Lens’ eyes darted around the dimly lit hallway anxiously, his heart hammering a steady, borderline-frantic rhythm in his heart. As sound as Scarlet’s reasoning had been for them to split up, he still didn’t like it. Wandering these halls all on his own, especially with no clue where to go or how to get there, set him on edge in many ways. His repeated efforts to calm down through deep breaths and swallowing that irritatingly stubborn lump in his throat had, thus far, proven ineffective.
Every so often, he had to duck out of sight when a patrol passed by not far ahead. Luckily for him, they were not too keen on moving quietly, allowing him to hear their armored hoof falls long before they came into sight. More than once, ponies dressed in the armor of the Lunar Guard sauntered by him, seemingly lost in their own little world.
“They aren’t taking their job all that seriously,” he deduced after a time, finding some small measure of comfort in that fact. It wasn’t a surprise, to be frank. The war with Talonreach, as bloody and brutal as it had been, had never spilled more than a few miles beyond the New Equestrian border. All of the fighting had been at the border itself or well into griffon territory. Considering the late hour and formidable exterior defenses, the odds were high that these late-night sentries hadn’t actually done anything beyond meandering the halls for a good long time.
Were Lens not currently trying to avoid being caught by them, he imagined Scarlet herself would have half a mind to scold the hell out of whoever the captain of the Lunar Guard was. This was the capital of the country, for Five’s sake!
Eventually, Lens’ path led him out of the achingly familiar pseudo-labyrinth of corridors. The architecture became darker and less colorful, and it soon became readily apparent that the sparse candles that had been scattered at corners and along the walls to light the way were no longer in sight. When he did spot a candle, his eyes widened with the realization that the glow they let off was a chilling icy blue.
The Lunar Wing. If he remembered correctly, then this was where the Lunar Guard and the Nightblades resided. Which — he realized, much to his unease — meant he was growing close to one of the two places where Protea was likely being held.
The least desirable option of the two, he noted internally. Nightblades were experts in their field. There could be one following him right now, for all he knew, and he would never be able to tell until their weapon of choice found a nice, comfy home nestled between his shoulder blades.
He glanced back over said shoulders with a paranoid grimace but saw nopony else. He shuddered and turned to keep moving, pace increasing subconsciously. A deep-seated primal instinct was taking hold, screaming at him to run and hide, that he was being stalked by a predator he had no means of fending off.
Whether or not his gut was speaking the truth was irrelevant, though. He still had a job to do, and Scarlet would never let him live it down if he backed down now. “Especially since I was the one who convinced her to come here with such conviction!”
Eventually, he passed through an archway into a long corridor that was far better lit than the ones that came before. This was due entirely to the long line of windows that ran along the left wall, each one fogged over and covered in a thin layer of dust. Pale moonlight streamed in through those windows, allowing him to clearly make out the motes of dust kicked up by his hooves.
Lens frowned. “What the? Is this place abandoned or something?” he thought curiously, his eyes scanning every nook and cranny of the corridor with great interest. It certainly seemed as if this place had seen no use in a long time. Once he took a moment to look more closely, he saw the dust-covered everything, including long-dead potted plants on cracked marble pedestals along the right wall. There was even a large painting of a serene, moonlit mountainside that had long grown faded and washed out from decades of exposure to periodic sunlight.
Humming quietly to himself, Lens marched up to the nearest window and gently wiped his hoof along its surface so he could see through. He saw a courtyard on the other side of the glass, seemingly just as abandoned as the hallway. A collection of overgrown or dead trees were scattered about the edges while coiling weeds and vines ran up and down the featureless, aged walls. An eroded stone structure squatted at the far end of the courtyard, looking like little more than a hovel for whatever gardener had once tended this place.
“Odd…” Lens whispered to himself. He soon spotted an old wooden door set into the wall in place of one of the windows and decided to indulge his curiosity and check it out. Being careful to keep quiet, he pushed the door open, wincing when it gave off a shrill creak from the movement. This thing obviously hadn’t been used in years.
The chilly air was simultaneously refreshing and off-putting as he emerged into the yard. The mixed scents of mold and life swam up his nose in a conflicting manner, making him snort and shake his head reflexively. The cobblestone beneath his hooves was just as decrepit as the rest of this courtyard, with moss and other unpleasant growths smothering what may have once been masonry.
“Just like an ancient ruin… in all the worst ways,” Lens thought to himself, slowly striding across the courtyard and taking in his surroundings.
