What makes a hero? I’ll tell you; I don’t know. For the longest time, I wasn’t concerned with heroes. There was only The Fight, and it was good. No reason, no rhyme, just The Fight. Some of us want to be heroes, we dream of it, we strive for it, we give all of ourselves for it, and then, for whatever reason, we lose ourselves to The Fight. I had a friend once… I think. I had a reason to do good. There was a reason to be a hero; because it is the right thing to do… and maybe because it might make your friend like you. I just wanted to be liked.
Shēdo could be a hero; she certainly has all of the right stuff, doesn’t she? But if she is Warlord Ketsueki she can’t be a hero. I wanted her to be Warlord Ketsueki; behold at how all of the world trembles at her name! For glory! For blood! For The Fight! Lost in the moment of The Fight, all memories are sublimated. Troubling thoughts of somepony once my friend? All gone, and good riddance, right? Right? I thought I knew what I wanted, but then the worst thing happened; Shēdo became my friend.
I am not a very good friend. Verily, I led her down the path of Warlord Ketsueki and preyed upon her desire for revenge. Being the monster that I am, I used my power and my influence to bend her to my will. Truthfully, I manipulated her and burrowed into her mind—just as I once did to my last friend—and I impaired her judgment. Oh woe, I clouded her ability to make good decisions. To both of them.
Strange, I remember what I once wanted, I have awakened. Can I undo what I have done? I have taken a hero away from the world and given it Warlord Ketsueki instead. The world needs fewer warlords and more heroes. What I’ve done… what I’ve done. I remember another… she was good to me… and I exploited her… I think? Is that my nature? Can I do no better?
Is it too late?
The world needs a hero…
It is time to let go of Shēdo’s mind and hope that she forgives me.
“Conifer, you seem troubled. I told you, your friend is going to be fine. Better, even, if we can get these ideas out of her head.” While speaking, Cranberry plucked a bird she had killed while out hunting. It was an action performed without thinking, an awful task done out of necessity.
Clutching her side, the hollowed out aching place where the rusty arrowhead had lodged, Shēdo shivered and waited for food. Her body was wracked by fever and chills, but at least she was clean now. It felt good to be clean, even though the vigourous scrubbing had caused a number of her wounds to open up and bleed. Cranberry said this was good, because it let the poison out, and Shēdo was inclined to believe the kind unicorn mare.
“I had strange dreams,” the zebra colt said in a voice that was difficult to hear over the fire. Shaking his head, Conifer looked troubled, and his vivid magenta eyes reflected the firelight in an odd, almost mystical way.
“Nightmares?” Cranberry continued plucking. “Feeling worried about losing your friend? See a little more violence than is good for you? That happens on the road… it does things to ponies. Changes them. Probably does things to zebras too. We’re not so different. Poor kid, you’re stuck running around with a diamond dog pup whose brain is addled with thoughts of revenge. I predict a lot more violence in your future.” The red mare’s eyes darted in Shēdo’s direction and a pointed stare was made.
“I saw Shēdo’s strange paper pony,” the colt confessed. “I… I think… I think I’ve been dreaming about her for a while now, but I can’t remember.” Shaking his head, he had more to say and did so in an unsteady, quavering voice. “I think I’m remembering now though. She poured ink into my stripes and talked about friendship. How important friendship is. My stripes came alive and moved like swaying grass on the savanna or shadows cast upon the wall by a fire. She said my name would become a blessing upon the tongues of diamond dogs everywhere.”
“Shared delusion…” Cranberry sighed out her response. “Wonderful. Kid, it’s just fever dreams. Think about what you said. Why would a diamond dog revere a zebra? At best, you are a slave. At worst, a meal. That’s crazy talk. I think all of this stress and violence is messing with your mind.”
“Maybe.” Conifer shrugged. “Shēdo started having these dreams long before she had this fever. Shēdo was told that the old diamond dog gods passed away because they were forgotten. Something weird seems to be happening and it is centered around Shēdo.”
