Chapter 3. The Night Shift
“Even a tamed and dying warrior remains a beast within… You will never walk through our gates. Hear my city roar!”
Andraste de Rouge-Coeur, Empress of the Griffin Marches, Last Statement.
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“Cup of tea?” a gentle mare asked me.
Shivering beneath a humid blanket, I nodded at her. A warm beverage was more than needed I thought. After readjusting my soaked green bandana, constantly trying to slip over my eyes, I sighed heavily. I was tired and the night was not over yet.
A knot in my chest made my whimpers hard to swallow. I clenched the wet fabric on my shoulders. I was trembling. Pain was crawling through my shaky and itchy hooves. My head was a mess of dishevelled, nasty locks. Don’t let me start rambling about my headache. My hair roots still stung from where the creature had gnawed at my mane. When I escaped the church fire had also been eating my tail. It was now nothing but an ugly and painful snake of cooked flesh. All the hair and fur we gone. I wanted to lie and not move ever again. I felt cold inside, like a void dragging me down. I wasn’t really wounded, but damn it hurt so much. I had come close to meeting Death. My heart was still pounding. Yet, I couldn’t complain. I was definitely not entitled to that privilege.
A scream burst behind the large metal door that stood across the hall. Yes, some people always had it worse. Always. Crow –it was him, of course– howled loud and clear, pushing the weaks of heart outside through a wooden gate adjoining the improvised infirmary’s entrance. After a few minutes, only six remained: Ejit munching with blank eyes on his butter-coloured mane, me with my growling belly, three mares wearing black capes and a fat yellow griffon, treading in circle. That was all that remained from at least forty ponies and other people that had been there when we had brought Crow. The sight of the heavy wounded griffon had been sufficient to drive some away. Looking at somebody who’d just been immolated was hard to sustain. When the screams had begun, at least two dozens people had fled towards the paved yard outside. Some were more inclined to brave the rain than to hear their comrade’s cries.
“Keep him quiet! And still!” a tired male voice yelled, muffled by the thick metal door.
Four hooded stallions from Crow’s group had reached us as we had been escaping from the church. We had rushed through the alleyways, carrying the black and grey griffon after we had stopped the flames. Our fare had ended there.
The building was a sickly ancient batisse of concrete and wood. Three storeys high with many small windows. Somehow it looked like an inn. There had been no light in the windows though. The building displayed a large yard and, as far as I had seen, was heavily guarded. The agitation there started when we had rushed through the yard’s door.
As we entered, I had caught a glimpse of a storage room behind that wooden door. An old murky green stallion had swept away all the weapons carelessly left on an old ebony table. He was in need of more space.
“We’ve got no aether!” A mare called me back from my reverie.
Then a shout followed, not Crow’s scream this time, though. A sudden slam on a table echoed and an awkward silence settled.
“There, asleep. Now let’s get to the practice. Gimme some fuckin’ scissors and pliers.”
I felt nauseous when I heard the first snip through a thick fabric, then through some hide. The second snip met something squishier. I tasted bile.
“Here is your tea,” the same caring mare told me, diverting my attention from the metal door. She laid a hoof above my shoulder with a warming smile.
I took the mug in my hooves and blew the steam off of the brew. I hunched over my hurt back, sore from stiff muscles, and took a sip. I had butterflies rushing beneath my skin, the numbness making it hard for me to even hold the cup. I nearly dropped it twice. My nose was leaking. My head was hot and it seemed that the world was reeling.
“Hey, faggots! Get yo sore assholes inside, wet pussy shreds!” a loud voice broke the unsettling silence.
My ears flinched and I saw the huge griffon, his warm yellow feathers enveloping his withers and shoulders like an oversized coat. A head through the opened door, he was taunting at the cowards who had just fled. He was fat. A large bag of flesh was dangling under his chin. Some white and brown fur blanketed his face, gifting him with a large but filthy beard. Bawling at those that had taken refuge outside, his profusion of profanities drew a few smiles on the faces of mares who had stayed behind.
The rain hadn’t stopped outside. So, after a while, a long line of soaked ponies, griffons… and even a minotaur entered the hall. In a fumble of screeching chairs and benches, all hurried to sit around large tables. It was a kind of military mess. A kitchen was adjoining the hall at the opposite side of the infirmary. Its door was etched with the same symbol I had seen on Crow’s necklace: a magnifying glass over a curved sword the whole encased in a griffon’s claw. The small crowd finally made its way inside and I found myself next to the big yellow griffon. He was smirking at those who had defied the bad weather.
“Look at those quivery stains,” he drawled at them, smashing his right fist on his chest. “Can’t even stand the Fall. Get some strength and armour.”
A stallion nearby stopped and snarled, “Sorry, I ain’t considerin’ ten layers o’ fat an armour, Doom Ball. And speaking o’ weapon…”
“Well,” The griffon cut him off, his smirk growing wider. “Care reminding me who always wins at thumb wrestling.”
