Seraphim
Chapter 13
’Wait, who is…?’
The thought passed through my mind as I wheezed for air, expelling even more water from my lungs in painful convulsions, my fingers digging into the dirty ground as I sought some sort of hold, terrified that something might drag me back into the dark depths of the nearby river. No such attack was forthcoming however and I slowly calmed down, taking deep gasps of the blessed air as my body fought to return some measure of warmth to my form.
‘Asteraoth?’
It had sounded so much like him, had he somehow survived Ezekiel’s betrayal and the destruction of the Flame? I gasped lightly as a warm thick liquid came into contact with my right hand, and I quickly directed my gaze upwards to hopefully find out who my rescuer was.
There was no one there. No sign of whoever had rescued me.
One thing I did notice however was the great body of the dragon, broken and battered on a large collection of jagged rocks in front of me, stalagmites piercing its body in many places as dark red blood seeped out from its numerous wounds, flowing all the way down to form a puddle in front of me. With a disgusted grimace I removed my hand from the blood, clumsily getting to my feet and backing up a bit until I remembered the underground river behind me, coming to a stop and whirling around.
It was still there; looking entirely undisturbed with the same ethereal blue light shining from its depths, said light being the only source of illumination in my vicinity. I brought a hand to my chest, clutching the wet robe as I peered into myself, searching for something I knew was already gone. It didn’t take long for me to confirm it, the fifteen pony souls were gone, somehow returned to Equestria through the leyline. But something else was there in their place, it almost felt like another soul, but I knew that it wasn’t one of those I had carried earlier. It was odd, like it was apart from me, yet still a part of me, almost like…
The connection, the anomaly I had noticed in the souls of the native ponies, the thing that connected all ponies to Equestria and its natural magic. It was like that, yet different. I had no way of knowing, even explaining what it truly was. Could it have been a product of me carrying around those pony souls for so long? Or getting into such close vicinity to one of the world’s leylines? Perhaps a combination of the two?
Whatever the case, it made me feel strangely comfortable, as if Equestria had finally accepted me and made me a part of itself. Just by being near the leyline I felt empowered, it was fueling my soul and essence, and after a while I noticed that the new part of me seemed to be the channel making it possible, confirming my suspicion that it was indeed what I had believed it to be.
I started looking around my surroundings, trying in vain to find my rescuer, or even some clue to who it could have been. Still no such luck, the only movement in my vicinity was the occasional twitches from the dragon’s corpse. With a sigh I looked upwards again, just barely glimpsing the green glow of the many crystals of the dragon’s former lair, it seemed like my only way out of the proverbial hole I had dug myself into.
That’s when I noticed something else, my wings were still manifested, and even though I knew that I should have felt horrible pain coming from them, on behalf of one of my wings being broken and mangled, I felt nothing but their familiar weight. It wasn’t even the uncomfortable weight of lead that they had been like ever since I came to Equestria, no, they actually felt entirely fine. With barely concealed glee I gave them a few testing flaps, only to happily discover that they seemed quite capable of flight.
Not one to question miracles I gave my silent thanks to Celestia and Luna, as well as Equestria itself for granting me the natural magic making its inhabitants capable of flight, then I quickly turned my attention back to the great open space above me. Crystal Heart was still up there, and I very much doubted that all of the dragon’s minions had been in the lair with us, meaning all those ponies were at the mercy of leaderless draconic monsters.
With great haste I took to the air, finding joy in finally having the use of my wings returned to me, the feeling of freedom more refreshing than anything else I had previously experienced. As I soared upwards with heavy flaps of my wings, I suddenly noticed something upsetting. The further I came from the leyline, the heavier my wings seemed to get, and when I was no more than a stone’s throw distance from the lair I could feel exhaustion setting in, my wings taking on their annoyingly familiar leaden weight.
Cursing silently I managed to get a grip on the edge, pulling myself up and into the lair I had descended from. Piles of gems and crystals were still littering the floor here and there, but the only thing on my mind at that moment was confusion over the loss of my only recently regained flight. Could it be that I needed to be in close vicinity to a leyline before I could make use of my wings? That didn’t make any sense to me; the connection inside my being should have provided me with the necessary link to Equestria’s natural magic, allowing me to fly just as a pegasi would. So why wasn’t it working anymore?
The link was still there; the strange thing nestled close to my soul was still drawing in natural magic and feeding it to my spirit and body. Sensing no danger nearby I decided to take a moment to really look into my being, sitting down on the floor and falling into a meditative focus. Cutting off my external senses I fully entered my inner self, clearly seeing the two entities inside me.
