The World Shall Rise From Ashes

Chapters

Rust
Poppy
Redwood

Rust

The imperial palace could be seen from anywhere in Canterlot, and for the young stallion peering through a grimy, partly-boarded-up window, he dearly wished that it weren't so. Even when the oppressive sun had sunken beneath the horizon for a night's respite from its glare, the towering symbol of the empress's power stood starkly against the moon, its silhouette unmistakable.

If Empress Daybreaker weren't already the tallest mare in the world, somepony could accuse her of compensating.

Azel turned away from the sight outdoors and looked to the sparse living room. The top floor of this house had collapsed long before they'd arrived, and he'd eventually learned that the blackened wood had been the result of lightning strikes. Whoever had lived here before had earned the ire of pegasus neighbours who'd seen fit to bring down a storm's wrath onto their home, and the bones had been left for ponies in need to claim.

He'd occasionally squeezed into what was left of the upper level to try to scavenge objects that may have survived a roof falling on them, but it'd been largely fruitless, and he was now too big to fit. His sister was still small enough, but he'd never ask her to attempt something so dangerous.

The kitchen of the house was only really useful for storing food now, since it hadn't had running water for years and the appliances were broken, not that either of them knew how to cook even if they'd had the opportunity. The half-destroyed couch was the only furniture, a kindly-donated quilt allowing it to be used as a bed. A bed that his sister was currently standing in front of, her cheeks puffed out as she gave him a full-force pout.

Amyra had always looked a lot like their mother, with her pale grey coat and light blue eyes. He noted that her blue mane was getting to the length that it would need a trim, and prepared himself for the argument that would result, since she'd always wanted to wear it long like their mom had--it was one of her few memories of her, the long hair worn in loops, and so she clung to it fiercely like a griffon digging talons into their thrashing prey--but he always worried about somepony grabbing a long mane in their teeth and then rearing up for a strike.

She was short for her age, and too thin, but there was only so much he could do about that, when gathering food was a risk. There was a slight tremble in her legs, even as she stared at him stubbornly, and while this was a good day for her health, she was always teetering on the verge of a downturn.

Her tufted ears twitched, and the one that had been shredded by shrapnel a long while ago was slightly behind the other, followed by her leathery wings giving a single flap as she stomped a hoof. "I'm not tired! I want to go with you!"

"I told you, you can't. My work is dangero--"

"But I haven't been out in over a week! And you said you were gonna see Miss Sherbet. Please?"

Many ponies could have faltered under the filly's wide-eyed stare, at least the ones who hadn't decided that the wings and fangs made her a monster, but Azel had known her her whole life, and thankfully, it made him immune. So instead, he sighed and opened one of his wings to turn her around to face the couch, then drape her in the comforting, leathery skin. "Tell you what, if you stay here and get some rest tonight, and you're feeling well, I'll bring you out with me next time."

There would be risk, but he could deviate from his usual route. He could avoid the trouble spots, and maybe find an empty playground and push her on the swing, then get out before guards swept that part of the city.

Amyra grumbled under her breath for a while, but eventually yawned and relented with a small, "Fine..." She slumped against him slightly as he further steered her toward the couch. "But say hi to Miss Sherbet for me? The cookies she sent last time were really, really good..."

"I will," he promised softly, as he helped her up. He grasped the edge of the quilt in his teeth and pulled it over her as she squirmed to get comfortable. "Now you sleep. I'll be back later with breakfast."

"Okay..." Amyra yawned again, and closed her eyes. "Love you, big brother."

Azel cracked a small smile. "Love you too, squirt." He then stayed, his sharp ears twitching, until he detected the change in her breathing that said that she'd really fallen asleep, instead of feigning it until she could try to sneak out and follow him. She'd caught him with that trick once, and only once, and so he was always careful now.

He trotted over to the far corner of the room, where their meager few possessions were piled, and carefully set the pair of saddlebags on his back. They were designed for pegasi, so not to impede flight, and while his wings were shaped slightly differently than the feathered ponies', they still accomplished that duty relatively well. The old things were wearing out, and had already had a few patches sewn in before he'd started using them, courtesy of his mother. Further patches had been added by the same donor who had given them the quilt, and he remained grateful.

A few glass vials were slid into the right saddlebag, while the left saddlebag was kept empty. The vials had been washed in the most recent rain shower to rid of them of residue, and if he managed to fill all of them again by the night's end, they'd keep his sister healthy for the next couple of weeks. A small knife was picked up next, built to be mounted on the "wrist" of a thestral wing, and he carefully arranged it on his right wing with the practice of one who'd been doing so for years.

Last was the cloak. When it was laying on the ground, it looked to be the deepest, inky black, with a few shining specks of silver that looked like stars. When he threw it over his body, however, the twinkling lights faded, and its hue shifted, turning to a green-grey that would blend in better with shadow than stark blackness would.

Azel remembered his mother telling him that it had a touch of magic, that it would muffle sound as well as camouflage the wearer, and would make it difficult for ponies to remember details about him, even if they caught a glimpse of his face beneath the hood.

He owed this cloak a lot. A shame that it also happened to be the only belonging he had left of his father's, which meant he owed the old fool of a stallion, too.

With everything in place, Azel again paused to listen to his sister's breathing, and once he confirmed that she was still sleeping, he headed for the window. With the right nudge to the right board to open the way, he slid through the opening, and took off into the night.

The streets of Canterlot were always quiet at night. The empress ensured it. The only ponies that were supposed to be out at this hour were guards, with anypony else who set hoof outside accosted with accusations of wrongdoing, if they weren't arrested and dragged off on the spot. The guards who patrolled at night were making a grand sacrifice for their empress, because nopony was supposed to want to be out beneath the light of a traitorous moon.

Sometimes he wondered why she even bothered letting the moon rise, if she loathed the night so much.

