//------------------------------// // Act II: Maplebridge // Story: The World is Filled with Monsters // by Cold in Gardez //------------------------------// Vermilion woke and saw the stars. It was night in Maplebridge, and the skies were clear. The town was dark still, dark as the forest far from civilization’s lights. The waxing moon was his only lantern, and its cold, silver light filled the streets with sharp shadows and stark geometries. The earth was warm beneath him, radiating away the last of the day’s heat like a slowly fading dream. He pressed his cheek against it and closed his eyes, enjoying its warm touch. Vermilion was an earth pony, which meant he was a summer pony. Earth ponies lived for the summer’s endless days, for their luscious growth and back-breaking work and the baking heat of the sun on their coats. It was their season, when night was at its weakest and the sun ruled the world. All his cherished memories of the farm house as a foal were of the summer. Winter was a time of deprivation, hunger and cold. But now, lying on the bare earth of a Maplebridge street, Vermilion looked up at the moon, and for the first time in his life gazed at it with wonder. How have I never seen you before? He reached up a hoof toward the heavenly pearl, as though he could pluck it from the sky. Something moved beside him. He rolled toward it and saw Cloud Fire’s stricken form begin to stir. The pegasus’s feathers trembled, and his wings and ears twitched. A sound like a whimper emerged from Cloudy’s throat. Something else moved beyond him. Smoke swirled in the street. It coiled in dark ropes, like a mass of eels swarming around a corpse. A hundred writhing, wriggling shapes boiled in the darkness. They shied away from the light of the moon, fleeing into the shadows of the buildings like beetles disturbed beneath a rotten log. Tiny, malevolent eyes stared at him. Within the black, misty plague of dreamoras flowed a graveyard worth of bones, dusty and moldering and broken, all that remained of their centuries of meals. Vermilion stood. The aches and hurts that had weighed him down in the dreamrealm flowed away, leaving him weightless. He bounced on his hooves, filled with an energy and joy he had not felt in years. In the night, in the darkness, he found himself again. A laugh bubbled up from his chest, crawled out his throat, and escaped into the silence, breaking its spell over the town. A shadow detached from the squirming mass of dreamoras. A bold one, offended by its prey’s casual joy. It floated across the dirt road and rose up before Vermilion like a cobra. Its lamprey-maw opened, exposing countless teeth, and for a moment Vermilion felt a faint weight on his mind, a pale shadow of the magical exhaustion the monsters had used on their party when they first arrived in Maplebridge. Sleep, the magic whispered, sleep and dream again. Vermilion laughed louder. He shook his head, tossing his mane and chasing away the ensorcellment like a buzzing summer gadfly. His thoughts regained their razor clarity. The dreamora reared back. Frills of smoke feathered out along the length of its serpent’s body. Something between a hiss and a rattle emerged from the endless depths of its throat, the first real sound Vermilion had heard from any of them. It twisted in his ears, rubbing against them like cold slime. The dreamora coiled, lifting its gaping maw high above Vermilion, and then it struck at him with lightning speed. Vermilion was already moving. His hoof scooped up his fallen sabre and gave it a little toss. He snatched it out of the air with his jaws, teeth crunching down on the polished cypress grip hard enough to crack it and send splinters into his tongue. The faint taste of blood filled his mouth. He ignored it and spun, bringing the sabre around in a wide, flashing arc that carved clean through the dreamora’s neck. He felt a faint resistance, the blade tugging at his teeth as though slicing through silk or snow, and then his swing was complete. The whole motion began and ended in the space of a heartbeat. The dreamora continued its fall. Its smokey body parted along an invisible seam in the wake of his sword, and the two halves caught on the eddying air, twisting and writhing like the tail of a kite severed from its host. A faint sound that might have been the start of a scream scratched at the edges of Vermilion’s mind, but then it was gone, and he could not remember hearing anything at all. The remains of the dreamora evaporated into curls of mist. They caught the moon’s radiance for another breath, and then they too vanished. Half of a pony’s spine, ancient and dry, cracked by the ages, appeared where the dreamora had been. It fell to the ground with a rattle, and for a moment all was still. The night erupted with motion. The circling dreamoras exploded into action, scattering around the street like a school of minnows. He could hear them now, in the shadows of sound cast upon the surface of his thoughts. Panic and anger and fear commingled in their voices, but most of all he heard their hunger, an all-consuming starvation that gnawed at them like acid, eating a larger and larger