The Friendship Scrolls

An adventure can only truly begin three ways: by death, by slur, or by letter

“So... let me see if I understand you correctly.”

Imagine, if you will, the most awkward, uncomfortable, stammering, unpleasant conversation you can think of.  Make it, let’s say, ten times worse.  I can practically guarantee it was not nearly as painful as explaining to Celestia’s one remaining Lancer what exactly transpired in that little room in the sewers.

“Princess Celestia just handed you-- an escaped convict-- her tiara.”

“Um... yes.”

“A few seconds before somepony with a magic dagger popped through a secret door.”

“That’s correct.”

“And he then leapt past you, stabbed her with the dagger, and turned her to dust.”

“I’ll go with true?”

“Is that all?"

"Did I mention how she turned to dust?"

He drew his spear.  “I thought so."

He shook with barely contained fury as he approached.  I had nowhere to run.

“The princess trusted me,” I tried desperately.  “doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“And look where that bucking got her!”

I was pressed against the wall at this point, and he stood over me with his spear at my throat.

“I should have insisted... even if the captain didn’t... I could have saved her!”  He stomped his hind legs as he talked, getting even more agitated.  “This is all! Your! Fault!”  He reared back to strike...

And paused.  Perhaps he had one last thing to say before he killed me.  His mouth was twitching.

“Hush now...”

As he fell forward, I saw the dagger in the back of his neck, and the pony standing behind him.

“Quiet now.”

Those were the last words I heard before the guard’s body drove the spear into my wing, and I blacked out.

My wing was bandaged, and a pleasant numbness coursed through my body.  I lay there for a while, staring dreamily up at the night sky, before I realized the little pony in my head had returned with a vengeance.  “Assassin!” she tried.  “Celestia! Lancer! Knife! Oh, Buck!”  I eventually stirred and got to my knees to see a certain swarthy earth pony seated opposite a small fire, his jagged dagger laying on the ground beside him.

“Ah.  You’re awake.”  His voice was even, but he was staring at the ground.

“You killed the Princess.”  He was silent for a moment.

“Yes.  In a manner of speaking, I did.”

“And her guard.  Like it was nothing.”

“He had failed in his duty, and was taking out his frustration and grief on you.  You were a prisoner, obviously with no training, who would have given her life to protect Celestia.  I was intervening to protect an innocent.  It was justified.  That’s the rule.”

“What rule?”

“My rule.”  He finally met my eyes.  “When I kill somepony, they always deserve it, and it’s always worth it.”

“What if it isn’t?”

“Well, then.  I’ve failed.  Haven’t I?”

“You could say that.”  I studied him, his face tilted up to the stars.  He was the darkest shade of black, blending in with the night surrounding us.  His small features betrayed no emotion, and I couldn’t even see his cutie mark beneath his cloak.

“Why did you kill Princess Celestia?” He sighed.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“I think I’ve learned something today about the value of giving insane stories the benefit of the doubt.  And I have to say, this isn’t anything like I expected.  Try me.”  It took him a few seconds to collect his thoughts, but finally he began.

“I was hired for what I was told would be an expedition into the Mirror Marsh.”  He eyed me carefully.  “It was a ruse.  Obviously.  My employer pulled out some magic piece of rock, and cast a spell on all us new employees, placing us under, well, mind control.”  I raised an eyebrow, but he just shrugged.  “I couldn’t believe it either.  From there, things became a... unique experience.  I was collected with all the other slaves in a sort of hive mind.  I saw what they saw, sometimes.  It seemed random.  I would flash from somepony waiting in a doorway, to another taking her last breath as Celestia’s honor guard ran her through.  Eventually, I came to a body that I recognized as my own.  I was staring at a wall, with a makeshift pulley to raise it, listening to a conversation on the other side.”

“How much did you hear?”

“Enough.  I heard you call her “Princess.” I heard her give you her crown--”

“Oh, buck! What happened to Celestia’s tiara!”  I tried to stand.  Terrible idea.  The vertigo forced me back onto my knees and I closed my eyes, breathing heavily as I fought my stomach back to it’s proper place.

“Whoa, there.  Just relax.  Wings are very difficult to heal, I had to brew an exceptionally powerful potion to even speed the process.”  He tapped his saddlebag with a hoof.  “I put the tiara in my bag.  It’s yours now, and I had to carry both it and you.  Take it.”  He pulled the crown out and trotted over to me, laying it down in front of me.

“Thank you.  I don’t know why, but this was important to Celestia.  More important than anything else.”

“I heard.  You’re taking it to Princess Luna, then?”  We come to it at last.

“I certainly intend to.”  I could never have guessed what I was starting.

“The roads are dangerous, these days.  One unarmed pony is easy pickings.”  Celestia was right, really.  I didn’t want to understand.

