Strategy Sessions
They had laid Sky to rest in one of the small boats that hung over the sides of the barge; then lowered the boat down into the water and let the river take it and him. With good fortune he would be borne backwards on the current all the way to the ocean and then…then fate and the tides would have their way.
Given that it would have been unwise to stop and give that thing the chance to catch up to them, it was the best that they could do for him.
Once he was dead, anyway.
Sunset stood near the flattened, snub-nosed prow of the barge; the darkness was all around her, and still the grey clouds loomed overhead, blocking out both moon and stars as the rain descended upon her head, pattering upon the roof of the cabin, falling on everything.
Sunset barely felt the rain. Her mind was back at the tower, replaying over and over again in her mind everything that had happened. Everything that she’d done wrong.
My mistake was letting them come with me just because they volunteered to; I could have gotten out by myself…assuming that I didn’t get caught with that first shot.
My mistake was in not heading back to the barge when we reached the tower and found that the whole place was too quiet.
My mistake was in not sailing on when we reached the pier and there was nobody there to greet us like there should have been.
“Mind if I join you?”
Sunset looked around, a little startled by the sound. The voice was that of Taiyang, Ruby’s father; he loomed over her just a little bit in the darkness and the overcast sky, the rain dripping off his pronounced muscles.
“I…if you wish, sir,” Sunset said. She turned away, and leaned upon the side of the barge. “Though I can’t think why you’d want to.”
“You look as though you could use the company,” Taiyang said as he joined her at the prow. He, too, seemed to be ignoring the rain that descended from on high upon him. He was silent for a moment, as he clasped his hands together in front of him. “Did you know him?”
“Sky?”
Taiyang nodded. “The boy who died.”
Sunset shook her head. “No. I didn’t know him at all. We’d never even spoken.”
“But he was under your command and so losing him bothers you anyway.”
“Shouldn’t it?” Sunset replied, turning her head to look at the older huntsman. “Isn’t that how a leader is supposed to feel?”
“Yes,” Taiyang said bluntly. “You were responsible for his life, and if you didn’t feel that responsibility you’d be a terrible leader.”
“I’m not a great leader anyway,” Sunset muttered.
“You’ve lost someone,” Taiyang said. “But you’ll lose more than that if you give into despair and let the enemy take up space in your head.” He paused. “You never got around to Port’s Military Strategy class, did you?”
Sunset blinked. “Professor Port teaches Military Strategy?”
“If you’d stuck around in school until second year you would have found out there’s a reason he’s a teacher at Beacon,” Taiyang declared. “One of the first lessons that we ever learned in that class was that battles are fought on the field but won in the mind. If you start thinking of yourself as a screw-up then guess what? You’ll keep screwing up, and more people will die.”
“Whereas what?” Sunset asked. “If battles are won in the mind then can I keep them all alive by positive thinking?”
Taiyang wasn’t amused. “There are times when you can’t save everyone. And there are times when you could have saved someone you didn’t save. The trick is to recognise the difference between one and the other, and learn from the one time without letting the other time beat you down and break you.”
“Is that what you did when you were a huntsman?”
“I was never a leader,” Taiyang said. “Summer, Ruby’s mother, she was the leader. And when things didn’t go just right she would spend hours afterwards running over every decision in her mind, trying to figure out exactly where she went wrong so that she could get it right the next time.”
“Sounds diligent.”
“At times it verged on obsessive,” Taiyang said. “There comes a point when you’re not really learning anything new about what happened or what you did, you’re just beating yourself up for the sake of it; because it feels like you ought to beat yourself up.”
Sunset was silent a moment. “If you’ll forgive me, sir, it’s a little hard to imagine the great Summer Rose as having much that she needed to beat herself up for.”
Now it was Taiyang’s turn to not speak for a little while. “We all make mistakes,” he said, in a tone that made it clear that he had neither the desire nor the intention to travel any further down that road. At least not with Sunset Shimmer as his travelling companion.
Sunset didn’t press upon the point. She accepted his will in this. If he was going to talk to anyone about his late wife and these hypothetical mistakes she may or may not have made then it should be their daughter, not some stranger that he barely knew however gamely he was trying to help her right now.
