Chapter 30
The Village of Storms
The trials and perils of the Manor Serpente had passed. With the destruction of the vile house, and the passing of its master, Minnie, Spike, Pluto, Loving Care and her dog Rusty, all set forth.
Along the way, Loving Care and her dog were shown the way to the nearest town by a zebra who lived in the forest. From there, they boarded the next train to take them as far from the dreadful mansion as possible. But, theirs is another story.
The mouse, the dragon and the hound dog had been all led far, far from the evil forest, far beyond the next towns, and on a ferry far across the sea.
When the boat docked, and the passengers all departed, the magical light appeared before the three travelers to guide them to their next destination.
Somewhere far away, lightning flashed in the sky. Under the dark and ominous clouds, something terrifying had befallen a village. And it was about to claim its latest victim.
Under the sound of thunder, a door burst open, and the occupant who lived behind it burst into the streets.
The world as she knew it had turned on her. Moments before, she had seen from her window how the creatures she once called her friends were approaching her home with a fierce determination. She was the next to disappear, just as they had before herself.
After escaping through her back door, she was running as fast as her hooves could carry her. In her teeth, she held tightly to her parcel. Wrapped only in a simple cloth, the object within batted against her jaw and her chest with every hasty step.
She didn’t dare to look back. She knew they would never give up their pursuit, until she was caught. And she knew that she couldn’t run forever.
Deep into the hilly countryside, where the green grass shown sickly under the gray sky, the creature ran. She panted loudly when she stopped, and listened for the sounds of hooves coming for her.
There was no sound. But, that didn’t mean she was safe. It would only be a matter of time until she was caught.
She didn’t know whether or not her pursuers knew the importance of her parcel, but she knew that they could never get possession of it.
Quickly thinking, she dug a hole beside a rock and dropped her parcel within. Making doubly sure to tightly pack it safely from the soil, she buried it. One last touch, and she rolled the rock partway over the loose soil.
Her ears twitched at the sounds of hooves. They were coming for her.
The creature quickly ran away over the next hill. When she was gone, there was a flash of lightning and a sound of thunder.
As Minnie, Spike and Pluto were walking, they heard the distant rumbling, and paused in their tracks.
“Oh, my! It sounds like rough weather ahead,” Minnie said to her companions.
“I just hope we get wherever we’re going, before we get caught in it,” Spike panted.
Pluto started sniffing the air. To him, it didn’t smell like storm weather. Usually before a storm, there was a strange, metallic scent in the air, accompanied by the usual smell of rain. There was none of that to the hound dog.
The three continued their hike through the hilly countryside, led by their glittering guide.
“How much farther is it?” Spike panted, as he hiked across the terrain.
“I don’t know. We’ll probably see once we get around this hill,” Minnie answered, wiping the sweat from her brow.
“I don’t know if I’m going to make it that far,” Spike said, before falling to his haunches.
Pluto trudged by, heaving and panting, and dragging his paws with every step.
Spike reached out and grabbed Pluto’s drooping tail. All he had to do then was try to enjoy being dragged across the grass beneath him.
Up ahead, Minnie rounded the hill and saw their glittering guide glimmer brightly.
“Are we...almost there…?” Minnie panted.
The magical light bobbed up and down, mimicking an affirmative nod.
“Thank goodness! These heels must have become flats by now!” Minnie said.
With a renewed vigor, Minnie trekked on as best she could. When she rounded the hill, she found something in the grass. There, bared in the grass were two parallel trails through the vivid green. A sure sign that a wagon, or some other vehicle was regularly pulled through that way.
The glittering light drifted along the path in the grass. Hopefully, it meant their trip would be over at long last.
“Spike! Pluto! Look at this!” Minnie called.
Pluto trudged around the hill, huffing and puffing from the uphill marathon they walked. Behind him, Spike held firmly to the hound dog’s tail, pulled face down across the grass.
“Please tell me it’s a town,” Spike moaned.
“No. But, it doesn’t look much further to one,” Minnie answered.
“Can we stop for a while? My feet are going to die if I keep walking.”
Pluto nodded, just before his legs started jiggling. In a second, the hound dog flopped onto the ground, his four legs splayed in all directions.
There was no arguing with her companions. Minnie too felt the effects of the long journey, and decided to sit down on a nearby rock. Once she took her seat, she removed her shoes and started rubbing her sore feet.
The glittering light buzzed before them all, trying to prompt them all onward.
“In a moment. We all need to rest,” Minnie said.