The two were almost entirely the same size, my own soul, a flame of slightly smaller size and colored a light blue with streaks of gold, was gaining in strength as natural magic was being fed into it from the other presence, an orb of pleasant green intermingled with light brown. They were obviously in harmony, the green orb slowly flowing around my soul in a careful dance, it almost seemed like it was intelligent, fanning and feeding the flame while drawing sustenance from its glow in turn. It was a symbiosis of sorts.
With a sigh of annoyance I returned my senses to normal, glancing around the cavernous room before getting back on my feet, dismissing my wings and making my way down the tunnel I believed to have been dragged through earlier. The system of tunnels I entered were very much like the ones we have gone through earlier, meaning that they were entirely impossible to actually find your way in if you didn’t know your way around already. For some strange reason however, I didn’t feel lost at all, in fact it was as if I knew exactly which way to go. It felt a lot like when the earth pony souls had been pulling at me, but this time it was almost as if it was a sense originating from myself.
And so it was that I wasted no more than a handful of minutes in getting to my destination, having summoned my sword on the way just to be safe, and stepped inside the prison area. The place looked like itself, though the dead and wounded kobolds had been moved, and most of the blood had been cleaned up. I hadn’t actually encountered any kobolds on the way, guessing that they had decided to cut their losses and move on. I couldn’t really blame them, especially since they hadn’t even considered bringing along the slaves by the looks of it.
I quickly started looking around the room, taking in the cages and the numerous ponies still locked inside, only a few of them even glanced up when I had entered the room, quite possibly having lost all hope of a potential rescue already. I was glad to prove them wrong.
“Lysander!”
A familiar voice called out to me, and I couldn’t help but smile as I turned towards it, spotting Crystal inside a nearby cell, mostly unharmed and beaming back at me with obvious joy, words would fail to explain how relieved I felt at that moment.
“Hold on for a moment, Crystal. I’m going to get you out of there.” I spoke out, loud enough for the rest of the prisoners to hear me, and as they did I noticed a few of them getting to their hooves, looking hopefully in my direction. In one of the cages a young mare nudged a smaller colt awake, whispering something to him which made him turn his attention towards me. He looked fearful for a moment, but I simply gave him a smile as I walked to the centre pillar where the keys hang, securely attached out of sight from the cages so unicorns wouldn’t be able to get at them.
Grabbing the bundle of keys I made my way towards Crystal’s cage first, bending down on a knee as I started going through the various keys in my possessions, she for one simply waited patiently, the large grin never leaving her muzzle. I knew exactly what awaited me once I managed to unlock the door, and I braced myself as I inserted the right key.
A few seconds later I found myself tackled to the ground by a very happy filly, nuzzling my chest fondly. I brought my arms up in a hug, petting her back affectionately.
“Sorry it took so long, Crystal. Are you alright? Did they hurt you?” Despite my happiness I couldn’t help but put worry into my voice.
She went quiet in my embrace for a while, eventually looking up at me with sadness and guilt in her eyes, oh how I loathed seeing her like that, I could practically feel my heart breaking every time.
“I did it again… I was stupid and reckless, and I just-...” I silenced her at this point, bringing a hand down to close her mouth and cut off the string of guilty words I knew would come. Then I put on the strictest look I could manage in the situation.
“I’m not going to keep telling you this; I won’t get angry with you for doing something out of worry for me. You just did what you thought was best at the time, and even if it did turn out badly in the end; don’t ever question your intentions, understood?”
She gave me a weak nod at this, and I gave her one last squeeze before letting go of her, setting her back on the ground and standing up, gazing around to find that several more ponies had come out of their states of hopelessness, despite still being obviously wary of my presence.
“Now, let’s get those ponies freed and we can talk more once we get back on the road.”
After receiving a smile and nod of agreement from Crystal I set to work, simply unlocking the various cages that held prisoners and letting them come out of their own accords, knowing that they would still carry a lot of uncertainties and fears. Eventually however they had all made their way out of their cells, the braver and more hopeful of the bunch coaxing the others into action. The first of the ponies to approach me, who was incidentally also one of the first to help the others out of their cages, was a reddish brown earth pony stallion with a greying mane and a wooden cart for a cutie mark, he was obviously old but still managed to carry himself with dignity and purpose, despite how miserable and underfed he must have been.
“Excuse me good, uhm, sir. Am I correct to assume that you are in fact here to aid us?” Despite his collected demeanour he still sounded nervous, not surprising considering their previous experiences with bipedal creatures.
