Seaborn

Upon a Shore of Crimson Sand

The heavy clay tablets hit the desk with a mighty thud! There were over a dozen of them, scribbled on both sides with the tiniest horn-writing the unicorn priestess could conjure. Pearl had spent the entire night since the 'Gaze of Sol' had returned to port in the Temple of the Sisters, copying the ancient stone tablets of its venerable library, and scribbling furiously as very sleepy, and very elderly Mothers narrated all that they knew about Old Equestria.

But all that they knew was not enough.

Pearl groaned as yet another hour slipped by with nothing to show. The tablets and the wisdom of the elder Mothers were consistent, but useless. Grogar, Father of Beasts, who wrought from Tartarus the gryphon, the timberwolf, and the dreaded hydra never in all of unicorn lore created anything such as the creature that now slept but a few paces behind her.

"Any progress, sister?" Lancer asked from the threshold to her makeshift quarters. "I'd tease that you should hurry, lest the princess lose her temper and send you to the dungeon, but... well."

Her smile was fire to the timber of Pearl's exhausted tempers. As if it weren't enough punishment that she should now care for the beast, the princess had decided to relocate her from the home she shared with her Sister Priestesses and into the castle dungeon. With Glowspur's own daughter for a guard, to boot.

Pearl's muzzle scrunched up.

"It's a temporary arrangement," she grumbled.

"Of course, sister," Lancer said. The gleam in her emerald eyes betrayed none of her own tiredness, if she even felt any. Both Lancer and Bronzehammer had gone the entire night without rest, though their relieves were due to arrive soon. Pearl wasn't so lucky.

"Why," Lancer turned to the boulder at her side, the mare Bronzehammer. "Is that not the first light of dawn? Bron, do correct me if I'm mistaken, but I seem to recall a certain someone's duties to commence with the rising sun..."

Pearl's eye twitched.

Bronzehammer nodded wordlessly, none the wiser to her fellow knight’s quip, and turned to face Pearl. Her maille coif clinked softly every time she moved like so many little bells, though there was nothing little about ‘Bron’ herself. Even her breath was like a gust of wind against the iron muzzleguard of her conical helmet.

"Would you like me to fetch a courier to inform the Exalted Mother of your situation, Sister Pearl?" she asked. Her voice was gravel and tumbling rocks.

Pearl didn't answer immediately. She stared into the dying flamelight of her spent candlestick, at the pile of clay tablets that had given her a migraine—both from reading them and just carrying them around—and felt every muscle in her legs and rump ache at the thought of standing. Would it kill her to skip work just today?

A tiny sliver of light squeezed through the arrow slit of her cell to caress her mane with the first rays of dawn. The warmth of it spread through her and down to her chest. No, it probably wouldn't. But somepony else might get hurt.

'Blessed Celestia, has the sun ever not risen because you felt a little tired?'

"No, that's okay. I'm going." Pearl slid from her chair and pushed away from the desk that furnished her cell. With a yawn she levitated the white frock and hood of the sisterhood over to herself, and stepped onto her four wobbly hooves. She fastened the first over her chest, and pulled the latter over her head.

"May the sun shine on you both, my ladies."

Lancer and Bronzehammer echoed the sentiment and opened the door for her. Almost immediately Pearl regretted her decision. The staircase that towered over her at the end of the dank dungeon hallway held the promise of even more aches and pains, but at least she knew that the reward of honest work lay at the end of that bothersome road... With a very disgruntled sigh, Sister Pearl took her first step into that terrible task.

Lancer cleared her throat.

'Oh, by Discord's crooked fang!'

"Uh, Sister?" the knight asked, and was it just her or had her voice cracked a little? "Is this thing supposed to be moving like that?"

Pearl turned around with a start, but soon calmed down. On the far end of her cell, bundled under a pile of several pony-sized blankets that barely managed to cover him from head to hoof, the creature stirred and twitched—his powerful chest rising with every breath, like the bellows of some monstrous furnace—but remained fast asleep.

