No matter how much they may have wished the dance could go on forever, the songs eventually began to wind down, the crowd began to thin, and soon, even the fireworks that had filled the heavens with light, sound, and color, faded away. But in spite of the disappointment that the festivities had to end for the night, neither Scarlet or Lens could deny that the experience had been well worth their time, and they left the plaza with big smiles on their faces.
Scarlet glanced over at Lens every so often as they made their return trip to the inn, unable to keep herself from smiling, however softly, when she saw how satisfied with himself he looked. Here and there, she would catch him looking back, and their smiles would mutually grow in size.
Soon enough, the inn came back into view, and Lens began to visibly sag, no doubt eager to hit the sack himself. “Oh, thank the Five,” he breathed out in relief. “Sleep… I can hardly wait.”
Scarlet hummed in response, her pace gradually slowing down as her eyes wandered up to the room where she knew Primrose was currently slumbering away. As she came to a stop in the middle of the street, her mind wandered back to the dance earlier, and Lens’ abrupt compliment after the fireworks first began to go off. A small bead of unease formed in the pit of her stomach, causing her to wince.
“Wait… are you two in love, or something?” Primrose’s voice echoed softly in her mind, drawing her back to the brief time they had spent in Lens’ home back in Shimmervale.
“We were, once. Before the war ended.”
“Are you not anymore?”
“I don’t know, Primrose. I hope not.”
“Huh? You don’t wanna be in love? Is he a bad pony?”
“No! No, he’s wonderful! He’s charming, he’s optimistic, he’s clever, and while he’s a little scatterbrained, he is easily one of the kindest ponies I have ever met!”
“Well… I think he probably still likes you like that. He was really happy to see you when we showed up.”
Scarlet’s eyes slowly wandered down to look at Lens, who had just stopped in the door frame to look back at her with concern. “Sapphire?” he called out, remembering to use her false name. “Are you coming?”
Scarlet smiled and nodded. “Y-yes, I’ll be up in a minute. You go on ahead. I just…” she gestured vaguely. “I just want to think about a few things, that’s all. And I would rather do it in private.”
Lens’ expression grew even more concerned. “Sapphire…”
Scarlet rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious. I’ll be up in a minute. Just go and get some sleep,” she said with an optimistic edge to her voice, hoping to convince him.
After a few seconds, Lens nodded in understanding. “Alright… Don’t keep us waiting too long, though, alright? I think the little one won’t take too kindly to you being absent.”
Scarlet nodded in understanding. “I know. Now get moving.”
Lens was quiet for a second, remaining in the door frame for a breath longer than Scarlet would have liked. Eventually, though, he finally relented and disappeared inside, closing the door behind him, with an echoing clunk. Scarlet was left all alone in the middle of the street.
Scarlet gave a long, tired sigh, her shoulders sagging as she dragged herself over to one of the benches that rested just in front of the inn. She slumped into the seat and turned her eyes up to look at the sky. The moon caught her attention, nearly full and shining with a subtle radiance that served to soothe Scarlet’s tumultuous thoughts.
“...Can I really risk putting him in danger by keeping us here any longer?” she eventually thought to herself, her heart stirring with inner conflict. The longer they remained in this city, the higher the chances became that they would be found out. If that happened while they were within the walls, any chance they would have of getting out unharmed would more or less cease to exist, barring blasting open the walls or gates with artillery magic, something Scarlet was not willing to do.
The thought of getting trapped in this city sent a chill down Scarlet’s spine, and the image of being dragged, kicking and screaming into the dungeons of the great castle that presided over it all, was enough to make her coat bristle. Not for her sake, but for the sakes of those she traveled with. Primrose… Lens.
Because Primrose had been right. It was abundantly obvious to even a casual observer that there was something between them. Lens had clearly not let go of the love they had shared, however brief it may have been. That meant he was far more likely to do something reckless or stupid to try and help her, and given the parental relationship both of them had developed with Primrose, that recklessness could very well extend to the filly.
