It was late in the afternoon as a butter-yellow sun draped itself over Equestria.
In Applewood, the home of the stars and Equestria’s number one tourist spot--more so than even Las Pegasus--the streets were packed with, what else, tourists, each one gawking in amazement at the sights and heights around them--at the skyscrapers taller than those in Manehattan dominating the skyline. The very air itself seemed to be filled with ideas of hopes and dreams.
And only the faint whiff of something unpleasant.
But for the Nightmare Knights, the city wasn’t anything that special, just the newest location of a haunt they were being sent to clear out. And as they plodded through the crowd, Cozy and Tirek both had their noses buried in brochures about the various locales Applewood had to offer, albeit one had a far more case-related reason than the other.
“So where is this place we’re supposed to go?” Chrysalis asked out loud, turning her face up in disgust as ponies scrambled out of her way. “And how can we get there fastest and away from these... verminous creatures?”
“It’s called the Goldenview Hotel,” Tempest replied, mustering up as much of a friendly outward appearance as she could for the throng of faces they were wading through. “And Jack only told us it was somewhere on the north side of the city, looking over the ocean. Tirek, does that thing have directions or not?” she asked, gesturing to the brochure in his hands.
Tirek snorted and lowered it. “Little to nothing useful, I’m afraid, only tourist traps and directions to celebrity houses. Who wants to see where Manes Bond lives for goodness’ sake?”
“Are you kidding?” Cozy gasped, wrenching herself away from her leaflet. “Tirek--Terry, my guy, we’re in Applewood! Tra-la-land! Tasseltown! The place where dreams are made and stars are born!”
“Is she going somewhere with this?” the changeling of the group snorted, quickly growing irritated at being jostled by the crowd.
“Yes, dummy! ‘Cause Applewood has all these stars, right? Incluuuuding...” Cozy flipped the brochure around to show a small image of a glamorous looking mare bedazzled in golden chains and bangles. “Señorita Bejewellica!” Her eyes sparkled and shone like the diamonds in the picture in pure, unabashed awe. “Can we go see her, Tempest? Please?”
Tempest sighed half-heartedly. “Sorry Cozy, but we’re only here for a case.”
The filly pouted and stood on the tips of her hooves. “Pleeeease, Tempest? I’ll never ask for anything again.”
“That’s a lie and you know it.”
“Alright yeah it is, but c’mooon when do I ever ask for anything?”
The other Knights glanced at one another in a knowing silence.
Cozy turned her ears back and bit her lip. “On second thought don’t answer. But really, c’mon what’s one little detour?” She huffed and folded her hooves, stuffing her brochure under one leg as she rose up into the air, beating her little wings furiously.
Tempest rolled her eyes and nudged her with her hoof. They hung back for a second, letting Chrysalis and Tirek go on ahead. “Cozy you know the rules. We do our job first then we have fun. Besides, we have fun while we do this,” she added with a chuckle. “Don’t we?”
The filly nodded unhappily. “I guess.”
The commander smiled, looking at her fondly and tousled her mane. Since her, ahem, ‘encounter’ with Cozy’s father, Tempest had been filled with a sort of big sister energy for the young Knight. She had, of course, told the others about his ‘proposal’, and rightly guessed it would have ended badly had they been there to witness it themselves. Chrysalis and Tirek had both near set the castle on fire with the rage burning in their eyes, and for once they looked in total agreement on what to do about Lord Glow.
Cozy sighed and trotted forwards, slowing down to a halt as they passed by a newspaper stand. Suddenly something caught her eye and she turned, leaning in to get a better look. “Hey look at this,” she said.
“Guys hold up a second,” the commander called ahead to Tirek and Chrysalis before they got too far away. “Cozy’s got something. What is it?” she asked the young Knight, leaning in to look as well.
Chrysalis and Tirek quickly re-joined them, both towering high above the crowd. The vendor behind the stand quivered and shook in his proverbial boots, staring up at the villains in terror, utterly lost for words.
“You see that ad?” Cozy said, pointing at the newspaper. “Wanted: fearless camerapony for adventures on exciting, adventurous T.V. show.”
Tempest frowned. “Yeah? Cozy, what’s this-”
“Look who its by: Flim and Flam.” The filly looked up at her. “Has their address too.”
The commander outwardly groaned and pulled a face. “What are you thinking?”
“If they’re in Applewood maybe they know where this Goldenview Hotel is.”
Chrysalis snorted contemptuously. “And force us to deal with those inane buffoons again? Please.” She flicked some of her mane out her eyes and seemed to notice the vendor cowering before her. She smirked and flashed him a toothy grin. He whimpered and shrank behind some stacks of unsold papers, making himself as small as possible.
Tirek scratched his beard and hummed and hawed to himself. “She has a point,” he said finally. “If they are serious about that show they make, they’d probably look for haunted locations, wouldn’t they? If the Goldenview is one such location, then surely they would know where it is, perhaps they may even be persuaded to take us there.”
Tempest rubbed her nose. “Yeah you’re right. Nice job, Cozy. Grab that paper and let’s go.”
“Thanks.” The filly beamed at her expectantly for a few seconds.
“Alright fine, if it doesn’t get too late we’ll go see Señorita Bejewellica, okay?”
Cozy hoofpumped to herself. “Yes!”
“But you’re paying for the newspaper. Knights, move out! Chrysalis, stop terrorising the populace.”
The young Knight grumbled under her breath and fished out a couple of bits from one of the pockets of her uniform and forked them over, lifting the paper off of its stand. As she and the other Knights drifted away, the vendor peeked out from behind his cover. Seeing they were gone he breathed a sigh of relief, and even chortled in a light surprise at the money left for him.
Only upon further inspection as he scooped them into his bit pouch, he noticed one was bent. Curious, he bit into it and was quickly met with the taste of chocolate for his troubles.
“A chocolate coin?” he grumbled. “Eh. I’ll take it.”
***
“The Goldenview Hotel?”
The Flim Flam brothers looked at one another in concern. “Why the place is deserted--abandoned, even,” Flim said. “Nopony’s been there in years.”
Tempest tapped her hoof impatiently. “Yeah, we gathered that. Can you take us there?”
The brothers’ office, if it could even be called an office, was little more than a studio apartment located above a pawnshop, and with the sounds of rushing traffic outside, a suspicious stain on the ceiling and a single lightbulb, it didn’t exactly look the most hospitable of places. A bunk bed lay pressed up against the wall and beside it lay a half opened cupboard full of blue and white striped vests, some of which were strewn about the floor. Across on the other side of the room lay a single vanity mirror and desk. And dominating the centre of the room lay a small table, along with an assortment of video cameras and recording equipment. It looked like they didn’t even have a bathroom--or seen the light of day for some time, judging by the blinds gathering dust.
Chrysalis took a long look around the room and scoffed. “You live like this?” she sneered.
Flim chuckled nervously, flicking his eyes away from Tempest and onto her. “Aha... if we had known we would be having company, dear Chrysalis, we would have tidied up.”
“Naturally,” Flam added, grimacing as a mouse squeaked along the desk. He quickly brushed off some of the leftover food wrappers and coughed into his hoof.
The changeling twisted her mouth in disgust and tutted softly.
Tirek scoffed, stooping to avoid scraping his horns along the ceiling and silently lamenting in general how short the insides of pony buildings often were. He leaned down to poke Cozy in the side. “You’d better not end up like this,” he warned her.
Cozy waved his hand away and fluttered her wings. “Hey, I’m not this bad,” she protested.
“So, Flim and Flam. The Goldenview,” said Tempest, fighting hard to keep the conversation on track. “Can you take us there or not?”
At that the brothers glanced at one another. “I see no reason why we couldn’t.” Flam started. “If...”
“If?”
“Ratings have been... not slow, per say, but dwindling since our last meeting, Commander,” Flim added. “And we’d be more than happy to help you...”
Tempest sucked in her lower lip and snorted. “If you come with us and film it?”
They perked up at that. “Why, what an excellent idea,” Flim cried. “Truly remarkable, why I never would have...” He trailed off as she just glared at him. “Ahem. Yes, well, give us one moment please, Miss Shadow, then we’ll be on our way!”
The commander nodded reluctantly. “Fine,” she grunted.
“Wonderf-”
“But!” She held up her hoof, silencing him. “When we get there, don’t get in our way. And at the first sign of trouble, you run. Understand?”
The brothers both nodded.
“Good. We’ll wait for you outside. C’mon, guys.”
“Ugh, gladly,” Chrysalis snarked. “One more minute in this dump and I think we may start to develop mould.”
If the brothers heard her they made no show of it, and began flitting about gathering up what they needed to record their show, eagerly chatting to each other about ratings and whatnot. Tempest sighed half-heartedly and shook her head. “Remind me to remind Jack that we need all the information on a case,” she grumbled, leading the way down the hall of the brothers’ apartment building.
“Sure,” Cozy replied, fluttering along beside her. “Is it just me, or did she seem kinda distracted? Oh!” she cried suddenly. “She was probably just thinking about her birthday, right?” she asked, turning to look at Tirek. “It’s like next week, isn’t it?”
Tirek scowled. “Why did you look at me when you said that?” he growled.
“I figured you’d know when it is.” The filly winked and grinned at him. “We should get her something.”
The commander thought for a moment, feeling guilty for the fact that she didn’t know it was Jack’s birthday soon. In fact she realised she knew very little about the Knights’ secretary other than what she had let slip. She pushed the door to the apartment building open and trotted down the steps outside. When she reached the bottom of she decided to take a break and sit down.
“Please, for doing the bare minimum?” Chrysalis scoffed, taking up a position opposite her on the path while Cozy sat down as well. “The actual bare minimum of her job description? And even then her social skills are woefully lacking.”
“And yours aren’t?” Tirek sneered, folding his arms tightly across his chest, standing off to one side. “Besides, none of you need bother, I’ve already-”
He cut himself off and his eye twitched as they all turned to face him. He closed his mouth and quickly turned his head away.
“Already what?” the former queen chuckled coyly, poking at him. “Have you gone soft, Lord Tirek? Planning something for your girlfriend?”
“Miss Inkwell is not my girlfriend,” he snapped, batting her away like she was a gnat. “I merely appreciate that her presence is useful to the Knights’ operation and would like to continue to keep her in our employ. And not that it’s any of your business, but yes, as a matter of fact I have.”
