The Starlit

by Tzelael

Break

Onyx lay on her belly atop the roof of the inn, having gone there after leaving Twilight to her studies. She made sure to remain toward the center of the roof, lowering her saddlebags and rifling through them. She produced a rather large, indigo cloak with a black, circular brooch and a hooded cowl. Clipping it on as the sun set, she reached into the bag with her mouth, gripping onto a metallic object and pulling it out.

“Hello there, beautiful,” she cooed at the object. Her thoughts suddenly began to wander, turning over to the street side while she shut her eyes in a meditative trance...

“We were lucky to get out of there alive!” Onyx moved through the trees of the Everfree Forest, running and weaving between each of them, stopping only for a moment to look behind her. She was far younger, her build more lithe, though less defined, her sky-blue mane shorter and far less wild than it would later be. Lagging behind was the exhausted figure of a brown unicorn stallion, his hazel eyes sagging as his black mane swung side to side, stringy from the sweat pouring from his body.

“Would it... Have killed you... To wait... After we-” the voice was interrupted by several coughs. He was having enough trouble speaking when every few words required that he take another breath. He knelt down by a tree, taking in several quick, deep breaths and resisting every urge his body had to just fall onto the ground and give in to his fatigue.

“Whoa, you’re really out of shape. And you’re supposed to be looking out for me.” Onyx smirked at the brown unicorn. Before the other could protest, she looked beyond the trees, seeing several tents pitched up in the middle of a clearing in the forest with a wagon in the center. Her eyes lit up, her sore legs the only things preventing her from breaking into a sprint to get to the middle of the camp. She grinned to herself and pat the brown unicorn on the back, inadvertently knocking him into the ground.

“Well now, Underhoof, looks like your exhausting task of keeping an eye on me is finally over.” After Underhoof picked himself back up, the two approached the camp, heading straight for the wagon in the center of the clearing. As they moved, they passed by several ragged, unkempt ponies pouring through tomes of occult lore, maintaining weapons, and a few of them training for combat. The brown unicorn stayed back, then gestured over to the wagon, his current attempts to speak constricted by his exhaustion. Onyx, however, comprehended immediately, heading inside the wagon.

Sitting in the wagon was an earth pony with a creme-colored coat and a flowing mane of fiery red hair. A mare well into her late 30s, age only beginning to chip away at her features, but not at her resolve, since as soon as Onyx stepped inside the wagon, her eyes went straight for hers. The pupils at the center of those orange irises fixed themselves on the young pegasus filly’s green eyes. The silence in the wagon was broken by the older mare’s stern yet restrained voice.

“Where’s Underhoof?”

“He’s resting outside.”

“Resting?”

“Well, yes. The last half of the mission involved a lot of running.”

Brazier’s eyes finally shifted their gaze, but only to examine the filly in front of her more thoroughly, her eyes turning their attention to the saddlebag on her flank, noting a bulge on the bottom of the sack. She then leaned back in the chair and resumed eye contact.

“A lot of running after mapping the forest... I assume you ran into some kind of creature on your way back.”

“Uh... Yeah. Manticore. Big one.”

“Interesting... It must have been quite the generous manticore.”

Onyx tilted her head.

“Miss Brazier?”

“It must have been a generous manticore if it left something in your saddlebags to come home with.” The mare held out her hoof, jerking it toward herself. Onyx rolled her eyes and pulled the bag off, setting it on the ground. Out from the opening rolled a silver leg bracelet, exquisitely crafted with an inlaid pearl on what could only be assumed to be the front. The mare called Brazier picked it up and examined the jewelry closely.

“Inlaid pearl, silver bracer...” She held it above her head to look on the inside. “Runic engraving in its middle, likely magically charged... I daresay, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you stole this from some powerful ponies.” She dropped it back in front of Onyx. The pegasus filly sighed, resigned to her fate.

“I’m guessing you’ve found something while you were out there... Something, no doubt, that the bracelet there belonged to.”

“Yes. I found the bracelet.”

“Very funny.” Brazier’s eyes narrowed with the comment. Her eyes turned back out the door. “If you won’t tell me...” She kicked the door open and yelled out into the camp. “UNDERHOOF! GET IN HERE!”

A slow, cautious set of hoofsteps approached the doorway, the brown figure of Underhoof poking in slowly.

“Underhoof, I did charge you with keeping an eye on Onyx, didn’t I?”

“You did, ma’am.” He stood, his head held up, the rest of his body remaining stiff and rigid. His voice trembled slightly, seeming to have only just caught his breath again.

“Then tell me what you found on your cartography mission. Onyx went out to map the forest and she came back here faster than most new Starlit.”

“Yes ma’am. We were searching through the forest when we found an encampment in another clearing in the forest. We saw several unicorns there, all of them infusing their magic into a large, white orb in the center.”

“Did they have any markings on them, unusual features that you recognized?”

“A sliver of all of their horns were painted black, the rest of it white.”

“That’s enough to tell me exactly who you encountered, Underhoof. What happened?”

