"Harold?" Celestia asked sending the party on its way with the litter of armor.
He turned back. "Yes maam."
"Did you see a box in the building?"
"There were many boxes..."
She motioned with her hooves,"A small wood box with slit in the lid."
That's is what Harold remembered. This, his mission now.
His troop were enjoying libations and now he was inside the outer hall of the strange building!
Harold took the envelope and dropped it in the box, at least attempted too.The box was so full it grieved him to wad and shove the letter in, a letter most precious that the lady of his land had written upon.
After the final violent shoving in it was.
"Over here."he thought he heard a laughing voice whisper.
Again he felt the purse on his chest jingle.
"Over here!" said a unicorn in a horse whisper his coat covered in soot.
"I caan't believe you made me crawl through the old ovens out off the chimneys !"said an equally soot mare, almost in tears, trotting up beside him."That was supposed to be blocked off! How did you know it was even there?!"Now she took an aggressive posture toward him and glares. "We are supposed to be with the congregation, Gardner!" she snorted." Our friends our families. Remember?"
"You know what they say with a shovel...trial and error!" Gardner said with a snort, ignoring her last statement.
Fennel Wheel rolled her eyes just as easily straitening up as he ignored her, it didn't do any good, he was tone deaf in such maters.
"It may be pastor's idea to stay, to martyr," his voice sound dry and chalky."I'm a pony of action!" He paced like a general, tail in the air on hoof planted soundly before the other." If Equestria has turned against us.."he swore."other churches must be warned."
"It just feels wrong!"she said in a horse whisper potting down folding her front legs in the air under her neck.
Gardner had always been a good little pony, unlike his neighbor!
While Biscuit had gone off into the wilds, with the other strutting stallions, Gardner had stayed home.
He had read, 'The religious should help the widows and orphans in their suffering.'He had done that."That those should who think themselves spiritual should uphold those who are less spiritual."He had done that!
He had helped the widows, helped the week in their farming, helped around town, studied in school, worked hard, worked very hard, worked and worked and worked and worked!
It says of stewards, to show your worth in all dealings, ever increasing in stewardship. To Gardner, survival is, alone, not acceptable! 'Do not come to the Lord bereft'. So he invested his money.
He could be generous! How he wanted so much to be generous! To give great and mighty gifts to friends and strangers alike.
Business was so simple, invest in what every farmer knows, he had land, he had ability, he had cash, make it grow!
How ever, what he did not understand was that even though his mother had married a local, to the town he was nothing but an outsider and a stranger of the lowest caliber. That he and his mother were considered worthless and of no account despite how many good deeds they did or how much land they owned. It wasn't near their town and they never cared to visit.
Though the community said trust us, the elder of the church saying,"Your secrets are safe with us." they greedily waited for when Gardner would stumbe ask for help and like A Cast of Amontillado would wait to ferment until it was vinegar.
Scoundrels in his town! Yet these boys were the home team bred and born. Not a bit to their name, but seming such hard worker running round with carts piled high, if anyone had cared to educate Gardner before partnering with them In a Bean Fankle Kiln kind of way.
Before he knew it, not only what he had saved was gone, they were after his farm too!
There was no way to appease them, their ransom was more than he could ever afford. He couldn't 'make an agreement with them on the way to court' as the book said. When he told his friends what was happening they didn't believe him.
No one in town helped.
When he asked for prayers of the church things only got worse and how he did pray!
It was if all he said were garbled and not one soul cared to listen! No one at the church understood and he prayed that he would forgive, pray that he never saw those scoundrels again!
All he could do is wait.
His salvation came when one of the partners became greedier than his own good. The other slipped away as if a concious had grown and he wanted to avoid the mod that would arise without payment from an imaginary caravan loaded with paid for imaginary goods!
An agreement was come to by outside moderators, no one was satisfied with, except the scoundrel sated in the way Gardner suffered.
Moderators stated with a smarmy smile,"Well that's how things are."
Gardner screamed inside,"No that is how things have been made!!!"
His farm was close to other towns, well watered and verdant. So, he traveled to the other towns nearby with little hardship.
He left that small ruin of a church with its stingy and shrewd worshipers with their half link of chain, laid at His sacrifice.
The church there? Gardner put out of his mind. What race was the majority there? Out of mind. The little town? Out of his mind!
An agreement with God, to give it over to Him...and forgive, and in time that was forgot.
At the next Convention of churches, a gathering of tabernacles, he came as carriage puller, while resting on soft straw it the carriage house as the kind groomer help easy his limbs and joints to attend evening services, it occurred to him that he never saw not one member of that church from that town.He imagined he saw a link of chain, like the one they had, quietly reattached to a larger piece of mail..it could have dropped and was reattached in repair. Some of the chain mail cloth pieces were rather ragged and large!
These strange ponies.
God kept the strange ponies safe.
If He did not...sometimes, for the hateful, the lawless, the wicked, the vile, it was rumored, that Equestria itself would swallow miscreant ponies up, whole, as if they had never been on the face of the land, like the Korah and his followers.
Only at the last judgement were they to be released, at the closing of the multiverse, to face what they had done!
Still, He had his farm, with dreams of improvement set back by years. Gardening at the church was about the only thing that gave him peace from his roaring mind.