"It's only been a day, my lady. I doubt he will awaken before tomorrow."

'If at all.'

Pearl had resuscitated a few ponies before—some from far more grievous injuries—but those had been ponies. What this being's body could handle or how it would react to however long it had spent in the cold embrace of the sea... Well, she simply didn't know. But experience said to wait a day or two more before concern was justified.

"...and the fidgeting?" Lancer asked. By her side even Bronzehammer seemed a little on edge—her horn twitched, as younger unicorns might say—and the faintest trace of an aura could be seen on the spiked hilt of the warhammer strapped to her belt. Armed and armored as they were—very much to Glowspur's insistence and Pearl's chagrin—neither knight knew what to expect of the creature.

"...perhaps it can chew through iron maille? Might be its gaze is like that of the vile cockatrice, birthed from the primordial chaos at Discord's whim? Or it could be a relative of the siren! His masculine voice, seductive and irresistible, might have the power to force a mare to turn against her own, and then herself?"

...

'Wait did I...?'

"...sister what the buck?!" Lancer had her aura firmly wound around the haft of her spear, eyes wide and nostrils flared. Bronzehammer had a look of pure consternation plastered on her otherwise impassive features. Her warhammer floated freely now, between her and the beast. Both mares had backed themselves hard against the wall.

'Ah, horseapples...'

"Pardon me, my ladies. I was just musing out loud. Uhh..." Pearl winced. "The fidgeting is normal! He's totally unconscious now, and like I said, he won't be awake for at least a day or so..."

The two knights looked at her. She looked back out the door. The staircase and its many steps of tortuous climbing suddenly didn't look so unappealing...

"Gotta go, bye!"

"WAIT SISTER-"

Pearl was halfway up the staircase before the door slammed firmly shut behind her.

The inner city, built around the castle and ceremonial center, was alive with all the vibrancy of the rainbow. Blue-painted rooftops, lively-green canopies over merchant stalls, and murals drawn in gold and silver adorned the heart of the Crimson Shore. The smells of cooking fires and working kitchens flooded the air as stallions prepared breakfast all over the inner city, and accompanied Pearl as she made her way out of the castle courtyard and through the keep's main gate, on her way to the Temple of the Sisters.

The temple was a giant structure, almost fifteen unicorns in height, with sloped walls and a towering central sanctum with a conical roof, painted gold on its east face and silver on its west face. The rest of it was a deep crimson, like the rest of the city, with gold and silver accents along its outline edges. Most were simple patterns, but others held stories written in an olden script, forgotten by all but the very ponies who inscribed them however many centuries ago...

'What wonders lie hidden in such ancient words?'

She took a moment to bask in its aura, like she always did, every day since her mother gave her to the sisterhood as a filly.

Dawn's light cascaded over the horizon and the grim waters beyond the shore to bathe the temple walls and the homes around it in a warmth so pure and cozy it could only be born of Celestia's mercy. Pearl knew it to be true every time she saw it—no matter what the other schools of theology might say—that even if the physical manifestation of the White Alicorn was in Equestria itself, surely her spirit must also be with them in the Mournful Sea. Who else could be responsible for such beauty?

Pearl's ascent up the temple steps was shrouded in a silent awe. The central sanctum's entrance was flanked by two great pillars, carved to resemble the White and Dark Alicorns with their wings folded, horns raised high to the sky. Their expressions were stern and firm, but Pearl had never felt intimidated by them. Like all sisters, she'd never felt safer anywhere else, but under the mighty gaze of Sol and Luna.

She extinguished her horn and bowed deeply before the great Alicorns. So much so that her belly touched the flagstone of the sanctum entrance.

"Some mares might call that excessive, sister."

Pearl didn't acknowledge the voice immediately, but felt the beginning of a grin tug at the edge of her lips. A few more seconds passed before she rose and allowed magic to flow through her once more. She turned to face the newcomer.

