Hitch Trailblazer was angry.
He stomped down the small hoofpath through the spiny-grassed marsh thicket. Hitch was trying not to let it get to him. It was hard. How was he supposed to feel about this situation, other than furious? He’d trusted Sprout with the town, and now…
“Gives me a headache just thinking about it,” Hitch grumbled. “A headache almost as big as that stupid robot.” He took pause, his saddlebags jostling once against his body at the sudden stop, and looked around. He hadn’t gone too far off the beaten path of his patrol route—or so he’d thought. His usual entourage of forest critters were nowhere to be seen, as Hitch was only now noticing. An ominous sense of unease dawned on him. He spun around, and did his best to gather his bearings. Why did all marshy thickets look the same?
“Pleassse, no, tell usss more about your headache.”
Hitch bit his tongue as he suppressed a yelp. His heart had skipped a beat when he’d heard the raspy, feminine voice slither sarcastically from behind him. The shadows of the low-hanging willow boughs and the spiked grass obscured the source of the voice partially from sight, but Hitch could still make out the massive form that was a few too many times his size for him to feel fully comfortable.
Hitch approached the large shadow, slow and cautious. The shape became more defined in the late afternoon sunlight with each step. Three sets of teeth glinted at him from the darkened underbrush. When the smell hit him, he very nearly turned and bolted right then and there—the worst mix of damp fur and rotting meat and unwashed goat (not that Hitch had anything against goats, mind you).
Hitch was close enough that the smell had become dangerously close to overpowering his curiosity—but that was close enough. The owners of the three sets of teeth were a tiger’s head, a goat’s, and a serpent’s… all three of which wound their way to the same hulking body collapsed on its side. The tiger and the goat had their heads side-by-side connected to where one usually expected animal heads to be connected: at the front of the body. The serpent, however, seemed to wind itself in a long coil towards the backside of the body, taking the place of a tail.
“You're a chimera!” Hitch took two quick steps back and stiffened as he dropped into a stance where he could easily wind himself into a charge—whether that was towards or away from the chimera remained to be seen.
The tiger head smirked at him in the condescending way that only a feline could achieve. “Oh, so you ponies still know about chimeras, do you? I’d thought you’d all but forgotten.”
“They wish!” The goat head chirped, indignation rife in its tone.
“I thought you were only legends, myself.” Hitch crouched ever-so-slightly lower. “Made up to scare foals at bedtime.” Or for Sunny to ramble on about at length.
The three heads of the chimera laughed in unison—the sound a terrifying cacophony of shrill mewls, raspy hisses, and cackling bleats. No sooner than the terrible noise started did it die out in wheezes, coughs, and hacking, the beast’s body shuddering violently.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” the tiger head said when the chimera at last regained its composure. “You ponies have long forgotten your history.”
Hitch didn’t move from his crouched stance. “I’ll admit, there’ve been several things that were supposed to only be legends that have turned out to be a little more than that, recently.”
More horrible cackles and coughs. It was then that, in the darkened shadows of the underbrush, Hitch noticed the chimera’s wound. Long, deep gashes decorated the side of the chimera that faced upward—from a bite, or claws, or something distinctly more… pony related, Hitch could not quite tell.
“Don’t you know it’s rude to ogle a lady like that?” the goat head chirped, and Hitch snapped his gaze back to the two front heads. His eyes darted back and forth from head to head to head.
“You’re not going to eat me, are you?”
The tiger head was the only one that laughed this time. “Yes, it is true chimeras eat ponies. And I’d probably eat you, too, in better circumstances…”
Hitch gulped.
The goat head sighed. “…or maybe not. I knew a pony like you, once.” The serpent’s head took this opportunity to add her piece.
“Three poniesss have met me that lived to tell the tale.”
Hitch’s stance softened just that little bit. His curiosity had gotten the better of him. “Who were they?” he asked cautiously.
“The blue one,” the goat said.
“The yellow one,” the tiger added.
“And you.” The serpent finished.
Somehow, being added to the list did not make Hitch feel much better.
The tiger snickered. “Yes. You remind me of the yellow one.”
The goat nodded. “You have the same kind of indomitable aura. The kind that inspires awe, and belays—ugh—kindness.” Her eyes narrowed. “All of which seems to be little more than a front for when you’re angered.”
