Author's Note

TRIGGER WARNING: Onscreen dead bodies. Details. This is the crescendo and the low point for these two, and things will get better from here.

Chapter 20: The Emptiest Place

“Captain? Captain Risewing?” The voice ringing out across the battlefield held an air of command, a tone of imperiousness — but in that vast empty snowplain it suddenly seemed very small indeed.

The land stretched flat and featureless and white to the horizon and beyond. The sky arced equally vast and blank overhead; a perfect mirror for the empty snow beneath. Little puffs of powder-snow scudded over the wind-scoured plains.

A lone shape, a hopeful spark of pale pink in the endless white. Her blue and fuschia mane tossed by the same wind that toyed with the snow as she alighted. The frozen crust broke beneath her hooves with an audible crunch, and she stood knee-deep in the snow and looked around her.

“Risewing?” she called again, eyes huge in her gaunt face.

There was no answer. Only the soft hiss of the wind, sending ice skittering over ice.

Princess Flu— no, General Flurry Heart — stood ramrod-straight and scanned the ground before her. Snow, uniform and unbroken. Flawlessly smooth as it rose over the little hummocks on the ground, like a tablecloth on the state table.

Flurry Heart’s eyes skimmed over the snow before catching on one of those hummocks. Her face stilled, and her lower lip trembled for a moment. She glanced at the ground beyond the little cluster of hummocks where she stood — utterly flat. Scoured smooth by centuries of wind and snow. Tears filled her eyes. When one crept out over the peach fur of her cheeks it froze almost instantly.

Moving slowly towards the nearest lump, Flurry reached out a gentle hoof and brushed the snow from one end. Beneath the white lay an orange snow jacket. And below that fluffy grey fur. A cutie mark. A spear and an arrow, side by side.

Flurry Heart let her hoof fall, eyes fluttering shut and jaw tensing. She pulled in a deep breath, the freezing air searing her throat. Another. Another. It was Keen Edge. Edge, Risewing’s second-in-command. Carrot Bran, loyal soldier and brave mare. Edge, the strongest soldier in the whole patrol. Edge, who left behind three motherless fillies in the Crystal Empire.

More frozen tears joined the first on Flurry Heart’s soft fur.

She stood as though frozen herself for a long time before she found the strength to continue. And then slowly, mechanically, she pushed the snow away from her old comrade and wrapped her in a glow of gentle yellow magic, pulling her free from her chilly resting place.

Keen Edge hung in the air before Flurry Heart, her throat a bloodied mess, the gore frozen in place for all eternity. Flurry Heart choked down a sob and moved on to the next lump. Lapis Lazulittle, the diminutive blue war-mage. She wore a blue scarf the exact same colour as her solidified, staring eyes. And the next, Roughshod, with his big green snow-boots. Not even his thick fur had been enough to save him. When Flurry had met him, she had thought him the hairiest pony she had ever seen. It hadn’t been enough.

The next one was even worse. Scrawny little Skydance, the youngest in the battalion. Barely seventeen. Just a kid. Flurry Heart held him in her magic beside his comrades and tried to imagine what she was going to say to Skydance’s mother. I’m sorry. I couldn’t keep him safe. I failed him.

She couldn’t even close his eyes. Just like all the rest, they were frozen open.

Flurry Heart pressed a hoof to her mouth, trying to stifle her sobs.

That was how they found her. A sharp retort rang out — the unmistakable signal of a teleport — and then Flurry felt eyes raking across her back, her wings, her tail. And she was no longer alone.

Raising her head slowly, no longer caring about the mess of solid tears on her face, Flurry stared into the red eyes of the Empress. The icy wastes north of Yakyakistan were populated only by a few shaggy tribesponies scattered across the white expanse — or they had been, until this mare had united them under her reign.

The Empress stared Flurry Heart right in the eyes, and smiled wider than pony mouths should stretch. “Princess!” The voice lashed out like a whip, cracking sharper even than the teleport had. “You found me!”

Flurry Heart did her best not to flinch. “I see you’re travelling with a mage now.”

The Empress waved an airy hoof. “Everypony does. Can’t get anything done without them.” Her eyes narrowed, though that eerie smile stayed fixed in place. “He’s very good at invisibility spells, before you get any ideas. You won’t find him.”

Flurry Heart shrugged. “You know I wouldn’t kill him either way.”

A smirk in response. “That’s what makes you so shockingly easy to beat, Flurry dear.”

Flurry Heart shrugged again. She didn’t have the energy for Cozy’s toxic brand of repartee. Not with her soldiers floating frozen behind her and lying dead beneath the snow on every side. She cut to the chase. “Monster.”

Cozy Glow smiled, showing clean white teeth — and on her face it looked more like a snarl. “Yes.”