"Some mares paint themselves bright crimson and beat each other with metal sticks," she replied with a wide smile. "Exalted Mother, I do not pretend to question the sanity of others."

The Exalted Mother chuckled. Her voice, dry and aged by decades of service to the sisterhood, still carried that motherly undertone that made Pearl's heart beat a little softer. She stepped forward until both mares stood side by side, minuscule before the mighty Alicorns cast in solar shade.

"You've become rather popular all of a sudden, my daughter," the Exalted Mother said. "Why, I don't believe I've had your name in my ears this much since that stallion came by-"

"Exalted Mother please no."

The old mare giggled like a filly, but relented.

"So what's this chit-chat about a 'monster', sister? To hear the initiates talk, you fished it from the depths yourself to present it to the Princess, like some pegasus barbarian hero."

Pearl let out the groan of groans, and explained as best she could. Naturally she didn't mention Lord Palfrey. The Exalted Mother needn't be bothered by such meaningless details, of course. Yes. Totally.

"...so now I sleep in the castle dungeon, Exalted Mother," she finished, then quickly added, "...but it's a totally temporary arrangement!"

The old mare tittered and brushed a strand of gray mane out of her amber eyes. Some of the tension that had built up along Pearl’s back and shoulders dissipated as the Exalted Mother pressed up against her side and winked at her, like old partners in crime.

“It better be, or I’ll have to pay the castle a visit.” Her aura tussled Pearl’s mane. “Can’t have my Pearl hiding around in dank old cellars, now can I? What would I tell half the colts from here to the outer walls?”

“Exalted Mother!”

“I tease,” she said, and turned her gaze back to the temple entrance. No doors barred the way to the sanctum, but a great, ruby-colored curtain was draped over the open archway. It was so thick that not the mightiest gust of wind, nor the fiercest blizzard could make it budge. Yet it was not impervious to damage, and as the two mares drew closer, Pearl noted with regret the singed edges and charred spots along the lower ends of it. Remnants of Storm Mane’s great blasphemy.

The Exalted Mother and Pearl parted the curtains with their auras, and entered through the archway onto a great, single stone slab that dominated the sanctum floor. All around them the magnificence of the Temple of the Sisters extended itself high above and towards the conical ceiling, with enormous pillars that lined the walls, and skylights that bathed the sanctum's central altar in sun or moonlight as the time shifted.

Unlike the temple walls there was no mudbrick within the sanctum. It was all stone, hewn from the distant mountains beyond the Bay of Mangoes, and painstakingly brought across Verdant back to the Unicorn Shore. Within the temple walls, that stone had been carved and raised beyond its natural shape to glorify the might of the Sisters. Here, the stone pillars that held up the roof were painted in exquisite detail in only the brightest colors to depict the histories of the unicorn race in elaborate hieroglyphs.

The walls were murals in their own right, and the floor upon which the two unicorns walked—that single, great stone slab—was carved with the legends and myths of Old Equestria. But it was the altar that caught the eye. It was a white, solid marble slab rested upon a hardwood base encrusted with rubies, with the names of every Princess and Exalted Mother since the first unicorn barges arrived upon the Unicorn Shore, all carved into the wood and filled with gold and silver leaf.

Pearl swallowed hard at the sight. She'd seen it every day for the majority of her life, and yet... It was a room that exuded might. To a unicorn, any unicorn, it was living proof of the glory of the Sisters and their plan for the tribes. It was salvation. A future to believe in.

It was life itself.

"You're drooling, Sister Pearl."

Pearl cleared her throat and pressed a hoof to her muzzle.

"Ah," she said, "yes, well, I skipped breakfast..."

The Exalted Mother rolled her eyes and motioned with her head towards the altar. 'Let's hurry then,' she seemed to imply. The morning preparations went by quickly. As the Exalted Mother readied her morning lecture to the initiates, Pearl lit the candles, mixed the scented oils, and assembled the many pews around the great flagstone where their history lay carved. At the end of it she went and tied open the great entrance curtains, and set the censers by the door. With a spark from her horn, the incense was set alight.

