-Fizzle-
I had to wonder what Bracing Knight was still doing here, she has been moping since… yeah. I didn’t want to think about it right now.
Not much else to think about though.
Celestia hadn’t take the news very well during the three months we waited, don’t think she was ever going to visit again any time soon.
Celestia gave mom a rather sorry look and didn’t say anything to try and make her feel better, what could she have said?
The princess of the sun hadn’t told Bracing Knight, the so called moon priest guardian, to do anything and she was still here as listless as the rest us. She had failed in her duty so shortly after getting it.
You’d think Bracing would get angry and take it out on Blade, but she hadn’t.
Interesting fact, mom still fed and looked after Bracing somewhat.
You’d think Mom would be far bitterer about the pony that was supposedly placed here to protect…
Memories of kisses, cuddles and snuggles filled my mind.
I clutched at my head trying to get them out… every smile, every playful touch and then there’s the madness she always sought out.
I was going to cry myself to sleep tonight, even Maries comforting can’t make all the hurting go away.
When I eventually woke up, we were going to be missing two more members of our town.
One was Sekhet who would seal herself away to work on studying the grove full of magically glassed plants, no one would hear from her for a long time.
She was immortal and quite powerful, so I doubt any of us were worried about her disappearing into the greater world beyond like several of my friends have already done.
In fact, we knew exactly where to find Sekhet. Only we would be unable to contact her or even communicate thanks to the barrier she set up.
The other unfortunately didn’t get away without a confrontation, one of which I wouldn’t be privy to until I was told an abridged story by the only one who knew what happened that night.
I don’t think I got the whole story of what happened, since mom was more depressed then usual.
-Sekhet-
There were so many wild energies here and I didn’t know where to start.
If I’m to piece together the specific magical energy that was involved in what happened to my friend, then I need to neutralize any further influences to this given area.
It’s been a little over three months, but there were no fading energy signatures here. So really, the issue was much worse than I previously thought if the energies that have been released here came from numerous sources.
I surrounded the area with a barrier and sealed myself inside with it. Aside from the plants, I was going to be alone for a very long time researching this.
Thankfully I didn’t need food, water or sleep. I was not an intelligence god, but I would and could go to war with a conundrum easily enough.
I was a Sphinx and we were lovers of riddles.
It’s just that this is probably one of the biggest and most impressive riddles I’ve ever seen, also highly important to me because it involves a mortal friend of mine.
I would like to ultimately know what her fate was. What befell this being who made me open my heart to mortals and then just as swiftly stabbed it with her possible demise?
It was a humbling experience, but I would not turn my back on the mortals I still cared about even now.
I would solve this riddle and I would have to do so carefully and within as timely a manner as I could. I would not take their entire lifespans to tell them what happened here.
To that end I had quite a few calendars and would pay attentions to the days that passed.
I would solve this Humdinger’s Cat Paradox!
No matter what I find at the end of this, I will tell Lady Kuril. Then, if she were still willing to let me, I will resume my duties either as her secretary or I would continue working as a physical education coach.
Both of those simplistic sounding jobs are something I’ve come to relish.
I enjoyed coaching more so than my secretary work, it was something I would love to get back to doing once I was finished here. If Lady Kuril still needed me as a secretary when I eventually come back, then I will gracefully accept my job back and stick by her side for as long as she was willing to let me.
I might even make a pass at trying to earn Celestia’s special attention, I could possibly spend an eternity or two with her. Provided that Celestia didn’t mind constant games of chess and answering a number of riddles, yes I might try courting her even if my heart was going to be in Airship Mauled.
Eternity could be quite lonely when you’re immortal.
-Blade-
When the goddess Sekhet coached the kids… well the Vikings weren’t exactly kids, but they were young enough for schooling by a pony I respected. I don’t think they make teachers quite like Cheerilee anymore.
Anyway, while the goddess coached, I listened and trained my body to stay fit. I may have had a newfound appreciation for my ability to cook, but I wasn’t about to give up my lithe form and toned form.
I was still as skilled as I ever was with manipulating edged weapons. I always preferred lighter weapons, but I knew how to use a hatchet or short sword just as easily as I could use the wing blades I once had.
My capture was probably the best thing to ever happen to me, except for one minor issue.
Lifting my left hoof, gently I moved my mane out of my face and back over my ears, my mane had grown out and I had preferred it short. Well at least until Kuril talked me into growing it out, at first I did so under protest and then later because it made Kuril happy to brush my mane.
I was a conscientious adult, one who now had a job I couldn’t love more. I didn’t exactly have much of a heart for killing even with a special talent seemingly geared towards helping me in combat specifically.
I had always been on a knife’s edge for most of my life thanks to being incapable of speech without destroying every window within a mile of me.
I could hardly make ends meet, being a drifter that had survived off of grass for a while was saying something about my life.
The best my life had ever been was being a thug, it had never felt right to me and training to be an assassin was worse.
Kuril had a lot of love in her heart, which is kind of why my moody spirit started to change when I watched how things went around here. I was even a little surprised that I was untied at nights and given a warm bed to rest in, but by next morning I was tied up once more.
I could even see what Fizzle saw in Jaded, because I could see it in Kuril.
Only now the hurt ran deep within Kuril. It only got deeper when Jacky left, then deeper still when that doe would prefer her as a mother over the one that gave birth to her.
I sat down at one of the tables in the dark, my eyes seeing through the blackness as if it were day and I started to write.
Unlike other thestrals, I was more than capable of operating in daylight hours. In fact, my love of shiny things reflecting sunlight is what led me to my cutie mark.
