It was only by complete luck that Lemon Pink was already down in the cave tunnels, hauling a small cart of supplies for the lair, at the time Prey ran through. If she hadn't been, well, then Prey would've had to continue down the steep green stone tunnels by himself.
Panting, Prey shouted at her to leave the cart as he ran up, throwing the crystal lantern he himself was using into the cart to be left behind:
"We're going down the, *pant* mountain. You light the way. Message bottle came through. Griffins are going after the Elements, *pant* tonight. Night Guards already left to go down or are distracted, there's a, *gasp* arson attack somewhere in the city. But we're going to Ponyville as backup."
"Why are we going, Prey?" Lemon had questioned, even as she was unbuckling the cart tracers.
"Because Crimson asked it of me in the message." Prey had answered back.
---
Down the steep winding tunnels the two of them went, a lamb and a unicorn, the stone rendered a greyish-green hue in Lemon's horn light. The air was especially cold in the enclosed stone paths, but in their haste they hardly felt it. The tunnel varied in places from claustrophobically low and cramped, to wide open hollow pockets, and everything inbetween.
Onwards and downwards they rushed over frigid stone. Water worn stone rose and fell in jumbles of uneven bumps and dips. An ache rapidly built in Prey's hooves. Lemon Pink's horseshoes protected her own hooves from the hard and uneven tunnel floor, but he had no such protection as they sped the pace.
Damn it all, if Crimson hadn't asked, Prey wouldn't even be attempting to get down to Ponyville at this time of night.
It was a long, winding trip down through the caves, too long. The Sargent Major, Sharp Tang, along with the rest of the Night Guards, and/or possibly Luna if she'd come along, would've arrived in the rural pony town long before he did. They were swift of wing, while he was slow of hoof.
By the time they finally reached the cave's exit, opening up out into the night, Prey's breathing was ragged. His sides heaved in and out, and he was sweating despite the cold. Lemon was better off, what with being a pony and having longer legs, but she was hardly a model of fitness herself. She was thin and tall, that didn't automatically equate to being a distance runner.
But they'd made it to the mountain's base.
The green stone of the tunnel's camouflaged exit was protected by runes. Stepping out from under the pressing confines of the mountain into the dark openness of the night, Prey felt the ethereal hum of the arrays signalling their secret existence up into his hooves.
Fresh, cold night air prickled the sweat on his brow as Prey stood there, trying to get his breath back. He dug a sore hoof into the painful stitch in his side, letting the quiet sounds of the night reached his ears. His harsh breathing sounded far too loud in the night.
He'd just run down the insides of a mountain. Request from Crimson or no request from Crimson, he needed a few minutes to rest. And a drink. Fortunately, a drink of water was an option.
Lemon Pink pulled open the small crate of emergency supplies Prey'd had placed down here at the tunnel's end, and removed the waterskins. Still breathing hard, Lemon levitated her own up but wordlessly passed Prey the other by hoof, not magic. The water tasted funny after having sat here, but Prey greedily drank it down. He stopped before it felt like he'd had his fill, but he knew he'd drunk enough to quench his thirst. It'd all just slosh around in his stomach and he'd get sick if he drained the waterskin, and they had a ways to go yet on hoof before they arrived at Ponyville.
Prey took a more even breath now that he'd drunk, Lemon was still taking slow sips from her own waterskin, and stared with a disgruntled scowl out into the night.
'We're not even going to get there in anything like a reasonable time frame. The Night Guard must already be there and ready to ward off any theft attempt. Or maybe even catch them in the act.'
Although Prey did wonder if it was Griffons Felyawn had sent, or if the ambassador had decided to hire more pony thieves to try and stay unnoticed, as with his misguided attempt with Lemon Pink.
Prey pushed his drooping ears back and let out a raggedy huff, "Haa. Right, time to get going again."
Lemon Pink re-stoppered her waterskin, "Yes, Prey."
---
The night was cold, but their pace was brisk. These were the tame lands and sleepy countryside of Equestria, there were none of the night's dangers lurking here like in the wilds to worry about.
Prey maintained his fast pace across the ground, but it still took long enough that even the faintest stars in the distant night sky began to shrug off their initial shyness and fade into their true countless brilliance before Lemon and Prey drew close to their destination.
The night felt safe here in Equestria, the cold notwithstanding, but the distance was too far for Prey's liking.
The Night Guard, with their birthright of night vision and wings, could've safely glided down Mount Canter in a little over five minutes, whereas it had taken him and Lemon nearly an hour racing through cave tunnels. From there, Prey estimated it could've only taken the Night Guard another fifteen minutes' swift flight to reach the town of Ponyville. But for the two of them on hoof, they had to cut across countryside for thirty minutes until they came upon the train tracks.
From there, they followed the silent metal rails straight towards Ponyville, taking another half hour before the town's outline was even in view, with dim, night shrouded lights just visible in the town.
Except, as they drew closer, hurrying along the tracks, a sense of unease was growing in Prey. Not of some monster prowling in the darkness, (even the blackness of the nights in Equestria weren't as dark as they were across the border), but of the approaching town.
Lemon Pink put words to the sense of stealing unease:
"The town seems too quiet, doesn't it, Prey?"
Prey slowed, straining his ears towards their destination at the end of the shadowy train tracks, "Yes. It does."
The Night Guard were supposed to be all over Ponyville, possibly with Luna at their head, as Prey still didn't know if Sharp Tang had managed to get to Her Majesty. Sharp tang and/or possibly Luna, had to have flown out with at least twenty thestrals, so where were they all?
There was one obvious answer, and it made Prey slow down even further as he realised he and Lemon would be easily visible to the thestrals with their night vision as they came up the train tracks.
Because if he wasn't seeing or hearing signs of disturbance which would obviously be sounding if the Night Guard were in the act of stopping the griffins or whoever Felyawn had sent, then the most likely reason was because the attack hadn't happened yet, and so the Guards were lying wait in ambush.
Gloom and Crimson's warning note hadn't mentioned a specific time the thieves were supposed to be coming, after all. All it'd said was that there was supposed to be an attempt 'tonight'. Hafflow had confessed that an alert would've gone out via teleportation vault message to Felyawn with his capture, and their contingency plan if they were compromised was to immediately go after the Elements of Harmony before bailing. But that didn't equate to meaning 'immediately' tonight.
Who knows? Perhaps Felyawn had decided to call off the attack altogether, considering it a lost cause. Although Prey remembered the burning patriotism in those ice cold eagle eyes.
'If anything is going to happen, it hasn't happened yet, and they're now all lying in wait to ambush the fools who come to take the bait.' Prey thought. He well knew how patient thestrals were, and how well they could hide in the dark. The night was their element.
Quickly he whispered his instructions to Lemon Pink, the sign language he had was not sufficiently complex enough to convey everything, especially in the dark:
"Change of plan, looks like the Night Guard has laid an ambush. Split up, you stay here hidden under an illusionary veil. I'll follow the train tracks in, pretend I did that all the way down from Canterlot, and join back up with them. My plan is to hang back and let them handle this. Be on the lookout though, don't want them catching you instead. If Luna's here... just don't risk coming in, she'll see right through any illusion." He muttered to her, nervously eyeing the still town.
"Yes, Prey." Lemon acknowledged in a whisper, stepping off the train tracks and ducking down behind the closest bush.
Prey saw her pull her cloak over her head to hide the initial silvery glow of her horn, and then she wavered like a heat shimmer in the night and vanished.
Prey watched her last position for a moment longer to make sure he couldn't see anything. Then he turned back to the quiet town of Ponyville. He licked his lips, and started briskly forwards, not trying to hide. He purposefully wanted to be spotted by the thestrals no doubt hidden up on the dark rooftops. He didn't want to surprise them, that was a good way to get skewered.
He even started stepping on the gravel inbetween the heavy railway slats, instead of from plank to plank just to make some extra low noise, although he half feared he'd turn a hoof in the dark on the loose stones.
*Tac* *tac* *Cunch* *Krish* *clac*
He was getting closer to the town's train station, and still no one had swooped out of the night to challenge him. Where were they?
Step, step. *clac* *crunch*
Thestrals were flyers, they would've been here long ago. So where were they?
*click* *clatter*
Surely one of the lookouts must've seen and recognised him by now? He was almost into the train station already.
'What if there's no one watching the tracks-? No, they must be. It's the most direct ground route into the town, outside of the road. They'll be watching the sky and the town's perimeter. That definitely includes the train tracks.'
But then where were they, exactly?
Prey stepped off the train tracks and onto the ramp at the end of the platform, walking cautiously up it to the main area. Still no thestral appeared.
Prey looked around the dark platform.
The station building was dark and locked up for the night. The faint sound of night crickets, late for the season, murmured around the empty platform. It was eerily quiet.
And still no Night Guards.
The odd muted light shone deeper into the town, from forgotten lamps or unaware ponies pulling an all-nighter, but there were no crystal street lamps here like in the capital city. It left most of the town steeped in shadow. Not deep shadow, the town was built very open, but there were still dark shadows nonetheless.
Okay, something was most definitely amiss here.
The Night Guard had left way before Prey had, and they were far faster than him when covering open ground, so why weren't they here? Prey didn't feel any painful stinging in the runes on his forehooves, but he was starting to fear there was some sort of area of effect magic at work here.
'I'd be able to feel it if it were a giant illusion, but I can't sense anything.'
On instinct, Prey looked behind him. He turned around and around, scanning his surroundings, but he was limited in the dark as to what he could see. He had to rely on his hearing to catch any ambush, and hope his reaction speed was fast enough.
But still he heard and saw nothing out of place, and that was the problem.
'Where the hell are they?'
Now Prey was fervently wishing he'd remained outside of the town with Lemon Pink. He looked back down the empty train tracks leading off into the dark. Except it now felt like that since he was inside the station, venturing back out past the town's edge would be a mistake. He was cut off by an invisible line.
Trotting in here felt like he'd waltzed into the kill zone of a trap. And he didn't know what kind of trap it was, either. All that purposeful noise he'd made on his approach he now deeply regretted, the feeling sinking in to squirm in his stomach.
Something was wrong, and Prey didn't know what. Crimson had asked him to come here to help, but this wasn't at all what he had envisioned.
Carefully he shuffled sideways, moving closer to the shut ticket station building. When in doubt, don't stand in the open, find cover, and stay quiet until you knew what was happening.
Prey crept along towards the train station entrance, pressing close to the wall and sticking to every shadow. He wished for the thousandth time his wool was black, or at least brown like Breaker's had been, and not white. White stood out in the night. And it also showed the blood.
The same fork of the river which he and Lemon had walked beside when following the train tracks seemed to encircle the whole town of Ponyville. The water wasn't deep at all, more a large stream than even a river tributary, however it still meant there was a short bridge between the train station and the sleeping town.
The short hoof bridge was wide and empty. Not even ten paces long. But still Prey stopped and warily stared at it.
The pleasant but ceaseless sound of trickling water tugged at Prey's attention as he carefully examined the far side of the dark bridge, looking for anything amiss in the town. This was exactly the sort of spot that should be being watched or defended. Or trapped. This was precisely the place to lay a bone rot mine. Prey had done the same himself in the Deeper Green. He remembered the screaming, and the mess afterwards.
'No thanks.'
Prey turned aside and slithered down the short stream bank. The long grass was coarse, and pulled at his wool until he silently stepped into the stream.
His hooves immediately started to go numb. The water was frigid in the night. Prey breathed shallowly and moved in deeper, sliding himself forwards over the invisible submerged stones and mud rather than step. Taking steps whilst in water would make splashes.
The cold reached up his legs, the stream was deeper than he'd expected. Prey tried to hurry without splashing across to the other bank. The water rose up higher, soaking the wool of his underbelly, and he had to keep his head tilted up to stop the ends of his ears from dragging in the current. The uncut grass on the other bank helped as he pulled himself out of the water, even if he couldn't quite see what he was grabbing at.
Now half soaked, it really was cold. Prey ignored it. A neat street of cosy looking houses greeted Prey when he poked his head above the bank. Over half of the homes were thatched. They were also all silent and dark, aside from a light behind a curtain in the window of one.
