//------------------------------// // Midst Angry Waves and Darkness Vague // Story: Sunset Shimmer and the Last Trial of Daring Do // by ChudoJogurt //------------------------------// "Here we are," Green announced with satisfaction. I looked around, trying to figure out what the promised secret was. The place didn't look like much - a part of seapony city just like any other, a small building squatted in between two tall towers. No water wheels, no engines, barely any magical crystals to give us light. “What are we doing here?” I finally asked, somewhat annoyed. “Sitting here, thinking about the scary future, and big mean Daring Do ain’t gonna do you a lick of good. But the first rule of fighting someone — there is always a weakness, pumpkin. A chink in the armour.“ She slipped underneath me, yanking me up on her back, like giving a piggyback ride to a little filly so that I could see inside through the thin gap in the shutters, “You just gotta know where to look" It was a room - a small and cramped apartment, made smaller by the furniture rearranged into barricades and obstacles for any who try to reach the mess of blankets, pillows and sleeping bags in the centre twisted into a pegasi-style nest. Daring Do was there. She looked… tired. Not the incarnation of speed and grace and self-assured cockiness I was expecting to see, not a hero of legend. Her movements were slow, almost arthritic, as she tried not to bother the bandaged fresh wounds and the burns of her scrap with Green. On the single non-upturned table of the room, a statue stood - a tiny idol, maybe a few hooves high. An ugly little thing in the image of a pony, roughly cut from porous stone and adorned with green jade. She touched her forehead to the statue, grunting with the pain of the effort, and whispered strange, whistling words to the idol like a lover whispering sweet nothings to her beau. It animated, the shine of green and purple magic running over the mare's body, making the tattoos and symbols underneath her coat visible when they burned before winking out. For a few seconds she stood immovable, as if trying to delay what came next, fighting against a burning, gnawing, inescapable need, before she unpacked an automatic injector from one of the pouches of her belt and tested the needle with her hoof, making sure that there were no air bubbles in the solution. A touch of the injector to the artery along her neck was like an afterthought, hidden by her mane and the hiss of the mechanism so quiet I probably imagined rather than heard it. Slowly her expression relaxed, and she finally curled in a ball down in her little nest of pillows and blankets, falling asleep. I staggered back, dropping off Green’s back awkwardly. She was using... morphine? Ace? Something else? — it didn’t matter. It was mind-boggling... and it made sense. That’s what Green wanted to show me: We only see our heroes in their shining moments when they save the day. They - they get to live with the consequences. How many fights did Daring Do have? How many times has she saved the world? How many bones did she have broken and never properly healed? How many ligaments torn, how many scars, infections, and weather-pains? If this adventure was any indication, it was a wonder she could still move at all, not that she needed painkillers to sleep. "Why did you show this to me?" I asked, hoarse with the revelation. "You're a quick learner, pumpkin.” She mussed my hair, before settling her hoof to poke me in the forehead. “But you're still a little princess, with your prissy little princessy thoughts in your pretty little head. Against Daring Do, you'll need an edge." She nodded towards the home of the hero behind us. "That will be it." She was… not wrong. Again. With my magic, I could probably beat Daring Do in a straight fight or even a fair race. Maybe. With her wounded and hurting and tired I had a chance — if I could actually muster the resolve to fight the hero with my full strength. In the battle of wills and desire, confused and conflicted as I was, I’d need all the help I could get. "Why me, then?" I asked out of sheer contrariness. "You do it then, or Ahuizotl, if I am such a— " I made the air quotes with my hooves “— ‘princess’”. She shrugged "Big Blue has the impulse control and focus of a three-year-old. And mystical quests are not in my job description. That leaves you." “Fine.” It was a futile argument anyways. She was right… she always was, no matter how much it annoyed me. I considered the problem, rummaging through the magics and sorceries I knew, fitting them like a puzzle with a new piece, and then I nodded, almost entirely sure. The very idea made me throw up inside my mouth, and that magic was not the sort they'd teach you in Celestia's school, but it would work. It would let me win, and that was all that mattered. “But that’s not the magics I can just cast off the tip of my horn. I’d need some things… not all of them common… or legal, at least not in Equestria.” “Alright.” “Alright?!” I ran after her - again. “You know where to find I don’t even know what yet, in the middle of the city you’ve never been to? At night?” She shrugged as if it were self-evident. “How?!” She looked at me as she trotted. “There is always just one city, pumpkin. No matter who built it, no matter where and when the pattern is always the same - a city is a city is a city. Appearances may be different, but the function remains the same.”  She shrugged. “Besides, what do you think I was doing yesterday?” “...Oh.” *** Whatever reconnaissance Green had done yesterday, it still took us quite a while before we found any substantial leads. It took a lot of sifting through the shadiest corners of the city, a lot of very insistent asking and almost all of my coin. It did not help that I was not entirely sure what was it we were looking for — there were many things that could work, but most were rare and secret, much more so in a hidden City cut off from the rest of the world. Without that, we would never find the place, no matter what Green may have been saying about all cities being the same.  