Rose Wreath hated being in pain.

It was a feature of her life now, though. It was inescapable and saturated every moment, both waking and sleeping, of her existence. It was made worse by movement and strenuous action, which given the current state of the world was not ideal. At the moment, movement and strenuous action were both necessary.

The monsters were back in the castle now, and that meant they were in danger again. If only Rose wasn’t the only one awake to deal with it. On the other side of the door was one of those things, she could hear it growling and shuffling around. It was probably making sure that Bulwark was dead and would pass once it was sure.

The pegasus pony pressed her good side up against the door and dug her hooves into the smooth stone of the tower floor. The entire weight of her body would have to be enough if the unicorn on the other side tried to get in. Considering her waning strength and naturally light frame, that wasn’t much.

A hoof scraped against the other side of the wooden door. Rose sucked in a breath and held it. The pain of taking a deep breath while one of her ribs was cracked was immense but she knew her death would be much worse if she made a noise though. She felt the unicorn give the door an experimental nudge with its head. Rose did her best to push back in equal measure.

It was an eternity of these little pokes and prods before the thing on the other side of the door finally stopped. Even then, Rose dared not to let out her breath. Not until she heard the thing’s hooves click on the marble floor as it trotted away. Only when she could not hear it anymore did she finally breathe normally, and she still did that quietly.

How were they supposed to get out of the castle? The nearest tunnel exit that she knew of was still the astronomy tower, and that was too far in their current state. They couldn’t stay in this little room forever either, it was already hot enough and it wasn’t going to get any cooler as long as the sun stayed in the sky. It was a rock and a hard place.

Rose tentatively hobbled away from the door and over to the unicorn slumped against the wall. It was reminiscent of the pose she usually took down in the dungeon and there was even a bit of true peace present across her swollen face. The pegasus reached out with her wing and gave the pony a little shake.

“Tempest…” When the mare didn’t wake up, Rose did it again. “Come on, Tempest.”

“Mmmnnn…” Tempest shifted and winced then one of her eyes opened. The other one tried, but the area beneath it was too bruised to allow it. “Ugh…ow…” The unicorn shifted and groaned. She brough a hoof up to her face and winced when contact was made. “What…happened…?”

“I got the message out.” Rose gave a weak smile. “The Crystal Empire is okay. Princess Cadance is okay.” She wanted to add ‘we’re okay’ but that didn’t feel true, not at all. They were far from okay.

“Great…we need to get out of here before the unicorns get back…” Tempest pushed herself to her hooves with a grunt. Her breathing was labored and shallow and there was a slight wheeze, but she was standing. Through the new injuries, the same determined and stolid mare remained.

“We were out for a while, Tempest.” Rose leaned against the wall to give her legs a bit of a rest. “They’re already back.” Tempest mumbled a curse that Rose didn’t understand under her breath. “I don’t know if we’re in any shape to make a run for it. I’m not…”

Tempest looked her dead in the eye and there was something in there that Rose didn’t like. It was a moment of decision and it seemed like the spy was grappling with something. It made Rose swallow. Neither of them would be here without each other, there was no way that Tempest would opt to leave her behind.

Right?

“We can’t stay here…” Tempest stretched out her legs and rolled her neck in an attempt to get loose. “How much can you move? Can you run at all?”

Run? Rose was lucky to be able to walk at this point. Her entire left side was stiff and in constant pain. Any time she tried to move her front leg it caused a shock down her entire spine. Running might actually kill her, but she could not let Tempest know that. The warm feeling of camaraderie that had filled Rose’s chest when Tempest had found her was now gone. It had seemed so sudden. What changed?

“A little.” Rose lied.

“Okay…” Tempest closed her eyes and took a deep breath. As she did she winced and a hoof went to her ribs. It seemed like Tempest might be in the same boat, but there was no way that those words would ever be uttered by the unicorn. “...the tunnel in the observatory. That’s our exit. We take it slow. If we get caught…” Tempest hesitated as she searched for the right words. “...we have to try to not get caught.”

