I’ve got you now, you miserable wretch!
Fencer didn’t try to hide her glee at the look of shock on Lex’s face, clearly caught completely off-guard by her demand. Just the sight of it was enough to bleed off a large portion of the frustration she’d felt up until now. Although she’d only met Lex a few hours ago, everything about him – his arrogance, his self-righteousness, his conceited assumption that he could just tell her what to do and punish her if she didn’t obey – had grated on her nerves severely. After everything she’d been through, no one had the right to assert themselves over her, and the fact that he’d done just that was unforgiveable. Now, she’d be the one to assert himself over him; either he’d mutilate himself at her say-so, or he’d watch one of the ponies that he was so gung-ho to protect die right in front of his eyes!
“What?”
Fencer’s elation grew as she heard the incredulity and outrage in Lex’s voice. “That’s right,” she replied, smugness dripping from every word. “I heard about it from that blonde reporter of yours when we were getting checked out by your doctors. She said she wanted to interview us, but she just couldn’t keep herself from going on and on about you. But in between telling us how you fought dragons and sea monsters, she let it slip that that’s King Sombra’s horn you’re wearing, and how it lets you use his magic.”
Lex’s face changed into a look of bitter comprehension. “And you want it for yourself.”
He hadn’t phrased it as a question, but Fencer nodded anyway. “Exactly. And in exchange, you can keep playing hero and drag what’s left of this pony back to your little shelter.” Not that he’d have much chance of making it there, since without his horn he wouldn’t be able to use any of his magic. Now you’ll get a taste of what it’s like to be powerless in a city where everything’s gone to Tartarus!
Lex narrowed his eyes at her taunting, giving her a dark look. “You don’t seem to understand the position that you’re in.” His voice was soft, but the threatening undertone was unmistakable, his eyes glowing to accentuate his malice. “If you kill him, then you won’t have anything to protect you from me. And I can assure you, what I do to you then will be so horrible that it will spawn legends that last a thousand years.” He paused for a long moment to let the threat sink in. “Step away from Pillowcase and surrender right now, and I will show you leniency. Fail to do so, and I’ll show you none.”
But Fencer refused to be intimidated. On the contrary, she gave a harsh laugh. “Oh, that’s rich! ‘Spawn legends that last a thousand years’? You think this,” she tossed her head to indicate everything around them, “will ever be forgotten?!” She curled her lip at him in a sneer, now completely confident that he was bluffing. “Ever since that flood, it’s been the end of the world! And I’M the mare that’s still standing after everything that this bloated corpse of a city has thrown at me! So if you think that I’m scared of you, then you’ve got another thing coming!” Now it was her turn to be silent for a moment, letting him digest that she wasn’t afraid of him. “Now, are you going to sacrifice your horn to save this pony? Or will you make his pretty little wife into a widow?”
Cozy, who had been watching the exchange in silent terror – worried that something would push Fencer over the edge and cost Pillow his life – looked at Lex as Fencer renewed her ultimatum. Although she’d never seen him be anything but dedicated to the safety of everypony around him, his utter lack of warmth or affection was still enough to make her doubt his intentions. Everything about him seemed like…like this was some sort of personal test that he wanted to pass. Like he wanted to win for the sake of winning rather than because he actually cared. Because of that, the prospect of him giving up his horn – something even she knew was crippling for unicorns – seemed uncertain at best. It was enough that the plea she was planning on making died on her lips, and she instead returned her gaze to Fencer. “Please, don’t hurt him!”
“If I get what I want.”
“Take me instead! I’ll be your hostage!” Cozy knew it wouldn’t work, knew that she was no substitute for what the other mare wanted, but she had to try anyway.
Fencer, however, was already shaking her head. “I don’t want you, I want his horn. Once I have it, I’ll be the one turning into shadow, and getting past the blockade and out of this town will be easy!” She sent a condescending smirk at Cozy. “Trading a whole stallion for just one piece of another one, that’s more than fair, wouldn’t you say?”
Lex started. “Blockade?” he blurted. “What blockade?”
Fencer turned a scornful look towards him, but Cozy spoke up first. “You don’t understand. I love him so much. I can’t lose him.” She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to reason with the crazy pony in front of her, but she knew she had to try. With no idea what to do, she simply opened her mouth and began pouring her heart out. “He…he likes collecting postcards.”
“…what?” That last statement was unusual enough that Fencer couldn’t help but frown, and even Lex sent a confused look her way.
“He likes collecting postcards,” repeated Cozy. A sad, helpless smile crossed her tear-stained cheeks. “Every time we travel somewhere, he always goes to a shop and buys a dozen of them. We take turns writing silly messages to each other and then mail them to ourselves, so that when we come home we have souvenirs waiting for us. We have a big scrapbook full of them.”
“I don’t ca-”
Cozy kept going, unable to stop herself. “The first time we ever had a fight, it was over the silliest thing. We’d just gotten married, and he wanted to impress me by going jousting at the Crystal Fair. He wanted me to tie my scarf around his lance for good luck. I told him that I wasn’t going to let him ruin a perfectly good scarf.” She gave a laugh that was almost a whimper as she remembered how worked up they’d gotten over something so trivial. “A month later he bought me a half-dozen scarves, teasing me that next time I’d have plenty to spare.”
Fencer frowned, bothered for some reason. “That’s-”
“When he found out the Equestria Games were coming to the Crystal Empire, he was so excited. It was all he talked about for two months. He worked a second job so that we could afford luxury seats in the stadium. But when I got sick with a cold right before the games started, he stayed at home to take care of me, even though I told him that he should go enjoy the Games by himself.” Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at Fencer, silently begging. “You know what he said when I told him that? That he couldn’t enjoy them if I wasn’t there with him.”