I, for one, could've walked through that little alley a hundred times and be none the wiser. Even the street itself was pretty hard to find — a dead-ended offshoot between the buildings so narrow a loaded pony wouldn't be able to pass between the walls; and, at one point, just before you'd reach the place, the cancerous growth of the coral building across made you kneel to pass until your belly almost touched the seabed. We passed down the narrow passageway, winding, slippery. By the light of cracked gemstone, we found the latch through which we made our passage to the long, high room, the water within thick and heavy with the sweet and musky scent of ethane. The inside was filled with the layers and layers of mats and hammocks, like a giant drunken spider's nest, and the sweet poison waxed and waned through, seeping through the jagged cracks in the floor in transparent shimmers. The hall was lighted with a sparse magic light, dulled and distorted in the bent bronze mirrors that hung at odd angles across from the gems, reflecting the quivering disks of light, giving the whole place a strange, angled geometry that made it feel vast and cramped at the same time. Through the gloom one could dimly catch a glimpse of bodies lying in strange fantastic poses, twitching and spasming, forelegs bent and heads snapped up on twisted necks, chins pointing upwards. Here and there the water would be disturbed when they suddenly coiled and arched, raising waves with their tails. Most of them were silent, but some muttered to themselves and others joined together, almost singing or chanting in strange, pitch-changing voices — meaningless gibberish language, paroxysms of glossolalia brought with the spasms. “You take me to the nicest places,” I deadpanned. Green just snorted, picking up an addict with her hooves. It protested weakly, pawing at her hoof. “We’re in the right place at least. Look.” I moved closer, forcing the seapony’s eyelids open and peering into the unseeing eyes of her little catch. We were in the right place alright — the unmistakable net of ink-black capillaries on the jaundiced sclera, the stiff, anaemic movements and the subtle, sweet stench of subcutaneous rot proved both my worst expectations and my best hopes at once. This establishment did not just offer little games with the Delfilly prophecy-gas. The ponies here weren’t just chasing the colourful dreams and visions that beckoned with false meanings. These symptoms were a product of something far more serious and sinister. Something that we came here for, and something I really, really did not want to find. I was not even supposed to know about things like this - it was definitely not in the curriculum my Princess has assigned me. But I was always curious sort, and in the same research that has led me to Ahuizotl and his quest, I've had to comb through much of the lore forgotten and forbidden in the shining Canterlot, and this was one of the worst of all of them, a bastard legacy of the Frozen North, ended up in the depth of the sea through ways unknown. The darkest of the dark magics. All it took was one moment of weakness, a single chink in the armour of the mind for the shard of the Black Gem to set its roots into the pony spirit. It would enhance their high, prolong and bring them almost more pleasure than they could endure… and it would keep them coming back for the next fix and the next, and the next, all the while binding their spirits and their will with darkness. Those in thrall of this magic would waste away - their minds turning dull, their bodies rotting from inside out and their spirits only desiring sweet oblivion of the drug-induced visions spiked with the magic of the black gemstone. It was a perfect weapon, suited right for the very weakness I saw in Daring Do. She’d have no chance against it. I breathed in deep to say something, the sweet fumes of the poisonous gas clawing at my throat,  and I felt the familiar cramp and vertigo of the flashback as I saw my reflection in the yellow eyes of the seapony and his reflection in the reflection of my eyes, an abyss of infinite recursions… ...stood  in the shadow of the school on the bank of a river, and  the flame of my power  the rising sun, coloured the land blood-red underneath my feet. "Through blood and through law, all that beneath me shall serve!" I said thought, and they rose from their knees, toy soldiers devoid of anything but their owners will. Stupid, prissy, princess-y thoughts and doubts. This was no time to second-guess myself. I knew I had to win this, that I could not take any risk of defeat. “Yeah, that’s the place.” My voice strained with the effort to seem normal. It sounded hollow and muted as if it was somewhere far off. “But the thing we’re looking for will be hidden…” I tried to move, slow and jerky, muscles spasming and cramping out of tune. I breathed in deep, feeling the sweet fumes of the poisonous gas claw at my throat... The fire crept down my neck from the crown The ice crept up my limb from the staff turning my body red when the wings ripped out of my back in a shower of blood. turning my eyes and mane snow white. A purple girl  silly orange pony stood in my way, digging her legs into the ground. I stepped over the crack, as we made our way through the hall, dodging the addict-filled hammocks. My muscles cramped with the shake, and I almost fell, but Green did not seem to notice. I breathed in deep, feeling the sweet fumes of the poisonous gas claw at my throat. Those amethyst  emerald eyes pierced me even from across the courtyard battlefield with their sheer intensity. Reality rippled, and a power, world-rending and heavy filled the air. I shook my head chasing away the vision, and breathed in deep, feeling the clear, cold water bring me back to reality. We made it across, to the ladder that lead away from the hall, and now our way was barred by the bouncer who did not seem to be inclined to let us through. "... and this is a bad neighbourhood,” he grinned, with what I’m sure he thought was a menacing expression. “Why, there was a fight, just the other day..." The realization slowly dawned as he talked and he gulped, looking at us with sudden fear, "With the outsiders. Many ponies got hurt." "Anyone crippled?" I asked, mildly concerned. "No... they're all going to recover". "Professional work, I'd say." Green looked him directly in the eyes. He could add two and two together... and he did not like the result. "Well?" She hurried him along. He hesitated for another fifteen seconds, and I thought him a very brave pony for it. "Downstairs.” He passed Green the key and floated aside ”Purple Room.” "Stay out, little princess," she said, stopping in the archway so that I couldn't follow her in. "Somepony comes by - you keep them here." Ignoring my feeble protestations, she turned the lock and slipped into the corridor behind it. "And stay out." The door clicked right in my face. I sat on my haunches, back to the door, fuming. Being demoted to lookout did not sit well with me. I was an adult pony, I have proved myself in our expedition and I could handle whatever it is she was going to do. "... So," I said, as the sound of steps behind the door became indistinguishable. "Busy day?" The seapony clerk glanced sideways at me. "... not really." Silence dragged. “Do you, like get tips for—” my next question was suddenly interrupted