Mouse sighed as he walked away from the guards, listening to their cries they made their arrest. Sap would be going away for a long time, certainly long enough for him to quit the Blackglass cold. It would be good for him, in the end. Now all Mouse had to do was get a job.
He’d have to leave town, maybe head north to Manehattan, or maybe he’d head inland, find a job chopping wood in one of the small settlements out in the wild.
He knew what he was doing this time, he could get a job. It wouldn't be that hard. He had some money to afford a little training, he could afford enough food that he could make it on his own for a bit. He could do this.
But the first thing he needed to do was deliver Sap’s ledger to Cut. Once that was done, he could start his life as an honest pony.
He could have an honest job, make an honest living, and have a nice house somewhere on the frontier. All he had to do was deliver this ledger.
He was already on his way to the Canterlot’s gang leader’s hideout, checking behind him just to be sure he wasn't being followed, eager to let this go and move on with his life. He ran up the small, stone steps, and quickly knocked on the door.
It creaked open, and Cut’s eye peeked out before the door slowly swung open. A quick look left and right revealed nopony following the lone thief, so he quickly ushered Mouse inside. “You have it?”
“Right here,” Mouse replied holding up the black book.
“Let me see it,” Cut said, before grabbing the barely-offered book. He ran through the pages, deciphering the dates, amounts, products, and coins as quickly as possible. “He was stealing Blackglass from us?”
“He was suffering from addiction, and was trying to quit with a few large doses,” Mouse explained. “He woke up in a cold sweat while I was working in his room.”
“That doesn't explain all of it,” Cut said. “This is enough glass to supply the entire gang. Something else has to be going on.”
A memory popped up in the back of Mouse’s mind. The image of Sap staring him down threatening him to take the shard back when he first arrived. “W-what’s the penalty for stealing from the gang?” Mouse asked.
“Expulsion, followed by extracting a pound of flesh per twenty Golden bit value, I believe,” Cut rattled off from the top of his head. “Why?”
“He may have been buying silence,” Mouse said.
Cut turned. “What do you mean?”
“He tried to get me to take a shard back when I joined. I think he was trying to make me an accomplice so I’d implicate myself if I were to let you know.”
Cut blinked.
“That would also explain why everypony there hated me, when I didn’t take it,” Mouse added.
“How did you figure that?” Cut asked.
“I’ve spent a long time in prison, I’ve heard of every jail-able offense Equestria has.”
Cut blinked. “Fair enough, I suppose, but you do have a point, if he was supplying the gang to keep them quiet, then that would match these numbers.” He checked the book once more, before he finally sighed. “You did good, Mouse. Very good. It's a shame that you have to go, you’d have made an amazing agent.”
“Thanks,” Mouse said, “but as I said the first time, the risk of getting tossed in jail was never a big pull for me.”
“If you say so,” Cut said. “Have you decided where you’re going?”
“Vanhoover, if I had to pick,” Mouse answered. I could probably find a job as a farmhand out there somewhere, but I’m hoping for something a little less back-breaking.”
Cut smiled. “Only a month with us, and you’re already picky. What happened to the stallion willing to do anything for some coin?”
Mouse smiled. “Yeah, I know. For someone who is actually trying to become an honest pony, I don’t really have the luxury.”
Cut gave him a gentle punch to the shoulder. “You’ll be fine, Mouse. You’re too good to not do well, trust me,” he said, before reaching into a chest and pulling out a sack of coins. “Here, this should get you Vanhoover with some bits to spare. There’s your last payment from the gang. Get out there, go make a name for yourself, and may your luck lead you to fortune.”
Mouse took the sack and smiled. “You got it, Cut, and good luck.”
“My luck’s always with me,” the pegasus answered with a smile.
By the next day, Mouse was had left, deciding to save a little bit of money by walking, at least to Canterlot. Once there, he’d catch a wagon up to Vanhoover, with another 30 gold bits to his name. That’d give him some more time in an inn, and hopefully more time until he could get a proper job.
Here it was, a new beginning, a new chance to start an honest life. These were the last steps of his old life, the life of a stallion born in prisons, and raised by thieves. This was his chance to finally take his life by the reins. He’d finally be in control. He was going to be an honest pony, and there was no power in this world that was going to—
“Yaaaa!”
Mouse spun, and slammed into the ground as another pony ran into him. Mouse went tumbling, rolling across the ground before his attacker landed another blow. A hoof slammed into his face, and he felt his teeth rattle in his skull. A third blow rammed into his gut like a battering ram, and the breath was knocked from his lungs.
Finally, Mouse kicked, his back legs catching the attacker in the gut, and sent him flying. Mouse rolled, reaching his magic into his bag and pulling the Twin Moons free. He finally raised his head to stare the pony down, and was surprised to see Shade, the earth pony, right-hoof-stallion of Sap’s gang.
