“I’m so sorry you had to deal with such an awful thing,” Shahrazad said. She ran a brush through my mane. It was comforting, even if the rotting fruit smell of the undead still seemed to linger, like a bad taste that won’t quite leave your throat. “I can’t imagine having to be around all those corpses. It must have been horrible!”
“It was like a nightmare,” I admitted. “They weren’t really dangerous or anything, but they were everywhere with those dead eyes…”
“There is a bathhouse in the palace if you’d like to go there,” Shahrazad suggested.
“Do you want to go together?” I asked.
She giggled and covered her mouth, trying to hide a smile. “While I think we would both enjoy that, it might give some ponies the idea we were doing something improper.”
“If we took a bath together, we probably would be,” I countered.
“True.” Shahrazad worked a knot out of my mane gently while she thought. “I wish I had been out there with you. At least it would have been more exciting than waiting here.”
“Didn’t you just get finished telling me how it was awful, terrible, a nightmare…?”
“Part of the risk of dreaming is having the occasional nightmare,” Shahrazad said. “How can I be expected to rule when I don’t know the struggles of my ponies?”
“Is that why you sneak out so much?”
“Usually I sneak out because it’s something to do. A little game I play with my guards, but they rarely win.”
“Yeah, I’ve done that before,” I sighed. Mostly it had been to read books I wasn’t supposed to see. It seemed kind of silly now, but back then our relationship was so bad I was almost on house arrest and asking Celestia for anything felt like begging your warden for mercy.
“The one thing I’m truly curious about is what happened, though,” Shahrazad said. “I heard a rumor that someone made a wish.”
“Oh, well, um…” I hesitated.
“Don’t be like those annoying nags from the Aretic Order,” Shahrazad sighed. “I just want to know what’s happening to my ponies.”
She was starting to sound dangerously responsible and sane. “It was a wish,” I confirmed. “I don’t know how many ponies are…” I swallowed. “All the ones who aren’t gone will probably recover pretty quickly. They’ll just need a good rest and a lot of food and water.”
“That is good, at least. But where could they have found such powerful magic? Who would give them such a thing?”
I knew exactly who did it, because it was me.
“I don’t wanna think about it,” I said. It was the truth. “It shouldn’t even be my problem. I was just supposed to sign some papers and smile and wave, but it feels like everypony in town saw me as an easy mark and they decided I’m just the perfect pony to solve all their problems.”
“I admit I’m guilty of that myself,” Shahrazad sighed. “Perhaps you would like a story about that silver you came to buy from us?”
“I’m not much of a geologist.”
“Nor am I. But long ago, we nearly went to war with Equestria over our silver.”
I looked up. “What? I never heard anything about that.”
“It’s true! It is said that thousands of years ago, there was a stallion who was in love with a pony he could not have. She was rich and powerful, and he was a street urchin. In those days, to wed a pony it was customary to give their family gifts. The gifts were to show how much you valued the pony you loved, and to tie families together.”
“Sounds more like buying a wife.”
“In a way. It was supposed to be an expression of love, and all the gifts given to show devotion were to be given back to the happy couple on the day of their wedding to help them begin their new life together. The point is, the stallion had nothing. He begged for his daily bread. As great as his love was, there was no way for him to show it.”
“Did he try talking to her?”
“He did! He became a servant of her house just to be near her, and made clear his love to her. They grew close over time, and she came to love him as well as he did her. The stallion went to her family and offered them all that he had been paid in the years he had worked for them. They understood, but could not allow them to wed.”
“Because he was a servant,” I said.
“No. Loyalty and trust are more valuable than lineage. The problem was that he had given them nothing of his own. He had merely given them their own coin. They agreed to allow him to marry his love, but only if he could bring something that was his and only his.”
“Like what?”
“He wasn’t sure either, and they gave him one month leave to figure it out. He traveled and searched for something that was worth enough to appease his love’s family, and as the days passed he became despondent. If he merely bought some trinket, it was the same as his salary. He had no trade to make her a token worthy of her. The last days of the month came, and he looked at the moon in the sky, a bright light in the darkness, and mused at how much it was like his love, the only light in his life.”
I thought of Luna briefly and blushed. Definitely not a good thing to think about with a mare brushing my mane.
“While he watched, there was a great light on the moon like a flash of lightning, and shooting stars crossed the sky. One crested so close he could almost touch it, and the stallion followed it as if possessed! He galloped for a full day and night, not stopping to rest because he was afraid he would forget which direction it had gone in.”