“...I can’t let him get hurt because of me,” Scarlet told herself with a sigh, her ears lowering. “Nor Primrose. I… I need them.”
For the next several minutes, Scarlet pondered her options, debating internally whether they should leave first thing in the morning or go with Lens’ original plan and wait for the day after tomorrow. So engrossed in her thoughts was she that she failed to notice the shadowy figure approaching her from the left until they cleared their throat and spoke.
“I must admit, Scarlet, that yellow and a ponytail work surprisingly well on you.”
Scarlet’s eyes snapped wide open at the familiar voice of Silent Edge, her heart skipping a beat as adrenaline flooded her veins. In one swift motion, she leaped from her seat and dropped into a battle stance, her horn igniting and conjuring both of her blades in front of her. Through the shimmering blades of arcane light, she could see the Nightblade himself standing just out of her reach.
“Silent!” she snapped, her blood beginning to boil with memories of the last time she had met him. “How did you find me?!”
To her surprise, the Nightblade merely lifted one foreleg, around which a thick, rich blue ribbon was tied. “One of my Nightblades spotted you and Lens dancing earlier and brought that information back to me. Now put away your swords, Scarlet. I am not here to fight you. I am here to talk,” Silent said slowly, giving her time to observe the ribbon. It was a sign of parley that had been introduced sometime after the founding of New Equestria, she recalled. A means to avoid combat until at least a rudimentary discussion could be had.
Seething, Scarlet narrowed her eyes in disbelief. “You honestly expect me to believe that?!” she snapped venomously. “How can I trust anything you say to me?!”
Silent frowned, almost looking offended. “Scarlet, I am a professional assassin and spy, but do not make the mistake of thinking I am without a heart.”
“What are you blathering on about?!”
Silent winced at her tone before gesturing around them. “Look around you, Scarlet. This is my home town. I would rather not stain the streets I grew up on with blood unless I am left with no other choice. Besides, the ponies here are yet in the middle of a celebration, one which commemorates the birth of our nation and our liberation from the yoke of Talonreach. I have no desire to strip the ponies of this city of their jovial mood by engaging in another bloody battle with you, especially considering how much collateral damage you have left in your wake in the past.”
Scarlet growled, remaining unconvinced. She scraped her hoof against the ground, her swords crackling dangerously with energy. “A remarkably noble notion coming from a murderous rat!”
Silent scowled. “Do not call me that,” he shot back with a sharp edge to his voice. “I left the name ‘rat’ behind years ago. Now, if it sets your mind at ease…”
With a sigh, Silent very slowly unfurled his wings, revealing that they were strikingly devoid of the blades he would normally have nestled between his feathers. “I am unarmed,” he stated plainly. “And I came here alone. You have my word, I will not strike at you unless you give me a reason to. Now please… dispel your swords and let us speak.”
Scarlet snarled before she risked taking her eyes off of Silent to quickly scan the nearby rooftops for any sign of other Nightblades. After a moment, she deduced with a small degree of confidence that he was being genuine—at least in the sense that he had come alone.
Slowly, she moved her blades aside and dispelled them, her violet eyes piercing into Silent with barely restrained hatred. “Fine, then. If you have truly come here to talk, then start talking,” she spat, the venom in her voice making it abundantly clear that she was short on patience.
Silent folded his wings back up at his side and took a step forward. “...I know Primrose is alive,” he stated bluntly.
Scarlet’s eyes narrowed. “No, she isn’t,” she spat back at him, pulling on all of the rage she had felt that night to lend credibility to her words. “You murdered her! She bled out shortly after you ran away!”
Silent’s expression contorted with disbelief. “If that were the case, Frost, then you would never have consented to speak with me, blue banner or not,” he immediately rebuked, giving Scarlet pause. “You would have struck out the moment you saw me. I remember full well the rage you brought to the table when last we met, and I know that had that child truly died, it would have only burned hotter and hotter. Had I succeeded in killing her, you would have cut me down by now.”