hole in them with every meal they stole from their pony prey. He felt its iron claws dig into his abdomen, hollowing him out, leaving only a hungering shell, desperate for a taste of fat and meat and blood and the minds of their prey. He shook himself, and the sensation faded. He banished it to the back of his mind – there was no time now for sympathy for monsters. “Awake!” Vermilion shouted. His friends jerked and stumbled at the sudden noise. Cloud Fire, already semi-roused, rose to his hooves. He stared around at the roiling mass of dreamoras, shook himself, and picked up his spear. “Fight them! They can die!” Vermilion leapt forward, catching a draemora that hovered over the body of the unconscious stallion they’d first found. The phantom started to flee, but Vermilion’s blade was faster, and it sliced a long line along the dreamora’s spine. Smoke and ancient, powdery bones spilled out from the wound, and then it too vanished with a silent scream. Perhaps it was Luna’s touch, that Cloud Fire alone shared with Vermilion, but the pegasus was the first to respond. His wings snapped out, tossing up dust and gravel to pelt their coats, and then Cloud Fire launched himself forward, straight into the mass of dreamora. They scattered, but one was too slow, and Cloudy’s spear lanced out to pin it against the timber wall of the streetfront home. It writhed, went still, and melted into mist. We can do this. Vermilion reached out a hoof to help Zephyr stand. Her scraggly wings fluttered, and she shook her head, apparently still dazed by the dream. She stared around at the street as though not quite sure where she was. “Where—” She stumbled and stopped. Her spear rattled on the ground beneath her hoof, and she reached down to pick it up. She stared at it, and the last of the fog seemed to vanish from her eyes. The spear snapped up, pointed dead at the horde of dreamora that still swirled in the streets. She took a breath, another, and nodded. “Okay. I’m up.” A brilliant teal light filled the street, momentarily blinding him. He flinched away from it, then turned to see Rose standing protectively over the slumbering townspony mare. Her horn glowed like star, pulsing in time with her heart, and he felt the force of her magic pressing against his chest. The dreamora flowed away from her. One was too slow, lingering in the open, and a spark shot from her horn. When Vermilion’s eyesight returned, only a smear of ash and a charred, ancient bone from some unfortunate pony’s rib remained. “To me!” Vermilion shouted. He leaped forward, toward the churning mass of dreamora. Behind him, hooves pounded on the dirt street. The dreamora melted away, fleeing, but too slow. “Don’t let any escape!” The street became a slaughterhouse. The dreamora weren’t used to fighting – they were parasites, not hunters. Some dim instinct stolen from their prey warned them of the danger posed by Vermilion’s sword, but they had no experience fleeing for their lives. The simple-minded monsters barely comprehended the death that swept over them. Vermilion lashed out at a passel of dreamora swirling in the air over a fallen townspony. His sword struck something hard as it passed through them, and a shattered femur spilled out of the smoking wound. Another scream filled his mind as it dissolved. He spared a glance behind him. The party was making short work of their foes. Cloud Fire flew above them, stooping like a hawk to pierce them with his spear and crush them with his hooves, filling the night with the sound of breaking bones. Rose carved through them with her magic, burning everything she touched to ash. Her remaining eye was wide, wild, the white showing all around her emerald pupil. But it was Zephyr who seized him. She flowed like water straight into the mass of dreamora, her spear held loose and low, striking sparks as it struck pebbles in the street. She swung, and the lance danced between her foes, kissing each one in turn and dissipating them. Bones and fragments of bones fell from the air around her like hail as the dreamoras died. For a moment Vermilion forgot he was in a fight for his life, and simply stared at her as she worked. Not since Canopy had slain that monstrous spider in Hollow Shades had he seen anything so graceful, a feat of arms so perfect. “Cherry! Left!” Quicklime’s shout snapped him back to reality, and he spun to see a dreamora the size of a pony diving toward him. He rolled away, lashing blindly at it with his sword, and felt it connect. The monster scraped along his shoulder, and a icy numbness spread from its touch. A thin line of blood, black in the moon’s light, appeared on his coat. The dreamora got the worst of the exchange. It shuddered and melted away, leaving a row of cracked vertebra spilled out on the ground. Sloppy. Be more careful, you fool. He could hear Buckeye’s voice chastising him. He shook his head and plowed forward into the heart of Maplebridge. They had each slain dozens of the ghostly parasites when they reached the center of the town. Flashes from Quicklime and Rose’s horns lit the chaotic scene in fits and bursts, imprinting his retina with frozen images of hundreds