“You…” Shade growled, before pulling a long-handled dagger from his belt.
“I didn’t kill Dusk, Shade,” Mouse yelled, the crescent daggers spinning.
“Yes you did, you may not have landed the blow, but you killed him,” the earth pony said, beginning to circle Mouse and his enchanted blades.
“What are you talking about?” Mouse asked, beginning to circle the opposite way, staying on the opposite side of the road from the mad earth pony.
“You broke his back, and when Sap saw him, he had no choice but to put him down.”
“What? Then Sap killed him, you idiot! I didn’t—”
“You broke him! Sap just did what you didn’t have the stomach to do.”
Mouse frowned. “If you think I don’t have the stomach to kill, then you don’t know who I am.”
The dance of death began, and the ponies began to waltz across the road, maintaining their distance from each other as they began to measure each other up.
The earth pony growled around the handle of his knife, eyes filled with water flames of hatred. “We were going straight to the top, you know. We were going there lead the gang to glory.”
“You two? You could pick a dead pony’s pocket without him noticing, and he couldn’t sneak his way past the blind. Between the two of you, you barely had one functioning thief, hardly a glorious leader.”
“We were a team! We had always been a team, and you and Sap took him from me!” Shade yelled, before charging across the way, blade raised.
The stallion charged, and Mouse dove forward, swinging low as he aimed for Shade’s legs, and the earth pony was forced to leap out of the way, lest the razor sharp blades took his hooves from under him.
Shade almost danced out of the way, revealing an unexpected agility that explained his skill at hiding in the shadows.
“So you do blame Sap,” Mouse said, a slight smile on his face at being right.
“And you took him, too!” Shade yelled, before he launched another attack, his lone dagger slicing through the air like a falling star.
The Twin Moons, after spending weeks on end hidden in a bag, were eager to battle, and spun to meet the attacking thief with a vigor matched only by a creature that knows it is fulfilling it's reason for living. The crescent blades clashed against Shade's dagger, and though he had the strength to stop the attacks in their tracks, Mouse's magic could lead the blades into strange angles and deadly maneuvers.
For a long second, it seemed that Shade had bitten off more than he chew. Their furious tango was pushing him back step by step back off the road and into the wilderness. It was obviously in the unicorn’s favor, and both thieves knew it.
Mouse shot his blades forward, low to the ground and eager to end this before a hoof suddenly stomped down on one of his precious knives. The magic grip around the knife tried to pull it free, but Shade kept his hoof in place, and the blade did not move.
Shade's head snapped around, and the blade went swinging into Mouse's free knife. The crescent blade went flying back, like it was reeling from the blow, and Shade pushed forward, taking the moment to push back.
He barreled forward, attacking before Mouse had a chance to recover. His knife swung close to Mouse's neck, and the unicorn was forced back, nearly stumbling over his own hooves as the earth pony made a sudden counter.
His hooves caught on an unseen bump in the road, and Mouse tumbled backwards into a heap. Shade was on him in a second, opening with a blow to Mouse's horn. The shock sent his magic fizzling, and the other knife dropped to the floor. Shade moved in, bringing his knife in close to slit Mouse’s throat wide open.
Mouse’s legs shot out, pushing against Shade’s throat to keep the earth pony’s blade from getting too close to his neck. He locked his knees, and kept pushing back, and though the knife got close, it was never close enough.
But Mouse was not a big pony, and his legs were much shorter than Shade’s. The earth pony’s hooves found Mouse’s neck and began to squeeze.
Mouse tried to breathe, tried to keep the blade in Shade’s mouth away from him, but the thief was pushing down hard, crushing his throat and bringing the blade closer and closer to his throat.
His horn began to ring, tried to reach out for something.
His throat was starting to collapse, and his vision was starting to darken.
His magic reached, and grasped.
And the world went black, he could hardly breathe.
His magic found something. He pulled back with all his strength, scrambling to save himself.
But as his grip on item in his magic tightened, his grip on the world loosened, until finally, consciousness slipped away.
It was darkness. It was all darkness. The void stretched out before him like a sea of nothingness, and Mouse was sure that he had finally died. It was over, his life was over and he had done nothing except help a few thieves and send another to jail.
His honest life had ended before it even started.
Of course it did.
He wanted to be honest, and this is what he got for trying.
He sighed as he floated in the nothingness. Maybe he shouldn’t act like this. It wasn’t like he was destined to fail.
“No, my little pony,” a voice said behind him.
