‘Clear right.’
‘Clear left.’
A hole, the world was a hole, a dark bottomless pit into which the sun’s rays never shone, their warming tendrils never able to pierce such depths. In fact no light whatsoever could ever penetrate this deep, all its hopes being dashed at the place’s faraway threshold, cowering back in the face of its maw like portal. Were it not for the scant pinpricks (punctured by a few silvery glows) all would have been consumed in inky blackness there in the entrails of the world, and even in their presence all that were discernible were the rough faces of rocky walls. These glistened, their various muddy shades of brown and foreboding grey in stratified stripes given a slimy sheen by dirty running groundwater. Beyond these meagre featureless points of reference there was nothingness, everything dissolving into absolute oily shadow in only a few short steps, like a seamless curtain fell to drape every corridor.
The wholly inadequate illumination was nonetheless made to seem to burn bright against its surroundings, defiantly standing tall in opposition to the insurmountable darkness, glowing from the crystalline spear points of several lowered halberds. The axe blades at the heads of these readied weapons gleamed menacingly with reflected light, making them somehow seem all the sharper, mimicked further all along their shafts in their studding of reinforcing bolts. Each of these vicious polearms ended in a sconce, securing them to the sides of their owners, allowing them free reign to strike, slash or lunge. These were in turn fitted to the cuirass of their armoured suits, an adamantine bulwark to any assault. The immense intricacies of their enmeshing plates (perfectly articulated to mirror every joint in its movement) were however disguised, mostly hidden under the dark navy of sweeping tunics, further broken up by a criss-crossing of swirling cloudlike camouflage. The only feature that therefore stood out on each of them was a single uniting azure eye, placed centrally on their chestplates as their single obvious insignia, formed like the tips of their weapons from shined crystal.
‘Eyes front.’
‘Transitioning.’
‘Still clear, you’re covered.’
They were but four, though they had been more, a tiny number in the vastness of the web they found themselves in, growing ever in its scale and complexity the further they proceeded from the now distant entrance. Together they were much of a muchness, only differentiated from one another in the lengths of their dark blue plumage adorning their helms, angular with decorative fins and extended cheek guards. All that made them unique was lost under the covers of their shells. Equal to their uniforms their movements were as one, in sync and in pairs as they checked each corner, crack and crevice in their methodical path.
‘We’ve got another junction ahead.’ It was a mare’s voice that spoke (although there was nothing immediate in her form to identify her gender) as she gestured in front of her down the tunnel with a granite grey membranous wing, an alien bat like appendage matched in her compatriots. Much closer inspection would have been required to sense any other element of her individuality, like the also dark grey fur of her face or the crimson irises of her bloody eyes, their feline pupils like that of the badge at her breast.
‘Okay, again we’ll separate and scout both’ the most greatly plumed of their number, a gruff stallion, answered definitively.
‘With due respect sir, are you sure that’s the best plan, I mean we’re already well dispersed as it is.’
He sighed with an air of exasperation at the doubter who had made the initial report before responding. ‘Silhouette, for the last time I will not accept any further questioning of my orders from you. If you want command then you should apply for it rather than always sidestepping in avoidance, otherwise you should stop undermining mine. You do however make a good point, and if you’d let me finish I would’ve added that we should only reconnoitre the way ahead, rather than seek contact, and then should regroup. Understood?’
‘Understood’ the other two of their group answered on cue with affirmative nods.
‘Understood’ Silhouette also confirmed a split second after, adding: ‘apologies sir.’
‘Forgiven, just don’t repeat it’ the stallion replied, gesturing for his second to follow him with the wave of a wing down his selected tunnel and quickly the both of them disappeared, their lights drifting away into nothing.
---
‘You’re seriously lucky it was him and not somepony else you know.’
They had persisted onward for some time now in the endless passageway, trying their best to maintain silence and mostly succeeding, except when their hooves could not help but catch a few loose stones which jutted from the floor. The whispered words were therefore welcomed by Silhouette, who neither shushed nor reprimanded her partner for the breach, but instead (increasingly doubting that they would actually find their quarry) chose to reply. He was no new recruit, but until now they had only known one another in passing. ‘How so?’
‘Oh come off it, you know exactly what I mean’ Silent Storm returned, a night pegasus like her and all their number which had entered the caverns, suited in a coat of deep purple fur beneath his armour. ‘If it were any other officer they’d have straight jumped to blows and then have thrown the book at you later.’
‘True’ the night mare conceded with a flippant shrug, but without adding anything more and therefore unintentionally returning the quiet with added awkwardness.