Azel treaded carefully as he traded the run-down district he called home for the slightly nicer one that housed Canterlot's working class. Apartment buildings rose into the sky, never allowed to be higher than the monuments to the empress, and they cast ideal shadows for him to flit between. He'd made this trek regularly, ever since he'd become aware of this particular sympathizer.

Hopefully, he and Amyra wouldn't need the kindness of sympathetic ponies much longer. He'd been slowly gathering bits, everything he could scavenge, bargain for, and steal, and it was almost enough to pay a smuggler to get them out. And once they were past the layers of magical barriers, they'd be able to fly wherever they wanted, in Equestria or beyond.

He reached the right building, and found the correct window lit from within. He pushed off the ground with his hooves, his wings flaring open to catch the air, and he launched himself up with a series of powerful flaps. The sill wasn't large enough for a pony to comfortably stand on, and so his right hooves found perilous purchase while the left ones dangled, and he carefully tapped on the glass with his knife in the agreed-upon rhythm.

It took several too-long seconds for the pony within to reach the window, unlatch it, and pull it open enough for him to slide through. "There you are," the young mare said, in an accent that he'd eventually learned was Manehattan in origin. "It's been a while since your last visit. I was beginning to worry one of the guards had snatched you up."

"Not yet," he responded simply. And hopefully not ever. He pushed his cloak out of the way, and grasped the flap of his left saddlebag to pull it open. "How many have you got?"

"A little less than last time." The earth pony mare shook her head. "They're cracking down. It's getting harder and harder to hide them in with the navels and tangerines."

Azel watched her go into her kitchen. Orange Sherbet was a constant reminder of how very loud the colours of daytime ponies could be. Her pale orange coat was complemented by her cropped-short, bubblegum pink mane, and she tended to dress in bright blues and purples. In fact, she was dressed more often than not, and Azel couldn't remember if he'd ever gotten a look at her mark, or if she even had one.

When she emerged, he smelled the contents of the bag she was carrying before he saw them, and the scent immediately awakened a roaring hunger. He barely contained himself for long enough for her to place it down, and then undid the tie on the bag with a snap of his teeth, letting a few of the round fruits roll along the floor.

He lunged, and Orange Sherbet politely looked away.

Azel's fangs sank in, cutting through the rind and hitting the flesh. The juice of the blood orange flooded his mouth, and the flavour, almost like somepony had blended an orange with raspberries, was something he was too hungry to truly savour as he drained the fruit dry. When he dropped the spent orange, the reddish juice dripped down his chin, and he wiped it away with his wing before gathering up the few others that had left the bag to place them safely back inside.

It wasn't a perfect substitute for the real thing, and while the thirst had been quelled for a time, there were still instincts roiling for him to sink his fangs into a pony instead. Like always, he ignored it, and he nodded his thanks to Orange Sherbet as he slid the bag into his saddlebag. "We'll make them last." It wasn't like he had a choice. "And Amyra says hi. She liked your cookies."

That earned a small smile in return. "Say hi back for me, then, and tell her I'll send a batch with you on your next visit."

He nodded again, and headed for the window. "She'll like that." With one last glance back, he slid through the open window again, and opened his wings to glide to the ground. The window swiftly closed behind him, and the light within the apartment went dark.

Once his hooves met the cobblestones again, Azel took a deep breath. One stop down.

Now he just needed food for his sister, too.

"Now why is it that an upstanding mare, such as yourself, would be out after curfew, Lady de Lis?"

Fleur fought to keep her breathing steady. The slightest hint of nerves, and it would be a sign of apparent guilt to pounce upon. Three guardstallions had accosted her barely a block away from her home estate; they were one earth pony, one pegasus, and one unicorn, all covered in that gaudy golden armour that the empress insisted on, which still didn't quite escape being tinted by the moonlight. Each one looked like a cat who had cornered a mouse, self-satisfied predators intending on toying with their prey.

Fleur kept her head high, thankful for the long legs and long neck that allowed her to angle her stare down on stallions of their height. She would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her afraid, not now and not ever. "I'm certain that when I choose to take a relaxing walk is none of your business, gentlecolts." Her sneer showed just a hint of teeth. "Unless you'd like to take your displeasure with my insomnia up with my husband?"

That gave them pause. Lord Fancypants had weight to his name, just enough to make the grunts stuck with the night shift hesitate in doing anything to cross him. There were strings he could pull, and nopony wanted to be the one who found that string wrapped around their neck.

But numbers brought boldness out in ponies. "You know what insomnia can be a symptom of? A guilty conscience." The unicorn took a step toward her, eyes gleaming. "Maybe there's somepony we can escourt you to, in order to get a confession off your chest."

Her jaw clenched. "No thank you."

The earth pony chuckled. "Or maybe there's somepony else you were heading to meet, to help you get a night's sleep. Somepony you wouldn't want your husband to know about." He gave the kind of grin that made Fleur's stomach churn. "Or someone."

"She is headed in the direction of the griffon district." The pegasus stickered. "Bedding down with carnivores, Your Ladyship? How scandalous."

Her breathing remained steady. Her tail, however, gave a single, angry lash. Her height gave her options other ponies didn't have, including more potential angles to send her horn right into a throat, and right now, she was imagining every last one of them.

Instead, she caught sight of movement between a pair of buildings, and once realization dawned, she gave the kind of smile that could make a cat feel like a mouse, if they were smart enough to recognize it. "One."

The unicorn blinked. "One what?"

"One griffon," the pegasus responded smugly. "She's admitting it."

Her tail gave second, much more deliberate lash. "Two."

The earth pony's ears splayed, his braincell apparently firing just a little bit sooner than the others. "Guys... I think she's--"

"Three."

Her tail lashed a third, and final, time. Then several pounds of thestral dropped out of the sky, and landed on the pegasus's back, sending the guardpony slamming into the ground with a symphony of cracking wing bones.

Azel Moonstrider always did have impeccable timing.

