//------------------------------// // The Tales of Canterlot Chapter II "The weeping foal" // Story: Dishonored: Revenge is magic // by Inspector Gadget //------------------------------// Once their was a young filly who knew only fear and loneliness. She lived off scavenging in the still-smoking rubble of a once great city. She didn’t remember it back then though. At the time, she was just a foal. She lost her parents during the siege. The only thing she could  remember is the face of her mother and her soft, calming voice. She remembered how she could put one to sleep with her lullabies, no matter how sad or scared they were. The memory was the only light she had left in her world. But that was all it was. A memory. She had heard stories of the city before. It was the capital of Equestria and the centre of the world economy and science. A golden age where everyone was happy. A time where the princesses were kind and helped those few who needed it. And every day it still grew better and better... Until the war started. But it was nothing to her. They were just stories. Economy, science, war, kindness. She had heard the words, but she didn’t know what they meant. Even a name like Equestria had no meaning to her. Fancy words that only the princesses would use, princesses she barely knew anything about. She would mostly go down to the river. It was the place where it was easiest to find food like mushrooms and grass. Water was hardly a problem as you could imagine. From the river, she had a good view of the castle. She always tried to imagine it without the many destroyed walls and roofs and with whole windows. She tried to imagine the destroyed towers that laid as rubble at the root of the mountain, as if they still towered high up in the air, overlooking the city. It never succeeded for her though, no matter how hard she tried. Too bad. If they were whole, someone up their might see her and help her, but that was a hope she had abandoned long ago. The only problem with living by the river is that it was crowded. Most buildings were taken by other homeless. Because of the scarce food and shelter, they would push her away so they wouldn’t have to share. During the night, she retreated deeper into the city where there were more abandoned buildings. Here it was easier to find shelter for the night. She couldn’t find much wood in a city, built up mostly by stone, and she was too weak to smash the few gemstones she could find. Heat in the night was a luxury. Even by the river it was still hard to find food. Sometimes she would find money or other valuables in the rubble. She mostly used it to buy food from other scavengers. Most of the time she didn’t have money though and finding food was not easy. Most of the time she starved. The only alternative was to steal from the others, but she preferred to starve instead. She was not good at sneaking, and most of the time she got caught. If she was lucky, she would be kicked away and gotten a warning not to come back. If she was lucky. Adults could be cruel. They showed no sympathy for the starving kids here. But those who she really feared were the other children. Mostly the griffons would pick on her and take the few things she had gathered. Often she would be beaten up by them for their own wicked enjoyment. If she was lucky they would throw a few scraps at her for doing insane stunts that could get her killed. It’s a surprise she survived for that long. She could also do other things like dance for them, fight them (or rather let herself get beaten up by them), or she could give... other kinds of enjoyment. But most of the time she avoided them, hiding in the alleyways away from the other kids. Here she could find comfort among her only friend, a small white rat that would follow her wherever she went. Many others would consider it a pet, but for her it was the closest thing she had to a true friend. Someone she didn’t fear, who never laughed at her, and loved her for what she was. It was the only reminder that she wasn’t alone. But that was soon to change. One night after a brutal brawl she had with an older griffon, she escaped into an alleyway she hadn’t seen before. At the moment, she was only happy to see that her small companion had joined her, but her attention soon moved over to something else. By the walls of the alley were many dimly lit fires, and before she could even question it, they suddenly flared, bathing the whole place in a bright purple light. Her gaze focused on a shrine at the end of the alley. It covered the wall with banners of the same colours as the fires. In the middle was a large dark crystal, bigger than any she had seen before, that hovered in the air in front of her. Although it didn’t glow, it radiated a comfortable heat. She could feel the magic flowing through the air, channeling from the shrine to her. That was when she realised she wasn’t alone. She turned around to see what came to be the greatest view in her life. She saw a great, white fire that was almost blinding, but she never moved her eyes away from it. In the middle of the fire she saw a pony. It had the normal proportion of an average earth pony, but she couldn’t tell if it was a mare or a stallion. What puzzled her even more was that it stood there, completely calm as if it hadn’t noticed the fire around. The pony’s mane and tail stood ablaze, like the fire, and its fur was completely black. It was the darkest thing she had ever seen, so dark that it just looked like a walking shadow. But the most intriguing part about it was the eyes. The eyes were black but reflected the alley around like the crystal in the shrine behind her. She could see her own reflection staring back at her, but it wasn’t herself she saw. The reflection’s eyes were dead. So very dead. She was sure. What looked at her was death. She was horrified by the scene in front of her. She only wished to escape. She wanted to go back to some crumbling building. Back to one of the griffon children. Anything that would get her away from it. She couldn’t hold back the fear anymore. She cried She cried so much that she almost didn’t notice the itch on her flank. When she looked up again the pony was gone, as well as the shrine. Everything was back to normal. When she felt the itch, she looked down at her flank which now bore a mark. A mark she had never seen before or knew the meaning of. She could feel the energy surging through her body with the mark as a conduit. She could control the flow of the magic with a remarkable ease. She felt more powerful than she could ever have imagined. For the first time, she could remember not feeling fear. Instead she felt another feeling, a more powerful feeling. She could feel it pulsate through her body with every heartbeat. She felt anger, hate, revenge. And she had to bring it out on someone. She began to seek out her tormentors, and she found them. Eating her food in a nearby alleyway. And now she stood in front of them, facing them. And she didn’t fear them. She only hated them. She wanted nothing but revenge. She concentrated all of that hate through her mark. She felt the magic flow around her, and it was fuelled by her anger. The other kids felt it. Everything got darker, and time seemed to slow down. They could see it in her eyes. That look she gave them. It tore through their eyes and ripped apart their souls. She could feel their fear which only made her stronger. She could see how horrified they were, but that was nothing compared to what they were about to experience. Rats. They were everywhere. They stormed through every alley, every window, every crack in the ground, their eyes fixed on one thing. The kids were standing terrified by the sight of thousands of hungry eyes all directed at them. The rats didn’t spare a second to eat their meal. The kids were hopeless. Their skin was being ripped of. The rats were digging through their muscles while they were still alive, and the filly never looked away from them. She saw the blood streaming out of their skinless bodies, still trying to fight of the rats. She heard their screams of agony. She could feel their pain. And she enjoyed it. Everyone who had ever stood in her way, everyone who had beaten or used her, they all died, slowly and painfully. She had never been so satisfied in her life. The anger, the hatred, the revenge had eaten her up her soul. She had become oblivious to her actions, and that let to her demise. A gift can be taken away as easily as it’s given. All it needed was one rat. All it took was a single bite. She could feel the bite mark through her flank. Out of all the pain she had survived through her life, none of it exceeded this. She could feel the poison spreading through her body until it came to her eyes. The pain made her weep, but not the tears she was used to. They were tears of pure blood. She ran as fast as her pained legs allowed her. When she reached the alley, she barely dragged herself to the shrine where she first met the pony. She wanted to see the pony one last time, the one that gave her this amazing gift. She wanted to thank him, because she now knew what it felt like not to be afraid. She could sleep now. She finally knew peace.