humble soldier. He may possess magic from a genie's lamp or the condescension of a good flutterpony met in the dark woods and treated with kindness. Perhaps he slays the wicked dragon. Perhaps he saves the beautiful princess in her tower. Perhaps the prince loses his kingdom to an evil wizard. Perhaps the humble soldier inherits a kingdom from a dying king.

Then there is the mare. She may be a beautiful princess or she may be a simple peasant filly. She may have a voice like angels singing or be trapped beneath an ancient and terrible curse from a wicked witch. Maybe she heals a beast in the forest. Maybe she breaks the enchantment on a sleeping prince. Maybe the princess gallops into the labyrinth to escape the monsters that so mercilessly hunt her. Maybe the simple peasant filly marries the prince and lives happily ever after.

And in faerie tales there is evil. Pure, dark, and vicious. An insidious poison that hounds the mare's hoofsteps or haunts the prince on his quest. There is evil in the world, as well—always has been, always will be. Evil needs no excuses. It needs no promptings. It only needs to catch the scent of prey, to feel the adrenaline pumping and taste the fear on the air…

.

Once upon a time, through the deserted subway tunnels of Manehatten, a pack of diamond dogs loped after their chosen prey. Bared teeth gleamed like moonlight on knife blades. And they could smell with their beasts' noses the delicious musk of the mare's fear.

She didn't want to run. Her legs burned and her lungs screamed. Her wings ached with her futile attempts at flight. A stitch ripped through her flank and sweat streaked her withers. But she didn't know how long it would take for them to overtake her if she didn't run. And if she were overtaken, they would most likely kill her for what she'd done to (and for) one of their own. If they didn't kill her, she would wish that they had.

So she ran. Her long mane streamed out behind her in dusty-rose ringlets. She'd been on her way home from the Manehatten salon. She'd gone there simply to make herself look nice for no reason. No reason at all. Just because she could. Because her birthday was approaching, would come in a little more than two weeks. She'd spent the day pampering herself because she wanted to.

It had brought the wolves down on her like a killing plague. So now she ran. The glass and stone on the concrete walkways cut her unprotected hooves. She hadn't worn horseshoes – this was Manehatten and the streets were well maintained. Her saddlebag slapped hard against her flank. The large, leather, satchel-like purse held some of her most treasured items. It slowed her down, but she didn't care.

Slowing down would nearly get her and the strange one killed. She would care about that.

She glanced over her shoulder. Desperately tried to gauge how far behind her enemies were. Tried to catch a glimpse of the russet coats like drying blood against the dingy gray of the subway tunnels. Suddenly she tripped over a homeless stallion lying across the pavement. She hit the ground—and the corpse—hard.

It ended up saving her life. A diamond-tipped arrow ricocheted off the grubby tiles on the subway walls. She shrieked and glanced into the homeless stallion's face. Rheumy eyes stared back at her. She choked on the cloying, too-sweet stench of alcohol and death.

Sucking in the air she'd wasted in screaming, she jumped up and kept going. Kept galloping. Kept choking on her own terror and tears. Kept praying the monsters behind her wouldn't try to shoot at her again. It wasn't as if she could hide anywhere. There was nowhere to go.

Her right foreleg throbbed with every step. She'd whacked it good on the pavement. Her usually velvety muzzle and cheeks burned where the dogs chasing her had cut her with their diamond-edged knives. Blood dripped into her mouth and down her forehead between her eyes. Just the thought of those fear-bright knives made a sob catch in her raw throat.

She shivered as icy blasts of air gelled her fear-sweat to her sides. She was so very cold in the freezing winter air. Cold and sick and chilled with the fear. Her throat burned as she heaved in great lungfuls of air.

She didn't look over her shoulder again. She didn't have to. One of the dogs reached out, swiped, and caught a good fistful of her mane. Yanked. She jerked out of their hold, losing strands of rose-pink hair in the process. The dog caught it again. Gave it a good, hard haul.

Against her will, she was yanked off her hooves. Stumbling, she smashed into the ground. But the clawed fist smashing into her face, braced by four brass rings, shot her straight up into the air again, and into outer space. Too dazed to scream, she floundered and gasped for air. Then the knife flicked out. Burned like pain under the fluorescents. A dark shadow knelt above her and touched the ice-cold edge to her cheek. She whimpered, hooves flailing weakly as she tried to get away.

Then the blade sank into her skin. Blood flowed.

And she began to scream.

.

Enbhárr had no intention of interfering. He was quite otherwise engaged.

Even as he subconsciously made that decision, he tossed the spill of his star-blond mane out of his face with a toss of his head and continued to spin and strike with the silvery twin war-axes held aloft by the amber glow of his magic. Sweat trickled down his scarred neck and shoulders as he moved with savage, primal grace, a vengeful phantom-stallion preparing for battle. Perspiration gleamed on his forehead, in the lines of his defined muscles, across his scarred chest, as he struggled to become as proficient with these rather unwieldy weapons as he was with knives, sword, and lance. The axe was not a favored weapon, but as a warrior of the Emerald Empire of Eimane Ablach, he needed to become equally adept at using any and all blades, not just those he favored.