Prey waited, but didn't see any movement of shadows behind the curtain. And still no sign of any Night Guards. Paranoia was fearfully gripping his shoulders with iron hooves by this point.
The town of Ponyville was roughly circular in shape, he knew, but he didn't know where in among the houses and buildings these six Elements were supposed to be stored, just that Felyawn's information had said it was supposed to be in the public library. But that was secondary, because the Night Guards were supposed to be covering there, but they weren't! They. Weren't. Here.
'If Luna didn't come along, then there is a remote possibility that all twenty or so of them were ambushed and taken out by a sufficiently large force before they even arrived. I don't actually know what resources the ambassador has at his disposal.'
Could the Night Guards have all been taken out? Felyawn might've dug up any number of dark magic using unicorns for all Prey knew.
There was a horrible thought, but he couldn't deny the remote possibility. In this world, magical might trumped all.
Unicorns first, then the flying pony races like thestrals and pegasi, and then earth ponies. Griffins ranked below unicorns but above thestrals and pegasi as a threat. Minotaurs below them, but above earth ponies. Diamond dogs about the same. And then, below the sturdy and robust earth ponies, everyone else. Zebra, deer, goats, donkeys, cows, and finally, sheep. And alicorns of course at the unassailable top, but that was a completely different scale which wasn't worth even factoring in.
But twenty thestrals? Prey had been there when the Resistance launched their doomed assault at the hill, and had seen them all burn. Twenty thestrals, even warriors, could die in seconds if four or five skilled unicorns got the drop on them. But that was only if Luna hadn't come along. And seeing as how the Night Guard weren't already here in Ponyville, it was looking more and more likely that was the case.
Sharp Tang had run to inform Luna. But what if the Sargent Major had never actually found Luna? Maybe the night alicorn had disappeared, or gone off somewhere? It wasn't like Luna had anyone she had to answer to. Prey hadn't actually seen who had flown out when they left him behind, just the distant flying shapes disappearing into the night, having been just half a minute too slow.
For all he knew, Luna could've been interested in doing something else tonight, and have simply said; "No".
This wasn't the Deeper Green at night, just a small pony town, without the hungry dangers, but some approaches were constant between the two; Scouting. When in doubt, gather more information.
Prey stayed under the level of the stream bank, and began to slink sideways.
---
Sleeping houses, dark gardens, an empty market square, closed flower heads just visible in pots, trees outlined against the night, the slight *creak-creak-creak* of a storefront sign on its' chain moving in a faint breath of night wind. But no sign of external life or activity.
Prey's soaked fur and wool had gone from cold and out the other side to that fake, almost numbingly warm feeling. He'd suffered far worse. But he was still cold.
He saw a round lump on the doorstep outside one house, and for a second thought it could be a severed head. But it was just a foal's ball, not a warning or some such other gory thing. He even saw a small playground, it taking him a moment to work out what those odd, unfamiliar frames were in the dark. A playground, not a gallows. But this was a pony town, rural or not, so it was only to be expected.
Prey moved on, methodically following the stream's path skirting the edge of the town, eyes and ears scanning the dark for anything of actual use. He was looking for movement, looking for something out of place, eyes never still.
He glanced up and behind himself frequently, trying to accurately keep mental track of his surroundings at all times. His neck hurting from his shoulders being wound so tight. He knew, he just knew that any second now the other horseshoe was going to drop. He'd tracked halfway around the small town already, and hadn't found anything, which only meant what was going to go wrong, was waiting in the other half of town and was getting closer every step.
Now he wished he'd stuck with Lemon Pink. Perhaps he should go back and find her? He was split on if it would be safe to leave the town or not to hurry back to her. All of Prey's bitter past experience firmly told him not to even try relying on anyone else, no not even Lemon Pink.
'No, that's not quite true. Crimson for example, he saved my life twice.'
Prey's paranoia warred with his indecision and fear of being spotted if he tried to leave, against the knowledge that Lemon was waiting out there, and might be able to provide assistance. Never underestimate the power of a unicorn's magic to tip the scales.
What should he do? Stay put, go further in, or turn back?
Prey shivered on the dark stream bank, the long grass sticking to his wet wool. He let out a long breath through clenched teeth, 'I should go back and try to re-join with Lemon. It's the most logical choice.' Prey admitted to himself.
He'd have to crawl all the way back around half the town and cross the stream again in the dark, and hope Lemon Pink was waiting where he'd left her. If nothing had gone wrong, and something was very wrong right now, she'd still be hiding behind that bush, under an illusionary veil.
Prey stopped moving. He hadn't been making any motion before that, but now he stopped even breathing, going as still as the dead. Slowly, just his eyes swivelled up towards the expanse of the night sky.
Slowly, oh so slowly, three wheeling black shapes drifted down on silent wings.
Like giant owls, they didn't make a sound. The three figures silhouetted against the stars didn't flap or beat their wings, just slowly drifting down towards the ground.
Prey watched unmoving, as the three griffins finally reached and alighted in the middle of the street. They were griffins, they had to be. No one else went around with razor sharp talons instead of forehooves, and the curved beaks instead of muzzles were another clue.
The three bird lions in the middle of the unlit street wore light fitting, dark grey coverings, but no black. Many mistakenly assume black is the perfect camouflage at night, but it's not. Very few things in nature are pure black. Dark grey actually blends in far better. The plumage of their heads were similarly obscured beneath face coverings. Prey didn't know if they'd dyed the feathers of their wings for this mission, or if Felyawn had found only griffins with dark feather colouration to send. Whatever the answer, it hardly mattered. These griffins were here now.
'They're standing right here, so where the everlasting hells is the Night Guard!? What kind of scenic route did that idiot Sharp Tang take them on?'
From his cover on the cold river bank Prey stared at the griffins, heart thumping, mind racing, as the three finished checking their surroundings. Two of them looked to the last one, who swiftly flicked through a number of gestures with his talon.
'Hunter sign language. For when you are stalking your prey, yez'?' Came the knowledge from Garrow. That didn't help Prey, he was too far away to see what signs they'd made in the dark.
'Shut up shut up shut up.' Prey strangled Garrow's remnant, crushing the memory for all he was worth, 'Not now! Shut up and stay dead.'
When Prey looked again at the griffins, he found he'd missed whatever further signals they'd exchanged, because they'd just split up. The tallest one broke off towards that large oak tree growing down at the end of the road. The town's public library was supposed to be somewhere around that tree. A second griffin padded soundlessly off around a turn to the right, and the last one, distinguishable for seemingly missing the tuft at the end of his lion tail, slunk off to the left.
Small defining details, minor distinctions, pointless things your eyes caught on and stuck in your brain. Prey recognised the prowling slink they moved with, the way they kept their center of gravity low and their limbs loose, he'd seen it before in predators. A hunting stalk.
The situation settled and crystallised in Prey's mind. Somehow, the griffins were here and the Night Guard was not.
They were here to steal the supposed Elements unopposed, even though Prey was mostly certain the Elements were just bait. He'd rushed down here on Crimson's request, but only because he'd been expecting for the Night Guard to already have everything well in hoof. He'd mistakenly split up from Lemon because he feared Luna was already waiting here and would see, and now he was alone.
It was just him here in this sleeping town to stop three griffins, or even possibly more than three since he couldn't assume he'd spotted them all.
Those were terrible odds. He had no tools or traps with him, and there was no time to set up any runic arrays. The griffins were already moving, spreading out to whatever or wherever their targets were.
If he could get back with Lemon Pink in time, and catch one of the three griffins alone, then maybe with Lemon's assistance he could stun that one, and break into their mind. But they could be about to grab the Elements and fly off into the night, gone before he could do anything. Zoma'Grika, his absence at the Palace must've been noticed by now. Before, he'd only been going to say he'd been left behind by Sharp Tang, and so followed the Night Guard down the mountain at his own pace. He should've met with the Night Guards down here, and all would've been fine.
But now, now he was down here in Ponyville alone. If Luna ever found out he'd merely stood back and watched the griffins fly off, when he was the only Night Guard around, she would, she would... He didn't want to think what she would do.
'Why? Why's it always only me?' Prey silently screamed to the dark night sky.
Why was it always up to him to fix all the problems of ponies? There was no justice in the world.
'But I already know that, don't I? The world isn't fair. The strong take, and the weak suffer. It has always been so.' Prey bitterly reflected, hiding there in the dark grass of the stream bank, cold and wet.
'Truly, nothing ever changes.'
Prey let himself slowly slide down the bank backwards. He'd cross the stream and circle back around to the train tracks to find Lemon Pink. You had to be realistic about these things.
He was a runt lamb, and they were three hunting griffins all tensed and on edge. The last time Prey had tried to fight a griffin one on one, look what had happened. He'd been trapped inside a burning building with Garrow, and almost plummeted to his death. Only Crimson's miraculous timing had saved him from splattering his brains and organs out all over the concrete.
A hero would've probably leapt in, sounded the alarm, woken to townsfolk, and faced the griffins down. Heroes are also always the first ones to die. It's usually the coward that survives. Being good at killing didn't make you a fighter. It just made you a murderer.
Prey wasn't a hero, he wasn't a fighter, but he was a coward. He was going to go get his backup, and hope the griffins weren't already gone by the time he got back.
He took a fortifying breath, and then held it as he stepped back into the frigid water of the stream. His legs, which had just started to warm back up to normal, promptly went back to yelping and hyperventilating about the cold. He ignored their bitter complaints, pushing forwards into the dark stream to get across, his sore hooves seemingly hitting every submerged rock in the mud he couldn't see. His forelegs were tingling very unpleasantly in the cold water.
Prey halted. He looked down.
Underneath the dark surface, he could make out his forelegs submerged beneath the flowing water. The golden tracer bands were softly glowing gold.
"What?" The tremulous whisper escaped his lips.
The faint golden glow began to pulse.
'Oh no no no noNoNo!'
He was frozen in the middle of the stream, terrified, head racked back in a futile attempt to get away from his own forelegs.
'No no no, No! Not me, not now!'
The golden pulsing stopped. Prey held his breath, shivering and trembling, blood pounding in his ears.
What was going to happen? What was Luna doing? Was she right now about to-?
Tiredness crushed Prey like a falling boulder. His legs almost buckled, the stream tugging at his limbs. The world blurred as his eyelids involuntarily sagged.
'No.' Prey desperately rallied. Not now. He couldn't afford to fall unconscious right now.
Again the smothering tiredness hit him, a physical force, and turned his muscles to putty.
He was in the middle of the stream, if he fell asleep right here-No. Prey refused. He refused the screamed demand by the siren sleep. He refused to fall.
'Get out of the water. Back to the bank.' Prey latched onto that thought with all his might.
He stumbled around, turning, the grassy bank just there-
-His eyes slid shut against his will. A moment of blackness.
The cold shock of water dragged him out as he fell to his knees. He gasped, the sudden cold driving the air from his lungs. But it wasn't freezing water, just really cold, he could still breathe-
-Sleep.
Prey choked, the last of his air escaping as bubbles. He'd tipped over forwards, another second of boneless blackness stealing the exact moment he fell from him.
People can drown pretty much anywhere. In the ocean, in their kitchen sink, in a puddle at the very top of a mountain. Half an inch of water is all that's needed. And the stream was significantly deeper than half an inch. Prey flailed limbs which barely seemed to move, kicking against the mud, cold water soaking his wool, it was up to his neck!
Panic. Breathing, he tried to take a big gulp of air. 'Breathe.'
But he was so tired.
Black. He'd shut his eyes again. There sounded like there was a bell clanging in the distance but also terribly close. Ashen grey. His mindscape, but there was some force pulling at him and trying to drag him away.
'Wake up wake up WAKE UP!'
Prey spluttered, reflexively inhaled, and cold water shot up his nose. Prey jerked his head up, but found he'd lost his footing on the streambed. His legs were trying to disobey him, he was spluttering, cold water stinging his cheeks and weighing him down. Move! Get to the bank. If he could just reach the bank-
-He fell forwards back into blackness. Ashen grey. His mindscape again. The distant bell was ringing an alarm right in his ears. No, it wasn't a bell, it was a booming voice, demanding something. He couldn't make it out, but it was tugging at him like a riptide, pulling him away.
