Outside of Appleloosa, there had once been a lucrative mine. Long ago, this mine had passed from usefulness into uselessness as its wealth became harder and harder to dig out. Now, it served as the occasional burrow, a den for monsters, or, as of just a few weeks ago, a hideout for diamond dogs who had given themselves over to the forbidden delights of banditry.
It was this very same mine that Braeburn approached, moving from cover, going from tree to tree, stone to stone, traversing along the unseen routes that only earth ponies seemed to know. Just behind him was his lifelong friend and fellow law enforcement officer, Silverstar. The pair of them were fearful of what they might find—what they might encounter—but they were obligated to do their job. A wagon and a cask of lamp oil had been stolen and now, the inevitable conflict with the diamond dogs seemed unavoidable. The situation had come to a head and now confrontation was the only option.
Braeburn was not prepared for what he found though. Rather than an armed party of raiders, something else awaited at the entrance to the mine, something unexpected, something dreadful.
There was smoke, lots of smoke… and bodies.
“What the fronk happened here?” Braeburn asked in a drawn out voice of disbelief. Hearing a whimper from Sheriff Silverstar, Braeburn halted his advance to look over at his friend and boon associate. “You gonna be okay?”
“Naw, Braeburn. I’m gonna be sick,” Silverstar replied, his mustache quivering from the way his upper lip trembled.
Undaunted, Braeburn pressed ahead, determined to have a look. A crude fence had been constructed, no, not a fence, a row of sharpened wooden stakes had been erected, and on top of each stake was a severed head. A wooden box lid had been left behind as a crude sign, and it bore the words, ‘Blak Hund!’
Just as Braeburn was about to say something, Silverstar blew chunks. There were bodies, so many bodies, so many headless bodies of diamond dogs. Fighting back his rising gorge, Braeburn forced himself to take in the gristly sight of the massacre, hoping to figure out what had happened. Something had happened. Smoke—greasy and filled with ash—still poured out of the entrance to the mine, it curled upwards into the sky, forming a visible black column.
Cringing, the brave pony approached one of the bodies, and found it almost unbearable to look upon. This particular body had been almost cloven in twain, sliced from shoulder to groin. From the looks of it, only the tip of the blade had struck home, creating a fleshy, pulpy canyon running the length of the torso, somehow leaving the spine unsevered, but spilling forth all of the glistening innards. The mangled corpse was missing something important: its head.
Limbs were scattered about like fallen tree branches after a major storm. Bodies lay in a pile. Pools of blood had scabbed over and had attracted flies. Unable to stop himself, Braeburn too, lost his breakfast, and something about the sight of this left him feeling older somehow, as if some part of him had been lost forever, some part of his youth.
Wiping his mouth with his foreleg, Braeburn tried to focus on the task at hoof. These diamond dogs had been nothing but trouble since their arrival, and a dispatch had been sent to Princess Celestia not long ago. Now, the requested soldiers were not needed. Another dispatch would need to be sent to Princess Celestia, informing her that something worse was now in the area.
What could have done this? He almost didn’t want to know, fearing the knowledge would be far too terrible to bear. A pony had to grow old, and some things… some things stayed with a pony, like an unwelcomed guest who never left.
“Braeburn, have a look at this,” Silverstar said, calling for his friend to come and have himself a gander.
“A look at what,” Braeburn replied, doubting if he wanted a closer look.
“These bodies.” Silverstar gestured around and began pointing with his hoof at various corpses. “All males. No bitches, no pups.” The sheriff gagged and for a moment, it appeared as though he would spew again. Eyes bulging, stomach gurgling, he fought quite a battle to hold himself together. “I can see what happened here, Braeburn.”
“And whassat?”
“That cask of oil was poured into the mine and then set on fire.” Silverstar closed his eyes, sucked in some much needed wind, and then continued while he fought back the urge to heave. “Whatever did this, they smoked these dogs out. When they came out of the mine, they were ambushed. Blinded, choking on smoke, they came out and got torn to pieces by whatever did this.”
Braeburn couldn’t disagree.
“There has to be thirty or more males here… what could’ve done this, I wonder?” Silverstar shook his head and his bile-soaked mustache sagged.
“The Black Hound, whatever that is.” Braeburn pointed at the makeshift sign.
“Can you see the hatred, Brae?” Silverstar asked, and without looking, he pointed at a corpse that lay sprawled in the bloody mud. “This one was skewered right through the groin. One of his legs is gone and his head has been hacked off. This ain’t regular killing, Braeburn.”
“Naw, I suppose it ain’t.” Braeburn gagged, coughed, and then covered his nose with a foreleg in a futile attempt to keep the smell out. He looked around, his eyes never lingering on one body for too long, and noted that what Silverstar had said was true. No pups, no bitches. Not a one.