“I shouldn’t have let them go with me,” Sunset said. “I felt…after talking to Lyra and Bon Bon last night I felt as though they deserved a chance, but…it’s a little funny when I think of how I was when I came to Beacon, but it seems I’ve gotten too used to working with a team. I’ve forgotten that there are times when I might work better on my own.”
“Because of your magic,” Taiyang said.
Sunset felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. “I don’t know-“
“I know that you’re of an age where you think that everybody over the age of twenty is a senile old fool, but that doesn’t actually make it so,” Taiyang said. “I’ve seen enough magic to know it when I see it.”
Sunset exhaled slowly, and very deliberately. “I…” she chose her words with care. “I would like to apologise if you thought I was treating you like an idiot,” she said. “But I would also like to ask that you not shout it around, sir.”
“I’m used to keeping secrets too,” Taiyang said, and Sunset noticed that his voice had dropped in volume. “So what happened? You’re not a Maiden, I’ve seen what they can do; did Oz give you this? It’s a step up from the gifts he gave to Qrow and Raven.”
Sunset shook her head. “No, this…this is all mine, I was born with it,” she said. “Much good it did me today.”
“Born with it,” Taiyang repeated. “I didn’t know that was possible.”
Sunset tapped her fingers upon the wood in front of her. Through her gloves she could feel the roughness of it. “There are things about me that Ruby knows,” she said. “But which, with all due respect, I don’t know you well enough to share.”
Taiyang nodded. “I can understand that. If Ruby still trusts you after knowing the truth then that’s good enough for me.”
“Thank you, sir,” Sunset said softly. “What I will say is that I was born with abilities that have a wide variety of uses, some of which you’ve already seen, some of which aren’t actually that dissimilar from the powers of Maidens.”
“The storm you created back at the house,” Taiyang said. “Yeah, that was familiar. If I hadn’t seen you shooting laser beams out of your hands at the same time I might have thought you were a Maiden.”
I was, but only for a little while. “That would have been too much power in the hands of one person,” Sunset said. “Or at least that’s what I thought until very recently.”
Taiyang nodded. “Never be afraid to admit when you were just outmatched,” he said. “Summer never liked to run, but Raven used to say that there was no shame in getting out when to stand meant to die. Even if she ran too far in the end she was right in principle.” He shook his head. “And I thought that I’d seen the worst of the monsters in the world. I take it you don’t know what they are?”
“I know that they’re not ordinary grimm,” Sunset said. “I know that they’re tougher than ordinary grimm, that they don’t die or even get hurt so easily and I know that they have magic powers, which shouldn’t even be possible. But no, I don’t know what they are, where they come from or how many of them there are.”
“You think there are more than two of them?”
“I don’t think we can arbitrarily say that there are only two of them,” Sunset said. She scratched the back of her head. “Sir…I wouldn’t ask this ordinarily, but in the circumstances…is there anything you know that could help Ruby train her silver eyes?”
“Yes!”
Sunset paused, then turned around, placing one hand upon her hip. “And how long have you been listening, Ruby Rose?”
Ruby slunk out from behind the pile of boxes. “Long enough,” she admitted. “Not as long as it took you to realise that my silver eyes aren’t something to be ignored.”
Sunset sighed as she ran one hand through her hair. “This isn’t something that I take lightly,” she said, speaking to both Ruby and Taiyang at once. “But…Ruby’s eyes are a light to burn away the darkness, and it might be our best chance, or perhaps the only one.”
“Ruby’s eyes didn’t stop the thing at our house,” Taiyang reminded them.
“No, but it did slow it down which is more than either of us could say,” Sunset replied. “And maybe with some actual training…I don’t know if it will work, but people are dying and I don’t know if we can afford to turn our back on what an asset Ruby has.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t ignored it up until now-“ Ruby began.
“Nobody likes the person who says ‘I told you so’, Ruby,” Sunset said. “It’s a very unattractive trait.”
