//------------------------------// // My Love // Story: Dark Arts and Kind Hearts // by Boomstick Mick //------------------------------// They flew several Kilometers before the pirate encampment was visible, a bustling city of fur tents and bonfires defensively parameterized by a ditch lined with wooden stakes. Starlight Glimmer had struggled against her captor for half of their flight, until he finally got tired of her thrashing and demands to be let go. To Starlight's regret he gave her her wish, and that bit of malicious compliance had earned her a broken leg when he released her and allowed her to plummet into a snowbank far below. He'll catch me, she had thought, as the tundra came rushing to meet her. He's just trying to scare me. It won't work! The next thing she knew, tears were filling her eyes, and a scream was tearing from her lips as she lay half buried with her arm contorted in a painfully unnatural angle. The bone was not just fractured, it was broken all the way through, severed into two sections between elbow and wrist. "You bastard!" she cried. The Griffon pretended to be perplexed as he said, "I thought you wanted me to let you go." "Why are you doing this to me!" Starlight screamed in a voice shrill with agony. "Why does anyone do anything, love?" The Griffon said, examining her injury. "Get away from me! Stop, wait, what are you doing!" The Griffon took her broken foreleg in his talon and gave it a sharp twist where the bone had snapped. "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." All Starlight Glimmer could think of was the pain, tears freely running down her cheeks as her mouth and eyes gaped wide in a silent scream. It hurt so bad she couldn't even suck in a breath. "Now you know what happens to little fish who squirm," the pirate said impatiently. "They get dropped on the deck." Starlight retched, the sour bile filling her mouth and stinging her nostrils. The pirate waited for her to finish before he grabbed her by the mane and jerked her head back, forcing her eyes to meet his. "You'll be comin' along nice and quiet-like. No more words." Starlight felt her scalp tearing beneath his iron grip. Scarlet beads were beginning to run down her face. "My mane!" she screamed. The pirate drew his fist back and struck her hard across the cheek. Starlight's eye socket cracked under the blow. "Please!" she gasped. He punched her again, this time square in the lip, then in the nose. Starlight raised a pleading hoof and whimpered something unintelligible as he drew his fist back for a fourth blow. Not even she knew what she was trying to say. The pirate didn't strike her again. Instead, he just glared at her, tightening his fist until it made a series of little pops, then he let his fingers relax. "If I carry on like this I'll kill ya. The cap'n wouldn't like that, no she wouldn't. Don't think that means I can't hurt ya, though. You still got three more legs to break, so I'd keep my mouth shut if I were you. Understand?" Too afraid to speak, It was all Starlight could do to hold her broken foreleg as her breath steamed the frigid air in ragged hiccups. The pirate took her silence for submission. He released her mane and let her face fall nose-first into the snow. "Smart girl." They flew the rest of the way with his arms around her, her broken foreleg dangling painfully without support, swaying to the cruel whims of the headwind that buffeted them. If she dared make so much as a squeak he would grab a fistful of her belly flesh and squeeze. He only had to do it once to keep her silent, and now on top of her broken leg, an eye that was swollen shut, and a busted nose that wouldn't stop bleeding, she had four raw prong marks in her side to mark where his talons had broken the skin. A stab of pain surged up her twisted limb when her captor abruptly dove for the camp below. He could have gently set her down when they landed, but he instead elected to drop her and let her flop painfully on the ground. Starlight, after a time of forcing herself to remain silent for fear of her captor's wrath, finally let out a scream that alerted the whole camp to her presence. She might as well have been ringing the dinner bell for all the noise she was making. Numerous shadows cast from surrounding figures eclipsed her where she lay, like hungry lions closing in around a wounded gazelle. The pirate who had kidnapped her could be heard yelling to someone, "Oi, cap'n, I brought the bitch." "Good work, Rikishi," a female voice rang out. "Bring the bitch here, boys. I want to get a better look at this King's whore." The King's whore? Starlight didn't know what that meant. All she knew was that she was injured, and she was surrounded... Hopelessly and utterly surrounded. The Griffons seized her by her broken leg, by her hind legs, by her body and hair and flanks and hooves and muzzle and tail. They were all around her, innumerable talons grasping for whatever they could, digging, rending, raking and clawing her flesh. Flailing, Starlight let out a shriek, the pain in her broken leg forgotten in her terror. A pirate hooted with amusement as her bladder released. "Look at her. Literally piss scared!" "Tight little ass on this one," another commented, pinching her rump with his talons. "It'll make a fine roast." Starlight kicked at him, but the effort was pointless. There were so many of them. All the grasping claws grabbing and pinching every inch of her, all the hungry, leering eyes and voices spilling out from drooling beaks expressing desires to consume her parts, it felt like a violation worse than rape. The surrounding