“He’sss much more forward than the yellow one wasss,” the serpent hissed. “And yet, sssomehow lessssss sssure of himssself, if that’sss even possssssible.”
“What do you mean?” Hitch couldn’t believe it, but he was somewhat offended by the remark.
The chimera’s heads snickered in unison. “You’re not quite as good with the snacks,” the goat said at last.
“‘Snacks’?” Hitch’s brain took a second to buffer. “Oh. Eugh.”
The chimera heads cackled, and then all groaned in pain.
“They all ran away when they sensed me,” the tiger said. “I suppose they didn’t have full confidence you’d defend them.”
“Can’t say I blame them,” the goat chimed in.
The chimera groaned, and tried to shift herself in the mud. Hitch took a tentative step toward her side in an attempt to sneak another glance at the wound. The serpent head snapped at him weakly. “Don’t think I don’t sssee you!”
Hitch sprung back. Maybe it would be best to make a run for it, while he still could… but the chimera seemed far too injured to do anything dangerous, really, and something inside of Hitch kept him anchored there.
“I watched your little town grow up from nothing, you know,” the tiger mused as she looked over the tense and befuddled Hitch in his crouch.
The goat sighed. “I watched a whole kingdom, thousands of years of history, collapse.”
“Collapssse and disssappear from the memory of all.” The serpent looked almost sad.
“I’m so old. I feel so old.” The tiger head looked down at her side. “Old enough to watch the magic leave, and return…”
Hitch felt a strange whoosh of sensation flood through him, a mix between relief and disbelief. “Do you know what happened to it? The magic?” he found himself asking.
All heads of the chimera ignored his question. “My mother as a youngling herself knew the blue one when she was a foal,” the tiger said. She seemed to be talking more to her other heads than to Hitch, now.
“She’d never stop bothering me about her,” the goat mused. “Chimeras live for a long, long time, but we don’t live forever.”
The serpent coiled around the body, conveniently obscuring the wound from even the peripheries of Hitch’s vision. “My mother wasss really the only connectsssion to her foalhood world.”
Hitch relaxed a tiny bit further, although he was still ready to spring into a charge in whichever direction was required at a moment’s notice. “Why was that?”
The tiger snorted. “Oh, there was some minor incident where her sister sent her to the moon for a thousand years.”
“You know, sssibling sssquabbles.”
Hitch cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “That seems like a little more than a squabble.”
“And you’d know a thing or two about squabbles, wouldn’t you?” The goat bleated.
“You’re the sheriff of that town. I’ve seen you on patrols before.” The tiger smiled, her fangs glinting as they had when Hitch had first seen them. “And yes, I’ve thought about it. You never did strike me as especially edible.”
The goat rolled her horizontal, slitted eyes. “You’d put up too much of a fight.”
Hitch huffed. “I know more about ‘squabbling’ than you wanna find out.” How was this thing so good at making him feel indignant? “Especially lately.”
“Oh, that’s right. I did see there was some sort of kerfuffle in that town you’re from,” the tiger said. “You’d have to have been related to that. There was some sort of huge machine that you could see for miles. You ponies never were quite satisfied with just living, were you? Not even satisfied with just magic! Always had to be something more…”
Hitch shook his head, the furious and nasty thoughts he’d been suppressing about Sprout boiling to the surface again with prompting from the chimera’s comments. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh, did I hit a nerve?” The goat head cackled, and the whole of the beast shuddered as each head grunted in pain under their respective breaths.
Hitch rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I was involved with… the incident.”
“‘Involved’?” The tiger’s eyes gleamed. “Do go on.”
The goat spat at Hitch, who barely dodged the foul-stench’d glob. “Was that your machine? You trampled some of my favorite stalking groves, I’ll have you know.”
Hitch’s squint intensified. “And I’ll have you know that that wasn’t my machine!” He swallowed hard, his stomach twisting into a knot for a moment. “Just… somepony's I know.”
The serpent stuck out her forked tongue. “Aw. Lover’sss quarrel?”
“Ugh, no.” Hitch sneered. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. In fact, I can’t believe I’m talking about it with you! You’re a—“
“Yes, a monster. Monsters can make for some good conversation too, now and again.” The chimera lifted one of her front paws, and Hitch leapt back in surprise and fleeting terror—but all she did was bring the paw to her tiger’s head and start to lick it.