Ruby looked down at the soggy floor of the barge. “Sorry,” she said. “I just meant…since I’m fighting anyway, since I’ve always been fighting, then I might as well use every weapon that I’ve got to fight. I never understood why none of you got that, why you all wanted me to pretend that I didn’t have this power.”
“Because we didn’t think you needed it,” Sunset said. “And because we were worried about the toll that it would take on you. I still am, that’s why I don’t like to bring the subject up.”
“I don’t like that you brought it up either,” Taiyang said, in a voice that was almost but not quite a growl. “But I can see why you did.”
“Dad, I can do this,” Ruby said. “I want to do this.”
Taiyang looked at her. “That was never the issue.”
“What if Sunset’s right?” Ruby said. “What if my eyes are the only weapon we have against these things?”
Taiyang clenched his jaw visibly. “I suppose…I suppose that the effects…the effects might lessen if you get better.”
“Then there’s something you know?” Ruby asked.
“I’m not an expert,” Taiyang said. “But I spent enough time with your mother that I might have picked up a few things.”
Ruby did not look elated, as Sunset had thought that she might have done; rather she looked quietly glad, with resolve rather than excitement flickering in her silver eyes. “So when do we start?”
“Not right now,” Sunset said. “Practice, of course, but I’d rather you did it somewhere more private than here. Some people on this barge know far too much already.”
Ruby looked around. “There isn’t a lot of room for privacy here.”
“There will be,” Sunset said. “Soon.”
“Does that mean you’ve figured out our next move?” Taiyang said.
Sunset shook her head. “No, it doesn’t, I just know that we need to make one. We can’t keep going up river indefinitely.” She tapped her fingers upon the wood. “I was hoping that you might have some idea as to our next step, sir, seeing as how you’re the most experienced huntsman amongst us by some distance.”
“Experienced, sure, but I’m not a traveller,” Taiyang said. “I can’t guide us over the mountains and across the eastern half of the continent to reach the coast any more than I could find us a boat when we got there.”
“Somehow I doubt our smuggler friend is going to guide us now,” Sunset said. “He’s sticking with us out of fear, but the moment we leave the barge he’ll be gone and headed back home. I was hoping that-“
“I understand,” Taiyang said. “And if Qrow were here I’m sure that he’d know a way, but I’m not so well travelled; my career has been shorter than his, and I spent most of it in Vale.”
“I know that huntsmen crossing the mountains often use Stallion Pass, and that we might find supplies hidden there in the old fortress,” Sunset said. “But I wouldn’t know where to go from there.”
“How do you know there’d be supplies in the pass?” Ruby asked.
“Because Professor Port told a story about it,” Sunset said. “He said that huntsmen take what they need from the cache and leave what they can for the next group to come that way. His group took medicine for an injured comrade and left food.”
“You paid attention to one of Professor Port’s stories?”
“I’m afraid that getting to Stallion Pass would be pointless if we had no idea where to go from that point,” Taiyang said. “There’s a lot of ground to cover once we clear the mountains.”
“I know,” Sunset said. “I have an idea but…I am loathe to go through with it.”
“Let’s hear it, since it seems to be the only idea,” Taiyang said.
“Jaune’s sister is – or was, I don’t know what their status is at the moment – a member of the Survey Corps,” Sunset said. “She might know how we can cross the country, and find a port of some kind on the other side. But it means backtracking to Jaune’s home village, and besides that…I’m not sure that I want to get Jaune’s family involved in this. I’d like to be able to look him in the eye when we reach Mistral.”
“We have to get to Mistral before you can look him in the eye,” Taiyang pointed out.
“We all want to get to Mistral, but that doesn’t mean that we can ask Jaune’s sister to put her life on the line for us,” Ruby said. “Just because she’s his family doesn’t mean that she chose to be a part of this.”
“I know, that’s why I don’t really want to ask her if I have a choice,” Sunset said. She frowned. “It doesn’t matter while we’re still on this barge, so we have time to think about it for a little while longer. Who knows? Maybe a better idea will present itself before we need to put our…not so good idea into action.”
The weather cleared up the next day – and about time too, in Sunset’s opinion – as they reached a point at which the river was divided in two by a large island in the centre of the channel, which beyond the island opened up on a broad bay.