of dreamora swirling together, fleeing from the band of ponies. The wide square was littered with fallen ponies, some still enchanted by the monsters, but others began to stir as Zephyr and Cloud Fire raced ahead, slaughtering the dreamora that lingered, too slow to realize how swiftly death approached. Vermilion was about to join them when, in a flash of teal light, he saw something new. In the center of the square, the great mass of dreamoras swam through the air, circling something huge and demonic. It was formed of the same smoke as they, but far larger, and in the vague shape of a pony. The light of the moon, now overhead, pierced through its misty form, illuminating a vast network of misshapen, misplaced bones cobbled together in an obscene mockery of a skeleton. A pony’s skull, broken in half, floated inside the beast’s head, and a shattered jaw opened as it roared in defiance. The other dreamora marshalled at its call and began to follow it down the far street in retreat. That was it. The dreamoras’ king – their god. Vermilion’s hooves picked up their pace, and before he knew it he was racing across the square. He heard his friends call out behind him, but only Cloudy was fast enough to keep up. The pegasus flew overhead, lashing out at dreamora as they passed, while Vermilion simply charged through. Cloudy dipped lower. The tips of his wings brushed the dirt as he flew beside Vermilion. “What’s the plan?” Plan? Who had plans? “Kill it,” Vermilion growled around the sabre’s hilt. He could barely hear himself speak over the thundering of his hooves. “Kill them all!” That was plan enough, apparently. Cloudy tilted his wings and blasted high into the air, soaring above the rooftops. He shouted something wordless, a cry full of rage, and bits of bone began to rain down onto the street below. They crunched beneath Vermilion’s hooves. Ahead, the King Dreamora and its entourage reached a row of houses at the end of the street. Vermilion expected them to turn or split up or even fly into the air, but instead they pressed their smokey forms against the timber walls and slowly vanished, their ghostlike forms passing through the wood with ease. Even the solid bones floating in their ectoplasm phased effortlessly through the wall. Above, Cloud Fire began to circle the buildings, looking for stragglers or a way in. Vermilion didn’t need a way in. He ran faster, lowered his head and struck the solid wood with his shoulder. The entire wall cracked, breaking free of its moorings and joins, and he burst through into somepony’s kitchen, showering the room with splinters and fragments of wood. A horde of dreamoras met him, and he lashed out with his hooves and sword, scattering them like fallen leaves in the autumn. It was dark in the house, but enough light leaked in from the moon to see the King flowing up the stairs. It rattled, striking the steps with its bones and scraping the walls free of hanging pictures and portraits. The house groaned as its weight settled onto the second floor. “Cloudy!” he shouted. There was no way to know if the pegasus could hear him, but he had to try. “It’s upstairs! Upstairs!” With that he took off in pursuit, his hooves banging on the steps as he followed it up. The stairwell was too narrow, and his sabre scraped along the wall, leaving a long gash in the plaster as he ascended. He could hear the monster rattling around ahead, demolishing furniture and shaking the house as it fled. Vermilion caught it in the nursery. A crib sat in one corner of the room with the unconscious forms of two adult ponies slumped beside it. The King took up almost all the remaining space, its shadows spilling out over the polished wood floor, its head hunched over and brushing the rafters supporting the ceiling. It opened a mouth as large as Vermilion’s entire torso, and its silent roar tore at his mind. A blinding pain stabbed through his head, and he stumbled, dazed. The sabre fell from his lips onto the floor with a metallic clatter. Once, before Hollow Shades, that would have ended the fight. He would have frozen in fear or hunkered down, covering his head with his hooves. Anything to survive. Now, he stood, roared back at the monster, and charged. Smoke enveloped him. It stank, choking him. The darkness blinded him. Tendrils of cold, clammy mist wrapped around his throat and began to squeeze. An unearthly chill, so similar and yet so different from what he felt around Princess Luna, began to invade his limbs. The tips of his ears and nose went instantly numb, and frost began to form on his coat. He shook the cold away and plunged deeper into the living shadows. His hoof found something solid – a rib as thick as his leg. He grasped it and pulled, hauling himself forward, and his other hoof found another rib. He climbed it like a ladder, dragging himself up the massive dreamora’s skeleton, higher and higher. Enough light shone through the thin smoke flesh of its head to see his destination: a chattering, broken skull and snapping, shattered jaw. He drew his hoof back and slammed it into the monster’s dead face. Again, harder. Something sharp caressed the bottom of his hoof, and