//------------------------------// // Into The Woods, or, Blueberry Muffins // Story: In the Company of Night // by Mitch H //------------------------------// SBMS102 "C'mon, Monsieur! I promised the Princess we'd cheer you up." Cherie showed up at my door, interrupting my unproductive puzzling over my desk, trying to force the words to come out. I had been trying for the better part of the morning, and it was now – well, heck. Well into the afternoon. I let her drag me by the foreleg out of my quarters, thus technically breaking my house-arrest. Not that anypony other than I seemed to care about that technicality. I had been thinking about drawing flow-charts to use as an aid in support of my argument the next time somepony tried to contest my position on the subject. OK, I really wasn't getting anywhere with the Annals, I do confess it. Which is why I found myself, despite myself, hauled by a filly one-quarter my size into the back-kitchens as she burbled about the spy, her entertaining stories, and her superior baked goods. By this time, the spy had become for all intents and purposes other than that of technicalities, the baker for the Company. We found her working over the preparation area next to one of the ovens. Racks of bread-dough were rising behind her, and the oven was being prepared by the Company's standard-bearer, fussing with tinder and logs. "Miss Cake, Miss Cake! I was just telling M'sieur about your stories! Tell him one, tell him one! Oooh, what are you making?" The spy looked down at the little thestral, and smiled maternally. "Muffins, I think. We're too short of sugar for proper pastries, until the next delivery arrives, that is. Somepony blew up the wagon with the last shipment in it, didn't they?" She didn't even look at me, maybe her sharp ears hadn't heard of my part in that little unintended consequence. "Ooh, what kind, what kind? I hope it's blueberries," drooled Cherie, eyeing the bowl of blueberries which should have been out of her line of sight. Maybe she could smell them? "Aren't you a clever filly, yes, of course, we have more blueberries than I know what to do with. We're even having blueberry bread, rising over there on the racks. What story did you want to hear, dearie?" "Firefly! Firefly!" "Oh, but won't the others be so angry if I tell it just to you again. You remember how much they liked it the first time." "I can fetch some of them! They're just futzing around in the training grounds!" She dove into the shadows underneath Cup Cake's work-bench, and she was just gone. "My stars, that always startles me when she does that!" she exclaimed. "Do all bat-ponies walk through shadows, Mr. Sawbones?" I blinked, surprised to be addressed, and I had to think for a moment what she had been talking about. "Ah? I don't think so. There's the occasional story, but unless the old Annalists were seriously underselling the thestrals of yore, most of them were just like today's pegasi, just with, you know, the eyes and teeth. And wings, I suppose." Cherie came bursting back through the kitchen doors, dragging Tam Lane and Feufollet each by a foreleg, her wings working overtime to keep her hovering above the larger foals. "Firefly, Firefly!" "Oh, fine," said the earth-pony, as she lined her eggs up along the side of her preparation-surface, along with the other elements of her avocation. "This is the story of the servitude of Firefly, bravest pegasus of her era, warrior of Celestia, defender of Equestria against the griffin, the minotaur, and the savage hordes of Saddle Arabia. "When she was just a filly, she lived with her uncle on the outskirts of the wild woods, with the rangers who fought hoof and wing against the ever-expanding dark magic of the blighted forests. In those days, those terrible woods stretched throughout the heartlands, from the foot of the Canterhorn, all along the valley of the Canter, from the Macintosh Hills in the south to Neighagra Falls in the north, and from the gates of Baltimare to the outskirts of Applewood." Cup Cake busied herself with tossing her ingredients into a large mixing-bowl, hoofing in sugar, butter, and coarse flour as she talked. "Firefly was an intrepid orphan, and her uncle could spare little time to keep her out of trouble in the troublesome fringes of the dark woods. She ranged almost as far as her elders, and learned to temper her recklessness with caution and skill. In between taunting juvenile timberwolves and playing hide-and-go-seek with hungry manticores, that is. "One day, deeper into the woods than she ought to have been, she heard screaming and wailing even deeper than