The stallion looked at his hooves, pondered and paused.
“girls like great dexterity,” he added.
The stallion sighed, shaking his head. I chuckled a little and so did the two teasing comrades.
“Fuck you, Doom,” the stallion replied with a smirk.
“That’s more like it.”
As the mess slowly calmed down, griffins and ponies shuffled cards they had kept inside drawers. A longing silence settled and, feeling awkwardly, I turned towards the griffon…
“D- Doom, is that your name?”
He turned his head in my direction so fast I gasped. Maybe it was due to the bag of flesh under his chin… it nearly flogged his left shoulder. He walked up to me, his talonsteps wrestling creaking whines out of the parquet.
“Yes, my dear,” he asked with a sugarcoated voice that made my guts wrench. Or was it the smell? Oh, Celestia almighty, he was drawing an effluve of sweat in his trail, a kind of pepper and salty scent. I gagged just a little and looked at his blue pupils. His lips were half-torn with a smile.
“What is that place?” I mumbled.
He frowned, rolled his eyes to the ceiling and cackled loudly.
“It’s the Night Shift’s HQ.” I didn’t follow up with his laugh and soon Doom caught my wondering look. “You’re new here, ain’t you?”
“I… I’ve just arrived,” I confessed. I showed him my identity card but he shoved it back into my hoof, just after he had checked my name, of course.
“So, Carat...” He rubbed his neck, “what can I say... welcome to the great life!”
Joyous, he brawled his talon in my back, sending me off the ground. My cup flew to a nearby table and splashed over a mare’s hood. By simple reflex, painfully acquired after years of wandering through the city’s darkest alleyways I guess, she ducked her head. Too bad she had been looking at her cards far too close to the table. Her head bunked on its edge, she gasped in pain and fell backward, sending off the stallion on her left with her. Half a dozen cards pinned out of his cape and flapped aloft before everyone’s eyes. Ponies and griffins shouted in rage. Soon enough, a fight broke over who was cheating and who was not and captivated everybody’s attention. As if on cue, someone started singing.
“If you kick her in the rump, clap your hooves! If you smite her in the rear, raise your screws!”
I blocked my mouth with a hoof. It was not proper to laugh at the rest of that ballad. It was hard, though, no pun intended. My chin was still sweeping the floor when Doom closed his talon on my robe and lifted me up. I wiggled around my hooves as I hovered over the ground. He dropped me, and I was once again standing.
“Sorry about that,” he said. I shook my head. It was nothing. “Let’s check up on your friend.”
Nudging me to move forward, we contoured the ongoing fight and the witnesses around it. Some were already making bets. The place was animated, rather violent… and highly alcoholised; some tables had started soaking with spilled ciders. By the smell I even started doubting it was cider. I plucked my nostrils as we searched for Ejit. His light yellow mane was technically not that difficult to find but after a minute looking around, even Doom’s hawkish eyes missed his presence. The fat griffon shrugged and we sat at a table. I received some mixed stares but no animosity. I didn’t have the black cape. I wasn’t one of them, I guess. Many had scars. Some even had shaved some patches of their fur so others could see black tattoos imprinted on their bare skin. Roses, dragons, nothing really out of ordinary. Like at many other tables, they were playing cards.
“So, what’s the Night Shift?” I continued. “It’s just that many things happened at once today.”
“Madame is being difficult,” Doom joked.
I sighed and gave him a disgruntled stare. Pinching my lips together, I caught glimpses of amused smiles on my neighbours’ faces. Blushing slightly, I pushed myself up, hooves on the edge of the table. I looked above Doom’s shoulders at the metal door leading to the improvised infirmary. It was still closed and it had been dead silent for too long.
“Don’t think about it,” Doom said, forcing me back on the bench with his right talon. “Crow is a tough motherfucker. Ain’t the first time he got screwed. Don’t care about him.”
“He… He saved my life,” I answered while still scanning the hall, “and Ejit’s life too.”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s our job,” Doom claimed, huffing a little to convince himself it was absolute truth. “We save people.”
I looked back at my neighbour pony again: a dirty red stallion with brown mane. He had a pair of aces in his hooves. He was sweating, was he trying to keep composure? Some of the other players caught my smile, glared at the stallion and put their cards next to the deck in the middle of the table.
“I’m out,” one said, quickly followed by everyone.
Just before the stallion jerked his head at me with raging eyes, I looked away at the ceiling, scrunching up my nose. I was definitely not meant for card games. Grunting, the stallion took the deck and reshuffled, wiggling on his rear to get the farthest away from me. I chuckled softly.
“You…” I trailed up, “don’t really look like a common peacekeeping organisation.”
“Words, words, words…” he complained.
