Bon Bon was a very principled, very stern mare. Those weren't just her own words- though she would describe herself as such- that exact phrase had been on a mental reevaluation for the EIA some years back, which she had only been allowed to see because she had such lofty principles.
'A very principled, very stern, cold mare. Her unshakeable dedication to Her Highness and the Crown borders on rabid obsession and is, at times, sincerely frightening. There is no seeming end to the lengths to which she would go if those lengths were asked of her by the Princess.'
She prided herself on that evaluation, however negatively worded. She'd even had a copy framed and put above her bed- and then she'd taken it down and had the frame and its contents burned, because keeping physical evidence of her being an EIA agent was liable to backfire eventually.
So when she realized that Light had gone missing- to the bathroom, as her beloved idiot had said- she'd reacted exactly as years of training and more years of duty in service to the beloved Celestial Crown had instilled into her was correct.
She identified, she concentrated, and she acted.
Her hooves pounded the pavement relentlessly as she threw herself headlong into the rushing wind. The cold air bit and stung at her coat as she ran, but she barely even noticed it through the pounding, rushing sensation of her blood pumping in anticipation.
Her charge had disappeared, and it was her final duty as bestowed to her by Princess Celestia that she keep him safe. Whatever it took, and wherever she needed to go, she would find him.
With a hard right turn, she dangerously skirted the edge of a precariously placed bush, and rushed past the grey fountain of a rearing mare with a very ridiculous hat on her head. She left Chancellor Puddinghead and Town Hall far behind as she took concerted, steady breaths: eyes focused firmly on the bridge ahead, and the forest far beyond.
"Lyra, I need you to stay here, okay? I'm going after Light."
Golden eyes- good eyes, narrowed in concern, and a minty green hoof that she wanted more than anything to grab hold of and never let go slipped up to rest on her cheek.
"Be careful hun, and don't do anything I wouldn't do."
As if Lyra would ever do the safe thing.
She was running over grass, now. Every quick step forward shifted uncomfortably off an incline or a rock or a stray patch of mud: forcing her to slow her hurried pace. As she crested a hill and came to a head at the edge of the Everfree forest, she came fully to a stop, not much of her own accord.
Her breath was still even- still steady, but she took the moment of looking over the endless scape of greyed, darkened trees to rest. To rest, and to fish a hoof into her saddlebags.
With a flip and the sensation of many things bumping against her hoof: Bon Bon found the small circular object she was looking for, and pulled it out. A plain, wooden compass pointing due east, but she knew it was wrong.
This was the compass that had been enchanted with a lure to Light's cloak. Where that cloak went, Bon Bon could follow; an unfortunately useless artefact in its current state as earlier that morning Light's cloak had been ragged and covered with oil, so she'd chosen to leave it at his cottage.
But that wasn't the only thing it could do: it was just much easier to follow Light's cloak.
Bon Bon, holding the compass in a hoof, took a deep breath, and brought the object up to her head.
Focus. Focus.
She felt with little prodding the telltale warmth of her mana beginning to churn within her veins, and as she took a deep breath in, she let it flow with the deep breath out. With another moment and the manifestation of her target in her mind, the breath as she let it out began to tingle upon her lip.
A shining blue light began to gleam above the dazzling glass case of the compass, and slowly, as she took another deep breath, the still needle kept on stilts within began to move. Shaking and shuddering: the tiny needle crept to the side; Bon Bon continuing to breathe as regularly as she could, while keeping a strong mental image of the brown unicorn in her mind.
After a moment, it was done, and when she opened her eyes, the compass' shell was emitting a very subtle blue light, and the needle within was pointing south-southeast. Shaking very slightly, and moving east ever so infinitesimally.
She'd been right. That was the direction of the old castle.
She narrowed her cerulean eyes in grizzled determination, and dropped the compass into her saddlebags: closing the pack with a flick of her pastern. The Everfree laid out seemingly forever in front of her; a very lost little unicorn somewhere amidst the dark trees and darker thoughts.
