//------------------------------// // Chapter 34: Near Grip // Story: Luna is a Harsh Mistress // by Starscribe //------------------------------// How hard was it to make a wing? Probably Silver should’ve thought a little harder about what he was going to promise, given his entire future might very well depend on it.  At least he had a working example. On the pretext of actually doing anything useful, Silver devoted himself to taking measurements. Measurements were easy, he’d been making those for excavations since he could remember. It wasn’t like the earth ponies needed his help to dig, but most of them weren’t terribly clever. Dig in the wrong place, and none of them would get food. Staying focused was more than a little difficult on the first day, and not just from being stuck in the same little room for so long. As the hours passed, he knew his work crew would be out digging somewhere, or maybe carrying something. They were being worked to the bone, and he wasn’t there. Silver Star was a deserter. He’d never get another meal again. He probably wouldn’t be worth looking for, there were dozens of worthless ponies like him. But even so, he kept thinking that the regent’s finest swordmages would be teleporting down here to drag him to a court martial. They didn’t. He didn’t feel so much as a tracking spell. In a way, that was almost worse. Silver was so unimportant he wasn’t even worth tracking down. “Yes, I need you to keep holding it like that,” he said, scratching down his numbers alongside the sketch he’d made of her good wing. “Unless you don’t care how well it works. Do you want a wing that doesn’t match your working one?” She grumbled, then lifted her wing again. “At least I know you’re really a craftspony. I was getting afraid that all you knew was magic.” “It’s called, uh… engineering,” he explained. “My father used to be an engineer, worked for the court and everything. I don’t know what he made… but it must not’ve been weapons, because otherwise he’d still be working. And I’d still be living in the court, and we’d probably never met.” Her wing twitched, then straightened again. “Just hurry up and get your numbers. I’m getting sore.” “Can you even do that?” He levitated the measuring tape down. Crazy to think just how small she was. Yet she was ancient and powerful, despite her short legs. Despite her insistence, he didn’t doubt that she could kill him easily. Least of which just by reporting him to the authorities for using all this stolen property.  Up above, he could hear ponies moving and talking with one another, their voices distorted into faint murmurs whenever they walked down the central hall. But nopony suspected this secret passage. He’d covered it even so, pinning up a blanket over the crack that would block most of the light but keep letting air through. Only one of them needed it, but he needed it quite a lot. “What, sore?” She seemed to be waiting for any excuse to put her wing down, because she folded it back to her side. “Not really, no. Our bodies can get broken, then they need to get stitched back together. But you don’t ever heal. Only living things do that.” It was his turn to shiver. “That doesn’t sound… very nice. Alicorns aren’t like that though, right? The princess is still alive.” She rolled her eyes, stalking away from him. “You ask like I know. What are you going to do about my wings, Silver?” “Well, uh… I didn’t find anything about healing you in those books. Regenerating missing limbs is an Alicorn-level thing. And you don’t want to talk to the princess.” “No.” She sat down on the table beside him. “I’m inflexible on that. Even if I did talk to her, she wouldn’t be able to fix my wing. That regeneration magic works for living ponies.” She lifted her wing again, silencing him before he could even speak this time. “Don’t even say it. If I hadn’t joined the Nightmare, I’d be dead centuries ago. Look at all the ponies from my time, they’re all dead. I’m… less dead. I’ll take it.” “I wasn’t gonna say it!” he lied. “Look, I’m going to try and make a copy of the wing you have. The muscles are in your back, and those are still there. Connecting it with the tendons and stuff is gonna be…” He twitched, stomach turning at the thought. There was no bucking way he could manage that. But he could think of at least one chop-shop that might be able to do it. Not a doctor, those were for more important ponies. But a doctor probably wouldn’t have dared operate on one of the Voidseekers anyway.  “Copy the wing I have,” she repeated. “Well, that makes… some kinda sense. We know this one works, might as well make another. And if it hasn’t been attached yet, we can… make improvements, adjustments, that kind of thing. What will we make it out of?” “Only the strongest stuff,” he said. “You’re immortal, so the wing has to last longer than I’ll be alive. There’s this new metal, they only find it on the surface… True Lunarium, I think. It’s stronger than steel, doesn’t corrode like Lunarium does. Doesn’t contract much in the cold. We’ll put that where your bones are, and use it for the joints. Then for the wings themselves…”  What could possibly last long enough? There was only one possible answer there too. An audacious, incredibly stupid answer. But Magpie was already asking the impossible, no reason to stop there. “We only know one kind of fabric as light as bat skin. I don’t know if it has a name… the stuff the Great Alicorns made their air armor out of. So we’ll need… special equipment to cut it, as well as a spool of something that they only find in Vanaheimr.” She stared at him for a few seconds, then began to grin. “A new wing stronger than the old one, huh? I like the way you think, kid! We got this.” “I’m not a