"All set, Exalted Mother!" she called out. The older mare merely nodded from her seat behind the altar, where several clay tablets had been arranged but never glanced at. Pearl knew there was nothing in this or any temple the elderly priestess didn't already know by heart.

"Has the sun reached the towers, sister?"

Pearl glanced outside the temple. Beyond the crimson rooftops of the inner city, the secondary defenses of Crimson Shore shone with radiant light. The uppermost towers to the east, with their sentries on patrol behind the merlons, were hidden from view by the morning glare. Squinting, Pearl knew from her own experience it was almost time, and a foalish anxiety pooled at the base of her throat.

"Heh. Yes, Exalted Mother! Those fillies will be late unless they hurry."

The Exalted Mother shook her head.

"The generations of today... Tsk tsk."

But the fillies arrived, mostly on time and the lecture could commence. Pearl stayed for some of it, more out of nostalgic longing for the days of her own foalhood than any chance she might learn anything new. But duty called to all and spared none, and so, within the turn of the hour an acolyte entered with a clay tablet grasped in her aura, and Pearl’s name on her lips.

"Today's summons, sister," she said to her, once both had walked a few steps away so as not to disturb the lecture. The clay tablet she offered held three names only, and Pearl suspected the Exalted Mother had a hoof in that, though she could hardly begrudge it. She was tired.

"May the sun shine on you, acolyte," and she was gone. Pearl left the sanctum with just a brief nod to the Exalted Mother, and disappeared into the inner city to make use of Celestia's gift to her. She knew the way by heart, and had no need for the tablet, so her aura was free to pick up a snack on the way.

"It's on the house, sister!" the stallion behind her usual breakfast stall said. "My mother extends her gratitude, she's feeling much better!"

Pearl thanked him and bit clean through the pastry. It was a simple bun stuffed with boiled potatoes, steamed carrots, and chunks of raw lemon-fish mixed with a savory gravy, but to her empty stomach it was exquisite. It carried her through the streets of the inner city and to the home of her first summons.

"Sister, thank Celestia you're here," the young mare that opened the door ushered her past a very startled servant, whose aura had been halfway to the door but a moment earlier. "It's my dear father, sister. His ulcers have worsened and he can't eat without biting them. He's terribly distressed and I worry for the strength of his heart..."

Pearl listened, or made it seem like she did, and walked with authority into the room where the afflicted stallion lay on his very death bed, to hear his daughter speak. In truth the old colt was barely in his late fifties, and though lithe and frail as stallions were wont to be, he was in perfect physical condition, and if Pearl may say so, in even greater mental condition...

"My beloved daughter," the stallion said to the distraught mare that had waited diligently by the door while Pearl very pointlessly examined him, "won't you head to the market, to that stall I like by the fountain in the outer city, and pick out a few of those beautiful daisies I so enjoy?"

Pearl arched an eyebrow. The mare, however, took his wish as though it were his very final one.

"Yes, father! I-I'll take the litter, or, or maybe I can..."

She was out the door and harrying the servants before the sentence was done.

Pearl waited a few moments. Like the cycle of the sun, on point, the front door closed shut twenty-six seconds after the mare had left the threshold to the living room. The stallion, old Longstar, set his eyes on her.

"Daisies, sir?"

He grinned.

"It's the furthest stall from here. We have at least an hour, sister..."

Pearl sighed. She probably shouldn't, but then again, her next summons wasn't until noon...

'Ah, buck it.'

