Interlude: The Wings of the Mothers
Six there were, now five remain.
One rules from the shadows, the others follow blindly.
Hope is lost, but the lost can be found.
The Sleeper will awaken at the hooves of her children.
The Generous will find the lost and restore Hope to Equestria.
The same words, spoken a thousand times. The same secrets, hidden in a thousand minds.
But the Generous are called to a higher task, and their Orphans will take wing.
Take wing, sons and daughters of the Generous!
Take wing, and answer the call of your mothers!
Take wing, and rise to meet the Day of Hope!
Take wing, and spread the word!
Take wing, carried up on the ancient feathers of the angel pegasi of old!
Take wing, and be orphans no longer.
The days had blended into weeks. Time stopped meaning anything. The sun rose and fell, rain came and went, but it didn’t matter.
Tir Rapide didn’t have the sky, so nothing else mattered.
He’d known what was coming when he’d received his transfer orders. The words on the paper were seared into his brain.
You are ordered to report to Outpost 80. You are required to arrive within one week of receiving this order. Failure will cause you to be arrested for treason.
Treason. Not dereliction of duty, but treason. And everypony in the Marines knew what Outpost 80 meant. Punishment duty.
And even though nopony would say it, everypony in his squad knew what they were really being punished for. They knew too much.
His captain, Fair Weather, had said something about his failure to apprehend the prisoner after the Knight they were following died, but Tir was willing to bet most of the other ponies who’d seen too much at Camp Borealis had been put away, hidden, or otherwise silenced by the damned Mystics.
There wasn’t even any sort of comfort to be had being so close to the Capital. The Outpost was built into a gorge only a few miles from New Canterlot City, carved into caves so that only a small slit of the sky was visible at any one time. Not that the prisoners were allowed to spend much time outside. Just an hour and a half of rec time each day, then it was back to the factory.
New marine uniforms had to come from somewhere, after all.
It was rec time, however, and Tir knew if he didn’t take the chance to at least look at the sky, to look and to hope, he’d be stuck inside for another twenty two hours before he got another chance. So he ignored the other prisoners around him, dressed in their bright yellow uniforms, chatting and playing and trying to live at the bottom of this Saints-forsaken crack in the ground.
It was overcast today, as most days had been lately. Heavy, gray clouds thick and pregnant with snow. Something was wrong, but none of the Knights were saying anything about it yet. At least, nothing more than, “Have faith, the Saints will protect us.” Faith was fine, but the Saints had provided marines and Knights for a reason. Where faith couldn’t protect, you needed spears and rifles. And Tir wished there was an enemy he could point his rifle at.
Staring at the clouds high above, though, gave him at least a tiny sense of freedom. It was enough to stave off the cold bite of the air for a few moments. He even spread his wings, clipped and impotent though they might be, letting the chill breeze float over them.
It wasn’t flying, but it was something.
“Prisoner T-132? The commander needs to talk to you.”
Tir turned. Two guards, uniformed marines with the silver MP badge pinned to their collars, stood sternly behind him. He nodded, and they took up positions on either side, marching him towards the yawning mouth of the cave that led to the administration offices.
It hurt to lose this tiny glimpse of freedom, but one didn’t argue with the commander.
He never thought to muster any sort of resistance as they guided him through the hallways. Tir was a marine, even in prison, and he held true to his oath of service. Even though he knew he’d done nothing wrong, really, if this was how his country needed him to serve, he would do so.
The commander’s office was still piled high with boxes. The previous commander, a stern older mare, had retired to a desk job in the capital a week ago. The new commander was still feeling things out and easing into the position, and Tir didn’t want to do anything to upset him. Especially given the lavender armor he wore.
Commander Feather Bolt sat behind his desk, his attention on the papers resting there. He was a young pegasus, though with a look of grave concentration in his gray eyes that somehow made him seem older than he was. He wore his purple robes, but a glowing rune gauntlet was strapped to one hoof. A brilliant orb of light floated right behind him. He never even looked up when the guards pushed Tir inside. “Close the door behind you.” He only lifted his head when he heard the click of the door. “Sorry about the rune light. It’s probably psychosomatic, but I find electric lights give me a headache.”
“Sir?”