His old friend, the only one who had followed him into exile—a rather large gargoyle nicknamed Blinkin’—watched as the prince worked himself to the point of exhaustion. How long had the prince been training? Five hours? Six? Longer? He could see the fatigue in the alicorn's relentless movements. See that he strained to move as if he were whole and healthy, though it was plain to Blinkin’ that the prince was not. When was the last time Enbhárr had actually slept?

The gargoyle knew that nothing he could say would force Enbhárr to take it easy, rest a little. No. Honor, the way of the warrior, chivalry, valor, physical prowess; that was what mattered to the alicorn prince. That, and his vindictive vendetta against the more mundane-ponies. His desire to find the last great weapon of the Empire—the prince's proper inheritance—and use it and the other three weapons to awaken the Emerald Battalion.

Once awakened, Blinkin’ knew Enbhárr would command the Battalion to slaughter all the ponies who dared stand against him and the other alicorn kingdoms and their neighbors. He would drive the ponies out of the fey forests and out of their cities of poisonous concrete and burning steel. Thrust them back to their primitive caves, where they would huddle in fear of the living darkness and the gusts of the windigos. Then he would raze those noxious cities to the ground. Nothing would stand in the alicorn warrior's way—not even the demands of his own healing body. Instead the prince would attempt to sweat out the iron sickness and the last vestiges of poison.

Their power meant Antequus royalty didn't have to worry about the iron that infected mundane pony cities. Usually. And when it did become too much for the magic running through immortal blood, there were gargoyle potions to combat the effects. But even then, the ponies' lead and iron could still be a problem. Especially when a virulent magical poison also sludged through royal veins. Yet the alicorn prince pressed on, training. Making ready for the coming war, and the slaughter of the ravenous mundane ponies.

Enbhárr knew what Blinkin’ was thinking. He allowed his lips to quirk into a brief, humorless smile for a moment before returning his focus to the training at hoof. Blinkin’ knew him quite well. Yes, he had a vendetta against the mundane ponies – even the ones who gave their pathetic fealty to that solar-powered traitor in Equestria. Mundane ponies were hollow, wicked, vicious…little better than animals. So no, he would not help the pegasus mare.

The crown prince of the alicorn kingdom of Eimane Ablach was cynical, jaded, angry, and brooding. He had only three loves in his life—three motivating loves, at least—and those were for his beloved twin sister, Epona; his father, Manannán the Silver-Winged, who still commanded the prince's loyalty from the far-off court of Eimane Ablach; and Enbhárr's love for his people. He trained night and day, giving himself only time to eat, sleep, and bathe, in preparation for the war that he knew was going to come one day. Nothing stayed or slowed him—not pain, not exhaustion, not illness. The feral-eyed warrior would not allow it.

He despised mundane ponies; hated the entire breed. All three breeds: Earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns. They were greedy, selfish vermin that deserved to be butchered like the empty, hollow meat they were. One day, as the crown prince, as his father's son, as the prince of the alicorns of Eimane Ablach, he would raise the Emerald Battalion and use them to massacre the mortal ponies, and exact vengeance for their broken vows and the brutal rapine they had committed against the magical realm of Antequus and the more mundane realm of Equus. It was the last resort of a desperate people, but it was all he could do to protect his kind. And he wouldprotect his people.

So he had no intention of helping a foolish mortal mare who ought to have known better than to wander the subway at night alone like an idiot sheep. She deserved the mugging she would receive. What was a few gaudy, valueless trinkets lost to some slobbering diamond dogs? Instead, Enbhárr focused on pushing through the fatigue and last vestiges of weakness from a bout with iron sickness. Gods curse this disgusting mortal city and the poisons that saturated the place. Even he could be brought low by such things for a time. Especially when first made ill by whatever coward had sicced the dipsa serpent on him only a few moons ago.

Then he caught the hideous scent of sadism and bloodlust.

It was thick, musky, seminal. It disgusted him. Choked him. His nostrils stung with it, as did his eyes. It was the stench of perverted arousal, cruelty, and the sickly scent of predators. He had to swallow quickly as bile rose in his throat. For a moment the prince recalled emerald eyes glazed with shock and pain. Golden blood soaking into a mane like spun garnets. The agonized screams of stallions and mares and foals, some he knew far too well, some he knew not at all. Grief sharp as a lance in his belly. Desperation. And other memories. Newer, fresher, choking him, roiling in his gut.

He swallowed again, trying to block out the echoes of his own screams, memories of the burn of thirst in his throat and gnawing hunger in the pit of his stomach, the nauseating ache of his bones and the weight of his torturers staking him out and bringing their weapons smashing down on his—

Enbhárr shook off the centuries' old memories, but could not shield himself from the foul reek in the air.

