Seraphim
Chapter 4
I remember the first time I felt emotional despair, actual hopelessness at my inability to change something which I found wrong at the deepest level. It could be that I was just naïve, that my own lack of experience in dealing with other worlds and species had left me too much of a goodhearted fool, unable to see beyond what could be discerned on the surface of what was Equestria, the world I had initially believed a beautiful paradise.
As I would soon learn, no world is a paradise, no matter how perfect or peaceful it may seem, somewhere unseen is a darkness, a root that could never be purged or removed. And as it turns out, the more pure and innocent the world, the more susceptible it is to the corruptive touch of evil.
- Lysander, 3 B.NMM.
------------------------------------------------------
After getting cleaned up, with no small amount of splashing around from Crystal Heart’s side, we managed to dry ourselves the best we could, and rewrap my wounded shin with a somewhat cleaned strip of cloth. Crystal made it very clear that not keeping the wound clean could lead to an infection and possibly sickness, just another reason for me to loathe my sudden mortality even more. It was a strange sensation, disliking my own physical coil to such a degree, all the while feeling a hollow emptiness where the majority of my soul used to be. It was rather new to me to feel this hateful about anything; negative emotions never were very strong in the Ascended, thoughts of anger or vengeance more or less unknown to us. Thinking of Ezekiel especially brought out these dark feelings in me.
I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t like having them, they gave me a sense of purpose, a goal to aim for in my new life. Somehow I actually believed that getting revenge on the fallen Seraph would accomplish something, would in some way make everything alright again. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t, all I knew was that that particular dilemma was the one furthest from my mind in that moment.
We walked in silence for a while, and had I paid better attention to my surroundings instead of thinking pointless thoughts I might have seen it coming, could have avoided it somehow, but in my state of contemplation a dragon could’ve landed in front of me without bringing me out of it.
As it turns out, the filly next to me suddenly yelling out in surprise and fear managed to do it, and I looked up sharply just in time to receive a hoof to my gut, pushing the air out of my lungs and sending me rolling backwards several feet, coming to a stop face down in the dirt with a grunt of pain.
Coughing up a bit of blood I managed to get a look at my assailant just as Crystal Heart made it to my side, looking worriedly at me with those azure eyes of hers.
Where I had been standing only seconds earlier stood a grey coated earth pony with a wild unkempt black mane and brown eyes, his body was muscular and rugged, a dirty brown bandana around his neck. He glared at me with hostility and superiority, smirking ever so slightly at my current state of pain.
“Oi creature, ya should learn to pay attention, otherwise y’all might get hurt.” He said, putting emphasis on ‘hurt’ just in case I hadn’t gotten the message previously.
Returning the glare I managed to get back on my feet, wiping the blood from my mouth with the palm of my hand. I didn’t know why he had attacked me, but he was sorely mistaken if he thought I’d let myself be intimidated into submission that easily.
The pony didn’t seem particular worried about my size in comparison to his own, even staring down at him from almost twice his height he kept that same smirk. “Don’t ya go getting defiant now ya overgrown monkey,” he gestured with his head to several other ponies laying in ambush around us, at least two of them wielding crossbows. “We’ll just be taking y’alls valuables real quick like.”
Bandits? There were actually bandits in these woods? Somehow the idea surprised me a bit more than it should have, I had witnessed the night before that ponies were quite capable of evil, or at the very least losing themselves in negative emotions. The idea just seemed farfetched to me.
I kept me gaze on him with clear annoyance. “What makes you think we even have any valuables? Do we look like we’d be able to carry any gold?”
My question didn’t seem to faze him in the slightest; instead he just looked at us with barely contained malice. “Ya got a point there; then again, I’m sure we could find somepony willing to pay a decent amount of bits for such an exotic creature.”
Was he actually talking about selling me off like some kind of slave or pet? I could already feel my blood starting to boil in my veins, replacing my look of annoyance with one of clear anger. If the pony noticed he didn’t say anything about it, but continued his tirade as his gaze wandered to the unicorn filly at my side, doing her best to hide behind my legs.
“And don’t ya worry none about yer little companion there, I’m sure we’ll be able to find some diamond dogs or griffin willing to take her off our hooves.”
His words were like venom to my ears, and it took all of my willpower to stop myself from charging at him then and there, but I knew that Crystal would be defenseless if I did. Instead I braced myself protectively in front of her, a cold chill running down my spine; preparing to conjure my sword and hopefully get a surprise attack in before they could react to my sudden weapon.