‘So, why haven’t you put in for advancement then?’ her partner asked, persisting to spark true conversation. ‘I heard you’d done officers’ training right?’
‘Yep.’ She ducked to check a corner, thrusting forward a spear point to light up its depths, monosyllabism more the result of focus than resistance. ‘Did it, completed it, and found it wasn’t for me.’
‘I doubt that.’
‘I did! You can check my file if you want, I finished with decent commendations.’
‘Not that part you tool’ he countered, ‘rather I doubt that it’s not your thing.’
‘Oh… sorry’ Silhouette stumbled over her immediate defensiveness, her helmet disguising her uncharacteristic blush. ‘Well yeah, I do much prefer giving orders than taking them, but the higher you climb the more paper pushing you’ve got to do, so it turns into a slow descent towards being shackled to some desk with your wings clipped. That’s not for me.’
‘Yet you profess to being some kind of “career soldier” through and through’ Storm shook his head. ‘Avoiding advancement and ill at ease with authority; you hardly fit the bill.’
‘It’s not complex: the family’s got a long military history, going back to before the fall, and I like the fast pace. I’m a “potently toxic mix of tradition and adrenaline junky”.’ Silhouette smiled to herself in quoting one of her favourite accolades (although when it had been given it had been no complement). ‘It’s funny though, I’ve been told I don’t fit in on the school run either. Even in the Shades most mums don’t turn up in uniform.’
‘Oh yeah, I heard you had a couple of kids.’
‘And therein lies the other reason I’m happy where I am. Without rank and with this posting it’s just a short flight home, so I get to see them more. There’s nothing better than that, and at the end of the day I’ll gladly take being bossed around and fewer bits for it.’
‘They gonna follow in your hoofsteps then?’
‘Probably not, I don’t know of anypony getting into the Guard without wings, nor do I really want them to. What I am shouldn’t determine their future, particularly ‘cause I’m not the best example to follow anyway. They can do whatever they want, and whatever they eventually set their minds on I’ll give my all to support them in it. How ‘bout you, you got somepony special or family?’
‘Nope, I…’ Storm paused mid-speech, his pointed ears twitching rapidly. ‘Wait, did you hear that?’
Silhouette gestured negatively, following up by raising a hoof to her lips for a return to silence.
In reply her partner gave a single nod and then pointed ahead, picking out a widening in the tunnel not far in front of them but at the edge of their nocturnal vision.
They approached the opening, moving to flank either side of the aperture, each taking a turn in peeking inward. Nothing stirred within and no fresh noise came to their ears, swivelling about to search like their eyes. The nothingness persisted for a moment more (not alien bearing in mind the previous pervasive silence in their passage), their inquisitiveness set on edge, before on automatic first Storm and then his compatriot darted in, spears lowered ahead.
Immediately on both sides the floor fell away, the path becoming a narrow one bordered by a pitch black absence, and the roof likewise took flight, absorbed into the veil of shadows in its place. What they now stood on was an arch or bridge of rough stone, extending over a seemingly bottomless pit, and they gradually stepped out across it, moving carefully with the threatening precipice made very present. The glowing points of their weapons scanned from side to side, passing over and out from the sheer edges, as eventually they reached the platform’s centre, a far off entrance to a fresh tunnel emerging at its end through the gloom.
The purple lead stallion came to a halt, raising a hoof to give Silhouette prior warning at his back. A new sound had appeared: a dripping, slow and regular like a leaky tap, somewhere beyond their vision’s boundaries. They were underground; that there would be flowing water at their considerable depth should not have elicited a second thought, even as it echoed loudly in the unseen caverns’ acoustically perfect recesses. Storm turned to the one that followed him, yellow eyes giving an apologetic look.
They were granted one final step more, passing the archway’s middle point, before they were stopped in their tracks once again, this time by a cacophonous hum which started low and then rumbled up from all sides. ‘Oh buck!’ Silhouette swore violently under her breath as a swarm of green eyes blinked open like poisoned stars in the darkness all around. In a split second the pair of soldiers both snapped a forehoof to their chestplates, thumping their embossed gemstone insignias which instantly lit up, beams bursting forth from their shined faces like spotlights. Caught only momentarily in the enchanted azure rays hovered a hoard of creatures, pony-sized and roughly likewise shaped, but devoid of any other familiar feature by which to continue the comparison. The things were all spikes and chitin, segments of their tinted black shells seeming to glisten as their insectoid wings beat a frantic blur at their sides, emitting a collective angry buzzing. Behind these monstrosities, in the places lit by the furthest reaches of their magical torches, the now revealed walls were not the expected rock of an ancient cave. Instead there was a seething mass of bloated “musculature”, honeycombed in places with weeping spots and translucent green orbs, all pulsing with an unnatural life. The actual source of the dripping noise, the surface’s ichorous excretions, was joined by falling saliva from the swarm’s exposed fangs, a hiss rising from each of its drone like members, looking as snakes about to strike. ‘Run!’