claws pulled her this way and that, pushed her around back and forth, prodded her, dragged her, as if to herd her toward some unknown direction. When she was finally knocked off her hooves by the enthusiastic mob they pulled her up and began to carry her. That was when a sort of game of tug-of-war ensued. The macabre and horrifying comments spilled over her as she felt like she was being pulled apart from all directions. "Dibs on the ribs!" "Those haunches, though!" "Damn skinny bitch. She ain't got no gristle on her." "Her bones'll make a good broth. We should stew whatever's left of her, after the choice bits have been cleaved off." "Her liver is mine! Anyone else touches it and they'll lose fingers." "I hope she's knocked up. Been an Ursa's age since I had me a fetus fillet!" "That's what I love about mares; never know what kinda prize might be inside!" "Let me see her!" a voice demanded. It was that female voice again. It had an air of authority about it, loud and demanding, and powerful enough to cut through all the other voices around her. "Captain!" and the mob abruptly dropped her before receding, forming a wall of feathers behind her, as if to prevent the possibility of an escape. Starlight -- ravaged, tussled, covered in bruises and cuts, and frightened beyond anything she had ever felt in her life -- placed her one good foreleg beneath her chin and looked up to realize she had been brought before a female Griffon resting back in a lacquered chair. She sat there with one lion leg crossed over the other, shaded beneath a patchy pavilion crudely stitched together from animal hides. A talon was spread over the head of her armrest, the other was wrapped around the stem of a golden goblet. Everything about the pirate captain was gold. There were three golden studs in her beak. She wore a crimson velvet coat clasped with golden buttons. A dagger with a golden handle was sheathed at her waist. Three golden bells drooped from the ends of the prominent feathers on her head. The tips of her feathers extending from her wings were painted gold. She even had golden eyes, narrowed in a poisonous golden glare. Starlight had to swallow before she could speak. "Who-- who are you?" The captain took a long, steady quaff from her cup before she replied. "Captain Bloody Betha, of The Black Basilisks: Scourge of the frozen shore, and terror of the hook." She made a circular gesture with her talon and added, "If this were an animated feature, I suppose this would be the part where me an' my crew would sing you an introductory shanty of my conquests, but this ain't no musical, an' I ain't exactly in the singin' mood at the moment." Starlight tried to push herself up, but she was still so weak. And her leg... "Why have you brought me here?" The Griffon's beak cracked in a baleful sneer. "That's the wrong question, my love." Her voice made Starlight shiver. There was an eerie calmness to it she liked not at all. "Then, what is?" The pirate shotgunned what was left in her cup before tossing it aside. She lifted her leg off her knee in one languid motion and leaned forward. " 'What's going to happen to me.' I'd start there." Confused and frightened, Starlight had no choice but to parrot the question. And that was when the captain smiled. Her smile was somehow more unsettling than her glare. "Now, that's a good question!" she said approvingly. "Very astute of you to ask." Starlight didn't know how to respond to that. She was either being mocked, or this pirate captain was insane. "I've had a long time to think of what should be done with you, Miss Starlight Glimmer." Starlight remembered the way the pirate Rikishi had been searching for her by name -- before he killed poor Joji... "How is it that you all know who I am?" The Captain shrugged. "Does it really matter? I mean, really, in the grand shit of things, does it..? No, it doesn't. The only thing that matters is this," she grasped the arms of her chair and lifted herself forward, "you're one dead bitch." It took a moment for that to digest, as a cold sensation crept along Starlight's spine. "Wh-- What?" she whimpered. "Why? What have I ever done to you?" The pirate fingered one of the golden studs in her beak and said, "I've been thinking of how I should go about it. Perhaps I'll shove a spit up your ass, and keep pushing it through until it comes out the other end. I wonder how deep I can get it in you before you finally croak. Although, you look like a dirty tramp, you'd probably enjoy that." The other pirates seemed to like that idea. It made some of them laugh. One of them hooted and commented, "Fifty bits says she makes it all the way to the halfway point." Starlight's eyes widened with growing disquiet. "Or," the captain suggested, "I could lash you to the spit instead of skewering you with it, hang you over a fire, rotate you, slow-roast you until your eyes boil out of their sockets, and your skin crackles to a nice golden brown." The captain unsheathed the golden dagger at her waist and began to inspect it with exaggerated care, running her finger meticulously along its edge. "Or perhaps I could flay you alive and tumble you around in a barrel full of salt. That was how I dealt with the last bitch who pissed me off." A pirate laughed as he declared, "Peeled her like a banana, she did!" Betha smiled at her subordinate. "Remember what I did to that bitch afterwards?" The pirate did all he could to restrain his laughter, like a drunkard in a tavern regaling the other patrons with the funniest joke he had ever heard in his life. "Bitch wouldn't stop her cryin' after Bloody Betha skinned