she would normally venture. Brave as she was, she flew towards the sound of ponies in trouble. What she found was an enraged witch, surrounded by dark magics and arcing lightning-bolts licking the scorched branches and leaf-mold all around her. "Before the furious unicorn were two earth-ponies, little sort-of friends of Firefly. Twin colts, grandchildren of that kind mare who always had a spare jug of milk for her uncle when they were thirsty, a spare bit of cheese when they were hungry. The family were cow-herds, they helped run a dairy herd on the edge of the forest, where their herd kept down the growth which would have allowed the woods to bite ever deeper into the scarce lands of that sliver of Equestria which still were cultivated." She tossed into the bowl, salt, milk and even that damnable baking-powder she had insisted I help make with my scarce time and alchemical supplies. "Now Firefly was uneasy, because Cheeseflower and Smearcase were supposed to be watching their herds, half a morning away from any witches, raging or otherwise. And there were spilled baskets of mushrooms and berries laying at the hooves of the wailing colts. And the witch was screeching something about horrible little thieves, in between lashing them with blue-white sparks of lightning. "Still, they were ponies Firefly knew, and she leapt into action. She bounced off the horn of the angry witch, and broke her spell. The two colts scrambled away from their tormenter, and cowered behind Firefly, whose wings were held protectively over them. 'Missus Witch', she said, 'please don't kill them, they have a grandmother they should be helping.' "'What aged pony could possibly get any help out of such horrible, thieving colts?' asked the witch. 'No, better I send them to Tartarus, where they can help the demons and monsters by giving them a good meal.' "'Please, Missus Witch, I can see they have stolen from you, but I owe their grandmother for her charity, and they're sort of my friends. Can I not talk you out of it?' "'Bah, words are nothing. Actions, actions I can accept. What could you possibly offer me in exchange for my fair and just vengeance?'" Cup Cake beat her mixture with great vigour, and I was impressed at her skill in narration with a whisk held firmly in her jaws. "Firefly was young, and foolish, so she offered the only thing in her possession – herself. She promised herself to the witch, in exchange for her sort-of-friends' lives. The two young fools scrambled away from their doom, promising rashly to let Firefly's uncle know that she would no longer be drawing on his often-empty larder, or straining his slight resources. She would be in service. The witch extracted a promise of two years as a slave from the young pegasus. "This was how one became apprenticed to a warlock in those days. Or perhaps, became their minion. It was never quite clear in Firefly's mind into which category she had been pitched by her impulsiveness. The witch was terrible, as witches are, and abrupt, and cruel. She always hid herself and her cutie-mark under a long cloak. Quite suspicious, but she distracted her servant with constant verbal abuse, and never had a good thing to say to her. But she kept the young filly well-fed, out of the weather when the weather was inclement, and well-fed once again, because growing fillies take lots of feeding, don't they?" The earth-pony hip-checked both of the foals standing with their hooves on her preparation table, trying to peer into her mixing-bowl. "They often wandered the deep woods, far deeper than any of the rangers ever ranged. The witch ordered the young pegasus dig into ruins that often held fell things, and whenever they dug up a terror or an artifact of great danger, she graciously let young Firefly flee for her life while the witch's magics and lightning-bolts flayed the terrors, and destroyed the artifacts. "Sometimes, the witch had Firefly dig up graves, and she laid out the bones from those long-abandoned graves, and conducted terrible rituals over their remains. Shades rose from the bones, and whispered terrible secrets to the witch, and after she laid their spirits once again to rest, she ordered her minion to re-bury the dead. They would then return to their wanderings, usually in a different direction, and often walking right into yet another ruined village or fortress." She ceased her whisking, and began rinsing the blueberries in the near-by sink. "One day deep in the forest, they came across a pool of sweet water, fed by a small waterfall, trickling forth a little stream, which fed eventually into the distant Canter, far, far away from that sweetwater pool. The witch thoughtlessly tossed away her cloak, and plunged into the water, washing her filth into the pool, to be slowly drained away into the downstream trickle. The cutie-markless Firefly stared with envy at the witch's mark, which was by normal pony standards, nothing to be envious of. It was of a blighted, blackened corpse of a tree, as if struck by lightning. 