The light let out a little, annoyed hum. It knew what laid ahead, and did not want to delay the arrival to their destination any more than they had to.
In the distance, a great light flashed in the sky. Nearly a second after, a booming sound broke the silence.
Minnie, Pluto and Spike all looked to the sky where the disturbance came from. There was only the grey, overcast sky above, but not a sign of any rain or storm.
“Let’s go in ten minutes,” Minnie said.
Another flash and a boom sounded, and Pluto quickly burrowed to safety underground, followed shortly by Spike.
“Children,” Minnie dismissively said, as she rubbed her feet.
In a dark room far away, electricity crackled. Through the air, it danced and chattered about, before it coursed through a creature that was strapped into a diabolical machine.
The creature made no noises, but jumped and struggled against her restraints. Within the creature, something was changing. Something terrible was coming to be, and she was powerless to stop it.
In the light of the flashing electricity, the operator of the machine paced impatiently. The figure had been searching long and hard for what she needed, but was constantly coming up short. If this creature had nothing she was looking for, she felt she was going to go berserk.
Screens nearby lit up, and the figure shifted toward them.
“This is it! This time, I know we’re in business!” she said, as she hastily looked at each monitor.
One by one, the screens came alive, showing the expected images. An outline of the specimen, their vitals, the nature of the magic within them. But most importantly, the nature of what they who and what they were inside.
The specimen’s brain appeared on a monitor.
“Yes…” the figure said.
All the important areas lit up.
“Yes…” the figure said, her smile half-showing in the shadows.
A light shone in the specimen’s chest.
“Yes! This is the one!” the figure said, jumping into the air and pumping her fist.
The light started to dim.
“No! No! You stupid--Keep working, you!!” the figure said, as she slapped her monitors.
The entire machine responded by sending out an electric surge that blew the figure backwards.
The figure stood up from the ground, and twisted her head straight.
“One of these days, I’m going to get those new parts! When that day comes, then I’ll really fix your little, red wagon!” the figure threatened the console.
The machine reacted by threateningly sparking with more electricity.
“Awww, shaddup!” the figure said, as she stretched her arm across the room and shut the whole machine off.
The creature strapped into the machine stopped thrashing as the electric current was cut off.
The room went dark, with only the glow from the lights on the machine console illuminating the area.
The shadowy figure stretched one leg across the room to the side of the creature. When the rest of her followed after, she started undoing the restraints.
“Well, you were no help! Everybody here said you were the best there is at what you do, and you go and let me down! There’s an oversale!” the figure said, before she picked the creature up.
The creature hung limply in her grip.
“Don’t look at me that way. You’ve been a lovely applicant. But, I’m afraid that you don’t quite have what I’m looking for. Soooo--” the figure pitched the creature down a nearby chute. “--Take a hike, Jack!”
The figure sighed. Yen Sid had put her in charge of studying the magic of these creatures in that new land, and she had very little progress to show for her efforts.
“A heart, a heart. My kingdom for a heart!” the shadowy figure said, as she paced back and forth. “Doesn’t any creature have any magic with any heart to it in this saccharine cheer-bubble of a world!?”
Little did she know that such a thing was closer than she thought.
Minnie looked around and listened closely.
The sounds of the storm had passed, and she and her companions were still resting. Until another loud crash in the distance got their attention. One in the opposite direction of the sound of the storm.
“What was that?” Spike wondered from his underground hiding spot.
Minnie collected her shoes and placed them on her feet, ready to run in case of danger.
Pluto poked his head out of the hole and looked around for the source of the sounds. His canine ears picked up traces of noise the others couldn’t. The sounds of squeaking wood against well-kept metal. That, mixed with the sound of wood rolling on dirt gave the hound dog the impression that a wagon was being pulled toward them. By a creature with hooves, it sounded like.
His hunting dog instincts took over. Jumping out of the hole with his legs flailing, Pluto landed on the ground and pointed his nose in the direction of the noise.
Minnie knew this was a sure sign he was indicating something, and looked to where the hound dog pointed.
“Hey! Watch it!” Spike said. Having been underground with Pluto before, he knew how cramped things could be. And it wasn’t much better with the hound dog jumping around like that.
Above him, the loose soil caved in on top of his head.
“Thanks a lot!” Spike said to nopony in particular.
Within the soil on top of him, the dragon felt something new. Something that was hard like a rock, but wasn’t a rock.
Once he crawled out of the burrow, Spike investigated the find. What it turned out to be was a piece of cloth with something tied up inside of it.