“You know, unless you’re going to eat them, it may not be best to stay on a pony’s bad side for too long,” the tiger said after a moment’s cleaning. “Don’t get so caught up over hating ponies for what they’ve done, it’ll hurt you more in the long run—or so I’ve been told.”
Hitch rolled his eyes (careful to keep them on the chimera nevertheless). “Oh, so now I’ve got to take friendship advice from a monster?”
“You know, he’s much ruder than the yellow one ever was,” the goat said to the tiger. The tiger tittered.
“Besides,” Hitch said, raising his voice slightly to recapture the full attention of the chimera. “In my case…”
Those thoughts, and the vision of Sunny’s house in ruins, flooded back into the forefront of Hitch’s mind. He shook his head, and grimaced.
“It might not be so easy to forgive. I’m not even the one he hurt the most.”
“Well, do whatever you want.” The tiger and the goat did their best to approximate a shrug, and all the heads groaned weakly.
The goat feigned a yawn at the end of her groan. “It’s just the blue one would never shut up about how she always wished she’d forgiven her sister earlier, or something.”
“‘Life’sss too ssshort to ssspend it hating other poniesss’ isss the exact thing ssshe sssaid, if memory ssservesss,” the serpent hissed.
“I-I don’t—” Hitch paused. Did he hate Sprout?
The goat rolled her eyes. ”You don’t have to justify anything to me.”
The tiger glanced down at her side again. “Just the rambles of a dying chimera…”
Hitch felt himself overcome with a strange urge, felt gripped with an alien compulsion—despite the very real danger of the chimera in any other circumstances, the way that she had, in her own defeated way, so casually referred to her own death…
“I can help you with that injury, you know. We’ve got more than enough to do first aid on it back in the town.”
All the heads made a noise between laughter and agony. “You really are like the yellow one,” the tiger said.
“I’m being serious.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that you are!” The goat scoffed. “That’s just how you are, and she was, isn’t it?”
Hitch swallowed with some difficulty; his throat and mouth had gone dry all of a sudden. “W-Well, I wouldn’t mind talking to somep—one who, y’know, had been there. Who could answer some questions about how things used to be, in the old world.”
“That was another thing the blue one always harped on,” the tiger said blithely. “Very big on not living in the past, holding on to resentments, harboring grudges. That sort of thing.”
“‘Poniesss aren’t sssupposed to look back’,” the serpent quoted. “‘Or at leassst, I’m not going to anymore’.” The rasp in her hisses had given away to something akin to a nostalgic longing.
“Always with the dramatics, that one,” the goat agreed.
“I suppose us chimeras are just another part of that old world disappearing,” the tiger said with a chuckle. Hitch didn’t quite understand what was so funny about that, but she continued on before he could spare it too much thought.
“But the magic is coming back now, isn’t it?” The tiger’s eyes had a strange sparkle in them—not the shine of a predator’s eyes, but a glimmer that Hitch had seen in Sunny’s so many times by now. “You must feel it.”
“Well, actually, about that,“ Hitch shifted nervously in place. “I can do more than feel it. I think I know someone who’d like to meet you.”
The tiger continued on as if Hitch had never spoke at all. Her voice was quiet, and it carried with it an intonation very similar to the serpent’s—but it was sadder, much sadder, much sadder than Hitch would have ever given the chimera credit to be. “‘It’s a precious thing we lost’.”
The serpent turned to look up at the tiger. “But it’sss coming back.”
The goat stuck out her tongue and made a gagging noise. “Please, if you two are just going to quote the blue one all night I’d much rather just die and get it over with…”
But all three heads of the chimera suddenly looked very weary, and very tired, and yes— very old.
They looked so old.
“I watched your little town grow up from nothing, you know,” the goat reiterated from her sister head’s earlier comment.
“I watched a whole kingdom, thousssandsss of yearsss of hissstory, collapssse.” The serpent certainly looked sad now.
“Collapse and disappear from the memory all of.” The tiger finished repeating—half musing, half whispered. “Seems that’s all anything is anymore, is memory…”
Hitch watched the chimera, his stance long softened. The manner in which he held himself now was not relaxed, per se, but he no longer felt threatened in the slightest.