Cozy’s eyes shone like stars. She clapped her hooves together and leaned in. “I knew it. Whatcha got, Terry?” she asked excitedly. “Romantic walk by the beach? Dinner at some fancy restaurant? What?”
The centaur tongued around in his cheek for a moment, grappling with himself. “Stargazing,” he eventually muttered out the corner of his mouth, barely moving his lips.
While Chrysalis threw her head back and laughed at him and Cozy pressed her hooves into her face in excitement and let out an excited squee, Tempest couldn’t help but smirk. The magic-obsessed centaur and the young, plucky mare from Hooflyn, the unlikely couple. Almost as unlikely as she and Blueblood. Her smirk vanished and her cheeks turned slightly pink at that, not that any of them noticed, thankfully.
Some movement behind her made her turn, looking up as Flim and Flam appeared. The brothers had cleaned up in their absence it looked like, donning new freshly pressed vests and sporting a pair of newly coiffed manes--and one combed moustache.
“Guys,” she said to the Knights, pushing herself up. “They’re here.”
Chrysalis’s laughter cut off the instant she saw them. She stiffened her neck and assumed a stern, scowling expression, determined not to let any pony that wasn’t a Knight see her smile, or even worse let them know she was enjoying herself. Tirek harrumphed and faced way from her, ignoring Cozy’s prodding as much as he could.
“You all set, then?” Tempest said, addressing the brothers.
“Indeed we are, Miss Shadow!” Flim chortled happily. “Indeed we are and ready to move on.” He beamed at her as they sidled past. “I can’t tell you how excited we are to be accompanying you. Why, I’m even getting chills already.”
Cozy frowned for a moment and looked at him. “What, like its dangerous?” she asked.
“No dear filly, but the ratings!”
“And the ad-revenue!” Flam added, just as happily. “More viewers mean more ads, more ads mean more money, and our viewership skyrocketed last time you lot were on Bump!.”
“Us... ‘lot’?” hissed Chrysalis.
The brothers floundered for a moment between themselves in the face of a growling former queen.
“Ah, I mean of course, with all due respect, you Nightmare Knights,” Flam hastily added.
Tempest set her jaw and narrowed her eyes as the brothers trotted forwards, keeping a healthy distance ahead. “Glad to be of service,” she snarked. She jerked her head to her team and gestured onwards. “Come on. The sooner we can get this done the sooner Tirek can get back to his girlfriend.”
“She’s not my--even you, Commander?”
“Sorry, Tirek. Couldn’t resist.”
***
“And we are a-go in three... two... one!”
“Hello dearest viewers and welcome to another exciting episode of Bump!, I’m your host Flim and with me behind the camera is my brother Flam, world famous cryptozoologists and seekers of truth! Join us today as we take a look inside the dreaded Goldenview Hotel with our very special guests, the Nightmare Knights themselves!”
Tempest rolled her eyes as the brothers ran through their shtick and glanced around, seeing what she could before the setting sun disappeared completely. While certainly the oceanic view the hotel was named for was breath-taking, the scenery was fouled somewhat by the grim, run down derelict of a hotel.
Despite being tall and imposing, the Goldenview Hotel was a wreck. The windows were either all smashed or boarded up, what curtains she could see in them were matted and rotten, even the stonework making up the structure itself looked ready to crumble.
Flim and Flam had said the Goldenview was abandoned, but still she expected... more, in a way.
“What a dump,” Cozy murmured, perched on her back and peering over the top of her head.
To emphasize her point, a piece of rotted wood fell off of the hotel’s sign and landed with a soft thunk onto the ground.
“I think I’ve seen swamp caves that look more inviting,” Chrysalis muttered, glaring up at the dreary looking building.
“I agree,” Tirek rumbled, still sour from the earlier round of teasing he had been subjected to. “But regardless of locale, we have a job to do, do we not?”
He took a step towards the stairs leading up to the door, only for Flim and Flam to quickly dart in front and block his way.
“Whoa--whoa!” the moustachioed pony cried, lowering the camera for the time being. “Hold your horses there, Tirek, don’t you want to know about the legend?”
Tirek let out a dangerous growl and glared at him and folded his arms.
Tempest arched one eyebrow and came to a halt beside her teammate. “Legend? What legend?”
Flim offered her a weak smile and stepped away from Tirek when the centaur flexed his arms and glared down at the brothers. “Why, the reason the Goldenview has been abandoned for all these years, of course. Why it remains in such a ghastly state! Even before all of these ghosts and poltergeists appeared in Equestria, many a would-be renovator has been chased away-”
“Cast out,” added Flam, raising his camera.
“And driven forth by whatever evil lurks behind those doors.” Flim pointed up the stairs to the large, unassuming entrance.
Cozy stared up at them and swallowed. The shambolic, jagged bits of rotten wood hanging down above the entrance looked almost like teeth to her young mind. “What’s the legend?” she asked them. “What happened here?”
“I’ll tell you, young filly,” Flim continued. He cleared his throat and struck a pose while Flam raised the camera and silently counted down, finally gesturing for his brother to go ahead.
“The story goes that the Goldenview Hotel was to be so lavish, so luxurious and phenomenal, that even Princess Celestia herself would often comment on how grand it would be. The grandest in all of Equestria, too, even more so than the Chariot over in Las Pegasus-”
“Which is highly overrated, might I add,” quietly muttered the camerapony.
“-but on the night before the grand opening, a grisly discovery was made. The caretaker, his wife and their two children, were found dead. Authorities at the time suspected foul play, but with no suspects or leads the case went cold and later unsolved. The hubbub surrounding the scandal was enough for ponies to quickly lose interest in the Goldenview, and eventually the owners were forced to close. So it goes that the Goldenview Hotel was no more.” Flim adjusted the collar of his shirt as he paused for a moment before continuing.
“After some time and as the hotel fell into disrepair, rumours began to abound that the place was haunted; that the caretaker, his wife and their children remain there to this day, bound forever to this--the place of their demise. Although this is all pure speculation, as nopony’s ever seen a so-called ghost, or can even remember the caretaker in question for that matter.” He tapped his chin as he finished, and glanced across to the Knights. “Perhaps that might change now that you’re all here, yes?”
Chrysalis frowned. “And where are the owners now?”
“That’s the thing,” Flam said, swivelling the camera around to her. “The original owners sold this thing off years ago to an unknown buyer. It’s a derelict, for all intents and purposes. Unwanted. Forgotten... the perfect place for urban explorers and squatters alike. Only...”
“Only most who go in either don’t come out, or if they do... they aren’t themselves,” Flim chortled grimly.
Unsatisfied with their answer, Chrysalis suppressed a sneer and looked to Tempest. “And at whose behest are we here exactly, Tempest? Did ‘Miss Inkwell’ give us a name for this client or did she fail in that as well?”
As Tempest started to reply, the old hotel creaked, seemingly as a response. There was a loud click shortly after, and the door at the top of the stairs started to slowly open, inviting them in.
Flim’s eyes went wide and Flam raised the camera again.
Cozy tapped Tempest’s shoulder. “Hey Tempest?” she breathed. “Who did Jack say this case was from?”
“She didn’t,” Tempest answered flatly. She flexed her legs and flared her nostrils. “Well... nothing else to it, I guess,” she muttered. “I’ll check it out. You lot wait here until I say otherwise.”
The filly fluttered her wings and hopped down onto the ground off the commander’s back without a moment’s hesitation. The rest of her teammates stepped up beside her, watching both Tempest and the hotel carefully. Cozy looked up as Tirek’s shadow darkened her, and quickly retreated to hide behind one of his legs.
“Be careful, Commander,” the centaur warned.
Nodding as she moved, Tempest kept her eyes trained on the darkness behind the hotel doors. The hair on the back of her neck stood up on end as she treaded the steps leading up. Quietly she pulled out her EMF reader for a quick scan and waved it around. “Nothing,” she murmured to herself. “Maybe inside?”
Coming to a stop before the doors she took a deep breath and pressed one hoof against them, pushing them wide open, and peered inside. Despite the light outside, inside was filled with an oppressive, suffocating darkness. She squinted, only barely able to make out the foyer. Two sets of stairs led up, and in between them was the reception desk--long since used and collecting countless years of dust. Off to one side near the stairs was the rusted, worn out gate of an elevator, looking like nobody had used it in years. And in between the stairs and above her was a large, cobweb-covered chandelier whose crystals clinked in a faint breeze. She watched it carefully and took another step forwards over the threshold. Almost immediately she could feel a chill in the air, and the sudden beep from her reader accompanied by three lights springing to life made her look sharply down at it.
“Level three,” she murmured quietly. “I got something. Guys, get in here.”
The Knights made to quickly joined her, fanning out into the dark, dusty foyer, except Cozy who stayed close to Tempest. Tirek examined his own reader and scribbled something down in the small notebook he often used to determine what kind of ghost they were facing, ranging from banshees and phantoms to wraiths and revenants and everything in between.
Tempest glanced back to see Flim and Flam hadn’t moved, instead they were still doing their show. She rolled her eyes and called out to them. “Hey, Flim and Flam, you coming or what?”
“Yes of course, Miss Shadow,” called Flam. “Simply getting some establishing shots, be with you in a moment!” True to his word, after a moment he lowered the camera and trotted forwards, he and his brother both, but just as they reached the door-
Wham!
With a whoosh of air it slammed shut in their faces, plunging the Knights into darkness, save for the few slivers of sunset eking through the boards on the windows. Tirek, Chrysalis and Tempest immediately formed a circle around Cozy, their horns igniting in a flash and casting blue, orange and green lights at the surrounding darkness. Cozy herself spread her wings, her eyes wide and alert and looking for any sign of... well anything.
Silence, save for their breaths and their heartbeats, reigned in the abandoned hotel.
The magic from Tempest’s horn slowly started to fizzle out and she took a few slow, calming breaths. “Tirek, what are we dealing with?” she said quietly, her voice sounding abnormally loud in the quiet, tense atmosphere.
“I’m not certain yet,” he answered, also deactivating his magic for the time being. He checked over and flicked through his notebook. “Perhaps a revenant? We need more evidence before we decide who, or what, we are dealing with.”
“Remember what those idiots said,” Chrysalis added, scanning the dark with her glowing green eyes. “A family of four died here. Is it possible there is more than one ghost?”