Sister Pearl left Longstar's residence some five minutes after his daughter returned with enough daisies to adorn the entirety of the sanctum. The old stallion, a little exhausted after the... procedure, had retired to his bed already, but that hardly dampened his daughter's spirits at being told the old colt would be just fine. She sang Pearl's praises and swore house and banner to her aid should she ever need it, and gifted her a full bouquet of dandelions, sunflowers and a couple roses from their own garden. By the time the outer door finally closed behind her, Pearl was as sore in her ears as she was in her-

Her next summons brought her to the outer city, past the secondary defenses and the mighty bastions that guarded the inner gate, and out into the plentiful and populated homes of the common citizenry. There were no litters, no servants, and no nobles out here, and though the homes were decorated, the colors were almost all in cloth or curtains draped over crimson mudbrick, and the architecture was much more subdued. No great temples or ceremonial centers rose over the walls, except for the gatehouse to the city itself, which was stone and mortar like the inner defenses.

Pearl stuck to the main artery that wound around the homes and workshops on her way to the summons. Though it wasn't common for a Sister of the temple to be attacked by knaves, it wasn't unheard of and she didn't quite feel like giving up her beautiful new bouquet.

Or her life. She liked that too.

'Hopefully this is a more 'normal' kind of summons,' she thought as the house in question came into view just behind a carpenter's shop. 'I'm not quite sure I can handle another patient like Longshaf- AH! LONGSTAR! Bad Pearl!'

The unicorn priestess took a deep breath to get her head out of the proverbial gutter, and approached the house.

A young colt opened the door for her before she had time to knock.

"Sister?" the foal asked. He was a scrawny little thing, with more hair on him than meat, but still on the healthy side of thin. A pleasant aroma wafted out the door from the home's kitchen, and Pearl's stomach threatened to rumble. She nodded with a smile.

"Sunshine on you! This way!"

The colt led her through the entrance, what doubled as an indoor pen for the family's livestock, and through a cramped fusion between storage room and kitchenette where a wizened old stallion stirred the contents of a pot.

'Some kind of broth?' Pearl wondered, before the stallion caught sight of her.

"The Sister!" he said. "Hurry on in, please. My niece is just upstairs on the right."

"I'm taking her there, grandpa!" the colt called back, already two rooms ahead and bouncing in place. Pearl wasted no time with pleasantries. The acolyte hadn't specified any need for urgency, but the stallion's voice had put her on edge. She followed one step behind the colt on the way to the upper rooms where the mare in question lay on her side, bored out of her mind with her eyes glued to the ceiling.

"Auntie, the Sister's here!"

The first thing Pearl noticed as she entered the room was the smell. Living quarters in the outer city were not unlike her own back with her sisters, but after a full night by herself in the dungeons and after spending most of her morning out in the open air, the smell of, well, pony was rather strong. With almost a dozen cots strewn about the upper floor separated only by the thinnest of curtains, it was hardly a wonder.

But under that there was a subtler scent, one that immediately made her worry. There was a sweetness in the air.

"Sister!" The niece on the cot tried to sit up but grimaced almost immediately. A thick bandage ran around her left foreleg, from hoof to knee. "I'm sorry I made you come all this way..."

"Nonsense." Pearl shook her head. "Show me the wound, please."

The mare did as she asked and lifted her foreleg up to inspection. Pearl undid the bandage with care, all the way down to uncover a deep cut that ran from just above the base of the hoof halfway up to the knee. It was swollen a furious red, with specks of fresh blood where the bandage had ripped a few scabs. Pearl leaned in and sniffed it deeply.

"I was helping my ma' in her workshop yesterday night, sister," the mare said. "Got a bit distracted, and next thing I know I've got me hatchet cleaving out me own hoof."

Pearl nodded absentmindedly. The wound smelled of copper and fur.

"Was there rust in the hatchet?"

"No, sister! Never! I clean it meself on the daily, by Celesti- ahh..." She smiled sheepishly. "Beg your pardon, sister."

"It's a nasty cut," Pearl said. "Why didn't you summon the Temple sooner?"

"We tried, sister! Begging your pardon, but they told us they was busy on account of the Spring Festival. Moved us soon as they could, though."

'Right after the nobleponies, naturally.'

Pearl breathed in deeply, and there it was again!

"What's that sweet smell?" she asked, mostly to herself. If it wasn't an infection, then...?