So if they were spotted or caught, then they were pretty much confirmed dead. It wasn’t a comforting thought, but Rose could at least view it as another test. If they made it back to the hideout alive then that had to mean she had not been abandoned. It had to mean that the light still shone on her in some fashion, no matter how limited. So Rose gave her fellow survivor a nod.

Both mares hobbled to the door and waited a moment with baited breath. There were no sounds from the other side, no distant growls or menacing howls. Tempest then pushed open the door and stuck her head out to look around. After seeing nothing, she ducked back then and nodded to Rose.

Bulwark’s body was still just lying on the floor at the bottom of the steps. His mangled face looked up to the ceiling and his hooves remained splayed out. Flies were now gathering around his corpse and his stomach was visibly bloating. It was a sight that the ponies were used to by now, but that didn’t make it any easier to look at.

Rose felt worse about Parade than she did about Bulwark at the very least. Parade had been an unfortunate but necessary casualty. Rose knew that Parade wouldn’t have listened to reason, that was the only course of action. Bulwark had been killed in self-defense though. If she didn’t take him out, then she would’ve met an equally grisly end at his hooves. Both had been justified, but this one she could feel with absolutely zero guilt. There wasn’t even that shakiness that came in the moments after dealing with Parade.

Rose didn’t even send up a prayer for him. Part of that was because she didn’t feel like he deserved one, but she also still wasn’t sure if anything would be listening to her prayers.

They moved on, retracing their steps down the hall and until they came to the staircase. It was an achingly slow trek due to their injuries and the fact that they had to stop every hundred feet or so to listen and catch their breaths. Both of them were walking gingerly and in clear pain, but both pushed through.

The stairs were a nearly insurmountable obstacle. Rose had enough trouble going down them on her own before the last round of contusions. Now with some bruised ribs it made the activity all the worse, and Tempest was feeling the same. With every step the unicorn winced and had to grip at her barrel.

The small flight of three dozen or so steps took them five minutes to fully descend. At the bottom, the actual first floor of the castle, they were met with the hallway that ran all the way from the northeast corner of the castle to the northwest corner. It was one long straight walk on the same level that the monsters would be wandering around in once again.

It was a death march.

Away the two marched. The two mares leaned on one another as they went, sweat drenching their bodies from intense exertion and stifling heat. It was what they imagined Tartarus felt like on a good day, but loosed from its depths and sent to smother all of Equestria in its awfulness.

Tempest started to go limp against Rose and the pegasus had to steady the other mare with a wing and give her a little shake. The unicorn jolted back awake and gave her head a shake. The head injuries were doing more to hamper her than the busted ribs. Getting your bell rung as bad as Tempest had meant she most definitely had a concussion at the bare minimum. The hope is it wasn’t anything worse than that, it couldn’t be if Rose didn’t want to be the last surviving non-unicorn in all of Canterlot.

The pattern from the floors above still held true. They stopped every once in a while to catch their breaths, listen, and gather themselves. It was becoming more and more apparent that Tempest was not going to make it to their exit, at least not conscious. Every time the two battered ponies stopped, the unicorn would lean against the wall and start to drift off until Rose shook her back awake.

They were maybe halfway down the hall towards their destination when Tempest finally just collapsed. There was no wavering, it was just like somepony had cut her strings and she fell in a heap of magenta and black on the cool white tile. Rose tried to shake her awake, but this time she could not rouse her fellow survivor no matter how hard she tried.

With no other choice she used her wing to grab Tempest by the collar and dragged the athletic mare into a nearby room. It was one of the many extra dining rooms that seemed to sprout up around the place like warts. Once both of them were inside, Rose some chairs and jammed them under the handles of the double doors.

Once the doors were shut, Rose realized she couldn’t see anything. For the first time in days, she was in the dark. The only light provided was what little of it could slip in from under the doors. Usually that would cause some panic, but not this time. She felt an unusual comfort in the cool darkness that surrounded her. It was such a jarring change in temperature that Rose, for the first time in her life, felt grateful for the darkness.

With the guidance of the dim light, Rose dragged Tempest across the floor to the opposite side of the room. Then the pegasus finally fell to her haunches and took a deep breath.