“It is,” the centaur replied pulling out a glowstick from his vest pocket. He cracked it and gave it a shake, before throwing it down on the ground some ways away to give them some more light. “Though it is hard to say for certain, and how many are aggressive.”
Tempest stepped away from the group for a moment, towards the door. “Flim? Flam?” she called. A tense silence answered her. She pressed her eye against a crack and looked around. The brothers were nowhere to be found. “I think they’ve gone.”
“Good riddance,” Chrysalis grunted. “We have more pressing concerns than the safety of a pair of idiots toting their camera around like that.”
Tempest turned around. “Alright... Cozy, give us an idea, how do you think we should do this?”
Cozy was shaking like a leaf. “Uhhh...” she murmured, racking her brain. “S-Split up and look for clues?” she offered.
The queen rolled her eyes and flicked her nose. “Stop trembling like that at once,” she scolded. “You’re a Knight. Act like one. Don’t tell me a bit of darkness has gotten to you already?”
“Hey I’m only little,” the filly protested. “And it’s--it’s just... I don’t know...” She rubbed her forelegs together and shivered. “There’s something... weird about this place. It’s like walking into a party you weren’t invited to. Can’t you guys feel it?”
“I feel it,” Tempest replied. Perhaps it was the darkness surrounding them, perhaps it was something else, but she understood what Cozy meant. She took a few more steps towards the reception desk. “Okay, so we split up,” she told them. “Tirek, you and Cozy take this floor, Chrysalis you and I take the upstairs and--wait...” She stopped upon hearing a soft rattling. The others heard it too, judging by their curious expressions.
“What is that?” Cozy asked. “Sounds like-”
It was the clinking of crystals. The chandelier. Tempest looked up just as it started to shake more violently, and only barely managed to leap backwards as it came hurtling down, crashing down almost directly onto where she had been standing.
In the moment of deathly silence that followed and after a moment of contemplation, the commander picked herself up and inhaled between her teeth. “Like I was saying,” she said, looking a the busted old chandelier. “Chrysalis, you and I take the upstairs, and once we’ve done a sweep of the area we meet up back here and see where the elevator goes. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” they all responded in unison, throwing up a series of salutes to her.
“Good.” Tempest saluted back at them. “Go on ahead, Chrysalis, I wanna check the desk, might be some key or something.” She jerked her hoof towards the reception desk.
Chrysalis bobbed her head in acknowledgement.
She and Tirek looked at one another for a moment before parting ways. “Try not to die, Lord Tirek,” the former said sarcastically. “Though funny it would put a damper on our work.”
“Your concern is noted, insect,” the former grunted, waving his hand dismissively at her. “I would say the same to you, but your death would be less funny, more pathetic.”
Chrysalis only smiled sweetly back at him. “Cozy keep an eye on our centaur, won’t you?” she instructed the filly. “I think he may be distracted somewhat with thoughts of his girlfriend.” She stuck her tongue out at him and spun around to march up the stairs, grinning ear to ear at how he sputtered before storming off on his own.
Cozy rolled her eyes before hurrying after him as they went their own way.
Tempest shook her head and examined the desk. There were no keys like she hoped, but there was an old newspaper poking out of one of the shelves underneath. She picked it up and blew the dust off it. “Grand Opening! Applewood eagerly awaits the new Goldenview Hotel...” she read aloud.
Chrysalis snorted and peered over the banister at her. “Ponies often celebrate the smallest things,” she grunted. “I’m surprised there isn’t a mention of a-”
“Three day party to be held in celebration...”
The changeling rolled her eyes and snorted. “There it is.”
Tempest gently put the newspaper down on the desk. “Well it doesn’t exactly help, but-”
“He knows you’re here,” something whispered, nothing less than centimetres away from her ear. She jumped and spun around.
Chrysalis’s head immediately snapped to her. “What?”
“I heard... something. A voice.”
The queen narrowed her eyes. “Voice? What voice?”
“I don’t know, do I? Just a mare’s voice. She said, ‘he knows you’re here’.” Tempest shivered and felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end again. She got a feeling like she did in Sweet Apple Acres, like she was being watched.
Chrysalis rustled her wings and gestured with her horn. “Our ghost perhaps? Come on. It wouldn’t do to have the others finish their search before we finish ours, now would it?”
The commander let out a short, joyless laugh. “I guess not, no. Alright, I’m-”
As she stepped onto the staircase she felt the floorboards creak and splinter, and all she could do was look into Chrysalis’s eyes before she fell, plummeting down into the dark below.
Chrysalis lunged forwards, missing her hoof by mere inches. “Tempest?” she called, rising up into the air on buzzing wings. Her eyes scanned the darkness below, searching for any sign of life. After a moment of silence and as her horror began to grow, she spotted a crackling blue light coming from far below.
“I’m okay, Chrysalis,” came the commander’s voice. “Yeah, I’m... I’m okay. There are some mattresses and stuff down here, they broke my fall.”
The changeling breathed a sigh of relief and prepared herself for a descent. “Good. Wait there, I’ll come down and-”
She saw the crackling blue light wave to and fro, like the dark mare was shaking her head.
“Don’t bother,” Tempest called back. “I think I’m in some sort of basement. Keep searching up there, I’ll meet up with you later.”
Chrysalis nodded and ignited her horn, seeing the glowsticks Tirek had left start to fade away. “Yes, Commander,” she said before adding: “But be careful. If you die I’ll be very disappointed.”
“Thanks, Chrysalis. I’ll meet up with you soon.”
With that, the queen landed on the ground at the top of the stairs, carefully eyeing her path forwards, now that she knew the floor was unstable and could collapse at any second. She heard the sounds of hoofsteps at the far end of the hall and stopped. There, staring right at her, were two ghostly white figures roughly the sizes of a filly and a smaller colt.
Flim and Flam’s story came to mind. The caretaker and his children.
Now Chrysalis knew that they were not always called upon to drive out a ghost; sometimes the restless dead only needed assistance in moving on. But even so, the chandelier nearly falling onto Tempest was no accident. She had to be careful, even she knew that, but her motherly instinct was creaming at her at her that they needed help like two lost grubs.
The filly raised her hoof and pointed down the hallway to their left without a word. The queen inhaled slowly through her nose and took slow, careful steps forwards. The filly also moved, starting off in the same direction she had pointed.
Chrysalis arched one eyebrow. “You wish for me to follow?” she said quietly, addressing the colt.
He flinched and looked up at her with big, sad eyes, and slowly nodded before pointing in the same direction his sister had went. Chrysalis looked down at him over the bridge of her nose and let out a sharp exhale of air.
“Then show me.”
***
“So I gotta ask... do you guys actually like each other or not?” Cozy asked, breaking the silence between her and her fellow Knight. Tirek grumped along with a furrowed brow, storming away from Chrysalis after her last remark.
The filly glanced back over her shoulder towards at where they had come from. The shock of being plunged into sudden darkness had faded and she had stopped shaking now at least, though she still had the uneasy feeling like they weren’t welcome. And that they were being watched.
Tirek decided to ignore her and strode forwards, pausing only when he reached a set of doors open ajar. He pulled out his own EMF reader and gave it a quick scan around. “Hmm.” He tapped his chin, checking his findings. “Low level, but...”
He gave the doors a push, swinging them wide open to what looked like a huge, grand hall, albeit as decrepit and as past its prime as the rest of the Goldenview. Tentatively he stepped inside, keeping a sharp eye out for any signs of danger.
“You and Chrysalis, I mean,” Cozy absentmindedly continued, following him in. “Y’know ‘cause sometimes I just can’t tell-”
“Be quiet,” the centaur hissed, rounding on her. His voice echoed throughout the empty hall, despite being little over a whisper. “Unlike you I am trying to do our job, and it would be infinitely easier if you ceased your incessant yammering.”
Cozy pulled a face and raised her hooves. “Alright, alright, geez. I was just askin’. Sheesh what’s got your tail in a knot?” She sulkily looked around and whistled when she saw where they were.
What were clearly once amazing murals and works of art of famous ponies still hung on the walls around the edges of it, though now they were as rotten as the rest of the place was. The tables, at least twenty of them by her count, maybe more, stacked up in rows along the walls, and all the chairs lay in a heaped mess off to one side. That didn’t stop her from fluttering over to grab one and drag it out, trying her best to ignore how it screeched along the floor.
Tirek shot her a filthy glare and pined his ears back. “Must you do that?” he growled.
“Sorry.” She smiled weakly at him and hopped up onto her seat. “So what’re you looking for?”
“The usual,” he answered in little more than a grunt, kneeling down to inspect the floor. “Tracks, signs of paranormal activity, maybe hoofprints? Something that would give us a clue as to what exactly we are dealing with.” His horns lit up as he spoke, and with his fingers he traced along the ground.
Cozy bobbed her head and watched him curiously. Centaur magic was different to pony magic, she thought. A unicorn would probably just cast a spell and be done with it, but when Tirek did it it always looked far more interesting and... involved, in a way. She wondered if one day she could ever do magic like that and had an idea. The rafters up above them creaked and groaned, making her glance up. “You got an idea of what kinda ghost is here then?” she ventured.
“I am not sure for certain,” Tirek replied. “Though if Flim and Flam’s story is to be believed then I would suggest a wraith. Perhaps a revenant if the deaths that occurred here were murders. Though there are some spectres that are drawn to particularly... violent crimes.”
“Uh huh, uh uh...”
The older Knight rolled his eyes, clearly aware she wanted to talk about something else--and he already had a pretty good idea of what exactly. “What?” he growled.
Cozy rocked back and forth on her chair. “I was just wondering... can you teach it?” she asked.
Tirek blinked in surprise and looked over to her. “Teach what?” he asked, taken aback by her request.
“That thing with your magic, y’know the ffsssshh...” She inhaled as if she was slurping. “The eating magic thing?”
Tirek’s surprise faded in an instant even as she grinned at him hopefully. “No,” he grunted.
“What?” she cried. “Aw, c’mon. Why not?”
“I said no.” A cold look appeared in his eye as distant memories dredged themselves to the forefront of his mind. “I am no teacher.”
“How come? I think you’d be a pretty good-”
“Enough!”
The sudden increase of volume and how harshly he spoke made Cozy flinch. She shrank away and bit her lip, thinking it in her best interest not to press the issue anymore. Not that issue anyway.
“Alright fine,” she said quietly. After a moment’s pause she squirmed in her seat. “How long have you been planning Jack’s birthday? Does she know or are you gonna surprise her?”