Prey frantically clung on to his mindscape, the burnt husks of trees bending over as they were sucked towards the pulling boom of the voice. He made out what it was demanding clearly for the first time. His name; "Prey!"
The burning in his lungs as they failed to get oxygen was what snapped him back to reality this time. Would this be the last time he awoke?
Prey was terrified, he was going to drown and yet the bank was right there, less than a hoof away as he floated down the stream.
Prey fought his body, fought the pull of the river, fought for air, fought to force one hoof to reach out and snag ahold of a clod of long grass-
Black. Ashen grey fading away behind him as he was sucked into a tunnel, tumbling through he didn't know what.
"PREY." The bell boomed in his head. "PREY, ATTEND TO OUR SUMMONS."
Cold stream water splashing. The dark bank slipping away. Water in his ears, in his mouth, in his nose. Eyes sliding shut once again. He desperately took a deep breath and held it.
Blackness, swirling into stars. Prey was bodiless, all sense of touch gone. It was just him, getting thrown into an infinite starfield. Prey knew this, he'd seen it before. A mirror-still lake lay far below, filling the plane and reflecting the nighttime heavens back up above. It was just an endless lake of stars, the mirrored constellations slowly wheeling overhead, and a confusing disjointedness, not quite able to tell which way was up and which was down.
"PREY! HEED OUR CALL AT ONCE."
The vast dream avatar of Luna loomed over Prey's presence, galaxies making up her mane, and stars and comet trails her body. It was fake, merely how Luna chose to let others see her in the dream realm she controlled, but that did not stop the fear it inspired. In a nightmare, the dreamer doesn't know to question the fear they'd find ridiculous if they were but awake, because in that moment they are asleep.
Prey bit down on his tongue.
Stinging pain and the copper taste of blood filled his mouth. He jerked his head above the water, sucking in another desperate lungful of air. The real night sky was spinning above him. No, he was the one slowly spinning, caught in the stream's current as it carried him along.
'Get to the bank before Luna calls again!'
The very real promise of drowning lent Prey a burst of strength, enough for a moment to counteract the magical tiredness. Prey drove his legs down, hooves finding mud and smooth pebbles. He stood up, water level dropping back down to his chest, and water streaming off his wool.
Get to the stream bank. That was the only thing in Prey's head.
Get to the bank. He didn't even have to get out. Just half out would be good enough, please, just even half out. Get to the bank.
"PREY!" Luna thundered.
It was so fast, Prey didn't even realise the switch was happening until he was already floating weightless again in the starry dream realm. "Cease thy aggravations! We have summoned thee for a purpose."
"No no no, go back, let me go. In the real world, I need to get back right now-"
"Cease! Thy panic is meaningless, so cease we say! Tis' I, thy rightful Princess. This is our dream realm, look around thyself, canst thou not recall? Now be still, we have questions for thee that thou must forthwith stand and answer for."
Prey could scarcely think enough to be coherent, but desperation lent him the presence of mind to try using the forms of address Luna always demanded, "Princess Luna, please, Your Majesty, I need to wake up. There's a stream, and I-"
"Be quiet we say! We have not the time for prattle. Answer our questions forthwith, and hurry. And do not attempt a lie, for we shall know. We have given thee the benefit of the doubt, and wait to hear thy answer, but why hast thou abandoned thy post?" The astral avatar of stars and night loomed over Prey.
"Please, the emergency message from Gloom and Crimson. Screech-I mean Lieutenant Screech, he was gone to fight the fires. I told Sargent Major Sharp Tang Your Majesty, I swear. I told him, I did what he said, but please let me wake up-"
Luna cut him off, literally silencing his dream voice to speak herself, "What message did thou bare to Sharp Tang? This is of the utmost importance. And what is thy purpose for leaving our city and venturing to the township of Ponyville in this time of emergency without informing anypony?"
"W-what? I did, I did tell Sharp Tang, it was the message! The message from Gloom, it said the griffins were going to try to steal the Elements-"
"The Elements of Harmony?" Luna boomed, the stars in the dream realm shaking.
"Yes! I swear. Sharp Tang told me to get everyo-pony to the parade ground! I ran around telling all the Guards, but when I got there, they'd already flown off! I thought they would be down here already! I thought they'd left me behind, so I went down the mountain to follow them, but they're not here! I need-I need to wake up, Princess Luna, give me just one minute awake-!"
"The Major Sharp Tang has been found dead, murdered in our very Palace! Craven knaves have dared to defile our home!" The looming avatar of star dust roiled in displeasure, angry colours mixing with dark, constellations swirling faster, "But now thou sayest he led our Night Guard off, and that thou hast left and gone down to Ponyville unattended. How then is this possible?"
Sharp Tang was dead? But how? Who was leading the Night Guards then when they flew away, if not to Ponyville? Prey didn't know, and he didn't care, because he was drowning!
"Let me out, I'm-!"
Again Luna silenced him, his dream voice automatically cutting out when she herself spoke, "Who dares to murder ponies under our wing? Who would steal from our worthy heroes? Tell us Prey. What does thou know?"
"Griffins! The griffins, they're here! I saw, three of them, they're here right now. Please, L-Princess Luna, listen, I need to wake up!" Prey begged.
He was going to die. He was going to die because of this! He was going to drown in a muddy ditch, this was going to be his end. Nothing more than a sodden, bloated runt corpse, found days from now stuck under some bridge. Ringing in his head, far away terrible burning in his lungs. The burning was rapidly kindling stronger at horrible speeds, even here in the dream realm. Now, right at the end, it was breaching even his unconscious mind.
Ringing in his head. Pounding in his lungs. Luna was still going on, but it was a distorted booming, and it was rapidly fading. Harder to think, fading...
...Black.
Underwater, the cold nothing to the blazing fire filling his chest. Prey hadn't thought he was going to wake up again. Heavy, everything was so heavy. But his chest burned. And there would be no Lemon Pink fast enough to revive him when he stopped breathing this time.
Water choking him. The thundering ringing pounded in his ears, in his heart, smothering all else.
Move. Move legs. Move. Move.
It was so hard, muscles as weak and frantic as a hummingbird's. Luna was still droning. He was awake, and asleep, conscious, unconscious, and dying. The burning was too much, Prey had to breathe. Just raise his head, reach the air waiting just there. Just one more breath, not even to reach the bank, just to live one more moment!
Water rushed down his throat. His lungs had given up, his mouth opening all by itself. The burning of his chest turned to that of liquid fire, somehow infinitely worse. Fading, the banging in his head, blackness, water, sinking, choking, drowning.
-- - ~ ~ x ~ x ~ X ~ x ~ x ~ ~ - - -
Prey remembered afterwards. It was a post memory. There was only before the happening, and after it finished happening. There was no experiencing the moment in-between, only recalling it afterwards.
And even then, his recollection was suspect. His brain had been starving for oxygen, Luna's magic dragging him down, the whole world spinning, water filling up his lungs, terrified, panicking, and dying.
Prey had wished to get to the stream bank. That was it. He had wanted to get out of the water which was killing him. So he'd wished for the closest salvation he could find, and that had been the stream bank. So he had wished, not in words, but in desperate feelings.
Then he remembered the world pulling the curtain back, leaving the fabric bare. He'd remembered it, the world of cloth and tangled threads, tying everything together. it was the stitching holding everything in place. And he remembered again the dreadful horror. That in-between, that space, the things the fabric of the world was stitched over and holding back.
In that moment, Prey remembered remembering the time when he'd seen this once before. Terrible, terrible, wrong memories that could only be experienced while in that in-between. Not before, nor after, only during. Before and after, the experience became black and white, the meat of the contents missing. But during...
Prey's own stitching had pulled and opened up. He'd been full of stuffing and straw, and he remembered a threaded needle-
-- - ~ ~ x ~ x ~ X ~ x ~ x ~ ~ - - -
Then the time of remembering was over, and Prey was coughing up his lungs, draped over the stream bank. His ribbon stuck to his wet cheek, and his wool was a sodden mass of weight. Burning up inside, but shivering fit to burst on the outside. There was no strength left in him, but by all the dead he could breathe!
Air. Sweet air. It burned his throat and he hacked out more water, coughing and breathing and trying to do less of the first and more of the second and then Luna-
And then Luna dragged him back again.
Ashen grey, then sparkling black. The world swirled and ran together, and when it finished resolving, he was in the starry expanse of Luna's controlled dream realm yet again. Luna's vast dream avatar was still towering over him, still thundering away, still demanding answers of him.
Prey didn't have a dream avatar. He hadn't last time either. He had just wanted to be left alone. He was bodiless, without a face or expression, but for a moment, he hung there and just looked at Luna.
He. H A T E D. Luna.
"For the last time, stop fighting us! Canst thou not comprehend the severity of the situation? Thy presence is required until thou hast answered our questions and not before." Real anger resounded in Luna's command, and hers was the power to enforce it too. A Night Guard had been murdered in the Palace, Her Palace! There was no patience left in Luna tonight.
"What are these three Griffins you speak of Prey? Speak quickly!"
'This...'
Her arrogance... Prey just did not have words.
She had so very nearly killed him by sheer accidental arrogance.
He'd just barely survived that... just that. A new deep-seated fear was now forever kindled in him at the word 'drowning', the memory only minutes old. And that was Luna's fault too. His throat burning and his lungs screaming, relegated to dying in a muddy ditch, all because Luna hadn't listened for even ten seconds. Ten seconds. Less, even. She hadn't listened for even that long because she had a dead body on her end, and so it was inconceivable to her that something just as dire might be happening on his end.
She was an alicorn, the princess and defender of Equestria, with a chip on her shoulder and a thousand years to make up for, and therefore her every choice held weighted significance far beyond any of Prey's.
He was a lowly pawn. She was the grand queen. There was no equating their two worths.
And Luna was still waiting for his answer.
"I came down the train tracks. I followed them into Ponyville. I expected to find the Night Guard already here. They weren't. I grew suspicious. I snuck into the town. I saw three griffins in dark clothing land. They split up. I was about to follow one of them, when you whisked me away. Your Majesty."
It hardly felt like the flat, calm words were coming from him. But he had to answer, to give Luna what she wanted to hear. All the hate in the world couldn't hurt the immortal alicorn princess. However, she was more than capable of hurting him if he didn't comply.
'Pride is for the strong. I am not strong. I am weak. I almost drowned in a ditch. I have nothing to threaten Luna with, nothing in the world with which to make her pay.'
The strong take, and the weak suffer.
"What is their purpose in daring to set hoof in Ponyville?" Luna asked, or rather demanded. Why exactly, Prey didn't know. It was obvious, wasn't it?
"To steal the Elements of Harmony, as per Sargent Gloom's emergency note, Your Majesty." Prey answered quietly and without any inflection. It was that, or scream the words at her.
In her anger or just indomitable self assurance, Luna didn't even seem to notice anything amiss in his attitude, "That was rhetorical. These griffins split up though? Where is each of the knaves' destinations?"
"I don't know, Princess Luna. They split up. I didn't see where. Because I was put to sleep." Prey repeated, still fighting to smother his blazing hate. Luna was already angry, he wouldn't be making himself into one of the causes. Prey could feel the world laughing at him with how blindingly unfair it all was.
"How did they infiltrate our Palace? How did they slip by and murder one of mine own? One of our little beloved ponies, who swore into my service, and we to their protection. Yet they dare!?" Luna's avatar ranted. Prey wasn't sure she was actually expecting and answer. He did so anyway, reclaiming a pitiful amount of spiteful joy in being able to answer in the negative. It was all he could do:
"I don't know, Your Majesty."
Rising above the bubbling mire of black hate he was fighting to repress, a moment of clear intuition somehow still managed to float up and into Prey.
'That mimic pretending to be Rising Star...'
He/she/it had been in the Palace. Prey didn't know where it had gone or what it had done afterwards. The arson distraction that'd called away Lieutenant Screech, Prey had thought it was a ploy by the ambassador, Felyawn. But could the griffins really have somehow killed Sharp Tang inside the Palace before the thestral could make it to the Night Court to warn Luna? How would a griffin even have overheard Prey passing on Gloom's message to Sharp Tang? How would a griffin have even been in the Palace in the first place? And who then took Sharp Tang's place, flying off on a detour with the rest of the assembled Night Guards afterwards?
