Author's Note

"Our Love Will Survive This" was written for a Quills and Sofas speedwrite event, the Day After Hearth's Warming contest.

It takes place several decades before Rekindled Embers.

Content Warnings include blood, death, gore, and some brief mention of sexual themes.

Our Love Will Survive This

Our Love Will Survive This

Don’t worry. Our love will survive this.

I thought about the first time he said it as I shoved him up the steps with the tip of my spear. It was the first conflict we’d had. The first argument, though in retrospect it had been pretty silly. I was going to pass up a promotion. A posting in the Zebra lands, at a pony colony called Twilight’s Spear. I had wanted to turn it down, but Steel Wire had convinced me. It was good for us, he’d said. Good for our marriage. Good for my career. Besides, he’d find something to do. There was always a need for craftsponies.

Steel’s gallows-meat companions were already in place at the top of the platform. Two others, a zebra stallion and a pegasus mare. They were both already hooded and noosed, standing at the edge of the drop before them. I watched Steel’s eyes dragging across his erstwhile companions. I saw the shiver that passed down his spine as he paused.

“Move,” I grunted, and he made the mistake of looking back at me, the chain around his neck clinking. I poked him hard with the blade of my spear, deep enough to draw blood. He hissed in pain and kept walking past his fellow condemned. “Stop.” I pointed with my spear at the ‘x’, drawn in stark black paint on the unpainted rough wood. He didn’t look back again, stepping over until his forehooves rested on the x.

It’s not that bad, love. Our love will survive this.

The second time was when we first laid eyes on Twilight’s Spear. It wasn’t anything like we heard. Back in the Diarchy, ponies spoke all the time about the Zebrican colonies. How we were bringing faith to the heathens, the ponies and zebras and other creatures living in ignorance over here. What I saw was much more complicated.

Sure, Twilight’s Spear was thriving. Ponies and Zebras, living together and working under the watchful gaze of Diarchy Knights, kept safe from the violence of the endless war between the Diarchy and the Free Zebra Republic. Here there was peace, and law. Merchants and farmers who kept the rules and swore to the faith prospered.

But we’d been expecting a colony, not an armed fortress and military camp.

After our first week here, I stopped speaking with Steel about the work I was doing. He didn’t need to know about the arrests. The interrogations. The inquisitions. He didn’t need to know because he wouldn’t understand. Wouldn’t see how it all was necessary. The light of the Saints had to shine the whole world over. Saint Twilight’s knowledge and truth would bring hope and light to all the world.

That’s what I had to keep telling myself, after all. It was expected. Steel didn’t need to know the dark side of what spreading that light entailed. The biggest irony? I was assigned here to reign in Lady Whiteflame’s zealotry. Not become a part of it.

“Hood?” I whispered to him as I stepped up behind him on the platform. I didn’t trust my voice any more than that. Silently I begged him to say yes. So I didn’t have to see his face. To remember him like this. He shook his head, and my lips pursed. I didn’t want to look into the same eyes that had met mine across the wedding altar. I didn’t want to see the hate and despair in the same blue eyes that held mine as we kissed, embraced. As we made love.

“No,” he said out loud, and I saw the way his gaze drifted towards the guardhouse. To the barred window. To where the last prisoner waited. It wasn’t her turn, not today at least. My chest clenched with pain. This was her fault.

Love, please forgive me. Our love will survive this.

The third time he said it was when I first caught him in bed with another mare. I don’t even remember her name, some earth pony girl he’d been working with at the smithy. They were twisting together in bed. In our bed. He was mounting her, and I remember the moans of extasy that slipped out of her mouth as she took what should have been mine.

I remember the stab of betrayal. Of anger. But it was dull, somehow. The weeks of work, of prisoners and interrogations, had driven an emptiness between the two of us. I remember thinking guiltily that at least it wasn’t some non-pony creature, so I didn’t have to have him arrested.

And hanged.

After that, the other mares had come as less and less of a surprise. We tried counselling. Reconciliation. But each new affair drove the nails deeper into our marriage. He stopped bothering to hide it. Soon enough we weren’t even speaking to each other any longer. One day he wasn’t there any longer. I came home to an empty house, an empty room. An empty bed.