Taking a moment to calm himself, Tirek let out a quiet groan. But, eager to take the subject away from him teaching her anything and grateful for the opportunity to do so, he grunted a response. “A week. And yes, she does.”
The filly’s eyes lit up like stars and she gasped. He quickly rounded on her and levelled one finger in her direction.
“You will say nothing to the others. They know enough already, and now even the commander is ‘joining in on it’, if you can believe it.”
Cozy snickered. “Well you and Chrysalis did start talking about a ‘suitor’ for her, remember? When we asked her about Blueblood?”
He winced, turning his ears back. “Yes, that is true. I should apologise.”
The filly suddenly had a cunning thought. Her smile faded and she sighed. “Yeah, you’re right,” she murmured, puffing her cheeks out. “Well if you don’t wanna talk about you and Jack, I guess you don’t wanna know about Chrysalis and Celestia, either?” She put her hooves behind her head and leaned back.
“No I don’t,” Tirek grunted, returning to examining the floor and continue his runes.
“Yeeeah, you definitely don’t want something you can tease her about, right?”
The centaur hesitated then slowly glanced up at his small companion. She had her eyes closed, and an awfully smug expression on her face.
Cozy opened one eye and noticed him looking at her. “Yep. I’ll keep that to myself, I think. Don’t wanna go around spilling anyone’s secrets that someone else might use against them in retaliation, no sir.”
“You are an impossible child,” Tirek grumbled, picking himself up and marching away from her, fighting against his urge to ask and gather information about the antagonistic queen. He took a brisk walk around the hall, stopping to check more parts of the floor, the wall and even some of the tables every now and then as Cozy watched him. Her stomach suddenly rumbled, making him glare across at her.
“What? I can’t help being hungry.”
“You do realise that every single case we’ve had, you’ve thought about food at one point or another?” he snapped.
Cozy shrugged and rose up into the air. “I’m a growing filly, Trek, I gotta eat.”
“Hmph.”
Tirek shook his head, just as a sudden crash came from the end of the hall. With a flutter of her wings Cozy practically crashed onto his shoulder, also staring in the direction the sound had come from. “What was that?” she hissed, her pupils small and her tail swishing back and forth like an angry cat.
Tirek didn’t answer. Keeping his brow furrowed he started moving forwards, keeping his horns a steady glow to light their way. Soon enough they both spotted a set of double doors, and Tirek assumed the noise had come from beyond them. “Be ready,” he told his teammate.
Cozy nodded, flexing her wings in case she needed to fly away and get help. Or try and fight. One of the two. The centaur pushed the doors slowly open and took a long look around. It was a kitchen, they realised. A large cooking apparatus took up most of the floor, with pots, pans and dishes lining the shelves nearby, one of which lay in shattered pieces on the floor.
“Guess we know where the sound came from, then,” the young Knight mumbled.
Tirek snorted, stepping further in. “Now the real question: what caused it?”
Cozy looked around the room, searching for anything else out of the ordinary. None of the other pots or pans were disturbed and neither were any of the remaining dishes. “Maybe there’s a ghost of a chef in here,” she joked. “And they heard me talking about food?”
The centaur rolled his eyes at her and traced a finger along one if the counters. “I highly doubt any creature, living or dead, could satiate your appetite, girl. Besides, if there is any food to be had in this place I would not recommend eating it. Nobody’s been here in years.” He shot her a look as she drifted away from him. “Stay close to me,” he barked. “That plate didn’t fall on its own. Whatever caused it may linger still.”
Cozy bobbed her head in agreement and fluttered back over to him, pausing when she noticed something out the corner of her eye. A small book, wedged underneath the cooker. It looked like it had been discarded in a hurry, like someone was trying to hide it.
Curious, she lowered herself to the ground and picked it up, and blew the thick layer of dust off of it.
It had a plain brown cover sporting what looked like fire damage--strange, she thought, because nowhere else looked like it had been in a fire. Just old and dusty. “Looks like a diary,” she said, turning it over. She looked up at Tirek. “D’you think there could be something useful in it?”
“Possibly,” he replied. “Give it to me first.”
The centaur moved cautiously towards her , glancing from left to right for any sign of the noisemaker. He stopped just shy of her as she turned around, book in hoof. His horns crackled to life again and he raised his hand.
Cozy offered the book up to him. “Here. Whatcha gonna do?”
“Check for curses. I have read that some diaries can contain a fragment of their owner, which they might try to possess a reader with.” He waved his hand in front of it and drew a small rune in the air. “If we purify it first,” he explained, “then it nullifies the chance of possession.” The mark glowed bright orange for a moment then quickly fizzled away. “There. It’s clean. Read it.”
Cozy drew the book back to her chest and gazed up at him. “I think you’d be a pretty good teacher,” she said before flicking the book open, leaving him in a contemplative silence.
A lot of the pages were either practically unreadable, having been damaged overtime or full of inane, typical things one usually puts in a diary: today I had this, we did that, etcetera etcetera, but what really caught her attention was the last few entries, thankfully in a readable state, and the mention of the Goldenview.
“Aha! Hey, Tirek, get a load of this,” she said, scanning her eyes over it. “30th May. Friday. We-”
The door she and Tirek had entered from suddenly slammed shut, cutting her off and making her jump in fright. Tirek wasn’t startled so easily, and as she fumbled and dropped the book he marched to the door and went to grasp the handle only to stop and look. A layer of frost had surrounded the door, freezing it shut.
He thought for a moment, racking his brains as to what that meant.
“A trap,” he barked, backing up. “Cozy. Here, now.”
She didn’t need telling twice. The young Knight beat her wings and flew straight into Tirek’s arms as he crouched down, narrowly avoiding a dish as it rocketed itself over his head, smashing on impact with the wall. The pots and pans began to vibrate and shudder, flying off of the shelves with such force they left impacts wherever they landed.
“Yah!” Cozy squealed as the crockery and cookware whooshed around the room, crashing into anything and everything in an attempt to hit them.
Tirek remained motionless even as they thumped into him, determined to shield Cozy from the onslaught of crockery. The filly winced and covered her head. “Alright, alright, I won’t read your diary!” she cried out. “Geez, just stop, okay?!”
Her protector dared to glance up and spotted another door at the far side of the kitchen. “Hold on,” he told her, and rose up.
With a new target in sight, the dishware renewed its attack and hurtled into him, bouncing off of his arms and his back.
“Ooh,” Cozy winced, looking up for a brief moment. “That looked like it hurt.”
“I am fine,” Tirek grunted.
The filly crouched low in his hands, tucking herself into a ball as he marched. The other door was also locked, unfortunately, but that barely stopped him.
Tirek drew himself back then thudded into it as more pans flew around him. The door buckled but didn’t break. “Just--a while--longer,” he grunted, taking more blows.
Suddenly there was another sound to accompany the cacophony of crockery. A jingle of metal. Cozy peeked out from her cover and paled. “Uh, Tirek?” she mumbled. “Cutlery.”
“What?”
“Cutlery!”
Tirek glanced back to see a drawer full of cutlery rise up into the air. Knives, forks, spoons and even a spork or two aimed themselves towards him. With a renewed vigour he looked back at the door. His hands and his horns started to glow as he called his magic to him. An orange glow surrounded the door, ripping it off of its hinges.
He hurried forwards. The cutlery soared after him.
Cozy clutched onto him as he lunged forwards, only just barely managing to move through the doorway in time.
He set her down and quickly spun around, bracing himself against the door. “Stay behind me,” he ordered as all the knives, forks, spoons and even a spork or two thudded into his makeshift shield. When finally the barrage stopped after a minute or two, he straightened up, letting it fall to the ground.
The young Knight grimaced, seeing how far all the cutlery was embedded into it. Whatever was throwing it must have been doing it with some force, and if Tirek wasn’t there she had a pretty good idea what would have happened. “Phew,” she whistled, shifting her gaze to her teammate. “Thanks, big guy... I thought we were goners for a second there. You okay?”
“I am fine,” Tirek grumbled, flexing his arms. “Come on. We should not stay in this place any longer.”
“Why? What was that?” Cozy asked, fluttering her wings.
“A powerful spirit. A shadow. I knew it as soon as I saw the layer of frost on the door.” The centaur stepped out into the kitchen. It was a mess, looking like a hurricane had blown through. Thankfully it was as quiet as the grave now, save for his voice, as the spirit attacking them had retreated elsewhere. Cozy followed closely behind, making sure to stay close to him for safety.
“Though similar to a revenant,” Tirek continued, “in that they are brought to the land of the living through murder, they are very different.”
“How?” Cozy murmured, stepping over a broken pot.
“Because whereas a revenant exists to take revenge on whoever brought it into being, a shadow exists just to kill. To destroy. They delight in the psychological torment of their victims, causing hallucinations, fixations, bouts of madness, and finally death, typically by their victims own hand. Or hoof.”
The filly stopped. “That doesn’t sound like anything that just happened, though, how can you be so sure?”
Tirek also stopped and raised his hand. “Observe,” he told her, and snapped his fingers. His horns began to glow, creating a large flash of light, illuminating the darkness around them. Cozy put up her hoof to shield her eyes and winced as light poured down around her.
When it was over she lowered it, and noticed that the kitchen suddenly appeared neat and tidy, just as it had before they had entered it. “What?” she gasped. “But... I saw it!”
“You saw hallucinations, girl,” her teammate replied. “A trick.” He stooped to pick something up. The diary from earlier. He placed it in his vest pocket and sighed.
“So wait, were we in danger?”
“Oh yes, very much so. Well... you were. If you had been struck by one of those,” he went on, pointing to a pan. “You would have believed you felt it, and suffered the pain from it.” He tapped the side of his head. “The mind is a powerful thing, Cozy. Both to use and be used against oneself. You would do well to remember that.”
Cozy blinked, looking up at him. “Huh... how do you know so much about ghosts, Tirek?”
“I read. I learn. I conquer,” Tirek rumbled, kneeling and allowing her to climb aboard. “Now come. We should find the others before the shadow finds them.” He paused and shivered. “I hope for their sakes that they do not find themselves somewhere in the dark. Shadows, as their name suggests, tend to favour the dark places of the world as their lairs.”
