"Grnnngh..."
Seraphimus stirred.
"Mrmmffnngh..."
Seraphimus winced.
The wagon wobbled around her, accompanied by the low buzz of active manastones.
The griffin's beak muscles clenched and unclenched. She tried to sit up—only to feel a wave of dizziness and nausea.
"Grnnnnghhhh... Verlaxionnnn..."
"Yeahhhhhhh..." A feminine voice breathily squeaked. Seraphimus felt an ice-cold cloth being pressed to her feathery crown. "You might wanna lie still. That bump's starting to look like a second beak at this point."
Undoubtedly the soul in question meant to soothe the former Talon Commander with the icy press. To Seraphimus, however, it felt like a wave of hot needles being pressed into her sensitive skin.
"Rrrrgh!" She sat up with a thrashing moment, only to be yanked into a permanent squatting position thanks to an array of heavy chains binding her to the wagon. "Leave itttt!" She hissed.
Ariel jerked back, nearly pratfalling off the wagon. She blinked at the griffin. "Fine. Yeesh." She wrung the moisture out of the cloth and placed it back in a sopping wet barrel before slapping the lid back in place. "Guess that'll be the last time I try doing you any favors."
"The only favor I need from you is a crossbolt to the skull!" Seraphimus sneered, wincing from the throbbing pain.
"Nnnghhh..." Ariel sighed, folding her forelimbs. "Y'know... as far as I can see... there are no crackers to feed you here on the Dark Side. So how come you're still repeating yourself?"
"Undo these chains and I will teach you a new language," Seraphimus droned. "I shall teach all of you."
Ariel snorted. "Yeah. That's not happening." She gulped. "At least... not at this point."
"Hrmmmmmmmmfff..."
"Er... for what it's worth..." Ariel drew a bang of mane hair over her left ear. "I wasn't the one who royally whalloped you."
"I know who hit me," Seraphimus grunted. A pair of charcoal brown eyes sliced across the wagon.
A fat figure sat beside Kepler and Wildcard. As Kepler guided the cart along and Wildcard provided extra steering with his wings, Logan continued to scrape the edge of his axe with a sharpening stone. Tiny showers of spark danced in the twilight. As Seraphimus' eyes dug into Logan, the stallion's neck hairs rose on edge. He looked lethargically over his shoulder.
"Morning, sunshine," he murmured. "Dream well?"
"The dead don't dream," Seraphimus slurred.
"Spoken like a true cadaver." Logan scraped and scraped his stone. "Were you always so stiff? I bet your late husband just needed something to help iron his shirts."
"You can insult me as much as you wound me," Seraphimus said. "Your daughter is still a lowly bastard."
"Hmmmmff..." Logan's lips curved ever so slightly. "Good to know I didn't lobotomize you."
Silence.
"Okay...!" Ariel clapped her hooves together. "Now that that's been addressed, I'm going to... uh... go and help Rainbow Dash with reconaissance!" She blinked. "...because Rainbow!" FWOOOOSH! She soared skyward, heading Curveside.
Logan's gaze craned to follow her. "I wonder if her mother would smile or cry to know that she's begotten a one-trick-pegasus?"
Seraphimus wasn't finished staring daggers into his skull. "You could have permanently damaged my skull."
Logan shrugged. "So I had to get a few hits in. Y'know... for practice. Hate to do it wrong when the real moment comes."
"I had assumed that you and I had developed a degree of common respect."
"The word you're looking for is 'familiarity.'" Logan shook his head. "Oh no, lady. You don't ever get that mixed up with respect. One is a life-bond between brothers and sisters foaled in battle. The other is a horribly smelly neighbor you invite over to a feast just because it's Unification Day."
"I was instrumental in getting your foolish leader and this putrid wagon to safety," Seraphimus insisted. "If you did not respect the extent of my contribution, then why did you and Jordan release my wings to begin with?"