Suddenly, a sound caught his ear. A short, quiet yelp from a masculine voice. Lens dropped low to the ground, his ears perking up and listening carefully. The sound had come from the building…
A few seconds later, he heard hushed voices talking to one another within, both of them male. Lens’ heart skipped a beat at the realization that he was not alone here. Struggling to calm down his breathing, he quickly slinked off the path and out of sight, being as quiet as possible. Once he was sure he was out of sight, he steadily began to advance on the building, listening and trying to pick out the words.
“The little brat bit me!” were the first words he made out, coming in a low, angered hiss.
A smooth, silvery voice answered in a placating tone. “She did, and so you must maintain the moral high ground and not lash out.”
Lens frowned, a small amount of hope lighting up in his chest. “Are they talking about Protea?”
“Bah. With all due respect, sir, we’re wasting our time. This child clearly isn’t going to tell us anything we don’t already know. I say we cut to the chase and throw her in the dungeons.” The first voice went on, coming through clear enough for Lens to pick out the speaker as none other than Silent Edge.
Lens froze, the blood draining from his face. Silent was here?! “I thought he’d be out in the streets looking for us!” he thought, struggling to calm down his almost panicked breaths. “I guess capturing Protea made him reconsider…”
Moving as quietly as possible, Lens inched closer and closer to the house until he was crouched down by one of the long-shattered windows along its side.
The conversation continued. “Have some patience. She knows and, with reason, despises you. Let me talk to her for a minute. Perhaps I can succeed where you are having difficulties.”
“...Yes, sir, but I still think you’re wasting your time. She is just a child, after all. What could she know that the other didn’t?” Silent asked.
Lens’ brow furrowed in thought. “Other?”
“Hard to tell. But we won’t know for sure by rushing through a sloppy interrogation,” the smooth voice responded. There was a moment of silence before he spoke again. “Silent, why don’t you go back to the barracks? You could use some sleep at home.”
Silent was true to his name for a moment before the door to the house opened. Lens shrank back, his ears folding down. Lucky for him, Silent didn’t have a line of sight with the hiding unicorn. “Yes, sir. Good luck with the brat,” he said.
Lens listened as the sound of flapping wings echoed in the courtyard before all fell silent. He could still hear the other pony, whoever they were, moving around inside the hut. Once he was sure Silent was completely gone, he slowly began to inch for the door. Getting past the other Nightblade would be tricky, seeing as Silent seemingly answered to them, but the way they had spoken made it clear that Protea was held inside.
He just had to risk it…
The moment he came around the corner, however, he froze. Standing before him was a bat pony as dark as the night itself, his slit pupils narrowed with smug satisfaction. An unsettling crescent grin adorned his muzzle. “Greetings. I believe you are Sharp Lens, are you not?” he asked slowly, his silky voice sending a chill down Lens’ spine. “I am Nocturn. A pleasure.”
Lens quickly rose to his full height and took several steps back, lighting up his horn. “Wha- how did you-”
“Please, don’t even try,” the thestral purred as he advanced, his ears flattening aggressively. “Honestly, boy, were you truly so foolish as to think you could sneak up on me? The Spymaster?”
Lens swallowed heavily. “In my d-defense, I didn’t know that’s who you were,” he stammered, his eyes darting briefly to one side to look for an escape.
He didn’t even hear Nocturn move.
When Lens darted his eyes back forward, it was to the sight of Nocturn mere inches away from him, a razor-sharp blade extending out of the gauntlet on his hoof and pressed against the unicorn’s throat. Lens leaned back, his entire body going rigid with fear. Nocturn’s grin returned. “Ah, I see. Then I cannot rightly call you a fool for that, now can I?” he mused quietly.
After a moment, his expression darkened considerably, his smirk turning into a displeased scowl. “I can, however, call you one for having the lack of common sense required to make such an amateurish rescue attempt. Now, then… are you going to come quietly?”
Lens was quiet for several seconds, his eyes darting around frantically for an escape. His adversary waited patiently on his answer, clearly knowing that there was no escape. And, begrudgingly, Lens had to admit that he was in no position to put up a fight.
That was until he saw something slithering out of the window behind the Spymaster. His eyes briefly widened at the sight of a long, dark-scaled snake, its teal eyes boring into his for a second before the creature disappeared into the underbrush.
“Well?” Nocturn pressed the blade a little closer. “Come now, Lens. You know that you cannot do the changeling any good if you are dead. Surrender now, and I’ll let you speak with her.”