The ponies and other species that inhabited the room were all filthy, with missing teeth among their yellow dentition. Many had gnawed ears and sometimes a missing limb, replaced with some hoofmade prosthetic. This patchwork of people was strange, loud and savage. The only common point I could find was the clothing: the black cape and the Night Shift necklace. There were more males than females here and everybody wore scars and old wounds. Under the light coming from the scarce candles, I pictured a few swords and axes under the capes. Sometimes, my eyes found a barrel. Nobody was doing any effort to hid their arsenal. It was different from the soldiers on the docks. I never saw a hoofcuff nor a rope. Those people weren’t police. Even I could see that.
“We are…” Doom pondered, rubbing his feathers and frowning, “cleaners. Yeah, that’s the best word. Cleaners.”
“And what do you clean?” I chuckled sarcastically. “Ponies that come back from death to kill us all?”
My closest neighbours stopped playing and turned their heads, their hooves and claws suspended above the table. I stared back at them. I saw pain. I saw strain. I saw… fear. My giggle died in my throat with a hard gag. I held myself in silence. I had nearly died, all the laughter I could seep in the wound would not heal that painful truth.
“You ain’t knowing a t’ing, lady,” a griffon missing an eye said with a sneering hiss. “Better not think about it. Ain’t ta a civilian thing ta worry about. You know nothin’.”
He grumbled, shaking his head, and returned to his cards. He reeked alcohol.
“Oh, come on,” I defended myself, “you don’t know me. I…”
“Shut up,” he said tiredly, playing with the cards in his claws. “Y’all f’cking immigrants know nothin’ about Warclaw. Warclaw is a griffin’s city. Ain’t for ponies. You always make a mess of beautiful things.”
My heart skept a bit and a wave of heat wrapped around me. His words stung, hard to stand. Doom tried to put me back on my ass.
“W- What?” I blabbered.
“You heard me. Y’all scum. You broke everythin’ when the Beast came. You destroyed everythin’ and worse o’ all, you can’t even repair what y’all did. Let the work ta those who aren’t worse than useless.”
Some griffins shook their heads, the nearby ponies rolled their eyes. Some even laughed.
“What?!” I was shocked. I lifted myself up the table’s edge and stared with indignation at Doom. “Are you going to wave that shit-talk off?”
The yellow griffon shrugged. My blood started to boil and I swerved back towards the racist griffon.
“You’ve got that guy, Crow, behind that door! You’ve got people who got killed! And I’ve nearly been killed by a fucking zombie! A zombie! And you don’t know me. You, too, know nothing.”
He went up to my eye’s level. Oh Celestia, he was bug.
“Do you think we ain’t carin’, got a friend killed by one o’ those!” The one-eyed griffon yelled. His voice was febrile, sad and pained. “Got my bro’ killed by one! T’is just all random shit!”
“And do you think I am to blame!?”
“Yes!” he spat at me in the eye. It petrified an instant.
Doom stood up and put himself in between, pushing us away from each other. I sought for something to smash up above the stallion’s fucking head. There were just flabby cards.
“And, who’re ye to talk to me like that?” he blurted, his jaw clenched with anger.
“Some pony who got her hoof stuck in some zombie’s misplaced a-hole! Up to the shoulder!” I said, wiping his saliva off my cheek.
He barfed and glared at me with pinprick eyes, his muzzle at an inch from mine. I suddenly felt a long, awkward silence slowly crawling around me as if giving me a freezing shower. Po- people around were looking at me with a hard silence. Many curious eyes had locked on me. Some comprehensive. Some… more like critical. I hated that. And some were… weirdly amused. I hated that even more. Couldn’t they stop looking at me!
“Who you’re looking at, gals!?” I reprimanded, choosing the nearest mare and griffon that weren’t a ball of brown and yellow fat as my victims. Talking about that one, I locked my eyes back on Doom’s picky blue eyes. “And you, keep your claws off my hide!”
I whirled back in the half-blind griffon’s direction and repeated, “Who you’re looking at?”
I wanted to blame his inebriety for his chuckles. I was just getting mad for nothing. Why was I getting mad?
“Did you really fist a Plaguer’s mark?” he asked, unbelieving.
“Uh?” Perplexed, I pinned Doom with my stare, seeking for an explanation.
He sighed with a smile and closed his right talon’s thumb and index to form a circle. With the tip of his other index he started to in and out the circle, back and fro… oh Luna.
I wished I could have set people on fire with my blazing cheeks. The witnesses laughed and I cringed back on my bench, hiding my face beneath my hooves. The word was quickly spread and laughter arose like a contagious illness.
“You know,” Doom started, “the undead have this black hole wound-thingy somewhere on their body, don’t ask me why. It’s a mark. Some say it’s a curse. If you really put your hoof in one, well… You earned my respect. It’s gross.”
Couldn’t he just finish me off in a cleaner way, like… with a sword.
“It’s nothing…” I mumbled.
