Day Thirty-One

Tight spaces did not bother Tempest anymore. She had spent hours in the smuggler tunnels beneath Canterlot and it had wiped away what little claustrophobia she had. Though, in those moments, she always knew there was an exit. In fact, there were always multiple. That wasn’t the case now. There might not be an escape from her current situation.

Rocks pushed against her on every side. Pointed stones dug painfully into her flesh and pushed against her spine. As soon as it began to fall apart she tucked her legs against her body in a small, but successful, attempt to save her limbs from getting pinned. If she was to be crushed, she wanted it to be wholesale and not piece by piece.

Every little bit of training she had kicked in as she fought off panic. She could not panic, not if she wanted to survive for any duration of time. It took a few seconds of mindfulness and deep breaths to get the swelling feeling in her chest down and to get control of the completely rational response her body had to the situation.

Tempest did her best to contort herself into a more advantageous position. She sucked in her stomach and pulled her legs as close as she could in order to scooch into a sitting, but hunched, position. It was uncomfortable, but it was necessary. Getting out while on her side or stomach would be much harder than in her current position.

The only way out was through.

A hoof was brought up and it prodded the rocks around her. She was careful in her probing and any stone that moved the ones around it even a little was quickly forgotten about. It wasn’t until she got to a spot right above her head that she found one that gave no resistance and did not seem to be integral to the little pocket she found herself in. With all of the strength her contorted position could afford, she pushed.

The rock went up, and it kept going with no hindrance. Tempest gave it one last shove and pushed as hard as hard as she could. The rock, which was just a bit bigger than her hoof, shot up and clattered against the pile on top. Light shone down through the hole and filled the small enclave, as did fresh air.

For the first time, Tempest understood Rose’s fanaticism. She had never felt so grateful to see light from the star above. Even though they were in the shadow of the mountain, it still was enough to illuminate her immediate surroundings and let her take stock of her courses of actions.

Most of the rubble around here were big boulders or slabs of rock that had once composed the ceiling of the tunnel. The stuff on top of her though was smaller in comparison and much more movable. If Tempest had to guess, that was where Cadance’s blast had been directed.

The hole that she had been lucky enough to find gave her a good estimate of how far under she was from any sort of freedom. The best guess was about a foot and a half. Luck had once more been on her side. Most of the rubble must’ve slid down the side of the mountain rather than settled right on top of her. There was one more thing she needed to check, one last thing that needed to be done, before she began digging her way out of this early grave.

“Rose!” Tempest called for her friend, her voice hoarse and rough. After clearing her throat and attempting to wet her lips she tried again. “Rose?!” There was no response. “I know you’re not dead, you stubborn mare.” She grumbled and huffed. That pegasus was too damn stubborn and tough to die, Tempest knew that. They had both come this far, and unless one of those monsters put a hole through their chests or ripped them in half, they were not going to die. Some rocks would not be the end of them.

That would be the fatal mistake of the alicorns too: half-measures. That was the entire history of Equestria at this point, its rulers inability to see things through. From Nightmare Moon, to Discord, now that list included Tempest. If they did not kill their enemies, they would always come back to haunt them. Tempest would make sure that she would come back to haunt this cursed country.

With sheer determination to come back, to claim the magic of Equestria for the Storm King, Tempest began her ascent from beneath the pile of stone. Her hoof went through the small shaft it had created earlier and she began to push rocks away from the top. She needed to make the top wider and work her way down from there.

—

Tempest had been at the laborious task of getting out of the rubble for hours. The transient nature of time in the sun soaked reality did not give her a sense for how many hours, but she knew it was approaching the double digits at least. There were a few times she had to rest for extended periods and try not to pass out, then there were others where she had touched the wrong stone and the entire pile shifted around her. That had caused her to stop and wait for everything to settle once more.