by a scream, sudden and unexpected rang from underneath — a cry of pain. It wasn’t loud, coming from afar, muffled by the door, but it was unmistakable - that was not the sound of the fight. This scream, the long, ululating, throat-ripping scream, it was a sign of something gone horribly wrong. Maybe Green... I shook my head. I could not imagine Green screaming like that, no matter what the cause. "It can't be her, can it?" I asked my involuntary companion. He shrugged unhelpfully. I paced along the door, listening intently for any trace of sound. Seconds dragged by, each more unbearable than the next. And then again - a scream, primal and rippling. Enough. I couldn’t just sit in the time-out corner when something was clearly not going to plan. I needed to act. Somnos I whispered, releasing the spell I had prepared before the evening started. It unfurled, a thin latticework of a sleeping spell enveloping the pony. I adjusted him in the seat a bit and pried the door open. The tunnel turned, and turned again, leading me to below the main hall, where the source of the poison gas was. On each flight the seaponies floated lifelessly in the air, choked out or knocked out — by Green Glow, I assumed. It ended in a cul-de-sac, with multiple coloured doors, all open wide and empty, save for a single purple door.I crept slowly along the wall, listening and watching for the merest sign of Green, spells buzzing at the tip of my horn, and slowly I peeped inside the Purple Room. This room was not empty as the others were, crammed full of seaponies, hovering in the air. Nopony moved, so Green must've been knocked out or surrendered, and she needed my help... I forced myself to breathe, ignore everything and plan. Six of them. Armed - knives and short spears, tipped with sharpened coral shards. All standing immobile around something in the centre of the room, obscuring my view save for a single glimpse of the pale green coat. They were big and strong. Raw, unpolished strength, untrained and unstretched, their own muscle would be their disadvantage, making them slow and clumsy. With no magic and only crude weapons, I knew I could take them, even underwater, even in close quarters. I jumped in, spells at the ready, battle cry at my lips, and they turned to me, sharp bronze unsheathed and shining in the glow of the fluorescent crystals, too slow, too uncoordinated, too easy... A scream - a third one, even more full of horrid, desperate pain, raked across our eardrums. Our nascent scrap forgotten, all of us turned to its source. Green was standing in the middle of the ransacked room, over a mound of something blue, black and scaly, smoking slightly with dissipating reddish mist. "Please..." it said, in a raspy, hoarse whisper, and slowly it dawned on me that this misshapen combination of scales and fins, looking more like a pile of rags than a creature, was a pony, a broken, bleeding, but still living thing. "Tut-tut," Green tutted at us, like a teacher scolding rambunctious schoolfoals, as she gripped the extremity of the pony under her hooves almost gently. "Don't interrupt, or I'll have to hurt this little seapony more." My opponents hesitated, unsure what to do. I froze too, uneasy about what was going on. Fighting was one thing, but this — this was cold-blooded torture. It was so very wrong...and yet I found myself unable to intervene or even look away. "Please," it repeated, clearly not for the first time. "Please, please, please..." a monotone, mindless chant of fear and submission, gaining urgency and fervour as it felt Green’s grasp close on his limb. It begged and sobbed, no longer a sapient being, but instead a scared animal, a bundle of bleeding nerves, only able to say one thing, one unending, unstopping, droning supplication to the cruel, unheeding fate. Somepony moved, perhaps shifting his position, perhaps even shuddering with the same fear and revulsion that I had felt, but it was enough. Green switched her grip and pulled, bones and joints lurching underneath the scales, bulging out his skin. A disturbing sight, accompanied by an equally unnerving squealing screech of pain. Everypony froze again, afraid to even breathe, not to set off another shift of Green's hooves. "Please..." She leaned over her victim. "Give it to me," she said, with the exaggerated patience of somepony who has already repeated herself too many times. "Give me what I want, little pony, or there will be more pain for you.” Finally, the chant stopped, and it drew a breath with a sob, resounding in the silence of the room. Still defiant, despite the fear and the pain. In my mind I took up his chant where it stopped, cursing and begging it to please talk before Green would have to do something else. Something truly horrible. "You have many bones," she said, and her calm, bored tone entirely diverted from the grisly details of what she did made the whole thing surreal. "The humerus..." She did something with the foreleg she held, promoting another set of screams. "The radius..." It shivered and shook, but still kept its mouth shut. "The ulna...", she continued, her forelegs sliding along the now misshapen and oddly angled extremity. "I will break them, little seapony. I will break them so that the shards will protrude into the nerves. I shall shatter them in such a way that no doctor, no magic will ever be able to repair it. Do you understand?" Besides my will, I imagined the thing she described — a compound open fracture, a mess of broken bone and torn muscles, and I nearly threw up. Whether it was that businesslike, distracted tone, the threat that carried the credibility of absolute, inevitable fact, or the silent pressure of our horrified gazes, it broke the seapony. “I’ll talk-” He muttered, barely audible. “I’ll tell you where it is. Please...” She broke his foreleg anyway. The sharp crack and jagged bone piercing through the skin. A scream cutting across my eardrums like the sound of nails on the chalkboard. “Why did you do that?!” I shouted, finally snapping, from the cold and above all -- pointless violence of my partner, trying to push her away from him. She wouldn’t budge, too heavy with her own magic. She turned to me instead, quick as a whip and smashed her forehead into my face. Sudden, blinding pain turned my vision black, and before I could do anything, the next blow to my chest threw me on the ground and kept me there. I tried to move, and her hoof that pinned me down took aflame, steam boiling in a thick plume around her leg, turning a bruise into a burn. I screamed and twisted, as she held me fast. “Do not. Ever. Question me in front of others.” She said calmly. “Understand?” “Yes! Yes! I understand!” I screamed. I would’ve said anything to stop the