Of course, they will ask why. When the smoke clears, and the burning corpses of a hundred once-beautiful brass and wood ships have left the sweet sky, they will ask why it happened. It will shock them, I know it will. The long years, the many sacrifices, have worn on us all. We’ve weathered them together, the best of friends.
Twilight will be heartbroken, as will Fluttershy. I don’t know what Applejack will say. Rainbow... I’d rather not think about it. Pinkie won’t understand. But then again, Pinkie’s been in a fog ever since we were called into the service of the Empire. Our tour atop these stately ships of war has been taking it’s horrid toll on her as it has on me.
The stallion who captains this ship looks at me, unsure. Our wing is held in reserve, and Twilight’s plan to bring it in left me much wiggle room. He only knows that my word is law. That, and that our cloud cover is beginning to dissipate.
It can always go the way it was supposed to, of course. There’s plenty of time. Time enough for Rarity to throw her hat into the ring and join the dance. And oh, the thrill it would be, for a moment. To be flying! To be in the sky, powerful and feared atop this battleship!
But what else?
“Milady?” the captain speaks up. I don’t look at him, but I know how pale he must be. The crew behind us shuffle nervously at their battle stations.
“Yes?” I respond, my eyes never leaving the display of death.
“Should... we engage? The wing stands ready.”
He is a fool. Handsome, yes, but still an idiot. How earnest he was! How confused he is now, that I do not give him the words he longs for. And how stupid he is, for wanting them.
I stand at the fore, right where the deck ends, my cloak billowing in the wild air. Underneath my hooves, the ship thrums in readiness. She yearns to leap into the fray.
“Captain,” I begin softly, and turn towards him.
He’s standing stock still, his teeth clenched in nervousness. He doesn’t understand—no, no I see now in how he looks over me frantically, he does understand. He simply refuses to accept. Before I ever open my mouth he has already rejected it. Good for him. He reminds me of Rainbow, in a way. Another bold pegasus with frantic eyes looking for adventure. Another silly pegasus who won’t understand.
“If you could, would you join me?”
He walks dumbly over to the prow. His wings brush against me, even though they’re folded against his sides. He tries not to stare at me.
“Do you know what my Element is, Captain?”
Far ahead, the Griffon fleet begins to gain ground. Even I can see it, how they begin to eat the smaller Equestrian force alive like some fearsome nameless thing. It reminds me of my adventure in the West. With Rainbow.
My necklace, bearing the little element, jingles against me. It hums.
“Generosity, Lady Belle.”
“You’re right,” I purr at him. I’m sure none of his crew can hear us.
The Element flashes to light—that will be Twilight, assuming the best. Assuming that I’m simply unsure, telling me that now is the time. I can hear her faintly. I can hear Rainbow.
“What is Generosity?” I ask him, looking away as another Equestrian frigate’s engines become a bright, beautiful display of pyrotechnics.
“I... giving ponies things?”
No, you idiot. Well, close. “Not quite. Close, Captain. I used to say, sometimes, that generosity and loyalty were similar. Generosity militant was loyalty, or some sort of silliness. I was in love, you know.”
Of course the idiot doesn’t say a word. Blind, blind, blind. It must be a pegasus trait.
Rainbow’s voice hums out of the Element of Generosity, and only I hear it. She doesn’t know.
I don’t know why I even thought about their reactions. Any reactions they have will be short lived.
“Love. But do you know what generosity really is, Captain?”
“Love? I don’t know,” he answers, and I think he’s finally realized that I’m not going to give the order to charge to their rescue.
Twilight is frantic. The necklace lights up like an animal dying in a corner, and my words are like spears that prod it back. The light flickers. Rainbow, I think, is starting to realize what my refusal to respond means. I can feel her, through the link the Elements give us.
Another ship explodes. I honestly don’t care whom it belongs to.
“Generosity, my dear captain, is all about Sacrifice. Imagine, if you will, a glass of wine. Fine wine, red wine. And you pour it, as wine was meant to be poured, as it was intended from the very beginning to be poured. What happens, pray tell me, when you pour too much out of it?”
“It’s.... empty?”
I laugh at him. It is decidedly unladylike, but I am beginning to not care. I turn and begin walking back towards navigation. “Yes, it eventually empties. When each drop is more valuable, you should use them sparingly. When you pluck a flowers petals off, you gain a treasure, but what remains changes.”
Rainbow knows. I suddenly see her ship afire where before there was my own. It’s strange, as if I view it through a film of water, and I continue on. A pony besides me falls to a Griffon weapon. Rainbow ducks as a salvo of small arms fire rakes over the deck of her proud cruiser. She flares her wings out, ready to abandon the doomed vessel.
She looks at me, and she knows I look back. I stand quietly.
She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t plead with me; I suspect she might try, if she could spare the time, but I will never know. Instead, she looks down at her own brightly shining element and then back to me, staring hard at what must be empty space.
I feel the soft silk of our bed, the taste of her kiss, and the feel of feathers.
“It won’t work,” I tell her, though she can’t hear my words. The feelings fade, as does the vision. I remain rooted to the deck.
“Turn the wing around, Captain. Set course for Canterlot.”
“Milady—!”
I turn around and push him up against the wall with a burst of magic. My aim is good—adventure and danger has honed my martial prowess with my own magic—and he simply stumbles. It does not injure him.
“Turn the ship. Now. Captain?”
“I... yes, milady.”
He issues strangled orders and disappears both from my sight and my thoughts.
I gaze down at my Element as the crystal’s light dies slowly. Somewhere Twilight is still trying. Perhaps she still thinks something is wrong, that I’m trying to come and can’t. That aid will rise up from beneath the cloud cover and pluck her from danger like Celestia might.
“I’m all used up. The vintage is all gone, no more.”
I continue my walk, my final walk. Somewhere, my friends are dying. I’m sorry about that. With my magic, I unhook the necklace. The ponies on deck look on me with horror, but I no longer care for what they think. Victory is impossible now.
The Griffons will be appeased. And I’ll not sacrifice again.
Author's Note
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