Upon the island had been raised a great statue, or at least Sunset thought that it must have been great once, when it marked the border of some ancient realm or stood as the monument to some great victory; now nothing remained but two vast and trunkless legs of stone, sitting upon a grey plinth surrounded by water, while it seemed that the rest of the statue had been snapped off, with a clean shearing break travelling from just below the left knee downwards towards the right ankle. Sunset looked around, and upon the left side of the river – the side of the river on which they had disembarked so ill-fatedly before – she beheld the head that had once adorned the fallen and, for the most part, vanished statue: the face of a king, a crown of stone atop his head, his expression stern, the blank stone eyes seeming to stare at Sunset as she sailed down the river.
Nothing beside remained, and the water beat on towards the sea and the barge travelled onwards in the opposite direction; who he had been, to whom this statue had been raised, and why and when, whether he had raised it to his own glory or been honoured by his obedient sons and heirs, whether he had deserved the honour or been flattered by it beyond his deserts…of all of that Sunset was wholly ignorant. Of all of that the world was as ignorant as they were of the existence of all that was left of his monument to a glory that was vanished more permanently than the statue itself. How it had fallen Sunset likewise could not say: perhaps the grimm, driven by a hatred not only of men but of the works of men, had torn it down somehow; perhaps some strong semblance had been used to slice through the stone. Perhaps time had simply worked in an unusually precise way.
Dust to dust.
Cinder came to stand at the bow beside her. “What are you thinking?”
Sunset sighed. “I was thinking that I wanted a statue once.”
Cinder looked at her out of the side of her smouldering eyes, as though she wasn’t quite sure if Sunset was joking or not. “Me too,” she said softly.
Sunset’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”
“You have such a hard time believing?”
“You always struck me as being more focussed on the realities of power than the gaudy trappings that so enthralled me.”
“You don’t think that there’s something gaudy about the ability to create storms while hovering six feet up above the ground, one’s eyeballs burning dramatically?” Cinder asked.
Sunset snorted. “You have a point there.”
“That hadn’t occurred to you until now?” Cinder asked. “I thought that might have been a reason you gave my magic away: it had become too gaudy for you.”
“Don’t start,” Sunset said. She shook her head. “For me, it was only ever half about the power itself. I’d seen Princess Celestia wield power without recognition – not that everypony didn’t know she was in charge, she was no Professor Ozpin; rather what I mean is that although she reigned without doubt she rarely ever seemed to rule while I was her student; she preferred to nudge ponies into doing what she wanted rather than giving them their orders.” Sunset paused. “I could never have done that. I wouldn’t have had the patience. I didn’t just want to have power I wanted to be acknowledged for it, to have statues raised in my honour and songs sung of my name.”
“And you think I didn’t?” Cinder asked.
“I’m not sure,” Sunset said. “Like I said, I always thought you were more focussed on the simple fact of being powerful.”
“I want to be powerful,” Cinder murmured. “I want to be strong. I want to be feared. To be feared, Sunset; you can’t be feared unless people know full well how strong you are. I wanted a statue too; I just didn’t need it to be built by the grateful beneficiaries of my magnificence; a monument raised by fearful slaves to placate me would have done just as well.”
Sunset turned to look at her. “I would very much like to think that you’re joking; unfortunately I don’t think you entirely are.”
“We’ve both been things that we are not now, and not proud of either,” Cinder said.
“We were both fools,” Sunset said. “It will all turn to dust in the end.”
“So will our bodies,” Cinder replied. “It almost makes you wonder what the point of it all is.”
“The moment is the point,” Sunset said. “I think that’s it, anyway. The now and what we have in it.”
Cinder was silent for a moment. “I have to say,” she said. “This particular moment is leaving something to be desired.”
Sunset covered her mouth with one hand to try and stifle a chuckle. “You…you’re not alone in thinking that.” She sighed. “No, you are definitely not alone.”
“You’re not blaming yourself too badly, are you?”
“No,” Sunset said. “I’m just blaming myself.”
Cinder was silent for a moment, before she said. “Do you have a new plan?”