Without warning the grey earth pony charged at me, drawing a long knife from a sheath under his bandana with his mouth. I was taken back by how fast he was, my body moving on its own as I drew my blade from thin air, quickly grasping it in my left hand, every thought in my mind focused on protecting the frightened unicorn behind me.
The cold chill intensified, and just as the pony was about to reach us, knife readied for attack, a large green ball of fire shot from behind me, engulfing my would-be attacker in a blaze and causing him to scream loudly in pain. I just barely managed a look with surprise at the heavily breathing unicorn at my side, her horn still glowing with green energy, before shocked gasps rang out from the ponies around us and the thwacks of released crossbows could be heard.
Like the night before I felt a surge of strength, the world becoming a blur as my body was flooded with unfamiliar power. ‘Adrenaline’ I realised at that moment. The human defensive mechanism I hadn’t experienced after becoming an Ascended, but was now back along with the mortal blood in my body.
Knowing that I wouldn’t be able to move away without exposing Crystal Heart I instead whirled around in place, only just taking one of the bolts out of the air with my blade as the other avoided piercing my torso, opening a tear in my tunic and leaving a line of blood instead.
Not wanting to give them a chance to reload or charge me, I placed my foot under Crystal’s stomach, kicking her into a nearby bush as gently as I could, before setting off in the fastest sprint I could muster towards one my attackers. The unexplainable appearance of a weapon in my hand threw him off, just barely bringing the empty crossbow up in a feeble attempt to block my attack, which split the wooden weapon in two and sliced into his shoulder, causing him to stumble backwards and groan in pain.
My senses picked up something charging at my back and without warning I spun around, my right leg leading in a kick which impacted another earth pony on the side of his head, sending him tumbling to the ground, the knife he had wielded harmlessly dropping from his mouth.
The next second I felt a sting in my abdomen, and I quickly moved away from the dagger wielding pony who had flanked me from another direction, hoping to catch me off guard. Not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing me in pain; I responded with a sideways slash of my blade and, being unaccustomed in fighting taller enemies as he was, managed to open a wide wound in his forehead which made him gasp in pain and lose hold of his dagger. Having been blinded by his own blood flowing down his head, I quickly planted a kick squarely in his bloodied face, sending him to the ground with a thud.
I managed to spin around just in time to see the other crossbow wielding pony levelling his newly loaded weapon towards me, just as he was about to fire the bolt at me the weapon became engulfed in familiar green flames, causing him to yelp in surprise and let go of the crossbow. Without wasting another second I set into a sprint, quickly closing the distance between us. The pony gave a whine of fear before turning around, intending to buck me in his panic. The attack was rushed however, and I easily dodged out of the way, moving around to his side and delivering a knee to his unguarded jaw, a loud crack and a cry of pain later and he joined his fellows in the dirt.
Gasping for breath I started looking around for any more potential aggressors, but at the moment only the first pony with the crossbow and the one I had roundhouse kicked were still conscious, both of them on their hoofs, looking fearfully at the bodies of their comrades littering the ground.
As I locked my gaze on the nearest of him he gave a small yelp of fear, his eyes quickly darting back and forth looking for a means of escape.
“Wait! Just…wait a tick!” He yelled out, looking at me with barely hidden panic. “Please, just… just take the loot and let us go.”
As he said this he brought out a cloth pouch from the small saddlebags on his back, lowering it to the ground while keeping eye contact with me, obviously preparing to dart if I tried something. Seeing no attack forthcoming he let out a slight sigh of relief, quickly motioning to his remaining friend to pick up their unconscious comrade from the ground.
They both started backing away, the one from before speaking up again with uncertainty plainly in his voice. “We’ll….we’ll just get out of your manes then,” he gave a nervous laughter at this. “So yes…sorry about all that and… erm…bye!” And with that they bolted into the forest. I turned around as I saw the remaining crossbow-pony pick himself up and gallop in the opposite direction, leaving me and Crystal Heart with a very crispy bandit leader and a pouch of ‘loot’.
“Are…are the bad ponies gone?” I looked back at the source of the more-nervous-than-scared voice, seeing Crystal peek her head out of the bush I had deposited her in earlier.
I gave her a smile before dismissing my sword, taking a few very deep haggard breaths. “Yes Crystal, they’re gone, it’s safe to come out now.” My jovial tone disguising exactly how much pain I felt in that moment.
With a last glance around the area she trotted out of her hiding place, slightly panting from her own exhaustion of magic. As she spotted me, standing there gasping for breath with several wounds dyeing my clothes red with blood, her fear was quickly replaced with worry, darting to me as fast as her small legs could carry her.
“Oh no! Are you wounded? Are you going to be okay?” She didn’t seem to pay much mind to the still smoking corpse nearby, instead looking me over frantically.