Aiming for the winged guards was always the first step, and as the guard stallion hollered from his place on the ground, Azel's hind hooves struck out at his head, meeting the helmet with a swift set of clangs that left the pegasus seeing stars. He used the kick to push off, wings beating to send him airborne again, and as the hood of his cloak flew backward, his eyes shone a luminescent yellow, reflecting the light cast from the unicorn guard's horn.

He spotted the pistol clasped in blue-tinted magic that was rising in the air, but Azel knew not to go for it. Instead, he went for the stallion's head, and the flat side of his knife swung toward the light-wreathed horn. The glow cut out at the moment of impact, a gunshot ringing out as the pistol struck the ground, the bullet sent into the shadows and striking only the stone of nearby buildings.

The unicorn cried out and reared, his magic flaring wildly in the backlash of interrupted telekinesis. He was too occupied in trying to regain control that he didn't see the second wing coming, until the impact cracked against his jaw and sent him to the ground with his fellow guard. Then Azel whirled around, ready to take on the earth pony, only to find him slumping over already, the soft pink glow fading from Fleur de Lis' horn.

She smiled as Azel looked at her, casually placing one of her hooves on the guard's helmet. "One of the finest insomnia-cure spells ever developed." She gave a toss of her head, flipping her long mane. "Though, tragically, it can't be self-cast, so I'm doomed to still be awake well into the night." She looked at the downed guards and sniffed derisively. "They really do send the rejects to the night shift, don't they? Everypony's bastard foals given guard jobs so they'll stop whining to their illegitimate parents for bits..."

Azel shrugged silently, and simply strolled over to the shadows he'd tucked his saddlebags away in before launching his attack. He opened the right one, and scooped the glass vials up into his wing before walking back to the unconscious stallions. Then he brandished his knife again, and went to work.

His mother had taught him the right places to make shallow cuts that would provide enough blood before the bleeding slowed and the wounds sealed up, never threatening the life of the pony. Not that he assigned much value to the lives of ponies like this, but it was necessary to pick his battles. Beaten up and humiliated guards would bring investigations, but dead ones would get entire city blocks burned to the ground. Blocks hiding more thestrals than just him and his sister.

He filled each vial and stowed them away with practiced motions, one by one. He no longer needed to drink it to survive, but foals couldn't live on just fruit. Amyra still needed pony blood to keep from falling deathly ill, and it'd be years before the oranges would be enough.

When his work was done, he found Fleur staring at him with a grim sort of curiosity. He offered no answer to her unspoken questions, instead posing one of his own. "Why are you out here?"

She didn't answer right away, her ears rotating in search of possible eavesdroppers. "I'm in the process of arranging for my... house guests to stay with somepony else for a while." She shot a disdainful look at the guards again. "I had reason to believe that suspicions had been roused, but it seems I was off regarding which day they'd come to harass me about it." She looked back at him with a smile. "I'll make the most of the time you've bought me, and them."

He nodded. "Good." He remembered one of those house guests, as he'd personally escourted the young thestral colt to her door.

She nodded back. "And in the spirit of that, I won't keep you. I'm sure we both have places to be."

"Yes." And with that, he adjusted his cloak, lifted the hood again, and headed toward home.

The door was open.

Their house's door was never open. Azel came and left through that single window, and they kept the house dark--not that their eyes required much light in the first place--and everything was kept boarded, to better keep up the illusion that nopony lived there at all. But now the boards were gone, the old, rotted door torn right off its hinges.

Azel didn't bother keeping up his stealthy approach. He ran into the house, ignoring the splinters riddling the floor that threatened to spear his frogs, and once he was in the living room, stopped dead in his tracks.

The quilt was across the room, with a massive tear through his centre. And the couch was empty.

His sister was gone.

Poppy

Who sold us out?

It was the thought that kept running through Azel's head as he combed the abandoned house that had, for better or worse, been home for the last several years. They had established several hiding spots, places that Amyra was small enough to tuck herself into if strange ponies came to the window or door. He'd made her promise to use them, had run drills so she knew how to get to them quickly and quietly, no matter how much she protested. And now, he was checking every last one of them, systematically, from closest from farthest from the door.

Nothing.

He hadn't told anypony where they were. Most members of the Cave System--the loose affiliation of thestral sympathizers had seen fit to give themselves a name a couple of years ago, and he still didn't know who had come up with it--had guessed that they were squatting in one of the more run-down districts, but he'd never given them an exact location. He went to them, every time, and had always traveled in and out of the building with his cloak on.

There were reasons that Sherbet could throw somepony under a carriage. She'd said herself that there'd been smuggling crackdowns, and spilling the details of who she was supplying was one way to wriggle out of a sentence. Lady Fleur de Lis was also under scrutiny, and gratitude only went so far when turning everypony in could save her hide. But neither of them knew. As far as he'd known, nopony did.

Clearly he didn't know everything.

As each hiding place turned up empty, his heart pounded harder, and he found himself going to the torn blanket. He grasped it in his teeth and yanked, driven by some feverish hope of finding his sister having just been hiding beneath, promising himself that if he found her, he wouldn't even be angry with her for scaring him.

The motion didn't reveal a filly underneath. Instead, a sheet of paper slowly floated down, scrawled with lines of ink.

Amyra couldn't read or write. She'd been too young when they fled home for her to have been given any schooling. He, however, could, and he scanned the page as best he could through the blur of tears. He just prayed--he didn't know to what, or who; there weren't many options left anymore that weren't banished, petrified, or dead--that the dried drops of blood at the corner weren't Amyra's.

Then he threw his saddlebags to the floor, charged through the door again, and flew.

Azel had been shown the theatre once, and only once, by his mother. It'd already been closed down, and she hadn't said much about it beyond that friends of his father had once attended shows there. It'd been the first time he'd heard of his father having friends in Equestria, and he'd mostly been confused as to why his mother was bringing it up at all.

As he'd lived in Canterlot longer, he'd learned the whole bloody story.