This was a curious find indeed. Wondering what was inside, Spike undid the knot in the cloth and was puzzled by the find.
There in his claw was a metal cylinder of some sort. The ends were made of brass and the whole thing had bumps across its surface, like something one found in a music box. Whatever it was, Spike didn’t know its importance if somepony had just thrown it away and buried it. But, a strange feeling overcame him. One that made him tie up the cylinder in its cloth and place it in his backpack.
The dragon was brought back to reality by a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“Spike,” Minnie said, “Look.”
Spike looked to the direction Minnie was pointing. There, he saw Pluto pointing his nose toward the trail.
There on the trail was the shape of a wagon in the distance. And the creature pulling it was walking in their direction.
“Alright! Maybe they’ll give us a ride to where we need to go!” Spike said, as he started jumping and waving in the middle of the path. “Hey! Over here!”
Minnie pulled him back to the side.
“Not in the middle of the road, Spike. That’s how people get hurt,” Minnie chided him.
Spike rolled his eyes. There was no way the driver of the wagon would run him down at the speed they were moving. But, there was no reason to contradict or disobey Minnie, so he obliged the mouse.
All three of them started waving down the approaching wagon from the side of the path.
At first, the sound of hooves made them think it was a pony that was coming. But, as the creature came closer and closer, it became clear that this was no pony. Its muzzle and its legs were too narrow. Its body was too low-slung to the ground. And its tail was too bushy. Closer still, and it was even stranger.
To Spike, it looked like a timber wolf with fur. To Minnie, it was just a gray wolf pulling the wagon. But, that wasn’t the strangest thing. The strangest part of this creature was that at the end of its legs, instead of paws it had cloven hooves.
As soon as it reached them, the creature stopped and looked at them all.
Minnie, Pluto and Spike all grew wary looking at the creature as it stared at them with its narrow, predatory eyes.
“Wel? Beth ydych chi eisiau?” the creature asked in a gruff, gravelly voice.
“Um...Hello,” Minnie said, unsure if the creature would understand her. “Could you give my friends and I a ride?”
The creature looked at them and huffed loudly.
“Peidiwch â trafferthu siarad â mi’n. Dw i’n ddim allaf ddeall gair a ddywedwch,” it answered.
“We want to go that way,” Spike said, pointing to the direction ahead.
The creature looked at Spike, making the baby dragon flinch under its gaze. It looked back to the other two, then motioned with its head to the back of the cart.
“Iawn. Cael yn i'r wagen. Ond, dw i’n ddim ond yn mynd i'r dref nesaf. Os ydychi’n am fynd ymhellach, gofynnwch i rywun arall,” the creature said.
Even though they couldn’t understand what the creature was saying, they knew that it was obliging them to ride in its wagon.
They all filed to the back of the wagon, ready to relax for the last leg of their journey. Before she boarded, Minnie took one last look at the creature, wondering precisely what it was, or if it had other intentions.
The creature stared back with its narrow, predatory eyes.
“Thank you for the ride,” Minnie softly said.
“Symudwch hi’n, eisoes!!” the creature barked slightly baring his fangs.
That was all the mouse needed to hear to make her hastily jump into the back.
As soon as she was in the back, Minnie took her seat, finding that the wagon was full of stones, unrefined metals and uncut gems.
Next to her, Pluto was trying to find a place to take a seat. He repeatedly stood up, and laid down in ways that his body set inside the grooves of the payload. No matter what he did, he couldn’t find a comfortable way to sit.
“Mmf! I’d have been more comfortable walking the rest of the way,” Minnie grunted, as she settled onto a pile of metal.
“I don’t think it’s so bad,” Spike said, as he munched on an uncut ruby.
“Spike, don’t eat that!” Minnie said, taking the gem from Spike’s hand.
“Why not? He’s got loads of them back here,” Spike answered.
“And he probably needs every last one of them for his job. That wolf up front was nice enough to let strangers like us ride his wagon. We don’t want him to think we’re freeloaders now, do we?” Minnie chided the dragon.
“Yes, mother,” Spike sarcastically answered, as he slumped into a bed of rocks.
“YIPE!!!”
Minnie and Spike jumped when Pluto jumped up into the air, after sitting on a piece of sharp metal.
With a heavy landing, the hound dog was beginning to miss walking, as the creature hauling the cart went on his way to who knew where.
In the dark room, the figure was busy at work fixing her machine.
“Hold still, while I tighten this up,” the figure said, as she applied a screwdriver to the interior.