"My prince?" Blinkin’ questioned softly. He had seen the horrified, sickened look on the prince's face. "What do you sense?"

"A mare…mortal. And dogs." His voice was oddly distant, musing, as if he were commenting on the weather. But Blinkin’ had seen the revulsion in feral eyes like molten bronze. Seen the phantoms of the past in those eyes. "They hunted her. They have caught her. They mean to torture her. Kill her. Because…"

He could taste the faintest traces of their thoughts, that pack of wolves in dog skins. They had hunted this mare for vengeance. Because she had taken one of their own away from them to someplace safe. They had dogged her hoofsteps in secret for days, searching for the opportune moment to strike. And they struck this night because she carried a new, red leather saddlebag and had curled her long, rose-colored mane. That was all. Those were their reasons. They would rape, torture, and murder a mare because of…

Before Blinkin’ had finished processing the prince's words, Enbhárr was striding from his subterranean home, motioning for Blinkin’ to remain. Over his shoulder, the alicorn called, "Stay here, my friend. I want to make sure my…home away from home…is well guarded. Don't wait up for me."

And he began to run, to gallops, like a bone-white wind through the pillars of the Manehatten underground. He'd thought it would be a simple mugging. He'd been wrong. With Druantia's mercy and Dione's grace, he would arrive in time to prevent any more than that.

If there is one thing I despise more than mortals, Enbhárr thought, the embers of long-banked fury fueled by old grief smoldering to life, it is a coward. And a creature who preys on those weaker than they is the worst sort of coward. Memories tried to crowd his mind at the thought, but he ruthlessly shoved them aside. He had his reasons; he needn’t dwell on them. No mare, mortal or otherwise, is to be tormented by sadistic monsters when I am there to stop it. I will not bear witness to anymore atrocities until I must.

No more.

.

It was like a hammer. They beat her body. Pounded against her. She was drowning in the burning pain and the blood. She could taste both running down her throat, choking her like poison. Her legs had long since been rendered numb by blows and cuts from the knife. She no longer had the energy to do more than push at her attackers with chipped, cracked hooves. She was floating, or drowning—she couldn't decide which. Strangely, she smelled sickening forests, and tasted the musk of wolf fur on her lips. Concrete burned cold as ice against her skin through her cream-colored coat, bit into her battered wings. Her face was a sheet of fire. Distantly, she felt something crack inside her. Vaguely registered the new pain.

Not again, her mind—and her memories—screamed at her over and over again. Not again, help! Twilight, Dashie, AJ! Rarity, Starlight! Pinkie, Sunset…help me…please not again, not again…

But the pain and the icy cold and the crushing weight pounding into her smothered the plea. Snarled at her, Yes, again. Again and again. Yes.

Then the hammer blows were still, and she was granted blessed respite. She drew a gurgling breath, and barely managed to keep from choking on the blood in her mouth. She spat it on the ground and blinked as the darkness above her moved away, allowing the dim fluorescent light to kiss her eyes. She groaned as the feeling began to return to her legs. Cried out in shock and agony when a fist connected solidly with the side of her face. Fire erupted under her cheek. Added fuel to the burning.

"Don't think we're finished, peggy," the rough, bestial voice growled. "We just got us an interruption, that's all." And he hit her again, in the ribs. Something else cracked, and she rolled and hunched in on herself. Couldn't catch her breath even to whimper.

"You will not touch her again."

The voice that spoke was ice-cold and clear as fresh spring water in the mountains. It made her teeth ache to hear it—or that might have been the throbbing in her skull from the beating she'd so recently received. She blinked past the haze of pain, and beyond the dark mountain of her attacker standing in front of her, out of the eye that wasn't swollen shut, she saw boots.

She couldn't focus beyond the boots. Black leather laced up the sides, supple, but scuffed and worn, as if they were old and had seen much use. It was amazing, what things she noticed as her four legs jerked helplessly and her head throbbed, as blood seeped from her body.

For a strange, bizarre moment when the entire world became one surreal dream, she thought she saw a giant cat standing in those boots, a large pale cat the color of fresh cream with golden eyes like the blood of ancient trees. A lion intent on the kill. Then it shifted to look like an ivory hound with firegold eyes and teeth bared in challenge. But then she blinked again, trying to focus on the soft, white fur of either beast, and the strange phantom-creature disappeared as her vision blurred.

Shuddering, she tried to prop herself up, but the shooting pain that lanced from her shoulder to her hooves dropped her again.

"She your mate?"

The voice that demanded this information was gruff, accented with a touch of Baltimare's tang. It made its victim shiver at the sound of it. She curled up, trying to remain inconspicuous enough that they forgot about her. If they forgot about her, she could get up and run.

Maybe.

The mysterious speaker made a sharp sound of disgust. "Mares are not property."