The Lippizan Theatre had belonged to Lord Derecho, a pegasus of extremely high social standing. An ancestor of his had been granted a title personally by Daybreaker, before she'd gone by "Daybreaker" at all, for some great act that likely only those who didn't have to worry about surviving moment to moment and could spend their time reading up on obscure history instead would know about. The resulting noble house had come to be associated with the arts more so than old heroism, and the young lord had been especially fond of plays.

Then he'd married a thestral.

An Equestrian thestral, rather than Chiropterran. Which meant that the newly-minted lady was different from Azel and his family. His father would have raved that their blood was diluted, that they'd lost their magic, and all kinds of other things, but all his mother had ever called them was different. The same tribe, but a slightly different breed, and still ponies just like everypony else. Given that they didn't need to smuggle rare oranges to survive, Azel considered them to have gotten the better end of that deal.

But breeding hadn't stopped the lady from being a Nightmare Moon worshipper, nor her new husband. After the lengthy executions of them and their co-conspirators, the theatre had just been allowed to fall apart and rot, as nopony wanted to risk the idea that it had been tainted with their foul, immoral magics. Even troublemaking fillies and colts didn't come near, because being caught there meant that their young age wouldn't save them from punishment.

Azel didn't care, about any of it. He was already guilty of a crime, the crime of being a thestral, and there was nothing worse than being caught committing that.

Even the guard patrols were thin here--after all, the bastard-stuffed night shift weren't going to go peeking in to see if there were any blood-splattered cultists making themselves at home when there were mares to harass for their amusement instead--and so he flitted from shadow to shadow, on as direct a route as he could manage while avoiding the glow of a few scant streetlamps, needing to dodge very few armoured ponies on the way.

The note had said to go, if he wanted Amyra to ever see another sunset. So he would go, he would get his sister back, and he would rip out the throat of the pony who took her with his teeth.

He landed near the back entrance and examined the door. Time had had it rotting away around the lock, and while he didn't have the strength of legs for a solid kick, a strike of his wing sufficed to knock it off one of its rusted hinges, and leave it dangling with enough space for him to step in. Dust swirled in clouds that taunted his nostrils, and he pulled up a wing to try to guard his snout from it after the first fit of coughing.

This had been backstage, once upon a time. If he headed in one direction, he'd eventually find the stage and curtain. In another, there were dressing rooms, along with costumes and props that had been left to be eaten by time. Yet another, there would be the controls for lights and other behind-the-scenes wizardry.

His mother had loved plays. She'd never gotten to take her children to one, after coming to Equestria. Never had the chance, before she was dragged off, and shortly after, there'd been a movement to ban thestrals from theatres anyway.

Azel had never been in a theatre like this, especially not backstage, but the note had left instructions, so he still knew where to go. The rotted wood of the stage creaked as he stepped onto it, and the curtains reeked of mold, with just a hint of ash. The ash was unsurprising, since there had no doubt been a few fires, from those brave enough to approach. Trying to purify with cleansing flames.

He found the right lever, and it took time for him to find the best posture to push something that looked like it'd been made for a biped--a minotaur, possibly, as there were a few in Equestria and the mechanical seemed to be their specialty--and then listened to every creak, grind, and groan as the trap door opened. Then he leaped, his wings opening for a glide.

What he found looked like the kind of small room one would expect for actors to fall into during such a performance. Azel then found the correct wall, tapped three times with the wrist of his wing, and the grinding of mechanisms resumed. Cool air washed over him as the passage slowly opened, and he stared down at the stairway that descended into pitch dark.

He was looking at where the first embers of civil war had sparked. The heart of the Lunar Uprising.

He just wanted his sister back.

Azel set his hoof onto the first stone step.

The stallion stood waiting, disgusted with the stone walls that surrounded him.

He was a unicorn from the oldest of noble houses. One that was said to have predated the birth of Celestia herself, and when she'd taken the throne of the gaggle of loosely-allied, quarreling states and created what would someday be her empire, she had taken a consort from it. It'd only been practical, with those unicorns having been the stewards of the sun before her, for their blood to intermingle, and create a grander breed of pony than before.

He was the one of his house who had expressed every trait, from his appearance, to his magic, to his vitality, that told the world that the solar blood still burned in their veins. He had been recognized for that, elevated--

not elevated enough

--and for Prince Blueblood, to now be within these cold, stone walls, away from the rays of the beautiful sun, felt like an insult. Derecho and his ilk should have never been allowed to even pretend at nobility, even before deciding to sully their blood with batponies and hurl their loyalty behind a traitor and monster.

At least after the rebellion had been quashed, his dear Auntie had started to see things more his way. It was on her request that he be here to greet the bat-colt, and so he endured it with all the noble bearing he could muster in such a place. A few guards were around him, the hooffull that had been granted to him as an official part of the royal family, but he knew he would hardly need it.

Azel Moonstrider was just a foal, would always be just a foal, and so he had nothing to fear. Even if just thinking the name Moonstrider made the scar that ran from the side of his face, along his neck, itch with rage.

Soon, he would be rid of them all. No more Moonstriders, no more Chiropterrans, and no more threstals to insult ponydom with their lowly existence. The laws, his laws, had been steadily closing in, surrounding the surviving bats within his beautiful city like an invisible noose. And the thought comforted him like a healing balm to the old wound.

Hoofsteps could be heard against the stone, and the single, flickering torch illuminated the dark shape that dared to step into the light. Blueblood watched golden eyes, with such inequine pupils, adjust to the light, and the monster pulled back lips to bare fangs that should have been ripped out years ago. "You."

Azel looked so much like his father. If his father had been drastically underfed, at least, and Blueblood sneered at the fact that he clearly hadn't been underfed enough if he still had the indecency to be alive. He was almost solid black, from nose to tail, and only a sharp eye could pick out the subtlety in the hues, that his body was truly an extremely deep grey and his mane and tail had a bluish tint.

There was a scar under one eye, and Blueblood knew exactly from whence it had come. One of the guards had managed to get a strike in, seemingly out of sheer dumb luck given their track record. The bit of blood spilled during the altercation had been good for tracking the troublemaker down.