They almost made it, almost, getting tantalisingly close to escape but falling at the threshold, their winged pursuers use of their fluttering appendages granting them far superior speed. Storm had bolted for the furthest exit, unable to turn and retreat back to where they had originally stumbled into the enemy’s nest. Silhouette had likewise tried to remain close behind, but their flight was brief, the pair being cut in two, separated and blocked at both front and back by pairs of snarling drawn maws.
The dark grey night mare required no moment more for appraisal; roaring her reply with all the savagery of her own long fangs as she lashed out, pre-emptively striking her foes. Simultaneously her armour encased hind hooves kicked backward to the audible crack of splintering carapace and jawbone, whilst at the same time she swung her polearm before her in a wide arc, keeping the two creatures at her front at bay. She then made a feint lunge forward with her weapon’s pointed tip, diverting from her supposed target at the last moment, catching the second assailant instead unawares, slamming the halberd’s blade into its neck. Plates of chitin buckled inward under the heavy impact, spraying acid toned green ichor out around the axe head as its victim let out a gurgling mewl and fell back. She again feinted (pretending to aim high when in fact her target was low), thrusting her weapon amongst the remaining adversary’s supporting limbs and then raking it across its lower forelegs, slicing effortlessly through outer shell and into softer musculature beneath. Dragged to its knees the monster’s angry hissing became shrill and pained, but only briefly as she silenced it with a crushing kick across the snout, painting her hoof in more alien coloured blood and sending the thing into freefall off the platform’s edge.
No respite was however gifted her as Silhouette dispatched the last of her opposing quartet, the four creatures being immediately replaced by their kin, now well and truly baying for blood. Thus the brutal melee continued, blow begetting blow and leading to still innumerable others, soon descending to even greater depths of desperate brutality. All facets and features of the world therefore dissolved, subsumed under a tide of focused hate, each new target constituting an all-consuming crashing wave beyond which nothing else could be sensed. Under this red mist she was only marginally, if at all, aware of other sensations, placed at an apex of pure unadulterated adrenaline. For a while her steely armour kept out the worst of what she got, its surface becoming dented and its overlaying fabric of tunic being torn to rags, but nonetheless rebuffing her enemies’ efforts. As if acting as one however the things switched tactics, striking instead at any exposed area, seeking by sheer weight of numbers to overwhelm her defences, whilst their alighted allies dived like battering rams trying to knock her from her hooves. A sea of exoskeletal spikes and carnivorous teeth pressed in on all sides, making the length of her halberd (now drenched in the viscous results of its work) next to useless, leaving her only her own biting fangs and hooves to attempt to hold it back. Realising her inevitable fate in this position she thrashed wildly, throwing open her wings wide and her blind hoof blows in all directions. In a single flap she was airborne, whirling in place to cast down any initial pursuers as she broke into a defensive hover.
Panting breathless, Silhouette found herself granted the briefest of reprieves and she milked it for what it was worth, gulping down all the air that she could swallow. She intermittently spat away globs of iron flavoured crimson, along with noxious greenish chunks which had clumped around her canines. Almost instantaneously the acrid pool returned with a vengeance in her mouth, hinting at some creeping internal injury, possibly from impact trauma but made invisible by her dulled and distracted pain receptors. Her agonies were elsewhere, centred solely in her wings, particularly the left one, where in this pause she became aware of every puncture and tear wrought in their sensitive membranes, making continued flight a defiant struggle. Her body she noticed however was not the only thing left worse for wear, her eyes being drawn to a cracking sound at her chest where a decidedly dented gemstone iris was marred by a web of fissures, its light flickering uncertainly. ‘Bucking brilliant!’ she again cursed, faultlessly summing up the situation.
A guttural yell forced her vision back to the bridge where to one side her half of the swarm was regrouping, but more importantly on the other Storm was being overwhelmed, only just barely visible in amongst a fluid mass of monsters. Under her gaze his weapon was wrenched away from him, tumbling extinguished into the abyss, the state of the other soldier growing increasingly hopeless. It was clear that no further time could be spared, although her frame cried out for far more of a break, she had to act.