pain, “Please!” She moved her hoof down to burn a fresh patch of skin, dialling the pain from agony to merely torturous as she did. “Shh, easy, pumpkin.” Her lips touched my ear, her gentle tone clashing with her actions. “Listen carefully and don’t interrupt.” I bit my lip, fighting back sobs and cries of pain, and tried to ignore the sickeningly sweet smell of my own coat and skin burning filling my nose. Pain, finding no release, filled my mind and crashed against the insides of my skull like a battering ram, becoming more unbearable by the second. It was my turn to pick up the chant of supplication now in my head, repetitive nigh-meaningless word bashing against the insides of my skull, urging me to prostrate myself before the thing that held me with fire and pain, to please, please, pleasepleaseplease, anything-- “First rule of life: An unprovoked, disproportional aggression scares ponies. If you do it to them, as I am doing it to you now...” she twisted her hoof, and my vision exploded with white-hot pain, as my body arched, almost snapping my spine in a futile effort to escape the burning hoof on my chest. Somewhere far I could hear a scream, only dimly aware that it was my own. She relented for a second, leaving the place for her words to sink in, as her hoof kept frying off my coat inches at a time. “...they remember feeling helpless. Feeling powerless to stop you. Feeling that you can do anything to them, at any time without reason or provocation and that nopony could stop you if you chose to do it again. That gives you power over them.” She nibbled my ear - a pinprick of sensation against the vast canopy of pain that was my mind. “Do you understand why I did it now?”. I nodded, and suddenly the pain… it wasn’t gone, but her hoof was off the burned line all across my barrel, and what remained of the pain was like a breeze compared to what was done to me a second ago. I panted, regaining my breath, but I was not in any rush to stand up. Green Glow was already back to her hostage, ignoring me completely, her back turned to me, and for a second I imagined that I could stab her in the back. A spell, a knife even, the one with the night-black blade, still stowed in my saddlebag - vengeance for what she just did to me. But even as I thought of that, I felt it within me: Fear. Helplessness. The knowledge that somepony next to me could at any moment turn into an unhinged, cold-blooded, torturing psychopath turned my knees to jelly and made my magic retreat into the depths of my mind. She may have been insane, but she was right - after what happened I no more could’ve attacked her than I could’ve cut off my own leg. Any thought of revenge drowned in an icy sea of fear before I could even fully think it. *** I don't remember how I got back to our quarters, save that the seaponies made no motion to stop her, scattering away from Green's presence, when she stole their little treasure or when she walked away dragging me with her back to our rooms. I hid in my room for most of the day, trying to lie down so that my burned chest would not hurt quite as much. But even through the haze of the numbing spells, I could feel the constant buzz of the pain and even worse than the pain was the fear that made me shudder and tighten into a ball every time I’d spot a shadow under the door. I fell in and out of the troubled short naps, filled with the same cold fear and numb pain that filled my waking hours until I woke up to the presence by my side, and if I did not scream with fear, it was only because the terror has frozen my throat shut. She was there, by the side of my bed. In my room. Right next to me. I scooched away frantically, summoning my magics to defend myself, to run away, to do something before… “Easy, Princess.” She lifted both her hooves in the air, as she sat down, “I am here to help.” She nodded towards a small jar of some sweet-smelling salve she left by my side. “I-I am fine,” I struggled the words out of my mouth, hoping it would placate her so she would go away. “You’re not,” she said, any hints of warmness gone from her voice. “Get over here.” I could not argue with her. Not after today. Obediently, I got from underneath my blanket and trotted up to her so that she could reach my burn mark -- the one she herself had left on my barrel. Her salve-covered hoof traced along the mark, bringing coolness to the burning wound, and despite myself, I shivered with pleasure as I felt her earth pony magic flow into me, easing my pain. She laid me gently on the floor, as she kept working over the scorch mark, and I moaned a little from the sheer relief her hooves brought me. “I won’t say I’m sorry, pumpkin. You were stupid, and you broke my play, so I had to double-up. Otherwise, we’d have to fight all those ponies, and that would’ve been inefficient.” She dabbed her hoof in the jar again and returned to flooding my naked nerves with her magic. “First rule - you back my play or you back away. I will do the same for you. Then we can work together. Ok?” “Y-yes.” I nodded, avoiding her eyes. At that time I would’ve agreed if she said that moon was made of cheese and that Celestia was a stallion, lest her gentle ministrations turn into another abject lesson… but she also made sense. We were few and we had to back each other up, otherwise, we would fail in our mission - or worse. “I understand. I’m sorry.” “Never apologize, little princess. Makes you look weak, and in this line of work that is something you can’t afford.” She sighed. “Do better.” I fell asleep, my head on her lap, her hoof still tracing my burn with a gentle flow of her magic. *** When I woke up, she was gone, and I was alone tucked in my cot. I stayed in my bed for a while, listening to the seapony song, and the rushing of the water it summoned - the sounds that woke me. It was the time. Soon the treasury would be opened, and I would go in and bring out the coin of stone, the token of Ahuizotl’s power. I did not want to leave this room. Beyond the doors, a monster lurked, green fur and green flames, pain and fear, the mere thought of her making me want to curl into a ball. But then again — I wasn't safe from her here either. She could come in at any time and it was not a monster that could be held at bay by a night light or hiding under a blanket. Why would she do that to me? I touched gingerly the burn mark on my chest. It didn’t quite hurt anymore, already getting better with the power of her healing salve and her magic, but the mark was there and so was the memory. I liked her. I trusted her and she… I shut my eyes, trying to push away the memory of blinding pain and burning flesh. It was my own fault. I clutched to this thought like a drowning mare grasping for a straw. She didn't really