She had to look again, even though something deep inside screamed at her not to do it. The voice was so cold and deadly it seemed to freeze her marrow; to crystallize her blood. She raised a trembling hoof to brush her damp-sticky hair from her bleeding face and saw a stallion, his coat so shockingly pale in the dim subway light it was tinted with blue under the fluorescents. A silver mane that slowly morphed to pale gold hung past muscular shoulders. Firegold eyes shot with crimson were set in shadowed sockets, and the hair around his lips was dark as night. An intricate scar slashed across his race, tracing around the scarred ivory horn jutting from his forehead. She quaked at the sight of him, though she didn't know why. A strange sense of familiarity shivered through her. An odd sense of familiarity, and a very healthy dose of fear. And just a glimmer of hope?

He carried two silver-bladed axes on gold-etched black handles, floating in twin clouds of amber magic. The blades gleamed like pain. The beams of fluorescents hit the cruel edges, giving off intangible sparks of starlight that burned her good eye with their brilliance. Strange, savage death kissed every line of those weapons.

As she stared, the stallion shifted and massive, ivory wings flared out in a sweep of white from his back. An alicorn. A male alicorn. But that meant…

They would do well to run, she thought absently. More lucidly, she prayed, Maelstrom and Mistralia…help me. Please…

"Look, eśe—dis ain't none of your business. The puta and us, we got ourselves an understanding—"

With a look full of loathing and dark fury, the pale warrior snarled, "Be quiet."

Years later, she would try to describe, to her foals, to her friends, to her brother and her parents what had happened that night. Some of them would never understand, but her foals and her dearest friends—Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Sunset Shimmer, Starlight Glimmer, and Discord—would understand what she meant when she said that one moment, the blond stallion had been standing there, aloof and isolated from the group of brutal diamond dogs, and the next, he was crouched over the dog who’d so recently hit her, an axe-blade buried in the dog’s back. A fine spray of crimson blood arced across her savior's nearly-white chest.

She tried to gasp, but her throat, squeezed until bruises circled her pale yellow neck like a necklace of shadows, was swollen nearly shut. Trying to draw such a deep breath made her nearly choke. Despite her pain, her bruises, her blood staining the concrete, something told her that the pack, despite the stallion’s presence, was still dangerous. She had to get up.

In the time it took her to make that decision, the blond warrior had struck down four of the nine dogs who'd set upon her. He leapt to decapitate a fifth, when a sixth one, cowering on the ground and feigning death, suddenly struck out with something that glinted star pain bright in the light of the overhead fluorescents. The steel knife bit into the stallion's foreleg, right above the ankle. She tried to gasp and choked again. Had the cut severed her rescuer's Achilles tendon?

The pale stallion fell to one knee with a cry that was more rage than pain, and the blade descended again, sinking into the meat of his hip. His head jerked back and his spine bowed, his body instinctively flinching away from the weapon.

The pegasus he’d fought to rescue glanced around frantically as she scrambled to her hooves, shaking with effort. Every movement sent burning needles of sensation down her previously numbed legs. She ignored the feeling, casting around for her saddlebag until she found it lying a couple feet away. In it she kept rocks, a habit from her days in Cloudsdale that had never gone away. With shaking hooves, she pulled out a good-sized stone and hurled it. Her leg screamed at her as she did, protesting the abuse it had suffered, and her aim fell short. She'd been aiming for the dog with the knife, trying to hit his temple.

She got him in the back.

The stone projectile had the desired effect, however. The dog whirled to look at her, his face purpling with rage, contorting viciously. She tried to move back, but her hind legs buckled, unable to take her weight. She fell to the ground once more. Her cheek cracked the pavement. The dog had enough time to take a single menacing step toward her before something silver arced across his throat. He took another step, stumbled, and his head fell from his shoulders. The dog whom the blond rescuer had been attempting to kill when the knife blade had interrupted him lay dead as well.

Six diamond dogs down, three to go. She was feeling pretty good about those odds until she heard a resounding crack: a gunshot. It echoed through her skull. She couldn't hide her wince, couldn't muffle her scream. The white alicorn stallion stumbled. Staggered. Aqua-green eyes registered the gunshot wound, black against the moon-pale flesh. Dark amber blood streamed from the wound.

Crimson-washed bronze eyes sunk within darkness like rings of smudged kohl met a frightened, aqua gaze shadowed by bruises. Rage, regret, relief, staggering pain and almost brutal exhaustion—they warred amongst themselves behind his eyes. She felt something akin to a sob hiccup in the back of her throat. Her own regret burned. She swallowed it, swallowed her panic, trying to wet her throat. It was swollen and hot saliva would wet it enough for her to speak, at least a little.

She climbed unsteadily to her hooves, body shuddering. Hot blood streaked her skin. She stumbled toward her rescuer even as she raised a trembling leg to point at one of the dogs approaching him from behind. The pale warrior whipped around and the axe blades sank down between neck and shoulders on either side, rending flesh from clavicle to bottom ribs.