All was a blur, acceleration dissolving all solid forms and shapes, every sound lost to the singular roar of rushing air as Silhouette broke from a hovering start into a particularly steep crash dive. She was deaf (unhearing of the splintering at her chest) and she was blind to all but where she aimed, her body becoming a shot straight from a bow. She was however far from dumb, her battle cry sounding long and loud even if it was beyond her hearing. As forebodingly suggested by the flickering of her main light and the unheard protests of its face, the crevasses cut in its surface finally ruptured and with that so too disappeared all the security of its luminescence, Storm’s shattering and going out at the same time. This left only the relatively faint glow of her weapon and the greens of predatory eyes to remain. Her last stolen image as her guide she struck as lightning, halberd plunging clean through up to the hilt in flesh and chitin, as its spear point ploughed into the first of its foes, plunging all into darkness.
---
A cooled yet refreshing wind played across her form, running ripples in her fur as her aching wings brought her to touch down in the main street of what was now her hometown, in contrast to a great many places not much more than an extended hamlet in a forest clearing. The broad gape of a wide yawn forced itself across her face, the night being long since staled and the coming of dawn fast approaching, its first few rays beginning to blossom over the horizon. Every inch of Silhouette felt wearied by its ordeal. From the points of her ears to the tips of her hooves she had nothing more to give, but the faint thoughts of reaching her final goal (ultimately for which she ventured out each dusk) kept her moving, treading the last few steps homeward. Freed from the weight of her armour and uniform she was nonetheless tightly bound, wound up in an expansive length of bandages wrapped about her barrel and left wing, tied by a surgeon who had equally suggested that she refrain from flying for at least a month. This was an order consciously ignored: it was the swiftest way to return to those she cared for.
Whitewashed timber walls and simply thatched rooves flanked the night pegasus’ path in her swift passage through the dying dark, all life in the village winding down as its final waking denizens turned to thoughts of sleep. Silhouette was therefore in the last of the of the evening’s commuters in her return, and like those few of her kin in a similar state her thoughts were on those that awaited her. For the granite grey night mare however this mind set had a focus, caught up in the photo slipped from her helm and secreted in her saddlebags as the mangled headgear went to the armourer’s shop for repairs. It was for the three depicted on the image that she fought each night, the fact that she revelled in the unrelenting momentum of her work in every part an afterthought, pushing back all that prowled in the edges of shadows and which might therefore threaten. It was a cliché to express, but without a doubt it was only for they that she lived, Equestria, duty and oath be damned aside in turn.
Silhouette’s knackered hoofsteps finally brought her before the tall blank surface of a wood panelled doorway.
‘Mummy!’
Pre-empting either any knock or quiet quest for keys in the depths of her detritus laden bags, the door flew open and a small jet black shape (cut with the blur of grey striping) shot outward to meet her, catapulting itself into her hooves. Foregoing initial words all Silhouette could do was return the warm embrace she found herself in, clutching a forehoof to the one wrapped around her neck and nuzzling into the long (also dichotomously striped) strands of the smaller other’s mane. ‘Hello sweetheart, what are you still doing up?’
‘Daddy said that it was alright to wait up for you’ the filly’s voice affirmed, pulling away slightly to pass her electric pink eyes over her mother in a concern filled look. ‘What happened? Are you okay?’
‘I’m alright, it all just looks worse than it is.’
‘Okay.’ Although still obviously unsure her daughter nodded at this, going in for another reassuring cuddle before she jumped away again. ‘I’ve got loads to show you!’ she shouted excitedly, disappearing back into the house, her mother following close behind, ‘so wait right there!’
‘Hey Mum.’
A second half-zebra, slightly older than and tonally the mirrored opposite to his preceding sister (his fur greyed like her stripes whilst being criss-crossed by onyx markings), greeted Silhouette across the threshold. Beyond these first two words however the young stallion faltered, bringing an unsure hoof to brush aside the elongated spikes of hair (also in grey and black) which burst from his head and had fallen across his red nocturnal eyes. There was an angry inferno burning at the back of these bloody orbs, a protective and vengeful fire which she both recognised and understood. ‘I’m really fine’ she reassured, having read his pause with little effort, ‘you should see the other mare. Now, come here.’
She succeeded in coaxing a smile across his face, revealing the fangs of hers which he shared in his maw and he stepped into the offered hug, standing up on the tips of his hind hooves. ‘It’s good to have you home.’