“Shut up,” hissed Fencer around gritted teeth. Cozy’s anecdotes were sapping her elation for some reason, replacing it with a growing sense of anger. “I don’t want to hear this!” She knew she needed to get Lex’s horn and get out, that the longer they remained there, talking and huddled around the light, the more likely it was that the undead ponies would converge on them. That wasn’t an immediate problem; she had gathered up several pencils when she’d first run into the warehouse, and right now they were scattered across the hallways behind her. If any of those monsters tried to take her from behind, she’d hear them coming. Even so, she knew that time wasn’t on her side, and this stupid mare was wasting it on her useless, meaningless personal stories!
But Cozy kept going. “He nitpicks every time someone says ‘pillow’ when they mean ‘cushion.’ And when Nosey told me how everypony in the shelter had a pillow-fight before we arrived, I almost cried because it reminded me of the story of when Pillow got his cutie mark, during a pillow-fight that he was having with some friends when he was a col-”
“I said SHUT UP!” roared Fencer, her rage suddenly boiling over. She knew that yelling was a mistake, that she had just alerted every undead pony in this place to her location, but at that moment she couldn’t bring herself to care. Her calm was completely shattered as her lips pulled back in a snarl, giving Cozy a look of pure venom. “You stupid, stupid mare! I don’t care about any of that! Why should I?! When this city fell apart, nopony cared about the ponies important to me!”
It all came bubbling up then, everything that she’d endured over the last two months was suddenly flowing out of her, unstoppable. “Oh, it was fine at first, with everypony joining hooves and working together and sharing food and space and everything! But then the food ran low and the space got more and more crowded as buildings kept flooding and then all of a sudden it wasn’t the same! My dad and Cocobolo had been friends since they were kids, but she said he was stealing food in the middle of the night! As if he would ever do that!”
Lex narrowed his eyes, noticing how Fencer had begun to shake, looking at her hoof holding the jagged piece of wood against Pillowcase’s neck. He wasn’t sure if Cozy’s pushing Fencer to this point was a good thing or not. If she lost her composure enough, she might give him the opening he needed to safely get her away from Pillowcase…or she might completely lose her mind and kill Pillow immediately. In his peripheral vision, he could see that Cozy was similarly worried, having turned pale.
Fencer continued to rant. “You know what they did then? They threw us both out! Even though we had nowhere to go, even though we had nothing to eat, nopony cared! We…we tried to go back to our house, but it was a mess.” Her tone softened, regret momentarily overpowering rage. “We tried to stay there, but everything was waterlogged and it smelled terrible and there were bugs everywhere! So we looked around for other groups of ponies that we could stay with, but no one would take us in!” The rage returned to her voice then. “It was always ‘we don’t have enough food for anypony else’ no matter who we talked to! We were starving and nopony cared! And then those monsters came, and my dad, h-he…”
She couldn’t finish, feeling tears gathering in her eyes, and suddenly she hated that crystal mare more than anyone. She hated her for ruining her self-control, making her live through all of that again. She hated her because she was just another pony who only cared about the people important to her, and to Tartarus with everypony else. She hated her for acting like she was the victim here, when she hadn’t lost anyone!
She hated her because, if she got her husband back and went home to the Crystal Empire, she could still be happy.
That was more than Fencer could take. To Tartarus with getting that stallion’s horn; he was almost certainly preparing some sort of trick anyway. Right now the only thing that mattered was teaching that little nag a lesson. She tensed, getting ready to slam her hoof down. “Nopony cared about us, so I don’t care about y-”
“You can have it.”
For an instant, Fencer didn’t understand what Lex meant. “What?”
“My horn for Pillowcase’s safe return. I’ll remove it, but before I turn it over to you I want you to put your weapon down and step away from him.”
For a moment Fencer just stared at him, slowly coming back to herself. What had she been doing? She’d almost thrown everything away in a fit of emotion, and in Vanhoover that was death. That’s right. I don’t need to be the one to teach her a lesson. If her protector loses his magic, then Vanhoover will do it all by itself. I just need to get what I came for and get out of here.
“L-Lex,” croaked Cozy, “I-”
“Be quiet, Cozy,” he ordered, never taking his eyes off of Fencer. “You’ve already said enough.”
“More than enough,” agreed Fencer, eyeing Lex in return. He was planning something, she was sure of it. “Here’s how this is going to go: You have that scythe of yours cut your horn off, and then you give it to me immediately. After that, it cuts off mine, and then, before I attach yours, I’ll back away and give your stallion back.”
Lex narrowed his eyes. “That’s not acceptable.”
“Accept it anyway,” shot back Fencer. “I’m going to attach your horn right now, and that means that mine has to come off first, and if you think I’m letting that happen without a hostage, you’re dreaming. I know that you’d aim for my neck instead of my horn if I let you; this way, even if you try, I’ll fall forward and still kill him.” She shifted her weight slightly, leaning forward just a little to make a show of her threat. “First your horn comes off, then you give it to me, then mine comes off,” she repeated. “Then you get your stallion back, and hopefully we never have to see each other again.”
For a long moment, Lex regarded her silently, his face a mask. Then he nodded. “Very well.” He leaned his head forward slightly, raising his eyes to look at Severance. “Do it.” The blade hesitated for a moment, as if reluctant, then swung in a wide arc.
Lex’s horn clattered as it hit the ground.