On The Cliff's Edge

"Wake up." a raspy voice called into Bronze Ribbon's ear.

Bronze opened her eyes slowly, moaning. "..Huh?" she mumbled sleepily.

"Wake up." the voice repeated.

"I'm so tired.." Bronze muttered, almost inaudibly.

"Wake up!" the voice yelled. Immediately afterward, Bronze felt a sharp jolt of pain travel from her side throughout the rest of her body.

The mare yelped in surprise and looked up at her assailant with dazed eyes.

"Good, you're awake." he said. As Bronze's eyes adjusted more, the form of a gryphon slowly came into focus, a ghastly-looking creature of dark brown feathers streaked with lines of dark crimson, with stiflingly dark eyes that seemed as if they held no light whatsoever in their depths.

As Bronze awoke further, she realized that she was no longer anywhere near her tent. Instead, she was in a small enclosed room that was lit with two painfully bright florescent ceiling lights.

Bronze herself, she noticed, was strapped uncomfortably to what appeared to be a mockery of an ancient Trrotingham torture rack.

"Who are you?" Bronze asked, her voice quaking involuntarily with fear.

"Oh, Bronzie, you don't remember me? Your old friend from Manehattan? I remember you.." the gryphon replied, mocking hurt present in his voice.

Bronze's eyes widened in recognition. "..Spiro?" the one-word question came out in a rasped whisper.

The gryphon clacked his beak in an approximation of a wicked grin. "Ah, so you do remember me! Good. That will make this have a little more context."

The emphasis Spiro placed on the last word made Bronze shiver. "You know, it's common sense really, Bronzie. Never make a deal with someone you can't pay back." The gryphon came ever so closer to the frightened mare as he spoke.

"I gave you everything I had, Spiro." Bronze replied, trying and failing to add an edge of defiance to her voice.

"Not everything." Spiro rasped, stroking Bronze's forehead with a scarred talon.

"..What do you mean?" Bronze asked, her voice quiet.

"Well, you have your tent, a little bit of food, and a very nice sapphire necklace, which my men confiscated. Frankly, I'm surprised you kept the necklace, considering you're in such dire straits, but-" Spiro found himself interrupted by a wad of spit from a now-furious Bronze Ribbon hitting him in the left eye.

"You bastard! That was a gift from my partner!" Bronze bellowed in rage, struggling in vain against the restraints.

Spiro, to Bronze's surprise, laughed, a soft, hearty chuckle that seemed more in place coming from a kindly old grandfather than a black market extortionist.

"You are a such a predictable little mare, Bronzie." he said, rubbing his left eye with the side of his talon.

"Give me the necklace, Spiro. Now!" Bronze demanded, her face contorted with hate.

"Hmm.." Spiro stroked his chin, as if considering her demands. "No can do." he said several seconds later with a shrug of his shoulders. "That necklace would sell for twenty thousand bits back in Manehattan, more money than you've seen in your entire life, I imagine."

"I don't care how much you can fence it for! Give it to me or it will be the last thing you ever do!" Bronze roared.

"Now, now, Bronzie, I think you need a reminder on who is calling the shots here." Spiro replied calmly as he raised his left talon for a swipe.

Bronze's defiance left her like the water out of a holed dam as she realized what was about to happen.

"No.." she found herself pleading, to her own surprise. "Don't, please..."

Spiro chuckled. "You probably should have considered the consequences before you let your mouth get the better of you. I think it might be time to get rid of your mouth, don't you think?"

"Please, no. I'll do anything.. anything you say!" Bronze whinnied, tears forming in her eyes. Her bladder, against her mind's wishes, emptied its meager contents onto the torture rack.

"Anything I say, hmm?" Spiro repeated, sounding interested.

"Yes, anything." Bronze whimpered pathetically.

"Alright, Bronzie, I'll tell you what." Spiro replied. "If you work for me for a while, I'll forget the whole incident in Manehattan ever happened. We'll be squared, and you can go back to wallowing in self-pity."

"Alright, I'll do it." Bronze said with a resigned sigh.

"Hallelujah! One of my buddies will be sending you a package in the mail shortly with an assignment. Oh, and don't bother with trying to rat me out to the police. You'll just land yourself in a whole new bucket of trouble." Spiro said, much too jovially for the occasion.

Spiro smiled down at the mare. "Have a good one. Ta leme, Bronzie."