This all screamed "mimic" in Prey's head.
'I should've killed it the moment it stepped into the office, not let it talk, not let it take over my emotions, and not let it flee without destroying it afterwards.' Prey thought in bitter regret.
Luna's avatar abruptly twisted down, her astral constellation of a face coming close to Prey's presence. It was as if the moon had suddenly lent down, filling the entire night and blocking Prey's view to all else.
"Have these thieves stolen away the Elements from their rightful Bearers yet, doest thou know Prey?" Luna's voice filled the entire dream realm.
"No, Princess Luna. I don't know. You 'called' before anything else happened."
"Hast not been five minutes then, good. We doubt these griffins can have yet taken the Elements. The fools. None but their rightful pony bearer may wield them anyway. Nevertheless they will pay for their impudence. What do they even hope to accomplish-? But nay! Tis' is best if we put an end to this first, and question later. They can answer for themselves from the confines of our dungeons." Luna's vast avatar pulled up and away, becoming a piece of the rotating night sky again. Angry red stars were still sparking into distant supernovas in her avatar's mane.
Luna almost seemed to only say the next bit to herself, still pulling further away, up and up into the night sky, the avatar losing features and melding back into space and stars:
"The Element bearers, we have not had a good enough cause to yet meet, but perhaps... tis' poor recompense, and poorer circumstances, but the cowardly griffins have forced our hoof. This is our chance to repay, at least in small part, our sins against their august selves."
Black. Prey woke back up on the muddy bank. His whole body was shivering in his sodden wool. The coppery taste of blood from biting his tongue still lingered in his mouth, and his throat felt hot and raw from coughing and retching up stream water.
Painfully, muscles cold and stiff, Prey rolled himself over. The real night sky, not the fake construct of Luna's manipulated dream, spread above him. Prey gazed up at it, his hate for Luna running in an uninterrupted loop inside his head. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate.
He shivered, hugging his legs to himself.
The three griffins could do whatever the hell they wanted. They could steal, torture, and kill every single person and foal inside of Ponyville. Prey had no intention of moving from this spot. He was done. He was so utterly done tonight.
Life said 'No'. The choice wasn't up to him. Life is hundreds of stories happening all at once, and tonight, it was someone else's story. Sometimes, from another's point of view, you're just a side character. To play your role, and then be forgotten in their own grand narrative.
Tonight was someone else's story. The strong take, and the weak suffer their will.
The moonlight abruptly spiked into painful brilliance. Prey threw a stinging hoof over his abused eyes, panic blooming back into full force.
'Zoma'Grika, what now?!' Prey struggled to get upright, hooves slipping on the wet grass and mud of the stream bank.
The cold silvery brilliance ended as suddenly as it had appeared. The night was abruptly much darker in its absence. Prey blinked rapidly, peeking above the height of the bank.
He... wasn't surprised really. The theme of magic had been obvious, as had been her words just now. Above the bank, standing tall and proud, dark mane alive and moving by itself, was Luna.
Because who else would it have been? No sharp *crack* of standard teleportation magic, because of course it wouldn't be a normal level teleport. Luna was an alicorn.
The two armoured Night Guards she'd brought along in her wake were normal, though. They looked uneasy, shifting around and trying to check in all directions for anything that might pose a danger to their princess. Prey tiredly wondered if Luna had even bothered to tell them where they were going before she teleported them out of Canterlot. Probably not.
But they were also just background here, side characters. Like Prey. This was all about Luna, she was center stage of the spotlight tonight, and from every line in her posture, she knew it.
Or maybe she just accepted it as her due. Yes, that was more likely. An alicorn was automatically the center any room. Or in this case, rural town.
Luna half turned her head, crown still resting on her brow and long horn held high.
Prey blinked, and realised she was looking around for him. He crawled over the edge of the bank and stood stiffly up, still shivering, muddy, and cold.
"Princess Luna." He said, eyes lowered. 'I hate you!' He internally screamed.
"There thou art, Prey. We-what is the cause of thy appearance?" Luna changed what she was saying mid sentence.
A spike of fear shot through. Surely she wasn't taking offence at daring to appear in her presence like this? Ridiculous, but he still worried, because Luna was still angry. Her eyes were even colder than normal, her motions jerky, and when she moved, it was too fast. And if he wasn't imagining it, her mane was roiling faster than usual too.
'No, she's upset that someone dared to break one of her toy soldiers, Sharp Tang, not about me.'
Prey cleared his raw throat, swallowing the lingering taste of blood, "I was crossing the stream. Then you summoned me, Princess. I fell in."
Did that make her realise he could've drowned because of her poor timing? Or did she even care?
"Thou art not injured then." Luna said, just like that dismissing him from her concerns. She snapped back around to look into the town of Ponyville, which despite the royal figure standing right on its outskirts, was still sleeping. Which was... understandable, even if it seemed impossible. There hadn't been any loud noises as of yet, and unlike her usual form of address Luna was not shouting, so the residents hadn't had a reason to wake up yet.
"Now," Luna's voice was deceptively calm in the cold night, "Let us put an end to this farce. If all goes well, our innocent ponies here will not even have cause to wake from their beds. Such was our duty then, and such is our duty now as Princess of the Night."
Prey exchanged a look with the two Guards which was both alarmed and haggard, but without the power to change anything as they were dragged along in the alicorn's wake.
One of the two Night Guards still tried, the one with a clan Cilldara stud in his ear, "Princess L-"
That was as far as he got in trying to circumspectly reign his princess in.
"Hold thy peace, all of thee." Luna ordered without turning, "This here, this night, is our duty. Nopony, nay not even our sister, may gainsay us here. On every rulers' crown is levied a cost, that of stewardship. To protect everypony under thy rule who cannot defend themselves, and not the other way around. To not do so, is to be a tyrant."
For just the briefest moment, Luna's mane stilled as she stood there, back straight and unyielding, "And we are no would-be tyrant. Never again."
For all Luna had just said, the words kindled a reminder of the opposite in Prey's head. He could all too easily recall Felyawn's own words, about the griffin's justified fears of Luna descending into madness once again, and this time, succeeding in dooming all life. Because Prey knew a thing or two about madness. And madness is contagious.
'Oh you're not a tyrant, are you? You speak of saving everyone, but when are you going to start? You make empty grand statements, but never think it worth your time to look at the small picture, at the little guy. Like me. Who's fault was it I almost drowned not five minutes ago, huh? You didn't save me, I had to save me!' Prey internally seethed, still shivering away and having to clench his jaw to prevent his teeth from chattering.
The Guards however winced in almost physical discomfort at Luna's words. Their thoughts gave voice to their worry.
'-it's not like that. It shouldn't be like that. It's our duty too, Your Highness-'
'-this is why our loyal clans came back. To make sure you never had to go it alone again-'
But neither voiced their feelings out loud. Now was not the time. Luna had given an order, and like good thestrals, they would stoically obey.
Luna wasn't waiting for their agreement anyway, or even disagreement, because she didn't need it. She was an alicorn, and she had made a declaration. Now she was going to follow through. It was as simple as that.
"Now we begin."
Invisible needles immediately assaulted Prey's hooves. An involuntary hiss escaped from between his clenched teeth as Luna cast a spell. A huge build up of sparkling blue and indigo magic formed before Luna in an instant, without even a hint of strain as a nod to the extreme effort a normal unicorn would've suffered. And it was unicorn magic, not that elusive and otherworldly alicorn magic Prey had once witnessed Luna command. Just normal unicorn magic, but on a far grander scale.
'Normal magic. As if there is such a thing.' Prey resentfully glared, unseen and already forgotten at the back of the group. His jaw clenched tighter, not just to prevent his teeth from chattering as he shivered, but also against the shooting needle pains building up in his hooves.
Apprehension began fluttering away in Prey's stomach as Luna went on channelling, the cloud of dark blue magic above Luna's head building higher and higher, 'C'mon, she's got to cast soon. What do you need so much magic for. Just do it already!'
Luna flicked her horn, "There. That is the innocent sleeping inhabitants seen to. And now..."
The magic snapped into a huge geometric shape too fast for Prey's eyes to follow, and vanished in an instant into an expanding afterimage. Prey flinched, jerking back but too slow, the magic was already in effect. His hooves flared in pain, wind rushed in his ears, and his wool stood on end.
Prey cast around wildly. The world had gone and changed on him. Thatched houses with dark windows had sprung up all around them out of nowhere.
'What? What?!'
No, it was them who'd moved, not their surroundings. They'd been teleported to the middle of Ponyville's main street. But after the sudden transition on the stream bank, and his memory still fresh of a world full of stitches, the sudden teleportation didn't do Prey's state any good.
There was magic in the very air, all around, Prey could feel it layered over everything. He hunched in on himself, afraid at the hated touch.
"Halt!" Luna's unexpected bellow had Prey falling back onto his haunches, forehooves snapping uselessly up to cover his ears. His head was actually left ringing, feeling like spikes were crawling into his brain.
"Surrender forthwith, and we may yet have mercy." Luna boomed.
Hooves still clapped protectively over his ears, Prey looked past Luna and the two Night Guards.
There, caught in the act of take-off at the end of the main street, feathered wings spread, one of the griffins stood frozen.
Wide eyes stared at Luna from out of their cloth mask.
Prey hadn't even seen them crouched there in the disorientation that had come after the teleport.
The griffin's wings twitched, hackles rising. "A poor choice indeed!" Luna announced disappointedly.
A blur of starry blue magic lashed out from Luna. The griffin let out half of a piercing avian screech, but that was all they had time for.
The thick whip of magic struck like a constricting snake, wrapping around and binding the griffon, claw and talon. They struggled, flapping, trying to claw free. Utterly hopeless. Luna's magic was completely impervious to physical resistance, and in two seconds flat, she had the griffin trussed up, legs, wings, and even tail all bound tightly against their body, and beak clamped shut.
Their eyes were left uncovered however, and in them Prey saw the terrified panic the griffin couldn't voice.
"One down, two to cowards to go." Luna stated in the exact same disappointed tone, striding forwards down the street.
The Night Guard with the wingblades hurriedly spoke up, "Your Majesty, any other griffins will have heard-"
"Nay, fear not. None that I do not wish to will hear anything tonight. The cowards may not warn their fellow knaves, nor may they disturb the rest of our little ponies. We have seen to it." Luna cut him off, not even slowing her march.
So that was the unkown spell Luna had cast earlier. Something powerful enough to subdue the entire town. How terrifying.
Bravely, or stupidly from Prey's perspective, the other Guard also tried, looking towards the bound griffin floating in their magical bindings, "The, ah, your prisoner-"
"Ah! A good call. Yes, we shall bring them with us. No doubt they wish to be speedily reunited with their fellows." Luna said, as if she'd already dismissed the defeated griffin from her mind they were so unimportant, but Prey still heard the witheringly cold and sharp edge under her words. He wasn't fooled for even a second by the self assured victor persona Luna was projecting. Because it was only her outer shell.
Beneath it was still the unfeeling and coldly alien half of Luna, the part which ponies were blind to and only Prey seemed to sense.
Luna didn't stop, or slow, or look back. But the implied "keep up" to Prey and the two Night Guards was imperiously clear. They were expected to follow without question. So they did. What else were they supposed to do in a town magically put to sleep?
'The action of a tyrant indeed.' The silent accusation again whispered in Prey's mind. He snuck a glance at the bound griffin, feeling nothing but tired disdain for the griffin's fate. The bird lion's eyes were rolling, darting everywhere frantically, but it was hopeless. Luna's magic held them immobile as it quietly floated the avian along behind them. Like a disobedient pet on a leash.
They were just at the edge of Prey's mental perception range, bobbing in and out. Their thoughts were a panicked despairing mess of Equestrian and also Griffish;
'-mein land braucht mich! No no, High Sky save and protect me. Das Nightmare hat mich!-'
Prey had no sympathy left in him tonight for anyone but himself.