“Surely you’re not suggesting...”  It changed everything, forever.

“I’d like to come with you.”

I told him I’d sleep on it.  The truth is, I did very little sleeping.  Some dark, primal corner of my brain was afraid that if I went to sleep I would never wake up again, or find myself spirited away, what little memory I had lost once again.  A more logical part considered that I might already be sleeping.  Most of my mind was simply occupied, sifting through everything that had happened.  To put it mildly, it had been one hell of a day.  I kept going over the events in my head, trying to think of anything I could have done differently, but came up with nothing.  I had been a bystander through everything that happened, and when Celestia actually needed me, I’d let her down.  Or had I?  Everything she said, what she told me... it all pointed to her knowing what was coming.  And that somehow, I had a role to play in, well, whatever was happening.  I may have been a mite clueless, but the murder of a goddess couldn’t be commonplace.  It didn’t take an egghead to realize that something big was happening, and somehow I was involved.  But hey, maybe it would be easy.  Maybe I could just hand the crown over and let the heroes get on with the job.  Speaking of heroes, I turned to face the pony who had saved my life.  When he was awake, he seemed tense, ready to flee or fight at any moment.  He didn’t look much better asleep.  Already, and perhaps despite my better judgement, I found myself trusting him.  Mind control sounded like unbelievably powerful magic, certainly, but it seemed a bare minimum for anyone concocting a plan to kill a goddess.  How else would anyone be crazy enough to try?  To be honest, I had already decided to travel with him.  After all, that was one of the last things Celestia told me... make some friends.

“You just woke up in prison with amnesia.”

“I know, I know.  It sounds like the beginning of a bad adventure story.”

“So, you don’t remember anything?”  I grimaced.

“No...”

“Nothing at all?  Flashbacks to your childhood,maybe?”

“I don’t remember my childhood.  Maybe I never had one.”  my mysterious new friend woke me up at dawn, to start the trek back up the mountain towards Canterlot.  Emerging from the sewers put us squarely at the bottom, but he told me it wouldn't take more than a day to make it back up to the city.  I wondered briefly how the sun kept moving with Celestia gone, but it slipped away from me rather quickly as he showed a genuine but somewhat irritating interest in my backstory.  “Alright, my turn to ask a few questions now,” I said, holding up a hoof to cut him off.  “What’s your name?”

“Oh,” he smiled, a bit sheepishly, “that’s right, I never introduced myself.  Call me Skulduggery.”

“Pleasure,” I replied.  “I’d give you my name, but... well.”  He frowned.

“I thought I heard Celestia call you something, right before I... arrived.  I assumed it was your name.”

I did remember now, the very last thing she’d said... “Derpahkiin.”  I rubbed my head with a wing.  “It doesn’t sound like any name I’ve ever heard of, but It’ll do.”

“I suppose so.  Seems like a bit of a mouthful.”

“Second question,” I continued.  “Who taught you to brew potions?”  He stopped, and I had to turn to face him.  I saw with surprise that his eyes were hard.

“My father.”  He brushed past me.  It seemed our conversation, for the time being, was over.  “There’s just one more thing I wanted to ask you.”  Apparently not.  “Do you know what you look like?”  It was my turn to stop.

“I--no.  I don’t.  There was no mirror or anything like that yesterday.”  I held up a hoof and looked at it.  “I’m... gray.”  He smirked.

“No kidding.”  On the side of the trail there was a small stream and Skulduggery cantered over to it, motioning for me to follow.

“Take a look at yourself.  And while you’re at it, you may want to get out of those rags.  They look, well, dirty.  Not very comfortable either.”  I shrugged, as I hadn’t really noticed.  I pulled them off anyway, and as I did I realized another part of myself that I didn’t know-- a tattoo on my flank.  “Skulduggery,” I burst out, “what’s my cutie mark?”  Skulduggery, his eyes now on my flank, seemed even tenser than usual.

“It... well...”  Now in a bit of a panic, I faced my reflection in the river.  My eyes, however, were immediately drawn to something other than my cutie mark, namely, my eyes.

“What the buck is wrong with my eyes?”

“Well,” Skulduggery said, looking more and more uncomfortable, “I wasn’t going to say anything, but...”  My dull yellow eyes were crossed at the most ridiculous angle.  But... I could see just fine.  I held a hoof in front of my face again, as if having evidence of my apparent visual defect would suddenly make the world tilt.  Then, of course, I remembered why I was staring at myself in a mountain stream in the first place.  I turned so my flank was reflected in the water, where my cutie mark was... where it was supposed to be.  “You see,” Skulduggery said quietly.  “You’re one of them.”  Where it was supposed to be, there was nothing at all.