As the gryphon uttered the foreign goodbye, Bronze Ribbon began to feel light-headed.

"Ugh.." she groaned. "What's... happening.."

The mare's limbs slackened with an exhausted sigh, and, just as it had earlier, darkness prevailed over her.

Bronze Ribbon awoke to a sharp pain lancing through her forehead.

"Ow.." she mumbled, opening her eyes to take in the familiar sights around her, the gravely roads and dead grass that surrounded her makeshift residence.

As she contended with the horrific headache she was now experiencing, the mare struggled to remember what had happened the previous night.

"Something about limes and.." her eyes widened as she remembered. "Oh no, Spiro!" The gryphon crime boss had terrorized her in the past, and now had manipulated her into helping him commit crimes against innocent ponies.

Bronze couldn't help but whimper a little at the memory of her deal with Spiro.

"Now I have to hurt ponies just to save myself. Nopony will ever be able to forgive me now." she thought dejectedly as she stared up at the sickeningly bright noon sky, her mud-colored eyes lethargic with depression.

"Delivery for Mrs. Bronze Ribbon." the accented voice of the mailmare shook Bronze out of her trance.

She looked up at the mailmare. "Yeah, that's me." she said softly.

"I got a letter for you from a Mister Edgecliff." The mailmare dropped a small envelope in front of the homeless mare's face.

"Mister Edgecliff?" Bronze repeated. "What a mystery, that."

The mailmare shook her head at the pun and bent down to eye level with Bronze.

"I know what happened between you and Spiro last night, and I want to help you." the mare said, her voice becoming a whisper.

"You want to.. help me?" Bronze asked, confused. "Nopony has ever wanted to help me before, except.." The mare found herself interrupted by the mailmare's hoof gently placing itself on her mouth.

"Let's just say I've been in your position before, Bronze, and I know how Spiro operates. No matter what you do, no matter how much you help him, he will never let you go." The mailmare said, her voice deadly serious.

"But.. he said he would let me go if I helped him enough.." Bronze replied, her eyes broadcasting her befuddlement.

"That's the thing." The mare spoke, her eyes and voice filled with conviction. "As long as you have the capability to help him in any way, you have not helped him enough. He will work you to the brink of death and beyond, Bronze. With him you have no chance of ever becoming free. I can help you, Bronze. Let me."

Bronze looked down at the ground, contemplating her options. "I could refuse her offer and help Spiro, but he's a criminal and a liar. At least with this mailmare, I have a chance to not end up in prison for the rest of my life." she thought.

Bronze Ribbon looked back up at the mare.  "I accept your offer, mailmare." she said.

A small smile appeared on the mare's face for a moment before disappearing. "You can call me Swift Step from now on, Bronze."

"Alright. That letter from "Mr. E" will likely have Spiro's first assignment for you detailed in it. We'll need to read it and find out what he wants you to do first before we can stop him." Swift Step said, her voice one accustomed to taking charge.

"We have to stop him?" Bronze asked, her eyes filled with fright. "Can't you just help me run away to Fillydelphia or some other city far away?"

Swift shook her head sadly. "I'm afraid not. Spiro will pursue you to the ends of the Earth if he feels you have betrayed him. In order to ensure your safety for good, we need to take him out of the game. Permanently."

"We have to kill him?" Bronze shivered as she said the words. "Swift, I can't.. I'm no murderer."

Swift grabbed Bronze gently by the shoulders and pulled the whimpering mare up to her face, staring into Bronze's mud-colored eyes with her own.

"Bronze, look at me. Do I look like a murderer?" the mare asked, her voice soft.

Bronze took in Swift Step for the first time.

The mare was tall, even taller than some stallions, with a dirty blackish-green coat that looked like it hadn't been cleaned in weeks, which partially obscured the pair of winged tennis shoes that were her cutie marks, and her mud-brown mane was ragged, dirty, and torn.

Her eyes, a pair of brilliant citrus-colored orbs, were filled with years' worth of fatigue and weariness, but also held something else in their depths that Bronze couldn't put her hoof on.

"Uh..." Bronze stuttered, trying and failing to think of something positive to say.

Swift let out a quiet sigh and looked away. "I understand, you don't have to lie to me." Her voice held within in a twinge of pain.

"No, you're absolutely fine. It's just I'm.." Bronze wracked her brain for something, anything, to say to the mare. Nothing came to mind.