'Oh,' said the witch, 'Blast. I wasn't thinking. Well, nothing to be done for it, I suppose. I've too much invested in you to leave you dead here for the scavengers.'" Her audience giggled, because this was too obviously an imitation of things said by Gibblets of his apprentices where other ponies had heard it. It might have been a direct quote. She turned away from her firming batter, and cautioned the foals, "Please, don't repeat that. You know that damned warlock of yours will take his revenge if he hears I've been mocking him. Where was I?" "Cutie marks, and witches," I prompted from the back of the room, causing her to startle. "Right. 'Why would you hide that, Mistress? It seems to be to be a proper mark for a warlock and witch,' said her minion. "'Fool," said the witch, 'Do you think that any warlock starts out with the intention to be damned by every pony she encounters, to be hunted by every equine who reveres the Crown? I once was a proud student of the Princess, in the fore of her storied school for unicorns. I discovered a wonderful spell in class, indeed, just as I was standing examination before the Princess herself. I had found my purpose in life. My mark of destiny appeared. Again, right in front of the Princess. She turned even paler than she usually is, and she stared at it, and muttered to herself, though the effect precedes the cause, does the effect bear responsibility for the cause? Apparently that cryptic nonsense was enough to expel me from her presence, from the school, and polite society, in quite rapid succession.' "Firefly thought about this revelation, standing there beside the pool as her mistress washed herself in the once-clear pool, fouling it with the filth of centuries of darkness and decay. 'What did she mean by it?' the filly asked. "'If you ever figure that out, please tell me,' said the witch. "'Does that mean that you are the enemy of the Princess?' asked the filly. "'Have you ever heard of a warlock who is not an enemy of the Crown?' asked her mistress. "'Then you must be my enemy, if I love Equestria,' concluded the filly. "'Well, good for you, child. Better to know who you are by your own deduction, before you find out to your dismay,' sniped the witch. Then she made the filly wash herself in the upstream section of the pool, under that cold, pounding waterfall. Including behind the ears!" The baker reached out to the jenny listening carefully to her right, and rubbed Feufollet right behind her tall ears, which indeed, had some dried blood behind them. The earth pony wrinkled her nose at the little bit of filth on her hoof, and dropped her whisk to go wash her hooves again at the sink. "In their travels through the deep woods, the witch often traded with other wanderers, strange ponies of fell aspect, who like her dug through dangerous ruins, and searched for secrets of the past. Many of these ponies were merely eccentric, or unsociable, but a few were properly nasty sorts, and now and again they tried to cheat or rob Firefly and her mistress, usually by attempting the first, then essaying the second. Firefly learned to be quick with her hoof, and suspicious of everypony they met in the deep woods, but the magic of her mistress was what kept them safe in the terrible dark woods, from pony and monster alike." She tossed the blueberries into a smaller, flat bowl, and began to dice them with a small knife. "In between expeditions into the deep woods, the witch would return to her hovel near the village Firefly had once called home. The witch was often visited in the dark of night by ponies hiding under cloaks, to buy wickedness from the evil warlock. Amulets to ward them against the beasts of the woods; love-poisons to bewitch the objects of their affections; charms to calm the hatreds of their employers, or to dull the wits of rebellious employees. Firefly watched, as she pretended to be asleep in her corner. "When the ponies of the villages left under their cloaks which concealed nothing from those that knew them, the witch confided in her servant. She said that the amulets were real enough, that the love-poisons were dilute and relatively harmless, and that the charms were purest buncombe. It suited the witch's humour to