It hurt. Everything hurt. There was no reprieve. No sigh, deep breath or meditations could make the pain subside or fade. Like the light outside, it was omnipresent and harsh. There was no escaping it. It was a fact of life.

Just like the sun, Rose wished it would go away for just a little bit.

That was a blasphemous thought to be sure, but it was getting harder and harder to hold onto the faith. She wasn’t dead, but that was little comfort considering their current situation. They were in no shape to escape Canterlot, even with Tempest’s supposed escape route. They were not ponies at the moment, they were shells who were lucky to be alive. How could she be grateful for anything?

Life felt like a curse.

It didn’t help that Rose kept swinging wildly between being the faithful and devout pony she always had been and the faithless shell she felt like right now. The evidence all around her fed into both sides of the argument. When she stopped moving, when the pain was able to settle into her bones and reach her soul, she started to lean towards the latter. The former only started to win when she was in danger, when the adrenaline kicked in or when she was presented with a miracle.

She sent up a prayer that she would be able to get just a little rest before they continued onward.

—-

Time meant nothing anymore, but she at least achieved that small goal of a little rest. It had been fitful and she had been propped up against the wall the whole time, but it was enough for now. Tempest was still out, though. It didn’t seem like she was any closer to waking up, no matter how many times Rose tried to rouse her. She wasn’t dead, her chest still rose and fell at regular intervals.

Rose knew that the longer they stayed here, the longer they were without food or water, the more danger they got in. They needed proper rest and whatever would count for relaxation in Canterlot. That would not be found in the castle.

After a short exploration of the darkened dining room, Rose found an old serving cart in one of the corners. It was elongated and made of metal, used for holding all kinds of little things the high class ponies would need for their multi-course meals. She felt around it in the limited light and found a carving knife on the bottom shelf, but nothing else. It might be long enough to hold Tempest, though. Once they were in the observatory she had no plan on how to get the mare into the tunnels or even transport her. The only hope was that she would magically be awake by then.

The pain caused by lifting a full pony’s worth of dead weight was enough to draw tears. It was enough to make Rose whimper and groan. Tempest was put on top of the metal cart after much struggle. Her hooves dangled over the edge on both end but she was at least on there and it didn’t feel like it would tip over. The pummeled pegasus pony got onto her rear hooves and put her front two hooves on the cart and gave it an experimental push. It was hard and her ribs and back shouted at her to stop immediately, but it was doable. The one problem was that the wheel squeaked.

“C’mon…” Rose groaned and rolled her eyes. The last thing they needed was more noise. Nothing could be easy or simple, not even the stuff designed to make life easier. It was just always something. She picked up the knife with one of her wings. In lieu of absolutely no other way of defending herself or Tempest, it would have to do.

Navigating the unwieldy cart in very low light was not fun or easy. It bumped into more than a few chairs and the corner of the table once. Each little impact earned a small, nearly inaudible, groan from Tempest. Then of course, there was the squeaking with every rotation of one of the wheels.

“Okay…how much do you have left in the tank, Rose…?” The question had to be asked, and she did not have an answer. All of the sleep she had gotten over the last few days had not been restful. All of it had been from exhaustion or she had been nearly dead. She was still exhausted and she still felt like she was about to die, but she wasn’t passed out and she wasn’t dead. There was still something there, and now she needed to tap into the reserves and get out of the castle.

The cart was moved into position and the chairs were removed from beneath the handles to the door. Rose opened one of the doors and peaked out then looked down both sides of the halls and listened closely. She didn’t see any of the monsters, nor did she hear them. Her senses were little comfort. Hopefully the beasts were still out in the city for the most part or in another area of the castle.

Rose tried to get onto her back hooves again to push the cart but one of her various maladies refused to cooperate at all and forced her back down to all fours. There was no way to push this thing on all fours where she could still keep an eye out for things. That wasn’t doable. Something needed to give and it couldn’t be Rose.

One last attempt to wake Tempest up, that was her final gambit. Rose nudged the mare a few times with her hoof and then gave her a good shake. Tempest needed to wake up. She needed to.