He was tired, sore, cold, shivering, afraid, exhausted, and his hooves were aching savagely. Just the same as the griffin, he deeply hated and feared Luna, more even. There was only one difference between the griffin; his leash to Luna had a bit more slack in it, and was gold, not midnight-blue.
'It's your own fault for coming to Equestria. It's your fault for trying to fight an alicorn. And it's your fault for believing you were doing the right thing in serving your country. Why'd you leave Griffonia were you were safe and happy to come to pony lands? You should've stayed at home.' Prey thought pitilessly as he stumbled along and tried to keep up with Luna's long strides.
This, everything that happened next, it was all on Felyawn and Griffonia. Prey had no power to change anything anymore, he was just a spectator to Luna's actions. Him, and the two Night Guards she'd brought along. He was starting to think Luna had only brought them because she wanted witnesses to spread tales of how she effortlessly captured the three griffins afterwards. She wasn't using the Guards to scout, nor to hold the prisoner, and certainly not for her own protection.
Luna was leading them very confidently along the main street, Stirrup Street, Prey saw from the dim sign, one of the few streets in Ponyville that seemed to have been paved. Prey assumed that meant she knew where they were going, and was heading to capture the two remaining griffins. There was no question of 'if' in Prey's head, only 'when'.
The threat and the risk of this mission were all gone. Luna was an immortal alicorn. What could two magicless griffins do against that?
'Nothing, just like me. A magicless and talentless runt. A pity case to Equestrians everywhere for not being born a pony.'
They reached the end of the street, the thick but invisible feeling of magic still hanging in the night air and savagely stinging Prey's hooves. Here, the street split into a three pronged fork.
There was a small collection of dark houses directly ahead. Off at an angle to the right of the fork was that large, squat oak tree again, mostly just a shadowy shape in the night. And finally on the left side more dark homes, one of which stood out for being oddly shaped, a rounded spire slap bang in the middle of its roof. Of all things, the top looked like a giant cupcake with three candles sitting atop it in the dark.
With their night vision, it was normal that the two Night Guards would spot their adversaries before Prey could; "Princess L-"
"We see them, Swift Slice. Thy warning is unneeded." Luna interrupted again, not breaking stride as she turned down the left fork in the street.
It took Prey that one second longer for his own worse eyes to pick out what she meant. Both shrouded griffins were ahead, one directly outside the weird cake house, and the other in the attitude of approaching the first, their back towards Luna. They hadn't heard the alicorn or the thestrals voices, because just like Luna had said, she was in complete control of this confrontation.
The levitating griffin in Luna's magic uselessly tried to scream a warning to their friends, '-<renn weig!> Run away Jacknaw. Turn around and see! <Renn weig>-'
'Hopeless.'
Those two griffins were already as good as captured. Prey felt no apprehension or danger at the coming conflict only seconds away, because Luna was here.
The outcome was a foregone conclusion. Prey had already said it; he was just a spectator here tonight.
Griffin number two conspicuously had a lumpy cloth bag slung over his shoulder, and was hurrying towards his compatriot, who was sweeping the skyline anxiously. Too bad. He should've been searching at ground level. Not that it would've made the blindest bit of difference.
The waiting griffin looked around as he heard his companion's approach. Luna had not made them invisible, although Prey knew without a doubt it would've been easy for the alicorn. No, she obviously wanted the griffins to see her coming. And the griffin definitely saw Luna.
Wings snapped open as he reared back, feathers bristling in fright:
"Nightmare Moon!" He screeched, and attempted a standing take off.
By instinct alone, Prey just managed to cover his ears in time. "We are NOT that evil hag!" Luna roared.
Predictably at the sonic assault, everyone who wasn't Luna, even Prey who was behind Luna and had his ears covered, reeled. Like a thunderclap, it was so loud it physically staggered you. Luna chose to use their moment of stunned deafness to strike.
Effortlessly two more tendrils of night blue magic speared forwards.
By sheer dumb luck more than any sort of skill, it was the griffin facing away from Luna who dodged, throwing themselves blindly to the left in a roll. The other one attempted to follow through on their standing take off, but was still too stunned to react to the lash of magic.
Luna smacked that one flat into the dirt hard, their legs buckling under the crushing blow and wings akimbo. Then the magical tendril plucked the griffin off the street almost disdainfully, like it was being defiled by being relegated to picking up litter, before binding them up just as tightly as the first griffin Luna had captured.
The griffin who'd blindly dodged rolled across the street and leapt back upright with catlike agility, landing in a fighting crouch, cloth bag still slung across their chest. They actually hissed at Luna, half enraged cat, half raucous caw, "Luna. The very mare of the hour."
Prey recognised that voice. It was Felyawn himself.
The ambassador had dyed his feathers and golden fur, and wore the obscuring face covering, but now that he was facing towards them, it was impossible to mistake those ice blue flecks for anyone else's eyes.
So Felyawn had actually come here tonight himself. It fit in a strange way. The griffin completely believed in what he was doing, and would never send a subordinate to do what he himself would not.
Luna didn't immediately strike again, or cast a different spell. She tilted her head slightly in thought, "I know thee, thou hast been in our sister's court before. Thy name, what was it again?"
"Felyawn, ambassador of Griffonstone, and the High and Low Kingdoms." Felyawn answered tightly, still poised to spring.
His piercing gaze tracked his battered subordinate, as Luna reeled them in to float alongside the first captured and gagged griffin. Both floated helplessly there, adding their mental cries of anger and despair to Prey's headache. The Night Guard with the wingblades was keeping his attention fixed on the bound pair at all times, rather pointlessly, while the other with the claw boots was solely devoted to Luna's wellbeing.
"Then thou hast much to answer for, ambassador Felayawn of Griffonstone, and the High and Low Kingdoms." Luna's voice was as cold and hard as stone, "We thought that the griffins knew better. They certainly did when last I walked Equss a millennium past. Thy nation will not be forgiven for this act of unprovoked aggression."
Prey swallowed. Was it going to be as he had feared all along? Was Luna going to choose to escalate this into war? She had the perfect excuse right here in front of her, the very griffin ambassador himself caught in the act.
'Why did you have to come yourself?!' Prey thought at Felyawn angrily, but his anger was tinged with hopeless resignation. At this stage, it made little difference. Everyone would know it was the griffins who'd ordered this, captured ambassador or not.
Felyawn narrowed his eyes at Luna, never breaking eye contact, "Unprovoked aggression? Such transparent lies are unbecoming of royalty, Your Majesty." He spoke the title with disdain every bit the equal to Luna's own.
Luna twitched. A shadow of burning rage flickered across her features, then it was gone, replaced again by the cold alicorn princess. She turned her nose up in contempt at Felyawn:
"Thy motivations are meaningless, and we have no interest in listening to what is no doubt well crafted rhetoric of poisonous hate. Thou hast caused the murder of one of our little ponies. We will not further waste our breath tonight on thee. Thou would only further stain their memory with thy lies."
She said that, but Prey was almost certain it wasn't the griffins who'd killed Sharp Tang, they'd only been in it to steal the Elements of Harmony. Sure, it was probably Felyawn who'd organized the arson attack in Canterlot to occupy Screech and half the Night Guard, but the murder was done by that mimic who'd still been in the Palace at the time, and who had then led off the rest of the Night Guards on a wild goose chase while pretending to be Sharp Tang.
Except, why would the mimics do that? What did they get out of this? Why the sudden intervention on behalf of the griffins? Why help in Felyawn's scheme at all?
Were members of the Griffonian government secretly working with the mimics, then? Or maybe the mimics meant for the griffins to take the Elements and then steal the lot off them.
And... why wasn't there any surprise on Felyawn's face at the accusation? Surely talk of Sharp Tang's death should throw him, he wasn't supposed to have any idea what Luna was talking about, right?
So why couldn't Prey see anything like that reflected in Felyawn's eyes or posture? It was more than Felyawn being masterfully self controlled as an ambassador, it felt different. Prey knew a mask when he saw one, and he didn't think he was looking at one now.
"An unintended casualty, and one which could've been easily avoided, if Equestria had co-operated with us." Felyawn stated, "We are supposed to allies, yet when we came to you ponies about a threat to the whole world, with evidence and cause, and petitioned you for months, you refused point blank to act. You have no right to act like you're the innocent party in all this. Everything I have done I have done not only for my nation, but for everyone who will ever live."
"Thou admits it then, this was foreplanned by thy nation as a whole." From the side, Prey saw Luna's lip curl down in distaste, "They shall answer for their crimes in time. But first, you. Surrender thyself, and turn over the Elements of Harmony at once. We shall not ask twice."
Felyawn glared, beak clenched sharply shut. Slowly, he reached around to the lumpy cloth bag slung across his chest, and pulled it over his head. Wordlessly, he tossed it to the packed dirt of the street, halfway between him and Luna. Or rather, he would've done if Luna's magic hadn't snatched the cloth bag away before it could ever touch the ground. She yanked the bag close, almost anxiously ripping the binding off with a flex of her aura and looking inside. Prey himself didn't get to see what was in it.
Felyawn took Luna's momentary distraction to start speaking again. He'd willingly given up what was no doubt the six Elements of Harmony in the bag just to gain another minute to speak. It was the only method of defiance left to the griffin.
"This dispute between our two nations has only just begun. When facing the threat of extinction, there is no right or wrong left, only survival. And we are in the right. To live, to breathe, to survive, it is everyone's right, and we will not let Equestria steal it from us."
Was... was Felyawn actively trying to incite war?! Prey's heart pounded in the back of his throat, and the taste of blood was back. No. No, Prey couldn't believe it. He'd spoken to the griffin through Lemon Pink, and he couldn't believe Felyawn was capable of that. The ambassador was a patriot through and through, and he would never actively damage his own nation like this. He might've risked war by stealing the Elements, but that was different, and had the secret approval of Griffonia behind it too.
Risking war to save his country in the future was one thing, but actively trying to throw it into a war after his plan had already failed, just out of spite? To potentially sacrifice thousands of his own beloved people?
No. No, Prey couldn't believe it and didn't, because it just couldn't be true.
It wasn't true.
'Mimic.'
Prey took a cautious step forwards, then another. He moved out from behind Luna's presence and to the side. He pushed aside the shivering of his body, the painful throbbing in his hooves, the pounding in his head, and focused on Felyawn.
And heard nothing. There was just a black hole where the griffin's mind should've been.
Prey had been in the same room with Felyawn before, he knew the real griffin wasn't a mimic. But this one in front of him was.
Prey stepped back in shock. The mimic's acting had been almost flawless, the glare, voice, pattern of speech, everything but what he said, and that Prey could only tell because he'd met the real Felyawn. This was the first time he'd encountered a mimic imitating someone he already knew to be real.
For a moment the icy blue fake eyes locked with the lamb's own. Prey thought he saw a moment where the mimic and not the griffin mask was looking back. Loathing, fear, revulsion. And then it was just Felyawn again, still spouting off to Luna:
"As it stands now, our nations cannot coexist. Yours is blatantly playing at being antagonistic and unreasonable, in a transparent attempt to incite hostilities so you might claim you were provoked. One must wonder, why? Perhaps with the return of her sister, perhaps Celestia now feels confident enough to begin an age of conquest, hmm?"
It all made sense to Prey now. It had been the griffins' plan originally, but the mimics must've caught wind of it or manipulated the griffins right from the get-go. Here right at the end stage in the plan, they'd replaced Felyawn to try to steal the Elements of Harmony, which were sounding more and more like they were real with every passing minute, for themselves. And in the aftermath, they intended the griffins to take the fall, to ignite hostilities or even outright war between Equestria and Griffonia.
From the monarch of the mimics' point of view, it was coldly logical. Pit ponies against griffins, leave them to fight and weaken each other, while you get to keep the Elements for yourself. After all, while Equestria would invariably win the war, you had nothing to worry about if the Sun Wolf was out hunting birds and not bugs.
The quest to steal the Elements had failed the moment Luna had become involved. But the quest to start off conflict or even outright war? The mimic playing Felyawn was giving it his best shot.