Again: she began to run.
"Where do you think he's going? Does he have a hot date tonight he forgot about?"
She turned to look bemusedly at her lover: a deeply contemplative look on her perfect face, though it dropped into a childish smile after a second.
Bon Bon shook her head and sighed: continuing to dig around in her pack that she'd set on her stool.
"If any part of the failsafe the Princess placed has failed and he's managed to remember Her, then he's likely being led to the location of Her probable return upon dethroning the Princess."
The words felt like poison in her mouth, but she kept a brave face: narrowing her eyes as she raised aloft a compass, and spitting the words in disgust.
"The Castle of the Two Sisters."
"Ooh~ Sounds like a super hot date spot!"
The memory had Bon Bon sighing, even as she trampled through the brittle undergrowth. Lyra continued to prove to her that she'd never make it as an agent, even for every day that she begged for a badge and 'the rights to arrest anypony she wanted!'
She didn't need to wear a badge to inspire, and she didn't need to arrest anypony to make a difference.
Even for as much as she loved Princess and Country, as Bon Bon took a running start and leaped across a yawning chasm too wide to step over, she could only ever have the courage to take that forward leap as she thought of that minty green idiot.
And... that stupid, redhead unicorn.
She'd do it for the both of them. For Lyra, and for Light, she'd even fight the Moon Herself.
It wasn't about duty anymore. Bordering on obsession or no: Her Highness- her Goddess was gone, and Nightmare Moon was left.
This was about saving those she held dear.
Bon Bon ran on.
"Before I go, there's something I need you to do."
"Besides staying put? What, you need me to hold the table, Bonnie? I don't think anypony's gonna try to take your seat while you're gone."
Lyra said it as a joke, and Bon Bon even smiled, but there wasn't much humor in the moment, and even Lyra couldn't keep her ever-present grin. But still, as she strapped her bag to her side, Bon Bon put a hoof to her marefriend's shoulder, and looked her seriously in the eye.
"Applejack is going to want to go after Light, but that can't happen. She needs to be kept safe until dawn, and she needs to stick close to Twilight. Whatever happens, I need you to keep her here until the Celebration begins."
She smiled, and pulled Lyra into a hug. Whispered into her ear.
"Can you do that, sweetheart?"
With a whispered sigh, Lyra's voice tickled into her ear. The sweetest sound in the world.
"Of course I can do that, honeybon."
The exerted pressure of a rope tugging at her body was painful, but even the botched landing on the other side of the raging river- and the seethe-worthy scraping of her side on the dirt- didn't hurt as much as that last moment had.
That last, aching moment with the mare she loved more than anything in the world. The mare she'd do- was doing anything for.
Bon Bon pushed herself to her hooves with a grimace, and tugged at the rope she still firmly held. The hooked other end of the grapple she'd tossed over a hanging branch caught, but then Bon Bon braced, jerked, and tore the entire branch off.
The splash of the branch she'd used to swing herself over the violent river was a grim reminder of what could've befallen her, but it was far from her mind as Bon Bon began slowly reeling her tool in. Inch by inch, until she was holding a sopping wet metal claw that she dumped unceremoniously back into her saddlebag.
Sorry, Rarity. It was a very nice hoof-stitched bag with her cutie mark embroidered onto it, but it was going to have to suffer a bit of water and mud for the imminent end of the world.
With a prayer that her seamstress wouldn't one day bite her head off: Bon Bon, ignoring the slight pain in her shoulder, turned from the river and began to run again. Past dead, greying trees in every direction and flank-high grass that hadn't grown in moons: she ran.
Thoughts of what she'd left behind in her head, and the thought of what she was running towards.
She ran, and she ran, and ran...
...and before she knew it, she stopped running.
Bon Bon slowed to a halt: heaving tired breaths like each was her last. She stumbled another step forward, and leaned a hoof onto a nearby tree that she swore she'd seen five or more times. At least, since she'd stopped seeing the patch of black ivy that looked like a heart. And she'd only begun seeing that after she'd narrowly avoided the same patch of Poison Joke four times.