kid,” he muttered, glaring at her. “How many times are you going to… do I look like a goat to you?” She shrugged. “It’s an expression, you wouldn’t understand. Just get me a list of what we need, and I’ll steal it.” “For now, nothing,” he said. “I need to figure out a… something for it all to stick to. I might need a few more books to do that. Not spellbooks, I’m not extorting you for more. We need the smallest, lightest hinge ever, and I don’t know how to make one. But there are some furniture books that would probably have things I could copy.” “Furniture?” She scowled at him. “I’m beginning to wonder if this is worth it. You’re going to make my wing like a shelf?” More like a harpsichord. But that didn’t seem like the smartest thing to say. He didn’t actually get the chance to answer, because something banged upstairs, loud enough that even Magpie looked up.  Not a chisel of the crew that had finally discovered her secret hoard, here to punish her for stealing from the richest creatures in Moonrise. More like… doors breaking down? What the buck? They were three days into daytime now, plenty far from the occasional disasters of night. So what was going on? “I’m going to take a look,” Magpie muttered, before vanishing. She could do that from anywhere in the little apartment, except right beside the electric bulb. She kept it turned down far enough that her shadow-walking always worked. That was fine with Silver, he was used to the dark by now. Proper lighting wasn’t really a part of his world. He sat right below the opening, listening carefully for any sound. There were hooves up there, maybe more than usual? If he strained his ears, he imagined he could hear something else as well… screams? Magpie reappeared behind him. “Welp, that’s a bucking mess. Looks like you won’t need that necklace for much longer. There are soldiers up there, dragging ponies into the street. Not sure why, but… they’re not giving them much time. They just drag them out of their homes, foals and all.” “To yellows?” He squinted up into the opening, closing his eyes. A deep well of power lay waiting for him, and he called on it now, looking up through the stone. Every second he looked, another eye appeared around him, watching. If they ever found him, he would die an agonizing death… but he wouldn’t look for long. She was right. Real soldiers, with full armor and rifles over their shoulders. At least one had already been fired, and a corpse lay bleeding in the hall. The bakelite bullet hadn’t so much as scratched the wall, but it had sure killed this pegasus. Something touched him on the shoulder, and his concentration shattered. Silver’s eyes snapped open, and he turned to glare sidelong at her. “Hey! I was farcasting! That’s an expensive spell!” “I figured.” To his surprise, her usual spunk was missing. Instead of arguing with him, Magpie pushed him into a sitting position with her good wing. Not hard enough to force him, but he didn’t fight. “You shouldn’t watch. Brutality like that… watching makes you part of the cycle, you know? You see the terrible things ponies can do to each other, and you’ll start acting them out on the ones weaker than you.” He might’ve fought, if she didn’t sound so broken. “I watched them drag my dad out an air door,” he said flatly. “I watched my half-brother freeze, because nopony wanted to give us room in the shelter. There’s nothing those guards can do I haven’t seen before.” Her eyes went wide, and she stared at him with renewed shock. Like she was searching for something. “Is that why you wanted all those magical books?” she asked. “So you can… find the soldier who did it and drag them out into space too? Give them what they deserve?” “No.” He levitated one of the books over, flipping through the spells. Air bubbles, fixing leaks, reading the amount of oxygen in a room. Cozen’s Spells for the Practical Moon Unicorn. “I’m not studying how to fight, Magpie. Every day is a fight up there. Magic is about getting out of this hole. If I know enough of it, I can impersonate somepony with a better color. They don’t ask too many questions up there—there are fewer skilled unicorns than they need. If I ever have foals, they’ll have their own bucking heat-vent at night. And I’ll smack them if they ever try and eat gruel.” Magpie kept staring at him. With her size and severed wing extended, she looked even more like her namesake—a dark, furtive bird, ready to fly away at the slightest sign of danger. We’re not all that different, really. You just found a different way of escaping. “Don’t change, kid,” she said. “Not just the… weird magic you’ve got going. In general. What’s left of the Voidseekers didn’t talk much, not being any air and all—but even when we could, it was all bitterness and anger. But you’ve been through as much in your little life as anypony could, and listen to you. I think if you’d been with us out there, I might not have lost my damn brains.” “You seem sane to me,” he said. “I mean, you’re not normal. And you’ve got that whole bite-sized look going on with the tiny legs. You sure you don’t want me to make a set of stilts?” She giggled—a sound cut abruptly short by the sudden discharge of another rifle upstairs. It was soon joined by several others. “I don’t… understand.” He stared up at the stone ceiling, though he didn’t dare any magic this time. “Why send soldiers into a slum? There are a hundred buildings just like this—what did ours do?” “Maybe they’re looking for me?” she whispered, ears tucked back as she stared. “I didn’t see any unicorns, but… I have been taking things for a while.” She glanced back at the apartment. “I think the cold box was too far.” Silver might’ve laughed at the absurdity, except for what was