Celestia had been trapped in a minotaur’s labyrinth before, and trying to navigate her way through the winding streets, alleyways, and deadends of the slums to where the towers and mansions on the hill above resided had put her in mind of that. She had spent a good while trying to navigate that labyrinth in the traditional manner, but then she got bored and bucked her way out straight through the solid stone walls to freedom, much to the minotaur’s irritation. The ponies here would be even less enthused should she demolish their homes to reach the tower, she mused.
Celestia carried on, and the sounds of drunken revelry faded with every street she slipped through until they became but a murmur in her ears. Here, as she forged her way through these winding roads, the city had become darker and the night seemed to close in all around. The streets were narrower, and tall, ugly slum buildings constructed of old and rotting wood, patched together by their impoverished inhabitants, loomed either side of her. It was difficult to find where one home ended and the other began, for entire rooms had been built atop the other, with each struggling to rise above its neighbour. Seeing them put her in mind of drunk ponies leaning against one another for support, swaying and buckling as their failing strength failed to hold up their own weight. A few leaned over the road itself, supported only by thin wooden beams, and as she passed under them, Celestia feared that it might collapse and bury her.
There were fewer ponies, too, and the ones who lingered about the street and just beyond the lights of guttering torches observed her carefully, but when she looked to meet their gaze they averted their eyes and stared elsewhere. Unlike the gaudy wealth displayed by the slavers, which those who did not have the presence of mind to hire bodyguards were soon liberated of in the many bar fights and muggings that took place there, these ponies were dressed plainly, if at all.
The street came to another dead end, blocked by a high wall topped with spikes that made it clear that whoever was on the other side did not want visitors. To her right was an alleyway, where the rows of ramshackle buildings on either side leaned over the gap between them until they merged at the third or fourth floor, forming a sort of tunnel. An unexplained hunch or instinct drew her there, or perhaps a sense of frustration at the prospect of having to go back the way she came and find another path. She sighed, snorted in irritation, and trotted into the alleyway, wondering if cities were designed to confound her on purpose. Truly, they were a more effective way to entrap ponies than that minotaur’s labyrinth; she didn’t have to worry about that ‘manners’ thing in that maze, being hunted by a monster that wanted nothing more than to tear her limb from limb.
The moment Celestia stepped hoof in that alleyway she knew she was being watched; she hardly blended in with the ponies less than half her size at the best of times, but this time it was not the furtive and shy glances from common ponies, the lascivious gazes of drunken stallions and the odd mare, nor the openly shocked stares of foals. It was the same sensation she had when alone in the monster-infested forests of her homeland, of predatory eyes upon her, like ice water poured down the back of her neck. She sniffed the air, but the open city sewers were an effective mask for such predators. Her warrior’s instinct warned her she was in danger, and she grinned eagerly as she walked on into the darkness.
All around the walls were filled with dark, misshapen windows, through which Celestia saw glimpses of pony-shaped shadows before they melded again with darkness. A few tiny candles perched on the windowsills, providing just enough light for her to almost see by. A horn glowed in the distance with a soft, white aura, which was mirrored around a levitating object a few inches from the figure now just barely visible.
“Well, take a look at this,” a voice from the darkness sneered out. “We were going all night with nothing to show for our troubles, and this pretty little thing wanders right into our patch.”
Two ponies approached, one lingering behind the other. They emerged into the light of the nearby candle-lit window, revealing themselves to be two unicorns. The one in front, whom Celestia took to be their leader, was a tall, scarred individual who had dulled down the otherwise white coat and blond mane with grey ash. A hemp belt was tied around his waist, from which hung small coin purses that jingled tunefully with each movement. Hovering by his head was a small, thin dagger, with a gold handle studded with gems that all glittered in the light of his magical aura.
“She ain’t ‘little’, boss,” said the small, rat-like pony at the back, who appeared to be trying to hide behind the other. Unlike his apparent leader, this stallion’s coat was not smothered in ash, but its dark, rusty brown colour blended in well with the murky darkness of the alleyway.
“There’s four of us and only one of her.” The lead thug stepped to the side of the narrow street and tapped the pommel of his dagger on the window. A door swung open behind Celestia, and she turned her head slightly to see over her shoulder. Two other black unicorn-shapes emerged from the house just behind and to her left and blocked her path back.
“This is our street,” he continued. “And if you want to walk through it you have to pay us a toll: one gold each.”