Seven dead. Only two left. At least, that's how it seemed. But a sharp, cold zing puled through her chest, starting from where the golden torque with its carved kunzite stone had once rested, warned her. There was danger approaching. They had to get away. Her instincts screamed, and her panic surged. She had to get them both out of there, right now. Something horrible would happen if they remained. Even as she was fighting panic, she was forming a plan—half a crazed idea, rather, but it was all she could think of.

He glanced at her, and something in his eyes told her to run if she could. But she couldn't. She couldn't leave him. His injuries were horrible. He could very well die here, alone in the subway, because he had tried to protect her from the scum of Manehatten. The idea made her heart burn like a candle flame. It gave her the power to croak, "Behind you!"

He turned, and the spiked hafts of the axes plunged into the dog’s belly. The diamond dog gagged and died, scarlet bubbling between white fangs and slack lips. She shuddered and grabbed her rescuer's foreleg.

"Be gone from here," he snapped. There was something hateful in his expression, but she didn't care. His coat was soaked in blood, his and the blood of the diamond dogs. He limped badly from the wound at his ankle. His right leg wouldn't support his weight.

She saw the leader of the pack, her attackers' alpha male, raise the gun. Aquamarine eyes widened. Her hero turned, raised the axes as he shifted to stand between her and the lead dog. The warrior stumbled as he put weight on his bad leg in his haste to attack.

The gun fired twice.

Blood poured from the new hole in his left shoulder. His foreleg hung like a useless lump of meat in front of him. She had to fight not to be sick. Had to think clearly, had to suppress the shock that wanted to simply numb and blur the world into nothing. Had to time all of this just right. If she got it wrong, even a little, they would both die. She needed to hear the padding of pawsteps. She knew they would come. The pawsteps of the approaching enemy, but their assailant didn't know that.

She bumped her muzzle against the alicorn stallion. He flinched at the contact and twitched away from her touch, but she knew he would act exactly the way he needed to in order to save them both. When she heard horse shoes clanging on concrete, on metal stairways, she screamed as loud as her tortured throat would allow, "Officer, Officer! Help us!" She tried to wave a hoof, as if she could see someone.

The dog jerked and half turned to look in the direction she was waving. A silver axe flew through the air with a flash of xanthous light and embedded itself in the monster's skull. He fell to the ground, and she turned to the stallion who had thrown the axe with such deadly accuracy.

"We have to get out of here," she whispered. Grabbing her saddlebag, she ducked beneath the larger pony’s injured front leg to take his weight, making it easier to lead him. He tripped and stumbled. She nearly fell with him. "Ow! Okay, okay…"

She sucked in a breath and tried to think. Her body was numbing itself, compartmentalizing the pain of her injuries, allowing her brain to numb her to what had happened so she could think. It was an old trick from her time as one of the Keepers of the Elements. It would cost her later—suppressing trauma reactions always did, she'd learned that through her work developing her emblem talent—and only the blanket of shock allowed her to manage it at all.

But even with the trick, fire burned inside her and sticky blood cooled on her skin. Everything hurt, especially her right front leg, her slashed and bleeding face, and the places where her wings connected to her back. She didn't want to think of what would happen when the shock and the mental walls she'd put up dissolved and the trauma came back. Last time she'd dealt with something like that, she'd passed out.

Maelstrom and Mistralia, gods of the clouds and winds, give me the strength, she begged silently. She pulled the pale stallion's leg and settled it more firmly over her shoulder, trying to more easily support some of his weight. He tensed, but allowed himself to lean on her a little. His pain was almost tangible. Help me save us both. Help me stay strong, stay focused. I can't do this without your help. Help me, please.

A warmth stole through her chest, and she closed her eyes. Everything would be all right. Everything would work out the way it was supposed to. She could do this. She could. And if she couldn't, well…she'd figure it out when she got that far.

The pale stallion weighed much less than she'd expected, but he stiffened as soon as she tried to get them both moving. Gritting her teeth, she locked her legs, supporting him as well as he staggered to his hooves with a groan stifled behind clenched teeth.

"Okay…okay, come on. There has to be a safe place here somewhere. Yeah. Come on."

"How are you doing this?" He demanded gruffly from between clenched teeth. "A moment ago, you could barely move."

"You need help. I have to help you." As a wave of dizziness and horror tried to choke her, she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. The sharp stinging pain ripped her back to the blissfully almost-numb present. "I had time to gather my strength and get a second surge of adrenaline. Come on, we need to hide out until they leave. Let's go."

"I do not want your help."

