This story contains spoilers for the game Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and the webcomic Prequel.
The assassins wore red cowls and dark grey armor, and bore strangely baroque maces. They ran to strike the Empress with suicidal courage as the Blades spread out to defend Celestia, katanas drawn. Katia stood in the shadows towards the rear, trembling with indecision; she wanted to help and wanted to flee, and was unsure that she could do either one. She had never seen deadly combat between so many warriors at once, and could not at first make sense of the confusion, the noise, and the terrible swiftness with which a life may be lost forever.
Captain Roanault had charged straight into the fray and engaged two assassins at once, slaying one before she fell. Katia later could have sworn that they had not solidly hit home with a single blow, but she cried out and collapsed to the floor like a heavy sack of oats. Were the weapons poisoned? Katia backed away from the scene until she felt intense heat behind her, and pain...
She had backed into the burning bench. She leapt forward, crying in panic and running blindly into the thick of the fight. She saw the bright katanas of the Blades flashing a dull orange in the dim torchlight, and the flaring light of the Empress's horn as she launched spells of deadly solar fire. She saw an assassin collapse, and as he fell, his armor and weapon vanished, leaving him dressed only in a mage's scarlet robe and cowl. Katia was puzzled at first, but only briefly—it was magic, bound to be. Maybe they were just illusions?
A deadly mace swooshed very realistically over her head, and this shook her out of her first panic and very nearly into another. She dodged around the assassin and charged on, halting with skidding hooves as she reached the far wall of the room. With nowhere left to run, she turned back to the battle, her mind at last made up to fight—the Empress had given her a charge of magicka for a reason. She prepared a flare of fire, calling up a sphere of magicka at the tip of her horn, and allowing her deepest and most bitter emotions to fill it until it whirled wildly into flame.
Most of the assassins were down by now, slain by the skilled bladework of Haurus and Glenbay, or roasted by the Empress's fury, but one remained, facing Haurus and gauging her chances. Katia spun her spell to its highest pitch and launched it straight towards the assassin, who at that very moment was struck down by Haurus. He had whirled his whole body around and delivered a massive kick which caught the assassin in the forechest with his powerful rear hooves, crushing out her life and sending her slamming to the floor.
Katia's flare flew over the prostrate assassin and struck Haurus squarely on the tail. He shouted, leapt up and and danced in the air for a moment, before landing to look in shock at his flaming posterior. He whipped off his cloak with his teeth and dashed it repeatedly at the flame to beat it out, but only fanned it higher. Shame-stricken, Katia ran to help. She ripped the robe from the fallen assassin and threw it over Haurus's rump, then hurled her own body on top of the robe to completely smother the fire.
Haurus stared back over his shoulder at Katia, who clung to his rear and shrieked panicky apologies, as a torrent of conflicting emotions fought for control of his mind. His face contorted curiously, with snarling rage and pain predominant, cut by undercurrents of disgust, exasperation, and even amusement. Rage won, and he bucked her off of him. She squealed as she tumbled and rolled into the room's far corner.
"Looks like you've got an adoring fan," dryly observed Glenbay. "She can barely keep herself off of your manly body. She's so eager to kindle a fire in your loins—"
"That's quite enough of that," snorted Haurus. "Is the Empress safe?"
"Yes. Roanault's down; the Empress is tending to her."
Katia sat in downcast shame in the corner, her nostrils full of the rank bitter smoke-stench of burning horse hair. It was in fact too strong... and she felt a fiercer heat about her than mere embarrassment would cause.
She looked around to see that her own tail, which had retained a few embers from its contact with the burning bench, was now ablaze.
***
Celestia sadly rose from Captain Roanault's body and strode around a pillar to address her remaining Blades. "I fear that—" She was greeted by a sight that momentarily robbed her of speech.
Katia, trembling and miserable, was standing and shaking in the middle of the room as Haurus used his chest to firmly press a scarlet robe onto her smoking posterior, placing their bodies in a position which ponies most often assume in sunny meadows of lush green grass and not in desperate flight through foul grim grey dungeons. Glenbay intently studied a cobweb on the vaulted ceiling and said nothing.
Celestia raised an eyebrow. "Haurus? I... do hope I am not interrupting anything personal."
"Arghh... not at all, Your Majesty." Haurus hopped down to the floor and lifted up the robe. "Is the fire completely out, prisoner?"
"Yes... yes it is oh I am so sorry..." Her tail and Haurus's were alike in terrible shape, missing patches of hair and bearing scarlet burns and blisters on the denuded flesh.
"A pair of red-tail-guards, I see," quipped Glenbay, earning a passably serious kick from Haurus.
"I was only trying to help..." Katia sniveled.
"Well, stop trying," Haurus growled. "You're lucky you aren't dead right now."
"If everyone is quite done," said Celestia, "Captain Roanault has fallen and I can do no more for her. Should we not press on?"
"Of course, Your Majesty. Don't worry, we'll get you out of here."
Katia found herself distinctly left out of the ensuing discussion, and slunk off to loot the corpses. The property of dead people was usually fair game for the first comer back in Holsteinfell, and Katia had found things to be no different here. She checked the assassins first, and acquired a set of robes and cowl and a pair of potions. She had no idea what the potions were—she'd have to do a taste test later—but, oddly, the robes looked familiar... Then she remembered her first visit to Thvatch, where she met a kindly fellow by the gates... The one who had been waiting for his friends to arrive for a big party. He had been way too nice to be an assassin. Perhaps scarlet robes were just in fashion this year?