want to hurt me, she said so herself. It was my own fault that I screwed up, that I put the both of us in danger, so she had to do it. That was the only explanation that made sense. If I wouldn't screw up anymore, not like with the temple, not like with the stupid seapony gang in the pub, not like yesterday, if I just did better like she said, everything would be fine. I dropped off my bed. I couldn’t dawdle, couldn’t wait for her to go get me and have to take care of me again. Grabbing my cloak and my bags I double-checked everything to make sure I didn't make any mistakes. I would do better this time. The Black Gem, on a simple iron chain, Green left for me, shone softly on the nightstand, its putrid magics dormant for a time. It fit snugly behind the pin of my cloak, and I could feel the pulse of its rotten power against my throat. I would not make her fix things for me again. Fix me again. I trotted out. They already waited for me, Ahuizotl's tail-paw swishing impatiently. "Are you ready, pony mine?" I nodded, not trusting my voice. "Let me see,"Green trotted to me and checked me over, testing the fit of my harness, fixing some tiny flaws and tightening the buckles with her teeth, until she was satisfied with the inspection. For one insane moment, it reminded me of my mom checking my dress for my first day of school. It took all of my willpower not to scream. "All right, pumpkin, you can do this. You get fifteen minutes head-start, then Daring Do goes in after you. Remember - breathe, focus, and if the push comes to shove, you have the Gem." Her hoof pushed gently on the still-tender skin of my chest "Don't let me down." I nodded, and trotted to the entrance, reading the warning again. The letters have not changed from the previous time I read them and the warning was no more clear, but the power within, that I could feel with the surface of my skin, like a cold mist. That and the ominous warning at the doors -- it gave me pause. I got used to acting with somepony to back me up, but now I’d be going in alone, and it scared me. Then another fear came, a memory of a flame and a scream, reminding that I had no choice in the matter. Sharp and painful, like a lash, it washed everything else away, and under the unyielding emerald gaze that I just knew was watching my every move, I took a breath and stepped into the darkness. The treasury of the sunken city defied description or imagination. Along the labyrinthine sequence of twisting corridors cut in the stone, rooms were strewn, seemingly without logic or sequence, each hall filled with more treasures than the next: Riches almost beyond compare, perhaps equal to the royal treasury of Сanterlot - piles upon piles of gold and gems, moonsilver and orichalcum, jade and pearls the size of my head. Stones, ingots and coins covered the floors in mounds and hoards, uncounted and perhaps uncountable in their plenty. Libraries, where stone tablets with knowledge ancient and arcane were stacked so high, the tops of the shelves disappeared into the darkness. The legendary knowledge of the sunken city, history preserved that has been lost to Equestria for centuries, new spells and new magics altogether hidden within. Creatures that the surface language had no names for imprisoned in magic gems, promising power and service for their freedom, their blood-lust and might radiating off their prisons... The magic I felt at the entrance permeated the labyrinth. It rolled with a green mist smelling faintly of peppermint and mangoes, messing with my mind and making me unable to distinguish between what was real, and what -- merely clever mirages and traps of the treasury, tempting me to break off my path; to go for this bit of magic, or this book or that gem. Everything seemed a little bit off as if in a dream, rooms swirling and flowing into each other as I passed them by. At first, I did not particularly care for the temptation of the treasury: I had no use for gold or treasures, no matter how exotic or opulent. Knowledge could not avail me, else I would have long since found my solace in the library of Canterlot. Creatures imprisoned were of no interest - if seaponies could capture them, of what use could those be failures to me? Even when something did catch my eye — a description of magics unknown in Equestria, a book of history lost to time everywhere but under the waves, my chest would ache, with dull, pulling throb — a reminder of the price of failure. If only that were the greatest temptation of the labyrinth. If only that was all that the city had to offer…. but the deeper I got, the harder the magics of the place hit me, seeking out my heart's desires, and presenting them to me at every twist and every turn, as if trying to persuade me to leave my quest. Mirrors, endless mirrors like doorways where I walked. Clear and mercurial, they were almost invisible - and what they reflected was not what was now, but what once had been. "You have a very special gift, little pony.“ Princess Celestia smiled at me. “Unicorns with your abilities don't come up every century. Would you like to be my personal student?" That was the promise behind the thin silver film of the mirror — to turn back the tides of time. A single step to take me back to when I was happy, to when I was free. To when Celestia looked at me and saw not something broken...but I was not a child, not anymore. Though my heart ached, I trotted on. "Hello, little sun", the white mare, svelte and delicate and strong like only Saddle Arabians are, said. "Come back to me." The heat of the desert sun, the sweetness of the date wine, the touch that once held me fast against the cold of the night in the desert - all that was but a step away. Forget the coin, the knife, and the name, cross the thin line that separated what is and what could have been... but I was not a love-struck filly, not anymore. Everything ends, and this sun has long since set for me. Though my heart bled, I walked forward. Were those mirrors a lie? Not all of them. There was a magic to this corridor, so concentrated it made my horn tingle with the energies and my head spin. All the power of the City-Under-The-Waves, all that the seaponies have hoarded for over a millennium, growing it the depth of the sea and mining it from the seabed, every single little drop of it was here. It was power enough to bend the space and time and more than enough to change the fate of a single unicorn. "You can do your caribou voodoo all you want,” I said, waving a freshly opened bottle of cider, “But there is just no way to cross-dimensional borders without a pre-existing sympathetic connection. That was conclusively proven by Clover the Clever!” Salt-licks and cider all around, young and happy we were