"Um…no offense, my lord," she murmured, remembering to whom she was fairly certain she spoke, "but you need my help. So don’t talk; save your strength and try to walk if you can. Come on, come on…" Her voice was breathy with fatigue, with pain. She didn't sound impatient, only exhausted. "We gotta go. Is there somewhere we can go?" She saw him open his mouth to speak and knew she needed to press her advantage, now, before he got enough energy to really make a good argument. So she hissed, "Look, I'm not leaving you here. If you know somewhere we can hide until they forget about us, I suggest you tell me so we can get there before more of them show up. You're in no shape to fight. There's steel and Teflon in those bullets—poisonous to your kind of pony."

She was hazarding a guess. She'd seen that the sclera of this stallion's eyes was nearly burgundy, not white. And he was a male alicorn. They only came from one place – Antequus, the realm of magic. It was one reason she didn't fear this stallion as much as she might have otherwise. If she was wrong, this would all be for nothing. He'd think she was mad as a hatter. But she could tell by the way he tried to flinch away from her that she'd been right on target. He was one of the fabled alicorns of Antequus.

"You—"

"I have the Sight. And I work with magical creatures on a daily basis. You pick up a few things. Now really, we really need to go!"

She put the last bit of volume her voice would allow into that last word. He glared at her for what seemed like a thousand years before giving her an almost imperceptible nod. She tensed her shoulders and began to move.

They were silent, the better to hear their enemies. Hoofsteps stomped on concrete, and they moved faster. Pain lanced her body, stealing her breath away. She bit her lip to stifle her moans. Her rescuer was in worse shape than she could have imagined anyone surviving. She owed him. She had to help him.

"You are bleeding," the blond stallion beside her hissed. His slightly pointed teeth were still tightly clenched. She snorted.

"So are you. You need to hust now. Begging my lord's pardon," she added as an afterthought.

"Why are you doing this?" He demanded. His voice dripped with venom, with fury. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Refused to answer. She needed what little breath she had. He pressed, "Answer me. And it is, 'Your Highness.'"

"Oh. I’m very sorry, Your Highness," she said, and kept moving without answering. For a long time, there was no speech between them, save for the tersely muttered directions her rescuer bit out from between gritted teeth. Her vision was beginning to fade in and out, things becoming flickering and white and sparkling.

She blinked and bit her tongue to pull herself back from the brink of fainting. She had to do something, or she would fall at his hooves. Her legs were cold and numb. She was gasping now, near the end of her strength, but she knew she couldn't afford to collapse. What if her companion needed her help? What if the icy walls she'd erected between herself and what had just happened suddenly collapsed as well? She'd break into a million pieces. She couldn't afford that. Not again, not yet. Not ever.

"What is your name?" The pale-skinned stallion demanded, though his voice was laced with pain. She glanced at him.

"Your Highness, why are you talking?"

"Because I no longer hear the sounds of pursuit. So tell me, mare, what is your name?"

She sighed, and tried to keep the world from spinning out of control around her. Taking in a deep breath through her nose and out through her mouth to reduce some of the vicious pain threatening to crush her, she finally admitted, "It's Fluttershy, Your Highness."

"Fluttershy? What sort of weak name is that? "

"It's a pegasus name," she found herself saying. “Most of my siblings have names like that. Zephyr Breeze, Summer Showers, Rosewind, Ocean Mist…Since you don't like me, why are you asking?" She could tell by the revulsion in his golden eyes that he positively loathed her.

"The sound of silence irritates me," he replied, his voice wicked ice cold, like starlight in the subzero depths of space. She fought a shiver. "I would prefer even your irritating voice to the sound of my own thoughts at this moment. You are more fortunate than you can possibly imagine, that I decided to save you."

"Regretting the fact that you did?" Fluttershy asked, only half-joking. He glanced at her, then away, and she knew the answer instantly.

She sighed, but didn't comment. If she was right, her rescuer had every reason to gripe about the fact that she'd "imposed" on him, as it were. Fluttershy knew many of the ponies of Antequus didn't like Equus ponies, or at least cared little about hurting or manipulating them for a moment's amusement. She even admitted that some mortals deserved that hatred. How was this alicorn to know that she wasn’t one of those dark-hearted mortal ponies who relished the pain and torment of other beings? Many of the more magical creatures of the world didn't believe such ponies even existed anymore.

"If it makes you feel any better…I'm truly grateful," she replied softly. "I know in the end they would have killed me. Thank you, Your Highness."

Fluttershy felt the alicorn stiffen even more. Start to pull away. In retaliation, petty though she knew it to be, she pulled a little. She wasn't going to let anything happen to this idiot just because he was trying his hardest to upset her and make her leave him behind.

She had no doubts that that was exactly what he was trying to do. Well, she wouldn't have any of it. He needed help. She wasn't a monster, no matter what he thought; she wasn't going to just leave him to die. Besides, without the need to help him driving her…she'd likely collapse and let herself bleed out on the pavement.

"Where are we going?" She asked wearily after several tense moments.

"A safe place," he mumbled absently, glancing around. They needed to hurry. He smelled the tang of ozone, which meant a subway train was coming, though not for some miles yet. They had perhaps ten minutes.