pain erupted from its touch. Hot blood splattered on his face. He screamed in pain and defiance and kept smashing. A new crack appeared in the skull, running from orbit of the left eye down its bony snout. Vermilion struck the spot again with his other hoof, crashing down on it with all his weight. The room shook with each blow. Finally, it broke. The skull collapsed like an eggshell, exploding into dozens of fragments. The smoke enwreathing him vanished, and hundreds of bones fell out of the shadows to rattle on the floor like dry charms. Vermilion stumbled, suddenly unsupported, and his foreleg collapsed, leaving a smear of blood on the floor. He fell onto his side, gasping for breath and shivering. A thick rime of ice slowly spread out from the center of the dreamora’s corpse. The ice didn’t matter. More important was the overwhelming exhaustion that weighed him down like an anchor. He tried to stand, and when that didn’t work, settled for closing his eyes. * * * Seen by the light of day, Maplebridge was a much nicer town. Vermilion wasn’t supposed to be up, walking through the streets. Rose Quartz had insisted that he keep his foolish ass in bed for at least a day, and certainly don’t do anything strenuous like take an impromptu tour of the town without a final check-up. But Rose was busy and not around to stop him, and after only a few hours in a guest room of the mayor’s house, Vermilion found himself growing restless. None of the others were injured – they, unlike him, hadn’t tried to kill a centuries-old dreamora king with their bare hooves. They’d used magic and spears, like smart ponies. He walked with a minor limp, thanks to the tight cloth bandage binding his right forehoof. The cut on his sole wasn’t serious – he’d gotten worse farming, and hadn’t missed a beat for carrots back then – but Rose took every wound seriously and as a result his hoofsteps sounded odd to his ears, a clop-clop-clop-wshhht as the gauze scraped across the dirt. He suspected he’d be tearing the silly thing off in an hour or so. The tip of his nose and ears were smeared with an oily cream from Rose’s saddlebags, some sort of ointment to treat the frostbite suffered when he wrestled with the dreamora king. He didn’t mind the ointment so much, not because it wasn’t annoying or because it didn’t sting his nose with a sharp, minty scent with every breath, but rather because in between diatribes cussing him out for his stupidity Rose had casually added that he was lucky – aside from ears and nose, the most common location stallions suffered frostbite was on the rim their sheaths. Vermilion took that to mean, incidentally, that she’d checked him for such injury while he was unconscious. He hadn’t asked, but he also hadn’t been able to look at her without blushing for hours afterward. Whatever. She was professional about it. He could only assume she wouldn’t chat about the experience with the other mares. Speaking of other mares, a flash of brown feathers caught his eye. It was Zephyr, mingling with a group of townponies, gesturing with her wings and hooves for the benefit of mares and stallions and wide-eyed foals staring at her with rapt attention. He started to duck away before she saw him and— “Hey!” Zephyr’s voice easily rode over the constant din of the street. “Hey, Cherry! Cherry, over here!” Crap. He spun in a full circle and trotted toward her, trying to look surprised. A few of the townponies started to point at him and jabber to each other. They backed away, giving him space as he approached. “This is him!” Zephyr said, jumping forward to wrap a wing around his shoulders. “The one I was talking about! Rescued us from our dreams, and then led the charge against the dreamoras! Killed dozens of them, then bashed their alpha into bits with his bare hooves!” “Zephyr, stop,” he whispered. He tried to turn, and when that didn’t work hid his face against her neck to conceal his blush. “You’re making it sound, like, too much.” “Don’t be an idiot.” She pulled him into the center of the group of at least twenty ponies now, with more streaming to join them every second. These weren’t the insular earth ponies of Hollow Shades – Maplebridge was just a day’s travel from the Equestrian border, and had built up a respectable sum of wealth as a local center of trade and commerce. The ponies here were no strangers to unicorns or pegasi. Still, they seemed amazed by his presence, even though every stallion and most of the mares were larger and taller than him. They eyed the dappled scars on his chest and the bandage on his hoof, and in their eyes he found something new, something he’d never seen before. Respect. They looked at him the way Vermilion had seen new recruits look at Buckeye or the major. “C’mon, say something,” Zephyr whispered. “Talk to them.” “Uh.” Right. He cleared his throat. “Hello everypony. I, um… I hope you’re all, uh, feeling better. After the thing. You know, after the dreamoras.” A mare took a half-a-step forward. Her coat was a light green, the color of grass near the root, and her cinnamon mane was brushed until it shone like burnished copper. She eyed him up and down, then dipped her