"You had exhausted your usefulness for the time being," Logan said, calmly examining the sharp edge of his blade. "I couldn't risk jeopardizing the team."
Seraphimus' eyes narrowed. "I was not prepared to do so. A life-threatening event had just come to a conclusion. What would I have had to gain from betraying your trust then and there?"
Logan gave her a tired look. "Now what experience have we all gone through to make me believe that you're completely full of shit?" His nostrils flared. "Would you not have done the same if you were in my position?"
Silence.
Wildcard glanced nervously over his shoulder. A pair of dark goggles reflected Seraphimus' blank face.
At last, she exhaled through her beak. "Alright. You make a fair point." Seraphimus rested on all fours, wincing as she felt the weight of the chains over her wings once again. "Although... my method of silencing would have been—"
"Lemme guess, 'more efficient.'"
She hummed. "Fatal."
"Heh..." Logan returned to sharpening his blade. "Good thing we still know each other."
Seraphimus winced as another throb of pain rolled through her avian skull. "Of that—I am not entirely certain."
"We dragged you from the edge—screaming and drooling and threatening to eviscerate the Austraeoh."
"To be fair, she's given me plenty of valid reasons."
"Uh huh..."
"But that was not the imminent necessity when you insisted on bludgeoning me from behind like a coward."
"There was no telling what you wanted."
"No. There wasn't. You didn't give me a chance."
Logan's sharp eyes flashed to her. "Then just what do you want?"
She frowned. "Respect." She raised her bound limbs and rattled the chains where he could see them. "Does this look like respect? Has it ever even remotely looked like respect since we arrived here?"
"Rrespect worrks both ways, my frriend."
Seraphimus glanced at the front of the wagon.
Kepler calmly guided the craft through a narrow canyon of erratic limestone formations. He continued without looking: "Therre arre farr grreaterr lengths to trravel than the extent of the plane." His scorpion tail flexed and unflexed. "Much larrgerr hurrdles, as well."
Seraphimus took a fuming breath. She glared back at Logan. "You really... really should have given me the benefit of a doubt."
"Yeah? Why?"
She was silent.
Logan scratched his scruffy chin. "You wanna know why I really hit you?" He shook his head. "Because I still don't trust you."
Her response was quieter than even she expected. "I was beginning to think you and I had something in common."
"Me too." Logan nodded warily. "Which is precisely the point."
She exhaled in a huff. "Then we are back to the beginning."
"Maybe." Logan stretched his crackling joints. "Grnnngh... maybe not. Either way..." He leaned back, sighing. A beat. "... ... ...I'm still not the reason why you're with us."
"... ... ..."
"She's mad at me, y'know." Logan smiled crookedly. "Over the clobbering. She understands why it had to be done, of course, but... she gets mad over you more than she gets mad at you." Logan raised an eyebrow. "Now when was the last time you experienced that? Huh?" A narrow stare. "Before your family was frozen?"
Seraphimus stared past him.
"Hmmm... you're lucky, in a way. Y'know that?" Logan finally placed his axe away and reclined against a crate of supplies as the wagon glided along. "That 'bastard' you talked about? She's blissfully ignorant of my fat ass... and I hardly know her either. The day I finally die, I'll barely have had a taste of what I'm fighting for. But you? You had that groundwork laid out. Sure, it might be gone now... but at least you had a foundation. For all your feathers and claws you've familiarized yourself with the shoreline. Too bad you've got to flail like a rabid puppy when everything sinks."
Seraphimus took a shuddering breath. "That 'taste' you envy is quite bitter."
"Then spit it out already," Logan grunted. "And maybe next time—just maybe—I won't have to smack you over the head like the psychopathic parrot you've proven to us all to be."
"... ... ..."
"And—by the way..." Logan tilted his head lazily towards her. "...snazzy job saving the wagon."
She snorted. "Hollow praise."
"For a hollow head."
Seraphimus nodded with her skull towards the landscape ahead. "Where in blazes are we even going, pray tell?"