I ended up with a florilege of people asking for truth, which I answered with meek yes, nods, and long meaningful silences. At least it tamed off the tension a bit. The place started dying out as many began to fall asleep on their tables. Snores replaced the noise of countless conversations and, swiftly, the light of a wan sun began to peer in the building through the windows. The sun… a simple dot of white behind an endless cover of black clouds. I, in good faith, couldn’t even call that a sun. But it was what we were left with. And we, the poorest, will always cherish the few and futile we had like the most precious gem. I smiled when a mare walked to an open frame, sat up and drifted away into slumber on the window’s threshold with the sunlight tickling her muzzle. It had been one hell of a night… A long, bloody night.
Heads sprawled on the tabletops, it suddenly became a lot easier to find Ejit. He had been sitting at a table with ten soldiers… policepeople… Shifters? - I had no name for them yet. After a long night spent being harassed and fighting back curious people, it was quite refreshing to see him there.
He was… holding cards. Not surprising, I thought. The ponies he was sitting with had dragged him to their table. I swore he had the face of the perfect victim. Indeed, I was expecting him to get robbed on the first occasion… Crow and Medved’s hurtful words back at the church had convinced me so. But he was the one amassing a mountain of goods. One pony had been stripped of everything and I guessed the sword next to Ejit used to belong to him.
“Sorry, Princesses, for I am going ta sin,” Ejit whispered with his eyes closed, his hooves clasped on his cards, “again.”
“Oh come on, not this bullshit again!” a griffon growled, playing with a brass watch between his claws. “Stop messing with me!”
Half the players backed out of the game, leaving the risk upon others’ shoulders. As I leaned next to the table, I thought I knew the game: poker. After three cards had been drawn on the table, they all checked. I saw two pairs, one four of a kind, one three of a kind. Ejit laid down a royal flash and ended the game. He’d taken everything from everypony. To add to the insult, he had that meek smile on his face – as if he couldn’t understand why the other players were so… weak. The griffon played with his claws on the table. None talked and, strangely, they accepted the defeat.
“What are you going to do with all that?” Doom asked, breaking the silence as he pointed out the heap of stuff next to the brown stallion.
Ejit pondered, rubbing his cheek’s brown fur and playing with one of his butter-yellow locks.
“I might give it all to an orphanage,” he said with a sigh. “It’s not that I’m going to use it anyway.”
It was a pretty big sum to be honest. Maybe two to three hundred bits. I came to the realisation that I didn’t actually know how money worked in Warclaw… a dire lack of knowledge I needed an explaination for.
“Won’t you use it to rebuild the church?” Doom asked.
Ejit raised an eyebrow, “Apart from cleaning, I don’t see much to do in my shrine.” He let a long breath of resignation. “Not that it’s the first time that happened.”
My belly wrenched, I had to be more precautious before judging somepony. Sure, Ejit looked discomforted and shy... but it wasn’t the reason to think he was not experimented.
“Uh…” Doom grimaced. “The church is burning right now.”
Ejit opened his mouth, but said nothing. Accepting the truth, he let out a long breath.
“How’s that possible?” I countered. “The church was made of stone!”
“Carat,” Ejit answered. “Eh… Ya remember… th’ ceiling broke down over us. Above, there was my room. I kept books there. th’ oil… did th’ rest. I think.”
“But the hole was small,” I said.
“It was enough, I guess.”
His voice was tired, languish and slow. His shoulders hunched over, his head was hanging low with one single tear rolling down his cheek. He swallowed hard, bit his lips a few times, tasting the sound of silence. Numbness crawled through my legs. I hated that silence.
“I have to start it all over,” he said. “Again.”
With a resigned smile, Ejit locked his eyes on Doom as he rubbed his hooves together.
“Do you think… the Night Shift could offer me a ceiling for the time being?”
Doom laughed.
“Why do you think I will keep you there? Both of you?” he pointed out. “We don’t do charity. You’re both under custody.”
I let that sink in a bit, eyes wide and lips plucked together.
“I don’t see shackles on my hooves?” I chimed in.
He pointed the door with his claw and grinned. “Run then. We’ll see how far you will get.”
The taunt dried all of my wit, commanding me to flee through the door at all cost.
“I know people well,” Doom rambled on, looking at Ejit. “I know you haven’t killed anypony. And… I know you quite well.”
The earth pony cringed a bit at the remark.
“And you?” The griffon’s talon laid on my shoulder, all its fat weighing down on me. “You’d be a stupid murderer to give me your card, to have raised your voice at a patroller and to hang around people in the HQ.”
“Or a cunning one?” I pointed out.
He smirked at me with a grin of his beak. He did not answer.
“Are you the captain, here?” I wondered.
He chuckled. “Oh no. Of course, no. I’m just the chef. And that’s good enough.”