***
As the door to the Goldenview slammed shut, Flim and Flam looked to one another. The empty lot and frankly abysmal scenery--not to mention the dreadful silence--gave them both an adequate amount of reasoning before they made their decision. Not even the promise of ad-revenue was enough to keep them there for long.
“Brother...” started Flam, speaking as low as possible to not interrupt the silence. “Shall we, perchance, run for our lives?”
Flim tipped his hat downwards and swallowed. “I... believe we shall, yes, dear brother,” he replied, equally as quiet. “Miss Shadow did indeed say at the first sign of trouble we run.”
“That she did, brother, that she did.”
The Flim Flam Brothers looked up at the old hotel, craning their necks to see the upstairs windows. The Goldenview seemed to grow and swell before their very eyes, towering over them. They paused only for a moment longer, then bolted, hightailing it as fast as they could back to safety.
***
Tempest coughed and waved the dust out of her eyes. Her horn crackled and fizzed, lighting up enough of her surroundings to make out where she was. Not in any immediate danger that she could see, she slowly pushed herself up and straightened out the hem of her uniform.
“Tempest?” called Chrysalis’s panicked voice from the hole she had fallen through.
“I’m okay, Chrysalis,” the commander called back. She looked around for a moment and saw she had landed on a pile of mattresses it looked like. “Yeah, I’m... I’m okay. There are some mattresses and stuff down here, they broke my fall.”
“Good,” said Chrysalis’s voice. “Wait there, I’ll come down and-”
Tempest shook her head. “Don’t bother. I think I’m in some sort of basement.” She glanced around again and spotted a door. “Keep searching up there, I’ll meet up with you later.”
“Yes, Commander,” came the queen’s voice again. “But be careful. If you die I’ll be very disappointed.”
The commander chuckled softly and moved towards the door. “Thanks, Chrysalis. I’ll see you soon.”
It was warmer down here than upstairs, she thought, but not by much. Maybe the boiler room? A series of pipes ran along the ceiling, something to follow, she guessed. She pushed the door open and stepped out into the dark basement. With shadows around every corner, she knew she had to be careful, as who knows what would be waiting for her down here--especially if whoever ‘he’ was was still watching her.
Her hoofsteps sounded loud down there in the dark as she walked down the thin corridor until she came to a small antechamber with a few paths leading away from it. She paused, listening for a moment as her hoofsteps carried on. No... not her hoofsteps.
Coming up right behind her-
She turned on the spot, her horn crackling and sparking. But there was nothing. Not even a chill in the air.
“Ghosts...” she muttered, shaking her head after a minute or two of silence, and turned back around. She looked at the other paths available to her: one leading off to the right, one straight down the middle, and one to the left.
“Keep going...” whispered the same voice from before.
A light down the end of the middle path flickered to life, glowing a steady pale red. A lure, no doubt, bu with little choice Tempest licked her dry lips and furrowed her brow, starting off down the path, keeping both eyes and ears alert and open.
With the flickering light of her horn she couldn’t see very far, and could only just barely make out the walls around her. “Gah... can’t see anything down here. Hang on,” she grunted, deactivating her horn and leaving herself in darkness. Like Tirek she had a few glowsticks ready. She gave one a shake and a crack and held it up.
And there, inches away from her face, was the pale visage of a mad-eyed stallion, eyelids peeled all the way back and mouth twisted into a rictus grin.
Tempest would not be ashamed to say that jumped in fright. In a moment of panic she stumbled back, letting darkness take the face away, and dropped her light. She held her breath and waited, fighting to regain her composure for a few minutes, and steeled herself against the pervasive darkness engulfing her.
She leaned down to pick up the glowstick and waved it around, checking her surroundings. The face had gone, as she expected, and nothing else seemed to be lurking in the shadows, waiting for her. After exhaling slowly she continued on towards the light.
As she approached it she heard the faint sounds of music, of all things. A soft, melodic tune that conjured up images of a warm summer’s night. Curious yet still wary, she followed the path some more, the music growing louder all the time until she came upon a door. She set the glowstick down and tried the handle. It jiggled and opened a crack, but not much further.
With a grunt she pressed her full body weight against it and gave it a hard shove. The door inched open a little bit more, though there was a pressure behind it--like someone or something was keeping it shut. “One more,” she said to herself, and reared back. Only, instead of bashing against the door, it swung wide open and she stumbled through, only just managing to catch herself from falling.
Thoroughly unimpressed, Tempest closed the door behind her and straightened the collar of her jumpsuit.
“Very funny,” she grunted at the presence toying with her.
The room she had entered into was some sort of office as far as she could tell, though very bare. Old and worn out papers lay scattered along the floor, a few broken picture frames hung on the walls and an empty bookshelf rested against one. Against another was a small desk, and on that desk was a single lit candle and the source of the music: an old gramophone. The record scratched to a halt as she approached it, leaving an empty silence behind.
Besides the almost bare room there was another door, and with nowhere else to go she quickly decided-
“He’s here!” came the familiar whisper once again, this time fraught with urgency.
A loud clang suddenly came from the door behind her like someone was bashing against it. Determined not to lose herself again, Tempest spun around, igniting her horn in a flash. The door bashed again and again as something clearly put a lot of force onto its blows. The door started to buckle and its hinges groaned against the strain, threatening to pop off. And then, both curiously and worryingly, it stopped. A thin layer of frost began to appear on her side of the door, creeping along the ground--held at bay by the light of the candle it seemed.
Tempest remained frozen like a statue, her eyes trained solely on the door, waiting for whatever was assailing it to burst through. She didn’t even realise she was holding her breath until her chest started to burn.
The candle on the desk flickered. The Knight felt a bead of sweat run down her forehead and she released her breath. It hung in the air, matching the frost on the ground. “What are you?” she whispered. “What kind of-”
“Run!” hissed her unseen companion as the bashing started with renewed vigour and force. The wood splintered and chipped.
Seeing sense in not fighting this thing alone, Tempest grabbed the candle holder with her teeth and bolted. Behind her she heard a clatter as the door gave out as whatever had been trying to break through succeeded. Frost and darkness filled the room, freezing anything in its path.
The basement was a labyrinth. Twists and turns led this way and that, lit only by the faint fire of the candle as she ran through the dark. She dared steal a quick glance behind her and saw nothing but darkness. No, not even that, as darkness held some amount of light to it. This, whatever was chasing her, was the sheer absence of light. A kind of living darkness.
As she slid around another corner and braced herself against the wall, she paused to catch her breath, holding the candle out as steady as she could. Had she lost it, she wondered? Surely not, this was its turf. The candle flickered before her eyes, in danger of going out completely. She was running out of time.
And then a low rumbling filled out the silence, growing louder and louder. A grinding of gears and metal upon metal.
She swallowed, preparing herself for whatever came next, and turned to look at where the sound was coming from, down the corridor to her right. Her mind conjured up images of more demons and spectres come to fill the dark with their ghastly presence.
But to her surprise light suddenly started to spill out into the darkness. The warm golden glow of a lightbulb. It was the elevator, she realised. The gate shuffled open, inviting her in. Salvation!
She snorted and took a deep breath. If the hairs standing on the back of her neck were any indication, the entity down there in the dark with her was close. She ran, spitting out the candle towards the darkness behind her. The light snuffed out before it even hit the ground, and the darkness seemed all around her, almost furious she had eluded it. She could see out the corner of her eye the layer of frost was building, gaining on her.
Her hooves crashed against the ground as she galloped as fast as she could until finally she reached the elevator and rocketed herself into it and into the safety of light.
The commander sat there for a moment, panting and gasping for air, ignoring the sudden shooting pain in her leg. Patches of her uniform were marred with sweat and her mane clung to her scalp. But she was okay--at least for the time being. The layer of ice that had been right behind her remained along he ground, and she could feel the darkness it came with practically glaring at her from the edge of the elevator’s light.
With a quiet snicker she slumped down, staring back at the abyss. Unlike some of her team, she would refrain from testing it, she knew better than that. But still, she felt no small amount of satisfaction in having escaped it--whatever it was.
As she sat and caught her breath, a button on the elevator pinged to life, drawing her gaze. The grate began to close on its own just as it had opened and the elevator rumbled upwards.
Picking herself up on shaking hooves from her ordeal, Tempest shook her legs and cracked her neck. “What now?” she mumbled.
“Keep going...” whispered the voice, her only companion down here in the dark.
“Yeah, yeah I know,” She rubbed her throat and waited for the grate to open. “Thanks... by the way.”
Silence answered her. She sighed and shook her head. “I wonder how the others are doing...”
***
Chrysalis stalked the empty hallways of the Goldenview quietly and cautiously, the hexagonal pattern on the carpet beneath her hooves masking her hoofsteps. The wallpaper had decayed and peeled away in some places, revealing rotten wood underneath it. She tsked, curling her lip at it in disgust.
“What a wretched place,” she muttered to herself, casting her eyes ahead as she rounded another corner.
The ghostly children she was following always appeared just out of reach, at the end of a hallway or just around a corner, though the colt did seem to wait for her just long enough.
Door after door lined the corridors she had followed them through, and for the few with open doors she saw the same things: cobwebs, dust and empty, unused beds. It brought a feeling of sadness to her as she thought about the times when a hatching ceremony would go wrong, when a cluster of eggs wouldn’t hatch.
She shook her head, focusing more on the here and now instead of bitter memories.
The heavy silence surrounding her let her pick up on every creak of the wood above, every squeak of the floorboards under the carpet. Even in its prime, the hotel was nothing, she thought, compared to the majesty of where she grew up, and the old castle she now calls home.
She rustled her wings and flared her nostrils as she marched onwards, keeping her head low and horn ready. Her green, cat-like eyes gave her more than enough light to see in the dark with, but even so she didn’t know to expect.
Thankfully the hotel only had two floors it looked like, so she hadn’t have had to traipse up heaps of stairs or climb up an elevator shaft to follow her ghostly guides. Rounding another corner she spotted her guides, this time standing beside a door that read ‘STAFF ONLY’.
“Finally,” Chrysalis grumbled, coming to a stop by them. “Done playing chase, are we?”
They remained silent, simply staring at her. The filly raised her hoof and pointed at the door.
The Knight rolled her eyes and pressed her hoof against it. It didn’t budge under her weight, as if that would stop her. Her horn ignited with a small flash, illuminating the darkness as her familiar aura grabbed the wood and pulled, ripping it off of its hinges and carelessly tossed it aside.