At the new Church he met Fennel Wheal who could see things sometimes having great foresight and knowledge. This cross earth pony had told him not to plant certain crops and he had humored her and had save a fortune!
She was such an exotic thing this half nocturne. He, wanting so much to propose in the ways passed down from the mustang in oral tradition of the Rites of Megan: to lay a crown of flowers around here brow and gently bind the sweetest of flowers as garland for her neck and cry out my intercesor given me!
How could he?She was everything a young stallion could want, but he he felt so much older and wasted. He didn't even have a ring! Like a cropper, on his own farm! How could he ask a mare to marry when he didn't have a bit to his name.
Yet Fennel, was always there nearby to visit, through the open part of the top of the door, with a wide ledge between them. She stayed by him, advised him and got into so much trouble when he made her skirt her instincts with him.
Gargner would come between her and trouble and take the blows, because it was his fault!
Sometimes he imagined that she wanted him as much as he wanted her, but how could he do tat to her. He was so afraid, afraid she might say no.
That was the power a mare had. With bodies and voice, she always had the power to say "no". If she said "no" that was it. How could they still be friends then? Gardner wanted that proper healthy relationship and so did she. Their relationship require a lot of investment.
Gardner believed she was worth it! Worth it to wait! He loved her because she was always be a good girl, and always would be!
Fennel found him fascinating!
"Oh!" He Mocked" Who has the liver quivers now?!! Just use your eyes and look to the skies! We have to get away and warn others..."he ground his teeth spitting out the words "because that is what you are supposed to do!!!"
She sighed.
Fennel Wheal's eyes became narrow slits , scanning the skies. "...Or lead them right to the next church."she said gaping.
"What's wrong?"
Her knees felt week."I have never seen, so many..."
Gardner panicked,"That's no excuses!! We have to get out!"he said in tight gasps." We have to warn our friends! We...." she looked at him with wide eyed fear, small pupils."Why are you looking at me like that?"
"You twain answer!"said an elegant voice behind him.
Gardner, anger cooled like molten metal thrown into a cold bucket, slowly turned around to face the guard brought to his attention
"Who is responsible for these arraignments, of the moon flowers, of the garden in this place?"
The garden had always been a source of pride for him, he felt it was his best contribution. He had not run away like Biscuit had instead he stayed. He help the old ones, help with harvest and field.
Gardner like to see ponies in the garden. He watched them wander as they meditated, considering greater things than themselves. He would rearranging it every season, keeping it nice in the winter.
All he could think of as he looked upon the elegant figure reclining, holding the moon flower, before them was gardens, of tombs and heavy, heavy stones as three more guards ponies popped themselves out of the ground now gleaming armor also covers in soot.
She approached the cross.
What could she say
"Sire,"she thought."'Please. I have heard of your might and power. They say you are a king. Please, indulge me for this interruption.'? The last thing I want is to be flippant." How had it come that she was here having no idea what to do or say? she wanted them to hear every word she said and to be flippant to the very symbol of there faith would make her goal all the harder.
There was a snap and a creek sound one of the last bits of yarn had was snapping and threatening to drop her helmet and patina plate to the floor with a clatter! Before it could, she caught it in her wing as it rolled among the downier softer feathers making her wince. Picking it up with both wings, she looked into the shining helmet reflecting her image like an eyeball.
She was at their side in a moment as the litter almost upturned ." Gently!" she scolded. " Don't undo all their hard work!"
She found herself staring at the captain, till he bowed down in shame.
"All their hard work..."she admonished. " At the foot, understand?" she repeated.
"yes ma'am" he said."At the foot."
"I saw one marked prayer..."
Her face reflected in that helmet. Like the coin, All Wishes had that he gave to Smudgie that reflected, yet changed the face to reflect a being similar yet muzzles, no, with a very tiny muzzle.
Her hard face reflected. That turned ponies to stone, sentenced a unicorn to guard a grave of one Issac, stiff as a statue, (but not so lucky!) in battered armor and that had to immolate the exiled strange ponies she set to the wasteland!
Quickly in her horn of influence she took some of her hair and made a brightly color strand of string, tied the plate so no one could see.
Her judge.
She remember him, his friends and those warrior under him. Ancient memories came to her of Nyx, warrior of the night, perhaps Equestria's first judge.
Memories.
How the judge when he lived in Filly Delphi kept the ponies there from rioting. That gift of Smudgie Pie, to help ponies remember.
That unicorn again!
Her law that he stand there, perfectly, in beaten armor, at attention with spear in hoof, and if she ever saw him shirk....every blow always felt like the first one with Celestial skill, and if she broke him? He was subject to the most agonizing restorative and healing spells she could think of! If she ever saw him slouch once! A beat down, then a heal up which was even worse, those first few times, many days of discipline!
He got it and stood attention as a statue...but he would not be so lucky, a mare interceded by marrying him.
As the judge said in the desert bringing in to redeem, so few of those ponies in exile,"It is not for Celestia I intercede..."
So she had to forgive this unicorn for her sake.
She would talk of her experiences and her judge.
She lifted the helmet back to its place. Feathers had become stuck between the armor giving it a halo crown like appearance.
She approached the alter the pastor backed away, there was no way to keep her from taking it and speaking her mind.