head in a slight bow, like he was a unicorn or some other noble. “Sir Vermilion, right?” At Zephyr’s enthusiastic nod, she continued. “We owe you everything, it seems. Will you be staying here long?” “Uh…” He looked at Zephyr, who just shrugged. “You’re in charge,” she reminded him. Right. That whole leadership thing. He hadn’t even considered their next move. How had Canopy ever kept things straight? “Just a day or two, I think. To rest and make sure the dreamora are all gone. Then we’ll head back to Everfree.” Zephyr nudged him with a wing. “C’mon, Cherry. We just saved, like, hundreds of lives. And you’re hurt! You want to walk back to Everfree on that hoof?” The gathered crowd echoed Zephyr with a chorus of negatives. No, of course they couldn’t leave so early. They could stay as long as they wanted! Certainly at least a week. They moved in, beseeching him to remain as their guests. He could have any house in the town. “Alright, alright.” He had to raise his voice to be heard. “We’ll, uh, stay a few days. But no more!” That was enough, it seemed. The crowd broke into cheers, with Zephyr whooping along with them. She even managed a short hover, her still incomplete wings beating like a hummingbird’s. Her joy was infectious, and he found himself smiling along with them. And why shouldn’t they be happy? Wasn’t this what he’d set out to do – destroy monsters, save ponies? Perhaps he was being too dour. Just because he’d never seen Canopy celebrate didn’t mean he couldn’t. With that in mind, he made his excuses to the crowd, and went to find the rest of his friends. * * * Rose Quartz and Quicklime were in the town hall, which the locals had repurposed into an infirmary. Maplebridge had no real hospital, and only a single doctor who made house calls when necessary. Never in the town’s history had it faced such a disaster as the dreamoras’ invasion, and never before had they needed to treat so many injured or ill ponies. Only a few ponies, all of them elderly and frail, had died during the dreamoras’ attack. Many others were still recovering from a lack of food or water, but as a whole the town had emerged almost unscathed. Less than a dozen ponies lay on beds in the town hall’s cavernous assembly room, most of them asleep or lying so motionless as to make no difference. Vermilion stepped softly to avoid waking them. Rose Quartz was talking quietly with Quicklime at the bedside of a graying mare when she noticed his approach. She scowled at him, set down a cotton package of some sort filled with sharp needles, and abandoned the patient to march over over toward him. Quicklime looked at her, looked at him, then shook her head and went back to checking on the resting mare. “You’re not supposed to be up,” Rose whispered when she reached him. It came out as a hiss, almost as loud as if she’d not bothered to whisper at all. He shrugged. “I felt better.” “That’s wonderful, but you’re not a doctor.” Neither are you. He kept that observation to himself, though. Rose didn’t seem to be in the mood for semantics. Best to distract her. “How is everypony?” It worked. She looked around and let out a long breath. “Better. I think they’ll all survive, though one or two older ones will probably pass on sooner than they otherwise would have. Depends how harsh the winter is.” “That’s months away. Plenty of time to get their strength back.” She shook her head. “The elderly don’t recover their strength the same way you do, Vermilion. Some of them will get pneumonia or influenza, and it will be too much for their systems. Anyway, let’s look at that hoof.” The sudden change of topic threw him, and it took a moment to realize she meant his hoof. He held it gamely off the floor while she unwrapped the bandage around it with her magic, exposing the ragged slice that ran across the sole. Some clear ointment, tinted pink with blood, was slathered across the wound. It stung as the cool air touched it. “Hm, stitches are holding nicely,” she said. She tested the edges of the cut with her hoof, inspected the underside of his leg, then held the wound up to her muzzle and sniffed it. “No sign of infection yet. You’re a very lucky pony.” “It’s just a cut,” he said. “It’s a cut from a dirty, ancient bone that was literally floating around inside a monster.” Rose pulled out a fresh bundle of gauze and began to entomb his hoof again. “You’re lucky you don’t have lockjaw. In fact, let me know if you feel any unusual muscle stiffness or difficulty swallowing.” Well, lovely. There was that to look forward to. “How’s the rest of the team?” “They’re fine.” She tucked the loose end of the gauze into the folds of the bandage and secured the whole wrap with a pin. “The rest of us didn’t get hurt because we didn’t go charging off by ourselves to tackle the biggest demon we could find with our bare hooves.” “Cloudy was with me.” “Cloud Fire said you left him outside the house. The fight was over by the time he found you.” “Oh.” Had he? His memory of those last few minutes was a bit foggy. “He’s not upset, is he?” “You’d have to ask him that.” Rose gently examined the tips of his ears, and then his nose. “Frostbite looks fine. It