Once the part was tightened, another part fell loose.
“Get back in there, you little--” she grumbled.
The part was tightened, and another fell loose.
“You’re only making this difficult on yourself!”
There was a tiny explosion inside the machine, and the figure pulled her head out.
“So, you want to play rough, do you?”
The machine billowed out a puff of smoke.
The figure had had enough. She was going to make sure that machine was fixed from scratch. She stretched her arm across the room and retrieved a sledgehammer from her toolkit.
“Bite your lip, fella. This might hurt a bit,” she said, as she wound up to swing.
The metal casing on the machine’s side fell off and squashed the figure flat.
Slowly, the figure squirmed out from under the heavy metal.
“Looks like we’re at a bit of an impasse here…” she grumbled.
The lights on the machine dimmed slowly.
“Oh, don’t give me that sad treatment,” the figure said, as she struggled to squeeze her body out from under the casing. “I know things are tough right now. But, it’s going to be a while before I get that part. And I just know that if I had a heart strong enough, then we’d really get you into gear.”
With several grunts and groans, she was able to free her arms. With those two limbs free, she started trying to lift the metal up to slide out from beneath it.
*DING-DING*
The figure knew that noise. It was a sure sign of something new in the domain she had occupied.
Not that it mattered if there were any newcomers. After so many failures, she knew that even this one would have nothing of use to herself. Still, she had a duty to keep to.
The dark figure slowly lifted the heavy metal, and slid her body from beneath. Once free, she stretched her leg across the room. When her foot touched down, the rest of her followed.
On a small table, two coils crackled with electricity. Between them, starlit magic started to condense until an image appeared. There, she saw the image of a wolf-creature with cloven hooves hauling a wagon.
“This whole place is falling apart! That’s nothing new! That’s that grouchy delivery boy! Remember how much he bit us when we brought him here?” the figure said.
She was about to turn off her machine, and set to scheduling it for repairs after the maintenance on the other machine was done. Until she noticed something.
In the back of the wagon, she could see what looked like a bow sticking up above the wooden sides of the vehicle.
“Hmmm...Either that theow’s diversifying his deliveries, or there’s a new taker for me to nick their ticker,” the figure said.
Concentrating her mind to the surveillance, she was able to rotate it as the theow walked by with its wagon. From there, she made an astonishing discovery.
There, sitting in the back of the wagon was a mouse. A mouse not like any creature of this foreign land of magic, but one like her own.
“Oh, joy! Oh, hallelujah! I never thought this day would come!” the dark figure celebrated, as she danced over to her diabolical machine.
Once she arrived, she put her arms around the console, as though she were hugging an old friend.
“I’ve done it! I’ve found the heart I need! And even if you don’t have all the right working parts, I know this one will be strong enough for you to power through it!”
She looked over to the table where she had restrained all of her previous specimens. Rubbing her chin, she looked over the gurney. Its shape was wrong, and the placement of the restraints were designed for a four-legged specimen.
The dark figure ran her hands over the surface of the table, and idly clicked the restraints open and shut.
“I think a redesign is needed. To accommodate our new guest.”
Rather than bare a smile, a smile seemed to simply form on the surface of her face. In time, she would introduce herself to the mouse. And her machine would take the mouse’s heart.
Two clicks sounded on the table. Looking down, the dark figure saw that she had absentmindedly placed her hands in the restraints, which locked themselves around her wrists.
“Oh, for crying out loud!” the figure said.
She stepped backwards, stretching her arms to incredible lengths. But, it was not enough to pull herself free.
“If this is a joke--*mmng*--I don’t know who’s laughing!!” she grunted.
On the surface of the starlit magic, the theow pulling the wagon just walked into town. His path was followed for as far as the surveillance could see, until he was out of sight. However, his mousey passenger in the back was still visible by the time the wagon stopped.
In the town, the theow pulling the wagon looked over his shoulder to address his passengers.
“Diwedd y llinell. Nawr cael allan. Dw i’n rhaid imi gael y llwyth hwn i yr burfa,” the wagon driver said.
Even if they didn’t understand their driver, this was as far as Minnie, Spike and Pluto needed to go. The three of them all disembarked, and the wagon was pulled away.
The first thing they noticed was the look of the town. The buildings were made of gray or brown bricks, and the roofs were thatched with heavy branches and thick leaves. Most of the shops were outdoors, from the cart selling fruit, to the forge where their driver unloaded his payload. A butcher had many meats hanging outside his shop. Pluto’s eyes sparkled at the sight, but Minnie and Spike both winced when they watched the butcher chop the head off a chicken.