her. Cap'n got so sick of her mewling, she threw her overboard. Oh, the way she howled when her skinless ass hit the sea!" The laughter finally overtook him. And that was when the dam broke. A gale of mirth erupted throughout the crowd. Even Betha was throwing her head back and guffawing along with her crew. Starlight's jaw trembled. She would be outraged if she wasn't so scared. She looked down, tears filling her eyes as she said, "What's wrong with you? How can you all think that's funny?" The pirate captain sighed as she settled back in her chair. "Because, it was. Still is. I added her to my collection, just as I'm going to add you." Starlight blinked uncomprehendingly. "Your... Collection?" Betha snapped her fingers. "Rozo, my collection, if you'd be so kind." "Aye, my captain." A burly griffon wearing a tricorne emblazoned with a basilisk skull on its crown stepped forward from the group of pirates. "Would madam captain like another drink as well? We still got half a cask of that sweet red we plundered from them gits near the end of the hook a fortnight ago." Betha looked down at Starlight. "That's a first mate for you: always willing to please." "Uh... Sure?" was Starlight's reply. "I'm sick of that red piss. If you're gonna bring me something, bring me some spiced rum. Two lime slices, extra sugar around the rim. And no ice this time!" She pounded the arm of her chair as she added, "Gods help you if I find ice in my rum again, Rozo!" "Wudn't me who put ice in your rum that one time, madam captain. It was Ori." "And I beat the shit out of him for it." "You sure did," Rozo laughed. "He's still walkin' around all funny from that thrashin' you gave em." Then he shouted over his shoulder, "Ain't you, Ori?" "Screw you, Rozo!" An indignant griffon in the crowd shouted. Chuckling to himself, the first mate named Rozo cantered past Betha and began to rummage through a pile of boxes and supplies beneath the pavilion. He prepared Betha's rum first, before retrieving a large book from a fine cedar chest lined with bands of gold and crushed gemstones. It was the type of container in which one would use to store precious things. Betha sipped from the rum in her glass, swirled the lime slices around, then sipped again. "Is it to your liking, madam captain?" Rozo asked with an unctuous smirk. Betha gave a curt hum of approval before waving him away. The first mate turned on his paws and approached Starlight with that book he had retrieved from the ornate chest tucked beneath his arm. It was a large tome, its cover a solid brown with no title or illustration to identify it. The rough, tan pages were a kind of paper Starlight wasn't quite familiar with. She wasn't sure what to make of it when it was dropped in front of her. "This book..." "My collection," Betha corrected her. "You equines, you're all so fond of those stupid tattoos on your butts, aren't you?" Dumbfounded, Starlight could only nod. Equines indeed treasured their cutie marks. They were the very symbol of their identity. There was a time in her life when she suffered from an inferiority complex which led her to despise them. She had tried to indoctrinate others to conform to her way of thinking, and when indoctrination wouldn't work, she used manipulative tactics, and when that failed there was always brute, all-conquering force. In the end, however, like all dictators, she was naught but a hypocrite. She kept her own cutie mark, she kept her magic and all the things that made her special, while she dogmatically preached the evils of individualism and nonconformity to others. Starlight felt like a wretched little thing every time those memories boiled to the surface. "Yes, you're all quite attached to them, aren't you?" A chill settled over the air when Betha said that, as if her words had carried a darker meaning to them. "Literally and figuratively." Starlight looked again at the book. It was a laborious effort, but she managed to half-push herself up on her one good leg. Betha lifted her glass. "Go ahead. You know you want to see what's inside." Her beautiful yet terrifying golden eyes never left Starlight as she took a sip, smiling. Starlight, steeling herself for what she imagined she would find, touched the cover of the book. It had a rough feel to it. Leather, she realized with a vice in her belly. "Go on," said the captain, her voice eerily patient. Starlight turned the cover over, and her eyes shrunk to the size of pinpricks. Stretched over the page was a cutie mark. Not a portrait of a cutie mark, but an actual cutie mark, still attached to the skin. The color drained from her face. The pirates howled with laughter at her reaction. "Turn the page," Betha suggested. "Remember the bitch I told you about -- the one I peeled like a banana before tossing her off the ship? She's in there. Page four hundred and ninety six, I believe" Starlight slammed the cover shut and pushed the grizzly token away, mortified. "That's no way to treat a good book," Betha chided. "For shame!" "For shame!" the pirates echoed. "You're evil!" Starlight shrieked. "All of you! you're all monsters!" "Evil?" Betha seemed amused by that. "I see you subscribe to those pathetic Southron ideals. There's no such thing as evil, you dumb bitch. There's only the weak and the strong; predator and prey. Terms like 'good' and 'evil' are used by vapid slags such as yourself who can't face the fact that you're weak, that you're pathetic, that you're nothing but chattel. You only exist to serve the pleasure of your betters. It's too harsh of a reality for you to face, so you dismiss it as evil." For