As the barge passed the island and entered the bay, Sunset straightened up and raised her voice. “Take us in here, on the right bank. We’ll disembark there.”
A corvid cawed in the woods that grew on either side of the river as the barge glided in towards the bank, striking the earth with a gentle thump. The entire group, minus Bullseye whom Sunset suspected would be heading back to Vale as fast as he could, disembarked, offloading all the supplies that they could save only for a little food for their pilot who had, after all, done all that he had been required to do.
Sure enough, as soon as the company was off his barge and on the wooded riverbank Bullseye reversed the engine, and Sunset watched as the barge retreated backwards away from the bank and began to turn in that wide bay, pointing its fat bow in the direction in which the water flowed, towards Vale and home.
Sunset wouldn’t have been surprised at all if there were some who would have rather gone with him than stayed where they were.
“You know, before we go any further,” Torchwick said. “I think that some of us are owed a little bit of an explanation.”
And there are some I probably should have sent back with him, Sunset thought.
Cardin folded his arms. “And what makes you think that you’re owed anything, Torchwick?”
“Well, maybe owed was the wrong word,” Torchwick said. “Maybe what I should have said was ‘if you expect me to take one more step you’re going to have pay me with some straight answers first’.”
“You never asked for answers when you were working for me,” Cinder reminded him. “You never asked me any questions at all.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure I asked the questions,” Torchwick replied. “You just never gave me any answers is all.”
“And you went right on robbing and murdering just the same,” Cinder said. “You certainly never stamped your foot like a two-year old until I unfolded my aims to you.”
“It didn’t bother me so much then because I thought I had you figured out,” Torchwick said. “I thought you were someone like me, someone who wanted to tear down the system and build something better in its place.”
“Don’t paint yourself as some kind of revolutionary,” Cinder said. “Whatever you thought my objectives were you certainly didn’t share them.”
“No, I just shared an interest in acquiring money and power, which I’m not getting here,” Torchwick said. “And now I think we all share an interest in staying alive. And frankly, after the fine mess you’ve gotten us into I’m starting to learn the importance of asking all the questions. Like what the hell was that thing back at the tower? And what are we really doing out here?”
“You know what we’re doing out here,” Cardin said.
“Oh, please,” Torchwick said. “If this was just about snatching some guy then you wouldn’t have brought little red and her pops and we wouldn’t be being followed by whatever that was back there. So why don’t you tell us what’s really going on?”
“I don’t know,” Sunset said, her voice laced with sarcasm. “I really can’t imagine why I wouldn’t share everything with someone like you. You know all that you need to know: we’re going to Mistral, and you’re going to get your freedom when we get there.”
“I think we need to know what that thing was,” Torchwick said.
“I agree,” Bon Bon said, albeit with a hint of reluctance in her voice. “Sky died because we didn’t know what we were walking into.”
“We still don’t,” Sunset said. “I’ll admit that there is something about our mission that you don’t know, but when it comes to that creature I don’t know any more than you.”
“Once you’ve admitted to keeping secrets why should we believe that isn’t one of them?” Jack said.
“I don’t know,” Sunset said candidly. “It doesn’t really matter whether you believe me or not because in case you haven’t noticed the boat just left, just like you left it a little late to have this conversation because there isn’t any way back to Vale any more unless any of you fancy a walk through the woods. So you can stay here and grumble or you can accept that you know what you know and do the job.”
Torchwick raised his hand.
Sunset growled. “What?”
“The plan was that we were going to get a ride across country to the coast,” Torchwick said. “That’s not happening, so what’s the plan now?”
Sunset’s jaw clenched.
“You don’t have a plan, do you?” Torchwick said.
“It’s a work in progress,” Sunset admitted.
“I’ve got an idea,” Sami said, a smile playing across her features as she said it. “We need to get across the mountains across the eastern territory, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Sunset said, slowly and not without suspicion. “That’s right. And find a boat to Anima at the other end.”
Sami reached up and scratched around one of her caribou antlers. “I can’t say for definite that I can find us a boat, but I think I can get us to somewhere you could find a boat with a bit of luck.”