I nodded, motioning for her to continue.
“At the end of his marathon, he found a huge bowl of blackened glass in the sand, still hot enough to burn. At the center of the glass was a stone nearly as large as he was, the outside of it still hissing and smoking. The stallion made his way into the crater carefully, and at his touch the outer layer of the fallen star broke away, revealing shining, pure silver. It is said that all the silver in Saddle Arabia came from that night, a gift from the moon to a lonely stallion. You can see why your Princess Luna values it so.”
“Yeah, even if it’s only a rumor she’d probably want to get every bit of it she could. So what happened to the stallion? And how did that turn into war with Equestria?”
“Ah, that’s a story for another time,” Shahrazad said. “Perhaps I'll tell you the next time we spend the night alone.”
I made an annoyed sound like a foal, and Shahrazad giggled.
“Perhaps I can suggest something else to distract you?” She asked, leaning close, her breath hot on my ear.
I was feeling particularly grumpy and had to force a smile for the crowd, and that made it even worse.
“How is this a distraction?” I asked, trying not to glare at Flash. He hadn’t really been in a position to stop this. If anything, he was suffering just as much as I was. Sometimes it can be hard to remember just who to get mad at when things are going wrong. "I thought she was going to kiss me, not suggest a parade!"
“You’re not thinking about this morning!” Flash yelled, over the roar of the crowd. They’d spotted Shahrazed in her royal carriage behind us, and were much more excited to see her than a few strange foreign ponies.
“Why did we have to use this thing? Couldn’t we have gotten a ride with them?”
Shahrazad had insisted we use the big pink float that had been designed for Cadance. The beak was still a little crooked. She’d said it was the only appropriate thing, since it had been where we first met, a symbol of my heroic rescue. I’m pretty sure she actually meant it was a joke at my expense and would get the crowd laughing.
“If I had supreme executive authority the first thing I’d do is make ponies throw this thing into the ocean!” I said, without thinking.
“I’m sure you’d use the power wisely, Ma’am.” Flash said.
It wasn’t until then that I realized I’d let my big mouth get away from me again. Trusting me with any kind of power was a mistake. I hadn’t even been able to give a gift to a grieving mother wisely. What did I think was going to happen? I’d seen what kind of disaster uncontrolled magic could cause and I’d walked right into the same trap like an idiot.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean-- I didn’t--”
Flash turned to look at me instead of the crowd around us.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Canterlot is what’s wrong...” I muttered. It was too quiet to be heard over the crowd, and he kept looking at me like I hadn’t answered. I cleared my throat and changed the subject. “Where are we even going?” I asked, loudly enough to be heard.
“We’re almost there, Ma’am.” Flash nodded forward. Ahead of us was what I would have called one of the largest buildings I’d ever seen if I wasn’t still in the shadow of their gigantic wall-fortress. It was like the Cloudsdale Arena had been doubled or tripled in size, a coliseum that looked large enough for the whole city to sit in the stands.
The float pulled to a stop, and Flash offered me a hoof to help me down. I rolled my eyes and jumped. I’d been wanting to practice my self-levitation, and this was a perfect opportunity. My cloak billowed out around me like black wings in the backblast from the directed telekinesis. I’d learned from my first near-disastrous attempt that you really wanted to stick the landing to avoid having sore knees all day.
This time I had plenty of power and much less distance to cover, so I just bled it off slowly, letting the sand spray out around me as I touched down softly, the cloak falling back into place a moment later.
“Okay, so somepony wanted to make an entrance,” Flash muttered, as he formed up behind me and to my right.
“Hm? Who?” I glanced back, but I couldn’t see anypony else disembarking.
“You just--” He sighed and ran a hoof down his face like I was missing something obvious. “Never mind. Just try not to scare the locals too much, please?”
“What? I didn’t even do anything!”
"Right, okay,” Flash took a deep breath. “Let’s just head in to the reception area. I’ve only been here a few times, but I think we follow the carpet.”
I nodded and padded along the ornate, patterned rug. For half a moment I wondered how they kept the sand out of it, and in the other half I had to spare, the part of my brain that wasn’t an idiot told me that catching sand was the whole point. The carpet would keep ponies from tracking it into the stands.
“Sunset!” Shahrazad waved excitedly from ahead of us. I waved back and walked up to her. I could have run. Maybe it would have been less stately. Maybe it would have made us look more like the couple we were pretending to be. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction, because she’d made me ride here in a big pink swan.