the first time Starlight Glimmer looked the pirate captain in the eye. "And what if someone stronger than you comes along and makes you their chattel?" Betha smiled at that. "Dumb bitch, you still don't get it, do you? The conquered is just that -- conquered, regardless of who they are. If anybody could whip my finely-sculpted ass into submission, then they'd be welcome to do whatever they like to it. That's just the way the world works. But that ain't gonna happen, now will it? Me an' my crew are the apex. We can't be beat. Creatures better than that lover boy king of yours have tried." "Lover? You mean Sombra?" Starlight said, every bit as perplexed as she was outraged. "Sombra is the last creature I would ever want to be with, in this world or the next!" Betha raised an eyebrow. "I'd be more convinced, if only your breath didn't reek so prominently of his cock." She paused, a pensive look on her face as she studied her glass. "Unless that's somebody else's meat you've been working around in that sausage washer of yours. Who else have you been sucking off, you little slut?" "I seriously don't know what you're..." A realization was beginning to don upon Starlight Glimmer. She remembered the severed pirate heads that bounty hunter had presented to The King in his throne room. Could that be what this was about? She drew the lines in her mind and connected the dots. A desire for revenge. A mistaken identity. "Wait," she said. "The King and I -- I'm not his... we're not an item, okay? I'm technically not even a citizen here." "That so?" the pirate captain said skeptically. Starlight Glimmer held on to the faintest ray of hope that she would come out of this alive. "It is. You have to believe me. I hold no value to you as a hostage." Bloody Betha rested back in her chair. "My love, who said anything about you being a hostage?" Starlight Glimmer blinked at that. "It's like I told you, you're one dead bitch. Not just you, but that queen, that bounty hunter, and that king especially. Soon, all of you will be added to my collection." She turned toward her crew and gave a bark of laughter. "Hostage, she says! She wishes she was that lucky." Starlight glanced at the book, its leather pages bound by the flesh of the pirate captain's countless victims. What ounce of courage she had left was leaking out of her. "I'm not... You can't. I have nothing to do with any of this!" She shouted, her eyes frantic. "I don't want any part of this stupid war!" "War, she says!" Betha hooted derisively. "Honey, this ain't gonna be no war. This'll be a slaughter. My first wave was dispatched this morning, and I made sure to have them fly in from the South. That's where my enemies will expect the rest of us to attack from. The rest of us are coming in from the north. It's a classic flanking tactic, and on the open sea, no strategy works quite so effectively. We're gonna hit em in the rear while they're fortifying their front." She paused to examine the sky. "At high noon this will all be over. Right now, the town is dealing with only a third of my fighting force. At midday, when the rest of us come charging in from the opposite direction, my lads and I will pinch what's left of their defenses." Betha's eyes settled over Starlight. "And that, my love, is how this fairy tale is going to end, with this king and queen pleading for their lives as they're forced to watch each other being stripped down to their bones. Every single villager who surrenders will meet the same fate. Our butcheries will be filled for months after this day is through. The only issue I'm dealing with now is how I should preserve all that meat. Good meat goes bad fast, even when salted. Best thing to do is keep them alive for as long as possible, cleaving off the bits one-by-one. You'd be surprised how long I can keep a skinned mare alive... Perhaps a demonstration is in order?" Starlight stepped back, even as her broken leg screamed, even though she was weak, her bones arthritic, her body weak and emaciated, her muscles atrophied, she stepped back. That seemed to make Betha smile. "Boys," she said, "bring her to the table. No need to be gentle, now." And that was when the claws came toward her. "No!" she tried to run, but her broken leg ended up angling painfully against the ground with a sickening crack. She tumbled forward in a howl of agony. "No!" she screamed again, as the talons lifted her up. She kicked, screaming prayers, pleas for mercy. Anything and everything that came to her mind came out in frantic wails. "You can't! Please! I've nothing to do with any of this! I take no part! Gods, Celestia, Sombra, anyone, please help me! HELP ME! They brought her before a wooden table that had been set up inside a large fur tent, where blades and saws and cleavers and other butchery tools had been hung. They bent her over the table's edge, where a large talon palmed the back of her head and slammed her face first into the rough wood. She tried to lift herself up, but the talon kept her firmly pinned. She thrashed, wriggled, screamed, until a blade came into focus, Betha's golden knife. "I only wish your lover was here to see this." The dagger disappeared from sight. The pain from the blade digging around her flank made her kick and squeal. There was a sensation then, a tear, something being ripped away from her, a pain that left her too breathless to even scream. And through a veil of tears she beheld her cutie mark, presented to her upon a canvas of freshly flayed flesh, red and dripping. "This, my love," the pirate captain exalted, "will make a beautiful addition to my collection."