//------------------------------// // Turn Away // Story: War Pony // by CreeperZone //------------------------------// “?edih revlis fo xof eht morf snoitop ruoy demialcer uoy evah ,esirprus a si nruter tfiws er'uoY ?laer ro egarim a ti sI ?laeZ” A gruffled, roughly accented voice came echoing from above the wall. The language he spoke was a beast Aurora and Hopeful have never heard, every syllable that entered their ear a sound that they never knew existed. It made them feel like little children that haven't learned to speak yet. Nearly immediately did a large, muscled and defined Zebra lifted his view over the edge of the wall. His body was encased in a skeletal bone structure for armour, a skull the shape of a young dragon's topping off his forehead and a long bone-tipped spear held between his leg and chest. It was terrifying to Hopeful and Auri, who immediately stepped toward Zeal, hoping he would protect them. “.meht ediug ot hsiw I dna htron og ot enotsnooM hguorht ssap ot hsiw yehT .modgnik ynop eht morf srelevart thguorb evah I !ksaruzaY” Zeal began speaking in the foreign dialect. How his tongue made those noises, they did not know. Just after speaking like a fairly normal rendition of Equine, too. “Zeal what did that Zebra say?” Aurora nudged Zeal's cloak, who in reaction showed his hooves' palm to her, trying to get her to wait a moment as he spoke with his superior. The Zebra that seemed to be Yazurask finally got a good visual on Zeal, his face turning from careful curiosity to unrelenting anger. His spear stabbed outward into the air, snapping into a point directed toward them. “!tort yeht dnal eht ecargsid uoy dna rehcaet a sa em ecargsid uoY !stoc dna semoh rieht fo tuo nevird srotsecna ruo dah ecar s'ohw fo esoht gnirb uoY ?SEINOP” He yelled out at them, Hopeful and Aurora pulling closer to Zeal. Whatever he was saying, he wasn't happy about it. “Zeal, please, what is he saying? Is there something wrong?” Hopeful tugged at him, trying to get a response. “Give me a moment to plea your case, although I would not hesitate a preparation to flee in haste,” Zeal whispered to them, stepping forward to the Zebra beyond the wall. “!erom on dna hguorht ssap ot hsiw yehT .ebirt eht ro su ot mrah on naem yehT !raw fo dnal eht morf emoc yeht dna dlihc htiw si seinop eseht fo eno ,feihC ,esaelP” Zeal was beginning to sound desperate. He really did want to help them. His excitement to help a few ponies was crushed by his reality, his voice was nearly cracking at the heart-crushing disappointment. Yazurask spat down beneath his hooves, getting those disgusting words out of his head. “!sruoy teem ot hsiw uoy sselnu dnammoc ym ot netsil lliw uoy dna ,dne rieht ecaf ro nruter reven dna dnal siht evael llahs yehT .serutaerc nomed eseht gnitsurt ,em tnioppasid uoY” Zeal dropped his head, accepting defeat. The furious Zebra atop the wall then finally moved his blood-red dots for eyes and crashed them onto Hopeful and Aurora's presence. He looked at them with a blistering rage, visible from his aggravated, shaking spear. He could barely keep his speech steady as he addressed them personally. “LEAVE. OUR. HOME.” He spoke their own language with the conviction of a king. And then he was gone, stepping down from his towering position, leaving their sight, assuming his student would honour his request and drive the two of them out. “Zeal... What happened? Why does he want us to leave?” Aurora asked in despair, feeling her hope-filled heart crying as it was ripped to shreds. “Zebras... Have a past with your kind... Perhaps you have all forgotten what happened those decades ago, but it has never left our minds.” He sighed. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry I have failed you... But guide you out, I must do.” He kept his head hung low as he moved past the stunned ponies, trying to prompt them to follow his steps. They didn't. “Zeal, we can't go back! Aurora is going to give birth soon, we won't have enough time to go around the whole of Moonstone!” Hopeful stood his ground, protesting to Zeal. “My friend...” Zeal swayed a helpless head back, “Please...” “No, Zeal, we can't! There is no safe place for Auri back down south, and if we can't get her to the north, then we're fucked!” He raised his voice, his argument almost trying to measure up against Yazurask's. “My friend, there is nothing I can do. Please just follow me out before Yazurask has me cut up for disloyalty.” It was odd hearing him not rhyme. “But Zeal, you can sneak us through! If we just found a way over the wall, and you know the layout, we can...” “Hopeful... Please. Yazurask doesn't make empty threats...” He used his staff to shift his cloak up from his back, letting its entirety droop from his neck and hang to the side. His thick black strips were overshadowed by long, red scars across his spine, the thousand lashes it has seen staring right back. “Zeal...” Hopeful had moved