talking multiverse theory. No horn to call me to another world, no war, no death. Just me and my friends...but my chest burned with a sharp reminder, and I knew that I was not a friend. Not with nightmares and blood in my dreams, not with pain and fire on my mind. Though each step was as if upon a naked blade, I forced my way on. Were those mirrors real? Not all of them. It would have been easy to trap the greedy and the hasty within an illusion, their dreams becoming their prison until their bodies rot away in the green mists of the treasury, never to be seen again. So much easier than to rip and twist the very fabric of the world inside out to make such wish come true. Perhaps that was what the warning at the doors had meant - truth or happiness, one cannot have them both. I bumped him in the hip with a shoulder, and he bumped me back, the faintest trace of a smile on his lips. All was well in the world. I slowed down, trying to catch the rays of the sun with my muzzle, and stood there for a few seconds, just enjoying the peace and quiet while it lasted. Birds were singing their chirpy accolades, and the summer was getting into its right, bringing warmth to the forest. The world hung in perfect balance... I put my hoof against the mirror sheen, and it rippled like water. Was this mirror a lie? It did not matter. One step and I'd be taken back. Away from the doubts that threatened to rip me apart. Away from Ahuizotl and Green Glow and Daring Do. Away from the heroes and the villains, back into the war where you knew who your ally and your enemy was, where all that gave me nightmares and dreams filled with shameful, unbearable longing awaited. Where he would still be alive, not pierced by my spell and a red-tailed arrow to his throat, bleeding slowly onto the snow. I closed my eyes, but it didn't help - my memory filled the blanks, unfolding the inevitable chain of events, and I could not stop imagining it: The fight and the argument. My stupid, selfish, hasty decision. The spells and arrows in the night and the blood-trailed retreat. The flashes of white and steel in the darkness of the cave. His eyes and mane turning white.. the flames coiling about him...my spell smashing into his defences like a battering ram...the red-tailed arrow in his throat...the light fading in his eyes... Again and again, start to finish, an unbreakable chain of cause and effect. The chain the mirror promised to break and undo. It was then that I understood, completely, to the roots of my soul - to make the next step, I would have to let my friend die again. I lifted my hoof….and I put it back down, staring at the mirror. That was just too much, too painful, too cruel a thing to demand. Torn between fear and desire, I froze, unable to look away, until I heard the sound of hoofsteps behind me. *** I did not turn to look at Daring Do when she has finally caught up with me. I was too busy trying to hold my own mind together as it was ripped by an impossible decision that I had to make. Quietly she trotted up to me, and tentatively her wing touched my shoulder in a gesture of sudden comfort. We sat in silence for a while, watching the mirror. I wonder what desire did she see come true in the silver sheen of the magic veil, what failures re-written, what pains undone? "Go home, little filly," she had finally said, gently. "You don't belong here." I hesitated, feeling the warmth of her wing. Brave, kind Daring Do. There was little condescension in her tone - she honestly wanted what was best for me, even though I was on her enemy's side. But she couldn't fix me, make me clean and good again. She could not make me forget the dreams of iron and blood, the nightmares of fire and magic and other worlds. Nopony in Equestria could. I had to get better. I had to be better - there was no other choice for me. My horn lit up with a subtle light, seeping into the Black Gem on my neck, and lighting her with the dirty-black light. No other spell would immediately incapacitate her - her own pegasus magic could protect her even if she could not dodge it in time. But this was a weapon uniquely suited against her. I could see it seep into the chink she herself made in her armour, feel the call of the black magic sing its poisoned song to the leftover drugs in her blood, stretch and connect to the chemicals still bound to the neurons of her brain. The power that could hold a thousand in its thrall all focused on the single pony. She stumbled on her hooves, feeling the sudden numbness of the drug hit her like a freighter train. "Don't!" She fumbled for her tricks and tools, trying to do something, to move away. The true hero to the last, she tried to reason with me, a second’s hesitation negating whatever was left of her speed. I was not a hero. I hit her again, pouring more power into the gemstone. "I’m sorry-" I started... and then I stopped myself. Apologizing was a sign of weakness, and I was growing tired of being a weak little filly. *** When I finally stumbled out of the labyrinth, I was swaying like a drunkard, half-blind with exhaustion. Green appeared out of nowhere by my side, holding me up. I spat out the coin I still held in my mouth. It landed slowly by Ahuizotl's feet without making a sound, raising a little cloud of sand, quickly dispersed in the water. "Nice work, little princess," Green Glow whispered to me almost tenderly and finally the horrid tempest of emotions that’s been gripping me started to calm down. Too tired and numb to be afraid, I let myself lean more against her, burying my muzzle in her mane. She was warm and steady, a perfect counterpoint for the shakes and shivers that were still running through my body. Green was beginning to take me away from the labyrinth when Daring Do appeared. I strained to see what would happen with the hero, and Green stopped, letting me see what my magic and my treachery have done. "Will you go back on your word, seaponies?" Ahuizotl asked, and though he did not raise his voice there was once again the steel in his tone, the power and the darkness of the depths he commanded. "By our word we are bound, Elder." The seaponies answered, their voices as clear and beautiful as ever. “As you will, so shall it be.” "You are late, Nightwatcher." They turned to Daring Do and the guards surrounded the hero. "Thus you're forfeit. Your fate is Drowner's to decide." I wondered briefly if there was any expression on their muzzles as they condemned the saviour of their city to Ahuizotl's decision. "This shall be a spectacle for the ages," Ahuizotl declared almost regally. "My enemy merits no less." "But Drowner..." The seaponies tried to protest. "The time—" "Don't worry, ponies.” He interrupted them with a wave of his paw.” I shall stay the