“Please…” Rose felt like crying but she doubted she had any more tears to give. She was tired, dehydrated, hurt and all around miserable. One thing needed to go right. Just one. Her eyes tracked towards one of the windows that lined the hall and the sunlit hell that awaited outside. Rose closed her eyes and decided to try for her hail mary. “Just one more miracle. Please. Let me know you’re still listening and help us get out of here. I…I don’t have anything else to give, but I’ll do whatever you want for one more miracle.”

It wasn’t really a prayer, she was begging. If she was sure she could get to her knees and be able to get up again, she would drop to them and grovel before the light. As it was, even this mockery of a prayer hurt. It made her feel vulnerable and weak where once upon a time such an action would fill her with strength and resolve. She was at the mercy of an angry and terrible god now.

“Ugh…” Whatever she had left to give was now forfeit. Tempest groaned and the eye that wasn’t swollen shut was barely opened. “Where…” The mare groaned and her hoof went to her head.

“Hey, hey.” Rose grabbed Tempest’s hoof with her own and squeezed as tight as she could. “Get up…please. We’re almost there and I just…I really need you to get up, okay?” The pegasus tugged at the unicorn’s hoof and after an awkward minute, Tempest was back on her unstable hooves.

The duo began their arduous walk to salvation once more. It was a lot of helping each other more than one of them relying on the other. Yes Rose was more lucid, but Tempest was keeping her up as much as she was keeping Tempest on her hooves. Every step still hurt and she had stopped sweating at this point. There was no way she would’ve made it pushing Tempest, no way in Tartarus. Somewhere along the way she would’ve passed out.

Rose had begun to fade just as Tempest had earlier but she clung to consciousness like a vice. She could not slip away into the darkness, she had more work to do in the light. It took forever, but they made it to the door that led to the astronomy tower. The shattered barricade erected by the night guard and the corpses that decorated it still stood watch and the door was closed, just as they had left it a lifetime ago.

Rose looked through the other side of the barricade, the side that led to the ballista tower. Down the hall was a group of four unicorns, completely silent and all just staring at the two mares. She turned her head around and saw the same sight behind them, except there were a half a dozen of those monsters all watching them as they walked. How long had they been followed for? Why weren’t they attacking? Why hadn’t they attacked? Why weren’t they howling?

Was all of this finally getting to her? Was delirium setting in and conjuring up phantoms to haunt her now?

“You see them too, right?” Tempest whispered, her voice much more alert than it had been previously. Adrenaline helped wipe away some of the fatigue as that is exactly how Rose was now catching her umpteenth wind.

“Yeah…we need to get inside now.”

The mares pushed inside to be met with a familiar sight. The cool blue hues of the observatory surrounded them, marked only by shattered glass and ashy hoofprints on the carpet. Signs of their struggle that seemed so far away and foalish now. Rose glanced towards the big circular window she had broken through with Tempest. The melted remnants of the ballista tower were there in the middle distance, the now smooth edges shimmering like crystal in the light of the eternal day overhead. Tempest broke away from the other pony for the first time in what had to be hours now and staggered over to the fireplace. Rose followed closely behind.

Tempest got in first and Rose was quick to follow. Raising her front hooves to get in hurt, it made that pain in her back double and caused her vision to flash white. So she had to keep her front leg on her left side against her barrel as she dragged herself into the tunnel.

From behind she heard the door to the observatory break and the sound of hooves against the floor. The two mares crawled as fast as their broken down bodies would let them away from the monsters. No blasts of magic were launched into the tunnel, but the sounds of magic striking stone did fill the entire space.

“Th-they’re trying to dig up the tunnels…” Tempest said through heavy breaths and whimpers. “They’ve been doing it…for a day or so now…it’s not smart to use them after this. We need to stay put for a while…”

Just how long ‘a while’ was worried Rose. How much time did they reasonably have left?

Author's Note

This chapter gave me fits too. Not too happy with it as I don't know if I got the 'completely out of energy and running on pure will' vibe or not.