The Seven’s Fall
Written by iAmSiNnEr
Co-written by: Serene Gust
One
Beneath Twilight’s glowing lamp, Tirekian ore shone like the brightest crystals in the darkest mines. Her heart leaped as she unearthed a vein as wide as her hand. It was one of the most valuable minerals in all of Equestria.
Twilight shifted her hair away from her brow and glanced at the other miners, searching for any movement. But their pickaxes continued to swing against stone. They weren’t close enough, which meant that they couldn’t see what she had found.
“Sweet Faust…” her little brother, Spike, muttered as he wiped the sweat from his face and lowered his pickaxe. “That’s a whole vein of the ore.”
Twilight pressed a finger to her lips, although she was smiling. “Shhh,” she whispered. “You know better than to attract the attention of the other miners. Remember last week? We almost had to hit one of the other miners with a pickaxe before he would stop trying to steal our finds.”
As Spike nodded, Twilight handed him a chisel and wedged her own into the stone crack, striking it with her hammer, and the lode crumbled into chunks of hardened clay and mineral.
Twilight grinned at Spike, excitement flowing through her. They were never this lucky. Too often she left the mine sore, with nothing to prove for her hard labour. Their mother had used the last of their flour this morning. They needed bits, or their family wouldn’t eat that night.
She knelt and reached down. As her fingers touched the ore, a wall suddenly came in between her powers and her. She grimaced, and quickly picked it up. It was as beautiful as it was crippling, suppressing her magic, just as it would suppress the magic of every Mageborn in the kingdom.
Hatred for the mineral rose inside her, but Twilight quietly reminded herself that she was lucky. Just the presence of the metal should have doused her powers entirely, but she was stronger than the other Mageborns. Spike called it a resistance.
The moment Twilight dropped the ore into the bucket, she could feel her powers again, and she smiled slightly as she twitched her fingers, and willed the bucket to rise in the air a little. As the bucket rose slightly, Spike nudged her hard, and Twilight lost her concentration. The bucket dropped on the ground with a soft clang, and Twilight glared at Spike.
“Stop that!” he hissed. “Do you want the guards to arrest us?” He sounded like their father. Faust, the older he became, the more he looked like their father too, caution etched into his every feature. Even his threat was as mild as a lullaby.
“The handle on the bucket is broken,” Twilight argued. “No one will see me.”
“I’ll carry it.”
“It’s my birthday,” Twilight smiled slyly.
“No. Once a guard sees you using your powers,” Spike hissed, “You’ll be thrown into a jail cell faster than you can say, ‘I didn’t do anything’.”
Twilight let her hand fall to her side. Spike was right; magic was as forbidden as Tirekian metal was coveted, the minerals drawn from the deepest mines to be crushed, smelted and gilded onto every surface in the kingdom. Protection against the likes of Twilight and her kind- Mageborns, who had magic and powers that the rest of the kingdom feared.
And yet Spike was also wrong. Twilight knew no one was watching them, because she was always careful. No guard paced their tunnel.
She could argue with him a hundred more times and it wouldn’t matter, so she changed the subject. “What do you think this is worth?” she asked, “Fifty bits?”
“At least,” he replied. “Rumour has it that our benevolent Queen Celestia raised the price of Tirekian metal, just for you.” He winked at her.
“Just for me?” Twilight clasped her hands.
“She wants you to have a birthday feast,” Spike joked.
She gasped dramatically. “Such mercy! What fortune!”
“Shhh- keep it down,” Spike looked over his shoulder. “Next thing I know, you’ll be Celestia’s newest advocate.”
Twilight wrinkled her nose. “Never. Cross my heart and spit on Faust’s grave,” she pointed at the remainder of the lode. “Shift’s about to end. Hurry!”
She and Spike had only gotten half the vein when the bell sounded. Twilight rammed her chisel into the loosened rock and cursed when falling ore nicked her hand. She examined the wound in the lantern light before wiping her blood-stained knuckles on her trousers.
Spike tossed the ore into the bucket. “Be careful. Dad won’t like it if you come home injured,” he warned.
“I’m fine,” Twilight muttered as she grabbed her backpack and stood up. A full bucket was well worth a few cuts and scratches.
Spike covered the bucket with a dirty handkerchief and picked it up, hugging the ore close to his chest. Twilight kept an eye on him as they fell in line with the others, slowly making their way to the mine’s main artery. The shallow chambers of the mine had been picked clean, and miners like Twilight and Spike had been burrowing deeper for years now, the snaking tunnels shored with fresh timber balances.