“She has a name, you know,” Lens countered irritably, focusing back onto the Spymaster’s eyes. “It’s Protea.”
“Or Primrose. It is one or the other, but that is not the point, is it?” Nocturn countered, his eyes narrowing. “Last chance, Lens. Give it up.”
It was at that moment that, much to the alarm of both of them, the snake that Lens had spied a moment earlier shot up from the grass below and clamped its sharp fangs down into the Spymaster’s foreleg, yanking it away from Len’s throat and giving him some sorely missed room to move.
“What the?!” Nocturn cried out in surprise before his head snapped down, fangs bared. Lens watched helplessly as the bat bit down on the snake and tore it away from his leg, his sharp fangs easily piercing the scales of the reptile.
The snake’s eyes went wide with agony before it suddenly exploded with green flames. Lens lifted a hoof to shield his eyes and watched as Protea fell to the grassy ground, now with two large puncture marks in the shell on her back. Streaks of crimson ran down her side from the open wounds, and her agonized voice let out pitiful wails as she tried to crawl away.
“Son of a…” Nocturn snarled before glaring up at Lens.
“Now would be a very good time to do something!” a voice in the back of Lens’ mind screamed at him, driving him into action. With an angered shout, his horn flared up with magic and unleashed a beam of energy at the Spymaster.
Nocturn was fast, ducking swiftly to one side before launching into a swift lunge, more blades snapping free from his other hooves. Lens barely had time to erect a dome-shaped barrier over himself to catch the first punch, and the blade still punctured through, sending shards of dissolving energy flying past his face.
“Leave him alone!” Protea’s voice called out as she shot back up to her hooves. She turned to Nocturn and pounced, digging her teeth into his hind leg this time. A sickening crunch filled the air, making Lens cringe involuntarily.
Nocturn shouted in pain, lifting into the air with a flap of his wings and bringing his other hoof around at Protea, his blade angled for her side. Lens’ mind twinged with pain as he redirected his own barrier to form a dense one right over the spot Nocturn’s blade was aimed for. A shrill, distorted scrape pierced the air as the blade bounced off the barrier, giving Protea the chance she needed to release her hold on the thestral’s leg and drop back to the ground.
She turned to Lens with wide, frightened eyes. “Lens!”
“Talk later,” he shouted, forming another barrier to ward off the follow-up from Nocturn. “Right now, we need to move!”
“Where’s Scarlet?!”
“Not now!”
Nocturn growled in frustration before slicing horizontally with one of his blades. His angle was precise, almost surgically carving a straight line through the barrier and making the whole dome shatter. Lens staggered back, a lance of pain racing down his horn and into his skull.
Protea ducked back, screaming as Nocturn pressed the attack. The bat lunged forward and tackled Lens to the ground, the blades on his hooves leaving painful slash marks along the unicorn’s shoulders. Lens cried out, kicking and struggling against his opponent, but was left with no viable means of countering. His eyes locked on to the incoming blade, the way the moonlight glinted off the point almost blindingly.
At the last second, a teal blur shot through the air and into the side of Nocturn’s head. A loud crack was heard, and the Spymaster fell hard to one side with a grunt of pain. Three more cracks followed in rapid succession, followed by blessed silence.
Hesitantly, Lens lifted his head and looked over. Nocturn was out cold, a large, bloody lump having formed on the side of his head right above his right eyebrow. Protea stood over him, a blood-covered stone held in her quivering hoof. She was breathing heavily, her eyes wide and unfocused. Lens cringed when he saw yet more blood running down her chin from when she had bitten Nocturn but was quick to put it aside.
“Prim,” he called over to her as he sat up on his haunches.
Protea turned to face him. “L-Lens…” she whispered. For a moment, the two were motionless. Then, with a barely contained sob, the changeling threw the rock to one side and threw herself against Lens’ chest, right into his waiting hooves.
“Hey, hey,” he whispered to her as she began to openly cry into his chest. He ran his hoof down the back of her head and made soothing sounds, painfully aware of the fact that they were still in hostile territory. “Prim, hey. Sssh. It’s alright, it’s okay. I got you, but you gotta be quiet. Ssshhh.”
A few seconds passed before Protea managed to pull herself together, she leaned back to look up into his eyes, tears running down her cheeks. “Y-you came f-for me…” she choked out.
“Of course I did,” Lens replied with a small smile and a nod. “How could I not?”
Protea sniffled and looked away, her ears drooping. “But… S-Scarlet…”
“She’s here, too,” Lens said weakly, his smile faltering. “She helped me get in here. She’s looking for you in another part of the castle right now.”