“She picked up a magic sword and it possessed her, as magic weapons tend to do. If you want to find your paper pony, look no further than that weird green witchfire blade.” Cranberry’s eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched. Cringing, she pulled out a sharp knife and gutted the bird she had plucked. Disgusted snorty-snorts shot out of her nostrils like cannon blasts while she picked through the edible gizzards.
Shēdo licked her lips and remained in silence.
“Conifer”—Cranberry struggled to speak through her powerful disgust—“green magic is almost always bad magic. Dark magic is frequently green. Changeling magic is green. Disharmonious magic is almost exclusively green and witchfire is the greenest green magic there is. Every unicorn with a lick of magical education knows to fear green magic in any form.”
After a moment she added, “It’s not always bad though, just most of the time. Maybe ninety, ninety-five percent of the time. Some unicorns have green magic naturally, and in my experience, they shouldn’t be trusted either, ‘cause green magic is just bad. There’s a pair of grifters known as Flim and Flam. Unicorns. Green magic. Can’t be trusted.”
Shēdo—not knowing anything at all about magic—remained silent.
“I think you’re wrong about diamond dogs,” Conifer said to Cranberry.
“How so, little zebra friend?” There was nothing condescending in Cranberry’s tone, only warm sincerity could be heard.
“I am neither a slave nor a meal for Shēdo.” The zebra colt squirmed for a bit, tapped his chin with his hoof, and then added in a low voice, “Okay, technically Shēdo is my owner, but that arrangement was made by Chromium the dragon for my benefit. Shēdo doesn’t treat me as a slave though. I am a very valuable possession. Really, I am!”
Shaking her head, Cranberry sighed out the words, “This just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
“I am a vessel of Chromium’s knowledge, a treasure trove of information, and I was given to Shēdo for safekeeping. She saved me from a very public toilet that was actually a troll. Shēdo puts all of my needs ahead of her own and my safety before hers.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Cranberry nodded. “Yes, quite a master-and-slave relationship you’ve got going here.”
For lack of a better response, Conifer snorted and then made disgruntled zebra noises.
With a grin that stretched from ear to ear, Cranberry skewered the bird onto a couple of sharp sticks and then hung that over the fire, which was mostly hot coals at this point. As for the gizzards, she plopped those into a pan full of water and left them to boil. Much to Shēdo’s sadness, the rest of the offal was tossed over the embers to burn away. At long last, the bird had begun roasting, though Shēdo was hungry enough to eat it raw.
“Shēdo…” Cranberry turned her smiling face to look upon Shēdo and there was a cunning gleam in her eyes. “What happens when your quest for revenge gets Conifer here killed? Or worse, eaten. Think you can live with that? Maybe, if things go real bad, you’ll be forced to watch. Or worse, partake. Is revenge worth that? Is your need for revenge worth shirking your duties?”
What came out of her mouth surprised Shēdo One-Fang: “No.”
It seemed to surprise Conifer as well, and the zebra (or was it zedbra, she could never tell) colt gave her a curious stare of befuddlement. Stupefied, Shēdo tried to make sense of what had just come out of her mouth while her heart gave a few feeble thumpity-thumps inside of her girth. Even Cranberry seemed surprised by this outcome, and her smile was now gone, replaced with a peculiar, puzzled expression. At least, Shēdo thought she looked puzzled. It was hard to tell with pony faces.
“I can’t tell if you’ve come to your senses or if the delirium has finally passed.” Cranberry poked the fire with a stick to stir the embers and the smell of roasting bird flesh filled the air.
“Shēdo still do right thing for diamond dogs…” Confused, she tried to make sense of her own thoughts, which now seemed strange to her. “Still make diamond dogs better. Not giving up. But Shēdo not risk Conifer. Must find way.”
“To seek revenge is to keep your own wounds festering.” Cranberry’s eyes were expressive and the reflection of the firelight made them luminous in some meaningful way. “To seek justice is to finally close those wounds. Revenge never satisfies, it only escalates the exchange. Mercy is ultimately more meaningful, though… sometimes… regrettably… killing is unavoidable.”
“How do Shēdo do what must be done?”