It left me puzzled. His constant smile wasn’t helping. At that point, I caught something I hadn’t paid heed to, at least until now. His left forearm had a long furrow where nor fur or feathers were puncturing his white skin. Over that bare land of flesh a series of letters and numbers had been imprinted. Doom saw my curiosity acting up and waved his arm away from my sight. I looked around atthe sleeping soldiers. Some of them had the same type of marking.
“What are you all?” I asked once again. “What is the Night Shift?”
Doom shook his head and growled at my curiosity. After a few seconds, he let his annoyance vanish, mustering his most honest answer. My guts wrenched together and I held my breath. He rubbed his nose and scratched his chin.
“The Shift is a penal legion. We’re all convicts,” he said. The smile on his face was gone. “Not all of us of course, but vast majority. It’s common knowledge in Warclaw. What can be better than scoundrels and street-scums to fight and drive off other scums?”
Uneased, I kept silent at his words. My body was itching hard and it made it difficult not to move.
“We all have been offered a deal. The Shift or the prison. Or, for some of us who got the matricule, the Shift or death sentence.”
I looked instinctively at his arm and cursed myself for doing so. He laughed at me and pinned my hood with a claw. Smirking, he pulled it off my shoulders, revealing the scar around my neck. Ejit gasped at the sight, instinctively touching his own. I swallowed hard. I wanted to kill that griffon.
“I see we’ve gone the same way,” he said, somewhat satisfied.
I pushed his talon and, to my surprise, he let me do so.
“Don’t you dare touching me again,” I growled. “I’m not like you.”
“They always say that,” he cackled, making circles with his hands disdainfully.
I sat on a nearby bench, held my face in my hooves and whispered, “please, don’t bring it up… don’t bring it up.”
I couldn’t cry. Not now.
“You’re gonna have to get used to it. We are the only people who still do something good in this city. And everybody here had done something wrong at some point. Better not to poke the sleeping dragon,” he advised. “If you’re going to pay the shelter the Shift gave ya tonight. You’re gonna get used to be close to people that might be murderers.”
Chills ran down my spine. Stupefied, I glared daggers at him.
“You’re telling me that I have to pay for my stay in custody?” I blabbered, being given nothing but his poker face. “That’s completely stupid!”
“Hey! it’s the rule,” Doom told me with an exaggerated shrug.
“But I don’t have any money,” I countered and suddenly fell silent.
“There are many other ways to get paid here.”
I was homeless. That truth sunk in slowly… That truth playing on me like a knife in a wound. I had to find an opportunity to get me out of this mess. I looked at Ejit and his pile of scrap. Maybe, just maybe, I could ask him if he could… help me? He didn’t know me at all but he was kind and… I felt like shit. He owed me nothing. I owed him much. He had welcomed me in his church, church that had now been burnt down. He had been charmingly shy but also quite a pain in the ass. He could… Ah! And Doom, he’d said getting close to people… Oh no. No, no, no. Just. No! Scream! I wanted to cry out. But I couldn’t. The pony inside me was denying me this. Don’t give him the privilege.
“Hey,” Doom called me back to reality with a smile. “You’re crying.”
He swept a tear from my cheek with his flabby, yellow talon. I had rubbed my hooves so dutifully on my chest that it burnt.
“What are you thinking about, lady,” he laughed. “I’m not the monster you think I am.”
I felt ill. My stomach churned. I wished I couldn’t taste the bile.
“I’ve heard that before too.” I glanced at him with hatred.
“I also heard you were out of job,” he explained. “Since my prep-cook died tonight in the church, I need another pair of claws or hooves to help me out.”
“Uh? You want me to serve the meal?” I asked.
He nodded and grinned. “Yep, and you better hurry taking that decision. The wake up call is in thirty minutes. And I’m late on my own morning duty.”
“Why being so kind with me?” I wondered.
“Being kind?” He held his sides. “I’m just pragmatic. Too much people for me to take care of it alone. And you’re the cheapest around to hire. I hate owing other shifters.”
So it wasn’t for me? Somehow I prefered the idea that he was being kind.
“Y-...” I stopped and felt like something was missing. “What was he called?”
“Who? Oh, the prep? Never bothered to ask, he hated the job.” He scrunched up his beak and laughed wholeheartedly. “And soon you will hate it too.”
I raised an eyebrow. He was right, as soon as I took on the job, I understood how shitty it was.
₰₸₹₺₪₺₹₸₰
The following hour had stretched to infinity. When it finally passed by, the first shifters were waking up as I, firmly fumbling behind a stall, was grimacing at the horrible smell that emanated from Doom’s marmites. Porridge, white and gluey, bubbled up as it was slowly cooling. I had managed to bring the logs to fuel the fire of the kitchen. Then I had gone in the cold room to fetch ingredients and so on. Apparently, it was in the life of a prep-cook.
The mess’s kitchen, built in an adjacent room to the hall had one entrance and one defined exit so that everybody had to form a long queue, waiting for their meal to be served. The kitchen itself was built in three areas: the stall where I was at the moment, the kitchen itself where Doom was rummaging through and finally a cold room far in the back. The sight of a dangling carcass hung by a hook had eased my decision that I wouldn’t wander there anymore.