“H-huh?” Protea asked in confusion. “B-but… sh-she said she didn’t want to s-see me ever ag-again…”
“She was angry, upset, and being a big idiot,” Lens replied, the corner of his mouth quirking up for a moment. “But I talked some sense into her…”
Protea sniffled and wiped a hoof over her eyes. “Is she… is she sorry?”
“...She’s here,” Lens answered after a moment of hesitation.
Protea was quiet after that, giving a slow, solemn nod. Before she could say anything, though, she let out a pained hiss, her entire body tensing up.
It was then that Lens’ eyes were drawn back to the bite marks on the nymph’s shell. “Oh, shi… we need to get you patched up before anything else,” he said, his hooves hovering uselessly over the injuries. “You can’t move anywhere like this.”
Protea coughed a few times before forcing the words out between clenched teeth. “I-i-inside. B-bandages inside. And my lamp.”
Lens nodded. Being careful not to touch the open wounds, he lifted Protea onto his back with magic and stood up. Delivering one more kick to the Spymaster’s head to make sure he stayed out, Lens cantered into the stone hovel. It was almost pitch-black inside, but he was able to chase away the darkness with a simple light spell.
The front half of the hovel was just like the rest of the area. Old, decrepit, and appearing abandoned. Despite the presence of two ponies and a changeling inside, the most recent sign of any disturbance to the thick layer of dust was the prints made by his own hooves, and the thin trail Protea had made as a snake on the way out. A long counter sat against the back wall, where a collection of small kegs rested, along with old wooden mugs. Two wooden doors were set into the back wall on opposite ends of the room. One of the doors stood open, a faint orange light shining within.
“So… you turned into a snake to escape?” Lens asked as he made for the open door, trying to keep Protea distracted from her wounds.
He felt her nod against him. “M-mhmm… most ponies don’t seem to know how many things a changeling can turn into…”
“To be fair, we’ve only been able to deal with Ferals for the last four centuries, and they don’t tend to change at all,” Lens pointed out, emerging into the room. A square table sat in the center with a single candle lit on its surface. Three wooden chairs were situated around it, and Protea’s saddlebags were placed neatly in the corner.
Protea whimpered quietly but nodded again. “Y-yeah… It’s helped me get away from Silent a lot in the past…”
Lens nodded quietly before gingerly setting Protea down on the table. “Alright, any idea where the bandages are?”
The nymph pointed through the door. “I think there are some on the counter.”
Lens patted her on the head before stepping back out. Sure enough, just like Protea had said, he found a roll of unused bandages in one of the drawers in the counter. Smiling with relief, he went back into the interrogation room to find that Protea had pulled her saddlebags up to her with her magic, and was now tightly clutching her lamp to her chest.
Lens was quiet as he applied the bandages, letting Protea be with her thoughts for the time. His own mind was scrambling as it was. He had Protea, but that meant Scarlet was somewhere else in the castle without any idea that their objective was complete. Not to mention the fact that the Spymaster himself knew that Lens had been here. As soon as that thestral woke up, he would raise the alarm.
“Okay, does that feel any better?” he asked once the bandages were applied.
Protea shifted a few times before nodding. She put away her lamp and got her saddlebags strapped on, albeit with a visible grimace.
Lens smiled and lightly set her on his back again. “Okay, come on, then. We need to get out of here before the Spymaster-”
“Before the spymaster what?” a new voice interrupted him, making his blood turn to ice. Lens froze by the door, his hoof raised to push it open.
Protea whimpered. “Oh, no…”
Lens peered through the crack in the doorway. Sure enough, Silent Edge stood in the entrance to the hovel, his eyes glued onto the interrogation room and a cocky smirk on his face. “Gotta hoof it to ya, Lens. I’m impressed you were able to take him down…” he said, slowly stalking forwards. “But the old bat’s long past his prime… not to mention he was never trained to be much good in a head-on fight.”
Lens swallowed hard, and the ice in his veins somehow became even colder when he realized that there were even more Nightblades outside, two of them following Silent inside to flank him.
“How?!” Protea asked in a defiant voice, lifting her head. “How did you know what was going on?!”
“I didn’t,” Silent dismissed with a roll of his hoof. “But Nocturn never says sleep at home unless he wants us to go get backup… I was simply following orders. Now…” he spread out his wings, allowing his blades to snap out with a sickening scraping sound.
“Are you two going to give up quietly, or is this going to get bloody?”