probably won’t even blister up.” “So I’m still pretty?” He meant it as a joke. Her eye narrowed, though, and it belatedly occurred to him that Rose might not be the best audience for that brand of humor. He covered it with a cough and moved on as quickly as he could. “How are you, though?” She stared at him for a long moment, then snorted. “Just peachy. Your daring plan to get yourself hurt while the rest of us cleaned up the actual mess worked perfectly.” “You…” He paused to marshal his thoughts. “You think I acted rashly.” “You’re our leader.” She turned away and began to walk down the row of beds. He had to step quickly to keep up. “That means not charging off by yourself to be a hero. Did you ever see Canopy do that?” He frowned. “Once. It saved a lot of lives.” “Yes, and she died doing it. She made that choice because the situation was hopeless. She didn’t go running off by herself during every confrontation.” The emotional high Vermilion had been riding since the chat with Zephyr faded, replaced by something much more common: comprehension of his own inadequacy. “I didn’t… I wasn’t abandoning you. I just saw what needed to be done.” She sighed and was quiet while she walked. Eventually they reached the end of the row of patients, and she stopped, turning toward him. “I’m not upset, Vermilion. I remember the dream we shared, and how you rescued me. I spoke with Quicklime and Zephyr, and heard how you saved them. That was real leadership. And when we first woke and started fighting the dreamora, you seized the situation and got us fighting. But then you got carried away, your earth pony blood got the better of you, and you ran off by yourself. You survived it this time, but what about the next time? What happens when we fight something worse than dreamoras?” Something worse? His gaze darted to Rose’s concealed eye, despite his best efforts to restrain it. “We already have.” She noticed. Her nostrils flared, and she spun away, stomping back toward Quicklime. A few of the ward’s patients looked up as she passed, and turned to him in curiosity. Not the best thing he could’ve said, then. He didn’t bother to pursue her. They would have plenty of time to talk later. * * * Vermilion found Cloud Fire exactly where he expected him – in a tavern, stuffing his face, surrounded by mares. Not a bad place to be, all things considered. Vermilion slid up to the table, gently pushing his way through the crowd surrounding the pegasus. A few of the townsponies noticed him and started muttering. Soon he found himself the center of everypony’s attention. Everypony except for Cloud Fire, of course, who was as devoted to the meal in front of him as any priest of Celestia was to their patron. It wasn’t until Vermilion sat down beside him that the pegasus looked up. “Cherry!” Bits of food and crumbs went spraying everywhere. “You’re up! Hey, everypony, this is the stallion I was talking about! The one who saved the town!” A rousing cheer answered, and a dozen hooves pounded on Vermilion’s back, rattling his teeth. Somepony plunked a tankard down in front of him, and he could smell the bitter, hopsy scent of fresh ale rising from it. He eyed it warily. “C’mon, drink up, hero!” Cloudy took a long swallow of his own ale, then peered at Vermilion. “What’s wrong? You still hurt?” He shook his head and picked up the ale, taking a small sip. He didn’t have much of a tongue for ales or beers, but it was better than most he’d drunk. Stronger than what they served in Everfree, too. “I’m fine. Just talked with Rose.” “Oh.” Cloudy made a face. “I swear, that mare has a pinecone up her ass.” He spat out the ale. “Cloudy!” “What? We both know it’s true. I mean, not literally, but she acts like it. Even more than most unicorns.” Vermilion squinted at him. “How many drinks have you had?” Cloudy shrugged. “Ugh.” Vermilion took a longer drink and managed to swallow it this time. “We just saved, like, an entire town. Why can’t we be happier?” “I’m happy,” Cloudy pointed out. “Zephyr’s happy, or she was the last time I saw her. I can only assume Quicklime is happy. I’m guessing you were happy before you spoke with Rose. See the, uh, common thread here?” He could. He could very easily. He took another swig of ale and found it went down much easier the second time. “What do you think we should do?” “Can’t do nothing for her, brother.” Cloud Fire lowered his voice and leaned against Vermilion’s side. “Some ponies just want to be angry. Gotta let her ride it out.” “Right.” He thought back to the flashing anger in Rose’s eye. The dream they’d shared remained vivid in his mind – he wondered just how much of it she remembered. “Maybe… I don’t know. Maybe Luna will talk to her?” “Maybe.” Cloudy’s gaze shifted to a group of mares making eyes at them from another table. “Hey, how long we staying here, anyway? You still need to recover, right?” He rolled his eyes. “A few days, no more. Luna’s not paying us to to vacation.” “Are you kidding? We just saved, like, an entire town. Hundreds of ponies.” Cloudy set his empty flagon on the table. It was replaced in moments by a rather attractive saffron mare who lingered at his side, brushing