deeps while we are guests of your city. Now, for the Daring Do, I will need a hundred male puffer-fish, three dozen sharks, an immaculate black pearl..." Daring Do did not protest or fight when they took her away. I wished that she would. That, however pointless it may be, she'd try to run away, to escape. But she was bound by her word, as all of us were. It was too late for any of us to change anything. The lot has been cast, and none could change the outcome. Not the seaponies, now chaining the once saviour of their city. Not the hero, who gave her word. Not me, following Green obediently to the darkness of my room. I looked at the tiny sparks of the seapony guards, carrying the hero to a dungeon until they disappeared into the tower. It was too late. *** Green let me rest while she packed our things and supplies, but not before making sure I was covered by every blanket she could scour, and giving me her flask. Whatever was inside, it smelled like rubbing alcohol and tasted like boiling acid. The first sip made me splutter and cough like a child trying cider for the first time, setting my throat and stomach aflame. The drink must have had enough ethanol in it to kill a horse — literally. Even if Green may have somehow been able to process it with her earth pony resilience, it must have meant a sure death for me. I took another long drink, relishing the horrid, burning taste. Surprisingly, I did not die. Instead, the fire in my belly it has started seemed to calm my shakes and shivers, taking the edge off. I wanted to stay in the room, in the safety and warmth of the blankets, drinking the peaty, burning drink until I’d fall asleep or die of alcohol poisoning. Maybe Green would stay away and leave me alone or maybe she would come in to check up on me -  I was no longer sure which of those I wanted and which I was afraid of. But I couldn't. Somewhere there, in the beautiful white tower - I knew which one, I could find it in this underwater city - somewhere there Daring Do was chained and tied, and waiting for her doom. Doom that I have summoned through black magic and cheating. It was not a question of me being a good pony - that notion was already dispelled when I watched a pony tortured and did not intervene, when I summoned forbidden magics against a hero who only wanted to help me. But there was something in me that demanded to fix it, the last bit of silly, princess-y thoughts in my head, and if ignored it, if I did not leave this room, if I let the fear make me stay, curled up and powerless before the mere thought of Green being outside, I would be stuck here forever. No matter where I’d go, no matter what I’d do, I’d forever stay the hurt little girl, curled under the blanket in the tiny room, afraid of the monster outside. My limbs refused to listen when I tried to stand up and my chest flashed with a memory of the pain. I breathed it away and forced my muscles and my mind to obey the will, beating down the brewing shake before it could cripple me. With an almost desperate effort, my magic reached to open the door, revealing Green right there, almost on my porch. She was lying idly, a hoof-file in her mouth and a journal in front of her. Arcane Monthly with Royal Astronomer Night Light smiling off the page. I froze mid-step, my thoughts lost and scattered like a school of frightened fish as soon as I saw her. “Err… I was… I  just...” I tried to stammer out a good excuse, my throat suddenly dry. “Don’t care, pumpkin.” She cut off my jumbled explanation with a wave of her hoof, “First rule of life - never explain yourself.” I nodded nervously and tried to trot away before she could change her mind. “Princess,” Green Glow sighed, and pushed her journal aside, fixing me in place with her emerald gaze. “Let me give you a piece of advice.” To hear the usually mocking and indifferent mercenary so serious gave me pause, so I trotted over to her and sat on the ground by her side. “You think life is complicated. There are good choices and bad choices, what you want and what others expect of you and what you want to see yourself as. The things you tell yourself and others, truth and lies, but it’s not that hard.” She leaned in to look me in the eyes, so close, I could almost feel her breath on my muzzle, sweet and a little bit minty. Fear and… something else rose from within me, as I sat there, transfixed by her gaze. “You figure out what you want, and then you find a way to take it. Want. Take. Have; and then move on. That’s all there is to life.” Before I would find the words to reply, she released me with a wave of her hoof, returning back to her hoof-polishing and reading. Slowly I breathed again, making the first step away, into the eternal shine of the City-Under-Waves. Nothing happened. No voice to call me back, no touch of her green forelegs to drag me back I took another tentative step, and then another. Why did Green let me go? She must’ve known, there was no way she didn’t know, what I intended to do. And yet she seemed content to just sit there with her journal and fiddling with her hooves, without a single care in the world, even though I knew without a doubt, just as I was sure that she knew, that a single word from her, a single glance, and I would not even dare to leave my room. I longed for another drink of Green Glow's sweet poison, to chase away the ice in my guts and add to the buzz in my head to push away the thoughts. Focus, little princess. Concentrate on what you're doing right now. Sort everything else later. I shuddered when I almost heard her hoarse voice in the back of my mind, but she was right. I pushed my doubts and fears away, and ran faster, navigating my way back to the underwater dungeons. Steps turned into a trot, then into a full gallop, when I forced my body to move past exhaustion, hoping that the pain of protesting muscles would distract me from the doubts and fears. Awareness. If you’re not aware, you’re worse than useless. It was raining, for the first time in the City-under-The-Waves. The pearly dome slowly letting the deeps to seep through in the tiny, mist-like drops. The water ran in the streets, overflowing from the channels of the city, almost fetlock-deep now, and rising by the hour. The chaos of the seaponies, frantically swimming to and fro, in the attempts to salvage what could be salvaged, to hide from the waves all that could be hidden, to silence the forges and extinguish the fires, was a perfect cover for a lone unicorn to slip by unnoticed. Breathe, pumpkin. My every nerve stretched thin I crept through the coral tower, hiding in the shadows at the slightest noise. It was not hard to find it, nor to evade the nominal guard of the seaponies, even if not quite as perfunctory as their Canterlot