The line of tired workers stretched endlessly before and behind them, the air stinking of salt and sweat. Five years in the mines and the crawl to the entrance was still as antagonizing as the first time. At least Twilight’s nightmares about being buried alive had stopped.
At the conflux of two tunnels, Twilight almost collided with Rarity, a girl whose family lived two doors down from them. Despite having been working in the mines for hours, Rarity’s hands and hair were somehow mostly free of dirt and clay.
“Any luck?” Rarity was clutching her own bucket with delight.
“A bit,” Spike said immediately. Twilight sensed her brother’s eagerness at seeing Rarity and smirked. He jabbed her in her ribs.
“Where are your sisters?” Twilight asked, frowning. Rarity was never alone.
Rarity’s face fell. “They’ve gone to find my brother.”
“Is he well?” Twilight pressed, sensing Rarity’s worry. Rarity’s older brother had been reassigned from the mines to one of the farms. Before he left, he was a cheerful companion in the mines, even on days he found no ore. His smile was a welcome change from the dullness of the mine.
“The farms were destroyed. The cottages are nothing but broken splinters, like the worst storm you could ever imagine passed through. No one could explain it. Most of the workers are missing. My brother, and my aunt…”
A chill numbed the tips of Twilight’s fingers, and she clenched her fists. There had been rumours for the past year about strange disturbances beyond the city’s gates, structures crumbling to dust, farmers disappearing. Twilight had heard the stories only through echoing conversation within the mines, workers had picked up word from the farms in the vale. Queen Celestia had yet to make an official announcement.
But this was real not a rumour. Rarity’s brother was someone Twilight had shared a pickaxe with. He’d offered her a shoulder when a cart had run over her boot last spring, before he was reassigned.
“I’m so sorry,” Twilight whispered. Beside the mines, the farms were the only other places that Mageborns were sent to toil. Rarity’s brother could have been someone from her family. He could have been Spike, or her father.
“My sisters left this morning to help and try to find him,” Rarity said, “I don’t even know if they got a permit to leave the city.”
“I’m sure they did,” Spike exchanged a glance with Twilight. Twilight knew what he was thinking. As soon as the farms were repaired, Celestia would assign another batch of Mageborn to tend the land, like they were nothing but bodies. None of Twilight’s family had been reassigned yet, but the strands of luck she clung to were disappearing beneath her fingers.
Spike put his hand on her shoulder, and Twilight knew he sensed her fury.
Anger changed nothing. Not in this damned gilded city.
The chamber widened, and Rarity was jostled into another line. Spike and Twilight only had time for a quick farewell before they found their own line to the ore buyers. She was still reeling from Rarity’s tale.
The farms may have looked like it had been destroyed by a storm, but Twilight knew better. She had heard rumours of destruction magic on that scale before, many years before, of a young girl who destroyed an entire village in the foothills. Celestia had that girl executed.
If the same thing was happening again, then perhaps a Mageborn was to blame. But destruction magic wouldn’t explain the missing harvesters.
“You think it’s magic from a Mageborn,” Spike said. It wasn’t a question.
“I don’t want to think it’s magic,” she replied, ignoring the butterflies flying around in her stomach that told her otherwise.
The cavernous mouth of the mine echoed with the conversation of hundreds of miners. Twilight sensed the usual feelings of anxiety and worry. They were nervous to see how many bits they could bring home.
“Where are the guards?” Spike asked, craning his neck to see.
The ore buyers’ table were always accompanied by a handful of city guards, but Twilight didn’t spot any today. Normally she would be grateful for their absence-- she hated the way their eyes followed her particularly close, but now it was disturbing.
“I’m surprised a riot hasn’t broken out,” Spike said.
“Don’t give them any ideas,” Twilight muttered. When riots broke out, Celestia’s soldiers converged at the capital and many Mageborn died. The last was a year ago, the memory still raw in her mind, the haunting smell of flesh and blood still potent.
Anyways, she had no intention of rioting against the buyers. It was the guards who knocked the hilts of their swords against her head when she wasn’t walking fast enough, the guards who visited Mageborn homes to reassign mothers, fathers and children to the farms, tearing apart families with glee. Twilight had entertained fantasies about Mageborn rising to use their powers against them. They were powerful-she was powerful.
They approached the buyer’s table, and Spike dropped their bucket on the table. A small man with thick spectacles glanced inside, his eyebrows raised. He made some scratches in his ledger. From his coin purse, he counted out twenty-five bits and placed them in Twilight’s outstretched hands.
Twilight stared at the buyer. “That’s too little,” she said.
The buyer shrugged and shooed her along with a wave of his hand.