How long had she been running? What time was it?
Bon Bon, though tired and dripping with sweat from actually countless hours of running, leaned off the crutch of a tree, and used the hoof instead to look into her saddlebag. For the... umpteenth time, she pulled out the wooden compass that had been imprinted with Light's magical signature, and stared dizzily down at it.
And just as it had been the last billion times, the needle was spinning wildly in circles. Useless. This entire thing was useless. Damn forest made everything harder.
Bon Bon groaned, and let her butt fall to the prickly forest floor. She continued to heave hot breaths as she threw the compass back into her saddlebag- fat load of good it'd do her, anyway- and rooted around instead for something it only took her a few seconds to find.
The object she pulled out was less magical than her magic compass, but far more valuable. It was a hoof-held golden mechanical watch: emblazoned on its front with the beautiful crest of a branch of the Equestrian Special Forces. Each branch had their own special insignia, and the EIA logo sported a lovely closed book under a cute little pony head that simultaneously saw, heard, and spoke no evil.
On the book's front was their motto: an antiquated Old Ponish saying that basically equated to 'Inform the Princess.'
She thought it was very aptly concise, and she was proud to carry the logo of the EIA everywhere she went. It reminded her of her faith and her duty all in one, while keeping a due metaphor about how her time was solely for the Crown.
Or for running around like a brain-dead chicken. And when Bon Bon flicked the ornate cover open to stare down at its polished white face, she found that after all the time she'd been searching for the castle, it was now...
Sweet Celestia she'd been running around a long time!
Bon Bon threw her head back and shouted in aggravation: closing the watch face and throwing the delicate instrument back into her pouch without a second thought. Dusting stray bits of grass mulch off her flank as she stood: Bon Bon cast angry eyes around her surroundings as she tried to decide which ultimately meaningless direction was best to run in.
But then, as Bon Bon was taking her first steps forward, a noise stopped her. A deep, low growl: rumbling and peaking at its edges as though through blackened lips.
Her face fell into serious conviction in an instant; her hoof edging forward as she turned slightly to catch the source of the growl in the edge of her eye.
It was huge. Lumbering forward on four, patchy golden-furred paws that left deep imprints in the dirt: each paw sprouting three ill-fitting toes, which themselves ended in large, black claws that gleamed in the scant moonlight. Its torso was giant enough to smother her and lean enough to tell its strength, yet its sides were gaunt and heavily showed bone.
From its back rose two thick bones of wings covered in their gaps by thin membranes: a distinctively red hue to their veined, see-through surfaces. Where a tufted tail should've been at its rear instead sprouted a huge, segmented length of red chitin: the pointed scorpion's stinger a remarkable contrast to the rest of the creature, though as it arced high and swung threateningly through the air in a violent rattle, Bon Bon was sure taxonomy didn't matter much to it.
A head sporting once-fluffy lion's mane, yet atop it sat two scarred lengths of sharply-tipped horns. Its face, too, was lion-like: a predator's nose flaring to take in her scent, bestial eyes wide with wildness and hunger, and massive rows of yellowed-red teeth inside rubbery black lips sharp enough to tear her apart in seconds.
It was a manticore, an aberration of Chaos, and it was much bigger than her.
The massive mismatched monster trampled forward through the grass on its clumsy, heavy paws, but she knew it didn't need dexterity. It had strength in incredible spades: an obvious fact made all the more apparent as it stepped onto a long-fallen mossy log in-between them, and the hollow length of wood shattered into flying splinters as it pressed carelessly down.
All the while, the silent clearing filled with the sounds of its snarls. Low and guttural and never-ending: a lesser pony would've been driven mad by the intent therein. The animalistic sound's inherent intention of ripping its prey to bloody shreds certainly had a way of cutting to one's core.