I let him have his wish. The hood stayed in the pockets of my saddlebags, resting over the lavender armor that served as both magical protection and symbol of my service to Saint Twilight. I reached out with both forehooves and pulled the noose, dangling limply over his face, wide enough to pull over his head. The other two had resisted. Steel Wire stared forward, his eyes on the guardhouse window. I didn’t dare look.

“The prisoners are prepared, Lady Whiteflame!” I called loudly. My superior in the Knights, an older earth pony mare, stood with the soldiers assigned as guards and witnesses to the execution. None of the town’s residents were here; the invitation had been made, but nopony and nozebra had shown up.

I didn’t want to be here either, but by all the ancient Saints, I would do my duty. However wretched it might be. I just had to make myself numb enough.

“Very well, Knight Justice. The third condemned refused a blindfold?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I see.” She brushed a hoof through her short grey mane. “Very well then. Wheat Field, you have been convicted of heresy, rebelliion, oathbreaking, murder, theft, and banditry, and sentenced to hang by your neck until you are dead. Do you have any last words before we send you to the Saints?”

The zebra spat loudly, but said nothing.

“As you will, heretic. Do your duty, Knight Justice.” I stepped behind the zebra, turned, and shoved with both hooves. I couldn’t bring myself to look as he fell. As the rope stretched taught. I heard the snap, though, and the whimper of fear from the other two condemned.

“Dove Feather, you have been convicted of heresy, rebellion, and carnal relations with a non-pony creature. Do you have any last words before we send you to the Saints?”

“This is wrong!” the pegasus shrieked as she trembled in her bonds. “This is wrong and someday you’ll all see it! The Saints would never approve of what you have done. You’ve twisted their words!”

I’d been one of Saint Twilight’s Knights for ten years now. I was well used to ignoring heretic ramblings. I waited until she was done speaking to plant myself and shove.

Scream. Snap. Silence.

“Steel Wire, you have been convicted of heresy, treason, aiding and abetting rebel factions, and of carnal relations with a non-pony creature. Do you have any last words before we send you to the Saints?”

“Not to you,” my husband said clearly. Fearlessly. He looked to the guardhouse, and this time I couldn’t help but look. To see the tear-stained face of the zebra mare I’d caught him with. The one whose love had condemned him to the noose. “Don’t be afraid, my love. Our love will survive…”

I couldn’t let him finish. A scream tore its way through my throat, rage and hate bubbling up until it burned out. I didn’t kick him off the platform, I shoved hard with my forehooves. He tumbled and fell. No clean drop. No broken neck. As long as I didn’t have to hear the words again. The Saints-damned lies he’d said to me, over and over.

Back before I ruined us with my work. My faith. My duty. My fault.

I looked down at Lady Whiteflame. She looked a little surprised, but when our eyes met she simply shrugged. It didn’t really matter that I hadn’t let him finish. Not to her. She didn’t care about the ponies we questioned. The heretics we killed. As long as they died in the end, she felt we were doing the work of the Saints.

I had to force myself not to run from the gibbet. Not to look at the slowly swaying ropes. The guards would ensure nopony did anything with the swaying bodies. I tried not to notice how one of the ropes still twitched.

Following Lady Whiteflame inside, I happened to match eyes with the zebra mare. I expected hate. I expected fear. What I saw was pity.

“Don’t…” I rasped. I wasn’t sure what the rest of that thought was going to be. Don’t what? Pity me? Look at me?

“I hear I have you to thank for my reprieve,” she whispered, and I stopped. I drew closer to the bars that guarded her cell. “Because of my…” she glanced over at my husband. “...because of our foal. Thank y--”

“Don’t you dare,” I hissed. “Don’t thank me. I’d rather you sit and contemplate your sin. Get right with the Saints. It’s only temporary, then we’ll be sending you to them alongside him.”

“I still thank you.” She sounded strong. Much stronger than me. I hated her for it. “The other Knight wanted to kill me anyways.”

“Whatever you’ve done, your foal is innocent.” It was a little piece of him, after all. The last piece of Steel Wire left, after he died. The last tiny shred of anything bright or hopeful in my life. “I won’t see innocent blood spilled.”

“Your Saints don’t seem to mind, though,” she shot back, and I recoiled from the heresy. “Steel tried to convince me that they were kind and good. That Saint Twilight and her friends were heroes. Maybe they were. Or maybe they were monsters, just like you and that Knight that wants to execute me and my unborn foal.”