Twilight’s pulse beat in her ears. She ached to use her powers with a flick of a hand, to break something. Maybe the buyer’s spectacles.
Spike muttered a word of thanks to the buyer, shoving Twilight away and up the steps to the mine entrance.
Twilight took a few deep breaths of the dusty air. It’s not his fault, she thought until the beat of her heart slowed. Buyers had no control over the wages. Only Queen Celestia did.
“Tomorrow she could drop the price of ore to a quarter-bit per ounce,” Twilight said, “The mines would be filled with starved corpses because all of us would have to work until we keeled over-”
“Stop.”
Twilight turned to Spike, flustered.
He was smiling, which surprised Twilight. “What’s in your hand?”
“Twenty-five bits, Spike. You were standing right there with me.”
“Exactly,” he put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Flour, meat, salt, oil… All of that will be fifteen bits at most. That’s ten left over.”
“Ten bits left over for what?” Spike’s giddiness, as intoxicating as it was, annoyed the heck out of her.
He laughed. “Don’t play daft. For your birthday, or did you forget already?”
She didn’t forget. Seventeen felt odd. She should save any leftover bits, that was the responsible thing to do. But Spike was right. She deserved something nice, and so did their family. Those bits were for them.
“I guess this could mean only one thing.”
Spike followed her up the steps to the entrance, satisfied. “Cake.”
Two: Really? Are you actually-?
The Seven’s Fall
Written by Serene Gust
Co-written by: iAmSiNnEr
Two
The late sun clung to the sky like an overripe fruit. Soot from the nearby smelteries curled up from limestone bricks and disappeared into the bath of light, and as Twilight emerged from the mine, her eyes watered.
It was her favourite time of the year; early summer. The dry city smelled of baked stone and pine and the sun’s warmth soaked her face as she lifted her chin. When her eyes adjusted to the still-bright evening, she saw a boy that was about her age watching her from across the stone path.
Twilight stalled. She’d seen him before; the capital was small enough that she recognised most faces, and he had a carefree one that matched the contentment Twilight sensed in him. He was taller than she was, with bronze skin and eyes like smoked quartz, and he smiled at her like he knew her. Twilight felt herself smile back, her cheeks reddening.
“Faust’s blessings!” he cried out. “Will I see you at the temple this afternoon?”
She froze. Turning on her heel, she grabbed Spike’s arm. “Walk.” They sped away from the boy, who still beckoned them towards the Temple of Light.
“Aren’t you going to say hello?” Spike teased.
“Sure, then I’ll tell him to shove his goddess where the sun doesn’t shine-”
“Really, Twilight?” Spike said, exasperated. “He was only being polite.”
“Just like how the goddess Faust wanted to politely smite all Mageborn?”
“He’s a Mageborn, too,” Spike argued as they melted into the crowd’s current. “Clearly a miner. Did you notice his clothes?”
“Then he’s a stupid Mageborn if he believes in the goddess,” All the handsome ones are stupid, she thought. If Queen Faust, the first in the dynasty had truly been immortalized, surely she made the stupid ones handsome just to spite Twilight.
It didn’t matter anyways. There was no time to be distracted by handsome Mageborns. She had the market to visit and supper to help with at home.
“You were so captivated for a moment,” Spike teased her. “You even blushed!”
Twilight pushed him away, “Don’t make me cuff you in Tirekian metal.”
She ignored Spike’s smugness as they hiked past mine entrances. Workers poured from them and made their way up the mountain towards the market district.
Equestria’s capital was etched into the mountain, every shop and building fashioned from granite. Queen Celestia’s palace was built into the very peak, sculpted towers frosted with Tirekian balconies. The apex of the entire city.
The rest of the city coated the mountain like snow; the city gates and the gilded Temple of Light to the east, the mining district down the north slope, and the canyon--her home--slicing through the mountain’s base to the west. Everything glistened with Tirekian metal, as though ready to melt and collect in the central canal that ran down the face of the alp, drainage and dust and sparkling minerals.
Twilight and Spike followed the canal to the crowded stalls nestled in a bowl beneath the palace. Most of those that were bartering with the street vendors were miners from the canyon, sifting through barrels of threshed wheat and baskets brimming with shriveled up fruit.
Their determination bordered on desperation; a successful haggle was the difference between food on the table or another supper of clear broth.
The stalls were surrounded by bronze-doored shops and pillars of granite. Guards normally patrolled the entrances, forcing the patrons to display a full coin purse before they could enter. They were absent today, just like in the mines.
They’ll be back, she thought, dipping her hand beneath the frayed tunic and grazing her purse. Her father would want her to barter at the stalls instead of entering one of the shops. But that would mean forfeiting…
“Cake?” Spike asked encouragingly.