There were no roads on the ground. Just more trails that had been bared by countless wagon wheels taking the same path countless times. In spite of the lack of roads, every wagon that was pulled through moved with the fluidity of a city street. Even without traffic signals and road signs, everything moved smoothly.
The glittering light drifted before the three travelers, and with one last glimmer it dispersed into nothingness.
“I guess what we should do now is have a look around?” Minnie suggested.
“Yeahyeahyeahyeah!!” Pluto panted, before he rushed over to the butcher shop.
“Oh! Pluto, wait!” Minnie called after the hound dog.
At the butcher shop, the theow behind the counter stopped plucking the chicken it held to reprimand the dog who was nipping at his wares.
“Nac ydw! Na! Mae'r rhain ar gyfer cwsmeriaidau! Cymerwch rai sgrapiau yn lle hynny,” the butcher said, before giving Pluto a tray of meat scraps.
For the first time in a while, Pluto’s cup had run over. With a sunny smile, the hound dog dug into his food.
“Sorry about Pluto,” Spike apologized.
“Oh, you speak pony? Me too,” the butcher said.
“Thank Celestia. I never thought we’d understand anypony here,” Spike replied.
“‘Celestia?’ From Equestria, are you? Well, welcome to Blaiddru,” the butcher said, as he placed his chicken on the counter. “I saw you come into town on Pike’s wagon. Sorry for him. He’s not the friendliest bloke, but he always helps when you ask, so we tolerate him.”
Using only his teeth, the butcher plucked the rest of the feathers from the bird. He spat the mouthful of feather to the ground, which blew into Pluto’s face.
The hound dog sniffed and snuffed. In the end, he ended up with a beard and a pair of bushy eyebrows made from the plucked feathers. And with a sneeze, the feathers blew all over the place.
After the feathers cleared, Pluto was greeted with a shocking sight: his food was gone.
“What about you, lady? Where are you from?” the butcher asked Minnie.
“Mouseton,” Minnie answered.
Pluto looked up, and saw that his meat scraps had been blown up to the ceiling.
“Mouseton, eh? Never heard of it. Then again, I’m not the most learned theow,” the butcher said.
Pluto jumped up and down to reach his food. Each time, he came up short.
Spike glanced over at Pluto, and saw the hound dog’s plight. But, there was nothing he could have done to help him.
“Uh, hey. This might sound weird, since we just came into town. But, have you noticed anything strange around here?” the dragon asked.
“Hm. Something strange…” the butcher thought, after cleaving the chicken. “Well, one thing I’ve noticed is a lot of folks around here seem to leave town for a bit, then come walking back from the middle of town. Thing is, whenever you ask them about it, they never want to talk about it.”
The meat that was stuck on the ceiling started to peel off. Now, all Pluto had to do was let the suspended weight of the meat pull the rest of it off, and gravity would do the rest.
Minnie and Spike looked to where the butcher pointed.
There was nothing notable about it, other than the town well and the clock tower.
“Has that happened recently?” Minnie asked.
“Actually, yeah. Taffy, lovely girl she is, went running out of her home a half hour before you got here. Did you perhaps see her on the road?” the butcher said.
“No. We only saw Pike,” Spike said.
“Shame. Taffy’d be better company than that grouch. Still, if you feel like playing investigator, you can start with the town square. Me? I got birds to butcher,” the butcher said, as he placed another dead chicken on his counter.
Rather than watch him continue his job, Minnie and Spike hastily left.
“It was nice speaking with you,” Minnie said.
“Same to you,” the butcher said.
Pluto had been sitting patiently for the meat to fall. Finally, his waiting was about to pay off. But, as he looked up, he saw something else on the ceiling.
There, hiding in the corner was what looked like some kind of organic blob. Something that looked like a glob of jelly with other globs floating inside of it.
For a moment, Pluto thought the thing blinked at him. But, he couldn’t consternate over it, as his piece of meat fell from the ceiling.
“Hey, Pluto! Come on!” Spike called.
Pluto looked to his food, then to Spike, then back up to the ceiling, and saw the blob was gone. Whatever it was, he couldn’t mull over it. Instead, he picked up his last scrap of meat and left to join his friends.
From a hidden cranny between the woodwork of the butcher shop, the blob continued to watch the new arrivals. In particular, it focused on Minnie. She was the one heart that was needed.
One more time, the sky flashed above the town, and thunder followed after.