The sun was already merciless and as it rose over the ridge, it gained strength. It was the sort of heat that bored through a hat and Braeburn could feel the sun trying to penetrate his brain. This had been done in one night—one horrible night of violence had caused this. Try as he might, Braeburn could not envision what sort of monster had perpetrated this slaughter.
When he looked away, he saw wagon tracks and moved over to investigate. The tracks lead away from the direction of town, and a great many paw prints could be seen in the dirt. “Hey, hey Silver, I think I done found the bitches and the pups! They went thisaway!”
“That don’t make no sense, Brae.” Silverstar stood in place, shaking his head from side to side. “Why? Why kill all these diamond dogs, but spare the bitches and the pups? Why allow them to get away with a wagon and presumably, anything they dug out of the mine?”
“This was an ambush, and a damn good one.” Braeburn gazed off in the direction of the wagon tracks and the multitude of pawprints. The wagon they had come looking for was gone and the source of the smoke had been investigated. The earth pony felt a keen sense of sadness welling up inside of him, though he could not say why. He had himself an intense dislike of diamond dogs, and pretty much anything that was a danger to ponies.
“Brae, we can’t let the town see this, there’ll be a panic and you know what happens when a bunch of stupid ninnies work themselves into a panic—”
“I know, Silverstar, I know… what do we do with these bodies? These heads?” Braeburn felt his gorge rising and his sides began to heave once more. “I ain’t never seen this much blood in my life. The ground is soggy with it! The trees are painted with it! I wouldn’t even know where to begin to clean this up!”
“Braeburn, we have an obligation to protect these ponies,” Silverstar said to his longtime friend. “It falls on us to pull ourselves together and somehow get this tidied up. Hopefully, whatever did this has moved on. Maybe it took the bitches and pups as its own and then went off into them there hills. I ain’t gonna go looking, and you ain’t either. We have ponies to protect.”
“Yeah, yer right, Silver. But how is we gonna clean this up?”
“I dunno, Brae, I dunno…”
A faint murmur of wordless worry escaped from Princess Celestia’s lips, revealing her current emotional state. Raven, hearing this sound, ceased what she had been doing, turned about, and focused upon her monarch, her eyes glimmering with concern. Seeing her most trusted assistant’s intense focus only somehow further upset the white alicorn, and she slumped over, succumbing to her own anxiety.
“Tea, now!” Raven’s barked command caused the lone junior-assistant present to go running off, lickity-split. The little unicorn mare, so tiny compared to her monarch, tossed down a stack of folders upon the nearby table, and then marched up to her princess’ side, ready to be of service. “What troubles you?” she asked, speaking more as a friend and less as an assistant.
“I fear the past has come back to haunt me, as the past is prone to do,” Princess Celestia replied. She heaved a heavy sigh, her wings flapped once against her sides, and she shook her head, a regal motion that made the muscles in her neck ripple like a flag in the wind.
Ears perked, eyes focused, Raven awaited whatever was to be said next.
“All these reports, Raven… so troubling. Especially the one from the sheriff’s department in Appleloosa. These reports follow a pattern, and when one examines the pattern, a line of carnage forms. A den of eye tyrants destroyed. The Wardens confirmed it. A local troll seems to have gone missing. A pony named Longhaul was rescued on the road by a diamond dog with a blazing green sword… yes Raven. My past has come back to haunt me.”
“Celestia?” Raven moved even closer, then halted when the white alicorn turned away.
“I had a friend once,” Princess Celestia began while she closed her eyes. “He wasn’t much of a friend, but he needed a friend so badly. There was once a draconequus named Limey, and he wasn’t like the others. He was small, weak, and almost powerless. He really wasn’t malicious, not like the others, but he was annoying. You see, he narrated. That was his magic, that is what he did. He had a way of getting inside of your head and narrating every mundane thing you did. I found it rather amusing…”
Her words trailed off and a pained expression crossed her face.
“The others of my kind, they abused him. They were cruel. They studied him and experimented on him and they justified this by saying that they needed to understand the enemy better. Limey was too weak and pathetic to be anything but annoying at best. He was no real threat. I tried to be his friend, and for this, I got in trouble. The elders found this behaviour alarming. I reached out to him with kindness, and I was punished. I tried to be generous, and I was punished. I suffered for possessing these traits, and that made them meaningful… I wonder…”
Again, her words trailed off, and she appeared to be lost in thought, or perhaps lost in the past.
“Limey was my friend, though he wasn’t much of a friend. But I tried. Morally, ethically, that made me better than my elders. They were cold, distant, too focused on just winning, not caring about what they cast aside for the sake of victory. Limey… the draconequus threat… the draconequus menace… I knew that this war couldn’t go on forever and that we might have to live with them someday. Cold callousness… heartlessness… it held a real danger to the future, and I was forming plans for the future even then.”
“Of course,” Raven said, almost whispering the words.