She cracked her shoulders and stepped over the threshold into a small antechamber with two doors and little else aside from some old and worn out furniture. The first door had a few worn, childlike drawings on it, whereas the other didn’t. “The caretaker and his family,” she murmured, remembering Flim and Flam’s story about the place. She glanced at the ghost children and saw how their faces had changed from sad indifference, to ones of terror and quickly steeled her heart.
“What is it you wanted to show me?” she asked, not unkindly.
The colt tentatively stepped forwards and pointed his hoof at the door bearing drawings.
Chrysalis moved towards it and slowly pushed it open.
As she expected, it was a child’s bedroom. Two beds lay against the back wall, symmetrical to one another. Some toys lay scattered around, and some glow-in-the-dark stars had been stuck onto the ceiling, she could see. Strangely, sheets of paper, more drawings in fact, were fixed to the walls. It was all very dusty and disused. The owners mustn’t have even cleared it out after the scandal, she thought.
She stepped further in to inspect the room for whatever it was the ghosts were intending to show her. A clue, perhaps as to why they were fettered here. Sure enough, the drawings along the walls caught her eye, and she noted how they depicted a happy family holding hooves: a mother, a father, and the two children.
As she examined them she began to notice a pattern take place. The mother was wearing a necklace, and while most of the drawings showed the family together, in a few the father was distant. In some, a series of black scribbles were slowly starting to form above his head. In others, the mother had lost her necklace, and the father had a hold of it.
“An item of significant importance to the spirit of the deceased,” Chrysalis murmured quietly, remembering one of Tirek’s little seminars. The brute did like the sound of his own voice but she had to admit, begrudgingly, he did often know what he was talking about. “This necklace... could it be such an item, I wonder?”
The last few pictures she could see were of the father, alone, surrounded by the black scribbles taking up the rest of the page.
She glanced back at the ghosts. Silent tears streamed down their pale cheeks, and the colt’s eyes were wide and frightened. They had died scared, she realised. She grit her teeth so tightly she felt like they were going to smash against each other, and turned to leave.
“This necklace,” she said quietly when the filly stared at her leaving. “Where is it?”
The colt’s head turned sharply towards her. For a moment, the fear and panic on his face gave way to unabashed anger, twisting his small face into a gargoyle-like glare.
Chrysalis paused. “It may hold the key to your spiritual release,” she explained. “According to Tirek, sometimes an item that held significant importance to the deceased may be used to bind their spirit to this plane. A brooch, for instance. A bangle... a necklace. Do you understand?”
The children stared at her for a moment. The colt’s face soon returned to normal, at least as normal as a ghost’s face could be, Chrysalis thought, and he looked down at the ground. Then they both nodded. She understood why they were hesitant, angry even, if the necklace had been the cause of their demise and subsequent binding to the mortal realm, lending her theory more credence.
“Good.”
The queen moved back out into the other room and tried the handle of the second door. It jiggled in her grasp and showed no signs of budging, but after she pressed her shoulder against it and gave it one hard shove it moved and she was able to enter.
If the children’s room was dusty and disused, the parents’ room was no better if not worse. It looked like a small hurricane had come through, ransacking everything in sight. The chest of drawers had been emptied and turned inside out, long since moth-eaten clothes lay strewn over the floor and even the mattress had been flipped. The window had been smashed as well, like someone had thrown something out of it.
Had someone been looking for something, she wondered. The necklace?
“Possibly,” she murmured to herself.
The rotten curtains fluttered gently in the soft breeze blowing through what was left of the window, almost as if they were gesturing somewhere. Chrysalis frowned and slowly stepped forwards. Her hooves crunched over broken glass as she reached the window and peered outwards.
Down below she could see a large tree swaying gently back and forth in the cold night air. As the clouds parted and the moon shone down, she spotted a small glint of something shiny.
“Of course,” she muttered. With a flash of green she transformed herself into a bird and stretched her black and white wings. A magpie seemed fitting enough, she thought, and went to investigate the glint, flying out into the cold dark of the night.
After a few short minutes she had transformed back into her true form, and held up the necklace--a pendant comprised of a small opal gem embedded into a gold background--to her eye. It was exquisite, even she could see that, and when she looked into its gem she found herself suddenly overwhelmed with an intense, profound sadness.
“All of this place’s history... and for what?” she muttered, wrenching her gaze away from it. To her surprise, a few tears had started to roll down her cheeks. She wiped them away and stiffened her neck. Her eyes drifted past the pendant to the ghost children watching her. “Your suffering ends tonight,” she told them. “I swear it.”
They stared at her in a mixture of fear and sorrow. Slowly the filly nodded her head and took her brother’s hoof in hers. They both faded away, leaving her alone in the dark, empty hotel.
Chrysalis shook her head and gathered up the pendant’s chain, and fitted it into one of her jumpsuit’s pockets. “With any luck Tirek, Tempest and Cozy found something similarly useful,” she muttered, striding out of the room and back out into the hall to re-join her comrades.
***
Tirek paced impatiently, occasionally giving the hole where the staircase was a wary look. “They should be here by now,” he grunted.
Cozy shrugged and rubbed her forelegs together to try and keep warm. The light projecting out from a small orb of light he had conjured up cast long shadows around the foyer, adding to the darkness surrounding them. The wrecked chandelier remained untouched, despite how the young Knight expected it to be reattached to the ceiling and waiting for it to drop on them again.
The unnatural darkness of the shadow’s influence was rampant, and she could feel it watching them. “I’m sure they’re fine, Tirek,” she mumbled. “Tempest knows what she’s doing, and Chrysalis is... well, Chrysalis. Besides, she wouldn’t let anything happen to Tempest, you know that. Just like you wouldn’t let anything happen to me, right?”
“Hmph.”
The sound of grating metal and gears on gears made them both stand alert and ready, looking over to where the sound was coming from as light began to spill out into the foyer. The old elevator was moving upwards. They braced themselves, unsure of what they’d see, only, when the rusted grate appeared they spotted a familiar, if sore looking, figure.
“See?” the filly chuckled. “I told you they’d be... whoa.”
Tempest yanked the gate across and staggered forwards. Her mane was a mess and her eyes were wild, leaving them both to worriedly speculate what she had been through. Tirek couldn’t help but notice as well, that Chrysalis was notably absent, and tightened his jaw.
“What happened? Where’s Chrysalis?” he asked the commander. His eyes travelled over her shoulder to the elevator as the light bulb in it flickered and went out. “You weren’t in the basement, were you?”
“I told her to go on ahead” Tempest grunted. “And yeah, I was. The stairs gave out and I fell. Didn’t hurt anything, don’t worry.” She ran a hoof over her mane in an attempt to smooth it down before dragging it down her face. “There’s something down there, Tirek,” she murmured. “Something big. We-”
“We know,” he replied, holding up his hand. “It’s-”
“It’s called a shadow,” chimed in Cozy. “They’re like revenants, spirits brought on by murder, but they’re worse and like to torture their victims by psychological torment by making illusions and stuff.”
Tirek rolled his eyes and grunted in the affirmative. The commander blinked and gave her a strange look. “A shadow?” she murmured, musing over the irony of her, of all ponies, being chased by a ‘shadow’. “We haven’t seen one of them before, have we?”
“They are rare, by all accounts,” Tirek rumbled. “Even by restless dead standards.” He arched one eyebrow at her, noticing how she didn’t put her left hoof down on the ground all the way. “You’re hurt,” he said plainly.
“I’m fine-”
“Show me.”
The commander sighed and relented as Tirek knelt down to inspect her for damage. He gently took her hoof in his hand and lifted it up, making her wince.
“Where does it hurt?”
“Everywhere. My leg feels like it’s on fire,” she admitted.
“You may have pulled a muscle,” he said. “Were you attacked?”
“Yeah.”
“It showed itself to us as well.” With a flash of his horns Tirek raised his hand, projecting a small aura of light onto her leg. “Here. This should help, for the time being.”
Tempest smiled weakly at him and rubbed where it stung. His healing magic felt tingly, and strangely the taste of vanilla filled her mouth. “Thanks, big guy.”
Cozy flapped her wings and came to a land on the centaur’s shoulder. “Oh hey, Tirek, show her the book,” she said. “I didn’t get a chance to read it earlier.”
The dark mare cocked her head to one side. “Book? You found something?”
“Yeah, looked like a diary,” the filly replied. A sudden chill ran along all of their spines. She cast a wary glance over her shoulder towards a patch of darkness. Tempest followed to where she was looking and bristled.
“Keep that light handy, Tirek,” she murmured after a quiet few seconds. “It doesn’t like light.”
Tirek nodded, using his magic to increase the light source, to keep the shadow’s darkness at bay. Cozy spotted a small sliver of movement out the corner of her eye, like a figure in the dark was glaring at them. She shivered and side stepped around Tirek’s leg. “I’ma just... yeah,” she mumbled, trying not to look at where she thought the shadow was.
There was another pause. Tempest glanced at Tirek. “So this diary?”
The centaur before reached into his vest to pull out the small diary.
“Is it clean?”
“Yes,” he said, tapping it with his other hand as he held it out. “We think it may hold pertinent information about this place or the ghosts inhabiting it. Here.”
The commander took it from him gratefully and flipped it open.
“What’s it say, Tempest?” Cozy asked as she skimmed over some of the pages, keeping an eye on the darkness.
“Bits and pieces. No mention of the Goldenview, but-”
“Oh, try the last few pages,” the filly added. “I saw something in there about it earlier.”
Tempest did as was told and flicked to the last few pages. Sure enough she saw what she needed to and without further ado, cleared her throat and began to read.
30th May. Friday.
Myself, Torrent, Grace and Torrent Jr arrived at the Goldenview today. Oh my stars is this place gorgeous! Its real fancy, fancier than anything I’ve ever seen. And until the old caretaker comes in with the keys and the rundown of Torrent’s duties, we have the whole place to ourselves before the grand opening next Friday. So far, the children have spent all afternoon swimming. I’m glad they’re having so much fun.
31st May. Saturday.
Between last night and today I might have to say this is the best vacation we’ve ever had or going to have. Almost. Torrent was getting suspicious about that pendant I got for my birthday last week. I told him it was from my mother, but he keeps thinking it’s from an old boyfriend. Torrent can be so sweet but he gets jealous so easily. It doesn’t help that he never forgave me for that one time in Chicoltgo when I was young and stupid...