"Take take take, nothing is ever enough for Equestria. Tell us, what will you do when you've taken the whole world? What about when there's nothing left to take? Will your pride and greed only be satisfied then?"
War. The mimic really was trying to start a war. A war where the Border Guard killed griffin chicks and burned towns, where unicorns would murder with lightning and magic. War.
Prey wasn't mad anymore. He didn't want a war.
But Prey wasn't in charge, he was just one of the spectators, Luna was the main actor on this stage tonight.
And Luna was seething. She wasn't shouting Felyawn into deafened silence, she was just standing there silently listening and steadily getting angrier and angrier. Prey could see it, there was a literal distortion in the air around her body as ambient magic warped in her presence. Prey could only stare. He felt petrified.
Luna wasn't petrified though, she was just choosing not to obliterate Felyawn yet. Yet. Perhaps the suicidal nature of the apparent ambassador in front of her had impressed her just as much as it angered her. Or worse, she was patiently giving the 'griffin' enough rope to hang his whole entire nation with. What if she was actually liking the sound of a war, Prey thought in horror? A war to avenge Sharp Tang, to soothe her own pride, to remind the world who she was after being forgotten a thousand years.
To an immortal alicorn who played with their nation like gaming pieces, the dark allure of war might be an enticing board.
'But, I don't want war. I don't, I don't, I don't!'
What simple, what childish logic. 'I don't want war.'
But the logic was all the more true for it, more real than any complex speech given in any grand hall of philosophy.
I don't want war. How utterly undeniably and unquestionably true, a sentiment to ring down the ages, to be carved into the hearts of every mother and father who loves their child.
The world would be a different place if more people just said; "I don't want war".
So from the very depths of his soul, Prey gathered his courage, steeled his pounding heart and locked his shaking legs, and dared to interrupt.
"Princess Luna."
Once before, Prey had dared to speak up against Luna's order to be quiet in the defence of Crimson. For that, he had been dismissed and magically knocked unconscious for daring to say "But" to Luna. He'd learnt his lesson; do not contradict the strong if you are weak. Bow your head and bite your tongue, because you have no power to change anything, and will only suffer if you try.
Once. One word, "but", and then he'd been punished. But Prey had to try.
It would never be known by the world, or remembered as a moment of crossroads by nations. Who knows? Perhaps it didn't change anything, or perhaps it only changed just the smallest thing. Perhaps it was never as serious as it appeared to Prey.
It was highly possible a thousand others in the Equestrian government, the nobles and politicians, would've been able convince Luna to reconsider anyways. Perhaps Griffonia would've folded, perhaps Luna's temper would've cooled by itself, perhaps any number of the other factors would've come into play. So who knew if it made the blindest bit of difference in the end?
"Princess Luna," Prey squeaked, then coughed in a moment of burning shame and fear at his runt body betraying him like that, "I'm, I'm sorry for speaking out of turn. P-please forgive me, but, but I feel I must speak."
Luna didn't so much as twitch. She didn't turn, acknowledge, or look at him. But suddenly, although the mimic's beak continued to move, the sound of his poisoned words no longer reached Prey's ears. Luna had magically blocked him. That must be a signal for him to continue:
Prey choked down the lump in his throat, it felt like his pounding heart, and forced himself to hurry on:
"I, I think, I don't think the ambassador is in his right mind. I, I mean, d-doesn't this all seem rather suspicious? What, what he's saying, isn't it like he's trying to provoke a war?"
Prey was stating the obvious, but just like that, it was out in the open and clear for everyone to now see. It was the simple logic of spite. By pointing out it was what the 'ambassador' wanted, Luna would feel like doing the opposite, out of stubbornness if nothing else.
Silence. The two Night Guards had gone still. The captured griffins were silently screaming away in their head against Luna and the prospect of war, now that Prey had said the dreaded word out loud.
Prey waited, feeling sick with fear, for Luna to smite him, or blow out his ear drums, or any number of horrible things for daring to interrupt when she was this furious.
'Please don't hurt me, don't hurt me, oh please don't hurt me. I hate pain, I hate pain! Don't kill me!'
The moment of silence went on. "We realise that, Prey." Luna finally said.
Prey's legs almost folded under him in relief. Luna had heard him, and wasn't lashing out at him either. He breathed again, the air thick with sweet freeness at how he was allowed to do so. Luna hadn't chosen to finish drowning him instead.
Luna dropped whatever invisible sound barrier it was she'd erected, and the voice of the mimic chimed back in, also gesticulating animatedly with a talon, "-you have no right under the Endless Sky or Mother Gaia to place all of our lives in the hooves of six of your citizens."
"We have heard enough out of you. We art thoroughly sick and weary of this drivel. Surrender now. Or don't. We would prefer that, actually."
Luna's mane rose around her as a wool-rasingly huge charge of magic built up in her, radiating so strongly that stones and dirt began rising off the street, charged air reeking of ozone so thick you didn't dare move lest you fry yourself with static. Prey fell over as his hooves shrieked at him in agony, filled with liquidised needles and razors.
Then the door of the building right next to the disguised mimic slammed open.
A second of utterly bewildered vertigo, as all around him the world froze instead of exploding.
"I knew it I knew it IKnewIt! New ponies in town! Ha! No pony can fool me, was all sleepy and some party pooper wouldn't let me wake up, but now I'm here!" A pink pony screamed at aggressively excited decibels, exploding out the door.
Just, nothing. Prey drew an absolute blank.
"Pinkamena Diane Pie, thou-you-Get away from him!" Luna spluttered out in shock.
The mare's hooves shot up to her cheeks in beaming delight, "Princess Moony-Hootie-Tootie-Fruity! You got my invite after all-!"
The mimic moved. Fast. A feathered wing shoved up into Pinkamena's face.
"Hey meanie-"
Flip, glint, slick, *Shnnk*
The mimic masquerading as Felyawn rammed the dagger through the obscuring screen of his loose feathers and up under the mare's flapping jaw. They roughly twisted the handle to finish the job in a practiced motion, and yanked the dagger free.
The pink mare staggered, mane flopping straight, hooves uselessly going up, and fell.
The mimic twisted back to face Luna, dropping the bloody dagger and reaching under their dark shirt, "There, now your nation is as helpless as our own-"
"Laughter!" Luna shouted, voice resounding with... horror? Why? What did laughter have to do with anything-?
*Bang* Flash. The fake griffin was blown down the street. A coil of magic shot after him, too fast to follow, and reeled him back in. Then it threw him with a wet *crunch* to the dirt next to the other two forgotten and bound griffins.
But Luna had already been moving. She sprinted forwards, crossing the distance in a moment, Night Guards and Prey left behind, "Pinkamina, no, Laughter. Shh, shh, we are here. It will be alright. Trust us."
The pink mare called Pinkamina was on her back, blood soaking her front. She would be gone in a second or two, the dagger had not only destroyed her jaw and upper throat, but at that angle and depth, would also have punched through the bottom of the skull and touched the brain.
Contrary to what people thought, Prey knew stabbing through the head, while fatal, in rare exceptions wasn't always immediately so. He'd seen it himself, a Border Guard strapped down with Snake picking over the still living brain inside the cut open skull. Or that goat who'd caught an arrow through the temple, and kept walking blindly in circles, unresponsive to everything until Torment came and put him down.
But extreme blood loss coupled with a punctured skull? Death in seconds.
Luna was crouched over the dead but dying mare, impossibly gentle and concerned in a way Prey could never have even conceived of from the alicorn. The pink mare was trying so desperately to say something, twitching hooves already slipping limply out of Luna's hold.
"Ssh, hush. Rest. Tis' naught but a bad dream. It is our job to banish nightmares. Trust us, 'twill all be fine. Does thou trust us?"
The mimic's last victim never answered. She'd already finished dying.
Too slow, the two Night Guards arrived in a rush of hooves and bat wings at their Princess's side, but too late. Too late and too slow. They couldn't say or do anything.
Prey stayed were he was on the dirt, blankly watching.
Someone had woken up despite Luna's spell, and now they were dead and Luna was saying it was just a bad dream. So. This was what was happening now. Okay. Alright then. He was too tired, cold, and sore to feel much of anything besides a sense of, 'Huh.'
Luna drew a deep breath, and brushed the mare's eyelids closed with the wing tips of her pinions, "'Twill be naught but a bad dream whence thou wake. Trust us. We are Lady Luna of the Night." She murmured softly.
She straightened up, broad wings opening and pointing towards the starry heavens. She raised her head, facing towards the moon. Prey saw her eyes. They were crystal clear. Not a single tear or even wet eye, just a desperate sort of frozen focus.
"Trust us. We say it shall be fine. We will it so, and so it shall be!"
What was she doing? The jagged pain in Prey's hooves abruptly faded away. Completely gone. So surprised was he, that he actually looked down at his hooves, despite knowing there would be nothing there to show. But the stinging of magic all around had ceased. No... no that wasn't quite it, they weren't back to normal, they'd just gone... sort of numb.
Prey blinked uncomprehendingly down at his hooves. He could barely feel them at the ends of his legs, they were so numb.
Soft light touched Prey's face, and he jerked his head back up.
In the night sky, a rainbow, no, a nimbus. It lit up Luna every colour, every pulsing shade, coalescing in the night above Luna.
An aurora, except not. It was different, not wrong, but different. Garrow had seen the aurora borealis, and so Prey had too through the griffin's memory. The silent living lights were similar yet... different. Garrow had thought the lights were cold, distant, and primal.
These, this corona of living light, it was primal, and yet somehow almost... tamed. It was silently beautiful, it transfixed the mind and soul to witness, but wasn't a part of nature, and Prey would never have believed so for even a second. Nature does not care. It is a cycle of life and death.
But this, this soft nimbus of infinite colours, it was all life. Every colour, yet somehow Prey had the name for them. It just came to him; 'The Colours of Harmony.'
"Thy time is not yet done. Do not go gently, come back. Pinkamina Diane Pie! Come back!"
The lights swirled, a silent tempest of roiling life and colour.
"We command thee, come back!"
The light, it built and built, so blindly-soft-bright.
"Come back to us! Return! Come back. Please."
With those simple words, Luna brought the light of harmony flashing down. Lightning. It travelled through Luna, channelled through her body, and into the corpse. Prey threw up a leg to shield his eyes.
Heat. Warmth. Life. Light. Breath. Sound. A quiet laugh. The smell of mint. The gentle impression of a hug.
Prey groped outwards blindly with a hoof, but there was no one there.
He heard Luna, "Wake. Awake! I am thy princess, we command thee, awake!"
Why was she talking to a corpse? The pink pony wasn't coming back. A thousand words couldn't bring them back, Prey knew because he'd tried. A thousand tears couldn't do it either, Prey knew because he'd cried.
He felt the warm light fade from off his eyelids. Slowly, Prey opened his eyes.
Luna was still standing over the dead mare's body. The alicorn's ethereal mane was sluggish, slow, her posture drained. Except the corpse was now clean, the wound closed and the blood gone, but it didn't matter, because whoever she'd been, she was still dead.
Then she weakly opened her eyes.
The two Night Guards froze, the three captured griffins' frantic thoughts stilled. Prey's worldview broke into a thousand shards of glass.
"P-Princes Luna? Was, was I *sniff* was I dreaming?"
Luna sagged, "Yes, yes t'was only a bad dream, Laughter. Naught but a dream."
Hesitantly, the mare reached up towards her throat, "I, I was dreaming, it, it, it was h-horrible, an', and-"
"Hush, it was only a nightmare. There is nothing to fear now. We art the guardian of dreams, of course we would respond to thy call."
"Only a-a dream?"
"Yes, this is just a dream. Come morning light it will fade, as all dreams do. Now sleep, return to thy rest. It is all okay." Luna's horn tip was glowing, and the mare's eyes slowly drifted shut. She muttered something unintelligible, and then her head dropped and she was out like a light.
Prey stared. Everyone stared.
Slowly Luna straightened. Her ethereal mane was still only sluggishly moving, and she looked weary. She looked up into the night sky, and not at them as she spoke: "Swift Slice."
The thestral jumped, "Ah, Princess?" He asked, sounding faint.