“How?” Ruby asked.
“My people are nomads,” Sami explained. “We roam around, sometimes outside the kingdoms. I left the tribe but I still remember the routes we used.”
Sunset glanced at Cardin, then at Ruby; neither of them voiced any objections or showed it on their faces. “Go on,” she said.
“We can cross the mountains via the Pass of the Raven, then go through the Goat’s Cleft,” Sami said. “Once we’re out the other side I think I can remember an eastern trail.”
“And what about your people?” Sunset said. “Will we find them, too?”
Sami shook her head. “It’s the wrong time of year to cross the mountains; if that happens it happens in summer when the weather is at its best; they’ll only just be coming out of wintering wherever they spent that, and deciding where to go next.”
“And a boat?” Sunset said. “How do we get to Anima?”
“There are a couple of port towns we used to trade with,” Sami said. “I can find them.”
Sunset nodded. She didn’t say anything for a moment as she considered Sami’s suggestion. On the one hand it was Sami, not the most trustworthy person that Sunset knew, but on the other hand…Torchwick was right, they didn’t have another plan. Taiyang was not widely travelled enough to be their guide, Sunset really didn’t want to involve Jaune’s sister if she had another choice even if you left aside the travelling to go to Jaune’s home and even if you assumed that she would help if she was asked; eastern Sanus was so strange to the rest of them that it might as well have ‘here be monsters’ written on the map. Was there a better choice available? Not really, not that Sunset could see; the biggest risk that they would encounter Sami’s people on the way, but if that was the case then Sunset was more confident in the ability of the wider group to fend them off than she was in facing some of the other potential dangers that hemmed them in.
She glanced again at Cardin, who gave a slight nod of the head in agreement. Ruby did the same, and Cinder too; all those whom she actually trusted were – however begrudgingly – in favour of this.
“Okay,” Sunset said. “The Pass of the Raven it is.”
And so they had a new direction – Sami helped Cardin to plot the course on his map – and through the rest of that day they travelled towards the mountains and the pass that Sami knew. As the darkness fell they came to a hill upon which stood the ruins of some ancient seat, where graven statues of old men, worn and weathered by the decay of years, stood garlanded by crowns of daisies on their brow and robed by moss that grew upon the stone; where the stumps of crumbling columns reached towards the sky and fragments of wall and seemed to grow amongst the trees; where stone stones had once been raised to ease the passage up the hill but now the weeds had split and cracked said stones. The walls offered a little shelter from the wind, and there were enough remains of a second floor rising above the first that there would even be shelter from the rain if it returned, and so as the night was falling they made camp there, and lit a fire in the centre of the ruin as darkness surrounded them.
Cinder took watch, standing atop the second floor and looking out across the forest, as still at times as one of the fading statues that surrounded them, at other times stalking from one position to the other with the grace of a panther, the moonlight glinting off the glass bow that she held lightly in one hand.
As the fire died, and the rest of the company slept, Sunset sat with her back to a fallen column and took out her journal.
Twilight, are you there? I really need your help with something.
Is Ruby okay?
As good as she can be in the circumstances. Her father is going to help her unlock her silver eyes.
I thought that you didn’t like the idea of her doing that.
I don’t, but in the circumstances I can’t really oppose it any more. Someone’s dead.
I’m so sorry. Who?
Nobody whose name you’d recognise. Not a friend, nor even close. But he was under my command and that makes me responsible for what happened to him just as it makes me responsible for what happens to everyone else here.
What did happen?
Something got him, but I don’t know what it was. Not a grimm, not like any grimm I’ve come across before; even Ruby’s father, a more experienced huntsman, has never seen anything like or like the other special creature that attacked us at Ruby’s house. It wasn’t made of magic like the rest of them are, but it had magic. It could do magic, Twilight, and strong magic too. No grimm should be able to do that.
And you think that Ruby’s silver eyes will provide a defence against it?
They slowed the thing at Ruby’s house; maybe they can do more with training. I don’t know, but I can’t afford to stand in the way of Ruby moving forward any longer.
You just wish there was something you could do as well, right?