The shifters smelled a foul stench that matched well the food. Dark rings under the eyes. Pained backs. Seeping wounds from recent altercations. Sleepwalking through the corridors, apathetic to their surroundings. Not too many cast a glance at me and I was glad about that. Everybody, myself included, fell into a numbing routine. It was soothing. Clatter of hooves and claws on the old parquets. Sneezes of the ill. A morning like many others.
The air cracked with a tuning track and a voice slipped in the air from an old speaker hung on the ceiling. An echo coming from the hall told me there was more than one. A cranky voice of an old mare, munching on her tongue, erupted.
“Team leaders Pünktlich, Valiant Heart, Deep Gash and Melchior are to come to Shackle for urgent morning duty. A riot is happening on the Yore Avenue in Lower City. The food distribution has been canceled there.”
Two griffins, a mare and a stallion made their way out of the queue, swearing at whoever stood in their way. At least a dozen of other ponies and griffins followed. I tensed. Some started shouting over at the disgruntled conscripted shifters pushing through the queue towards the exit. A griffon bumped into somepony’s shoulder. A bowl of porridge went crashing on the ground and a fight began.
I hid beneath the stall as one griffon grabbed his nearest neighbour and held him above the ground. The stall shook under the smash, sending one series of bowls off to the floor. Screams and yells all over the room. The stall shook again. I closed my eyes and covered my ears. It was all I can do. I just waited. I just had to be patient. Let’s appreciate the silence.
When I finally peered from under the stall, a few impacts embedded the walls. And there he was. One single stallion, a murky verdigris coat topped by a greyish mane. He was slightly older than me but his bulk had not faded with age. His wrinkles intensified as he narrowed his eyes.
“You, you and you,” he said with a nudge of his head. “Catacomb shift tonight. Together.”
A chill swept above our heads. The griffon that started it all opened his mouth after all the colours had seeped out of his face. He said nothing though.
“You three,” the stallion said. “Take your meal and off to the Yore Avenue. No sleep for you today.”
The stallion took a step forward and everybody drew back a bit. Only one behind the stall, I slowly dunked my head between my shoulders and under my hood. He was scary. His green eyes looked at me with concern and curiosity.
“Doom?” he said flatly.
“Yes?” the griffon answered, showing only his head in the threshold of the kitchen door.
“I told you to stop manipulating strangers to give you a hoof. What is it this time?” he sighed.
“Custody,” Doom replied with a eerily meek tone. He was sporting that uneased grin across his face. His talon was drumming over the frame of the door.
The stallion looked back at me. “Custody?” He raised an eyebrow. “What has she done?”
His stare was frightening. My hooves on the edge of the stall, I had been cringing on my hindlegs to the point where only my eyes transpired from over the tabletop. He was perfectly neutral and the battle scars he bore made it uneasy to keep contact with his eyes for too long. He had a long gash on his right cheek and a round puncturing mark on his right shoulder. I looked further down and my eyes met his cape, and beneath it… A pair of wings. He was a pegasus. The first I had seen so far in Warclaw. He saw my interest and huffed.
“Murder witness. And she fought off a plaguer.” Doom paused. “Without shelter, recent immigrant and jobless.”
Chill ran down my chest. I was being assessed, coldly, industrially. It was… I had no word for that. Just that chill sparkling through my body. That coldness and silence.
“I thought it would be good giving her something to do. At least she would earn the meal.”
The stallion nodded, never drifting his eyes off me. He looked at my light blue fur, my green mane, my bandana, my dirty brown hood.
“You’re malnourished,” he said. “After that, go get some sleep. Crow won’t be waking up until tomorrow.”
That was all and he departed. I thought I understood why everybody was scared of him but my suspicions were wrong. As I stood back I looked at the ground. His hoofsteps had left traces of blood. His forelegs were soaked along with his cape. And the reek...
The cortege of shifters reshuffled back in line and the rest of the distribution was spent in utter silence. An hour later, everybody had obtained their bowl and Doom ordered those who arrived last to take upon the dish washing, a common punishment apparently reserved for the late-comers. The yellow griffon gave me a wink.
When we headed back to the main hall, a dozen of griffins and ponies remained there, enjoying a dull and slow morning. With my own bowl of wet, dank and tasteless food, I sat at an empty table. I was completely exhausted. I hadn’t slept since ever. I couldn’t even remember when I had woken up on the boat. Had it been already that long?
My eyes were closing by themselves as I ate the patch of whitish sludge and gruel. On the table a set of decanters had been left and, thirsty, I greedily sipped one. It was just water, with an earthy aftertaste. I was going to be sick. But I didn’t care. I wanted to sleep.
“Who was he?” I muttered. “I don’t know many doc’ hanging around like that.”