“Of course they--”

“It hurt him, to learn the truth,” she interrupted me. “Maybe you’ll never find out. Maybe you will. I hope you don’t have too many regrets.”

“Silence, heretic,” I slammed the tip of my spear against the bars, and the zebra mare jerked away in surprise. I don’t know why she was getting to me. The words of heretics usually flicked off my resolve. But I was worried. Lady Whiteflame had suggested they string up this mare alongside the others. Only my request had kept her from the noose as well.

I made a mistake as I passed the gallows on the way to Lady Whiteflame’s office. I looked up and saw. The only eyes I’d ever fallen in love with were open, bloodshot, glazed. The only muzzle I’d ever kissed was open, the swollen tongue parting red foam flecked lips. The hooves that had wrapped around me stiff and still.

If I’d been able to eat anything the last few days, I would have lost it.

“You did the Saint’s work today, Knight Justice. Saint Twilight would be proud.” Lady Whiteflame sat behind her desk. Her eyes never left the pages of the reports she was reading. How could she be reading reports at a time like this?

I shouldn’t have been too surprised. After all, it wasn’t her husband that had been hanged today. My mouth tasted like bile.

“We have a lead on the next cell of rebels. I hope to move on them as soon as possible. New Canterlot City says they’re sending us a fresh new squad of Knights, to account for the increases of guerrilla attacks recently.”

“That will be good.” The words were stiff and monotone. I wanted to hide. I wanted to drink. I wanted to satisfied. To feel anything other than sick. I wanted to sleep forever.

I didn’t know what I wanted.

“I’ve rethought our earlier conversation, and sent a dragon-flame scroll back to Headquarters. We’re going to have to kill the zebra mare, after all.”

Her voice was casual, light. As if she were talking about tomorrow’s lunch. Next week’s requisition reports. Next month’s schedule. Her hoof shifted a single paper around on her desk, and I caught the text from the corner of my eye. An execution order. My throat tightened.

“Why?”

“Her foal doesn’t matter. The spawn of heresy and sin. Born in corruption. Nothing good will come of that life, so it will be best to move it on to the next.”

It. That was the foal to her. An it. The last piece of Steel Wire. The last little bit of his love.

Our love will survive this.

Our love will survive this.

Our love will survive this.

“You won’t reconsider?” The words slipped from my throat. They sounded desperate, even to me.

“No, Knight Justice. Though…” she paused thoughtfully. “If you wanted, you could always spare both of them the indignity of public execution. If you chose to take care of things with your spear, tonight, I’m sure the Saints would bless you for your mercy.

“I… see.” I tightened my grip on the spear, spinning the haft in my hooves. Nothing left of him. Nothing left of us. Only emptiness and death. Whiteflame was right. I could take care of things with my spear.

Whiteflame never had a chance. She only had a second to react, the tiniest widening of her eyes before the blade of my spear stabbed through her right eye, slicing past tissue and impaling deep into her brain. I slammed it deep, hard enough to lodge in the back of her skull. Blood and other fluid squirted out, splattering over my face and marring my usually clean armor.

My hooves felt numb. I pulled, but my spear was lodged. I pulled harder, finally bracing one hoof against her forehead. There is a crunch when I yank, and Whiteflame flopped down onto her desk, her head thudding against the wood. Blood spurted out, pouring from the gaping ruined eye onto the very order of execution she’d been looking at earlier.

I was frozen. I couldn’t move, so I stared, watching the wave of red cover the damning words on the page, soaking through the paper and blotting out the sin with blood.

I stood there staring for far too long.

There was only one guard by the cell as I approached. He stood straight as my hooves clopped against the hard stone floor, his hooves twitching nervously on the haft of his own weapon, his eyes wide as he saw the blood dripping from mine. I didn’t give him the chance to react, darting forward.

The haft of my spear swept his aside, while the butt jerked up to strike him hard against the side of his helmet, knocking it off entirely. While he was stunned, I rammed my shoulder against his chest, shoving him against the wall. His head struck the hard stone and I watched his eyes roll back into his head. I glanced at the cell’s occupant.

“Why are you here?” the zebra asked fearfully, the tiniest flame of hope in her eyes. They kept darting between me, and my bloodstained spear. I reached down and fished the keys off the guard’s belt.

“Because,” I replied, my voice hoarse and broken. “Because your love needs to survive this.”