Now the hole above her looked wide enough to get out of. It was maybe a bit more constrained than the smugglers’ tunnels that crisscrossed the mountain, but it was also very short. As long as it didn’t collapse around her as she went through, then she would be fine.

Getting into a position where she could get both hooves above her head was difficult, but not impossible. She briefly thanked her parents for making her take some dance classes as a filly before the put both of her front legs up through the hole. Then she sucked in a breath and pushed herself out. Hard stone scraped at her body, some catching her fur and ripping the skin. Tempest only gritted her teeth and kept going. When her head and front hooves were finally on the right side of the rubble pile, she used her front hooves to pull the rest of her up.

The familiar heat beat down on her coat, which had more than a few new scratches and bruises littering its fuschia surface, and a cool wind swept in from the north. The mix of sensations made Tempest smile. Weary hooves carried her down one side and as soon as she was on level ground, they gave out.

Tempest rolled onto her back and splayed out her limbs. She looked up at the clear blue sky and the mountain that towered overhead and she began to laugh. At first it was a small chuckle, but it morphed into a full belly laugh in a few seconds. Tears streamed from her eyes and periodic sobs interrupted the laughing fit. She could not control herself or even settle on one of the emotions as the breakdown consumed her. It was a raw outpouring of pure unfiltered and undirected emotion that echoed out into the wild blue yonder above.

“I-I’m alive…” Tempest said to herself. “I’m…I’m not dead…” It was an obvious thing to say, but it felt good to say it. It set the entire experience into focus. “I’m alive!” She screamed at the world to let it know. A deep bitterness invaded her heart and welled up in her throat, one that cut through the laughter and the crying. Her eyes narrowed and brow furrowed as the next words rose in her throat and erupted with visceral ferocity. “FUCK YOU! I’M NOT DEAD!”

It was directed at nothing in particular, just at the world. It was a reminder that she was not going away and that she had not been beaten, not yet. As long as she drew breath, she would rage against everything that had ever doubted her or cast her down. Every slight was remembered. Every attempt to bury her, every chance the world had to do away with the problem unicorn it had created had not gotten the best of her yet.

The lone unturned unicorn in all of Canterlot laid there for what felt like ages. She cried and laughed and cursed the very existence of everything around her and everypony that had ever put her down. It was an exercise in catharsis that was so sorely needed. It had been bottled up for so long, held down by the immense weight of a need to keep going and pressure from every direction. It had escaped a little the other day in the record store, but this was the dam breaking fully.

When her emotions simmered down and she could bear to erect all of the walls she had worked so hard to build in the first place, she got up. There was just the matter of Rose, now. She needed to get the pegasus out from beneath the rock pile so they could finish this journey together.

She climbed over the fallen boulders and rocks until she was right by the hole she had dragged herself out of. If she remembered, Rose was right next to her when it all fell apart. Maybe a few feet. Cadance’s stream of magic had split the ground between them. So Tempest took a few steps to the side of where she had been and looked down. Her friend had to be somewhere around here.

Despite the fatigue and injuries, despite the aching and stinging pains that radiated around her body, Tempest kept going. The smaller rocks were kicked off of the pile while the slightly bigger ones were given a slight nudge so they rolled down the side of the rockslide and then down the mountain itself. The work was done as carefully as she could afford to do it. When something shifted beneath her hooves or she saw a load bearing piece of gravel, it was avoided. The process that had been done to dig her out was carried out from the top down this time.

As she got closer and closer to the bottom, she expected to see flashes of red fur through the cracks of the rocks, but it never materialized. Only more stone seemed to be present as she went down. What she thought was the bottom only turned out to be a particularly large slab of rock. From the current perspective, it looked like it covered the entire area that could contain Rose. How it missed Tempest was a mystery.

Tempest was not going to stop until she saw a body. Nothing else would convince her of the pious pegasus’ demise. She had thought Rose dead after Celestia had gotten a hold of her, and look how that turned out! There was no way that some rocks had taken her out. That pony was just as tough as Tempest.