“Sorry. You probably don’t care.” Commander Bolt’s smile was barely an upturn of his lips. “Lieutenant, we need to talk about why you’re here.”
“You called me here, sir.” He flinched. “I assume it’s time to…” he fluttered his useless wings. It was too hard to even say, but pegasi had to be stopped from escaping somehow.
“Hmm,” Commander Bolt hummed as he spared a glance at his desk. Tir followed his gaze and shuddered. The scissors were right there, but the commander didn’t pick them up.
“Sir?” Tir did not like feeling unsure.
“Hold your questions for a moment, Lieutenant.” The commander raised his gauntlet, and began a complicated scrawl through the air. Two, three, four, five, then six runes. Tir knew next to nothing about the Knights’ arts, but he knew that six meant an incredibly complex spell. “There. For the moment, everypony outside this room will hear a fairly normal, if muffled and inaudible conversation. Tir, I have some questions for you.”
Now his heart was starting to beat quickly. He could feel the cold sweat on his spine, just under his prison uniform. Conventional wisdom said it was a bad idea to be locked in a room with a Mystic, answering questions.
In fact, the last time it had happened, he’d been banished to this outpost.
“I’ll do what I can, sir.”
“Good. Now. Let’s start by talking about how you ended up here.”
“You’ve read my file, sir.”
“I’d like to hear you tell me about it.” The commander blinked, glancing at an empty chair on the other side of the desk. “Sit, please. Be comfortable.” He laughed. “I realize that me saying so won’t put you at ease, but do so regardless. For me.”
It was never wise to refuse orders. Even politely worded ones. He sat.
“Now, speak, please. Nopony will hear what you say besides me.”
“I don’t know what I can say that’s not in the report, sir. My squad and I were assigned as support the Adamant. When he fell to the heretic, I made a call to retreat. Sir Steadfast said it was cowardice, that I should have pursued. I was sent here as punishment.”
“That’s pretty much what the report says, yes,” Commander Bolt said. “Do you feel like the punishment was just?”
Tir’s throat went bone dry. He tried to swallow, and couldn’t. “Sir? I don’t know how to answer that.”
“Honestly, I would hope.”
“It doesn’t matter what I think, then. The punishment was just because a Knight said it was.”
Commander Bolt pursed his lips with displeasure. “Hmm. And if a different Knight were to tell you it wasn’t just?”
It was like a cold claw squeezing Tir’s heart. He opened his mouth, but all that came out was a single word. “Please.”
Commander Bolt stared closely at him for a few moments. Tir had to force himself not to squirm. “Okay. We can set that aside for now. I have other questions. The heretics you were chasing. A griffon, a pegasus Discordant, a disgraced Radiant, and one other. Who was the other?”
“I was never told her name, sir.” He was barely able to say the lie with a straight face.
“You didn’t hear it once?” Commander Bolt’s face was a blank mask, his eyes flat and emotionless.
“I…”
“Nevermind that.” The reversal made Tir blink with confusion. “Let me ask you some hypotheticals. You marines like to gossip sometimes, right?”
“T-that would be inappropriate, sir.” Tir was reeling.
“Inappropriate, sure. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Saints, even the Mystics gossip among ourselves. But I’m curious. Do marines ever gossip about the Mystics?”
“Uh…”
“Nothing specific, of course.” Commander Bolt waved a hoof dismissively. “But in general, when marines talk about the Mystics, what’s the tone?”
“F-fear, sir.” Tir cursed his slip of the tongue as soon as he’d answered. He was breathing hard now. “I mean…”
“Understandable.” Commander Bolt cut him off. “An entire Order dedicated to ferreting out all your secrets, your deepest regrets, your biggest shames, your darkest thoughts. And we’re as good as you think we are.” He flipped open a file folder on his desk and began to read. “Tir Rapide. Lieutenant, Diarchy Marines. Eight years of service, only two yellow marks on your record. A drunk-and-disorderly charge in training, and a charge of striking a superior officer.”
“T-those were…”
“Expunged, yes. Officially. But remember who I am.” He flipped a page. “For what it’s worth, I would have punched Captain Hard Line, too. He was a coward, and the Adamants pinched him for embezzling two years later.”
Tir snapped his lips shut.