“I’m glad you arrived safely,” I said, deliberately a little stiffly. I bowed, just a little. Not enough to actually be polite, but enough to know I had remembered that bowing existed. It was like tipping your waitress a single bit.
Shahrazad’s lips pursed into a cute little pout. “Are you still upset about the float, beloved?”
“Am I still-- yes!” I huffed.
“I am sorry. I didn’t think it would upset you this badly. Would you like to ride back to the palace with me?” She asked. Now I just felt foalish, like I was throwing a tantrum.
“If I’m supposed to be keeping you safe, being halfway across the city isn’t going to do you much good,” I said, trying to justify it. “I just… worry.”
“Of course you do,” Shahrazad said, leaning down to peck my forehead.
“So can somepony explain what this is all about?” I asked. “Nopony has actually told me what’s going on. I’m guessing it’s some kind of sporting event, but it’d be good to know the rules or who I’m supposed to cheer for.”
Shahrazad grinned widely. “This, Sunset, is the Forge. It is no mere sporting event. It is where debates are decided, where our champions show their skill, where the ponies of Saddle Arabia can watch the glory of our nation!”
“So…” I still hadn’t gotten an answer, which was an increasingly common state for my questions. “Is this a ball game, a fight to the death, a pie-eating contest, what? Because all the flowery euphemisms for ‘yes, they compete at something’ doesn’t tell me a lot.”
“It’s a combat sport,” Flash supplied. Shahrazad rolled her eyes and sighed like she was disappointed somepony was actually keeping me informed. Heck, she probably was annoyed about it. “From what I’ve seen, it’s basically gladiators fighting with non-lethal weapons.”
“It’s not just that!” Shahrazad huffed. “The stadium itself is enchanted to provide any sort of battlefield we desire, and the competitors come from all parts of Saddle Arabia! Some champions are from the Royal Family, the Army and Navy sponsor ponies, and even most noble families retain their own warriors.”
“See, that’s all you had to say,” I said. “Great, so we’re going to spend all day watching ponies beat the tar out of each other. Maybe a little inappropriate considering the fact all those innocent ponies got hurt…”
I trailed off, letting that linger in the air.
“The Forge is a celebration of life and skill,” Shahrazad said. “It’s something to bolster the spirits. It’s what the ponies here need right now, to be shown a spectacle that can make them forget. Your Princess Celestia used to understand the value of the Forge. There was actually an Equestrian Champion for some time. It was centuries ago, but the stories say they were one of the greatest of all time. An earth pony that could use their magic as deftly as a unicorn!”
“I’ve seen that kind of technique recently,” I mumbled.
“Hm?” Shahrazad raised an eyebrow.
I shook my head. “It’s nothing important,” I told her. It explained where Sirocco had learned her trick. It must have been something passed down over the years, something forgotten in Equestria and surviving here.
“My father’s champion will be competing in the Grand Melee at the climax of the Forge,” Shahrazad said. “There will be a number of minor matches between noble houses and merchants and ponies who have decided to sponsor themselves, first. The Forge’s main purpose is a place to settle disputes. Formal duels, of a sort, fought out in the open, along with some friendly sparring matches and a few ponies simply competing in contests at the whim of their masters for prizes and fame.”
I followed Shahrazad, and she led us to a balcony overlooking the stadium. Music was being played, and I saw what looked like a dance routine on the sandy floor of the arena. The stands were already half-full, and more ponies were pouring in by the moment.
“You know, when Flash called it gladiator combat I had the wrong idea. I was kind of picturing blood and a lot of ponies being hurt, but this is starting to feel more like the Equestria Games.”
“Yes, well, I wouldn’t count that out just yet,” Shahrazad said, her voice low enough it wouldn’t carry over the music. “My uncle is here.”
“He is?” I asked. “Where?”
I looked around and spotted a stallion in red and black silk. He was practically skeletal, all bones and bad vibes with a thin beard sprinkled on top to make sure I really got the picture that this guy wasn’t on the level. Not that I trusted anypony I’d met over the last few days except Flash and maybe Vuvuzela.
“He’s over-- don’t look!” Shahrazad groaned. “He saw you staring. Now we have to introduce you to be polite about things.”
“This is the guy who’s probably trying to kill you, right?” I asked. “What if I just throw down with him right now and demand an answer?”
“It would be highly inappropriate,” Shahrazad said. “You have no proof, you are not yet part of the royal family, and once he has you exiled nopony will be here to protect me. I beg you not to do anything too… you.”
I rolled my eyes. Shahrazad walked us over and forced herself to smile.