Sparkling blades in the sunlight at a smithy, it was mostly cutlery. The butter knives had always caught my fancy, sharp cutting knives did too.
I should have probably taken the fact that it was cooking utensils that started my obsession as a sign that I should have gone into cooking much sooner.
I was always fascinated by blades both dull and sharp, curved or straight, pointed or blunted. It was safe to say I was unusual as a little filly. Once I got my cutie mark, I thought life would get better.
It only got worse and all the decisions I made up until getting captured were pretty bad ones.
That was all up until I met Kuril, I didn’t know the feeling of a tightness in my chest until I saw her fully in motion.
“You’re leaving too… aren’t you?” That was Kuril’s voice, it was never meant to sound so sad. It was meant to be happy and sometimes even playfully catty.
I looked towards her with a frown, she looked so worn down and tired.
Her fur used to shine brightly, her heart used to sing with her actions and the love she held seemed to be slowly bleeding out of the festering wound of her loss.
I suppose it was too much to ask that I could leave without saying goodbye?
Well I was going to do this anyway… might as well finish writing my piece and finish up here.
Now I could do something else thanks to Kuril being here, I could make her a promise.
After I finished writing my message, one that took a few minutes to write to Kuril and anyone else who cared to know where I was going, I slid it away from her so the ink could actually finish drying on it.
“So I can’t read the message yet, what are you going to do now?” In answer to Kuril’s question, I pulled out two squares of purple cloth and two bright red ribbons from my saddlebags while looking to her.
I had purchased these ribbons, for a particular reason. I gathered my hair with one hoof, then carefully started to tie it around my mane.
I now sported a ponytail that hung slightly down my back, I then turned and started to tie the other ribbon a few inches from the tip of my actual tail.
“Those look cute on you.” Kuril… I’m so sorry I’m about to disappoint you like this. “Though what does this have to do with you leaving?”
I tapped the message I had written, then I got up and steeled my nerves.
If I was going to do this, then it had to be now or I might never get another chance if I were to perish.
I carefully propped myself up on the table and slowly got into a standing position and I bade Kuril down to me.
Upon coming close I tenderly brushed my right hoof along the left side of her face and planted my lips upon hers.
I could never say as much to her, but I loved Kurilian La Perm.
This was going to be quite a shock to her, but what I would do next would be even more shocking.
Pulling back from our kiss, I pulled my knife out and quickly slashed it once and then twice.
With each slash I threw away a part of myself.
This had been a long time coming, but I couldn’t just sit here and do nothing.
Hopefully, I would be allowed to leave in peace after doing this.
“Blade… why did you…?” I ignored Kuril’s sudden look of sorrow as I sat down and started to fold the purple cloths over the lopped off portions of my mane and tail.
I was leaving a part of myself behind for Kuril, a reminder of the days that were happier than the ones we were experiencing now.
I gave her a wan smile, I was leaving with my mane and tail greatly shortened.
At her sorrowful gaze I tapped the still drying message and nodded to her solemnly as I continued to fold the cloth over the bundled hair.
After I finished wrapping up my two gifts to Kuril, I sat there staring at the table as I waited for the ink to dry.
Kuril was not one to cling too tightly to anything more than her emotional connections, I did not know much about her previous lover and I would have loved to explore something that could happen between us.
“Can I at least even it out before you go?” Kuril was always so kind, even when she was as distraught as she was.
I bowed my head as an answer, my hair could no longer hang in my face.
Kuril left and eventually returned with a pair of scissors.
-Five minutes later-
Eventually I folded the message, then did what I was going to do.
I roughly jammed the knife, that I cut away my hair with, through the paper and into the table.
I looked to Kuril for a long time, our eyes began searching throughout the others.
The windows to our souls for a time were laid bare before one another.
I saw spectacular amount of acceptance in her eyes.
Both for the kiss and what it meant to the both of us, and the fact that I would soon be gone from her life for an undetermined amount of time with only a vague promise that I’ll return.
A vague chance of promising that I’d eventually bring her happiness was better than nothing, she just had to wait for me.
Eventually, I got up and stepped around the strands of white sprinkled upon the floor like fallen snow.
I had no voice, but my actions had always spoke volumes for me.
My actions will begin to speak even more as I set out to seek what I’m after.
I exited 'The Witch’s Fare' with a heavy heart, I looked up towards the mare in the moon and ran a hoof across my chest.
I leapt up and shot off into the sky, to disappear before Kuril’s eyes into the darkness with a possibility of never returning.
I’m sorry to have broken your heart even further oh beautiful hearted Kurilian.
If I can ever come back… then I will!
No force on this planet would stop me.
What am I going to do you may ask?
I was going to hunt down GODLESS while also seeking three other ponies for something that sounds… impossible.
Luna, I pray your return helps to bring some light back into this dark world… for I have decided that I will be one of the stars that aids in your escape!
-Fizzle-
Blade left us in the night leaving little information on where she was going, but what she was going to do was another matter entirely.
She wrote that she was going to follow a prophecy and become one of the stars, one of which may lead to ruin or salvation.
Speaking of, I watched that night as several stars slowly approached the moon. One glowing brighter than the others, glinting as if it were a knife disappearing at the mare’s neck.
It wasn’t long after the longest night the world had ever seen that I heard of Princess Luna returning to the world.
Blade was a thestral that was born of the night, but she had reveled in the daytime.
Who knows where she is now or what she’s going through.
All I know is, a legend began that night.
It was that of, ‘The Stars Seeker’.