her shoulder against his wings, before retreating. “We could vacation for the rest of our lives and it would still be worth it for Luna. Hundreds of lives, Cherry.” He finished with an expansive gesture of his newly filled flagon at the packed tavern, slopping a bit of foamy ale over the sides. Vermilion was silent in reply. He stared at the teaming tavern, letting their sounds wash over him like the waves at a beach. It lulled him, and his eyes lost their focus, and he gazed out the bright door at the town beyond. He saw them, those hundreds of ponies, gifted with a new lease on life. Saved, because of him and his friends. But he saw past them, too. He saw beyond the rambling, split-rail fence that marked Maplebridge’s border with the rest of the world. For a moment it was as if he were back in Luna’s sepulchral office, staring at her enchanted map of the world. He saw on it the same forests in the distance beyond Maplebridge, and the mountains beyond them, and all the dark places therein. He saw the lamps that lit the world beyond Equestria’s borders grow dim and flicker and fade. What had Luna called it? The new darkness. It was still rising. They might have delayed it a while, held it back at Maplebridge, just a day’s travel from Equestria, but they had not stopped it. They had only stalled it at Hollow Shades. It still rolled toward them like the tide, inexorable and invincible. “They’re all going to die,” he mumbled. Cloudy coughed on his drink. He spluttered and set it down. “What?” “All these ponies we saved? They’re still doomed. If it’s not dreamoras, then something else will come,” Vermilion said. He kept his voice low, just for him and Cloud Fire. “The world is filled with monsters, Cloudy. If we stop or rest, that’s more time for them to crawl out of their burrows and spread their plague across the land. We have to keep going, even when – no, especially when we want to stop.” Cloudy grimaced and took a long drink. “Celestia, now who’s the spoilsport?” “I know. I’m sorry.” Vermilion took a long draught from his ale. The alcohol had started to work its way into his blood, and he felt a pleasant detachment start to build in the base of his brain. “We’ll stay at least one more night, maybe two. Depends what Rose says about my hoof. How’s that?” “Better than nothing, I guess.” A table filled with young mares caught Cloudy’s attention, and he raised his flagon in toast. Smiles were exchanged, and he fluffed his wings out, showing them off like a beige peacock. The mares giggled behind their hooves and exchanged whispers with each other. “Better than nothing.” Vermilion gazed out at Maplebridge from his seat atop the town hall. It was the tallest structure in the town, with a wood steeple that rose nearly a hundred feet above the road, topped with weathervane in the macabre shape of a soaring pegasus impaled by a spear, the same motif as the weathervane atop the now-lost town hall in Hollow Shades. He wondered idly what pegasi had ever done to the weathervane-crafters of Equestria, that they should be so vindictive in their arts. The sun was about to set for the evening. It hovered above the forests in the distance to the west, and some trick of the atmosphere turned the orb a brilliant, bloody red, dim enough that he could stare directly at it without injury or discomfort. It was huge, seen so low against the horizon, and it filled the sky with fire even as it vanished for the night. Such a view. He felt briefly envious of Cloud Fire and Zephyr and all the other pegasi he had known, that they could see the world from this high vantage whenever they wished. One thought led to another, and soon it occurred to him to wonder just why he was clinging to the roof atop the tallest building in the town, without any visible means of access for an earth pony. He didn’t recall climbing up here, and for that matter he couldn’t recall where he’d been before this, or anything permanent at all. Knowing all that, it didn’t take him long to complete the puzzle. “I’m dreaming,” he said. “Very good.” Luna’s voice came from behind him, just as the last edge of the sun vanished beneath the far side of the world. Night rose immediately to replace it, swallowing the twilight with darkness and stars and a brilliant moon that raced overhead to settle in the throne of the sky. “You’re getting better at this.” “We’ve been getting a lot of practice.” He watched the horizon for a minute longer – no trace of daylight remained, and the world was dark as midnight. His eyes adjusted quickly, and he turned to face his master. Luna perched with inequine equipoise upon one of the building’s lesser spires, a wood steeple topped with a wrought-iron spike that came to a needle’s point. Her hooves somehow found purchase on it, and they stacked upon each other like a ballerina’s to hold her upright and absolutely still. Only her mane and tail moved, flowing in an unfelt breeze, lit from within as always by stars and galaxies. She smiled down at him; a hint of needles peeked out from between her lips. “I’d hoped to report to you in person,” Vermilion continued. He let go of the weathervane and set his hooves on