“Shackle?” Doom mumbled back, tired too. “He’s not just the doc. He’s the chief of the Shift.”
I raised my brows. “He’s old.”
“He’s strong. There is a bet going around to know why he’s here. He funded the Shift.”
I sneezed, splattering a bit of my meal over the table. Rubbing my eyes, I searched for the murky brownish-green stallion. He was nowhere to be found.
“He doesn’t usually hang around the common folks. He reports to the prancing griffins and pegasi in the Higher City,” Doom said, scrubbing his cheek as he yawned. “He doesn’t have many friends. I… We… He’s just scary.”
I nodded in approval, not really paying attention to his words.
“So, am I in the gang?” I drawled.
He giggled tiredly. “Until you decide to go away. You’re lucky anyway that I needed a replacement when you were there. If not for Crow, you would be sleeping outside now.
The unfortunate fate of some made the fortune of others, I guessed.
“So yes, you can help. Not that I’m paying you or anything. Just a ceiling over the head, some food and a bed. All you can have. Nothing more you’ll ever have.”
And it was better than nothing. Again, I nodded and plunged back into contemplating my empty bowl. I had sipped it like a beer. The taste was not that bad but the feeling you get when it went down the throat… slimy and raspy… I disliked it.
“Why’s the Night Shift working the day?” I highlighted. “You’re the night shift.”
Doom rolled his eyes, rubbing the unibrow of feathers that towered his eyes.
“There is a day shift, yes. But they don’t come in the Lower City. Too dangerous. Much higher attrition rate.”
“And about the soldiers on the dock?” I asked.
“Private militias working with the CPS, they are… more ruthless than us in cleaning practice.”
I don’t know why but it sounded sick.
I opened my mouth, licked my lips and swallowed. I sighed. “Are there many people dying in the Night Shift?”
He was keeping his head low towards his empty bowl and his belly was growling for more. I saw his eyes slowly drifting in my direction. The dim morning light going through the dirty windows reflected in his pupils.
“You haven’t seen the backyard yet, have you?”
I didn’t answered. Instead, somepony shambled in the hall, greedily breaking a silence I had tried to respect so far.
It wasn’t a somepony… it was a somebear.
“Would you kindly stop biting my finger!” Medved roared, waking up half the audience.
Locked on his index was the young colt I had seen spying on the investigation back at the church. While the white filly that had accompanied him was kept tight under Medved’s other arm, her flashy blue mane falling over her face, her friend was shaking around. Warm blood dripped off Medved’s clawed finger at each of his swerves, staining the colt’s bleached orange coat and soaking his black mane.
In a fit of rage, Medved dropped the filly who shrieked in surprise. His other hand freed, Medved closed his index and thumb together and, like a spring, clacked his finger at the colt’s face. It was a blow strong enough to stun. Medved caught the kid mid-flight and impaired him over a nearby table.
“Leave him, brute!” the filly bawled after she pushed her disheveled locks behind her head.
With her frail hooves she couldn’t do any harm to the mass of muscles: a mere tickling that amused many witnesses. Getting no result, the filly tried to puncture the bear’s hide with her horn, which her friend didn’t have.
“Oh, get on with it,” Medved spat, his paw firmly settled over the unconscious colt. “You don’t want to finish like him, do you?”
Crosseyed, the orange colt was drooling, his tongue hanging out of his mouth while a lump was already forming on his forehead. Medved huffed a little at the view and resumed sucking on his hurt finger.
“‘at ‘ucker ‘amn ‘urt,” he grumbled.
Pouting, the filly climbed up the table and sat in front of the bear and crossed her frontlegs. Medved rolled his eyes and laughed. With his drooly paw, he patted her head.
“Eeeew!” she protested.
“Puppy eyes don’t work with me.”
Medved looked around and his eyes fell on me. He smiled with his yellowish fangs pointing prominently from under his lips.
“The maid of the church followed the carcass hunter,” he crytically said. “Where’s Crow? I ain’t no babysitter.”
I tapped my hoof on the parquet, nervously enough he caught my spasm.
“What happened?”
“The dead pony… wasn’t that dead in the end,” I explained.
He smiled, nodding comprehensively. “Is he dead?”
“Who? Crow? No.” I glanced at the improvised infirmary door. “But he’s hurt.”
Medved shook his head and growled. “Damn shit, not today! I’m gonna do the widowment.”
He laughed, staring right in my eyes. His laugh, dry and cackling, chilled me whole. Was there sarcasm in that statement? I saw him claw back down on the colt as he started waking up.
“Leave me alone.” The colt fumbled inside the bear’s paw, trying to bite again.
Wary of the kid’s teeth, Medved blocked the kid’s neck between two fingers and huffed. The child gasped and gagged, kicked and swore, but, in the end, he fell silent.
“Please,” the filly implored. “Release us. We’ve done nothing.”