"Toots, are you seriously asking me? Hell, I don't even know." Logan then proceeded to wave a limp hoof towards the bent, dark horizon. "Curveside..."
Seraphimus looked up... and up and up and up and...
Further up, and further in!
The only explaination I have for the Wyrmzilla abruptly stopping its pursuit is that the Herald just sort of got outside the boundaries it was designed to pursue intruders, and the big explosion was just coincidentally timed.
For all Logan's jabbering on about trust and respect and the lack thereof, I figure the manacles are pretty much a formality at this point unless Seraphimus really does a nosedive back into stupidsville. If she wanted Dash or any of the Herald dead at this point she could've arranged several times over during that fiasco. Honestly if she is still harboring a serious murder-boner for Dash it might be best to just leave those two alone to have it out and be done with the matter, rather than dragging along someone you still don't trust.
Another part in the saga of Logan and Sera. Those two are an interesting pair that's for sure.
8461264
For all her zeal and violent tendencies, Seraphimus is not Shell. She never fell off the deep end.
To conquer your foe entirely, you must understand it. She has failed to conquer them, and so she now defers to observation, however sullen.
8461323
Actually she did, the real difference is that she was pulled back from it.
Seragan still seems possible.
It's a little leaky, but it hasn't sunk yet.
8461323
Do you think Dash has her in manacles for a reason?
Dash and Keris had a chance to bond in the brig of red barge, where there was nothing to do but talk and observe each other.
Now she has Sera chained up because it's forcing her to observe and talk.
8461264
I think the blast did stun it, and it's just decided that they aren't worth the effort anymore.
-Through the path long forgotten, into the darkness long begotten. Ofolrodi.
Slowly but surely, Seraphimus is growing used to the Herald. Even a comrade you hate is still a comrade- And few things induce comradery better than near-death experiences.
And she is even looking for a bit of even ground. I imagine at this point she wouldn't even kill Rainbow Dash in her sleep if she had the chance...
Marvelous progress! :D
8461323
I figure her observing them won't change whether she's tied up or not, and by the time she comes to understand them then would she really have a reason to desire their destruction? Eventually she's got to learn that in regards to everything she's lost and everything Rohbredden itself suffered, the damage was done by Verlax, not Dash. All Dash happened to be was the bowling ball, but Verlax was the one who set up the pins and threw that bowling ball down the lane. I'll admit that one could argue that Dash had enough control over her own decisions to affect how many pins got knocked over, but ultimately she's not the one that set the pins up to be hit or threw her down the course to strike them in the first place. I think in time Seraphimus will come to understand that, especially as she sees Dash in action more and more on the Dark Side.
8461359
That was a lot of effort to expend to suddenly just decide to stop. I got to wonder how that thing stays alive without any regular food source, and when a food source does come by it chases it around for a bit, then stops when its given a minor inconvienience.
I shall assume my own theory that this was never really a normal creature but some kind of artificially made thing that was designed to protect a limited area, and that the Herald just got outside its programmed defense area. Makes more sense in my head. Which I'm going to have to do a lot here on the Dark Side, I'm thinking.
durandal.dnsalias.net/imgur/48fnkJs.jpg
I'm really liking this bond so far. Aside from being the first to jump into a fight most of the time -and the most hotheaded out of the lot- Logan always proves to have a point when talking to Sera. I like that.
Aww I ship it.
Your euphemisms are getting a bit incomprehensible, Ariel.
This place is giving me vertigo.
8461264
Plot armor.
Logan's a bigger dick with ennui than Sera and with less methods. His most used problem-solver is to 'hit it with an axe(or his stench).' Even the esoteric and existential problems. I still can't fault him for not trusting Sera completely. Despite all this, she gained some will to survive after realizing they weren't going to torture her beyond allowing atrophy in those chains. She'd have flew off most likely and screwed over the group without much foresight.
"Because Rainbow" is always a good enough reason for Ariel.