But he also caught the irritating stench of diamond dogs. Angry. On the prowl. Hunting for something…or somepony. Also no more than ten or eleven minutes away, but moving quickly, quicker than Enbhárr and Fluttershy could in their current, injured state. Fluttershy, being mortal, was slower, weaker. His only chance of escape without further risk of injury would be to leave her. He contemplated the idea for a moment. After all, she was only a pathetic Pegasus pony. He owed no pony anything but a swift, merciless death.

"How are you feeling?" She asked breathlessly, and tripped over her own dragging hooves. They both started to go down, but she caught them, steadied them. Her breath hissed through her teeth as she fought the waves of nausea and searing pain. "I am…so, so sorry, Your Highness. My fault. Gosh. Move, hooves," she snapped down at the ground, as if ordering the appendages around would make them obey her. "Did I jar anything? Any fresh bleeding?"

"No," he replied slowly. "No."

A debt of honor was being incurred here, and it greatly displeased him. Infuriated him. He loathed mundanes, despised them for their spineless, heartless, gutless behavior. For everything they had done to the two worlds as well as to so many of his loved ones. To himself. They had exacted their twisted pleasure and vengeance on him time and again in his many centuries. Mundane ponies were monsters.

Yet here was a mortal mare who had remained behind, severely injured and afraid, to make sure he survived the fight he had engaged in to save her. Even now, when it was obvious to an imbecile that she needed medical attention, she refused to leave him, because he was injured.

Either she was a simpleton, a madmare, or not altogether mundane. Those were the only possible explanations.

He heard pawsteps, closer this time. Smelled the pack approaching them. Far enough away that they could not yet see or be seen, but close enough that they were nearly out of time. Gritting his teeth in anticipation of the pain, he made a decision and with a snake-quick strike, darted under Fluttershy and heaved her over his good shoulder.

"What are you doing?" The utter terror in her voice enraged him. "Stop! You're in no condition…what are you doing?"

Her voice dropped to a whisper as he approached the gap between the concrete walkways and the subway rails. Even as they watched, a viper-rat sizzled and fried as it touched the third rail coursing with electricity.

"Watch the middle bar," she squeaked.

She squeaked because her body was reminding her in painful ways that it currently didn't like her, but she had no choice but to ignore it. She felt muscles bunch, coil, and then her rescuer sprang, leaping so that when they landed, it was on the far side of the tracks, well clear of the electrified rail.

The impact of their landing sent rockets of pain shooting through Fluttershy's hips and face, and she bit her lip to stifle a scream. Fresh blood exploded from the countless knife-slices bisecting her ruined muzzle.

Enbhárr did not ask her if she were all right. He knew she was not, and he did not care to hear her lie to him (or to whine) about her status. He did not ask if she were bleeding still. He could smell the copper fear stench of her blood, feel it dribbling over his skin and smeared across his shoulder and back. He shuddered in disgust.

"Are we almost there?" The mare whispered. He turned his head until he could look at the slashing ruin of her face.

"Yes," he managed to say calmly. She was watching him with wide, fearful eyes like twin seapony lagoons. As if he was the answer to all her prayers. Her salvation. It had been…centuries since anyone looked at him like that. The last person had been Epona, as a child, when their mother…

Enbhárr's chest ached with the struggle to draw breath. His skull throbbed from loss of blood. The last embers of iron-fever would be rekindled by the poisonous metals in his body and the pain would only continue to get worse. His body, already weakened by poison and illness and exhausted from hours of training, wouldn't last much longer. But he could carry her as far as the entrance. That burst of effort had shaved three minutes at least off their journey. If he continued to be able to maintain this pace, then they would be safe in moments.

He heard a click, and turned slightly to look behind him. Fluttershy tried to focus on the concrete that rose above and away from them, but everything was blurred. Enbhárr saw the dogs, saw their toothy grins, saw the gleam of the light upon the steel barrel of the gun, and spun as the weapon fired. A bullet, burning with pain and toxic lead, ripped into his side. His breath shot out of him, and he hit his knees on the ground. He tasted toxic metal, scented it, and realized a train was coming.

Fluttershy whispered, "No. No. It isn't fair. Put me down and get out of here. Please, you have to run—"

"You killed our friends," the first thug, the one to the left of the gunman, called out. Fluttershy fell silent. Tears made her cheeks shine under the dirt and blood on her face. Burned in the slashing cuts. "All for the peggy. You're gonna die. No weapons now, my friend."

Bronze eyes met lagoon blue. Both burned as they urged the other to abandon them and run. Enbhárr got to all four hooves. The mortal mare on his back cursed under her breath, calling him ten kinds of idiot. The alicorn warrior didn't care. He had engaged in a battle to save her life. Mortal or not, abandoning her now would be dishonorable and cowardly. He had made his decision. Like a true prince, he would abide by it.