The heads composed themselves, and the tiger spoke. “This was a gift to me from the blue one. I trust you’ll enjoy it.” The chimera shifted her body (with accompanying chorus of groans), and from beneath her breast—produced a small metal object. Filth-encrusted as it was, it took Hitch a moment to identify it.
“What is that? Some sort of crown?”
The tiger looked downright lost in thought. “I think it’s a tiara, actually.”
The snake nodded. “Sssince it doesssn’t loop all the way around.”
“Not that I care.” The goat snorted imperiously.
The longer Hitch looked at it, the more evident the beauty of the object became. Certainly, it was old—and, as it’d been carried about with the chimera (in whichever way that it was a chimera did carry about a crown or tiara or whatever it was), had likely been in round-the-clock exposure to some kind of filth or another—but there was a silvery, navy sheen to its metallic surface, almost like the moon on the surface of the ocean; more still, as he continued to study it, he saw that in its shadows it was a dark midnight blue, so dark as to be almost black—and its shadows could hardly be called as such, as even under all the muck and the mire the piece twinkled like the stars in the night sky.
Hitch shook himself from his entranced gaze. “I-I mean… are you sure?”
“It’s not my style.” The tiger sighed. “We’re going to be dead soon anyway—“
“Don’t say that.”
The tiger snickered at Hitch’s interjection. “Noble. Yes, she was noble too; and where did that get her?”
“I would have eaten you, you know…” The goat spat again, and Hitch easily dodged it this time. She sighed. “Or maybe I wouldn’t. I don’t know at this point. You may not go down right. Last thing an old chimeress like me needs is indigestion from an overly nobel pony.”
The tiger nodded at the artifact and all three heads once again winced in near-perfect unison. “Take the thing.”
“You’re sure?”
“Ah, it’s nothing but a memento to me anyway at this point.” The tiger exhaled a pained groan. “I think it’s high time someone else took the mantle of remembering it.”
“It’s not like there’s any magic left in it, anyway,” the goat muttered under her breath.
Hitch slowly reached forward, cautiously, his eyes still locked on the chimera. He hooked the piece around his hoof, meaning to quickly flick it up and over towards him, slightly further from the chimera—but all at once he was overtaken by a weird rush in his stomach, a rush like the tides, extrasensory perception of a newborn nebula aglow in every nerve of his body, a vision of an empty and cold white wasteland…
And then nothing.
“Well, mostly no magic left in it, anyway.”
Hitch stared at the piece, mystified, and then turned to look back up into the triple sets of the chimera’s eyes. “Who did this belong to?” He demanded.
“I told you,” the goat snapped. “The blue one.”
Hitch grit his teeth. “Right, but who was she?”
The tiger yawned histrionically. “I’m far too tired to remember every little detail of her life. For now, I will sleep. If I wake up, well… maybe you’ll get your answer.” Another tired laugh escaped her. There wasn’t even a groan or wince of pain this time.
All three heads closed their eyes. Her breathing became lighter. A lot lighter.
“I’m going to be right back,” Hitch promised, his voice quiet. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“In my condition?” the tiger mumbled, which took Hitch by surprise and elicited a flinch from the stallion. “I’d really have to have somewhere incredibly important to be if I did…”
Hitch scooped the piece of jewelry he’d been gifted by her into his saddlebag with a stick. He wasn’t quite ready to touch it again. Not right now. It stuck half out of his saddlebag, hooked safely into one of the metal fastenings of the bag.
“I’m going to be right back.”
With that, he bolted off back to Maretime Bay.
“Hitch! There you are!” Sunny Starscout waved at Hitch from across the street. “I’ve been looking for you!”
“Not now, Sunny,” Hitch said. He hadn’t meant to sound so sharp, but time really was of the essence at the moment.
“Hold on! I need to—“ Sunny’s eyes went wide. “Wait a second. Where did you get that?”
“Get what?”
“That! The diadem!” Sunny gestured at the gift from the chimera half-hanging from Hitch’s saddlebag.
Hitch stopped, brow furrowed. “The what? Oh, you mean the tiara.”
“We can split hairs about the differentiation of headpiece jewelry later,” Sunny said, flippantly flipping a hoof. “At least you didn’t call it a crown.”
Hitch pursed his lips.
“Anyway,” Sunny continued. “I’d recognize that anywhere! Sure, it’s filthy—but that’s The Diadem of 12 Stars!”