"Oh! Pardon me manners," the mare said and levitated a bowl of beer from beside her cot. "Want some? Me pa makes it. It's got apples!"

Pearl looked long and hard at the beer. Pieces of fruit and herbs floated freely on the surface, where a wooden straw lazily rolled around at the whim of gravity. Her stomach rumbled.

"C'mon, sister!" the mare pushed it closer to her muzzle. "It's good! Promise!"

Pearl frowned. "You've barely touched it," she said.

The mare nodded sadly.

"Yeah, I've been feeling outta sorts because of the cut. I've been sipping it but I don't think I can hold it all down. It's very good though!"

"Because of the cut?"

"Never thought I was a squeamish pony, sister," she said. "But since I messed up my leg I've been feeling real nauseous, and my head's been killing me."

'Well that's weird.'

The more time Pearl spent in the room, the more used to the smells she became, and the easier it was to tell them apart. She looked around. In the far corner of the room, hidden behind a thin curtain she spied the chamber pot. Or pots, in this case. The smell of urine was strong now that she focused on it.

"Have you been urinating more often lately?" she asked.

"Uuhh... Yeah, a bit," the unicorn blushed, "I'd empty them myself, but..." She wiggled her hoof and earned herself a wince.

The priestess pursed her lips.

"...have you had your blood this month?"

"My...?"

...

"OH!"

Despite Pearl's insistence that a few more days were needed before they were certain, the family was ecstatic after a quick spell seemed to confirm their suspicions. The mare's mother was immediately recalled from her carpentry shop via messenger foal, and every brother, sister, cousin and relative was tracked down to be notified. Before the priestess could make her escape, a small feast of beer, bread, and fruits was laid out before her.

The entire household was there before long, and Pearl worried she might be crushed under the weight of all the gifts they gave her. A sack of grain, three jars of beer, a basket full of apples, dates and the odd peach... even a seeder-bird, fat and plump from their livestock. It was all neatly stacked onto a small hoofcart, which they also gifted her.

"Pour some urine on these," she told the mare, Dew, before she left, and gave her a few wheat and barley seeds from their storeroom. "If the wheat grows, it's a filly."

"Sunshine on you, sister! Thank you!"

After that farewell followed a full ten minutes of blessings, thank-yous, and endless crying, mostly by the mare's husband, his father, Dew's father, and so on... Pearl could only hope they wouldn't forget her instructions on how to properly clean the wound with all the hooting and hollering.

"Don't summon the temple if it gets worse," she'd told them before she left. "Come straight to me. Ask my sisters for Pearl, or go to the castle, and I'll come by as soon as I can."

By the time Pearl was finally free, the sun had long since left its zenith and was in swift descent westwards.

It was almost sunset when she reached the slave quarters.

She rolled her awkward little cartful of gifts past huts of mudbrick and straw, on a dirt path that snaked through empty fields on her way to the last summons of the day. The long shadows cast by the great walls shrouded her in darkness as she left the safety of the city behind, and entered the great, wide world beyond Crimson Shore. A world of cold iron, hard hearts and colder blood.

No colors greeted her this time. Collapsed huts, broken fences and a few carcasses of dead livestock littered the fields here and there, in small patches of devastation left behind by the sheer immensity of the cleanup task. Not two months had passed, and Storm Mane's hoofprint was still a scar on the land.

'Scourge of the skies,' she thought, brow furrowed, when a cloud of flies over a nearby ditch revealed the skeletal corpse of a wood-horn cow. 'Discord's every trick and Grogar's every beast be upon you.'

But it wasn't the barbarian pegasi that soured her journey beyond the walls. It wasn't the devastation of war either...

The little colony beyond the city came into view soon enough. Earthen walls, barely high enough to reach a unicorn's horn, encompassed the entirety of the slave earth pony community. Their huts and gardens came into view a little later, such as they were. The first were badly burnt, the latter had been trampled to mud when the pegasi barbarians swarmed over the puny defenses to wreak havoc.