“Dear Uncle Balthazar,” she said. “It is welcome to meet you at such an event. You seem to be in good health.”
“Shahrazad, there’s no need to be so formal!” I flinched back at his voice. He should have sounded like a snake. He looked like his voice should have been all hisses and smooth promises in the dark, but he had the deep belly-laugh and loud boisterous tone of a hoofball player.
“It is expected of someone at my station,” Shahrazad said. “May I introduce my beloved, Princess Celestia’s--”
“Sunset Shimmer!” He rumbled, stepping over to pat me on the back and showing surprising strength in his legs. “I’ve heard a lot! I hope you’re being nice to my little Raza. She was always a troublemaker as a filly.”
“No I wasn’t!” Shahrazad blushed.
He laughed, and I was starting to wonder if this was really the guy who Shahrazad was afraid of. She’d implied he might be trying to bump her off, but when I compared what (very) little she’d told me to what I saw in front of me, I couldn’t make the two pictures line up. Somepony was playing me. Probably lots of someponies.
“So, is the royal family sponsoring anypony?” I asked. “I’m afraid this is my first time here, and I don’t know a lot of details.”
“Of course!” Balthazar turned and nodded to a pony across the hall, sitting at a low table piled with drink and food. It was the single largest earth pony I’d ever seen. A mountain of sand-colored flesh that gleamed with sweat and bulged every time he moved. “My champion, Oasis. The finest fighter in the Forge.”
“Second-finest,” Shahrazad countered. “He has never beaten my champion. In fact, I should introduce you to him, Sunset. Be well, Uncle.” Shahrazad nodded and dragged me away without even trying to be subtle about it.
“He seemed nice,” I said, once we’d gotten far away enough to speak in private.
“Ponies can seem like a lot of things,” Shahrazad muttered. “I did want you to meet my champion, though. I hope you’ll be cheering for him with me.”
She walked with me over to another resting stallion, this one such a dark blue that he seemed black until the light caught his coat.
“Princess,” the stallion rumbled. He wasn’t as big as Oasis. He stood, and I saw him visibly wince when he did, favoring one rear leg.
“Please, rest. You do me enough honor in the Forge that there’s no need to be formal now,” Shahrazad said. “Iron Weave is considered the greatest warrior in the Forge,” she said, turning to me. “He is skilled with over a dozen weapons and even more skilled with his bare hooves.”
“Nice to meet you,” I offered.
He nodded stiffly and went back to drinking. We backed off a few steps to give him some peace.
“Very friendly,” I whispered.
“He has had a bad week,” Shahrazad admitted. “He took on some extra duties and had a minor accident. He is still recovering from the bruising he took.”
“What kind of extra duty?” I asked.
“Iron Weave is a wonderful fighter, but not terribly impressive with anything requiring more than just brute force,” Shahrazad sighed. “Say, Sunset, how does he compare with warriors from Equestria? I am curious how he would fare against your Royal Guard.”
“If you mean Flash, it’d probably be a fairly even match. If Flash fought smart and kept his distance he might be able to win.” I shrugged. “But against somepony like Captain Shining Armor? No offense, but Iron Weave wouldn’t have a chance.”
“And against you?” Shahrazad asked.
“Is that even a real question?” I snorted.
“Not a fair one,” Shahrazad giggled.
“Are you sure this Iron Weave guy should be fighting?” I asked. “He looks pretty beat up.” I motioned at him just as he collapsed like a puppet with his strings cut.
There was a sudden silence, and then everypony started talking all at once. Most of them were glancing between me and him. Of course he’d pick the moment I was pointing at him to fall over.
“I’m going to get blamed for that,” I muttered. A servant ran over and turned him onto his side. I saw foam around his lips, and dread filled my stomach. I ran over to look.
“He’s unconscious,” the servant whispered. She was shivering almost as much as Iron Weave, the big stallion sweating enough to drip like he’d just gotten out of the shower. I touched his throat to feel his pulse, then grabbed his wineglass from the low table.
I sniffed, then tasted it. There was something underneath the somewhat soured, strong wine.
“He was poisoned,” I said. I took another sip. “Yeah. That’s red nightshade.”
“Is it dangerous?” Shahrazad asked.
I nodded. “Deadly,” I said. Then I drank the rest of the glass. She gasped.
“Sunset, what are you doing?!”
“I’m immune, and I needed to make sure there wasn’t anything else,” I said. Also I didn’t want to waste the wine. “He’ll be okay as long as he gets the right treatment. Give him saltwater to make him throw up, then activated charcoal. You know how to do that?”