Underhoof remained silent for several seconds. “I got too close and they spotted me. They were getting ready to pursue, then Onyx flew in and stole one of their relics. They chased her instead until we lost them,” he thought to himself, playing out the conversation in his head before actually beginning it. He knew there was no way this would end well, but it didn't matter. He took a deep breath.

“I-”

“They had this little bracelet. Looked enchanted, so I decided to take it. Besides... I think I look good in silver.” Onyx turned to the unicorn stallion and winked with a smirk on her face.

The older mare examined the two of them closely, her attention fixing on the pegasus filly’s face, then turning back to the older unicorn stallion. Brazier turned away and reached toward the back of the wagon, pushing a chest over toward the pegasus filly. She kicked it open to reveal a steel bracelet, a slot on the other side with an empty hole and a peg. Beneath it were three blades, each of them the length of an adult pony’s foreleg, a hole on the blunt end, and next to each hole the following labels engraved into each of them: “Chalybs,” “Ferrum,” and “Argentum.” Onyx looked between the box’s contents, then up to Brazier, then back at the box.

“Isn’t this a Loyalty’s Blade?”

“That it is.”

“Don’t you normally give those to Starlit pegasi that are ready for combat?”

“And you aren’t?”

Onyx’s confused look was plastered to her face at this point. Brazier turned over to Underhoof, then back at the pegasus filly.

“You just spied on, stole from, and alerted our most dangerous enemies to our presence. You’ve made quite the mess, so I have to ask... Are you ready to clean it up?”

Onyx pulled out the steel ring for the Blade. She opened it, then clamped it snugly just below the middle joint of her right foreleg. With her other leg, she searched the bottom of the saddle bag, bending her hoof so her skin touched the bottom. She felt the cold touch of metal, then slid her skin down the surface. “Which one’s this... F-E- Ah, perfect.” She produced a blade from the bag, a hole notched in the top with the word “Ferrum” engraved on the blade’s surface.

“Pure iron, though it has spent a lot of time in a forge. The effect is diminished a little bit, but that just means it won’t kill him as quickly. It should work fine against our target.” She slide the hole of the blade into the slot on the ring, sliding the peg into place, a click locking the blade into the ring’s slot. Onyx held the weapon aloft, the blade half a foot beyond her hoof. The sun had dissolved into the horizon, and the pegasus mare pulled the hood of her cloak over her head. She stared intently at the Destiny Carriage, waiting for Caprice to leave it for just a moment.

Several hours passed by, and through each of them Onyx maintained her rooftop vigil. A loud THUD sounded in the distance, briefly grabbing the pegasus’ attention, turning toward the remnants of the Salt Block, seeing the same intoxicated imbecile being kicked out. She rolled her eyes at the display.

“Figures.” She attempted to return to her watch over the carriage, but immediately noticed the drunkard shambling his way toward the dwelling of the creature she’d been waiting for. She grimaced for a moment and crouched down. “On one hand, he’ll most certainly draw him out into the open for just a moment... On the other, the stupid bastard’s about to cut a deal with a Fae. This isn’t going to end well... Wonder what he’s going to ask fo-”

“HEY! MIS’ER CAPRICE! MAKE THE PERDY PEGASUSUSESS LIKE ME!” The salt-cached drunkard slammed his hooves against the doorway of the carriage repeatedly while leaning on it for support. During this egregious display of desperation, Onyx’s hoof made contact with her face and slid down the center.

“...That didn’t take long.”

The door to the carriage opened outward, knocking the drunkard off balance, then immediately onto his rear. The tan-coated and green-maned Caprice walked down the carriage and looked down upon the drunkard.

“You called upon me?”

Onyx saw her chance. He was right where she needed him to be. She crouched back, readying herself to dive off the rooftop. The two continued their dialogue, apparently ignorant of her presence above.

“I wan’ you t’ make the perdy pegasusessess t' like me.”

“What is your name?”

Panic suddenly gripped Onyx’s body as soon as Caprice said those four words. No time was to be wasted anymore. She heard the voice of the drunkard speaking, though it immediately became indistinct in the rush of adrenaline. She launched herself from the eaves toward her target. Caprice turned and smiled at her. In the nanoseconds between the impact of Onyx’s blade and the Fae, the drunkard stood, his body rising up in the path between the pegasus and her target. Onyx slammed into the drunkard and crashed into the ground.

“That couldn’t have happened at a worse time...” She quickly got back up on her hooves, taking another swing of her blade at Caprice, his unicorn face grinning widely as the drunkard wobbled for a few seconds, then fell on top of her just as she swung. Onyx growled to herself in frustration.

“Okay, now it’s painfully clear that Caprice has the idiot’s name... He’s fighting me with flukes and coincidences.” She tossed the drunkard’s body to the side, holding her blade and standing still. “He’s going to keep doing that... Every time I go for him, he’ll use this imbecile to block me off.”