Mouse spun, and there before him stood a mare. She was taller than anypony he had ever seen before, a giant in her own right, and her mane was the deepest reaches of the night sky. Her cyan eyes sparkled as she stared down at him, and he could only gasp as her massive spiraled horn shone with moonlight, while her wings blocked out the darkness of the void.
“You are meant for much more than that,” she said, her voice as soft and serene as the ripples across a moonlit lake.
Mouse stared at her, mouth agape as Luna, goddess of night whispered to him, answering his half-hearted, empty prayers.
“Go, my little pony. You have yet more to do,” she whispered.
And the next thing Mouse knew, he was staring up at a canopy of leaves, with a pressure on his chest.
Looking down, he saw Shade, lying still with one of the crescent blades sticking from his back.
It took a moment, maybe two, before Mouse suddenly came to a strange, and outright surprising conclusion.
He was alive.
He was actually alive.
By some miracle, perhaps even divine intervention, he was still alive. He...he had somehow, with the last seconds of his consciousness, had killed Shade where he stood. He was alive, by Luna’s mercy he was alive!
He shoved the body aside, freeing himself to stand, before taking his knives back. He laughed, adrenaline pulsing through his veins at the very idea that he was alive. He thanked Luna, whose image was still fresh in his mind, and promised he would offer her a gift at her shrines, and would worship her in whatever way she saw fit.
Oh, he was alive.
Gasping for breath, he then turned back to the body.
His enemy was dead, and he had come through alive. He won, and he had the right to treat the bodies however he wanted. He had earned that right, it was prison law. He quickly cleaned them off on Shade’s cloak and hid them back in his bag. Searching the body, he found another thirty gold bits, which he gladly pocketed.
He left the knife and cloak, and shoved the body to the side, more than willing to let it rot where it lay.
With a final gasp, another personal reminder that he was, in fact, breathing, he continued on his way.
A week’s travel by foot, and Mouse was back in Canterlot. The budding capital of the new country of Equestria had grown since he was last here, with new house pushing the city limits further and further away from the castle that was still being built up on the mountain. The new, wooden builds smelled strongly of fresh-cut wood, and smiling ponies were moving in, quickly setting up their new home.
Mouse just hoped that they could find a job.
For the most part, Mouse ignored the shops, the ponies, and the houses, instead focusing on the building that sat back at the very foot of the mountain. Sitting there, right next to the path that led all the way up to castle gates, was the chapel of the gods.
He owed a mare a visit, after all.
He made his way there, doing his best to avoid the guards, he was sure at least one of them would recognize him for his earlier thieving. Beyond the guards, however, nothing slowed his approach to the building of smooth, carved stone.
Alicorn figures were carved into the sides of the chapel, with yet more figures standing watch at every corner, standing as angelic gargoyles over the house of worship.
The heavy oak doors were closed, but a smaller door cut into the larger one welcomed Mouse before he stepped inside. Nine, nearly identical shrines, set equidistant from each other hugged the walls, differentiated only by symbols that marked which god they were associated with.
Mouse only knew a few, the crescent moon for Luna, the blazing sun for her sister. A skull for Halden, the god of death. The others were completely alien to the ex-thief, though. An hourglass, a mountain, waves, a great tree, and clouds, all these Mouse could guess. A god of time, one of mountains, one of seas, forests, and the sky. It was the last one that defied him.
A set of nine criss-crossing lines, all touching each other in a strange, yet obviously meaningful lattice. The symbol, done in silver, glinted in the candlelight, and provided no answer to what it was, regardless of how much time Mouse spent staring at it.
Stepping further inside, Mouse was surprised to see the chapel so empty. Other than a single, stooped earth pony dressed in slightly a frayed, but pressed and clean robe, the entire chapel seemed empty, and would have been completely silent if not for the priest’s low prayer.
The robed pony stopped his muttering only long enough to nod towards Mouse, acknowledging him before returning to his prayer, cleaning the shrine of the silver web as he worked. Mouse nodded back, and stepped inside, noting that the priest was keeping an eye on him as he moved further into the sanctuary.
Mouse moved down the line, before he came to the shrine of Luna, a pedestal with a well set into it’s top and a silver, crescent moon standing proud above the well and supported a wrought iron bar. Mouse bowed his head, offered a few coins at the base of the pedestal, and began his prayer.
He prayed as he had learned, repeating the words of praise the thieves had offered, repeating their requests for stealth and safety.
“Do nightmares trouble you, my son?”
Mouse spun, surprised to see the priest standing directly behind him. He hadn’t made a sound, but had somehow crossed the entire chapel.
“Uh…” Mouse began, trying to formulate a response.
“Oh, don’t worry,” the priest said with a warm smile, “I won’t push you for an answer. It is not my place to make you speak, only to listen when you wish to share.”