“Magic, though? The mare I knew never would have done that. She thought magic was unnecessary. A cheat code.”

“The mare you knew was a shadow,” came the rejoinder.

“A shadow of what?”

“Of me, of course,” said Empress Cozy Glow brightly. “And now here I am, living up to my full potential.”

“Here you are,” echoed Flurry Heart flatly.

“And here you are,” smiled Cozy. “After all this time, it’s good to finally see you again, Flurry — do you mind if I call you Flurry? You haven’t changed at all, you know. Like you haven’t aged a day.”

Flurry studied her in silence. Cozy Glow, in contrast, had aged in the years since she had last seen her. The years in the snow had not been kind to her. Wrinkles scarred her beautiful face, her immaculate fur and feathers patchy from years of frostbite. Her primaries were gone entirely, replaced by a line of shining steel knives, only nominally styled to resemble feathers. Her mane was no longer as bright, the sunny round ringlets replaced by a greying, wind-tossed mass of tangles. The same white ribbon bound it back, but even the ends of that were frayed. Only her eyes were unchanged. The same fearsome, fixating, blazing red. Burning into Flurry as she stared — like Flurry was the only thing worth seeing in the world, like she would never look away.

Yes, her eyes were just the same as they had always been.

“You’ve missed me, haven’t you, darling?” The words fell from Cozy’s tongue lightly. The endearment sounded natural. Like it belonged there.

Like the last few years had never happened at all.

“Darling?” Despite herself, that word pulled a humourless laugh from Flurry Heart. “That was her word, wasn’t it? A bit out of place here.”

That struck a nerve. Cozy’s eye twitched and for the first time her smile faltered. Funny. Flurry had long stopped believing Cozy had any feelings left to wound.

“Don’t talk about her.” The statement was delivered flat, emotionless. No trace of the previous playfulness.

Flurry wasn’t about to let it go that easily. Not now that a knife to cut the uncuttable had been delivered into her hooves. “You think she’d be proud of you, Cozy?”

Cozy Glow pulled in a breath, and her pupils shrank to pinpricks. Flurry tensed, ready to throw up a shield if Cozy launched herself, blades drawn — or if the unseen mage launched his own attack.

But Cozy did nothing. Just stared, eyes empty and hungry, and then she finally began to laugh. The sound was thin and reedy in the vast white expanse, pitched too high and too loud — altogether wrong. The sound of a filly emanating from a mare ravaged by the years and the snow alike.

A shaky breath rushed from Flurry’s lungs as Cozy finally finished her fit of giggles. She had forgotten just how unsettling that laugh could be. But then it was designed to be. Everything about Cozy was calculated to unsettle. Everything she said, everything she did; it was all a weapon.

Just like old times.

“You’re just as good as I remember, Flurry Heart,” Cozy smiled, looking once more like she was delighted to be reunited with her old friend. “You always know just what to say to hurt me.”

Flurry shook her head. “You’ve hurt yourself enough for both of us.” You’ve hurt yourself. You’ve hurt me. My friends, my soldiers. Along with hundreds of foals, stallions and mares. Civilians. Innocents.

“And thousands of others, right?” Cozy intuited. “That’s what you’re thinking. You’ve gotten easier to read, Princess. It might as well be written on your forehead. You used to be a bit more of a challenge.”

Flurry jerked her head up, her jaw trembling. “I’m sorry I’m not at my best while I gather my dead.”

“I’ll bear that in mind for our next meeting.” Cozy gave her a crooked little smile. The same smile she used to offer up alongside croissants, or roses, or a kiss in the morning. A mockery of what they had once had.

Her chest suddenly tight again, Flurry Heart dragged her gaze away and back to her soldiers. Living ponies, beautiful souls, with homes and families and husbands. Reduced to so much frozen meat — at Cozy Glow’s hooves. Nothing more now than lumps beneath the snow.

She reached for the next of them and began the agonising process of pulling the snow away until she recognised him. Purple feathers edged with white. Risewing. The captain.

Be careful, she had said to him that morning. To all of them. A multi-pronged approach is our best bet. I can’t be with all of you at once, but the Empress’ forces should be spread thin. We should have a good chance of getting through to the foals.

“I’ve been busy since we last met,” Cozy said, in the tone of a child brightly chattering about its day. “Aren’t you impressed?”

Flurry pulled Risewing from the snow and let him join his fellows in the air above her. She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. This would be his very last flight.

When she didn’t answer, Cozy began to move closer, like a panther stalking its prey. “Well, of course you are. You came all this way to see me, after all. To chase after big, bad Cozy Glow, ready to rescue all those poor unfortunates I have with me. Or maybe it was for me. Did you come to save me, Flurry? To preach friendship just like Twilight Sparkle taught you, to warm the cockles of my villainous heart till I see the light once more?”