"See to the Bearer of Laughter. Return her to her bed. Make haste, we do not wish to linger here any longer."
Swift Slice hesitantly looked down at the pink sleeping mare, the living sleeping mare, "Princess Luna, I, that-?"
"Now Swift Slice. We wilt address thee in a minute." Luna ordered, still staring up into the heavens.
Swift Slice snapped out of his daze, "Yes, Princess." He murmured, and bent to haul the sleeping mare over his back with a grunt of effort. As a trained Guard and warrior, he knew how to carry another pony in the event of accident or injury, and was strong enough to do so. With short, but brisk steps, Swift Slice disappeared in through the house's still open door.
Prey stumbled to numb hooves. Everything felt like it was in the wrong place, as if his head was full of stuffing. That hadn't been healing magic. Healing magic couldn't do that. Even the greatest accounts of the greatest magi healers throughout the ages couldn't do that. And the mare had been dead. She had been dead, not on the brink of dying, actually dead.
Resurrection wasn't possible, it wasn't. No black, dark, or blood magic had ever succeeded, no unicorn, runic, or voodoo magic could do it. Many thousands had tried for thousands of years, from the righteous to the depraved, but not one method had ever brought back even one soul from the great beyond. Not once, not ever.
But none of those attempts had ever been alicorn magic.
'Alicorns are immortal.'
Swift Slice returned breathing lightly, and quietly shut the ridiculous pastry house's door. Every eye was on Luna. There was nowhere else any of them could've looked, not after the impossible miracle they'd just witnessed.
Prey's heart was hurting him, everything was like broken shards of clear glass in the world around him now. It had all changed, it was all different. 'Resurrection.'
Luna finally turned and surveyed them all. Deep down in there, there was unease. "We will have thy oaths." She stated.
No one understood.
"We will have thy oaths, from each of thee. Thou shalt tell nopony of what thou saw this night. It must remain a secret. So we must have thy oaths."
Prey opened his mouth-
"You will have nothing from me, witch!" Felyawn spat. Prey whirled around. The mimic was still trussed up tight in Luna's magic, bound along with the other two wide eyed griffins, yet somehow the mimic had managed to move and speak.
'Shapeshifting within its bonds!'
The mimic's claw was holding something under their shirt.
Luna stared, as if she had forgotten, but her brow quickly furrowing in anger, "Ah. Yes, thou shalt-"
"Never." Felyawn hissed, and pulled something.
Flames exploded out in a roar, all three bound shapes vanishing. Heat, racing flames, reaching for Prey-! And was stopped far short. The explosion hit a barrier, a shield dome over the whole area. Luna's magic compressed in, the boiling flames a dome of brilliant burning orange.
Luna crushed it down, smaller and tighter, the light turning from brilliant orange to almost white.
"Thou utter, utter fool!" Luna shouted, her magic squeezing the explosion down into a ball.
Then just like that, it went out. The dirt street left was smoking, scattered and blackened with charcoal bits. Prey was left fire blinded, but he didn't need to see to know what had just happened.
The mimic had failed its mission, so it had erased all evidence. Even itself. The commitment and devotion to blow yourself up for a mission that had already failed... it was terrifying.
But that fear was distant, disconnected, and far away in Prey's thoughts. Because Luna had resurrected a person. Right here, he'd seen it! Right in front of him! What was witnessing a violent death, when there had been a return to life right in front of him?
The two Night Guards however weren't taking the suicide and double murder right at their hooves very well. Prey didn't care. Because Luna had resurrected a person.
'Breathe,' He had to remind himself, 'Breathe. Hold it together. Wait. Wait and breathe. I can do that. I can do that.'
Swift Slice, Keen Eyes, they were both shaken, looking to Luna, asking for orders on what to do. Prey barely heard their words. Luna just kept staring at the charred and blackened bits on the street, face set in tired grimness.
'Who CARES?!'
"There is naught more that we can do. The ambassador Felyawn seemed to have taken leave of his senses at the end. It will yet remain to be seen if the rest of his government is similarly afflicted. We hope it is not so. My anger is spent. This is, not the outcome we wished for. Not at all. To willingly to take one's own life and in such a hateful manner..." Luna shook her head, ethereal mane only sluggishly following the movement. She squared her shoulders and turned away from the patch of road:
"When the living depart, it is up to those ponies who remain to pick up their burdens and carry them. Tis' a hard lesson, but there is nothing more we can-"
Prey threw himself onto the road before Luna. He bowed, heedlessly pressing his forehead into the dirt, "Princess Luna, I beg of you, please bring them back."
"The griffins cannot be... Thou art not talking about them, art thou Prey?" Luna sighed.
"I'm begging you. I'll, I'll do anything. Anything! Just bring them back to me. Please please please!"
A long weary exhale left Luna, "Ahhh... Raise thyself up, Prey."
Prey didn't even budge, grovelling right where he was in supplication, "I'm begging you, please! Please. Whatever it takes, whatever it costs, I'll do it."
"We art sorry Prey, but this is why we wanted thy word. We cannot-"
"Anything! I'll do anything. Gold, treasures, artifacts, secrets, knowledge, I'll, I'll find it. I'll do whatever you want for the rest of my life without question. My soul! Anything it takes. A life? Do you need a life? Do it, please! I'll trade anything in the entire world, or out of it, I'll die if that's what it costs."
Prey was terrified of dying. He hated pain, he hated death, and he didn't ever want to die. Number two on the list, his survival above all else. But not number one. Never number one.
Number one on the list he had never thought possible. It was number one but he'd always known he would never achieve it.
His own life, number two.
Fleece and his mother, number one.
Dirt and tiny pebbles dug into his face and ears as he pressed his head to the road. His hooves hurt so bad, his eyes stung, his head throbbed, he was freezing cold and shivering. It meant utterly nothing. Nothing.
'PleasepleasepleasePleasePLEASEpleasepleasePleasePleasePLEASE!'
Prey eyes were squeezed shut. He daren't look, he couldn't. His hope, his painful desperate hope, he couldn't look at it for fear it would break. He couldn't have it vanish from before him. The hope hurt so badly.
"Please. Please. I'll do anything."
"No Prey. We cannot do so."
Prey did not accept that. He rejected the lie. It could be done, Luna had done it, done the impossible right before him! He would not accept anything else.
"If, if there's nothing you want from me, then, then please just do it anyway! As a child begging you, a pity case, out of empathy, anything. Just, just please-"
A huge pinion feather stopped him, softly covering his mouth. Prey froze up for only a second, before brushing it aside. His terror of being touched, his fear and loathing of the alicorn, it didn't matter.
If Luna wanted to break him into pieces right here with her bare hooves, to torture and mutilate him, if that was the price, he would pay it. His brother and mother, Gossamer's brother and mother, now that he knew it was possible, he had to have them back.
Luna's feather was soft, yet also unbendingly strong. It forced prey's chin up. The alicorn was leaning over him, so much bigger than he was.
"Oh child. Listen to us."
Prey tried to open his mouth. The feather immediately silenced him again.
"Nay, first listen Prey. Thou needs to hear this. Dost thou understand?"
She waited. "Dost thou understand us Prey?"
Prey wordlessly nodded, the feather still in the way. He wasn't agreeing, just waiting until he could start begging again.
"Tonight was an accident, please understand that. We have never done that before, and we doubt we could ever do it again. T'was only because it was a Bearer of Harmony that we even attempt as such. We knew it t'was not her time. Those who have passed must stay in the beyond. Their time has come and gone. For the world to continue, those left alive must not hold onto them. T'will only bring you great pain to futilely hold on to those who have gone. When it is a pony's time, you must let them go. This we know well Prey."
It was their time? It was their time?! It was time for them to be murdered by the Resistance and Border Guard? But it wasn't this random pink mare's time to die?
Luna was not done however, all but pinning Prey to the road with her searching stare, "Tonight was what should never have happened. But it is because it should not have happened, that we were also able to do what we did. It was not her destiny to so tragically fall tonight, for she is one of Harmony's champions. Fate was on our side, that was all there was to it. Do you understand?"
'Understand?'
Understand that Luna was saying Gossamer's mother and Fleece had died because destiny said so? But that because a 'pony' had been blessed by 'Harmony' and chosen by 'fate', they got to cheat the certainty of death?
Oh yes, Prey understood what Luna was saying.
Luna's eyes tightened around the edges, "No. We see that thou does not understand. Listen to us Prey, and what I say to thee I say to thee both Swift Slice, Keen Eye. Listen, and try to understand. Pinkamena is an Element Bearer. That means more than thou canst possibly know. This was not some miracle we conjured from sackcloth, thou does not know of the preparation and magic that went into calling her back."
She took a breath, "Millennia ago, when we bore still the Elements ourselves, we... 'researched' into a spell that might do what we did tonight. All our tests said it would forever fail. Yet tonight a miracle happened. It may seem to thee that we never held any doubt when performing, but we assure you, we were as unsure as thee all."
A ghost of a smile, then it was gone. Prey hated it. "We art sorry, but we cannot perform the feat again. This is why you must not spread this tale. Before the night was out, thousands of bereaved ponies would flock to our court, desperate for something we are unable to give. That is why you shall tell nopony. Destiny cannot be cheated, and that is why Pinkamena Diane Pie Pie now sleeps peaceably in her bed. Harmony cannot be cheated. When it is a pony's time, then it is their time. Let the dead rest. Does thou all understand?"
Swift Slice bowed his head, "Yes, Princess Luna. You have my word."
"And mine as well, Princess. I understand." Keen Eye joined in quietly.
"Good. We thank thee for thy trust and service. It has not been an easy day for anypony."
Then Luna looked down to Prey and finally removed her wing, "And thou Prey?"
"I don't care. Please, please try anyway! Please Princess, please just try. If it doesn't work, if, if they won't come back or something, then okay, we can figure out a way around it, but please-"
"No. You art not listening Prey. No means no!" Luna rebuked him sharply, patience seemingly gone, "We understand this is hard, but for the last time, no. It is not possible. We have not your father's body, and his soul is long gone, and it is not destiny's will. Tis' not, we cannot-You do not listen, by my moon! Why must this be so hard? No Prey. No."
'No?'
No. No. No. No that was not allowed. He heard the words. He understood them. He even knew in his soul that they were true. But he didn't care.
No.
Luna shifted, "Cease thy crying Prey. You must be strong. You have moved on once before, now thou must do it again. Thou canst do it again. Dry thy tears. Stop crying, please. We do not, we do not like it."
Destiny? Fate? Harmony? The immortal alicorn telling the mortal runt lamb, 'It is only proper that you die in the end, so don't fight it'?
A pony that Prey had never even met was special enough to receive the ultimate gift after she got herself killed out of stupidity, but no one else was worthy? Because the mare was drawn out of a random lottery along with five other ponies, and that made her irreplaceable?
"Wipe thy tears, shh, stop crying. Thou shalt be fine. It will be fine, life carries on, it is not the end. Thou, we, that is to say... we cannot do this." Luna mumbled, turning away.
Prey's hoof twitched all by itself, wanting to reach out, to touch Luna, to bReaK hER miND. It didn't matter if it wouldn't work, it didn't matter that Luna was an alicorn, because she had said nO. No. NO. nO No no NO.
Luna spoke from far away, underwater, or from above the stars in the sky, "This is for thy own good, Prey. Rest now. Sleep. Sleep, and wake, and begin again."
Tiredness raced through his body, so familiar. Prey had felt it already tonight. The magic gripped him and dragged him down. Prey... only half fought it.
---<---<o>--->---
Prey awoke in the bunk of one of the Night Guards barracks. There was no one there to keep watch on him.
It was daylight outside. The night had passed.
It had all reset, the truth from last night was forever covered up and now it was the bright light of day again.
Prey stiffly got out of the bunk, leaving the covers a mess. He looked down at his hooves. The dull gleam of the golden tracker bands greeted him.
Everything was backwards, like this here was the dream and out there somewhere was the real Prey. Numbly, Prey reached up and felt for his ribbon. It was there, tied behind his ear. That meant this was all real.