Hitch’s stare was blank. Sunny groaned. “That used to belong to The Princess of the Moon! I—where did you find that?”
Hitch cast a glance backwards in the direction of the marsh. “Gather as many bandages as you can fit in your saddlebags and I’ll show you.”
“You got to meet a chimera?” Sunny’s squeal of delight was akin to as if Hitch had told her he’d found a litter of puppies.
“If we’re quick enough, you might be able to too.” Hitch shouldered his way through a dead bush. Twigs and shards of wood splintered around him and fell to be trampled unceremoniously underhoof in the mud. They were close. He was sure of it.
Why did all marshy thickets look the same?
“I never thought I’d get the chance!” Sunny exclaimed exuberantly. “I thought they were extinct!”
“They might be soon,” Hitch said, more to himself than to Sunny. If she’d heard him, she didn’t make it obvious.
“This is going to be so cool! I’ve got so much to ask her!” Sunny giggled in glee. “She said she knew The Princess of the Moon?”
“Yup,” Hitch grunted.
“Oh wow. Oh wow.” Sunny was skipping and galloping behind him with all the excitement in the world. She took a moment of thought halfway through a little prance. “I wonder what could have hurt a chimera like that, though…”
“That’s what I’d like to know.” Hitch steered them on a sharp right turn. “It was down here, I’m sure of it,” he insisted to Sunny. “There was a lot of that spiny marsh grass, and a willow thicket…”
Sunny looked around at the multitude of spiny marsh grass and willow thicket surrounding them. “Um.”
The two broke free from the underbrush into a clearing. “Here! She was here!” Hitch yelled. “Hey! I’m back, Miss… Chimera…” He trailed off. He’d only now realized he’d never gotten a name, nor given his. That hadn’t exactly been on the forefront of his mind in the experience.
Yes, these were the trees, and yes, this was the marsh grass. It had been right here where the chimera had lain—as evidenced by the roughly chimera-shaped dent in the mud beneath the willows. The chimera herself was nowhere to be seen. Even the gut-churning scent, while still in the air, was now very faint. Judging by how there was no particular direction the scent was stronger in than the next, she wasn’t even close by.
“She was right here,” Hitch said quietly. He hadn’t been gone too long, had he? Sure, it had taken a moment to get back to town, and sure, it had taken a moment to get the first aid supplies, and yes, with Sunny in tow he couldn’t exactly move at top speed, and yes, the sun was now almost fully set—
Hitch groaned, the sound soft and desperate. He trotted mechanically to the place where the chimera had lain.
Claw marks in the mud.
“Looks like she dragged herself away.” Hitch peered closer.
Faint streaks of blood in the trail, still drying.
“Should we go after her?” Sunny asked tentatively. “It looks like there’s a trail to follow, at least…”
Hitch sighed. His whole body felt heavy, as if the weight of all the tension of the past afternoon had barreled down upon him at once. “I… No. I don’t know this part well enough to feel comfortable with just the two of us. Not at night. And believe me, you’d smell her if she were nearby. I don't think she’s anywhere near here anymore.”
Sunny wrinkled her snout. “Oh, so that’s what that is.”
Hitch sighed and hung his head. “She’s gone.”
“Aw, I wanted to meet her.” Sunny pouted. “There must not be many of them left.”
“There probably isn’t,” Hitch said. His voice was hardly above a murmur.
Hitch looked around at the trees above him. He felt overcome by a strange sense of loneliness in the forest, now, despite Sunny there beside him. No animals had followed him this time, as if they had known of his task. The sun sank lower with every second, long and twisted shadows cast about the two of them.
“‘It’s a precious thing we lost’,” Hitch found himself repeating in that same murmured way.
Sunny tilted her head. “Hm?”
Hitch looked over at her. “How long do you think you’ll be mad at Sprout?”
Sunny’s expression darkened at the name. “How long do you think you’ll be mad at him?”
“I asked you first.”
Sunny sighed. “I don’t know. Probably just as long as you or longer.” A dark chuckle escaped her. “Might be a thousand years.”
“A thousand years is a long time to be mad at somepony,” Hitch said softly.
The two stood in silence. It was dark; night had properly fallen. The moon hung high in the sky, steadily climbing. Its silvery strands of light filtered through the boughs of the squat, sallow willows—and in that serene light, The Diadem of 12 Stars sparkled with an effervescent beauty.