counterparts or to find my way into dungeons. A memory of the silent raid of another castle in another world came to me unbidden, but I pushed it away. A sleep-spell took care of the last few guards, and by the door of the cell, I hesitated. Breathe. In and out. My magic wavered when I picked the lock. It took me a few tries before I finally pried it open, and so before Daring Do I stood once more. There was not much of a cell, behind the stone doors. A circular room lit brightly by a few crystals, with nothing in it bar a pony-sized stone slab of a table. Daring Do was tied to it by her hooves with wide stretches of seaweed used as restraints. She raised her head to the sound of the doors opening and looked at me coldly. Did she hate me? Was she disappointed? Was she scared? I'll never know. “We’re on the same side,” I said quietly, “I’ve got it covered, and I need you to stay away.” I slipped her a knife. Not the one I stole from her, the one with the black blade, just a regular, blunted brass blade pilfered off the table on my way. If even a fraction of the tales of Daring Do's daring escapes were true, it would suffice. Her eyes widened in surprise, but she said nothing. “Please. Just don’t. Don’t follow, don’t try to stop us. Please”. I was rambling now, in hushed whispers. I was afraid… so very, very afraid. Of somepony noticing me. Of Green Glow changing her mind and following me here. Of my mission failing after all I’ve done. But most of all I was afraid that she wouldn’t listen, and then we’d have to fight her again, and then…. I stopped my train of thought. Breathe. Still, she said nothing, her lips pursed tight and in her eyes an indomitable stubbornness, more fit to an earth pony than a pegasus. Maybe - just maybe - I saw the tiniest of nods. Or, perhaps, it was just wishful thinking. There were no more words to say, no more time to spare. I gave the hero one last, begging look, and snuck out of the cell. Through the flooded city, water now reaching to my flanks, shying away from the dying gem-light and grieving seaponies, silent as a shadow, when, ready to make the last turn to the old museum, I found the Ahuizotl, waiting outside with Green Glow. The Elder turned to me, and the coin of stone hanging off his collar shone for an instant from under his cloak, I felt a glimpse of its power like a hoof file across the naked bone of my horn. "Can we go now?" he whined impatiently. "Yeah," Green said, giving me an evaluating look. “Little princess is done with her business.” It wasn’t so much a question as a statement of fact, and I could not but be grateful I had no need to disagree. She tossed my saddlebags, already packed, towards me. I nodded and put them on, feeling the reassuring slosh of her flask inside. And then I trotted after her and the Elder, knowing that I did all that I could have done. *** Ahuizotl guided us through the back alleys and forgotten eddies of side channels and water covering the streets and spilling from the overflowing fountains retreated before the Elders to give us the way. "They shall follow us, ponies mine," he said, while we trotted after him. "The seaponies do not expect me to miss the last trial of Daring Do. Once they realize that we have slipped their city, there will be a chase." I did not ask what he meant, or how he knew. I have heard the seaponies' song, and I knew that they would pay any price to get the Elder's coin back. Within the borders of the city, we were safe - they offered us their wine and shared with us their bread, and as guests we were safe. But once we crossed the border and went outside, all the bets would be off, and It would be good if we had some distance on our side once that happened. The seaponies were not as trusting as Ahuizotl would want us to believe, and even with all the bustle of waterproofing and protecting their city from the flood, with all the busywork the Elder has tasked them with, they still spared the guards to the exits of the city, to catch our escape. There were two of them, floating silently right at the edge of the air and water, clad in mails, girt with the belts with their seashell-horns and armed with eel-shaped spears. Spears they pointed at us when they saw us approach, the tips of their eel-like spears sparkling with the electric charge. "Drowner—" one of them started, but never had a chance to finish. Without breaking his stride  Ahuizotl's snaked out his hand, grabbing him by the tail, and bashing him against the earth, like a fisherman breaking a fish against the rock. The other guard reached for the horn on his belt to call alarm, but Green was already on him, her forelimbs dragging him down and drowning him in the coils of a sleeper hold. "There will be a chase," Ahuizotl repeated, as I cast the sleeping-spell upon the ponies so that they do not wake and raise alarm until we are gone. "We will not be able to fight them underwater—" "Not much of a plan, then," Green noted. . “And even if we beat it, there will be another.” Ignoring the snide remark, the Elder reached for the pearly wall. The coin on his collar pulsed with thick, heavy power, and his claw parted the angry white magics, like a paper veil. "And that’s supposed to make it better?" Green gathered me in, tight against her side, and followed him through. The heat of her body and the familiarity made the cold burn of the water much easier to bear. "If you do your job, littlepony mine" Elder’s irritation erupted in his voice, once again deeper and stronger under water. "I shall open us a path. There, the little shrimp will never reach and there our business shall be concluded." *** The ladder the Elder had led us to was different from the one we came in. It was steeper for one, the rough-hewn stairs higher and shorter, and it, while it did point back westwards, it lead not to the closed well of the pyramid we'd left behind, but further south, away from Equestria. From the height of the first flight of stairs, I turned to give the city under the waves one last look. It wasn’t shining anymore - without the coin, the Deeps have reclaimed what was rightfully theirs, water on both sides of the nacreous veil making it dull and feeble in the underwater murk. There’d be no more pearly-white shine of the air-dome. No more apples grown for the seaponies in the secret gardens under the sea, no more songs of the horns and the tinkly hanging-bells twirled by the circling air. No more rainbow-lighted waterfalls reflecting every colour of the gem-light. From this far out, the city now looked not as the pearl of the sea, but like a ghost-town, dark and menacing, the rare lights of the bioluminescent fish barely seen from this distance. I turned back and kept trotting. There was a long way ahead.