Right. My best shot only seemed to irritate it; that’s the one at Ruby’s house, I didn’t stick around to fight the thing that killed Sky; I focussed on getting the other two out of here.
That sounds like a reasonable decision in the circumstances.
But, even if unicorn and pegasus magic can’t hurt these new things – whatever or whoever they are – enough to stop them, I have an idea for something that might. But you can’t tell Celestia that I asked about this. I mean it, Twilight, this has to stay between the two of us.
The fact that you felt you had to say that is a little worrying.
Sunset took a deep breath. A silver light can burn away the darkness, but perhaps a deeper dark can swallow it up also. Can you teach me dark magic?
Dark magic? That’s your plan? If Celestia knew about this
That’s why you can’t say anything to her.
You know that I should. I can’t believe that you don’t know all the reasons why dark magic is forbidden.
I know that the thing I fought at Ruby’s house was able to overpower my magic with his own. Straight up, beam to beam, and it was stronger than I am. I would have died if it weren’t for Ruby and her silver eyes. The strength of dark magic
Comes from hate and fear, you must know that. Aren’t those the very things that attract grimm?
Are you saying that you won’t help me because you’re worried that I’ll get eaten by a beowolf mid-lesson.
I don’t want you to do this because dark magic is corruptive. The more you use it the more it will make use of you in turn.
People are dying, Twilight; you say that dark magic is powered by hate and fear but I’m scared already. What if it’s Ruby next, or Cinder?
What you’re talking about might help you to defeat your enemies, but at what cost to yourself?
If it keeps Ruby and Cinder safe it will be worth it.
Even if you lose the very feelings that make you want to protect them now? You don’t know what it does to you, Sunset; you might think you do, but you don’t. I won’t help you destroy yourself.
Even if there’s no other way?
You already have a better way in Ruby.
I don’t want to put all the pressure on her; it isn’t fair.
I’m sure she’d rather that than what you’re proposing.
I can’t be helpless and reliant on Ruby. I can’t lose a friend to these new monsters.
You’ll lose all your friends if this goes wrong.
I understand that you’re concerned
I don’t understand why you’re being so unconcerned.
Because there is nothing that any dark power could do to me that I haven’t already done to myself. I found my way out of the hole once, I’ve learned my lessons already; if I have to I’ll just climb out again.
I can’t talk you out of this, can I?
No. And if you’d seen what I was up against you wouldn’t try.
There was a moment in which no more writing appeared in the journal. I suppose you want to start right away?
The wisp of black cloud that Ruby had perceived intermittently from above, that had seemed to trail their barge as it sailed down the river, descended towards the north bank of the river, and as it headed towards the ground it resolved itself into the form to which Selene had been condemned for these many ages past: that of a winged unicorn as black as the night, tall and lithe limbed, with white bone forming a helmet upon her face and armouring her chest.
Selene glided down into the forest clearing, where Sombra and Corypheus were already waiting for them, along with Salem’s giggling little creature.
She landed, tucking her wings in along her flanks.
“Well met by moonlight, Nightmare Moon,” Corypheus said, the blue glow from the tip of his staff illuminating his face.
Selene’s snout twitched. She had been called Nightmare Moon once, it had been given to her by her fearful subjects when she, as High Priestess of the Moon, had begun to sacrifice them upon her altar in worship of the lunar orb and the glory of the night. And for that they, small minded fools that they were, had resented her and paid all worship to the garish sun. She had never liked the name. “Indeed, Storm King,” she said, ascribing to him in turn the epithet given to him by those who trembled in fear of his conquering armies and the ferocity with which he laid waste to all those who stood against him.
The Storm King simply chuckled. “You think to insult me? I like the name and always did. I am the storm, the lord of storms and tempests who will sweep all things before my wrath.”
“Not quite all things,” Sombra said. “You never had the courage to challenge me in my domain.”
“I would have,” the Storm King replied. “Had Salem given us the time to see, once and for all, who was the stronger king and lord of war.”
“If you had truly wished to see who was the stronger of you you would not have made common cause to follow Salem,” Selene declared. “Where is Tirek?”