Colts and fillies played freely on the fields beyond the colony, under the watchful eye of a couple unicorn guards and the foals' older brothers. Beyond, on the fields themselves, Pearl could see the earth pony mares slowly stream back into their communities for the night, now that their labors of the day were done.

Pearl closed in on the heavy wooden gate, but paused to cover her giftcart in a pale cotton sheet Dew's mother had gifted her. She was about to announce her arrival, when a guard called out from behind the earthen wall.

"A moonlit night to you, sister! I see you've brought the whole larder this time. " The priestess recognized her almost immediately. "Here to check on little Sunpeach?"

"Moonlight, Emerald!" Pearl called back, and the unicorn guardsmare jumped up and clung to the top of the wall to see the priestess eye to eye. She beamed at her, with the slightest blush of exertion on her face.

She wore the usual attire of the outer city guardsmares—a cloth coiff and thick cotton barding—but looked awfully silly in it. Her spear alone was almost twice her length.

"I didn't see her outside with the others. She's not still in bed, is she?"

Emerald pushed the gate open with her aura and a grunt of effort.

"Still there, I'm afraid," the unicorn shook her head and slid down from the wall to follow Pearl inside the earth pony community. "I've tried everything you said to do, but Discord's claw is on her, I swear. Nothing's done the trick."

"It's a terrible affliction." Pearl nodded as they walked. Side by side, the guardsmare barely reached Pearl's jaw. "Have any of the others been in close contact with her?"

"No, sister! I've kept a close watch on her personally. Foremare's orders."

They passed a guard post on their way to Sunpeach's home. Both unicorn guardsmares on duty paused to glance their way, but the moment they realized what they were talking about, they made themselves scarce.

The filly in question lived a few huts down the main path, just opposite a small bakery where her parents worked to turn the community’s grain rations into bread and beer that they could trade. Both of them waited by the door, grim and somber.

“I convinced the foremare to let them stay to watch over Sunpeach,” Emerald said as they approached. “Told her they might get the others sick. It’s contagious, isn't it?”

“It is,” Pearl said, perhaps a bit louder than necessary. “A more dangerous ailment we have yet to discover!”

Pearl and Emerald reached the filly's hut and took a quick glance around. No guards.

"Did you get everything?" Pearl asked.

The mother, Lilac, nodded. The father, Sunshine, opened the door to let them in. Once inside, all four ponies sighed a sigh of relief.

"Sister, you're here!" cried the filly from her cot. "Emmy, you were right!"

Sunpeach was a little bundle of yellow mane over a peach-colored coat. Wide, bright violet eyes went wider and got even brighter at the sight of the hoofcart the priestess carried behind her.

"Is that my present?!"

"Sure is, kiddo!" Emerald beamed. "Now cough a bit, for Luna's sake. You'll make a liar outta me!"

The filly forced two quick coughs out of her muzzle and shot up to her hooves. She had Pearl's foreleg in a vice grip but a moment later. The priestess returned the hug as best she could, while Lilac and Sunshine moved the hoofcart away and dug out a small bundle wrapped in cloth from under a pillow.

"Happy birthday, Sunpeach!" the four of them said in unison, as the wrapping fell away from around a freshly baked carrot cake, complete with six colored reeds stuck to its side.

It was all the filly could do not to scream in delight.

The party, such as it was, lasted for the length of a summons. At the end of it Sunpeach was fast asleep with a gentle smile on her face, her energy fully spent, and everypony else sat off to the side with a bowl of Dew's beer in hoof.

"We can't thank you enough, sister..." Lilac began, but Pearl shook her head.

"Thank Emerald," she said. "She's the mastermind behind the operation. I just paid for the cake."

The unicorn guardsmare shrugged.

"Nah, it was easy stuff. Barely an inconvenience." She licked her lips clean of leftover crumbs. "Just had to get the gate posting today, smuggle the cake through the guard post, convince the foremare to let you guys stay home and that Sunpeach really was at Celestia's doorstep...