The ways of the city ponies continued to perplex her, and Celestia considered this as she opened up a saddlebag and retrieved her coin purse. Surely a road belonged to everypony and claiming ownership over a scrap of thoroughfare would be as absurd as believing one owned the very ground beneath their hooves. Nevertheless, she had somewhere to be and so she retrieved a single coin from her purse with her mouth and held it out for the stallion, who accepted it in his magic and examined it, turning it over before his eyes.
“How do you do that?” said Celestia as she watched the shiny coin spin in mid-air.
“Do what?” The coin stopped spinning, and the ash-coated stallion stared up at her.
“The glowing horn thing and making things float,” she said, and tapped her own horn. “I want to know how to do it. Mine won't work.”
The stallion squinted up at her, pursed his lips, then shook his head. “You just do it,” he said, which was the same sort of unsatisfying answer she had gotten from every unicorn she had asked along the way, and the odd pegasus she had asked about flying, too.
“I’m afraid that’s insufficient,” he said, putting the coin away in one of his many purses. “When I said one gold bit each, I meant one for each of us. You need to give us three more.”
Celestia looked into her coin purse again, but no amount of rummaging around would turn the one remaining gold bit coin and the assorted other bits and pieces of minor foreign currency she had picked up over the course of her travels into the necessary three extra bits needed to pay this toll. The lead thug tapped his hoof impatiently, while his nervous friend inched a little further into the darkness.
“We got a gold bit out of her,” he said. “Let’s not push our luck here, right, boss?”
“I don’t have three more bits,” said Celestia, shaking her coin purse. The jingle of the scant amount of coins inside sounded despondent. “I just want to go to where the towers are.”
“Such a shame,” said the lead stallion with mock sympathy. “Looks like you’ll have to go the long way around then.”
“Then give me my bit back.” Celestia held out her hoof for her coin, and their apparent leader stared at the large appendage thrust in his direction. It was dirty, grimy, and the primitive iron horseshoe nailed to it was in need of replacement, but what stood out to the stallion was its size. The circumference of this giant pony’s hoof was about on par with his head, he thought. As he stared at it, imagining it stamping on his skull, he considered that his cowardly friend might be right.
“Here, boss!” one of the stallions behind her called out. “I can think of another way she can pay. You should see the view from back here, it’s something, alright.”
Celestia looked over her shoulder to see one of the ponies behind her reach out to touch her flanks. She slammed her hoof down on the ground, cracking the paving into a thin spider’s web, and the stallion retracted his hoof quickly. The ground shuddered beneath the thug’s hooves.
“You’re not real toll collectors,” she said, her voice level and firm. “Are you?”
Her forelegs shifted, spreading in the dirt, and she leaned forward to apply her weight to it. She felt the cold, irregular, lifeless stone beneath her hooves, and the thin patina of dust and grime accumulating in the cracks. Her hindlegs shuffled eagerly in anticipation. Powerful muscles tensed under her fur, like stretched coils and ready to lash out.
The ‘boss’ grinned, flashing peculiarly white teeth for a pony who lived in an alleyway. His pinned-back ears revealed his fear, and it was not lost on the Cimmareian. “She’s clever for a big, slow barbarian,” he said, forcing a chuckle.
His dagger swayed from side to side, like the head of a cobra ready to strike at Celestia’s neck. The light of the magical aura glinted off the wickedly sharp blade and the gems in the gilded handle sparkled. She stared at it, flashed a smile at the little stallion, and then lashed out with her hindlegs. Two massive hooves struck the ponies behind her, each slamming into their chests. Having misjudged the unnatural length of her legs they had accidentally wandered in her strike range. Caught off guard, the two stallions were launched backwards through the alleyway, arcing gracefully through the sky, then landing with a hefty thud in a twitching, groaning heap some twenty yards away.
The ash-coated stallion and the rusty brown-coloured one exchanged a glance, before the latter turned on his hooves and bolted back down the alleyway as though his tail was on fire. He disappeared into the night in a matter of seconds, seemingly consumed by the darkness itself, and was gone with the sound of his galloping hooves fading into silence.
Celestia placed her rear hooves back on the ground. She took a step closer to the lead thug, now alone, and he took one step back, and then another and another. The blade danced between them, flashing in the light as it slashed this way and that to try and ward her off.
“Stay back! I’m warning you!” In his panic, his formerly gruff street accent had become tighter, more refined, and clipped. The stallion stumbled back, tripping a little on the irregularly paved stones beneath his hooves. Sweat beaded down his face, marking little white lines in the coating of ash on his fur.