The sight of the massive hunt of rock did give Tempest a little hope. If Rose was under it and somehow still alive, that meant Tempest could probably afford to be a little more reckless with her rock removal. It also meant that she could not tackle this from the top anymore. It had to be done from the side. At least, that was one option. There was one other.

Tempest tried to look up at the shattered horn on her head. Any time she had ever dared to use magic from it, the results had been volatile and dangerous. More than that, those attempts had also left her physically drained. Those were during times when she could afford to be, where she was not already practically dead on her hooves. She could not discount the possibility that this wouldn’t knock her out immediately.

There was also the small fact that using magic might cause her to turn. That was not lost on her and it caused much more hesitation than the small chance that she might pass out. They had the knowledge that whatever caused the transformation was in the magic, or at least that was the hypothesis. Would it hold true for a unicorn without a horn?

“She’s worth it…” Tempest muttered to herself. It was worth the shot. If she was right and she did not turn, then she had a chance at saving Rose and getting them both out. If she was wrong, well then…that was that. What would she care about when her thoughts were filled with murderous intent? It would be as if she died.

Going at it from the side would take a lot longer. It would be grueling physical labor and might take her a day or more. That would mean more time in the open, more time for one of the alicorns to spot her. It also might mean that she would be too late to save Rose. Time was of the essence.

The only way out was through.

Tempest took a deep breath and steadied herself. It had been quite a while since she called upon the power she had at her disposal. For so long she had relied on her physical talents and things she could actually control, now she had to give up that control and give in to the wild forces that could not be contained by a shattered horn.

Deep down, every unicorn had that sense of magic. It was something that could be felt and tapped into. She remembered the feeling from when she was a filly, it was a small pool that you dipped your proverbial hoof into. Then you would mix that with the mana from the world, the clay, you would wet it and turn it into something that could be shaped and molded for whatever purpose you could dream of. The only limit was the size of your own internal pool and your imagination.

Tempest’s own pool was as deep and wide as it had ever been. That was never in danger of shrinking, but it was harder to get to now. The journey to tap into that deep reserve was tough and required concentration. The moment she made contact it caused her horn to light up with electric blue light. She could feel the lightning course through the cracked protrusion on her forehead and leap out wildly.

There was little she could do to shape the magic, though. There was barely anything she could do to direct it. There was nothing there but wild and untameable energy that would do what it wanted if she did not send it out.

The mare took a short hop back and pointed her forehead towards the slab of stone below her. Whatever tenuous grasp she had on the building glob or pure mana at the base of her horn was let go. A crackling bolt of mana, stronger than anything the monstrous unicorns could produce, leapt from her head and struck the stone that concealed Rose.

The force of the detonation was enough to send Tempest rocketing backwards. It threw her against the stone edifice behind her and knocked the wind out of her lungs. The added pain was nothing, just another unpleasant sensation to be added to the pile of them that plagued her. A cloud of dust from shattered rock filled the air and obscured sight, but that was a sign that her plan had worked.

There was a moment where Tempest laid still on the rocks. She waited for the transformation to take her, to morph her into one of those vicious beasts and take her mind with it. The change never came. There was no bloodlust that invaded her mind, nor did her limbs contort into long and gangly things. She was still herself.

Once she was absolutely sure she would not turn, she pulled herself to her hooves. That was when a wave of dizziness and nausea swept over her. With it followed a fatigue that she had not experienced in years. It was not like the physical fatigue that plagued her waking moments, it was something much deeper. It was not something that could be shaken off with sleep and in a normal environment it would take her days to recover from the expenditure. It was anypony’s guess as to how long it would take for this sense of malaise to wash away. However long it was, she could not wait.

There was a way to fix it quickly though, it was in the boat waiting for her in the grotto. The alchemists under the Storm King’s direction had ginned up a remedy to help restore her pool of energy faster, almost instantaneously. It was down there and waiting. They just had to get to it before she could not physically continue.