Scarlet winced, swearing internally. She should have known better. Silent was as experienced at lies as he was killing. It was his job, after all.
“Now then,” Silent went on, looking up towards the castle. “It is actually rather fortuitous of you to bring her to Newcanter as you have…”
“How so?” Scarlet demanded, taking a step back defensively. “So you don’t have to wear out your wings to report her death to the Lunar Council?”
“No, actually,” Silent replied patiently, glancing at her from the side. “It is fortuitous because, so long as she remains within this city, I will be out of reasons to kill her.”
Scarlet blinked. “W-what?”
Silent sighed, turning to face her directly again. “The Lunar Council would rather I bring Primrose in alive. I have been given the authorization to kill her if I believe I have to, but if I can bring her back alive, well… they would have far greater uses for a living Primrose than a dead one.”
Scarlet’s coat bristled, her blood boiling in her veins all over again at this latest tidbit of information. “Then why, Silent Edge, have you been trying to kill her so hard?! If the Council wants her alive-”
“My efforts to kill her are because I know she would never willingly come quietly,” Silent interrupted her again, her expression hardening. “Clever as she might be to have evaded me for so long, she is still an ignorant and foolish child, do not forget that. Bringing her back alive with such distances separating us from the capital would have been more trouble than it would be worth. But with her here, in the city, I can take her to the Council in almost no time at all, sparing her life and ending this chase.”
“What does the Council even want with her?!” Scarlet demanded, taking another step forward, barely holding herself back. “What do you want with her?! With her lamp?! Why are you after it?!”
“I could not care less about the child’s bauble,” Silent dismissed with a snort. “I am not in this for the relic. The Council is interested in that. I am to bring it to them, but my personal interest in this begins and ends with finishing my hunt.”
“WHY?!” Scarlet roared, her horn sparking to life as her rage began to spill forth. “Why are you so dead set on killing her?! WHAT DID SHE EVER DO TO YOU!”
Silent took a step back, his wings twitching reflexively. “I am merely performing my duty, Frost,” he said simply. “Although I must admit, after all of this time, there is a certain… personal motive at this point. The child slipped away from me when I led the assault on her camp. I could not suffer to let that insult to my pride go uncorrected. When I have a target, they do not get away from me.”
Scarlet’s patience was on the verge of breaking, the chains holding her back creaking dangerously with every word the Nightblade spoke. “Just… doing… your duty?!” she whispered through clenched teeth, her pupils dilating. “Your duty?! In what world does your duty include murdering an entire family of innocent ponies?! Hunting a small, defenseless child for half of her life, taking everything she has ever loved away from her?! How is that your duty, Silent?!”
When Scarlet’s tirade finally came to an end, Silent had actually taken a few steps back, a wide-eyed and bewildered look on his face. For a moment, Scarlet considered that, maybe, she had actually made him question his actions.
“Innocent… ponies…?” Silent echoed, seemingly taken aback by her statement. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, his eyes widened, and his jaw dropped open in realization. “...By the Five… you don’t know, do you?” he finally asked, his voice low with disbelief.
Scarlet blinked and took a step back. “Know what?” she growled, taking a second to calm down and lower her voice.
Silent mouthed uselessly for a few seconds before looking away, his ears drooping. After a moment, he nodded to himself and turned back to her. “Tell me, Scarlet,” he began, his voice uncharacteristically soft and gentle. “...Has Primrose ever shown a remarkably keen understanding of the feelings of those around her?”
Scarlet hesitated, her mind quickly going through her collective experience with the filly and picking out several instances where Prim had seemingly known what she was feeling before she ever commented on it. Scoffing, she turned her head to one side. “What of it?” she asked skeptically.
Silent took another step forward. “Has the subject of changelings ever come up with her?” he pressed.
Scarlet took a step back, a sudden sense of dread starting to form in the bottom of her chest. She thought back on the sign in front of Twinwood Canopy, and of the moments after they had successfully avoided a small swarm of the monsters.