Flurry went on with her task, letting the vitriol wash over her as she gathered up her fallen comrades, one after another.

“I think that’s it,” hissed Cozy, low and dangerous. “I think you missed me. I certainly missed you. Nopony here in this shithole is any good at chess at all.”

She paused and studied her hooves as Flurry unearthed the next of her soldiers. Grassgreen. He had been going to propose to Daisy May next week.

Shining Armour always said it was important to know your soldiers, to know who you were sending into battle for you. But all it seemed to do for Flurry was to make it hurt more when they fell.

And far too many of them had fallen since Flurry Heart marched them north.

“I’ll tell you what they are good at, though. Fighting. Following. Obeying. It’s shockingly easy to build an army. Especially when you have years before anyone notices your frequent and blatant violations of the Gen-neigh-va Convention. Do you feel guilty about that, you and your mother? That it took you so long to notice ponies were dying up here in the north?”

And there was Sandy. He made pancakes every morning in base camp. Who would make the pancakes now?

“All you need is a few of them to follow you. You wouldn’t believe how flexible ponies can be once you have a gang of armed thugs behind you. Or once you have their foals penned up nice and tight. With that magic ingredient, you’ve got an instant army — and a future one, being trained up safely away from their parents — on your side. It’s a good tactic. You ought to try it. Easier than digging up ponies from the snow.” Cozy Glow sniggered; an ugly sound.

Pulling back the snow from another face, too familiar, Flurry Heart’s patience finally fluttered and expired. No more friends left waiting beneath the snow. Her horn flared, and as one, all the lumps quivered and rose. Snow sloughed from the fur of the dead. Stiff manes hung in the air, looking almost like they might be blowing in the wind. Sightless eyes stared down at the two mares as they faced each other down.

“Surely you’re not going to teleport all of those back to your base camp with you?”

“Numbers aren’t an issue for me.”

“Then you’ve improved since I last saw you.”

Flurry Heart almost laughed. It caught in her throat. “A lot has changed since then.”

“But not that much, right?” Cozy Glow pushed. “You’re not going to use your godly powers to call down a thunderbolt on me, are you?” She grinned, spreading her hooves. “You’re not going to smite me?”

For a moment, Flurry Heart allowed herself to imagine it. Setting aside her past with Cozy Glow — how she had once felt about the beautiful pegasus who had allowed herself to warp into the ruin facing her now — setting aside her personal feelings, could she do it? Could she just…annihilate a pony? An enemy.

If she did it — if she could — she would free those foals. The Empress’ entire army. Those who served under sufferance of the threat against their children and relatives, all of them freed in one fell swoop.

But she still didn’t know where the foals were kept. And if Cozy took the secret with her —

And on thinking that name, she looked back into those red eyes and memories flooded through her. Looking into them, soft with love, seeing her own eyes reflected back. Laughter, rooks and pawns, a thousand battles over the chessboard. Fires crackling and mulled wine and gentle kisses in the candlelight.

She could no more send the light from those eyes than she could her own.

“Come on,” spat Cozy, suddenly a little desperately. “Don’t go. End this. Smite me. Hurt me. I know you want to. I know you think I deserve it.”

Watching her, Flurry Heart shook her head. “Do you think you deserve it?”

Her flanks heaving, Cozy Glow stared into Flurry’s eyes. There was madness there, but there was something else too. An expression Flurry had seen, sometimes, when her lover would wake panting in the night, eyes wide and frightened — Cozy, what is it, what’s wrong? — I-I’m afraid it’ll happen again. That I’ll do it again.

That was an expression that Flurry knew well. An expression she had not seen in years.

Pain.

Cozy Glow said nothing, for once in her life. Just looked into the eyes of the mare whose heart she had broken.

And Flurry Heart stared into the ghost of the pony she had loved, watched by the ghosts of the ponies her love had slaughtered like animals, and was suddenly exhausted beyond words. “Where are the children, Cozy?”

The spell was broken, and Cozy laughed, her equilibrium suddenly and jarringly restored. “Somewhere nopony will ever find them — and nicely spelled to blow sky-high when I give the word, before you get any ideas.”

Shaking her head, Flurry turned to leave, carrying her corpses with her. “Goodbye, Cozy.”

Cozy Glow laughed again. “We really must stop meeting like this, Princess. If you want to ask me out on another date, just ask!”

Her laughter climbed, higher and higher, breathless and desperate, almost like sobbing, as Flurry Heart gathered her magic and her dead soldiers and pulled in the vast magical energies required for a jump with over twenty bodies in tow.

CRACK!

The shockwaves faded as the echoes did, and when the earth stabilised again, the small mare with the red eyes of a love long dead and the despairing, maniacal laughter of a foal — she lay alone in a crater of ice and laughed and laughed and laughed.