‘It’s good to be home’ she mirrored, hearing the dual noises of the door closing at her back and the clatter of approaching hoofsteps.
‘Mummy Mummy Mummy, look at this!’ The filly returned at a frantic pace, roughly scuffing creases into the carpet as she screeched to a halt, a small ball of turquoise fluff clutched tightly to her. ‘It’s a parasprite, well not a real parasprite otherwise then we’d need to find a trombone, but I made it in class yesterday ‘cause we got to choose between clay and sewing during creative time and I didn’t want to get my hooves all gunky so I chose sewing, and I made a parasprite as their so cute but we can’t keep them as real pets ‘cause they’re pests and all and…’
Silhouette just listened intently, occasionally giving an encouraging nod, as her daughter attempted to set a new world record for longest spoken sentence, the older sibling at the same time turning to grin in watching his sister’s effort. At her side meanwhile she was at first caught off guard as a gentle hoof came to caress her bandaged wing, moving lightly to unfurl the sensitive appendage to its full span. Had it been anypony else they would have in an instant discovered themselves choking on the shattered remnants of their teeth in the dirt. As it stood however she knew the tender touch and rather than spurring violent reprisal she found it soothing, for the first time that evening finding herself unwind, becoming something other than her usual tightly coiled spring.
‘…so anyway, I’ve got to take it back with me next week ‘cause Miss wants me to show it in assembly. I’ll be right back!’ Before any interjection could be attempted the shadowy tornado again whirled out of the room.
In her daughter’s new absence Silhouette was able to turn to her left, meeting a pair of equally brilliant pink irises (although these one’s pupils were a more usual rounded affair) as they looked up from their examination of her injuries.
‘Another rough day at the office?’ her would-be doctor (a predominately pure white zebra save for the ribbons of jet black spiralling about his form) asked, concern combined with a knowing look in his aspect.
‘Something like that’ she confirmed. ‘But I’m fine and you can save your cares, I’ve already been dealt with.’
‘VC, go see if you can grab your sister and tell her it’s definitely bedtime.’ To this the son nodded in departure. ‘Now’ the snow coloured stallion continued, ‘what’s the damage?’
‘Don’t ignore me! I’m really fi…’ Silhouette failed to finish her argument as a set of lips moved to cut her off with a kiss. In easily enforced silence she let a hoof absently run through her love’s hair, following the fin of his mohawked mane (two-toned like his form), tracing down a single separate braided strand which fell to one side of his muzzle.
‘I’ve patched you up many more times than any medic’ her partner persisted as he broke away, ‘so I repeat: what’s the damage?’
She huffed, giving in with little resistance. ‘A couple of tears and holes in the wing, some internal bruising and a similar internal puncture which has been sealed.’
‘Quite the list. Can you still fly?’
‘Yes…’
‘But you were told not to I presume?’ he cut in with a raised eyebrow.
‘Maybe’ Silhouette as good as admitted with a small grin.
He rolled his eyes. ‘Never one to follow orders. I’ll make a couple of poultices and brew something up to speed the healing, then you’ll rest even if I have to tie you down to make it happen. Clear?’
‘Yes sir’ she mock saluted, although unquestioningly she would no doubt obey, moving to draw forth a second kiss from her commander.
‘Mummy?’
‘Yes darling?’ she asked in reply to the youngest of the two returning siblings, the filly wearing a slightly disappointed face, obviously curtailed halfway through finding something else to show.
‘Please could you do bedtime?’
‘Of course. Feel free to choose a story, just not too long, it’s already well past dawn.’
---
‘Chapter eight…’ Silhouette was content as she indulged in narrating a third chapter, having originally set a limit of only one. Sat out on the pillowed fields of her bed there was no other place on Equis that she would rather be, spirit for once calmed exactly where she was. Before her the book from which she read lay open, whilst between the protective walls of her forehooves her daughter had settled herself, yawning but still resisting the pull of sleep. On her right meanwhile her second foal had also surprisingly chosen to join them in listening, ensconcing himself at her side, cuddled up under her good wing. Finally to her left, her partner tended to her battered being. With tenderness to surpass even the most careful of nurses he unwound her bandaged limb as he sought to heal the marring damage cut through its delicate surface, along with any other wounds from the world outside.
Reluctantly each evening she departed from them, although oath bound only really acting or caring for them in her duty, there being nothing worse in existence beyond this separation for her to face. In their presence she was a different pony, truly free and happy, and this marked what they were to her. They were her dearest loves, her most precious charges and greatest of defenders, as securing anchors in both her and her world’s darkest places, they were her purpose.