The servant nodded.
“Good. That should clean him out, as long as you keep him hydrated and let him rest for a few days. Once he’s holding down liquids have him drink ginger tea. Loads of it.”
“This is terrible,” Shahrazad said.
“He’ll be okay,” I assured her. “He would have had to drink that whole cup to get a fatal dose.”
“I mean that he can’t participate,” Shahrazad said. “If a royal champion cannot be in the Grand Melee, what will my subjects think? I can’t tell them he was poisoned! It would be an embarrassment to my family.”
“The real question is who poisoned him,” I muttered.
“I suspect you’ve already met the guilty pony,” Shahrazad whispered. “My uncle’s own champion is untouched.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I bet there’s no evidence.”
“Of course not, he’s no fool,” Shahrazad huffed. She suddenly smiled. “But I know how to stop whatever he’s planning.”
“Tell your father to take care of it?” I suggested.
“No, of course not. He would never believe his own brother would do such a thing. We have to be clever. And the most clever thing will be for you to take Iron Weave’s place!”
“Woah, woah!” I backed up. “What are you talking about?”
“You said it yourself, you could easily defeat him in a fight. You can be a hero to the people of Saddle Arabia, an arena champion in the Forge!”
“That seems like a terrible idea,” I said.
“Please, beloved? I beg you, without my champion, the ponies will think I’m weak! And whatever he’s plotting, it involves my not having a champion for the Melee. You promised to protect me, Sunset. This is the only way.”
Shahrazad was right about one thing. It was someone’s plan to poison her fighter and keep them out of the arena. I didn’t know what it was supposed to accomplish. Embarrass her with all her subjects watching? A smart poisoner would have used something else, something slower and less obvious. Or just left it to chance. Iron Weave looked like someone had thrown him off a roof and he’d landed face-first. Flash probably could have taken him in a wrestling bout just by punching him in the bruises.
“Hey, is there some kind of prize?” I asked, while Flash looked through the armor bits for something that would fit me.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“There has to be something,” I muttered. “Some reason they’d want him removed before the games even start. Maybe it isn’t even a plot against the Princess. Maybe he had his own enemies…”
“Sunset, you’re not here to be a detective,” Flash said. He tossed a helmet in my direction. I caught it and tried it on. Surprisingly, it was already fitted for a unicorn to wear, with a hole for my horn. “There are plenty of ponies here that can solve that mystery.”
“I don’t trust any of them,” I said. “The longer I spend here the more I think everything’s a big chess game with ponies as the pieces. I’m starting to learn a few of the rules.”
“I didn’t think you played by the rules.”
“That depends on the game. I’d love to know the rules for the one I’m about to enter.” I wiggled my eyebrows. Flash gave me a flat look.
“That’s not even clever wordplay.”
“Just tell me the stupid rules already,” I sighed.
“The arena floor will turn into some kind of battlefield,” Flash said. “You’ll be wearing a belt with your sponsor’s colors. It can’t be removed with magic or weapons, only bare hooves. If you lose it, you lose. You win by taking everypony else’s belt. You can use any weapons or armor you want, but the ones here are enchanted. They won’t break bone or draw blood.”
“So they’re perfectly safe,” I said.
“As safe as a boxing match,” Flash said. “You can still get beaten unconscious, and if a pony was really determined he could do a lot of damage with his hooves.”
“Neat,” I nodded. “So it’s less dangerous than my average day walking down the street.”
“You have a really skewed idea of how dangerous city streets can be.”
“I spent a lot of time in Ponyville. Anything else I should know? Anywhere I’m not allowed to hit a pony?”
“First, if you’re really doing this because you’re trying to make Princess Shahrazad happy, you should probably not be thinking about hitting stallions where it hurts. Second, I don’t know how effective your spells are going to be. They say the same enchantments that keep the weapons from killing anypony extend to spells cast in the arena. I don’t know if that means they don’t work at all or if they just won’t kill. They haven’t had a unicorn in any matches I’ve seen.”
“If it’s anything like a suppression ring, it’s no big deal,” I said. “You can just power through it.”
“Again, Sunset, that’s the kind of weirdly skewed perspective that doesn’t work for the average unicorn.” Flash sighed. “Now, what weapons do you know how to use?”
“Uh…” I hesitated.
“Do you know how to use any weapons at all?”
“Well, um…” I picked up a sword. “The sharp part goes into the enemy, right?”
“Buck my life,” Flash sighed.