Celestia, grinning in a way that seemed to unsettle him more, followed with the stallion’s retreat with a slow, almost casual gait, while keeping her eyes on the darting dagger floating aloft between them. With the earth ponies, pegasi, and monsters she had fought before she had learnt to read her opponent’s body language and know what they might do next. Unicorns, however, who wielded their blades without physically holding them and who shunned the weapons that Crom had gifted all ponies from birth - their own hooves - had no such tells. With the little stallion before her, there was nothing in his stance or posture to suggest where that little dagger might strike next. Except, perhaps…
The stallion’s eyes flitted up to her head. Half a second later, his dagger was sent flying through the air. Celestia darted back, but was too slow. She hissed in pain as the blade nicked her horn with a soft, wet squelch of ripping velvet, about two thirds of the way down its length, narrowly missed driving into her forehead. Something warm trickled down her forehead.
“Ow.” Celestia reached up and touched the wound, wincing a little at the jolt of pain where her hoof graced the broken velvet there.
The dagger flew back to the stallion’s side again. He grinned triumphantly and threw out his chest with pride. “I win!” he exclaimed.
Celestia looked at the small smear of blood on her hoof, a streak of crimson on off-white, and then back at the peacocking stallion. She raised that hoof and swung it in a wide arc. It connected with the stallion’s cheek with a dense, satisfying ‘thwack’ sound. The force of the blow shoved him against the wall, where he smacked his horn on the stone and the glowing ceased, and he bounced off to collapse onto his side in the middle of the alleyway. The dagger fell from the air and landed with a clatter on the ground.
“But I-'' The stallion’s words were cut off when he looked up to see the huge mare standing over him like an immense shadow in the darkness. She turned in place to present her rear, allowing him to see twin white flank cheeks eclipsing his vision, before they rushed down as she unceremoniously sat on him. He let out a high-pitched squeak as the heavy mass settled over his body, pushed much of the air out of his lungs, and pinned him to the ground.
“Get off me, you brute!” he gasped, pounding his hooves futilely into the side of the mare’s thigh, which, and as he noticed as he ceased his protest, was almost as broad as his chest.
“No,” said Celestia. She rummaged around in her saddle bag for a spare strip of cloth and began wrapping it around her horn where she was cut. “Not until you explain what all of that was about.”
The stallion gave her flank cheek a weak push with his hoof, and it barely indented the firm muscle there. “But I can’t breathe.”
Celestia tore off the cloth and tied up her makeshift bandage in a tight knot. Looking up and seeing the blurry outline of her bandaged horn, she decided that would have to do for now. She looked down at the whimpering little stallion underneath her, his face visible poking out from under her left flank cheek, and then carefully lifted herself up just enough for him to be a little more comfortable but not enough for him to escape. “Is that better?”
“Yes, thank you.” The stallion gulped. “You were supposed to yield; first to draw blood from the opponent’s horn wins the duel.”
“Why?”
The stallion blinked up at her, and sucked in as deep a breath as the heavy mass of pony flank on his side would allow. “It’s the unicorn code of duelling. It stops duels of honour from becoming lethal. We nearly wiped out our entire ruling class before the king instituted that rule.”
“That’s stupid,” said Celestia. “In a fight you must fight to win at all costs. Had you aimed for my neck you might have killed me.”
The stallion said nothing, but stared up at her with wide, terrified eyes. Further back along the alleyway, the two ponies who had been bucked off their hooves staggered up and beat a stumbling, hasty, but wise retreat.
“I thought this was a street brawl,” she continued, self-consciously touching her throat. “Only losers complain about honour.”
“Ponies usually just give up their money when threatened,” he said. “We only picked on ponies foolish enough to wander the streets at night on their own. Easy prey; we get a few bits out of them and send them on their way. Nopony really gets hurt.”
Celestia flashed a grin and the stallion shuddered beneath her. “Until you met me,” she said. “You’re not like the bandits I’ve fought on the road. They have no concept of ‘honour’ in battle.”
“Is it that obvious?” The stallion sighed and seemed to go rather limp beneath her. He propped his head up on his elbow, as though he was louchely relaxing on a soft bed as he explained: “I am no common street thug; I am Baron Redblood of the House of Blood, or at least for the time being. My title and an empty palace are all that I have left. I owe a debt of honour to a certain pony. Unfortunately, our laws are very simple here: a debtor who cannot pay becomes the slave of the creditor, and-” he paused and swallowed hard “-if even half of what they say about this Vizier is true, then I think I would rather die.”