If he hadn't taken personal interest in the mysterious attacks, Blueblood was certain the they'd still think that they were being haunted by a vengeful ghost or other such nonsense, rather than a colt in a magic cloak too big for his frame, pretending to be something more fearsome.

Prince Blueblood gave his most refined smile. It was lost on such a creature, but it wasn't truly for him. "Azel Moonstrider. How lovely for you to join us."

There were many secret passageways in the old theatre, and several rooms that they led to. This one had been a small, secure meeting place for those newly inducted into the rebellion, and as he lifted his head, he nodded to a balcony, that had originally been placed to allow the traitor lord and his monster bride to watch the resulting meeting from above.

Here in this dark place, the sun had descended to warm it, just for her nephew.

Azel had never seen Daybreaker face-to-face. He'd known that the day he did, it would be the day he died.

She was up on the balcony, watching him, and the same thing struck him that it did when seeing the pictures: That for a mare who was all bright, warm tones, her bearing was shockingly cold. She looked like she was carved from white marble, her body stiff as stone as she sat there, and there was the slightest idle thought of whether an immortal alicorn needed to breathe, because she didn't seem to be.

The only movement was her mane, waving in a breeze that didn't exist and pulsing with a glow like molten gold. It matched the regalia draped over her neck, shaped into the head and wings of an alicorn and decorated with blue and purple jewels, and the crown on her head, which twisted into those long, swooping false horns.

Next to her was a unicorn. A tiny mare dwarfed by the giant, wearing no finery of her own and her coat and mane in various shades of purple. He remembered her from the propaganda posters, the heroic Twilight Sparkle. But right now, she looked nothing like those pictures. She looked starkly out of place, and afraid.

Blueblood gave a soft tut-tut sound, which made his gaze snap back down to the smiling stallion. "Such poor manners. In the presence of royalty, it's customary to bow."

Azel snarled, his wings flaring open wide. "Where is my sister?"

He tutted again, shaking his head, all the while wearing that infuriating smile. "And why should I tell you that? When you're clearly such a bad influence on her." He puffed up his chest, strolling forward. "It took some work to find you. Running away from foster care, when they were just trying to give you a proper upbringing so not to turn out like your parents. Such ingratitude."

He felt himself pawing at the ground with his hoof. "Where. Is. She?"

"Once we realized you were using your father's cloak, however, all it took was getting the right unicorns to do some scrying... And how busy you have been, all these years. Bringing harm to Her Imperial Majesty's guards, aiding fugitives, and harvesting blood. But now we can at least save your sister."

"WHERE IS AMYRA?"

The shout didn't seem to faze him. Blueblood tilted his head, humming as if a new thought had occurred to him. "But perhaps, being left alone with you so long, it may be too late. Maybe instead of foster care, it'd be better to just cull the little vampony before she kills--"

The world went red.

Azel didn't hear his own voice, didn't know what he'd just said, if there were words in it at all. He'd just screamed, as he lunged right for Blueblood's throat.

So painfully predictable.

He'd been aware of the blood orange smuggling, and thanks to his time in Chiropterra, he'd learned a lot about vamponies. The fruit would keep them alive--that alone felt like reason enough for the crackdowns, as no fruit with such frightening properties should be allowed to take root in Equestria--but there were side effects. That the young stallion--

just a colt

always just a colt

they're all colts and fillies who should know their place

--hurling himself at him was so scrawny compared to his father was part of it, but vamponies living on blood oranges also had a terrible time controlling their emotions. Without stealing blood from ponies, they found it so much harder to pretend to be civilized creatures themselves, easily spurred into a vicious rage. So it was only a matter of time before he attacked like the monster he was.

And Blueblood knew what to do with monsters.

His horn lit, burning with golden sunlight, and Azel's lunge was halted mid-air by Blueblood's magic seizing him by the throat. The scent of burning fur rose, and he snarled, thrashed, and gasped, wings flapping and legs kicking with fury.

"So uncivilized..." He snorted, yanking Azel toward him with a strangled cry. "But perhaps that was my mistake, speaking to a beast as if it were a pony." He slowly constricted, and the smell of burning fur was joined with burning flesh. "So let me put this in ways that you will understand."

And then, with a flick of Blueblood's head, Azel's skull met stone.

Azel didn't know if the cracking sound had come from his skull, or the wall he'd just collided with, but as his ears rung and his teeth rattled, it felt like it didn't really matter. His vision was full of starbursts, and he dug at his own neck with his hooves, wings flapping madly, his lungs screaming for air he couldn't give them.

Then he was slammed into the wall again.

And again.

Not all of it was head-first. Blueblood hurled him from different angles, letting his hip take one blow, his spine another, his barrel a third to force what air he had left out of his lungs. Impacts split skin, and Azel could feel drops of blood rolling through fur. He was in pain in a thousand different ways and needed to fight--

The vice on his neck let go, and he landed in a heap on the stone floor. Breathing hurt after being denied it, but he didn't care, dragging air into his body as she tried to find his legs, tried to get up, wings beating. A wound on his head dripped blood into his eyes and he couldn't see, but he could smell the unicorn, and he just needed to get into the air and get his teeth into him and make him pay.

Then the kicking started.

Royalty walked about with shod hooves, and after the first impact hit his ribs, Azel would never again believe the description of gold as a soft metal. The hooves never landed the same place twice, going for chest, stomach, shoulders, jaw... an attempt to get his legs under him had them kicked back out, and Blueblood took his time grinding his hoof into leathery flesh when he stomped on a wing.

The strikes came from everywhere, but they came in a rhythm, as if Blueblood were using him as a percussion instrument in a song, and Azel only realized it was intentional when he heard Blueblood humming in time to the beating, and he recognized twisted renditions of several Hearth's Warming carols punctuating each vicious kick.