the apex of the steep roof without fear. There was no fear of falling in dreams any longer. “But perhaps this is more fitting. Maplebridge is saved, and the dreamoras are destroyed or fled.” “And your warriors?” “Unhurt. I have a, uh, scratch on my foot. It will not slow us down.” Luna shook her head. “Be not so cavalier about injuries, Vermilion, even small ones. I have seen the hardiest of earth ponies felled by infections when they ignored trifling wounds. You have a skilled medic. Use her. Listen to her.” He sighed. “She… Yes, Luna. I will try.” “Does the idea of listening to your teammate trouble you?” “The idea of it is fine. The actual practice is wearying.” “Ah.” A chuckle. “I think you will find that such difficulties are part and parcel to leadership, young knight.” Luna graced him with a smile, gentler than he had ever seen from her. For a moment it was as if true compassion somehow showed on her icy mein. “It is a challenge, but the fruits for overcoming it will be rich indeed.” “Perhaps, the next time you see her dreams, you should tell her that as well.” “Her dreams?” Luna leaned forward. Her dark form loomed over him, blotting out the stars and moon. “Would you like to know what she dreams of, Vermilion?” He shook his head. “Perhaps, but I think that is something she should tell me herself. Otherwise, it is no business of mine.” “A noble thought, though I hope you will forgive me for not being so troubled by such intrusions.” She cast her left wing open, and the western sky blazed with images. A thousand windows opened on disparate scenes, filled with ponies and all the things they dream of. Violence and monsters and sex and greatness. “They are my realm, after all.” Vermilion stared at the windows for a long moment. There were too many too comprehend, so he picked one at random and focused on it. A peach unicorn mare reclined on a hillside in summer. Beside her a wheat pegasus stallion caressed her with his wings and fed her strawberries plucked with his own lips. Vermilion could feel the warmth of the sun on their coats, the touch of the breeze in their hair. He closed his eyes and turned away. “Yours, but not mine.” “Yet,” she said. She folded her wing, and the sky returned to darkness and stars. “But we grow distracted. As much as I enjoy our banter, I do not make it a habit to appear in my ponies’ dreams for frivolous reasons, even those of my servants. Dreams are more perfect when they are crafted alone. I will only appear to you like this when I have something important to convey.” He nodded. “And that is?” “You are more direct in your dreams, do you know that?” She chuckled. “I digress. I have need of you, Vermilion. Return to Everfree as soon as you are able.” He frowned. “Rose would prefer we wait another day. For my foot to heal.” Luna frowned. “And I just told you to pay her heed, did I not?” She sighed. “Do as she says, but please do not dawdle afterward. I would prefer you back by week’s end, if possible.” Another day to rest, then three days to travel? He nodded. “We can do that. May I ask what task you have for us? Another town to aid?” “No, a problem closer to home this time.” Luna hunched over, though she seemed to grow at the same time, swelling in size until she towered over him. Her wings mantled out, feathers spreading as though to catch the starlight raining down on them. In the shadow she cast he lost sight of her face, and even her mane went dark. Only the twin lights of her eyes, shining like the moon, remained. “Celestia is making a move against me. I need my pawns close at hoof to counter her.” Vermilion blinked. For a moment he could not answer, his shock was so great. “You… you want us to fight Celestia?” Luna jerked back. She shrank again, to something resembling her normal height. The light returned to her features, and she gazed at him with surprise. “Fight? Oh, no, never that, my Vermilion.” She reached out a wing to brush against his cheek; the hairs of his coat frosted at her cool touch. “No, this… it is a game we play, she and I. She is my sister, and though we may quarrel from time to time, I love her more than anything. This… need I have of you is purely benign.” “Ah.” He nodded, though he wasn’t quite sure he understood. “I’m not sure how good a pawn I make.” Luna stepped closer and enfolded him with her wings, hugging him close to her chest. An icy chill seeped into him, penetrating his flesh with ease and settling into his bones. He surrendered to it willingly – her cold no longer repelled him. It was like bathing in sunlight. “That is because you have not met her yet,” she whispered in his ear. The ice in her voice numbed him. “She cherishes you, Vermilion, you who saved so many lives. She adores you. And though I esteem you as a servant, as one of my greatest knights, when it comes to the battle between my sister and I, it is her feelings for you that make you so valuable to me. The best pawn is the one your opponent is afraid to destroy. Now go, Vermilion. Return to me when you are able.” She placed a light kiss on his cheek, and her deathly cold found his heart. He closed his eyes and plunged again into the river of sleep.