“You know, Starlit assassin, I’ll give you some free advice: quit now. You’re not just trying to stab my throat from above anymore, now you’re fighting Fate itself. And don’t bother asking how I know you’re Starlit, only two kinds of ponies use pure iron weapons: Idiots and Starlit, and frankly, the two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

Onyx grit her teeth for a second, then her lips twisted up into a wicked smile. “You may be wrong about the idiot part...”

“Oh? How so?”

“Because I’m not fighting my fate...” She held out the blade, the drunkard stumbling toward her. Onyx charged toward Caprice, the Fae grinning as he made the brown pony stumble into the pegasus’ way. However, she quickly crouched down, spun, and held the blade-hoof aloft, the iron piercing through the drunkard’s chest. He looked up at Onyx and barely sputtered out “Why” before blood dribbled down his lips. Caprice stared blankly at Onyx for several seconds, then his blank expression broke out into a chuckle.

“Ohohoho... How predictably cold of you.”

Onyx remained stone-faced and silent, twisting the blade in the chest of the stallion who was the Fae’s instrument earlier.

“You really don’t appreciate the intimacy and the beauty of taking a life like we do... See, the fates of ponies are a lot like vines in bramble,” Caprice jeered at Onyx. She tried to pull her weapon out of the body, though the blade refused to budge.

“Horseapples... It’s stuck in the moron’s sternum... I won’t even ask how that happened.” She felt something around her foreleg, a prickling, stinging sensation poking in a spiral all the way down its length.

“And when one individual takes the life of another, the two fates intertwine in the moments before one of them just stops...” Onyx seized up, parts of her foreleg suddenly bleeding while it seized up. She was unable to move while some unseen force gripped her tightly and pierced her flesh.

“Now hold still...” Caprice’s grin extended, revealing rows of dagger-sharp teeth. His eyes briefly flashed into a strange collection of numerous yellow irises looking straight at her. “This might hurt... A lot.”

The unseen force suddenly hurled Onyx and the dead body her blade was lodged in straight into a nearby building. She crashed through one of the wooden pillars, shattering it into pieces. The pegasus mare grunted in pain, though wasn’t given enough time to even finish it before she was thrown into Caprice’s Destiny Carriage, then slammed into the ground over and over. Her coat was soaked in her own blood by this point, the holes that tore into her skin getting larger with each successive blow into the ground that would follow. Caprice’s face twisted into a demented grin, his head moving in time with each time Onyx slammed into the ground, a cloud of dust being kicked up and obscuring the landscape.

The final blow made was accompanied with a crack, along with the wounds on Onyx’s foreleg sputtering out blood that soaked into the sand underneath her. Onyx’s vision dulled as she attempted to pull herself up from the blows. The constriction around her foreleg that she experienced earlier had disappeared, but every attempt to move her body was met only with an intense pain, each of her breaths short and labored. Caprice approached her slowly, snickering to himself as he saw the broken pegasus’ titanic endeavor of moving her right foreleg away from the corpse. Her face fell as she saw that all that remained of the iron blade in her weapon was nub barely longer than a thimble, the rest of it broken off and lodged into the cadaver she was stuck on.

“It seems only fair. You break my weapon, and I break yours.” Caprice bent down to Onyx, making eye contact with her barely mobile form. He opened his mouth wide, his dagger teeth bared at her while he spoke. “Normally I wouldn’t resort to anything so crude, but since I don’t know your name, my solution to this problem will have to be most... Inelegant. Goodbye, Starli-” Suddenly, he was cut off mid-sentence by a large object that flew past his face. A blunt, heavy object coated in a magenta light slammed past his horn, breaking half of it off of his head, the hat he wore being sent flying off in the distance. Caprice fell over on the ground, screaming in pain as the piece of his horn that ripped off suddenly disintegrated into a pile of ash.

The mask of a normal unicorn had flickered and finally disappeared, revealing a dark green chitin that divided into armor-like sections across his face, and a set of thorny vines, not unlike a rosebush branch, that wrapped its way from where the horn was down the creature’s neck chitinous neck. The jaw remained open, no lips above the pointed teeth as the pained screams escaped his throat. When he finally silenced himself, Caprice scrambled onto his feet. His eyes, appearing to have countless tiny, yellow irises that moved independently of one another, turned over to the direction the object came from.

The magenta-lit object flew back in the direction it came from, the glow fading away as it dropped to the ground, revealing it to be a “Hammer,” that is to say, it looked like a handle that had been jammed into a faintly lustrous rock. Given the fact that it actually hurt Caprice, it was safe to assume that the rock was made of pure iron. Peering into the distance, he saw the figure of a unicorn, her coat a lavender and her violet hair cut in a straight line.

“Twilight Sparkle... I should have suspected as much.”

Twilight stopped in place as she made eye contact with the creature, standing her ground despite the Fae showing his true visage.

“Don’t get any bright ideas about turning my luck sour... It doesn’t take much to launch this hunk of metal at you.” She began her approach as she spoke to the creature once more. “You already know my name, so it seems there’s something we need to discuss.”