//------------------------------//
// Chapter 17 
// Story: After Discord 
// by Faindragon 
//------------------------------//

Friends help when they can.
And even after you have parted.
Can they help.
By knowing you.
Knowing your next step.


*^*


Luna illuminated me and the street I trotted down on my way from the castle gardens. A few clouds had started to travel the skies, but nothing that clouded Luna’s grace as it shone down on me from Luna’s eye.

A few guards was out at this late Luna hour, trotting the streets of Trotholm. Each one of them looked nervous, looked as if they wanted to be anywhere else but in the streets at this hour. I did not blame them; they knew a murderer was lose. A murderer they thought of as a shadow. A murderer that was said to kill guards on a whim. 

I could not help but to smile at that, I would not harm any of them if they did not threaten me.  I turned to walk another way to avoid the guard.And even then would I try to run first.
“We would not run.” the voice snickered.”We would kill, we would drink their blood!”

I felt how the rage filled me, boiled my veins. I struggled against it as I stopped in the middle of the turn.
“I will not kill anypony!”
“We want the blood!”
“Get out!”
“The throat is the easiest way. Yes, we will aim for the throat.” the voice laughed.
“I am not going to kill anypony!”
“We are going to kill them all. Make them pay for what have been taken away.”
“GET OUT!” I tried to push away the voice, push it as far down as I could.
“We will never get out. We are you.”

The rage disappeared. 
“We will stay here, as a part of you, until the day you die.”
“GET OUT!”

The voice only laughed.

I looked up, I did not even realize that I had lowered my head during my inner struggle. I saw the cobblestone in front of me being illuminated by Luna’s grace. The houses on both sides of me had no light coming out from the windows, their gardens small islands of green in the grey street. 

And standing on the cobblestone, not more than twenty step in front of me was two guards.
“Kill them.” the voice called. “Kill them and drink their blood.”

I ignored the voice. Had they seen me? Did they know who I was? 

The smaller one, an earth pony judging on the lack of wing and horn, was leaning closer to the bigger one, also an earth pony. As they talked did I look for a way out. I was in the middle of a block, I would easily be able to run back and turn another way. But that would make the guards in front of me raise an alarm. What should I do?
“Kill them!”
“It is not that simple, they are not corrupted! I will not kill them.”
“Let us slaughter them, let us erase them from existence!”
“NO! I will NOT hurt those ponies!”

The two guards had started to trot closer. Would they do that if they thought I was the murderer? Would they just walk towards me? Or did they try to make me feel secure? 
“Kill them!”

I ignored the voice, looked at the guards who made their way closer to me. I realized that they did not know who I was. They was way to relaxed for that.
“Or do they know something we do not?”

They stopped five steps from me, more to give me some space than they fearing me. If they knew who I was would they not stop that close, since I would be able to lounge forward and kill them both in mere seconds.

The smaller one spoke up, revealing the low, humble voice of a mare.
“Good day, or night might be more precise, citizen.” 

The bigger earth pony rolled his eyes, before he spoke, a deep voice emerging from his thick throat. I started to suspect that not even my blades would be able to intersect that neck.
“I want to remind you that it is, as it was stated on the market place earlier this night, forbidden to be outside in the darkness. A murderer is on the lose. It is for your own safety that I must ask you to go home. If needed will we escort you there for your safety.”

My mind worked fast. They did not know who I was, still they had heard the orders about not allow people outside. I was very close to a smile. 
“Ah, sorry sirs, I’m actually on my way home this very moment.”

The bigger guard nodded, the smaller seemed nearly... sad.
“Do you want us to escort you home? The streets are dangerous at night.” the bigger guard said.

“Kill them....”

I ignored the voice.
“No, I will be quite alright. I live at the outer wall, so I guess I will see guards on every street from here to there.”

The mare looked at me, she seemed nearly sad.
“You will not meet a lot of guards out there. They are afraid. Afraid to be the next one to be killed.”

I tried to keep my face calm.
“Why would they not do their duty and protect the citizen? Are you two the only true guards left?”

The big earth pony was the one to answer.
“I do not blame them for being afraid. It is said that this murderer killed ten when he was captured. I do not believe it thought, if he had started to kill anypony would he be dead long before the gallows. He stopped to take a breath. “I know that it is, or have been, twenty guards trotting the streets tonight. Those twenty are the true core of the guards, the ones that is here to protect the citizens and not here for the power that comes with being a guard. Even captain Lightheart, who was stabbed during the murderers escape, is out in the city and protecting the citizens.”

“Kill them.....”

“Then I shall not keep you here any longer, it is better for you to help the rest of the citizens than me, I can take care of myself.” I smiled at the guards. “It feels good to know that we have such guards as you, who trot the streets to keep us citizens safe even in the face of this kind of danger.”
The smaller earth pony looked at me.
“Then we will leave you for your own, citizen. Take it easy and do not put yourself in danger.” 

She smiled at me as they passed me, a pleasant smile. I looked after her. It had been something in those ice cold eyes, in that black coat.

But what?

“Kill her, kill them both.”
“NO!”

I shook the feeling away from me, together with the voice. It was time for me to leave this city. But how?
I started to trot the other way, away from the two guards. I did not look where I went, I knew that I walked in the general direction of the wall and that was all that mattered. 

One moment was I slowly trotting, the next did I lay on the cold cobblestone with Luna’s grace shining down on me.

What had happened? I looked back, and saw the cobblestone that I had stumbled over. I brought a hoof to my head, carefully rubbed the spot where my head had hit the cobblestone. It was then I saw it.

Attached between the metal of one of my blades and my hoof was a piece of paper placed. I gently removed it from where it had been attached and started to read it.

I instantly recognized it.
‘The gates shall be opened for the wearer of this letter, he is on a mission from the captains of the guards. No questions shall be asked and in fact, this letter and the one wearing it shall be forgotten, they have never passed, have never existed. 
Captain Lightheart.’

It was the letter that Captain Lightheart had given me back at the tower.
But how had it gotten here?
Had Lightheart attached it there earlier, before we walked to the gallows?
Did he know what danger he putted himself into by doing this?
Had I been caught... they would directly have realized that he had helped me.

But as it was now, was this my ticket to freedom.