up towards him, inspecting the obviously sore wounds that time had brought Zeal in his teaching. He exhaled, this wasn't going to work. “Fuck...” He turned around, beginning to pace. “FUCK!” Then his radar began shooting off as in his peripherals he saw Aurora sitting down, clutching her stomach. Painful gusts of air running threw her teeth. “Aurora, are you okay?!” Hopeful dashed over. “Yeah... Yeah... Just cramps...” She breathed in and out like Hopeful had taught her to do, but even then, she wasn't giving up her opportunity to speak up. “Let's just go... Let's not argue...” “But Auri...” Hopeful continued to protest. “There's no point... We'll figure something out...” She put out a hoof for him, he quickly attended with helping her stand. “Fine, but I don't know what we're gonna fucking do...” He guided her forward, eventually letting her walk by herself once they had reached a re-robed and apologetic Zeal. “I am sorry about this, but if you wish to find out what you must do next, I know a way to assist.” “What do you mean?” Auri gentle pushed past a whisper, still rejuvenating. “This woods are connected to the moon, if asked upon she will grant you wisdom. Follow me out of the woods, and soon, I will be glad to share some.” They didn't know what he could possibly do for them, but they were desperate. They agreed, following him out on the path they came in, neither of them stumbling anymore. As all of them were about to emerge from the forest, Zeal had stopped them, asking for their patience as he took out a bone knife and cut off a slice of tree bark, then he told them to sit down on the grass in a circle, leaving only enough room between the three of them for a small campfire. “I am going to read your future... Hopefully something from it will be useful,” he reluctantly stated, not wanting to overplay it. “You can read the future?” Auri jumped at the question. Why didn't he start with that? she wondered. “Only the highest skilled of necromancers are able to have a clear reading. This is not that impressive. What we are doing is more of the caliber of, as you would say, a party trick, and purely interpretive.” He placed the bark inner wood up to produce a lightly curved bowl. He then took out two small stones from one of his many packs beneath his cloak and sparked them against each other. With enough effort, he lit up the piece of bark. While Aurora and Hopeful shifted their legs away, the flame burst out to a very impressive size. But to their surprise, the grass beneath it remained untouched. Even odder, the flame was a crystal blue, and from this distance, it didn't even feel warm. In fact, the closer they moved their hooves to it, the more it felt like the air around it was coated in ice. Zeal then brought his dagger out, balancing it evenly on the end of his hoof. “It needs a drop of blood.” Hopeful and Auri glanced at each other. Hopeful was the first to reach for the dagger, but Aurora insisted she'd be the one, as she snapped it to her with a flash of her horn. “Auri you don't have to,” Hopeful interjected. “Yes, yes I do.” She hoisted up her leg and placed the blade against her leg, scrunching up her face as she made a faint indent against it, just enough to draw a trickle of blood. Zeal leaned over the chilly, crisp ice-fire and wiped up the drop with his hoof before placing it and the rest of his leg into the flame. He took no damage as he spread the blood against the ablaze wood carving. Both of listened with utmost care as he shut his eyes, keeping his leg in the fire, letting it spread to his shoulder, neck and eventually head. “I see something...” he whispered, his volume causing them to lean in forward. And suddenly, his tone was let loose, his voice having a form of harmony behind it as he softly parted his lips to release the words, beginning his reading into the future. ‘’Two daughters, those of sun and moon, shall arise from the stone ashes quite soon. “Gifted with the three powers of strength, flight and magic, they shall have power to enforce their will on both night and day, every shadow or sunbeam, every clock’s tick. “Such power shall even conquer age and death. They shall be immortal. Once war is over, they shall take their roles as the true leaders of the pony tribes, bringing peace to all, “Protecting that peace if it would mean a thousand years of hidden grief, stopping chaos in its purest, or doing battle with a soul-stealing thief. “Such ponies shall be born by one who possesses flight, but no wings to soar with. And one who possesses magic, but no horn to control it, “Then raised by one whose strength has caused the fall of a hundred soldiers, but turned frail from suffering as they grew wiser and older...’’ He then blinked rapidly a few times, throwing his hoof from the now extinguishing flame. Finding stares of confusion in the two of their eyes. “I'm sorry.” He continued to apologize. “I do not know how anything I saw can help, I didn't even see either of you in that vision...” “Ww-what does that mean?” Aurora disheartened cry out for help in understanding anything came from deep inside her. Nothing he said made sense to her; she was scared. “I'm so sorry... I don't know.” Zeal dropped his rhyming. He had disappointed them again. “What do we do, Zeal? What did it say we should do?” Hopeful prodded him, trying to keep their safety a priority. “I don't... know...” His eyes began to water as he stood up, trying to escape from the situation. “Just... leave... Both of you, don't come back.” He smashed his spear down against the dwindling bark fire, reducing it to ash before he bolted off into the woods, even as Hopeful and Aurora shouted for him to wait. But he didn't. He ran and kept running. He failed them. He couldn't handle that. And with his steps, the last speckles of hope ran off at that Zebra's side. They were, in fact, fucked. “If we take this path through the badlands, then that would only be another month if we hurry.” He pointed onto the map. Aurora found it hard to pay attention. Her baby was acting up especially today. She really wished she had some painkillers for her cramps and migraines, but she got by just fine without them, because she had to. It had been another night. Aurora and Hopeful sat a few minutes’ walk from the Moonstone forest's entrance, where they had rested all throughout the night, and after "sleeping on it" for a back up plan, they found themselves staring at a map. Hopeful desperately hoped that a route would magically appear that would lead them all the way past Moonstone in less than a few weeks. “Auri… Do you think we could do that…?” He was hesitant to ask. She didn't look all too well, too busy focusing on her breathing to speak up. Which gave Hopeful his answer. “I know... I know... But what fucking choice do we have...” “We can... Heh... We can go back...” she fruitlessly proposed, Hopeful just shaking his head as the frustration pent up inside of him. “We can't... fucking just... give up. It took to long to get this far...” “We won't... go far...” She tried to calm his nerves. “The closest town... Where is it?” Hopeful unscrunched the map, scanning it side to side until he landed onto a small red dot with "Falgreen" scribbled down next to it. “Here. Maybe a week away. It's just past those hills with the fiery flower things.” “Sounds like we'll make it with time to spare.” She smiled. She couldn't help but to latch onto whatever optimism she could find. “Yeah, we would... But once little Midnight Junior is old enough to go outside, we're bouncing north, right?” he confirmed, getting a satisfied smile from Aurora. “Well then, we should get going. We don't have time to waste.” He courteously lifted her up and packed up all of their things by himself, allowing Aurora as much rest as she could get before they began backtracking. It was painful, physically, for Aurora  but even far more emotionally for Hopeful as he turned his back to a land of safety and peace, everything he dreamed of sealed off behind some forsaken wooden root wall. It was pure torture, every fucking second. It was another two nights and two mornings before they emerged from the mountain valley, the flowers guiding them back through their previous path. Although the rear horizon was foreign to them, something in their heads just seemed off. The sun now setting to their right, while for months they've watched it fall to their left. It was one of the little things that really got under their skin. Something always felt off, their regular fears of being watched magnified. They were trotting across a flat snow plain one morning, its snow thick and tall and their coats tight and woolly, barely keeping their core temperatures bearable. They weren't talking as much, especially not semantics. So when something out of the ordinary happened, it got their full attention. Hopeful was quick to his pistol, and Auri quick to the ground, as a rumbling closer than they were used to ran through the ground. A bomb had been dropped somewhere quite close. After pinpointing the direction by where the sound came from, Hopeful and Aurora quickly diverged their path, turning nearly a full ninety degrees to go directly away from the presumed battle. But, yet again, this didn't feel exactly right.  