He needed to get up. He needed to fly, and he struck out with his own hind legs, wings beating the air anew. Even in the tight confines of the room, even so disoriented, Azel managed to get off the ground. Then he felt the burning surround one of his wings.

"We'll have none of that."

Azel had encountered unicorns who would use their magic to fire weapons at him. He had encountered some strong enough to grab a hoof or wing to try to yank him around. He hadn't fought one strong enough to lift him until today, and before that moment, he hadn't known that a unicorn's magic could be sharpened. Pain tore through him, burning light cleaving through flesh like paper, and when he fell, it wasn't from being dragged down.

It was because a pony couldn't fly with only a single wing, and he was dimly aware of the other one falling to the ground a second after he did with a smack.

"A surprising improvement. Remove the other, and you may almost look like a pony..."

As Blueblood advanced, and Azel laid there, his remaining wing flapping feebly. He looked up at the balcony, blinking desperately to try to clear his vision, and he would remember the way the two mares looked down at him for the rest of his life.

The statuesque alicorn stared at him with calm impassiveness, tinged with what he would come to recognize later as pity. It was a bit like a pony watching two wild animals fight, and lamenting the inability to fully tame the brutality of nature.

The little purple unicorn, instead, watched him laying on the bloodied stone, a hoof outstretched as if to try to reach him, her face frozen in an expression of wide-eyed horror.

Redwood

"Enough."

The word was spoken in a calm, soft voice, and yet it seemed to fill the entire room. Blueblood froze in place, and Azel tried to get his legs moving enough to stand, as giant wings opened to send Daybreaker gliding down toward them. Twilight Sparkle was left standing on the balcony, and her horrified face hadn't changed, at least in the moments before Azel couldn't see anything past the sunlight.

He had seen Nightmare Moon once, at a distance. She'd been named something else at the time, when she first arrived in Chiropterra with her loyalists, and his mother had made sure he would remember the alicorn's true name of Luna.

Even as a colt, her presence had radiated the peace and calm of the night, to the point that his first instinct, despite his having been such a withdrawn foal, had been to try to get closer and shelter under her wings. Even with said wings being feathered, her overall form so different from the thestrals he'd spent that whole part of his life surrounded by, part of him had known right to his core that she was safe.

Right now, with Daybreaker landing next to him, his instincts were screaming the opposite, that death was coming for him on pale wings, and there was nothing he could do as her horn blazed and the heat washed over him. It was searing, agony on top of agony, and Azel found himself wishing that, if she was going to incinerate him, that she would have the mercy to do so more quickly.

Instead, the blinding light slowly faded.

"Rise, my little pony."

Azel almost stayed on the ground just to spite her, but eventually, he moved. Everything stung, as if he'd made the mistake of going out in the sun and gained the full-body burn that brief exposure always resulted in, but as he carefully arranged his legs and pulled himself up, he realized he was no longer bleeding. She'd cauterized his wounds, from the smallest cuts to...

He painfully stretched his remaining wing, and could find no sign of the severed one. Perhaps she'd burned that to ash instead of him. Not that he really wanted to look, and when he spotted Blueblood standing behind Daybreaker, he nearly leapt at him again, until the massive white wing blocked him.

"I said enough, Azel Moonstrider. There is to be no more violence today." She glanced back over her shoulder. "Leave us, nephew."

The immediate response was a foalish whine, as if the so-called prince were suddenly half Azel's age. "But Auntie--"

"No buts. This young gentlecolt and I have much to discuss. You and I will speak afterward."

Azel could hear him leaving, alongside his armoured guards. Shod hooves made a lot of noise against stone steps. With his sight blocked, listening was all he could do, and when he dared a glance up, he saw a purple tail vanishing from sight on the balcony. All other ponies were retreating, and he was being left alone. With Daybreaker.

The next words left his mouth without hesitation, even knowing they could be his last. "Where is my sister?"

Daybreaker looked at him with the calm look again. "All in due time, little pony. Now--"

"No." Azel pawed at the stone. He didn't know what would happen if he charged her, but she hadn't killed him yet, which meant he'd survived longer than many ponies had in her presence. "Where. Is. Amyra?"

Daybreaker stared at him. There were no words, but her mane burned a bit brighter, and Azel felt sweat mixing with the flash-dried blood in his coat as the temperature in the room climbed. His already-burned skin throbbed with pain in response to the heat, but he kept his gaze locked on her face, his single wing open and hoof scraping against the floor.

She was the sun. She was death. But he would burn to ash before he bowed to her.

Just when the sweltering heat in the room reached a peak, Daybreaker spoke, her words oddly soft. "You love your sister dearly, don't you?" She didn't seem to be interested in an answer, as before he could do more than bare his teeth, her mane dimmed, and the air around him started to cool again. "Then perhaps you would be interested in an exchange. Her, for a task done."

His ears flattened and his tail gave a lash. "What do you want?"

Daybreaker took a deep breath, and her legs bent as she lowered herself to the stone. She opened one of her wings, in an invitation to sit beneath it, then slowly tucked it against her side again when he continued to stand. "What do you know of changelings, young Moonstrider?"

He snorted. "They shapeshift, they eat love, and you hate them."

Daybreaker slowly shook her head. "I do not hate any creature, little pony." Her horn glowed, and a transparent image formed between them, of something that almost looked a bit like an alicorn. If an alicorn had had their horn warped, were punched through with several holes, had swapped their feathered wings for insect ones, and...

He hadn't known changelings had fangs.

"This," Daybreaker said calmly, "Is Queen Chrysalis, of the changelings. You would have been very young when she made her move against Canterlot. She captured my niece, took her place at her wedding, and used mind-manipulation magics to compromise the then-captain of my Royal Guard." The image vanished again. "My faithful student was able to see through the deception and eject her army, but that wasn't the last we saw of her."