Mouse nodded, thankful that the priest wouldn’t push him to an answer. “Th-thank you,” he said, before he offered a hesitant “what do you mean nightmares?”
The priest gave him a strange look, before pointing back at the shrine. “You’re praying to Luna, goddess of night, the mind, and dreams. I just assumed that you needed her protection from nightmares, am I incorrect?”
“Uh...no…” Mouse said. “I just...I don’t know much about the gods, I just picked this shrine because I thought the night one would help more.”
“Ah,” the priest nodded. “Forgive me, it has been a long time since I have spoken with the uninitiated, but you are young, you may have grown up uneducated in the way of the gods. But you believe, and that should be enough for me. Come, my child, let me teach you the ways of the divine.”
Mouse nodded and smiled, while inwardly relieved that the priest had began to answer his question without asking too much in return. Besides, a little knowledge on the god he had promised to worship would do him well.
“The gods each contain three spheres. The Sphere of Sky, the Sphere of Soil, and the Sphere of Soul, one for each race of ponykind, though they hold no favorites themselves. Of the sky gods, there is Celestia, goddess of the sun; her sister Luna, goddess of the moon; and Ventus, god of the storms. Meanwhile Ventus’ brother Bahari, the god of the seas; and his sister Peme, goddess of the forest, rule the the Sphere of Soil along with Gora, god of the mountains and metals.”
As he spoke, he pointed to each shrine. The sun, the moon, the cloud, the wave, the tree, and the mountain.
“Now, Gora,” the priest continued. “Is the brother of Kronus, god of time, and has another brother in Halden, the god of death. But all of them bow to Seyella,” he said, pointing to the strange symbol, “the goddess of fate. These three rule the Sphere of Soul.”
The priest went on to explain that the gods, though tied directly to a single aspect, have become patron gods of various other aspects. Seyella gave ponies their cutie marks, Peme was in charge of the harvest, Luna had control of dreams, Kronus was the patron of magic, and so on. Mouse was paying less and less attention as the priest went on, losing interest as he moved further and further away from the lunar goddess.
He was ready to leave within five minutes, even as the priest continued on and on in his explanation. But he stayed long enough to finish, letting the priest explain as a fire of an enthusiasm that almost made the aged earth pony appear young glinted in his eyes.
In all honesty, though, Mouse only really learned one thing about all the other gods that actually mattered to him.
He finally knew the name of the goddess that hated him.
“Mr. Mouse!” Cinnamon Stick cried as she watched the ex-thief walk through the door of the Keystone Inn.
“Miss Cinnamon Stick, you remember me,” Mouse said with a smile.
“Oh, we always remember our best customers, Mr. Mouse,” she said, before pulling up her ledger. “What can I do for you?”
“Just a room and a meal for the morning,” Mouse said. “I’m only staying one night, and then heading for Vanhoover.”
“Really?” she asked, concerned. “You’re going to travel this close to winter?”
Mouse nodded. “It’s not cold enough to worry about it yet, I certainly didn’t notice on the road here.”
“Did you come from the east?” she asked.
“Yes, why?”
“The east coast is always warmer than the west coast. It’s only going to get colder from here.”
“And that’s why I’m going to hire a carriage to take me.”
Cinnamon shook her head. “Just be careful, maybe buy a thicker cloak before you leave.”
Mouse smiled. “Alright, alright, if you insist. In the meantime, a room, please.”
“Right, of course,” she said with a smile before handing him a key. “Enjoy your stay at the Keystone inn.”
“Always.”
A short trip upstairs to room 11, and Mouse quickly relaxed as he fell into the goose feather mattress.
He sighed and smiled as he sunk into feathers. The bed alone was worth every single gold bit.
He rolled around, taking off his cloak, belt and bag and laying naked in the bed. He didn’t want to admit it, but Winter was getting closer. More than once on his journey here, Mouse had woken up to frost clinging to his cloak, and he had to scramble to bring his campfire to life just so he could nurse feeling back into his hooves.
Maybe he should look into buying a tent. Or perhaps not, once he was in Vanhoover it wouldn’t matter would it? Then again, a job wasn’t guaranteed, and a tent might be a good way to save some coins before winter came into its full.
Then again, if he did get a job, he’d have to get rid of tent, probably by selling it, and that meant that he’d have to sell it to someone who wasn’t a merchant, otherwise he’d only get half as much for it. The problem is that ponies who aren’t merchants typically don’t have the bits.
As he thought, and puzzled about this new problem, his mind quickly began to fade to unconsciousness, the comfort of the mattress pulling him to sleep.
“Well, perhaps I’ll deal with this in the morning.”
But he hadn’t even finished the thought before sleep claimed him.
You've done things the hard way. But without taking risks, taking responsibility for failure... how could you have understood?