I quietly lowered myself to lean against a tree, doing my best to keep the very intense pain from my face and voice. “I’ll live, but I guess we’ll need to rip my clothes even more now,” I said jokingly, my poor attempt at humour hiding how I really felt. “And thank you by the way; if you hadn’t been here to help I would’ve been in a much worse condition.”
Petting her on the head to emphasise my gratitude, I once more felt the cold tingle, though barely noticeable through my considerable misery. “That was some very impressive magic, where did you learn it?”
In reality I knew very little about how unicorn magic worked, but I felt it was important to ease her mind about our earlier situation. She had seemed absolutely terrified at the prospect of more ponies trying to hurt her.
Crystal gave me an honest but uncertain smile. “I didn’t really know what I was doing, mother told me to just throw magic at anything attacking me,” she started hoofing the ground nervously. “And when I saw my new friend being attacked, I just sort of…reacted.”
“Well I’m very glad you did Crystal, I know you must’ve been scared but I’m very proud of your courage.” At this she beamed at me, nuzzling my pained stomach gently.
After a few moments her attention turned to the dead bandit nearby, the fires having already gone out, leaving behind a very black and charred corpse.
“Is… is he dead?”
The question took me by surprise for a moment, suddenly very aware that this young soul had probably just killed for the first time, and without warning I picked her up in a light hug, doing my best to avoid bleeding on her.
“He is, but you didn’t do anything wrong, he would’ve killed either of us if he had the chance,” I tried to assure her in my most calming voice. “You didn’t do anything wrong acting in self-defense, I want you to know that, okay?”
I brought her eyes to look into mine, there were no tears in them, just a solemn feeling of some sort I couldn’t exactly put my finger on. Ever so slightly she nodded at me, lowering her gaze to the ground again, and for just a moment I considered using my Soul Sense to find out exactly what emotions she was struggling with. I quickly pushed the thought from my mind, deciding that doing so would be too intrusive. If she wanted to talk about it, she would come to me.
Quietly removing Crystal from my lap I got back on my feet, glancing around for a moment before coming to a decision. “We should head back to the spring, it’s not far and I need to clean and bandage my wounds.” At this she nodded empathically.
Just as we were about to leave I stopped and looked to where the fleeing bandits had left the pouch. For a moment I considered leaving it, it was stolen valuables after all, but after a few seconds of consideration I decided that we’d need the local currency if we were to buy supplies and rest somewhere. Picking up the pouch I looked inside to see it filled with simple golden coins, having no idea how much they were worth I decided to ask Crystal about it.
Turned out that there was a decent amount of money in it, at the very least she was sure we could purchase room and food for a while, as well as get me some new clothes. She was initially a bit confused of why I’d even need clothes, until I pointed out that I didn’t have any fur to keep me warm. At this she just smiled sheepishly before we went on our way.
We quickly backtracked to the spring, getting my wounds cleaned and sacrificing my entire tunic to bandage them as best we could. After finishing up we started moving back towards where we came from, and after a couple of hours we made it out of the forest, green plains and grassland greeting us.
We walked in peaceful quiet for another few hours, the sun slowly making its way across the sky above us, signalling that it was some time in the afternoon. Already I could feel the blasted human hunger setting in, I felt energy drain from me but continued on, and if Crystal felt the same hunger she didn’t show it, so I certainly wasn’t going to complain.
At some point we made it to the top of a hillock, spotting a small village of perhaps five dozen buildings below us, nestled against what I guessed to be the quarry, a collection of cliffs and hills crisscrossed with a number of small ponymade roads. Taking in the sight, with my stomach growling at the promise of food in the immediate future, I suddenly thought of something that had completely slipped my mind.
“So… do you think I could just wander in there? I mean the bandits didn’t seem too worried about me, but the ones before that…” I let my worries hang in the air, hoping that Crystal would alleviate my fears.
She looked thoughtful for a moment before giving me the pony equivalent of a shrug. “You might turn a few heads, but I don’t think they’ll fear you.” She gestured at me. “I mean, just look at you, you’re the least intimidating thing in Equestria right now.”
I could hear the barely disguised teasing in her voice, and gave a deep sigh in surrender. “I suppose you’re right, at the very least we should be able to get a room somewhere. It’s not like we’re going to stay here for long anyway.”
On that note we started heading down the dirt road, and though I was still concerned about how I would be received, I was also somewhat eager to have my first civilized encounter with other ponies. Especially if said ponies weren’t going to try and kill me.
‘It’s not like it’s something that’s going to happen regularly… right?”