1st June. Sunday.
Sunday. Funny that, I think it’s the sunniest summer Applewood’s ever had. The kids are exploring the grounds of the hotel, going on wild adventures, fighting imaginary dragons and all that. Torrent’s been on edge, still thinking I’m in touch with my ex. I love him but he’s such a dummy sometimes. I hope he cheers up soon.
2nd June. Monday.
The previous caretaker--a friendly old stallion called Doc--stopped by today. He says ‘Doc’ is a nickname from the ‘old days’, whatever that means. I’m glad he’s here, since he started talking about work Torrent seems back to normal, kind of. He really perked up when Doc took him out to see the groundskeeper’s tool-shed. His eyes lit up like I’d never seen before when he saw that big fire axe. Boys and their tools I guess.
5th June. Thursday.
We’re going home soon and I can’t thank Celestia enough. Torrent barely speaks to me, and he’s just as cold towards the children. I think he’s had some sort of mental breakdown, he keeps muttering how I’ll never leave him. I’ve told him once we get back to Manehattan we can get him therapy, or help or something--anything. He just shakes his head. I would never leave him, I love him. Why doesn’t he understand that?
6th June. Friday.
Today’s the big day. The Goldenview is supposed to officially open in a few hours, only... when I woke up Torrent was gone, and I don’t know where he went. I hope he’s just f I haven’t heard from him in an hour, I’m going to call the hotel’s owner. They might postpone the opening, or something, I don’t know. The children are still asleep in their beds, I don’t want to wake them, but I’m frightened. It’s all this stupid pendant’s fault--I’ve decided I’m going to get rid of it, even if it is nice. I’ll tell mom I lost it somewhere. I only hope once it’s gone my Torrent goes back to his old self. I miss my husband.
After Tempest finished a pregnant silence descended upon them. She looked over towards the edges of the light and swallowed. “You think this pendant the diary mentions is important?” she asked Tirek.
“Most likely,” he replied, scratching his chin. He seemed undisturbed by the darkness surrounding them.
Cozy looked between them and shivered. “So we gotta look for it, right? I mean, right after we get Chrysalis-”
“I’m here,” came a sudden voice from up the stairs, making the young Knight jump.
The three Knights turned and looked as Chrysalis’s green eyes flashed at them from the dark. The queen fluttered her wings and hopped over the banister to re-join her teammates. When she noticed Tempest’s haggard appearance she flinched. “What in Equestria happened to you?”
“I went for a run,” Tempest drily replied before smiling. “Good to see you’re okay.”
“And you.” The changeling’s eyes wandered lazily over to Tirek as the centaur towered above her. “I see you’re still alive, then, Lord Tirek?” she scoffed.
“Sorry to disappoint.” Tirek scowled at her. “You were supposed to stay with the commander. What happened to that plan?”
“Are you suggesting Tempest is incapable of looking after herself?” Chrysalis sneered.
“No, of course not--but if something should have happened to her it would be on your head.”
Tempest cleared her throat and arched her eyebrow.
“I wouldn’t bother, Tempy,” Cozy sighed. “They get like this sometimes, you just gotta let ‘em argue.”
The commander knew her small friend was right, but her judgemental eyebrow stayed raised.
“Besides, while you were traipsing around in the dust and the dark,” Chrysalis continued, not listening to the ponies. “I was busy following a lead. You should try it sometime.”
“For your information, insect,” Tirek growled, “we have been busy. We determined what exactly the nature of the spirit we are dealing with is--and it’s a shadow, by the way; a dangerous and malignant entity, very much like yourself. What have you uncovered?”
Chrysalis’s horn ignited and with her magic she pulled out a small, but ornate necklace. “This,” she grunted, tossing it at him. “It holds power to it, I am sure. Care to explain?”
Tirek caught it without looking and turned his scowl down towards it, holding it in his palm. “The pendant the diary mentions?” he murmured.
The commander glanced at Chrysalis. “Where’d you find that?”
A sad look appeared in the changeling’s eye. “The ghosts of the children who lived here led me to it.”
“Really?” Tempest looked over at Tirek and the pendant with a surprised look. “Huh. The mother, I guess, helped me out in the basement.”
Cozy let her jaw fall open. “Wait, what?” she cried. “You mean you guys get friendly ghosts and we got the bad one? That’s not fair!”
“Since when is anything in our life fair?” Chrysalis grunted. She rolled her eyes and cleared her throat. “So, what of it, Tirek?” she said, gesturing to the pendant. “You’re not going to start calling it ‘your precious’ are you? I thought that term might be reserved for ‘Miss Inkwell’.”
Tirek simply stared at the opal in the centre of the amulet intently and traced a finger along its edge. Suddenly he saw something in his mind, a small figure, only just bigger than Cozy. His pupils turned to pinpricks and his trembling lips parted. A soft whisper left his mouth, just barely audible, but in the cold, quiet dark of the Goldenview they all heard him.
“Layna...”
Chrysalis blanched and rustled her wings. She knew what that longing in his voice meant. That forlorn hopelessness. She knew exactly what it meant, and stiffened her neck.
A few moments of absolute silence followed, broken only when Cozy tilted her head and asked what they were all thinking.
“Who?”
Tirek blinked, the action seeming to snap himself out of whatever trance the pendant was holding him in. His hand clenched into a fist around it and in one quick motion he pulled back his arm, and hurled the pendant at the ground, bringing his hoof down hard upon it after and shattering the opal at its centre.
Tempest, Cozy and Chrysalis watched in silent shock as the darkness at the edge of the light began to swell and grow.
The conjured up light vanished, plunging them into inky blackness.
And then all hell broke loose.
An ungodly, terrible shriek echoed throughout the old hotel as a blizzard formed out of thin air around them, kicking up a storm and chilling them to the bone in an instant. The ice i came with lashed at their skin and chipped Chrysalis’s carapace. The changeling Knight ignited her horn, shedding some light on them in order to try and protect them.
Tempest quickly waved Chrysalis and Cozy forwards, forming a small huddle to conserve warmth in the face of the icy cold assaulting them. “Tirek?!” she called.
Tirek stared down at the remains of the amulet. His hands were shaking and his eyes darted back and forth, looking but not seeing. He wasn’t there at all, thought Tempest. Lost in his own world, his own mind. Whatever he had seen, whatever the amulet had shown him must have been something, for lack of a better word, big.
“Tirek!” she yelled, hoping to snap him back to reality. “Tirek!”
It worked, sort of. His eyes flicked over to her, though the cold, empty stare behind his gaze sent a shiver down her spine unrelated to the sudden squall.
“Get over here! Now!”
He stirred and surged forwards, crouching down to join the huddle. He swallowed and raised his hand to his face.
“Had your moment?” Chrysalis scoffed. Despite her antagonistic tone, her voice held an ounce of compassion to it. And her eyes softened slightly as he raised his head.
Tirek scowled. “A momentary lapse of concentration,” he rumbled. “I apologise.”
“It’s fine,” Tempest grunted. “We’ll talk about it later, what do we do right now, though?”
“Nothing,” he told her. “There isn’t much else we can do now.”
“So we’re j-just gonna s-sit here and f-freeze?” Cozy said through chattering teeth. “Gee, great p-plan, Tirek.”
Tirek sighed heavily, looking down at the ground instead of her. “That pendant was being used to bind the spirits here to this realm,” he said. “Now it is destroyed, they are free to leave. Though I suspect some may have unfinished business.”
Chrysalis narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you suggesting-”
“I am.”
Three bursts of light suddenly struck the centre of the darkness, eliciting another howl and another shriek from it. The blizzard to a light shower of snowflakes, leaving just a layer of frost on the ground.
“Look,” Tirek added, pointing up to the stairs.
Tempest turned and watched as the shadow receded, the darkness faded and the three bursts of light landed where he was pointing. The commander twigged on what he meant and stared at them: a mare, tall, white and ghostly, flanked on either side by children. Her children. All of them had stern expressions and cold, steel-eyed stares.
“Fight fire with fire,” she murmured. “Okay. What do we do?”
“Stay low,” Tirek told her. “And keep quiet. It’s out of our hands now.”
Chrysalis glared at him. “So your solution is to simply sit and wait?”
“Yes. Now shush. And watch.”
The shadow reared up, swirling and roiling above them, spreading its darkness as far as it could, threatening to swallow them up whole.
The mare simply looked up at it and began to shine with bright, white light, making the Knights shield their eyes. The shadow howled once more and dove for her, driving itself down towards her. But the closer it grew to the mare’s spirit, more and more of the darkness surrounding it was ripped away.
“No,” said a gentle voice, the same voice Tempest had heard in the basement. It wasn’t a whisper anymore, but a firm and powerful command. The ghost of the mother lifted her head up and looked right at the darkness. “Torrent that’s enough.”
The shadow froze mid-air wit ha screech. Light poured over it, burning away the darkness, until all that was left was the silhouette that writhed in pain. An unintelligible whisper echoed through the foyer. Tempest didn’t know what it said, but to her it sounded sad, like a beg for forgiveness. Or an apology long overdue.
“It’s too late, Torrent,” repeated the mare firmly. “We’re leaving. All of us.”
Her two children on either side also looked up at the shadow. Their faces, sad and wide-eyed but also triumphant in a way.
Tempest swallowed, wondering just how long the shadow had been keeping them here. Their own father, no less. She glanced at Tirek, noting how haunted the centaur looked. She reached up to rest her hoof on his arm in a compassionate show. He didn’t look at her, but he did give her hoof a gentle squeeze back.
The shadow started shaking, fading in and out of existence, howling bloody murder with whatever garbled speech it had. The mare and her children remained firm, staring up at it, at him, watching as he was dragged kicking and screaming into the next world. He reached out for them, trying to drag his way through the air towards them.
And then with a sound similar the roar of thunder and a bright flash, the shadow vanished. After a moment’s pause the mother looked down at the Nightmare Knights and smiled.
“Thank you,” she said to them, bowing her head slightly. “Thank you all for freeing us.”
Tempest bowed hers in response. “Was it you who called us?” she said.
The mare nodded. “It was.” The children at her side tugged at her, eager to go. She smiled at them. “I know, my darlings. We’re going. Say thank you to the Nightmare Knights.”
The children turned their heads towards the group and smiled at them. Chrysalis flashed them a friendly smile back. “You know us?”