“Just give me some pointers,” I said, waggling the sword at him. “Get it? Pointers? Because it’s sharp.”
Flash wasn’t impressed by my puns. He’d given me the bare minimum of training in the time we’d had to prepare, and then I was marched out onto the sands. The arena looked even bigger from down here. With the stands full of cheering ponies, it was like walking onto a stage at the center of the world.
I just wish I wasn’t walking onto it with a limp.
The armor Flash had found was good enough. It wasn’t a matched set, and with some of the straps broken we’d been forced to improvise with what we had available. I only had a shoulder pad, or whatever the fancy Prench word was for that bit of armor, on one side, and my good back leg only had its armor hanging on thanks to my spare roll of bandages keeping it held there like a splint.
The other seven ponies were already there, so I was either late or making a dramatic entrance. If I’d been smart I would have looked to see what kind of weapons they had, what kind of strategies to use, maybe even chatted them up and tried to find someone who’d have my back until it was just down to the two of us. I was too focused on Oasis to even think properly about what I was doing.
He was swinging a huge, curved sword like he was testing the weight and heft of it. I knew the look because I’d been doing pretty much the same thing with the sword I had, too. Some detail was niggling at the back of my mind, and I couldn’t place it.
The announcer yelled something. I couldn’t hear it over the roar of the crowd. The sand started shifting under my hooves with a weird, vibrating tingle. Lines formed, and walls started to rise up around us and I saw it, just for an instant. There was a snake etched into the sword Oasis had been holding. The same symbol the assassins had used. I lunged, and ran face-first into a wall that appeared in my path.
“Ow,” I muttered.
My bad leg wobbled, and I was suddenly sitting in the sand. I took the opportunity to rub my snout and look around.
“It’s like a telekinetic sandcastle,” I muttered, reaching out to touch the wall I’d hit. It was made entirely out of magic and the arena’s shifting floor, but it felt like stone under my hoof. If it wasn’t for the color I’d never have known I wasn’t just standing in the city.
The shadows moved at my side, and I held up a hoof to shield my head. A silver blade hit my armor and slid off, leaving a long scratch in the thin metal plate. The force from it was enough to shock me back into paying attention.
“Are you just going to sit there and wait for somepony to defeat you?” The blade was in the hooves of a stallion in layered silk. Unfortunately not the stallion I was looking for, but I don't think he would've let me go if I'd just asked nicely. I stepped back, drawing my own blade.
“That’s kinda close to my plan,” I said. “I was actually thinking of winning.”
“That seems unlikely.” The stallion charged, the silk robes billowing out around him. I ducked under his sword, slashed with my own blade, and hit nothing but the clothing he was wearing. It was like trying to cut hanging curtains with a butter knife.
I kept moving, getting far enough past him that he couldn’t just turn and hit me.
“You’re not very good with that,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “I thought Princess Shahrazad would send a worthy competitor, but you’re not a fighter at all.”
I flipped the sword around in my telekinetic grip.
“Usually I don’t have to get my hooves dirty,” I admitted.
I threw a bolt of force at him. I could feel the Forge pulling at it. It was like trying to throw a punch with weighted shoes dragging my hooves down. The stallion held his ground. The look on his face said he knew it would never reach him. What was even better was when his expression changed and he figured out he was basically playing chicken with an express train.
The bolt hit him, and he hit the wall hard enough that the force-fields holding it together failed for a moment, embedding his front half in sand.
“Like I said,” I explained, loudly enough that he could probably still hear me, sheathing my sword with a dramatic flourish that I definitely earned for winning in style. “I don’t usually have to get my hooves dirty. When I do get into a fight, though? I don’t lose.”
I trotted up to him and gave him a swift kick. I heard him yelp even through the wall of sand. I grabbed the colored sash from his waist and left him there. He’d dropped his sword, so just in case the crowd was watching, I stomped on the hilt to pop it up, realized halfway through that this was really dumb and I was about to hurt myself, then caught it with my magic and tried to make it look like I’d done that on purpose.
It felt like an easy win. If the others were all muscle and no brains, I wasn’t going to have much of a problem -- one thing that history had proven again and again was that a properly prepared unicorn could deal with just about anything.
I was still trying not to shake on my hooves and twirling the sword in my magic when the ground dropped out from under me like I’d walked right off a cliff into open air, the sand collapsing in a blinding cloud that didn’t quite hide the pointed spikes waiting for me at the bottom of that long fall.
I tried to teleport, and felt the arena’s safety spell squash the spell like a bug.
I was bucked.