//------------------------------// // Last Stand // Story: That Which was Lost // by LadyRFC //------------------------------// “How long can we have them mingle out there?” Rarity asked in a hoarse voice, calling towards the changling running ahead of her. Their hooves echoed loudly in the caves, bouncing off the dark, wet rocks and slicing through the ink colored air. “As long as we can!” Sally called back, pulling her head down to allow for greater speed. More than once she had wished in her life that she could produce magic herself. When her mother has caring for her ailing father who slowly died of infection. When the children began to die of hunger in the wilderness before they reached Canterlot. She clinched her teeth and pulled even further ahead of the unicorn following her. She didn't want to see what she had to see, and yet she couldn't bare waiting any longer. The explosion of bright, dangerous red in the sky had said all to her. “Sally! Wait!” The wind in the caves was so cold against her tight skin. She breathed heavily as she pulled out of the light Rarity cast from her horn, plunging herself into the darkness ahead, eyes refocusing, shifting the world from a crisp picture, to the hazy fog of changling night vision. Deep blues and stone gray becoming a ghastly pale green, wavy and blurred. Or perhaps that was from the tears. “I can't do this.” Sally didn't want to hear those words again. She didn't want to wait and watch her friends die. She didn't want to fight either. All she wanted was to see those around her live. She wanted was to never again see that look on her queen's face. To hear her queen's voice shake. “Sally.” “Discord is fine!” she screamed into the caves, unsure if she was calling back towards Rarity out of the darkness or trying to keep herself from falling into memory. Into madness. “Sally. She won't move. I've tried to wake her up. She won't wake up, Sally.” “He's not dead,” Sally screamed out, finally seeing a blur of bright green up ahead. The back of the caves. “I can't do this, Sally. I can't watch more die. I can't.” “Discord!” Sally broke into the twilight of the evening, the first stars glinting overhead, the crescent moon on the rise, her eyes readjusting. The ground was torn, ripped and ragged. Rocks were strewn all over the small field and large vines tangled and chocked the passage towards the forest beyond. Many held ponies, unicorns drenched in sweat from constant magic casting, eyes glaring at the gasping creature in the middle of it all. Discord stood, or barely stood, hands outstretched, back hunched, head tilted down, his eyes blood shot and his knees shaking. Beside him, struggling to stand, were a handful of changlings, many from what was left of the Swarm guards. One didn't even move. Sally rushed over, nosing each changling in turn, using the empathy within her to instinctively know where the most pain coiled inside them. She only relaxed slightly when she found the still changling to only be unconscious. She looked up at Discord. The draconiquus managed to look over and give her a shaky grin, but soon his head snapped forward as one of the unicorns managed to rip a vine in two and make for the caves. He snapped a finger in her direction and soon her legs were caught by an up-shooting root and her horn covered by a tight hat. “I'm afraid even I can't keep up such things forever,” he admitted, turning back to Sally. He tried another small smile. “Shields and such were never my strong point anyway, you know. I'm rather out of my element here.” Rarity finally came out of the caves, her mane wild, legs strained from the run and gasping in the cold evening air. She eyes fluttered over them all and fixed on the unicorns just as two move broke free of Discord's power. With a strange scream of rage, her horn glowed a deep purple and the ripped vines on the ground shot towards the free unicorns and once more embraced them, whole and unbroken. She opened her eyes again and ran towards Discord. “We can retreat back into the caves. They'll have only a small entrance. It will be easier to defend.” Sally stared, surprised at the level of command in her new friend’s voice. But she could not help speaking against her. “We can't,” she blurted, “the youngest of our hive are in the inner caves. If we lead them any closer and fight within, it might trigger a cave in. We can't risk that. We must fight them here.” Rarity's face showed a struggle, but she didn't argue. She looked towards the wiggling unicorn magicians from the empire. “Have we tried talking them down?” Discord sniffed, his arms wavering in the air from exhaustion. “Be my guest. But they don't seem to want to talk.” Rarity walked in front of the draconiquus and stood as tall as she could. Taking a breath, she rose her voice to be clearly heard. “We have the blessing and leadership of Princess Lily and Princess Twilight Sparkle of the Equestrian kingdom. Why do you wish to war with your own and Equestria?” The unicorns did not answer, but they did grow very still. For some time there was quiet. No more sounds of struggling. Then it came to their ears. A loud sound, marching through the forest behind them. The sound of many hooves, iron clad. “Sally,” the changling on her left nuzzled the healer. “Run. Please. Take the hachlings. Fly.” She looked down into the eyes of her brotheren. She saw her queen's eyes reflected there. Her queen's defeated eyes. “I,” she blinked rapidly, refusing to cry, “I can't.” He looked off into the forest, the noise near deafening levels now, Discord falling to his knees. “What should we do?” he asked, his voice blending into her memories, fading into the queen's quivering voice. “Sally, what should I do?” The first earth pony, clad in silver armor, broke the line of trees. The first of many. “Fight,” she whispered, her battle lost, water dripping from her chin towards the dirt. “I'm so tired, Sally.” Sally swallowed the salt of her tears. “I know,” she answered, the line of soldiers now rushing towards them, Discord's hold on the unicorns breaking as he dropped towards the ground, Rarity screaming out, her horn glowing. “But we can't sleep. It isn't our fate. It can't be our fate. Not yet.” Sally opened up her small wings. “Not yet,”