“Look, I won’t lie…” Cranberry seemed pained saying the words. “If you are going to stick to this business of yours, the time will come when you have to take life. I don’t like it, but that is subjectively true. But you can lead by example. Be known for your mercy… for all those times you didn’t kill.”
“But bad dogs not fear Shēdo if she kind.”
“Maybe not,” Cranberry replied, “but maybe, just maybe, the young dogs will want to grow up and be like you. And over time, the young dogs that grow up start to replace the bad dogs. I suppose that’s me as a pony talking. We equines tend to go for slow, sweeping changes that happen over time. Sudden rapid change scares us. Spooks us. It overwhelms us and sends us running. If there is a problem, we tend to write it off as a bad generation and then we work to change the foals for the next generation and because of this, changes take time. It is a game of patience.”
Unfortunately for Shēdo, she couldn’t even grasp this concept. All she could think about were bad dogs in charge forever, making more bad pups, creating a terrible future that stretched on forever. Bad dogs had bad pups, such was the way of things, right? Surely this was the cause of how things had reached this point. Then again, she had spared the pups with the hopes that the bitches might rear them better. It was far too confusing for her pain-addled mind and a befuddled whimper escaped her jowls.
“But what if you ponies just keep making bad foals?” Shēdo asked, perplexed. “What if foals not changed, but made worse?”
At this, Cranberry shrugged. “That happens. That’s the way of things. Sometimes, it takes a few generations to sort things out. But change starts small, then grows. A few concerned parents raise their foals to do better. Those foals grow into adults that do better, and maybe, with a bit of luck, change the world around them. And then—”
“But bad ponies have foals too,” Shēdo said to Cranberry, almost frantic now to find the meaning in all of this.
With a sigh, Cranberry nodded. “They do, Shēdo. They do. Things don’t always change for the better, perhaps. But we ponies have done pretty good for ourselves. Equestria is one of the most enlightened and advanced nations there is. It is a slow, steady march for progress. Though I guess there has been some violent upheaval here and there.”
“It is different for ponies.” Conifer scowled in concentration and something about his eyes suggested that he was struggling to think thoughts too big for his head. “You ponies have Princess Celestia to guide you forward. She knows the mistakes of the past… she makes it possible for you ponies to have your slow approach to change. What do the diamond dogs have? Who remembers their mistakes from the past?”
“You’re a smart one, Conifer.” Cranberry shrugged. “I don’t have an answer.”
Where before, her mind had been fogged over with but one desire, Shēdo now found herself questioning everything. She had doubts; but also a greater determination than ever to go forwards… somehow. These thinks were too big for her head, to big to wrap her mind around. What had happened? What had changed? Had almost dying changed her? What brought her to this point? The goal was still there, the desire, but the motivation, the means to go about it, that had changed. She would not sacrifice Conifer for it.
“Shēdo need to see stars. Need to clear head. I need to go outside.”
“Hang on,” Cranberry replied, “I’ll help you…”
What have I done? Have I ruined Shēdo’s sense of purpose? Now she has all of these dreadful doubts—doubts that will surely be her undoing. While they’re outside, looking up at stars, I’m all alone and muttering to myself. Shēdo just wanted to be my friend, she tried really hard, too. Truthfully, she was good to me, a better friend than I deserved, just like one other.
Can an old sword turn over a new blade?
Have I lost my edge?
Can I still make a good point?
All that Shēdo has left is her determination, which is formidable. Without me clouding her judgment, maybe she can do something with it. Maybe I can still help. Maybe I can still be helped. Perhaps I am what I feared of myself all along; a dullard. A question; can the narrator be the villain in his own story? I think he can. Can the narrator be saved? But what if the narrator narrated himself into a corner? Alas, I simply cannot announce that I am good now. I’ve done nothing but run my mouth to anybody who’ll listen… and perhaps to one or two who weren’t so keen on listening.
I’ve run my mouth for so long that everything I have to say has lost all meaning.
Do I talk to hear myself think?
I don’t think I can save my friend, but can my friend save me?