“All the dead know you,” the mare replied. “Knights who protect the living and help the dead.” She and her children bowed their heads again. “Thank you.”
With that, the ghosts of the Goldenview vanished, moving on to the afterlife.
In the minutes of silence that followed, the Nightmare Knights slowly turned to one another.
“Wow,” Cozy murmured. “So we’re famous with ghosts now, too?”
“I guess we are,” Tempest chuckled. She glanced at the centaur. “Tirek? You okay?”
Tirek nodded stiffly.
“We should leave this wretched place,” Chrysalis murmured. “Before it comes crashing down on our heads.”
As if to answer her, the old hotel started groaning and creaking. Something snapped in the rafters above, and a large crack started to form along the ceiling.
She rolled her eyes. “See?”
“Yeah we gotta go,” Tempest stated, warily watching the crack spread. “Like Chrysalis says before it collapses... run!”
As she turned something large suddenly wrapped around her, picking her up.
“What the-”
She twisted her head around to see what had a hold of her, finding herself pressed up against Tirek.
He tucked her under his arm and stood up, reaching over to pick Cozy up as well before turning on his hooves, stopping only for a moment to look at Chrysalis. With a grimace she buzzed her wings and jump up onto his back, draping her front hooves over his shoulders.
“This means nothing,” she told him. “Now mush.”
Strong enough to carry all of them, Tirek ran, and crashed against the door of the hotel, sailing straight through it just as parts of the ceiling started to collapse, thundering into the ground where they had just been standing. Soon the rest of the old, decrepit and derelict hotel came crashing down as well, until nothing short of a pile of rubble remained.
Tirek set down Tempest and Cozy and Chrysalis stepped down of of his back. “Nice job, Tirek,” the commander told him, still in a slight bewilderment of him suddenly picking her up. He strode forwards after and knelt down by some of the rubble.
Cozy whistled. “Boy... if we’d waited a second later we’d be pancakes right now, wouldn’t we?”
Chrysalis rolled her eyes and clipped the back of the filly’s head. “Is all you think about food?” she scolded, pointing down the road.
“What? I wasn’t-”
“Yes, yes, move it, you stomach with legs,” the queen grumped, pushing her on. “We should return home before we are missed too much. Tempest?”
“Go on ahead, Chrysalis,” Tempest said, waving her on before gesturing to Tirek. “We’ll catch up.”
Chrysalis paused for a moment, letting her eyes drift over to the centaur. “Understood.” She and Cozy set off, with her pausing for a moment to roll her eyes to let the filly climb aboard.
Tirek remained silent throughout the exchange, still picking over some of the debris, like he was looking for something.
“Hey,” Tempest said, joining him. His eyes shifted over to her with a sullen, glazed over look about them. “You okay?”
Something rumbled in his throat. His eyes tensed up and his lips parted. Then he turned away without saying anything and continued picking through the rubble.
The commander just sniffed and wrinkled her nose. “If there’s anything you ever wanna talk about, Tirek. My door’s always open.” She gave him a gentle pat. “And Jack’s is too, I’d think. But you already know that, don’t you?”
He glanced at her again with a flicker of annoyance in his eyes. It was a thankful, familiar sight. Tempest just winked at him and smiled before looking at what was once the hotel. “So they’re really gone?” she asked.
“They are,” he rasped, looking ahead as well. “The shadow’s influence must have been keeping his family bound to him and to this place. When I broke the pendant it released whatever curse he had, either inadvertently or not, laid over it.” The old centaur scratched his chin, pausing for a few seconds before adding, “I would like to inform Twilight of what happened here.”
The commander gave him a puzzled frown. “Really? How come?”
“Some things just shouldn’t be forgotten,” he answered. “Perhaps the princess can have a monument or memorial erected to honour the family that died here.” Tirek sighed. “Perhaps she won’t, but I would still like to ask her.”
Out of all the Knights, Tempest thought Tirek was often the most level-headed of them. Cozy was still young, after all, and either didn’t care or didn’t know how much of the world worked. Chrysalis had a temper like no other. She herself was often hot-headed and headstrong. But Tirek? He was the thinker, and often the voice of reason within the group. Strange, she thought, for someone with his past to be so thoughtful.
Tirek knelt down to pick up and palm a small stone of the wreckage. He inspected it closely, turning it this way and that.
“A memento?” Tempest asked him.
“Something like that.”
She watched as he placed it inside his vest and stood up. “Chrysalis is right,” he rumbled. “We should return to the castle before we re missed too much.”
Tempest bobbed her head. “Yeah you’re right.”
“And... Commander?”
“Yeah?”
“I apologise. I did not mean to place us in jeopardy today, but I did. I will gladly accept any punishment you deem fit.”
“C’mon, Tirek, I don’t need to-”
“I also apologise for the comments I made regarding a suitor before you left for Canterlot last. It was not my, or Chrysalis’s, place to say.”
Tempest stared at him. She had forgotten about that. She narrowed her eyes slightly and flared her nostrils. “Three weeks public duty,” she told him. It wasn’t that serious of a punishment, but it was enough to let him know she wasn’t happy. Also none of the Knights particularly enjoyed the public; answering their questions, cordoning them off when they needed to and generally having to ‘deal’ with them.
Tirek bowed his head and thumped his hand to his chest. “I understand, Commander.”
The dark mare snorted and rolled her eyes, glad to see him accepting of it, then turned to go. She and Tirek walked off into the night together, staying silent save for their hoofbeats until-
“So stargazing, huh?”
Tirek rolled his eyes and groaned softly. “Hnng...”
“I’m kidding,” Tempest chortled. “I’m happy for you two. It’s hard to find time for romance when we do what we do.”
“Please.”
“Alright, alright you big lug. I see your face turning redder than usual.”
“I take back my apology. Why isn’t Chrysalis subjected to this same treatment?”
“Because you’re adorable.”
Tirek snorted quietly and gave Tempest a small shove. “I hate you ponies.”
“We love you too, Tirek.”
***
It was late. The Nightmare Knights had just returned home, and Jackdaw Inkwell sat in her bed, rereading the same page of her book for the umpteenth time. Her glasses lay halfway down her nose, her eyelids drooped and fought to stay open. Her bedroom of the old castle was smaller than any of the Knights’ were, but she didn’t mind. It was still bigger than her whole apartment in Manehattan after all.
Some heavy hoofsteps outside her door suddenly jolted her awake. This was the moment she had been staying up for. She held the book close to her chest and watched silently, fighting to keep from giggling like a schoolfilly as he knocked.
“C’min,” she called, unable to hide the glee in her voice.
The door swung open. Tirek stooped slightly to enter and closed it behind him. He remained there for a few seconds, resting his hand against the door. As soon as he turned around and she got a look at his face, however, Jack’s elation faded, replaced by worry. set her book down and scooched forwards on the bed.
“What happened?” she asked as he came to a stop by the foot of her bed, his hand gripping one of the posts tightly. “T?”
He remained quiet, and instead just looked at her with some of the most sorrowful eyes she had ever seen.
The secretary’s own eyes widened in alarm. She inched closer to the edge of the bed and gazed up at him. She didn’t know much about Tirek’s past, other than whatever the other ponies had said about him, but he was always a sweetheart to her. When he wasn’t playing the tough guy act that was.
This was most certainly not one of those moments. He looked torn up, bitter and like he was hurting from something.
“You want some cocoa?” she offered. “I can go get us some if you like-”
“No,” he rumbled. “No, I...” His eyes flicked up to her.
They didn’t say anything. He leaned down to take her hoof in his and just held it for a moment.
The red-headed mare reached out with her other hoof, resting it gently on his hand. “Alright we don’t gotta talk,” she told him. “Just know that I’m her for ya. ‘Kay? You wanna sit?”
He let out a heavy sigh and bobbed his head, planting himself down next to her. He was so heavy that Jack found herself lifted up a little bit as his weight pressed down on the bed. She didn’t mind in the slightest, as she saw it as an excuse to slide close to him.
They sat like that for a moment more in silence, hand in hoof, listening to the crickets chirp outside the window.
“I’m sorry,” Tirek eventually said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you like this, Miss Inkwell.”
“You kiddin’?” Jack chortled, nudging him. “Any time you come an’ see me, T, is a good time. Did somethin’ happen today with Cozy? Or Chrysalis?”
“Not the commander?” he answered wryly, glancing at her and arching one eyebrow upwards.
She waved her hoof and blew a small raspberry. “The boss can handle herself. She’s Tempest Shadow for cryin’ out loud.”
He snorted and returned his gaze to the ground.
Jack’s smile faded slowly. She leaned in and rested her cheek against his arm.
“I’ve never told anyone before,” Tirek murmured. “About my life in Nessus, before I came to Equestria.”
“Yeah?”
“They are not... fond memories, you understand. Bitter. Painful.”
Jack nodded along with him. “Everyone’s got somethin’, T. You don’t gotta share if you’re not ready.”
“I... want to. At least you should know.”
The pony watched as the centaur reached into his vest and pulled out a small talisman carved out of wood and wrapped up in string. He undid it and showed her, dangling it before her eyes. It looked like a smaller version of himself, only feminine. “Who?” she whispered.
“Her name was Layna,” Tirek explained. “She was my daughter. I lost her... and I saw her today, for a moment.” He took her hoof in his hand again and turned it over, lowering the talisman into it. “I want you to have this. It has always brought me... comfort, in a way. I hope it will do the same for you.”
Jack’s eyes began to water. “Oh, Tirek,” she murmured. She looked up at him and, overcome with emotion at the touching gesture, she leaned up and kissed his cheek. “Thank you,” she said, lowering herself back down. “I’ll look after her don’t you worry.”
He smiled and gently grazed his cheek with his fingers. Jack clutched the talisman close to her chest, holding it tightly in her hoof like she was never going to let it go and rested her head against him again.
Soon enough, after roughly ten minutes or so of simply sitting, Tirek began to hear the soft sounds of snoring and looked down. Jack had fallen asleep on him. For a second he contemplated staying there all night as not to disturb her. But he quickly saw reason and decided against it. He carefully lifted her up and placed her back in her bed. He even pulled the covers over her for good measure.
He smiled and brushed some her mane out of her face, then turned and as quietly as possible, left the room, making sure to close the door gently behind him on his way out. Jack smiled in her sleep, her hoof still wrapped firmly around her gift.