//------------------------------// // Death // Story: The Seven Seals // by Lightwavers //------------------------------// The dragons were relentless. They pushed and they pushed and they pushed and they only gave ground inch by bloody inch. Red Wind knew the type. She was the same. Her cutie mark had appeared during her first kill. She’d been lying in wait, ready to ambush any intruders. They said pegasi weren’t supposed to be able to channel that way. To make the air so hard it cut, so thin it bit. She could. She did. Ponies were scared of her. Some dragons were too, before she killed them. “‘Nother one comin’ from the east. You wanna take this too?” Green Guile said, handing her the binoculars. They were new gadgets, just invented by unicorns before this whole war thing. Very useful. She scanned the horizon, picking out a small shape, along with two more dots flanking it. Easy. “There are three. And yes.” Green hesitated. “Uh, you mean—” “Yes.” “Alright.” Red Wind gave him the binoculars, curling her the air around it as she swept her wing toward him. He jumped back, startled, as he saw the object seemingly floating without a levitation field. It was hard, and it would be simpler to just carry it with her wing. But this reminded everypony that she had the power. “The...pits are ready.” Another voice. Older, but disgusted. An orange pegasus with a yellow cutie mark. Firemark. Get close. Roll. Bring a wing up to his neck. Back away before the blood hits— “Good. They’ll be here soon,” Green said. Red Wind was still. If she was still, she wasn’t moving. And if she wasn’t moving, a single urged twitch couldn’t turn a stumble into a death. It wouldn’t be hers, though. It never let her die. Not that she wanted to. She made things fast. Everypony around her moved dozens of times faster than normal. It helped. Overwhelmed the voice. The dragons grew closer. They would help, for a while. But it always needed more. More and more and more. Wingstroke by bloody wingstroke, she was slowly but surely making herself a river of blood to wade in. It’s your fault, Celestia, she thought. If Celestia had given her cutie mark to her earlier, she wouldn’t be doing this. If she had a different cutie mark, she wouldn’t be doing this. She had morals. And she ought to be offended by what she was doing. So she was. She still liked it, though. A yank pulled her back into normal time. She restrained the urge to— kill kill Kill KILL KILL —and looked at the owner of the rude hoof. “Firemark. Where’re the dragons?” she said. He pointed. She looked up. They stared back down. “Make sure you clean the pits after.” A dragon lunged. Blue scales. Red eyes. A whisper. Vein in his neck. A quick wingstroke, and he was dead before he hit the ground. The other two drew back, wary. Smaller yellow ones. Also had red eyes. One danced sideways, the other down. She was dead in less than a second. Wingfield through the skull. The other was able to get three wingbeats away before she died. Falling was lethal when your wings were suddenly not part of you anymore. Red Wind studied the bodies. She’d been too aggressive with the last one. Lots of blood went through a dragon's wings. That one was practically useless. The other two were in better shape. She told Green and Firemark their locations, then settled into a comfortable position, making everything around her fast again. Killing made her tired. The world was ending around her, but Zinc Cloud had a mission. Her spell detected a mixture of traces in the air, memories in the ground, and alerted her. She nudged the ball of deep red light back to her side, where it joined a multitude of other rotating orbs. The ground was bare underhoof. Dead. Scorched plant matter crinkled in places the flames had just barely licked. The scent of burnt everything was so prevalent she’d had to cast a spell just to filter the air in front of her face. Dragons had been here, but not in force. A small group. They’d scented something. The spell alerted her again, turning a light magenta. Ponies. And not many. Less than a hundred. Zinc Cloud trotted across scorched earth, an insultingly-blue sky supporting the cheerful sun above her. The sky should be on fire. She squinted. There was a settlement ahead. Some of the buildings were burnt, some smashed, but most of them weren’t in too bad a condition. The dragons. They never left any sign of pony habitation that wasn’t scorched to a crisp. She still had time. Some of the path was without any signs of life, and some had vines and other vegetation creeping up to the middle, a patchwork of life and death. The houses had no windows, though shards of glass surrounded the areas where they would have been. Heavy walls of thick wood were blackened and burnt in places, but the heat hadn’t been sustained enough to start a blaze. What happened here? Had the ponies living here tried to burn down their own homes and then just...left? A sound. Wards sprang up around her, multiple layers of shields that might even stand up to a dragon for a few seconds, just like enough layers of wrappers might temporarily shield a sweet from a hungry foal. Zinc Cloud turned around and faced a green earth pony A scout? Or an opportunist? “What’s the situation here?” she said. “Dragons. S’always dragons. There’s just three of us here.” Zinc nodded. Only three. Manageable. Thought what they were doing here, on their own… She shook her head. There were things best that were best left unthought about. “There are dragons headed in this direction. I’m tasked with evacuating any refugees. Bring me to the other two and I can teleport you to the Everfree castle.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “That’s nice and all, but we don’t need any teleports. So thanks, but…” Something was off. “What did you do?” she said, taking a step toward him. His eyes flicked to the side in a quick motion she nearly didn’t catch. There was another pony, completely still, coated in dried blood.. A pegasus. Zinc Cloud pranced back, just barely keeping herself from flinging a shard of ice at her. She wasn’t drenched in blood, as Zinc’s first glance had told her. Just...really, really red. And her cutie mark…the spinning razor was drenched in what somepony might be able to fool themselves was ketchup. Might. The pegasus smiled, white teeth contrasting red everything. “Hello.” Zinc had never seen red eyes on a pony before. “I’m Red Wind. You?” the pegasus said, prowling toward her. She got her mouth unstuck. “Zinc Cloud. I’m with Royal Legion, evacuating anypony I can.” She couldn’t do anything about the dryness of her mouth, though. This pony… The smile widened. It belonged on a shark. “Keep doing your thing, then. We’re...nice.” “I…” She wanted to. Oh how she wanted to. But she had her mission. “I...can’t. I need to evacuate everypony not in a stable zone. And this place does not look stable.” “It is.” “I can’t just—” “Come.” Red Wind turned around and stalked into the town. Zinc Cloud shivered. She had no illusions that she out of the other pony’s sight. Some ponies had another sense, one that didn’t close with their eyes. She forced herself to follow the pegasus, forced herself to look at her as they walked. Red Wind looked...young. Barely older than a filly. Her—bloody—strange appearance made her look older. Not in a natural way, though. Older in the way of a carnivore with the blood of a first kill dripping from its fangs. She stopped at the edge of a giant pit in the ground, at the bottom of which was something...red. “See? Stable.” No no no no nonononono “G-how?” Zinc Cloud got out. “Those are dragons! Three I killed just this morning. And guess what?” “...” “They have magic! After they dissolve in the pits, we can use their hearts for everything! They have a lot of magic.” “I...I don’t…” “Here, I’ll give you a demonstration.” A saddlebag colored the same shade of red as the pegasus—red? No. don’t think about—opened. Out floated a chunk of glimmering red crystal. Without a levitation field. Floated. “Try it,” Red Wind suggested. This was a dream. Yes. It was the only possibility left. Zinc Cloud picked it up in her own field, prodding at the reservoir of magic inside with unnatural calmness. “I see,” she said, then floated the—bloody—gemstone back in the pegasus’s saddlebags. “Good work.” As if inspecting a recruit’s gear. Red Wind beamed with pride, reinforcing the image. “Your arrangements are suitable for the time being.” Zinc Cloud brought a map out of her own bags. “I’m needed at the next zone. This has been—” horrifying “—enlightening.” The smile was back. “Okay.” Zinc left without a backward glance.