Another illusion appeared, this time of a stone structure that resembled an insect hive. Looking closely had tiny pony-like creatures flying in and out of different holes. "She decided to take a different route. If she couldn't take Equestria with infiltration and magical tricks, she would raise a more conventional army, and rely on technology." The structure expanded, with metal and concrete, and the little flying creatures were harder to see through the smoke. "With the efficiency of a hive species, they industrialized more quickly than we could have imagined, and took everypony by surprise."

The miniature hive vanished. "After... several harrowing events, we were able to push back their advancement, and dethroned their queen. The peaceful King Thorax rules in her place, who has chosen harmony over bloodshed."

Azel gave another snort. As far as he saw it, the choice had really had been of slow death over quick. That's what the surrender of Chiropterra had been. "What does this have to do with Amyra?"

Daybreaker gave him a silent stare. He stared back, and eventually she spoke again. "Chrysalis is alive. Thorax wasn't able to reach the hearts of every changeling, and so she is biding her time and gathering her strength with her remaining loyalists. She can not be allowed to become a threat to Equestria again."

This time, when her horn lit, there were no images. Instead, the air between them shimmered, and something solid appeared with a flash. It reminded Azel of images of crossbows in books his mother used to have, but also a bit of the guns the guards often carried. "This weapon has a specialized ammunition. Changelings are extremely resilient, but this will strike with enough force to penetrate their chitin, and become a potent poison upon contact with their ichor."

She gestured to it with her wing, and Azel slowly reached out his own to take it. "So her life for my sister's?"

Daybreaker's mane glowed brighter once more. "Your redemption, and her here to greet you on your return." Then it dimmed, and she sighed, as if in exasperation with a misbehaving foal. "Your people need a hero, to show the rest of Equestria that you've truly forsaken the Nightmare. Remove the threat of changeling invasion once and for all, and you will become that hero."

Redemption. Hero. He'd have liked to take those words, sharpen them, and stab her in the eyes with them. Or possibly shoot her and see if poison that could kill a changeling could also kill an alicorn.

But revenge could come once Amyra was safe.

Azel nodded. "Deal."

"But why?"

Once Blueblood had left the theatre and reentered the palace, he'd dismissed his guards and retreated into his study. While most ponies would have gone right to sleep, to spend the night in their beds as it should be, and begin their work again with the rising sun, he had no such luxury. Paperwork did not vanish at sunset, and even if it did, he'd wanted to be awake when his aunt returned.

Few ponies would be so bold as to stand there and question their empress, but Blueblood knew his Aunt Celestia still had a soft spot for him. She had given him plenty of opportunities to prove himself throughout the war, and when he'd passed--

nearly

--every test with flying colours, she'd continued to heap her favour upon him. He'd become a hero, and he'd been able to use the resulting clout to sway the ponies of Equestria in exactly the right directions. He had been instrumental in purging the nation of changelings, and he would ensure that all other enemies followed, one by one.

He'd thought that that was what his aunt had wanted of him, and yet, here she was, telling him that the Moonstrider colt was still alive, when he'd done more than enough to justify execution. She'd made him promise not to kill Azel himself, and while it would have brought him joy to crush the life from the vampony's throat, he'd obeyed, because he would sacrifice that joy for her to have it herself.

He knew she took joy in it, even if she claimed otherwise. He had been with her that day in Chiropterra, and heard her laughing when she'd unleashed her full power upon upon the rebels.

She was standing there, far too large for a room made for a non-alicorn, and as she spoke, her voice was calm and patient, forever gentle with him as if he were still small and crying because she wouldn't allow him more sweets. "Because all creatures deserve a chance at redemption, nephew."

"He is a--"

"And that is why I need you."

Blueblood stopped, and his indignant expression morphed into shock, and then slowly into a smile. "And how may I help in the Moonstrider colt's... redemption, dear Auntie?"

She looked incredibly sombre, but he knew, he just knew, that there was a hidden smile underneath. "We need him to become a hero. We also need to ensure that his story ends with his remaining a hero." The colours of the sunrise whirled through her mane. "And to that end, I entrust you with sending the right pony after him to do so."

Blueblood's smile widened. "I'm certain that I can find just the pony."

Just a day ago, Azel had been scraping together what bits he could to try to smuggle himself and his sister out of the city. Now he was watching Canterlot disappear behind him as the carriage he was in flew higher and higher.

Air carriages had been archaic even when he was a foal, airships having been rapidly replacing them. Now even airships were becoming obsolete as technology marched on. To be sitting in here in a flying chariot, pulled by silent pegasi, it was the kind of thing usually reserved for royalty, for when they were seeking to make an entrance.

Luna had had one, pulled by thestrals. That'd been when he'd seen her. His mother had taken him to see her make her landing, right before a feast had been thrown to celebrate her arrival.

The carriage did have one other advantage, in that it was small. Those on the lookout for aircraft would be unlikely to notice it. And while he supposedly had the blessing of the changelings' current king to go on his hunt, a certain degree of stealth would be necessary to keep the former queen from fleeing before he even got there. And while the stealthiest option would be personal flight...

Azel stretched his left wing. He was still trying to stretch the other, and it took time, each time, for his mind to catch up to the fact that it wasn't there anymore. Maybe when next he saw Blueblood, he'd return the favour and break his horn.

He'd never been up this high before. Just the risk of being seen had always limited his altitude, but there was also the barrier. There had been a shield around the city for years, and nothing that hadn't been given the approval of the guards could pass through. Not even animals, and so urban wildlife was nearly nonexistent. When Azel had lurked in the streets at night, they were always so stark and still, without so much as the scurrying of rats.

Now, he could look down and see the wilds rolling beneath him, teeming with plants and animals that lived without ponies trying to eliminate or tame them. If he could still fly, and he didn't have Amyra counting on him, it would be tempting to just leap out of the carriage right now, and fly through the night air without barriers in the way.

As it was, he had a destination. Vesapolis. The underground tunnel networks that made up the ancient hive were supposedly massive, and finding Chrysalis would be most of the challenge.