“Limey was awful to Luna and gave her fits, but truth be told, I was awful to Luna too. I think Limey was just going along with me, following my lead when I teased her and did what sisters do.” Celestia’s eyelids fluttered open, revealing two eyes that were as rosy as the dawn, and blazed with an inner fire no less intense. “One day, Limey had an idea. He had a brilliant idea to become a hero, to help with the war efforts. The little sneaker had stolen a spellbook from the enemy draconequus enclave and it was filled with the most wondrous magic. You must understand, Raven… I excelled at magic even then.”
The little unicorn mare nodded in acknowledgment, and waited for the princess to keep speaking.
“Limey wasn’t strong like the rest of his kind, but he had a potent spirit. His spirit held remarkable strength. It was his idea to become a sword, a spirit bound weapon. Being spirit bound would make him almost impossible to destroy as a sword, as a weapon. Of course, being young and headstrong, I eagerly engaged in forbidden magic, and we went to work. The magic was difficult, consuming, and dangerous. It was an odd fusion of magic, a new kind of magic, a fusion of harmonious matrices and chaotic variables. Somehow, I managed.”
Almost holding her breath, Raven waited for more of the story to come forth.
“I was in the middle of the most difficult part when I was discovered. When we were discovered. The elders came in and disrupted everything at the worst possible moment. Things began to go wrong… the magic began to spiral out of control. It wasn’t my fault.” Weepy eyed, Celestia blinked a few times before she could continue. “It wasn’t my fault… if they would have just let me complete what I had started, we would have had a powerful weapon for the war…
“But the elders, thinking they knew best, they began trying to undo the work that I had done, and even when I told them to stop, they didn’t listen. As they began trying to unravel the magics, Limey defended himself. He… I would very much like to believe it was an accident… he struck one of the elders. The blow opened up her throat. I couldn’t let all of my hard work be destroyed, and I couldn’t let them destroy my friend’s chance to be a hero.
“His power to self wield was stripped away or damaged, I don’t know. He cried, begged, and pleaded to be left alone, saying that he didn’t want to be a weakling draconequus again. The elders were heartless and they ripped him apart… all my hard work. Before he could be undone completely, I banished him with a powerful spell, and sent him away, I sent him out of reach of my elders. It was all I could do to save him. It was all I could do to save my friend. I sent him away and hoped that enough of him survived.”
“That’s awful.” Raven, her head now downcast, stared at the floor with misty eyes. “I’m sorry that you lost your friend.”
“I was punished, of course. No end of punishment awaited me, and all of it was more severe than you could ever imagine.” All emotion drained away from Celestia’s voice, and it became a dull deadpan, devoid of feeling. “I was punished later, too. Limey became a terrible weapon, a blade of absolute chaos. Those who held him were almost unstoppable. Limey is unbelievably dangerous, as far as weapons go, and even now, he rampages once more, and I am responsible.”
“What is to be done?” Raven asked while she lifted her head. A worried expression took over her face, and her eyes narrowed with concern. “How do we stop this?”
“Magic will not suffice,” Princess Celestia replied. “Limey makes his wielder incredibly magic resistant. Sending an army to stop him will only make him more powerful and I do not wish to hurt Shēdo. From my observations, she is a sweet creature, if somewhat troubled. She is confused, she is hurt, and she is lashing out. She is a puppy left in pain. It would grieve me to have to put her down.”
“Surely there is some plan to end this before it becomes a crisis.” Raven’s ears pricked and her hooves clicked against the tile floor as she began to prance in place, nervous and agitated.
Leaning forward, her face an alabaster mask that held no warmth, Princess Celestia shook her head from side to side. “This is not something that can be solved with violence. I do not wish my old friend harmed. If possible, I would like to try to heal him, if I can.”
“Will you go after him yourself?” Raven asked, looking quite surprised.
“No, Raven.” Eyes narrowing, Princess Celestia’s burning gaze focused on the tiny white mare before her. “Dispatch my agents and tell them to find the diamond dog known as Hachikō. I would hate for him to be cut down, but I trust in his reason and his gentle nature. He is filled with a powerful sense of goodness, and he is wise. Perhaps he can dissuade Shēdo from her rampage and can make her turn away from the path she has chosen. Perhaps he can pull her from the darkness she has entered.”
“This feels risky—”
“It is risky!” Princess Celestia’s voice was almost a thunderclap in the confines of the small room. “If Hachikō fails with diplomacy, his honour will no doubt cause him to draw his sword. If that happens… the outcome is uncertain.”
“I understand.” Raven bowed her head. “I will do this at once.”
“Oh, Raven…”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For listening to me while I poured out my heart.”
“Think nothing of it.”
“But I constantly think of it… of everything… that you do.”
“What are friends for?” Raven asked while she began to turn about. “I will dispatch your best field agents at once and I will keep you informed of any developments as they happen.”
Sighing, Princess Celestia slumped over a bit more, relaxing. “Indeed… what are friends for…”