The drained unicorn stumbled towards the area she had unleashed her power on and waved a hoof a bit to clear the dust that saturated the air. Once enough of the particulate faded, she was able to see that she had punched a hole clean through the stone. Luckily, Rose had not been underneath.

Carefully Tempest climbed down into the sizable crater she had created and got as low as she could to the ground. There was maybe a foot clearance between the bottom of the slab and the path below it. Enough room for a pony to be trapped.

The pony she had been looking for was indeed there, just a foot or so away. The bottom of the rock was pressed down against her back and kept her flat. She did not look to be conscious, but Tempest could see Rose’s chest expand and contract with ragged and shallow breaths. She was alive. How functional she would be once extracted was another matter entirely.

Tempest laid flat on her belly and pressed herself against the edge of the hole she had punched through the rock. Her long leg stretched as far as she could manage and her hoof grabbed onto Rose’s. Even though they weren’t in direct sunlight, Tempest was already sweating from the exertion. It was as if every little movement was costing double the amount of energy it usually did. All of her limbs felt heavy and sluggish to respond to the commands she gave them.

“I-I’m really sorry, Rose…this is going to hurt…” She whispered to the pegasus. The jagged rock that kept the pony pinned was going to grind against her already shredded and tortured back. Tempest would not do this if it was not necessary. She would not subject somepony like Rose to such rigors. It had to be done.

The only way out was through.

Tempest summoned the otherworldly determination that defined her existence and she pulled. The unicorn ground her teeth and clenched every muscle in her body as she tugged on Rose’s hoof with tears in her eyes and care in her heart. It was tough and she could feel parts of the pegasus catch on outcroppings, but all she could do was hope that nothing tore too bad.

Eventually Rose’s head was out from underneath the oppressive vice of stone. The pegasus guard had let out a few whimpering cries of pain as she was dragged out, but not once had she woken up. Tempest used a hoof to move Rose’s mane from her face and then tapped her cheek a few times in an effort to get her companion to rouse from her slumber. That did not work either.

“Make me do all of the work, why don’t you…” Tempest huffed. She did not mean it, but it still felt good to say.

The other mare was gradually dragged from beneath the rock and that was when Tempest saw the extent of the damage. Beside the blood soaked bandages that covered her back, new scrapes littered her back and flanks and dried blood seemed to be everywhere. Tempest rolled Rose onto the side that still had a wing and was able to see a pervasive bruise that seemed to start just below her neck and stretch all the way down the length of the barrel. There was no telling just how much breathing hurt, but Tempest was sure it wasn’t fun.

“Probably can’t afford to rest…” Tempest spoke to Rose in a soft voice. “Well, I can’t. Obviously you can.” Rest was for ponies who had time, who were not on the verge of finally leaving. It was for ponies who had safety. They had none of those things.

As Tempest got to her hooves, yet another wave of weariness washed over her. This one was far worse than the last one, but it did not take her out yet. She shook off the feeling. There was no other option than to hold on for just a bit longer, at least until they could get to the boat waiting for them.

In an awkward dance, Tempest managed to get Rose onto her back. The one thing that made the act a little easier was the fact that pegasi were naturally incredibly light and Rose was made all the lighter from weeks of malnourishment. It was like she had a particularly devout sack of potatoes on her back if anything.

“Don’t worry, Rose…I got you. We’ll get through this, I promise.”

Author's Note

For some reason more Halo stuff still keeps coming up when I write.

Writing Rose and Tempest I'm reminded of the scene in Halo 2 when The Gravemind speaks to Arbiter and Chief for the first time. He looks at them both and says "This one is machine and nerve, and has its mind concluded. This one is but flesh and faith, and is the more deluded." And I'm like, yeah, that's Tempest and Rose 100%.

I tried really hard to name a chapter "A Monument to All Your Sins" but couldn't manage it.

Final chapter next. "I See Fire"