“But hypothetically. I want you to get inside the head of the Mystics. Think like one, for a moment. You’re in charge of a group of marines that have seen something. Something they shouldn’t have seen. What do you do?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Speculate. That’s an order, Lieutenant.”
Tir didn’t want to play this game. But an order was an order. “A b-blacksite? Some sort of tucked away prison?”
“So obvious.” Commander Bolt sighed. “But perhaps. That is what the rumors say about us, right?” He waved a hoof at his office. “Would you call this a blacksite?”
Tir shook his head. It was a military prison, and a textile factory. Not some sort of secret facility.
“Exactly. Who was it you saw in the camp?”
Tir gaped, openmouthed.
“Nevermind. So you’d send the offenders to a blacksite? Even if they did nothing wrong?”
“I…”
“So why didn’t he?” Commander Bolt tapped a hoof on the desk, his eyes unfocused.
Tir gulped. “I thought we were speaking hypothetically.”
“My apologies. Let me word that differently. The marines in question saw something they shouldn’t. But burying them in some blacksite would attract too much attention from your fellow Mystics. Hypothetically. As would killing them. Draw attention to something you were trying to occlude. Like the name of the pony you saw. Who was it again?”
“I… I don’t… I have orders.”
“Orders not to say? So you do know?” The Commander’s eyes lit up with excitement, and he actually smiled. “Good to know I’m not wasting my time, then. Well, let’s try a different approach, shall we?”
Tir wanted to flee.
“At this point, I think I’ve scared you enough, Tir. Perhaps I should apologize.” Commander Bolt closed the folder, sliding it away from him with a hoof. “It’s ingrained into us while we’re training, really. But sometimes we forget how to deal with ponies without interrogating them. How to relate to them, you know? Tell me, how do you feel about poetry?”
“P-poetry?” Another abrupt subject change. Another attempt to throw Tir off-balance.
“Yes. Verse, rhyming, though sometimes not. I wanted to ask you about an odd bit of verse I heard as a child. Something my mother shared with me, about orphans and their mothers, about hope and wings.”
In the silence that followed Tir heard nothing but the desperate panting of his own lungs. “You mean, the Prophecy of the Mothers. Oh, Saints, if you’re playing games with me please just kill me and get it over with.”
Commander Bolt gave a sigh of relief, and to Tir’s utter shock, it seemed like every muscle in the Commander’s body relaxed at once.
“Thank the Saints,” the Knight muttered sotto voce. The smile on his face widened, became both relieved and oddly cheerful. He reached to the scissors on his desk, pulling them off and placing them in a drawer. “I’m going to forget to clip your wings today, Tir. Can you keep that quiet?”
Tir nodded, stunned and speechless.
“I thought I was right about you. That you were one of the Seamstress’ Orphans. Like me.” He leaned forward. “Something big is coming. The Mothers need our help. I can’t say more out loud. I don’t dare. But can I count on you to answer their call?”
Tir nodded again.
“But first, I have to know. Who was it you saw?”
“It was Lady Rarity. A unicorn.”
Bolt grinned. “No hesitation. Once you knew who I served, you didn’t even stop to think, did you?” Tir nodded. He still wasn’t quite sure this wasn’t some sort of strange Mystic entrapment. “How far does that loyalty go?”
“I would do anything short of heresy. I would give my life, sir,” Tir whispered.
“I hope that won’t be necessary,” Bolt shook his head, then turned to look over his shoulder. “You can come in now.”
Tir’s jaw dropped as a pony walked through the wall behind Bolt. He jerked to his hooves, backing away from the glowing apparition before him. Its form was akin to a pony’s, but it glowed with an outline of twilight. Tir raised a hoof to shield his eyes from the baleful light.
“Please, Tir. Be still. You are in no danger. I would like to introduce you to the Oracle.”
“Nice to meet you, Tir Rapide,” the glowing specter said. “I am the Oracle. I have guided the hooves of the Grand Masters of the Radiant for centuries. Fairy Light calls on all the Orphans for aid. But I have a gift for you, one that will make the path we walk so much easier. Bolt?”
Bolt opened his drawer once again, retrieving a small vial of sparkling black liquid. He placed it on the table, and slid it towards Tir. “Your life is about to change forever, soldier.”