Azel glanced at the mechanized crossbow at his side. This would be his first time truly aiming to kill, rather than wound and incapacitate. They said that the first kill a pony made haunted them from then on. Then again, by many creature's standards, thestrals weren't ponies at all.

If his father had ever been haunted by the lives he'd taken, he certainly had never showed it.

In the end, it didn't matter. This was just another job, like the odd ones he'd done for bits to pay the smugglers. Just this time, instead of delivering a package, he had to deliver somepony's head.

The pegasi kept flying, and high above Azel, the moon seemed to watch.

"Of course I know how to kill a vampony, Your Highness."

It had taken some time for the stallion to arrive upon his summons, and while he didn't take up as much room in the study that his aunt had previously, Groningen was still the largest pegasus that Blueblood had ever met. Big and broad, he had a deep chest meant for an endurance flier and a level of muscle typically only seen on earth ponies. Were sky carriages still regularly used for couriers, he would have easily been able to pull one through the air without a partner.

Blueblood had always found the great pegasus distasteful, but... necessary. His coat was the red-brown of dried blood, his eyes the crimson of the fresh variety, and his mane and tail an unkempt, greasy black. His wings never fully relaxed at his sides, and he always looked a little bit wild, like he was going to suddenly kick, bite, or take wing at the wrong provocation.

"Good." There was a quill in Blueblood's horn glow, and it idly scrawled at paperwork as he spoke. "As always, the Crown will pay handsomely for your services in protecting Equestria from its enemies."

The big stallion was repulsive, and yet, he had a talent for killing the difficult to kill, and so Blueblood had found himself calling on him more than once already. The ammunition that was to be used to kill Queen Chrysalis had been his invention, and so who better to also strike down the queen's assassin and ensure he remained a hero?

"Of course, of course, payment as is due." Groningen nodded repeatedly, and his disheveled-looking wings flapped several times, leaving a few feathers on the floor. His tendency to molt everywhere was yet another charming feature. "Now this one... how much has he fed?"

"Judging by his condition, he's a fruit bat," Blueblood commented, as a number with several zeroes was added to the piece of paper by his diligent quill. "But we can't assume he won't hunt between now and his death..." He paused in thought. "Are vamponies able to feed on changelings?"

Groningen shook his head, his overly-large ears flapping with the motion. The tufts at their tips had, more than once, made Blueblood suspicious of his ancestry. "Their blood isn't like ours. Even if he had the willpower to not immediately vomit it, it would do nothing to enhance his abilities."

"Fortunate. Still, one never knows. Be prepared for anything."

"Of course." Groningen bowed his head low. "I will gather my best weapons and leave post haste."

"Excellent." Blueblood smiled his best smile, despite it being wasted on such a peasant. "You'll be hailed as a hero for such loyal service."

"You're too kind, Your Highness."

Yes, a hero... As Blueblood looked at the bowing stallion, he considered whether there would need to be steps taken to ensure he remained one as well. After all, ponies had proven time and time again to have a penchant for betrayal, when it came to his aunt.

But the slaying of monsters came first.

The filly on the bed had been crying for a long time.

To call it a bed would have been generous. Even for a filly who'd been sleeping on a discarded couch for nearly as long as she could remember, the mattress was far too hard, and there were no blankets to be found. It was also the only furniture at all in the tiny room, and was attached to one of the stone walls, facing opposite the metal bars.

She'd found out the hard way that those bars were enchanted; they'd looked small enough to wriggle through, but experimentally poking a wing between two of them had given her a zap, and that area still had a painful numbness that no amount of blowing on it or rubbing it with her hooves had been able to soothe. Nopony had come in, either, since she'd been brought here, save for a single unicorn who'd made the magic stop for long enough to shove some greens on a plate through the bars and leave without a word.

She'd tried to eat the greens, but it didn't help. She was hungry for something else, and the craving for blood had her tummy twisting painfully around the solid food, making her feel like she may throw it all up. She tried not to, since she didn't know when she'd next get to eat, and she couldn't waste food.

Azel had made her run those drills, over and over. He had made sure she'd memorized the places to hide. But when the guardponies had broken the door down, she'd been asleep, and hadn't been able to move fast enough to get away from them. And even though she'd screamed and screamed for help... nopony had come. Wherever her big brother had been, it'd been too far away to hear her. Or maybe the guardponies had found him too.

Amyra wondered if Azel would be mad at her, for not being good enough at hiding. He'd always said it was important that she was, that he wasn't always going to be close enough to come to her rescue, so she needed to know how to be safe. She hadn't liked it very much. After all, how was she going to make friends with anypony if she had to hide all the time? He got to go out and meet other ponies.

Azel had always said that they'd leave Canterlot, and then they'd find somewhere where she could make friends with the other little fillies and colts. She hadn't liked that idea very much either. If they left the city, how would their mother find them again when she finally came back from where the guardponies took her to?

Maybe... their mother was here, somewhere? They could go home together.

The thought occurred to her at the same time as she heard hoofsteps, and the combination had Amyra lifting her head hopefully. She sniffled as more tears rolled down her face, her sharp eyes searching for a glimpse of who was coming.

What she saw wasn't her mother, or a thestral at all, but it wasn't a guard either. The unicorn mare was a little smaller than Azel, and very slim, and she walked with cautious steps. She looked like a filly trying to sneak an extra cookie--she wouldn't know that from the experience of being that pony, not at all--always glancing around and rotating her ears in search of somepony who might catch her being somewhere she wasn't supposed to be.

As the strange mare came up to the bars, her horn lit, and the bars sparked threateningly for a few moments before everything calmed again. She then placed one of her hooves against the cell door, and it slowly opened with a long creak, that made the mare wince.

As the mare stepped in, she asked in a soft voice, "Are you Amyra?"

She nodded, giving one last sniffle, and slowly slid off the bed, onto her hooves. "Who're you?"

"My name is Twilight Sparkle." The mare gave a gentle smile. "And don't worry, I'm a friend."