"It's okay, Bronze. Let's just go. Spiro isn't going to commit suicide and free us of our mission anytime soon." Swift looked pained, her face screwed up like she was trying to pass a kidney stone.

"Oh.. alright." Bronze Ribbon opened the envelope with her teeth and looked down at the contents, a small sheet of paper.

"It reads, 'Give Byron a stern talking to for me. -Mr. E.'. Swift, do you know who this Byron is?" Bronze asked, her curious eyes looking in Swift's direction, secretly eager to try and raise the mare's spirits.

"No idea. But if Spiro's having you deal with him, he's probably somewhere in Elmwood. We should probably look around town." Swift's voice began to sound more like it had originally, the voice of one accustomed to being the leader.

"Alright. Where should we begin?" Bronze inquired.

"We should probably start with the local tavern. If Byron is in trouble with Spiro, he's probably not very smart, so he'll probably be there." Swift replied.

Bronze nodded.

"Let's go. Spiro's time in this world is quickly coming to an end."

The duo of Bronze Ribbon and Swift Step found themselves outside of the Crimson Chimaera Bar and Grill, the first and only bar in Elmwood, which was touted by its owner, Dagger Neck, as being the only bar in town because of great service and his own management skills.

It wasn't common knowledge, however, that Dagger Neck served as an informant for several criminal organizations, among them the gang of Spiro himself, which was considered the prime reason that any and all competition in the town either disappeared or reconsidered the idea of setting up a tavern.

Bronze looked at her new-found friend, unease showing in her eyes. "I'm not sure about going in there alone. It's kinda.. creepy." her voice shook a little with fear.

Swift placed a comforting hoof on Bronze's shoulder. "Don't worry. If anything goes wrong, I'll be right outside. Nopony will hurt you, I promise." Her calming voice eased Bronze's nervousness, if only a little.

Bronze nodded slowly and began her trot towards the front door of the bar, opening it with a nudge.

The interior of the Crimson Chimaera, unlike its unimpressive exterior of brown brick, was a stunning array of every shade of dark and gloomy color known to ponykind, filled to the brim with shady booths and seats and lit only by a handful of dim lights that barely made the silhouettes of the patrons visible in the darkness.

Bronze Ribbon gulped as she made her way to the counter, where a unicorn stallion stood, washing beer glasses with a magically levitated washrag.

The stallion didn't look up as the frightened mare approached. "Two bits for a glass." His voice was weary and uninterested, as if he had repeated the line thousands upon thousands of times.

"Uh.. do you know a stallion named Byron?" Bronze asked, nervousness apparent in her shaky speech.

"No. Two bits for a glass." the stallion repeated.

"Spiro sent me to find him." Bronze said, hoping that the crime lord's name would loosen the bartender's tongue.

"Don't care. Two bits for a glass." the stallion repeated again.

"Look, I really need to find Byron. Can you please point me to somepony who can help me?" Bronze asked.

"No. Two bits for a glass." The stallion repeated once again.

Bronze let out an exasperated sigh and walked away from the counter.

"How in the hell am I going to find Byron in this bar if I don't even know what he looks like?" Bronze wondered aloud.

As she wandered aimlessly around the bar, she found herself rudely knocked to the ground.

"Ugh!" Bronze grunted as her head painfully and loudly impacted the floor.

"Shorry!" a stallion yelled as he drunkenly stumbled past.

Bronze lay on the ground, moaning softly, her vision blurred from the impact.

"Are you okay?" The voice came from a gryphon, who stood over Bronze's limp form, his eyes filled with concern.

"I hurt all over.." Bronze's voice was slow and slurred with pain.

"Let me take you out back." As the gryphon spoke, he hoisted the dazed mare onto his back and walked, slowly and carefully, out the back door of the Chimaera.

The gryphon set down Bronze on a makeshift pillow made of old newspapers. "There, that should be better than a hard wooden floor." he said, rubbing his talons together.

Bronze looked up at him, her eyes half-closed. "Do I know you.." she mumbled.

The gryphon smiled down at her. "Just rest. You should be fine after a few hours."

Bronze raised her hoof weakly in protest. "But.. I have to find Byron." she slurred.

"Well, you've found him." Byron said, flaring his wings.

Bronze attempted to reply, but all that came out was a soft groan as she fell into a fitful sleep on Byron's makeshift bed.