going on over their heads. “I don’t think that’s what they’re doing. There’s no way they’d know the stolen machines were here. It’s got to be… something else.” But he wasn’t sure what that something was, and wouldn’t learn. Hours passed, during which he didn’t so much as pick up a pencil, and Magpie didn’t pester him for inaction. Heartless, soulless monster of the Void she might’ve been, but apparently both guilt and anger were within her emotional range. Eventually the world above them went silent. Magpie rose, donning a dark cloak hanging on the wall. “I’m going to see what they did up there,” she said. “Don’t leave, unicorn. I don’t want you getting what those ponies got before you pay me.” She vanished. Of course, he didn’t dare. He had his own paranoid guilt, whispering in the back of his mind. After all, he’d been ditching work. Maybe somepony had seen him walking this way? Even a second of thought made that seem absurd. If they shoot even one pony, looking for you was more than a waste of time. I’m just another faceless white to them.  Magpie returned a few minutes later, tossing her hood back. Her eyes were haunted, twitching constantly around the room. “Well, that wasn’t my idea of fun.” “Were they looking for stuff?” Silver shut the magical tome he’d been reading, spinning his chair to look at her. He’d been on the same page for half an hour without trying anything on it even once. “Drawers and closets dumped out, stuff all over the floor…” “No,” she said. “Some broken doors, but it doesn’t look like the soldiers were looting. Only thing that looks missing to me is the jackets. All the hooks are empty.” Of course they are. If you were getting kicked out into the street, what’s the most important thing? Don’t want to freeze to death. “I need to see what happened,” he said. “Err… tomorrow. I’ll give it a day, then go out into the city and see what I can find. There’s got to be a reason. Those ponies weren’t hurting anyone. Maybe they’ll be back in a few hours.” Minus the dead. But they weren’t. They didn’t hear anypony coming back to the building, not anytime that evening. Magpie had a stolen clock, so Silver could watch as the night passed by, and the morning came. Still no sign of ponies upstairs, either the old occupants returning or soldiers moving through to search. It doesn’t make any sense. After a breakfast of food he didn’t deserve, Silver finally resolved to find out what was happening. He slid his own jacket off the hook, pulling up the hood. “Where the buck are you going?” Magpie asked. “I told you, you’re not allowed to get yourself killed before you finish my new wing.” He ignored her this time, striding right past towards the crack in her ceiling. “Nopony will notice me. But I need to see what’s happening up there.” Magpie watched him for a few more seconds, then groaned and rose from her perch on the stolen sofa. “Alright, alright. Then I’m coming with you.” She rested a hoof on his shoulder, forcing him to meet her eyes. “Don’t think I’ll be able to get you out of any stupid situation. I’m not a fighter, and I can’t shadowstep with you. If you get yourself into trouble…” “I won’t,” he said. “I’m just looking around, promise.” He settled his stolen yellow necklace into place, then began to concentrate. Silver teleported back to the ground floor in a flash, leaving a patch of frost behind him on the stone hallway. He learned in an instant that Magpie had been painfully honest in her report, and that nopony had been here to clean things up. There was still a body in the hallway, eyes glassy and staring. He turned, making his way over to look. On the ground beside this pegasus was a bit of broken metal, maybe taken from the side of a shovel or some other tool. A knife, one edge covered in dried blood. This pony was fighting them! He had a weapon, and he was ready for this. Silver reached down with a little magic, closing the dead pony’s eyes. He couldn’t do anything else—sooner or later, the recycling crew would come for this body. And the others, if there were any. “There are two ponies just outside,” Magpie whispered into his ear, so suddenly that he nearly jumped. “Soldiers I think. Stopping ponies from coming in.” “Can you distract them for a few seconds?” he hissed. “I’ve got a spell that should make them ignore me. But if they’re actively looking, it won’t work.” She raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like a garbage invisibility spell.” “It’s not invisibility,” he muttered, glaring. “Just give me a minute! Anything to make them watch you.” She groaned. “This wing is feeling less worth it by the minute.” She vanished in a puff of smoke.  Silver Star began creeping towards the entrance, taking each hoofstep incredibly slowly. Even a single creak in a board might be enough to get him discovered, and who knew what after that. Then he heard Magpie’s voice outside.  “I don’t need very long. Please, just let me get a blanket.” The door was already open, almost as though the soldiers outside wanted anyone who got close to see the body inside. Silver concentrated for a few moments more, focusing on being ignored. He’d been in the shadows his whole life, so it wasn’t hard to spread that around him. He wasn’t there. Nothing worth seeing. Silver walked through the doorway, then skirted along past the soldiers staring at Magpie. “You shouldn’t be here,” one grunted. “Go back to where you came from, filly. Nopony goes back inside.” She shrugged, then turned to go. “Okay.” Silver kept the spell up until they’d made it around the corner, though it didn’t seem to work on Magpie anyway. “This is bloody unfair, Silver,” she muttered, once they were out of sight. “Everypony thinks I’m a kid.” “Try being taller.”