“I’ve heard a lot about this Vizier,” said Celestia. “Why would you allow yourself to become in his debt?”
“Certain indiscretions,” he said, swallowing hard. “Drinking, gambling, whoring, as every young rake does, the consequences of which I didn’t think I’d have to deal with until much later in life. I was in a lot of debt to the wrong ponies, and he made them… made them ‘go away’. If I’d known what he would do to them and that I’d merely transfer the debt to a far worse pony, I think I’d rather those thugs have broken my hooves instead.”
“I want to see this Vizier.”
Baron Redblood laughed, but when he saw the stern face of the mare sitting on him glaring down he abruptly ceased. “By Mitra,” he said, swallowing hard. “You’re serious, aren’t you? It’s not enough that my life is collapsing around me. Now I have been beaten by a madmare who could bench press my palace!”
Celestia spread her wings wide, until they blocked out all of Redblood’s view of the alleyway and beyond. He looked up, and in spite of the weight pinning him down, he saw a creature that was no longer a monster, but at once majestic and beautiful. Her strangeness lent her an exotic allure far in excess of that of the most prized foreign courtesans of the best royal brothels he visited, or used to visit when he had the wealth to do so. He bit his tongue to hold back a compliment, just so he could maintain his outward appearance of fury and frustration at a world that should have been made to suit his desires but had just disappointed him.
“He will be able to tell me what I am,” she said. The longing and hint of sadness in her voice was not lost on him. “And if he will not, then I shall make him. I will take his fallen star.”
“What terrifies me more than the fact you could crush my skull beneath your hoof like an egg shell,” he said, “is that you are really going to do this and that you might actually succeed.”
“I must do it.”
Baron Redblood sighed and rested his head on the cold, filthy, slimy stones of the alleyway. His mouth was set in a thin line as he contemplated the dwindling set of options set before him, but as he considered the two remaining possibilities most likely to result in his continued survival - either help this strange, powerful mare and pray to Mitra that she eliminates his problems with the Vizier, or run away and charter a ship to Hyponorea to live as a hermit in the frozen wastes - he found that some other part of him had posited a third option.
He noticed a small frown form on Celestia’s face. She shifted her flanks on his battered little body, and glanced over her shoulder to the lower part of his body.
“Ah,” she said. Her smile reminded him of that of the tigers in the royal menagerie. “So that wasn’t your hoof poking me in the rear.”
***
There was a Cimmareian custom, long-outdated and maintained only by those clans truly dedicated to preserving the old ways, for the survivors of a battle to rut one another, either to celebrate a glorious victory or commiserate an embarrassing defeat. No distinction was made between friend or foe, though the latter were sometimes reluctant to take part in the festivities. It was said by the tribe’s wise mare that Crom blesses foals conceived in such a manner with great strength and fighting spirit. Celestia, however, had been informed that not only had her parents laid with one another after a brutal fight, she was also born on a battlefield eleven months later, making her doubly blessed. She was not brave enough to ask her mother if charging into battle while very heavily pregnant was not a little bit irresponsible.
Despite being a soft, civilised pony who would never have dreamed of stepping hoof in Cimmareia, Baron Redblood proved to be a most enthusiastic supporter of this tradition. The alleyway was not the soft bed that used to be in his chambers nor the luxurious pillows and silks in the many high-class brothels he once frequented regularly in happier times, and certainly much less private, but the dirt and the filth, coupled with the idea that common ponies could be observing them at play, added a certain frisson to the proceedings that he heartily enjoyed. Celestia had no idea what any of that meant, but took it to be a compliment, and with her lusts slaked for the second time that night the two ventured out.
She did, however, request the return of her gold coin.
The Baron led her through the narrow alleyways and streets, between the cramped, crumbling slums packed with numerous families of unicorns in single apartments. He picked his way through these maze-like warrens with the sort of practiced ease that came with numerous excursions beyond the comfort of the inner city and into the less salubrious, more carnally-enticing districts.
Despite her longer stride, Celestia found herself struggling to keep up with the little unicorn, who nimbly dipped in and out of those alleyways and streets with very little warning or prior indication. Her longer gait and greater size made it rather tricky to navigate down the narrower of the alleyways, including one where she had to squeeze through a tight gap between two walls. That had necessitated Redblood to crawl between her legs to get behind her, and then push at her flanks with all of his remaining might to free her when her hips got stuck. Her fears that the walls were closing in and would trap her felt a little more justified after that.