Twilight nodded, knowing he could sense her nerves. “Two of us in the shop will look suspicious. I’ll meet you in the canyon.”
Spike frowned. “Let me go in.”
“You know I’ll be fine,” Twilight replied.
“Then I’ll wait for you outside.”
“Spike.” Twilight stared hard at him. “Go home.”
Spike bounced on his toes, uncomfortable, but Twilight would win. She would die on the steps of this shop before going home first. Most shopkeepers thought Mageborn loathsome, and Twilight much preferred to take the brunt of their cruelty rather than subjecting Spike to it.
Spike gave in, his shoulders sagging. “Don’t be too long, I’m starving,” he said, casting one final glance at Twilight before crossing the canal bridge home.
Twilight approached the nearest bronze door and ducked into the shop. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the low light, and she saw a candlelit sculpture of Faust in the center of the room. Twilight almost laughed. The goddess’s face was deformed with the help of the artist’s poor skill.
As in every shop she’d been in before, small Tirekian trinkets were strung along the edges of the ceiling. The shopkeeper must have paid a fortune for them. She thought of the Mageborn boy who regularly sold fake Tirekian trinkets in the market, and wondered if these were fake too.
Beneath the trinkets, a woman and a young girl in a silk dress browsed shelves stuffed with sugar-glazed pastries and imported candies. As Twilight looked at the pair, the woman’s eyes kept darting over her shoulder.
She’s used to guards, Twilight thought. How wonderful it must be to find comfort in those polished suits of armor.
Twilight was only able to glimpse at the shelves before the shop owner, dressed in a crisp linen tunic and leather apron, strode over to her. As she felt the sensation of mud dribbling down her skin, the shopkeeper’s eyes showed disgust. Her unkemptness disgusted him. Twilight stared back, forcing herself not to swipe at the dust on her cheeks.
“Can I help you?”
“I have twenty-five bits,” She proceeded to rattle off everything she wanted, allowing him to do the math for the cuts of meat and pounds of flour. The man busied himself, scurrying about to fulfill her request.
Twilight stood by the counter and waited, the child behind her chattering with glee as she and her mother made decisions on sweet rolls and toffee. Every so often, the shop owner glanced at Twilight, but his indulgent smile was laced with the kind of suspicion that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.
She met his smile, widening her eyes innocently.
The shop owner returned with her requested items. “Twenty-two bits,” he said, his voice void of emotion.
Twilight emptied her purse into her palm, counting out coins as he wrapped her cut of salted meat. As she held the bits out, he stalled, studying her hand.
Twilight cursed. Her hand was branded with the mark that every Mageborn was branded with when they were born, and the shop owner’s eyes were beginning to show hatred.
The shopkeeper drew himself up to his full height, and placed the items on the counter. But the shopkeeper’s calm face didn’t betray the hatred in his eyes, which told Twilight one thing: he was used to turning down Mageborn like her.
“Take your bits to the shop down the road,” he said flatly. “They’ll serve you.”
Twilight wouldn’t beg. She refused to beg. “My bits are as good as any.”
Silently, the shopkeeper plucked the items off the counter and placed them all on a shelf behind him. He turned back to her and crossed his arms, waiting for her to do or say anything, to cry and scream or shuffle out of the shop.
Twilight wouldn’t give him the pleasure.
Slowly, Twilight reopened her purse and pushed the coins back in. One fell on the ground, ringing. She bent down to pick it up, and paused.
Twilight should have been out of the door already, the shopkeeper all the wealthier. Yet here she was, crouched beneath an assortment of fake trinkets. She could still feel her powers.
It was almost too easy.
She closed her eyes and flicked her hand, focussing on the shelf near the women and the young girl, fanning her fingers and she grasped her magic.
With a crack, the shelf snapped in half, glass jars smashing against the floor. The girl screamed as the shards shot across the tile. The shopkeeper swore loudly, before racing to assess the damage.
In the chaos, Twilight quickly evaluated what was in quick reach-- rounds of cheese, three rabbits, and two unplucked pheasants hanging by their feet. No cake. Sorry, Spike. Using her magic, she grabbed them and stuffed it all into her backpack.
Above her, the fake Tirekian trinkets swayed with the commotion, useless against her.
Twilight pushed open the shop door and scrambled down the steps. She ran through the circle of outdoor carts, dodging vendors and patrons, and across the footbridge towards the shelter of the canyon.
She imagined the look on the shopkeeper’s face when he realised what she’d stolen and grinned.
He could have had her money but chose her wrath instead.