“He will not come,” Sombra said. “You know how he disdains company, and desires to walk a lonely road.”
“Indeed,” Selene said. “Very well, I shall speak of my news to the two of you alone.”
“The two of them?” Tyrian demanded.
All three of them looked, or perhaps it more accurately might be said that they glared at him. “Indeed,” Selene said. “The two of them. Hie you from this place, O capering goblin, thou jester of Salem; get you gone, you who are worthless, counting for nothing in battle or debate, and leave we princes of the world to speak as princes do.”
“I am the servant of the goddess-“
“And we are not slaves of Salem the Deceiver that we must bend our necks to the will of any mere servant in her service,” Sombra snarled. “We are the kings of storm and shadow, moon and blood. Go, servant, and when your service is required you shall be sent for once again.”
He went. He went unwillingly, his outrage plain upon his bruised and beaten face, but he went, slinking off into the darkness where he could not pry and spy upon their conference.
“So much for him,” the Storm King said. “Now we may speak at leisure. What’s the news?”
“They have left the river,” Selene said. “And entered the woods. I cannot follow them from the air, the trees are so thick that I cannot see the prey below.”
“We will find them again,” Sombra said. “They mean to cross the mountains, let us seek them there.”
“So sure of their intentions?” the Storm King said.
“Why else would they come this way,” Sombra said. “When all the wealth of this land is in the west.”
“Then why head east at all?” Selene asked.
“Perhaps to rejoin their comrades across the sea,” Sombra suggested. “The other two whom Salem would see dead.”
“Perhaps,” the Storm King allowed. “And perhaps when they are joined together we may see what disturbs the Deceiver so that she would let us loose. At present, I do not see the root of her concern.”
“One of them has the Eyes of Heaven,” Sombra growled. “They are weak, for now, but should they grow stronger then we must needs beware her wrath upon us. And the other has magic that I thought had gone out of the world.”
“Yet neither strong enough to vanquish you, nor any one of us,” the Storm King said.
“The same could not be said of Salem’s other servants,” Sombra said. “Hence why she has need of us.”
“But should we do her bidding?” Selene asked. “Or should we look to other purposes, more pleasing to our wills and natures. Think on it, cousins: four kingdoms now remain in this Remnant of the world, and here we are four kings in all once Tirek is counted in our company. Why should we, the last princes in a world which has none, not take these kingdoms for our own and let lying Salem curse our names for all that she has power over us.”
Sombra snorted. “You think you are the first to notice that there is a kingdom for each of us? You think you are the first to have this thought? My mind is fixed on sovereignty. I will go north, to the land that the men of this age call Atlas; for I have heard that it is a kingdom of great strength, where the hard lands of the north hath bred strong men; I shall take that hard land for myself, and take those hardy men also and with their strength shall ring my throne with iron as I did of old.”
“For myself I shall go east,” Selene said. “To the city called Mistral, where it is said all beauty flowers, and there I shall enjoy all the good things of this world: wine to drink, gold and fine fabrics to adorn myself, and sweet music shall be my constant accompaniment.”
“While I to the western desert shall betake myself,” said the Storm King. “And while you, Sombra, think that it is in the north that you shall find your iron men I know that it is amongst the desert rats that I will raise a new storm of furious intensity.”
“Which leaves this present Vale for Tirek,” Sombra said.
“He will not care where he goes, as long as he sits a throne,” Selene said. “If he can overcome the creatures to whom Salem has promised it already.”
“Whether he can or not is no concern of ours,” the Storm King said.
“Are Salem’s foes any concern of ours?” Selene asked, returning to the subject at hand.
“Yes,” Sombra said. “For if the girl with the eyes masters her strength then we shall all of us be in danger; as for the rest, I understand that one of them is heir to the throne of the kingdom you would take. And all of them are champions amongst our enemies.”
“Salem’s enemies,” Selene said.
“Which will oppose us also, in these monstrous forms to which we are condemned,” Sombra said. “Therefore, though it serve the will of Salem the Deceiver, let us strike them down and dishearten all our foes.”
“And then we’ll take these kingdoms for our own,” Selene said.