“Ponies really hate changelings, don’t they?”
“I, um… why do you hate changelings so much?”
“I just… You tried to talk those griffon robbers into letting us go. You tried to avoid a fight. But here… you wanted to kill them. That just doesn’t seem like you.”
“Yes, it has… once or twice,” Scarlet replied slowly, narrowing her eyes. “I ask again: What. of it?”
Silent sighed heavily before looking away, almost as if he was reluctant to speak. “Did it never strike you as strange how she is so keenly aware of how others feel? She is ten years old; far too young to be that adept at reading others. And did it never strike you as odd how she seems to have a soft spot for the demons that caused the Fall and becomes openly uncomfortable whenever they are brought up?”
Scarlet blinked, her heart starting to beat faster in her chest. There was no way Silent was going where it sounded like he was going with this. It wasn’t possible. It was…
He turned to look into her eyes, sympathy, and regret over the words he now had to say shining within them. “Scarlet… Primrose is a changeling.”
Silence.
Scarlet didn’t move. She didn’t even dare to breathe. Every muscle in her body had locked up all at once and a horrible sensation, unlike anything she had felt before, flooded her veins and cooled the boiling blood to ice.
With a stiff neck, she shook her head. “...You’re lying,” she choked out, her legs starting to go numb. “Y-you’re lying to me… Sh-she’s nothing like those m-monsters!”
Silent shook his head. “It’s why I attacked her family’s camp,” he said softly, his voice low and soothing. “We were hunting for bandits, but we found her instead. A family of changelings capable of thought, speech, and reason without a queen to guide their actions? A family of changelings in possession of a magic relic that predates the Fall itself? Of course, I attacked them. Who knows what kind of threat they could pose if they were allowed to continue breeding? Who knows the damage a race of intelligent changelings could cause? Need I even tell you how alarming it was for the Council to hear of this?”
“You’re wrong…” Scarlet mumbled, taking several steps back and lifting a hoof up to the side of her head. “Sh-shut up! Shut up, shut up! If any of this were true, why wait until now to tell me?!”
“I know I lied to you in Swanrun,” Silent went on quietly, taking another step forward and lifting his hoof in a placating gesture. “But that was a part of my orders. If the word were to get out to the public that there were intelligent changelings, ones capable of actively infiltrating our lives and our homes, the panic and paranoia that would spread would be nigh impossible to control. But more than that...”
Silent drew close enough to reach out, placing a hoof on Scarlet’s shoulder. She barely felt it, her entire body going numb.
Silent caught her eye imploringly. “...I did not want you to get involved. I wanted you to stay out of it and live your life. I saw that you were content to be alone in that house, away from violence and bloodshed, and I did not want to disrupt the peace of one of my only friends.”
Slowly, Silent withdrew his hoof and backed away to give Scarlet her space. “...I want you to hand her over to me,” he said softly. “Without resistance, without a fuss. If you do that, then I give you my word, as your friend, that her life, yours, and that of Lens will be spared. Given you were seemingly oblivious to what it was you were guarding, I shall even make every effort to have your punishment reduced as much as possible.”
Scarlet said nothing, her mind reeling. Her eyes were wide, staring down at the paved street below while her mind sprinted at a million miles an hour through every single interaction with Primrose she had had so far, trying to find anything and everything she could use to disprove Silent’s absurd claims. He was lying to her, he had to be! Primrose was not a changeling! She was too sweet, too kind, too gentle! There was no way, no way at all she could be one of those monsters!
...Could she?
“No need to do so immediately,” Silent said while backing away into the shadows. “But do not try to run. Patrols have already been increased in the streets, the city gates have been sealed, and the patrols on the walls have been doubled. You have until sundown tomorrow to come to the castle and give yourselves up. If you keep me waiting longer than that, then… I am afraid I will be forced to assume that you have refused my offer, and I will come for you in force. Farewell, Scarlet Frost.”
With those words, Silent vanished from view, blending into the darkness of the night.