The claustrophobic mess of back alleys opened up into the main thoroughfare. It was a wide, open street normally reserved for markets and slave auctions, but at this dark hour it had been emptied save for a few beggars sleeping in doorways and the odd guard trying to stay awake. It led straight from the docks, through the slavers’ quarter, and straight into the royal districts of the city. Celestia followed Baron Redblood into this wide open area, and sucked in a deep lungful of the foetid, rank city air as though she was standing in the cool, crisp environs of plains she had walked through to get here. It was a relief to be able stand tall without having to hunch to pass through those cramped alleyways her guide could easily slip through.
Here was where the two sides of the city, those who ruled it and those who gave it wealth, met. A vast metal gate, stretching across the entire length of this broad street, provided a physical separation between these two realms of social class. Celestia could not help but stare at the iron bars to catch glimpses of the opulence glittering through the gaps between them. During her journey through this urban labyrinth she had become quite disorientated, but she guessed that this formed part of that high wall she had run into earlier. Quite why the rulers of this city felt the need to exclude themselves from those who lived in what to her seemed like the more fun areas, with their lively entertainment and pretty little stallions, baffled her, but she had long resigned to the fact she would never quite understand why civilised ponies invented all of these rules for themselves.
Redblood trotted on ahead and spoke a few words to one of the guards at the gate. They all stared at the strange giant standing to the side, bobbing her head from side to side to try and get a better view of the palaces and temples beyond. Celestia couldn’t hear their whisperings, but had gathered that the Baron was trying to pass her off as some sort of harlot that he wanted to take home for the night. He should be so lucky, she thought, though the view of the pretty, pampered little unicorn and the lingering warmth in her loins made her briefly consider postponing her plans for the night. Briefly.
They were taking a rather long time, so Celestia approached just as Redblood raised his voice:
“You’ve got to let me through!” he snarled, pointing at the palaces beyond the gate. “I still live there!”
The guard sergeant he was speaking with shrugged and said, “We have an agreement. We let you pass and look the other way and you give us our cut. So do your civic duty and donate to the night watchponies’ guild.”
“I don’t have enough for tonight.”
“Then why don’t you go and ask your whore for your money back?”
This money nonsense seemed to cause more trouble than what it was worth, thought Celestia; bartering goods and exchanging services had worked perfectly fine for her clan and she didn’t see why these civilised ponies had to complicate matters with shiny circles of gold. As she crept closer, moving into the soft light cast by the guards’ torches, one took notice of her and playfully jabbed his sergeant in the ribs.
“You could pay by letting us have a go on your- oh, Mitra!” The guard almost dropped his spear when Celestia emerged fully from the darkness. He first saw a broad, muscular chest at the same level a cute mare’s face should be, then his gaze travelled up, following the line of her neck, to tilt his head far back to see her face masked in shadow just beyond the glow of his torch.
The sergeant looked to Celestia, arched an eyebrow, and then back at Redblood. “How in Set’s name does that work?”
“Wonderfully,” said Redblood, winking up at Celestia. “You can ‘have a go’ with her if you want, but she doubles as a bodyguard, you see. It’s very dangerous far from the watchful eyes of our dedicated watchponies. Why, tonight, I’d just seen her buck two thugs right into a wall without breaking a sweat. Bloody red smears, like popping berries.”
The sergeant chewed on his lower lip, while his comrade shook in his sabatons. Celestia, however, simply stood there, staring down at the terrified watchpony, who returned her gaze with a fearful, wide-eyed one of his own. She tilted her head to one side and stretched the ends of her lips in a broad grin, which glinted like a crescent moon in the flickering light of the torches. The watchpony yelped.
“Ugh, fine,” snarled the sergeant, sneering at his friend as he unlocked the gate. “You pay us double next time.”
As she slipped through the open gate, the transformation between the greater city and this self-segregated district was abrupt and stark. Celestia felt as though she had stepped through a portal, the likes of which she had only heard about from drunken sailors in the taverns along her travels, whereby one can step through a mirror in one place and emerge somewhere completely different. Past the demarcation formed by the gate, which was shut and locked behind them, the lurid sounds of the drunken revelry of the slavers’ quarter appeared to have ceased, leaving only a silence that seemed louder for its absence.