Poor mare. She keeps trying and hoping, but I don't think she's gonna get laid before she ends up horribly eviscerated by some kind of chaos monstrosity. But at least then's then and now's now, you know? Live in the present and chase the Rainbow.
It is at this moment that Sera is probably gonna realize that the world is a really big place
Keps delivers a better point in six words than Logan did throughout the rest of the entire chapter.
At least they understand each other
somehow.Logan and Sera give the term, Ball And Chain a whole new meaning?
If Doomsday is a mere Choke Defense unit for that section, how are they going to recover supplies to minutely affect the next ones? Or else Dashcord is going to have to Blender on its inner workings.
Keep this pain train a'rollin'.
Nothing like some hardcore sass right after a battle.
So I just clicked, who wants to bet that crate of supplies mentioned to have been lost a couple chapters ago just so happens to be Dash's veggie rations?
Ok, so now she knows they're on the dark side. One less reason to think they're all insane.
SeraDash. I still ship it.
Logan has a point, but they could have asked and she may have been bound out of trust. Plus she might be into Austraeoh tying her up.
Lastly: How was he able to sharpen his axe without sound effects? It didn't feel real without sccccccchhhhhhhhtttttttt being written so I KNEW he was dragging a rock across metal! Otherwise it's just a hollow action. 'More sound effects!' Right?
And now, murderbird opinion damage control.
8461264
If you're a lovecraftian mountain of a beast, and you come across the first meal in millenia that actually bruises you, do you continue pursuing or decide that it's safer to wait for the next meal, in case they got more where that came from, especially when you can afford to play it safe?
That's the sort of attitude that lets you grow millenia old and larger than a mountain.
8461237
that scene from The Last Battle always stuck with me the strongest, that, and the scene with the dwarves right before it
Meh. Actually a pretty good excuse.
How about telling Seraphimus more about the journey and the role Verlax played in it? She will call them all heathens, but she will listen and form her own opinions.
8461384
I feel your scientifically inclined doubts.
And so Seragan puts forth questing tendrils, seeking for a foothold.
You were on the fence about killing rainbow right then, and you want them to trust you? Hmm...
8463187
Because horny! Better excuse!
Trade one trials for another. It seems that these are the Trials of Seraphimus, and I am honestly a little more hopeful for her eventual redemption . . . I hope. I really don't want her to be redeemed at the cost of her life, and I feel that as we get closer and closer to our destination, it will only get more and more difficult for her to prove herself without risking everything.
However, I don't know if I agree with Logan's actions, but I can't exactly say that he's wrong either. I just think that I might be a little soft for Sera after all the things we've been through, and that mighy skew my view of the situation.
If not for the shrouding darkness of their surroundings, this would so give them vertigo. The mind is not made to think vertically, only horizontally. If you found yourself looking at a mountain ten miles tall, you would get a little dizzy.
You know, I did some math last night, and I drew on some graphing paper. If this piece of Urohringr is one of twelve equal parts, the angle of the bend would indeed be 40 degrees, but the line of sight from one edge to the other would be half of that, only 20 degrees tangential to the ground, and decreasing with each forward step. They shouldn't have to crane their necks to far back, and a sextant would actually be able to tell with near pinpoint accuracy where they were on the plane.
Is this the first time she's actually had a look at the curve? I guess it may well be - she was unconscious at first, and then there were canyons and Darkreach blocking the view...
8885178
You know a fic is good if it makes you pick up a pen and paper and do math.
Seraphimus, at least she is now calmly talking to them. Instead of screaming at them, or ordering them about. Progress
11/14/2019
23:30 UTC
Am I detecting a little remorse, Sera?
I liked this chapter. Nice to see Sera have a proper conversation with the Herald outside of a crisis situation.
Dialogue! Much better than incessant screaming like the old days. Keep that up, Sera, and your leash will get longer.
Logan 1, Sera 0.
It's funny that she's ever so slowly getting used to the Herald...and Logan is probably the primary reason for it.