Glancing about her, she went to check the body of Captain Roanault. She found the Captain's armor impossible to remove, as the straps and buckles were too intricate and confusing, but the capacious saddlebags came off easily. Katia tried them on, adjusting the straps until they fit her tolerably well, though they were clearly meant for a mare of greater muscular stature than she. They contained a short sword and a torch. Katia added the potions and robes, clumsily redistributing items between the two bags until she felt balanced.
She still smarted with shame. She felt like... well, like a Redguard who couldn't swing a sword. Her eye fell on Captain Roanualt's katana, and she took it up in her mouth to try a few practice swings. The sword felt light, strong and responsive. She set it down, then grabbed one of the assassin corpses by its shoulder and dragged it into a sitting position against a nearby pillar. She took up the katana again. She was no fuckup, no loser. She was Katia Maragan—Captain Katia Maragan, and the foes of the Empress would fall before her like chaff...
She was fully into the fantasy when she gave the sword a particularly wide swing and came within a meter of striking the Empress in the knee. Celestia had come up behind her, unnoticed.
Katia was fairly certain that there were dreadful penalties for even waving an edged weapon around in the general direction of an Empress, and most of them were lethal and the ones that weren't lethal made you wish that they were. She dropped the katana with a clatter and fell to the floor, burying her head between her forearms and awaiting the end.
"Please arise, Katia."
She scrambled to her feet and stood at what she imagined to be military attention. Her head was thrown back, eyes clenched tightly shut against the inevitable, and her legs, locked straight and perpendicular to her torso, shivered uncontrollably, which caused her to vibrate and rattle slowly across the stone floor in the manner of a wind-up toy.
"It's good that you want to get better, Katia," said Celestia, "But we must depart soon. Please relax, you are not in trouble. I should have announced myself, but I was curious to see you in action."
Katia opened her eyes, but seemed to have difficulty in unlocking her knee joints. She still shivered from the afterwash of terror. Celestia bent over her, concerned.
"Have you not even seen to your wounded tail, Katia?"
"Seen to it?" Katia tried to lift her tail to view it over her rump, and winced with pain.
"Have you no healing spell to cast on yourself?"
"No, Your.. Celestia. I am sorry. I am very ignorant and stupid in regards to magic."
"You are simply inexperienced. I will show you the way of it. You know already how to gather a locus of potential magicka at your horn. Do it now.
"You also how your body feels when it is healthy. Gather that feeling to you, and invest the locus of magicka with that feeling. Then direct the force into you, either generally or towards the maligned part."
Katia closed her eyes and tried to call up a healthy emotion. It was hard for her to feel normal, with so much of her life having been wasted upon dissolution and rage. Humiliation, mortification... these were near and constant companions through her suffering, and she found them much easier to comprehend. Nothing terribly peaceful came to mind, and being under pressure from the Empress's presence only made it worse.
She was getting nowhere. She opened her eyes, maintaining the locus, and looked to the last place where she had felt a hint of peace... The deep compassionate eyes of the Empress Celestia.
And there it was. She felt a swirl of ice-blue energy inside her, soft, consoling, constructive. She let it flow into the locus and saw it swirl into a globe of blue-white light. Carefully, as if trying pick up a soap bubble without popping it, she opened the globe and the energy rushed into her, filling her for an instant with calmness, peace.
She laughed, and tried it again, this time without looking at Celestia, and she produced another glowing globe that she directed straight at her posterior. The stinging pain faded, and Katia swished her mostly hairless but healthy tail in utter delight. She turned to the Empress, gratitude shining in her eyes.
"Well done, Katia. You reminded me for a moment of a particular student of mine, one very dear to my heart."
Katia smiled nervously."I know... you're probably just saying that so I'll feel more confident... but thank you. I hope that I may one day be truly worthy of praise in your eyes."
The Empress smiled sadly. Her eyes drifted, looking someplace distant. "You will be, though I will not be here to see it."
"I... don't understand." Katia didn't want to, either.
The Empress sighed, still remote, still seeing a world that lay beyond the senses of others.
Haurus approached, deferent and tense. "Your Majesty, we are ready to proceed."
"By all mean, Haurus." She strode off and beckoned Katia to follow. "Should you need to find your own path, take heart. We will cross paths again before the end, I am sure of it."
The group reassembled at a locked gateway. "It's too late to go back now," said Haurus. "Forward it is."
"The assassins won’t be the first to underestimate the Blades," said Glenbay. "I’ll take point. Let’s move."
Glenbay unlocked the gate and trotted through, followed by the Empress. Haurus followed, but turned back at the door, glaring down at Katia.
"You stay here, prisoner. Don’t try to follow us."
"But... Celestia—"
Haurus thrust his angry face at her. "I don't care what she told you, she is 'Your Royal Majesty' to the likes of you, and don't you forget it. You'll be nothing but a burden to her or to us, and we have no time to babysit you. You find your own way out of here if you can, you useless tailsniper, or go back and rot in your cell for all I care."
As Katia stood stunned, Haurus trotted through the gate, slammed and locked it.