He tried to sprint. He was as slow as a mundane now. The gun clicked. He picked up speed, or tried. Dizziness slammed him hard. He stumbled. The entrance to his sanctuary was less than sixty seconds away.

The gun fired, twice.

A bullet bit deep into his good arm. Fluttershy landed on the ground in a heap as he fell. She cried out when the ground hit her. Agony shot through her back, her legs. Her skull screamed at her.

Another bullet found the back of Enbhárr's right thigh as he struggled to rise. He stumbled and fell hard to the floor, hooves scrabbling.

The moment he was on the ground, Fluttershy was on her hooves, clasping a stone.

By all the gods of cloud and wind and rain, please, don't let me miss, she prayed silently.

She threw it, hard. It hit the dog’s paw, and he dropped the gun. It went off, and he screamed as blood gushed from his other paw. In his gyrations, he kicked the gun onto the tracks, which rumbled with the weight of the approaching train. Fluttershy whispered a prayer of gratitude even as she hauled her rescuer up.

"Tell me where," she commanded breathlessly. Her knees buckled. She quickly locked them and bit down on her tongue. The pain helped steady her a little. "We have to go. Tell me where!"

"Straight," he gasped. Pain made him dizzy. Blood-loss made him cold. He wanted to rest, just for a moment, but…but in rest lay death. "Fifteen feet."

They staggered forward. Fluttershy looked around wildly. Bright light washed over them, and the subway train shrieked at them. She gasped and cried, "Now what?"

Enbhárr touched the wall of concrete with a bloody hoof and gasped out, "Guardian, let us pass. Slay our enemies."

Fluttershy's vision twisted, doubled, and she knew somehow she was going to die. Blood or train, that's what she wondered. Would the train make her into a pancake? Or would she turn into a puddle of blood?

That was the question, wasn't it? The crimson liquid dripped onto the cement. Everything sparkled around her and her skull buzzed. The speeding train bore down on them, screaming that they were going to die. She tasted death on her tongue.

She blinked at the wall as a gaping darkness yawned before her. Her own eyes or the whispered words of her rescuer?

The alicorn warrior lurched forward, dragging her with him, and she fell…through the wall. The subway train whizzed by them like a herd of carnivorous centaurs.

Enbhárr sagged against the wall. Safety. Blessed safety at last.

He turned to Fluttershy, who dropped to the floor in a graceless heap. She sank into oblivion as the world went black around her. Just before unconsciousness closed up her senses, she smelled the sweet scent of lilies and roses, and inexplicably thought, Princess Celestia?

Author's Note

Author's Note: Like my fanfic Rip Off the Wings of a Butterfly, this fic is mostly done. It's also pretty long, so there will be steady weekly updates for quite some time (barring catastrophe or death). I'm basically darkening MLP (as do so many of us) and tossing in one of my favorite things - Irish mythology. I always thought it was strange that in a world where even small towns have access to magic, people flipped about Zecora. Which made me think - just because Equestria has magic doesn't mean there isn't another world with more magic (like how the human world has places like Fairyland or Santa's workshop). So I decided to explore the mythos we haven't seen yet in Equestria. Hopefully I do a good job.

And I like writing about Fluttershy. She has great hair.

References Made in the Chapter:

• The idea of Antequus comes from the word “antiquity,” which basically means back in the historical medieval-ish days of magic and unicorns and heraldry and blah-blah. Antequus is sort of like the faerie world of our real world – it exists alongside the “mundane” world, just beneath the skin.

• Eimane Ablach is the pony-fied version of Eimain Ablach, which is another name for Tir na nOg, the Island of Youth in Irish myth. Sort of the like the Irish Island of Avalon.

• "Every word is a part of a picture. Every sentence is (or can be) a picture. The reader uses their imagination to put those pictures together..." is an almost direct quote from the movie The Mighty, which is based on the book Freak the Mighty (I can't remember who it's by, but it's a pretty unique title so if you want to read it, it should be easy to find). It was one of the most interesting explanations of reading I'd ever heard.

• What is iron sickness? I've read a lot of faerie books, and in almost all (if not all), iron is toxic to the fae. Even someone like Enbhárr, who's a strong and tough faerie horse, would be affected if he was in the city long enough (this is also my theory for why he looks so sick in the auction house scene; it's the only scene where he looks almost... dead). As he lives underground and such, obviously there are ways to circumvent the iron sickness, so why it didn't work this time is up to you. But that's just a little back story on that. Toodles!

• A dipsa serpent is a snake from the medieval bestiary (I assume that means it's not real) that's so small it's really easy to step on, and so poisonous that by the time you've realized it's bitten you, you're a second away from dying anyway. Here, I've altered it a bit so it's a type of faerie.

• The thing about the stones was something I actually did in middle school. I carried rocks in a fanny pack around my waist in case I ever needed a weapon, because I was afraid of guns and was too young according to my parents to own a knife of any kind.