There were no Pegasi this far north when they came through here originally. Hopeful didn't like it, but there wasn't much he could do to even question it. Avoiding it was all he needed to do anyways, so giving it to much thought, especially with how common the sounds of war were, was just wasting time. After a few more hours, as the evening began to sit in and Hopeful and Auri began searching for a place to camp, they began trotting to the hoof of the mountain range marking the boundary between Unicorn and Pegasus land in this thin strip north of the Earth Ponies. As they began to settle into a small alcove, setting up a small fire and their sleeping bags, something even stranger happened than earlier. It was another rumbling, although this miniature earthquake wasn't followed by the blast of air like an explosion did. Neither did it cease. A full minute after they had kicked out their ragged beginnings of a fire, it continued, if anything, getting more prolific. Hopeful, in a very reasonable panic, got both him and Aurora beneath a snow-white camouflage sheet, laying in the snow above their sleeping bags, awaiting an explanation. And soon, one came. In fact, many came rolling into their cones of vision with their metallic, threaded wheels. Several vehicles the size of train carriages charged over and down the steep hill faces, propelled forward by a set of rusted metal cogs twisting a spiked and threaded sheet of rubber and metal chains on either side of it. In between sat a wide base of white painted steel embedded with shining blue pipes squirming all around the vehicle's body. They seemed to be stuffed with magic, leading to several glowing containers on their backs. All of this built up to a hatch on top of its head, something a pony could crawl into. But the strangest feature that stuck out to Hopeful had to be the long, cylindrical cannon coming from the head of this mechanical beast. These things, whatever they were, moved the earth in front of them, plowing through the snow like a sleigh, while having the effect of an elephant stampede, the brown soil becoming exposed as the tires of this machine ripped the dirt out and threw it behind. Hopeful counted nearly a dozen of them as they went by only a few hundred metres from their mostly-enclosed mountainous alcove. And if the war machines weren't enough, a platoon of Unicorn soldiers began blitzing after each vehicle and its tracks, at least a couple hundred ponies behind lead by these colossal metallic predators. Each Unicorn soldier wore a thick, white cloak and hood, padded with cotton and feathers for warmth. Their protection came from the shields each of them levitated at their sides, each one a metal disk that would become surrounded by an outer layer of translucent magic when activated in battle. Every single Unicorn soldier had their tail painted white for maximum camouflage. The sun was nearly fully set before the Unicorns’ stomping had left, becoming nothing more than a distant auditory presence. Still perfectly visible in the horizon, it'd be a while before they would go beneath it. “Oh, my goodness...” Aurora exclaimed, her breath gone. “Yeah, that was fucking close,” Hopeful added, feeling his heart continue to beat against his chest. “They finished the tanks...” She continued in her awe of the machines, even assigning a name to them. “Tanks..?” Hopeful whispered the question with a sense of fear. “That was their codename, at least...” She trailed off, still too shocked to spill out a full sentence. “What... are they?” Hopeful dared to ask. “You know how Pegasi have Thunder Cannons? Imagine if one of those had legs and instead of exploding shrapnel and lightning, it's explosions consist of a fire hot enough to to burn through steel. That's what a tank is...” “That sounds fucking terrifying!” he shouted without thinking, covering his mouth quickly after. “That's what I thought as well. I thought they were crazy trying to build them, but... I guess they finally worked out all of the kinks.” Aurora lifted herself from beneath the blanket, seeing the battalion far enough out of their range to not be spotted. “What are they doing so far north?” Hopeful continued to prod Auto as she kept succeeding in finding him answers. “They're probably trying to flank the Earth Ponies...” Auri got lost in her head as she imagined the amount of viscera soon to be. “If they're as powerful as I was told they'd be, I don't know how much of a fight anypony can put up.” “Earth Ponies also have explosives, Aurora. I'm sure if they coordinated a counterattack, they could take them out. They are going in really deep behind Pegasus and Earth Pony land. They'll be dealt with, but it's not our problem... We can't stay here anyways; more troops might come through any moment.” Hopeful began packing up swiftly, only noticing at the end of his work that Auri had become entranced with watching these “tanks” drive onward, still very visible in the distance. “Auri, come on, we gott-” Hopeful was thrown to the ground as a sound wave with the power of a tornado thrust itself onto him, his ears feeling like they might start bleeding. He watched the bright blue energy ball shoot from the distance into the sky. Once reaching the cloud, it expanded with an extreme speed and power, turning from a single meter wide dot on his vision into a blast of orange and red fire the size of his old barn in a blink of an eye, another pounding wave of sound slamming into the two of them. Hopeful wasn't very sure anymore.