spread rumours about the ponies who tried to purchase mind-control potions and charms from her, and claimed that she tried to lure both sides of such conflicts into escalating purchases. She may have been lying about that last bit, as Firefly rarely saw the same cloaked ponies returning for further wickedness. Perhaps most ponies' appetite for such evils are limited, and easily sated. Or perhaps there was something repellent woven into the charms which bred shame in their purchasers. Firefly liked to speculate in later years that such had been the case, but again, Firefly might have been lying to herself, or her audience." She folded the diced berries into the batter, turning the mixture again and again. "On one expedition into the deep woods, the two dug up something terrible enough that the witch was unable to entirely dispel it. The witch grew sick from the backlash, and too feeble to return to the hovel by the edge of the forest. It was in this moment of weakness, that a small group of ill-intentioned forest wanderers came upon the two of them. Firefly had grown strong with their constant wandering and endless digging and scrabbling about. Her chest was almost as deep as an earth-pony's, and her wings as strong as any pegasus beneath the leaves of that dark wood. So when I tell you she fought for her mistress, she fought hard. She killed one of the reavers, caved in his skull, and the rest of them fled into the shadows from which they had come." The baker poured the mixture into a formed baking-sheet, one she had bribed out of Iron Hoof, supposedly, with a basket full of bearclaws. "'Why', asked the witch, 'did you do that? You should hate me. I've been nothing but cruel to you, and put you in great danger, dragging you through every one of these dead towns and villages and exposing you to great horrors.'" She pushed the baking-sheet into the oven that Carrot Cake had been nursing into the right temperature. "'Not to mention being hated by the Princess.' "'Why shouldn't I have?' asked Firefly. 'I did the same for my friends. How can I be true to the least of my friends, if I'm not true to my worst enemies?'" Cup Cake stepped back from the oven, eyes upon her creation as it baked, and then recited, in a musical cadence, I am loyal to ponies who are faithful. I am also loyal to ponies who are not faithful. Because Loyalty is a virtue. I am true to ponies who are trustworthy. I am also true to ponies who are unworthy of trust. Because Loyalty is faithfulness." Shaking her head, she returned to her narrative, saying, "And she dragged her mistress out of the depths of the woods, and returned them to their home near the edge of the darkest of dark forests, the ailing witch strapped across the back of the young mare. "Firefly walked out of the depths of the forest with a rather unsettling new cutie-mark upon her flanks, a mark of a lightning bolt striking a tree and setting it on fire. One that was clearly an echo of the burnt dead tree of her mistress. The witch, when she saw the new cutie mark of her servant, is said to have wept at the sight of it, and cried out that at last, she knew why, if not how. "The young mare nursed her mistress back to health, and dealt with the cloaked ponies who came to beg their ugly favours from the witch of the deep forest. Firefly named them as they appeared, and she told them their sins, as she had seen them, and castigated them for thinking that they could buy wickedness and leave the stains upon another pony's hooves. "The alarmed and affrighted villagers next appeared in a mob with torches, to burn the hovel to the ground, with the weakened witch inside it. Firefly took this amiss, and thrashed the members of the mob, beating them about the head and shoulders with her hooves and her wings. She drove the mob out from under the leaves of the dark forest, telling them to never return, lest she tell every one of them their neighbors' sins, and their own to their neighbors. "Firefly could never return to that the village, of course, and when her term of service to the witch was complete, she left the region entirely. She eventually found her way into the Princess's service, as befitting a pegasus with the strength of an earth pony, and the witchiness of a unicorn. She never told ponies what exactly happened to her mistress of the dark forest, but I like to dream about happy endings. Don't you?" the baker asked of Cherie, who grinned and flicked her wings over her head in happiness. The blueberry muffins weren't at all bad. Not nearly as sweet as I had feared, seeing the large cup of sugar she had poured into that batter.