Prey started to shake. His teeth started chattering. He felt, he felt-! He didn't want to feel. He didn't want to be in this hated city, surrounded by hated ponies, with its hated alicorn rulers, and hated unicorns, filled with hated magic, guarded by hated Harmony, in the hated capital city of hated Equestria.
Prey thought he'd finally changed. He'd thought he'd finally started to move on. He'd thought his final trip to Rushweed had helped him find closure.
He'd thought wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong. He was so wrong.
Wrath so red he could taste it. Rage was good, the fury was good, it burned him and made him warm. So familiar, and old friend at the fireside.
It was the same lesson all over again, a never ending cycle in the saga of this pathetic runt life. Hate and rage felt so much better than the gaping abyss of despair.
He didn't want to have to crawl out of that abyss again, never ever never again. Just, just no, no not again. He couldn't do it again.
Prey fled the Palace.
He couldn't stay, he couldn't, or he would ruin the last remaining tatters of everything. He avoided all the Night Guards and ran, slipping out the gates and away. Down, down into Lower Canterlot. Down, down further, into the sewer overflow pipe. Down, and down again, into the twisting cave tunnels and dripping stalactites. And down at last into his lair.
Lemon Pink was down there. She'd returned from Ponyville, and waited here all night. She blinked awake, and groggily rose as Prey stumbled in. His head was ringing. He couldn't hear her words, so he had to lip read instead. She wanted to know what was wrong, what had happened, and what was their plan now?
Prey couldn't deal with her right now. The shaking urge to break something, anyone, to make the world fair, it was crawling through his blood.
Prey sent her away. He told her to go find Randy Pickaxe, her coltfriend, to spend the day with him at the park. He, he couldn't face her, couldn't tell her how close he had been. And how cruelly that hope had failed him.
So he sent her away and told her to enjoy her first day off ever.
She was deeply alarmed. She asked again. Prey ordered her to go. She finally did, and he had the secret cavern to himself.
He shouted and raged and screamed and cried. It didn't help, not even a little bit.
Expressing the clawing grief and raging sorrow just made it increase. The weight crushing his lungs just kept getting tighter and tighter, as he got angrier and angrier. Nothing was helping.
Smashing beakers, throwing rubble, screaming, promising all sorts of fiery death to Luna, it wasn't helping. His anger just kept building into a mountain of black broken glass.
He was so angry, he was viewing the cavern through a haze. He wasn't aware of the passage of time. He tasted blood and ashes. Was it a haze of ashes? He couldn't think clearly, but he just. Wanted. To. Make. Someone. Pay.
He found Selenia's pincushion waiting on its pedestal of a broken off crystal. Except the old sewing needle it had taken from him was now sunken in. The charge it had somehow gained was now gone.
That was how he'd gotten out of the stream when Luna would've unknowingly drowned him.
The charge was gone, spent on surviving Luna's arrogance. Seeing that drove him into new fits of rage.
Luna.
He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her. He hated her.
And then for one moment, through the misty haze of unthinking ash and red, piercing clarity came to Prey.
It was that second when you are so angry you lashed out at the wall, and in that moment before your hoof connects serenity comes to you. You know you're about to break your hoof, but you don't make any move to stop. You know it, but you don't stop because you're too angry.
It was one of those stark moments, and Prey realised just how badly he was teetering on a knife's edge of black ice. 'I've got to stop myself.'
But he wouldn't stop, he couldn't stop, he was too angry, nor did he even want to stop. Prey wanted to hurt and be hurt. And he was about to do something terrible, something that would doom him to death.
He could feel it, feel the bitter hate like a physical driving force. He had a half-formed suicidal plan, to scar Canterlot forever, make a wound in the history so deep it that ponies would never be able to forget.
Actually, he didn't even care if it was forgotten by all but two ponies. The two immortals. They would remember. They would know what this loss and fear felt like every time they looked back.
'Yes. Let me earn their hatred. Now, and forever.'
Prey was terrified. And not.
He was about to follow through and actually do it, he could feel it. It felt like freedom.
He was making a mistake. He was making the only decision he could.
His mind was unstable, his inner mindscape ocean draining away. It was always going to happen eventually.
It was wrong. It was fair.
The rusty bars bent. Eyeless heads turned towards the surface. A taste of unending hunger. Bitter and sweet. And so hungry. It wanted it.
It wanted everything. And nothing.
Nothing but to eat. Everything to eat.
There is only one truth in this world that matters. Hunger.
Sudden, piercing terror and clarity seized Prey. His ribbon freezing so cold it burned the skin of his ear, his stomach so empty it screamed.
'No, what am I doing? I can't, I mustn't, I can't do this. I can't. I WON'T.'
But the bars had already been bent back, just for a moment. He restored them, hastily reforged them out rusted, corroded, and brittle iron, but iron nonetheless. Yet a part, a sliver, a tiny fragment had still slipped through.
It swam up and up, up through the ocean of his mind, up through the black, the violet, the indigo, the blue, up and up and up. Up towards the surface, and the world so full of life.
It was a worm of hate and bitterness and grief and rage, and all wrapped up inside the skin of hunger.
Prey fought back. He tried to stop it. It was like trying to stop breathing. Easy at first, then impossible. He stumbled along the walkways, sharp rubble moving and crunching, staggering towards the sinkhole.
The rage was gone, the hate was gone, the grief was gone, all gone into the twisting squirming leech trying to get out of his head. For the first time since entering the cavern, he could think clearly.
Clarity only brought terror as he knew what he'd done.
'Stop stop stop! I take it back! STOP! I don't want this anymore.'
But I do want this. I want it all, I want everything, I want it all to crumble to grey ash.
The sinkhole was before him. The gravel of broken crystals and stone chips led in a bank down into the depthless water. The bottom of the crystal clear water was lost in blackness. Prey's head was burning, his ear freezing at the touch of the ribbon.
Feverishly, Prey made it to the sinkhole's edge and looked into the water.
It wasn't a perfect mirror, his vibrations had caused the slightest tremors to distort the pool's surface, but it was still enough to see himself, or enough of himself, reflected back.
Prey never looked in a mirror, not after the liches' mirror. This wasn't a mirror now, just an imperfect water reflection. It was enough.
Prey saw himself.
His gorge rose, every single thing but revulsion fled from his mind. Even the grief, hate, and rage, it all withered away. Because he saw himself looking back up.
Prey vomited sickly into the pool. He shivered, spat, and then hurled again. His throat hurt. His eyes and whole body hurt, burnt out and spent.
He stayed there at the pool's edge, eyes clenched shut and panted for a long time.
The water slowly stilled, his sick sinking and diluting away down into the bottomless depths. The pool's surface returned to smooth glass.
Prey was... empty. Just empty. Empty, hollow, burnt out, any and all of those. And ashamed.
He hadn't changed anything. He had fixed nothing. He'd just made everything worse.
But the numb emptiness, it was preferable to the rage, and infinitely better than the grief of failed hope.
That didn't make it any better. He was so tired of walking in a circle, sick of seeing the circle of his own bloody hoof prints as he went around and around.
He was so weary of thinking he'd moved, on only to find he was just as breakable as ever. He was already broken, so why oh why did the world keep managing to get him to hurt himself?
He was tired of this. Tired, and empty. Just empty. Empty of it all.
Pitiful. Weak. Useless. Runt. Naïve. Powerless. Hypocrite. Crybaby.
"Go to hell." Prey managed to choke out to his reflection, which he knew was still there in the pool even if he refused to look a second time. Words Lemon Pink had spoken all those nights ago on the rooftop in Vanhoover.
He imagined the reflection repeated his own words back to him, "Come with me."
Late the next night, Nighthawk and the other Night Guards finally returned.
Gloom and Crimson successfully delivered the bound Hafflow into Luna's custody. It had been a daring and perilous mission, but they'd avoided all the griffin patrols and pulled it off by the skin of their fangs. Crimson was all better too, showing almost no lingering signs of his mysterious illness.
The rest of the Night Guard warmly welcomed them back. Even if they didn't know where they'd gone on their secret mission, they were still glad to now have them back, especially Lieutenant Screech, who could heave a sigh of relief and turn the reigns of leadership back over to Captain Nighthawk.
The arson attack which had drawn away the Lieutenant that night, taking most of the active Night Guards on duty, had ended up being relatively small in scale. It was more lots of little blazes than one huge inferno, started often in poor places to set a fire, so the Guard managed to get to most of them in time, working alongside an emergency response pegasi weather team.
Relatively small or not, the newspapers went into an uproar anyways. The original inferno at the Lumber Yard had not been forgotten, and another string of fires incited all the journalists into a frenzy. Again, at least half of them scathingly criticized the Night Guard since it had occurred during the night once again. Feelings in the public which had just begun to cool were immediately reignited.
"What is Canterlot coming to?", "How could this happen?", and, "Why isn't more being done?" were among the most common sentiments. The journalist Yellow Pages was one of the most vocal, yet again.
However, just like last time, the general population were left with very little in the way of concrete answers.
Still, no one had died in the fires, there was no permanent damage to any major businesses, and to everyone who was actually in the know and had the power to render judgement, the Night Guard had dealt with the crisis efficiently and that was that. Nighthawk was back too, they'd caught a griffin spy, and stopped an attack on the Elements of Harmony.
Sharp Tang's death was the one pall over everything.
His name was engraved on the private Guard monument. Only Night Guards could visit it, and the alcove of grey stone with its black obelisk of polished obsidian was kept quiet. They mourned, but had to move on. Some did so better than others. Those from his clan who'd grown up with him... less so.
Few outside of the Night Guard even realised the Sargent Major was gone. Such was the life of the thestrals in Canterlot. An unknown and forgotten sacrifice.
There was one mystery though. It was assumed a griffin with some high level disguise artifact was the one who had impersonated Sharp Tang and led the Night Guards off in the direction of Manehattan, claiming; "A hydra has appeared from nowhere and is ravaging the city. The city Guard has begged for help."
But at some point during the flight, Sargent Major Sharp Tang had mysteriously vanished. They'd been in the middle of the sky when someone had realised and called a halt, yet 'Sharp Tang' was already gone.
Hafflow, when interrogated, didn't know about Sharp Tang's death beforehoof, or the arson attack, or the suicide incendiary device Felyawn had carried, and most of it ended up pinned on the deceased ambassador going insane.
No one was told about the other pony death which had temporarily occurred that night.
Pinkamena Diane Pie was never informed that her memories that night had been anything more than a bad dream, and in a slight deviation, at the occupancies of Nightmare Night, welcomed Luna back into Ponville instead of starting a ruckus.
None of the famous six mares or the inhabitants of Ponyville were told about Sharp Tang, Felyawn, or the griffins who had died on their very doorsteps that night. It was deemed for the best. The Night Guard were soldiers of the night. They quietly did their jobs, and then just as quietly faded back into the shadows, assuming they survived that is. It was their duty.
Which was not to say the Griffonian mission was done and dusted, or that the case was open and shut. Griffonia was furious. It wasn't war, or anything like that, but that day the relationship between the two nations turned distinctly sour.
Tariffs, and import restrictions were immediately implemented on Equestrian trade coming into Griffonia, and Equestria did the exact same on their end. Accusations and refusal to accept blame were thrown back and forth, in a political way.
Equestria didn't admit to sending in a secret strike force to kidnap Hafflow, even though he was now in their custody. Likewise, Griffonia rejected all allegations that Felyawn had acted with the High and Low Kingdoms' approval, saying he had gone rogue.
Either way, more Guards were posted on each side of the border, and each nation drew back to glower at the other. It was far too soon to say if that was the end of it, or if the troubles had just begun.
Such was the dance of politics and the plays of power.
There was just one other thing.
Princess Celestia quietly requested the Elements of Harmony returned to Canterlot for safekeeping. Just as a precaution. Her student wasn't even informed of the very near theft as the reason why, just that it was for the best.
It was just a small thing. A sensible precaution, a footnote really. But one which the impact it caused would not be seen until much later.
Small things. Big things. Consequences. The six Element Bearers never really thought to question if there had ever been a deeper reason for the recall. It just didn't seem important to them.
Sometimes you're not the main character in your own story. Sometimes, you're nothing but a side character to someone else's success.
[End of Arc 5]