"...total team effort, sister." She shrugged, a smug grin on her tiny, punchable muzzle. "You chose a heck of a cake, though."

"I could have smuggled the cake..." Pearl pouted.

Before the guardsmare could utter a retort, a pair of long, powerful earth pony forelegs wrapped around both of them. Pearl blinked hard, and the tiny unicorn guard practically changed color to a bright red.

"Oh, stop fighting, girls..." Sunshine said, and planted a peck on both their cheeks. "You're both pretty."

Lilac and Sunshine broke into a fit of giggles while the unicorns recovered, and the party went on for a little while longer.

Pearl and Emerald walked side by side out of the earth pony slave colony an hour or so past sunset, quiet and full after the plentiful feast. It was a silent, warm night around them, which was unusual so early in the spring. The gusts of winter wind still coursed through the open fields more often than not, and though the flowers had begun to bloom and the songbirds slowly returned to their perches along rooftops and trees, the cool bite of February still lingered in the air.

But not tonight.

"Will you be coming back soon, sister?" Emerald asked after a moment spent under the silverlight cast by the moon above. Pearl offered a playful smile.

"Miss me already, guardsmare?"

She glanced at the little unicorn, but found her staring intently up at the moon and its stars. The endless void extended itself for eternity all around those minuscule, little dots of light, like a vast ocean without shores. Islands of light in the darkness.

"Yeah," Emerald said, without the least bit of irony in her voice. "I think we all do."

Both mares bid each other farewell, and Pearl began the slow walk back to the castle. The odd earth pony or unicorn guardsmare glanced up at her from the fields, but it was late in the evening, and in the gloom it became increasingly difficult to make out horns or size, and for a brief moment it felt to Pearl as though every pony was one and the same, made equal under Luna's silverlight.

No, it wasn't the devastation of war.

She reached the carcass of the wood-horn cow much faster now that she didn't have to haul the heavy cart around, and freed from its burden, she took a moment to roll her shoulders and neck. It may have been the dungeon cot, the long walk to the slave quarter, or perhaps the weight of knowing that she still had much research to do before the night was done, but she felt terribly sore.

'Come on, girl,' she thought as her legs started back on the journey home. 'It's almost over. One last push, c'mon.'

Alas, it had barely begun. Pearl's ears twitched as a terrible sound reached her from on high, and her every muscle tensed. A shadow blotted out the moon and the priestess' heart stopped dead as all the blood in her body curdled and froze.

'Wings. Wings in the darkness.'

Every pony around her heard it too, and soon the fields were a mess of frightened cries and hurried hoofsteps. Bells sounded in the distance. Guardsmares rushed for cover, and every slave trembled at the memory of what horrors could sweep down from beyond ashen clouds. Wings, wings in the darkness, fire in the heavens... the earth trembled under Pearl's hooves at the very memory of her name.

'The Scourge of the Skies...'

Wide-eyed and shivering, rooted to the spot, Pearl was an easy target for any pegasus lancer or rock-lobber. But there weren't any. The lone shadow against the moon angled her wings into a dive and fell gracefully down to land a few paces ahead of the terrified unicorn priestess. A cloud of dust went up around her, and Rainstorm took a moment to shake her wings free of sand and dirt.

"You're the priestess." Fierce, wild eyes settled on Pearl. It wasn't a question. "Her royalness wants your flank at the castle."

The priestess struggled to breathe. All the air had been sucked out of her lungs, and all that was left was a horrible pressure that threatened to choke her. She steadied herself as best she could, but the pegasus—the beast in front of her—made her every movement a struggle. It was all she could do not to blast the creature away with a surge of magic and bolt.

"Wh-why?" she managed to say, through the memories of fire and carnage that so vividly danced before her eyes. Her frozen blood quickly came alive and sizzled against her veins. Screams thundered like echoes in her ears.

The winged animal tilted her head to the side, savage eyes fixed on the priestess as though waiting for an excuse to attack.

"You oughta know, priestess,” she said. "Yer monster just woke up."