I gave him my most reassuring smile. “That was my intention, yes. I would ask that you look past my strange appearance, you have nothing to fear from me.”
“I see, well, let me be the first to thank you for our rescue, I was afraid we’d have to spend the rest of our days in this dreadful place.” He reached out a hoof which I shook in greeting. “My name is Dusty Roads; I’m the husband of Cobalt Crag’s mayor and owner of the town’s general store.”
“Very nice to meet you Mr. Roads, I am Lysander, and this,” I motioned towards Crystal. “is my travelling companion, Crystal Heart.”
“It’s truly a pleasure to meet you both, and please, call me Dusty.” He then turned his head towards the huddled group of nearby ponies. “Well come now everypony, there’s no need to be frightened, this is the hero who liberated us from our captivity after all.”
The other ponies only took a few seconds to between themselves before they instantly shifted in demeanour, coming over to say their own words of gratitude, most of the younger colts and fillies even going as far as hugging my legs in thanks. I suspected that Dusty Roads carried a lot of say in Cobalt Crag, but it was still impressive how easily he had eased their fears. Even Crystal was on the receiving end of some of the attention, mostly from the mares and the youths, much to her obvious embarrassment and chagrin. I for one simply smiled through the whole affair, to see them all in such joy warmed my heart greatly.
After a few minutes of exchanged greetings, as well as numerous invitations to dinner and other such pleasantries, Dusty finally managed to calm the gathering of ponies down enough to address them all.
“Please everypony, there will be more than enough chances for you to talk with our saviors, for now we should make our way out of this place and return to our home.”
A murmur of agreement went through the group, happy smiles and ecstatic whispers replacing previously forlorn expressions. Dusty Roads gave a nod in appreciation, and then turned his attention back to me.
“I’m guessing you’ve managed to deal with the nearby kobolds, but we’ll still need to be careful and move quickly before the dragon can marshal his forces, if he learns of our escape and decides to take to the sky, there simply won’t be anything we can do.”
Nervous voices sounded from the gathering, and Dusty himself looked fearful at the prospect. I quickly managed to speak up before my own voice was drowned out.
“That won’t be a problem; you no longer have anything to fear from the dragon, it is dead, its body buried deep underground.”
My statement instantly silenced the ponies, every one of them looking at me with wide eyes and disbelieving stares, all save for the youngest who instead looked at me with almost idolizing excitement. Even Dusty seemed lost for words, and before he could manage to speak up, a cheer went through the gathering, colts and fillies practically swarming me to ask about ‘how I had slain the dragon’. Crystal decided to simply giggle as I was almost forced to me knees by the sheer number of small ponies clinging to any limb within reach.
It took Dusty Roads much longer to finally calm down the ponies the second time, and as the dust settled I was left sitting on the ground with half a dozen fillies and colts scattered around my person. They all looked terribly disappointed as Dusty and a few of the others managed to pull them away from me. I simply gave them an apologetic smile, promising to tell them about it once we were in Cobalt Crag. That didn’t stop them from turning their numerous excited questions towards Crystal instead, who actually seemed to enjoy that particular attention.
Dusty then coughed lightly before turning his attention towards me again. “Terribly sorry about that, Lysander. You know how excitable the young can be.”
“No worries, I’m not offended. The story might not be all that interesting, but I’m glad to see that my actions at the very least brought you all some ease of mind.”
Dusty looked thoughtful for a moment before continuing. “You say that the dragon is dead, and you have given us no reason not to trust your words. What about its lair then, does that still remain intact?”
“It does, though a large piece of its floor has collapsed into a deep chasm. Why do you ask?”
The earth pony gave me a sly grin before turning to the collected ponies. “Alright everypony, listen up. We may have slaved down here for Celestia knows how long, but at the very least we’re going to bring along the fruits of our labor. Let nopony say that the ponies of Cobalt Crag aren’t ones to get the most out of any situation.”
‘Ah, that’s what he had in mind. These ponies are quite the opportunists it would seem.’
It didn’t take long for them to gather up some saddlebags and a few carts, and shortly after we had set out towards the former dragon lair. The ponies seemed to know their way around well enough, probably because they had been forced to trot those tunnels for a long time. Less than ten minutes later we had made it to the lair, and eventually the saddlebags and carts were filled to the brim with gems of various kinds. I was once more amazed at how strong these ponies were, I was certain that I’d buckle under the weight of one of those bags. Just another advantage of being quadrupeds it would seem.
A few of the other ponies assured us that they knew a way out of the mines further above on the mountain, and a few hours later we all stepped out into the blessed light of Celestia’s sun.