Medved snickered, “Everybody is guilty of something here. You too saw something and Crow wants to know.”
The white filly put her two forehooves on Medved’s paw, the one restrained her friend.
“The pony fell from the cloud, I swear. We haven’t killed it.”
This time, the laughter didn’t come from the bear but from the shifters still in the hall.
“Yes, I swear,” she continued.
“Not my cup of tea,” Medved cut her off and leaned next to her ear. “It’s not my job to interrogate ponies as young as you are… Not. Anymore.”
That definitely tensed the audience. The filly cringed back away from medved’s filthy paw. Mute.
“Please, don’t hurt him,” she begged, avoiding eye contact.
“He won’t,” a grave voice affirmed.
The old murky green pegasus I had seen earlier, Shackle, moved between the tables to the massive bear.
“I know you won’t, don’t I?”
He plunged his two narrowed, greyish eyes into the carnivorous shifter’s pupils. Medved swallowed, chewed on his lips and broke contact.
“Yes, Shackle, I w…”
He grinded his teeth together and growled. Lifting his paw from a burst of pain, tooth prints were imprinted in his little finger. He had let the colt run over. The filly fell behind as fast as she could, but Shackle rushed too fast for her. He extended his wing and wrapped it around her. She fought against the feather cage for a couple of seconds before she stopped. She just glared knives at the captain in retaliation.
Instinctively I ran behind the colt and, weaving between the benches and tables, I passed through the hall’s backdoor. I paced as fast as I could through a narrow and not very well lit corridor, the colt ahead of me. In my back I heard Medved shout. He was too large to go through the same way. I reached the light at the end of the tunnel.
And I bumped into the colt. Butt over head, I threw him and myself further down a soft yet slippery sleep. My jaw hit the dirt hard at the feet of a long dead tree, his whitish trunk was the only thing that remained. My back had also hit something edgy, painful. Reaching for it, I drew a large heavy stone from beneath me. Blinking repeatedly, trying to adjust to the low but still blinding light of the always cloudy day, I saw the colt just by my side. He had those pinprick eyes, as if caught into deep thoughts that only a colt that young could fathom.
“Hey, miss,” he asked poking me in the nose, making me sneeze.
Rubbing my muzzle and offing the dirt off my face and hide, I glared at him.
“What?” I hissed.
I twisted my tongue in my mouth, a disgusting taste of murk seeping beneath my teeth. I had mud in my mouth. I coughed and wiped my tongue with the back of my hooves. At least it had stopped raining.
“Umh…” he hesitated, his piping voice trailing. “Why do they all have the same name?”
I frowned and scratched my forehead as I scrambled back on my hooves. Medved appeared over the wall that enclosed the large backyard… In fact, it wasn’t a backyard. It was a large, barren patch of land with only some few clumps of yellow grass that stuck out of the murk. As large as three cottages, it was open to the sky and the neighbouring decrepit houses towered the place. I felt caged between walls with as many eyes as windows. It was bleak, colourless… nightmarish. The rain had formed streams of water that still clambered down the walls and drains, leaving sludgy black trails behind. A small stream of water was running in the yard between erected greyish stones, laid in rows and lines, sometimes stacked one next to the other.
“R...r...r...i…” The colt struggled and looked back at me and repeated, “Why they all have the same name?”
It pinched my heart. Very hard. Medved heard that too and the anger in his face slowly faded away as he made his way up to me. My ears twitched at the filly’s clattering hooves in my back as she trotted outside and gasped.
“Because,” Medved broke the silence, “we all are the same in the end.”
Three letters, chiselled messily in each of the tombstones. Three letters that reminded me how feeble I was… how weak I was. I saw three graves already dug out in one of the last few remaining spots in the yard. One fourth had been started and the shovel had been left, stuck in the ground, acting as a landmark.
I held the piece of stone that had hit my back. The three letters were there too, broken by one single crack in the middle that separated the stone in two. I had broken a tombstone. I closed my eyes and breathed slowly. It was bad.
The ground shook. The windows of the nearby buildings trembled, some even cracked. Then the boom reached our ears like the cry of a whip. I ducked next to the dead tree and held my ears. As one window shattered and went crashing down the wall that delimited the backyard, peppering us with shards of glass, two young ponies ran inside. They passed beneath Shackle’s legs.
“Medved,” he called. “Yore Avenue, now!”
The bear was already gone. Shackle looked at me with concern and hesitation. He muttered something I didn’t hear and rubbed his forehead with his wing.
“Go find Doom. He’s the one employing you,” he said, and upon seeing my quivers. “He’s gone in Yore Avenue. You’ll see, it’s easy to find.”
He went back inside, and he was right. Already, a thick black smoke was rising over the city three to four blocks away.
Before I ran towards wherever, I glanced back at the tombstone.
R.I.P.
Rest In Peace… I wasn’t entitled to that privilege. Peace was not for me. Not yet, at least.