//------------------------------// // la Pouliche sous les Rosiers // Story: In the Company of Night // by Mitch H //------------------------------// SBMS053 The thestral foal didn’t have a word of Equuish. She babbled as if she hadn’t talked to another soul in months or years. She talked to herself as if she didn’t think we heard her, as if we were just shambling lumps of flesh, yet more undead who hadn’t yet begun to feed. Had she seen similar scenes? Were we really that close to a pack of ghouls from her perspective? And what kept the ghouls from eating the chatty filly after she drew their attention by babbling like that? “Tais-toi, enfant. Tu n’est pas sur le point d’obtenir mange,” I told her, tired of the accusations of cannibalism. “Nos garde-manger sont pas si vide.” Nor was I thrilled with the insults against the condition of our pantries. The Company wasn't that pressed for rations! She squeaked, wider-eyed. I reached into my saddlebags, and looked around for something to tie her up with. The witches couldn’t keep up that magic binding too much longer. I only had some wraps I used for tourniquets. I sighed at it, looked at her wings, and scrawny legs, and debated whether I was about to hurt her. “Si je ai tu laisser aller, tu promettre de ne pas courir? If we let you go, will you disappear again? No? How about… Comment tu t'appelles? Le nom?” Nothing. I gave up, and wrapped my tourniquet-rope around her barrel, binding her wings with a firm but not tight knot. Then her fore-arms. Given time, she’d get both off with her teeth, but that’d slow her down some. “OK, girls, you can let her up, that ought to slow her down.” I looked up at them. “Where the tartarus did she come from?” “Do you mean in an existential sense, a familial sense, or are you asking how she got under that bush? Because I don’t know any of those. Why’s she so damn scared of us?” asked the Crow. “Well, you two probably because of the horns growing out of your skulls. And the pegasi are wearing their war-paint today, that can’t be easy for a little filly to be chased by long-fanged glowy-eyed beasts of the air.” Sawbones, hoofed Otonashi - she is a long-fanged glowy-eyed beast of the air. "How often do you think she looks in the mirror out here? Tartarus, she stinks like a midden, how often do you think she sees open water?" I lifted her onto my back, and balanced her between my saddlebags, her teeth safely away from my crest. "Bébé, s'il tu plaît ne pas mordre, nous allons faire une promenade." As I promised, I started walking back towards the lane away from the ruined homestead. When she saw we were leaving, she started writhing, wailing, "Non, non! Je vous en prie, ne me prenez pas loin de la ferme! J'ai promis que je ne serais pas trouvé!" That was too much for me, hoofed Otonashi. What did she just say? "She doesn't want to be taken away. Something about a promise. Pouliche, qui avez-tu été des choses prometteuses? Qui a votre parole?" Who had she given her word to? I thought I was starting to understand, but I needed her to explain. It would equinify us in her eyes, I hoped. "Ta mère?" "Oui, oui les os de ma mère." To the bones of her mother. "Où sont-elles? Montre moi." Show me. She rubbed her head against my flank, indicating the direction to turn. I pivoted around, and followed her awkward directions, to a disturbed bit of earth with a pile of rocks mounded over it, half-hidden beneath a rose bush a hundred paces from the farm-lane. "Qui était votre mère?" Who was your mother? "Le nom de ma mère était 'Automne Rose'." I was willing to bet that Automne Rose was either the matriarch of the Rosier clan, or a child. Had we found the surviving daughter? "OK, I'm calling bullapples! The Rosiers were a donkey clan, stem to stern," objected the Crow, brushing her long ears to illustrate. "All their surviving neighbors insist as much, and even if they kept a crossbreed in the garçoniere and out of everypony's sight, it wouldn't have resulted in somepony like her. Tartarusfire, only reason I look like I do is that mon père brought me home after his mistress kacked it in Crossroads. If he had brought her here to have me, I'd be just another jenny." "Do you think she just grew under a mushroom cap? She says her maman's a Rosier, she's a Rosier." I looked around at the ruins and the rose-bushes growing wild out of their hedgerows. "Theoretically she's the heir to this dump. We could hoof her over to the Beans clan, they'd probably jump at the chance to take on a ward. Except..." Everypony looked at her bound, leathery bat-wings, and her eyes, slit-pupiled like a natural-born thestral. "First one we've come across in two generations, by my count." I cleared my throat, and addressed the little Prench orphan. "Ma douleur pour votre perte, ma chérie, mais il n'y a pas-poney ici pour prendre soin de vous. Nous pensons qu'il est un signe. Nous étions censés vous trouver." I was sorry for her losses, but she couldn't live here by herself. It was obvious that we were supposed to find her. "Vous avez été aidez poneys échapper aux goules, les chasser, à la maison pour leurs murs? Voilà une bonne pouliche, c'est le signe d'un bon cœur." If she's been helping ponies, driving them away before the ghouls ate them, chasing the foolish back to their own gates, that was a very good sign. A good heart. "Venez avec nous si tu voulez vivre. Venez si tu voulez être un poney à nouveau." Come with us, and live like a pony again. "Ne dites pas de bêtises! Roses étaient jamais poneys, nous avons toujours été des ânes." The Crow broke out laughing at the two of us, as I turned away from the little cairn and headed out for the farmlane again. "Sawbones, you've found your mirror-image. You think everybody's a pony, and you've found a pegasus that believes she's a donkey!" The pegasi circled above us the whole way back to the blockhouse, fascinated by the little thestral laying bound on my back between my saddlebags. They swooped down in ones and pairs, asking her questions she couldn't understand in a language she didn't speak. She must have had a name, but she didn't want to give it to us. I had called her Cherie, once, and afterwards she answered to it. She was cheerfully chatting with the Crow in the local dialect of Prench by the time we got back to the blockhouse I untied her once we were inside the palisade; I suppose I could have let her loose back at the grave-site, but I had wanted to get her well away from that ruin before I set her loose. Wanted to discourage her from disappearing as soon as I let her loose. She stumbled about, her limbs asleep from being bound for so long. Then she started trotting about, exploring the place like a cat tossed into an unfamiliar apartment. She stuck her nose in every open door, got under every hoof she could find. I conferred with the warlocks, trusting in the half-dozen pegasi hovering overhead to keep her from flying off. "How old do you think she is?" I asked. "Damn, don't ask me to estimate pegasus ages," said the Crow. "She can fly pretty damned well, that's a sign she's not a yearling or anything like that. You know the ponies from the aerial cohort will jump to take her in, right? They've got to know how to raise a pegasus. But seriously, how the tartarus did she learn how to fly if she was being raised by gentle-donkey farmers?" "I don't know, how do pegasi learn to fly when they're being raised by other pegasi? I thought it was instinctual?" There's instinct, and then there's the stuff you have to learn, hoofed Otonashi. I think the flying might be instinctual, but don't quote me on that. It doesn't generally come up that much, you know? I looked up, and suddenly Cherie was walking out of a tent I knew I hadn't seen her walk into. I looked back to the mess-tent I had last seen her in, and an earth-pony stuck his head out, a ladle in his mouth. "Hey!" he shouted at us. "Did you see a little pegasus come out of here? She came in and ducked under a table, and now I can't find her!" "Now what's that about," I wondered. Aren't there old stories about bat-pony shadow-walkers? hoofed Otonashi. "A few, here and there in the Annals. I always took it to be flowery ninja-talk, illusionism and confidence games." Gibblets will have a kitten, Otonashi smugly hoofed.