She only watched with calculating eyes as the huge thing never took its hungry eyes off her: covertly slipping her hoof to her side to reach into her saddlebag. Other creatures- smaller, more intelligent creatures- may have seen any movement at all as an act of aggression, and flown into an immediate frenzy.
Not that manticore. It must've been completely mad with its clear hunger: its deeply red and slotted eyes sparkling with everything besides reason she could think of. As it was, as she pulled the small metal nub out of her bag, it could've been an apple for as much attention as the beast gave to it.
A mistake it would come to regret. Now, she only had to wait.
And she would not wait long; mere moments after she crouched low into a ready combat position, the manticore threw its maned head back in a bone-rattling roar louder than all the rest, and began to charge forward. Huge paws big enough to snap trees and ponies alike reached for her only just ahead of the terrifyingly grinning mouth full of letter opener-like teeth- but she was already gone. Gone fast enough to even avoid the huge globs of drool it sent flying ahead of it.
Because as the manticore had rushed closer, Bon Bon had leaped into the air. From her crouch: she'd flipped high into the air and turned so her entire body was upside-down like an arrow, all so she could swing her hoof and extend her weapon.
The small nub turned into a small length of plated steel, and as she fell in scant seconds, she landed with purpose directly onto the back of the manticore.
Everything rushed in, and in the moment that the manticore realized that Bon Bon was no longer in front of it, she was already on its back. As it turned its spitting head to bite at her, and its tail reared back to sting at her, Bon Bon had already wound up, and thrown her considerable strength into whacking the manticore's horn.
It was no ordinary retractable baton she wielded- though it would've been just as effective with how strong she was, not to brag- it had also been laced with a very potent electrical effect. As soon as the specialized ward cast along its edge detected significant concussive action, it tripped a mana lattice engraved into its handle to discharge.
Just a few thousand volts- nothing fatal- and only at that point of impact, thankfully- got to love those geniuses in the COMS and MR&D.
So, as it was, when her stun baton made impact with the spire of bone that connected intimately with the manticore's skull, there was a fur-raising shock of magical energy in the air that set her fur on end and teeth slightly chattering, and the entire body on which she stood jerked and then went suddenly stiff.
Bon Bon stood taller atop the mound of flesh as the manticore began to tip forward, and just as its face met ground, she bunched her legs together and sprung forward onto flat-ish grass. The gargantuan sound of a predator's body flumping onto the forest floor behind her was satisfying in ways she couldn't ever express, and she had a gratifying smirk on her face as she turned to regard the creature.
The mighty manticore with all its most terrifying traits: laying comatose on its side after being delivered a significant electrical shock tertiarily to the brain. Its sides were still rising well enough, but there was so little movement otherwise that she guessed it probably wouldn't be standing again for a while.
Her smile began to fade as she retracted her baton, and stowed it away into her pack. The night was cold and dark, especially out there in the Everfree, and as she could already hear...
...howls. A wounded animal in the forest at night wouldn't survive very long.
Especially in the Everfree.
She turned: keeping a furrowed brow atop her head as she made her way out of the clearing. Even as she left the manticore she'd concussed behind, there was determination brimming like hot coffee in her heart- and how she'd love a cup right now.
It was eat or be eaten in the forest, and all she'd done was protect herself from a hulking monster looking to rend her limb from limb. There was nothing to feel ashamed for.
It was all for them. The Crown was gone, and it was all for them.
Bon Bon began to run.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Exiting the dank depths of the woods- and entering into the foggy air of the open ravine, more importantly- was completely refreshing in a way Bon Bon hadn't realized she needed.
It was a little more evident when she turned sagging eyes to herself in the brighter light, and found her coat brown with dirt where it wasn't greying green with mulch. The hues were even beginning to blend together with the copious amounts of sweat she'd exuded from the hours of running through the forest.
She looked ugly. Bon Bon needed a shower. And a cup of coffee.
...And a plate of hayfries.
She sighed in half exhaustion: turning her sunken eyes up to the open, cloudy sky. The stars were shining brightly- she'd imagine they were happy, if the rumors about them having a mind were true.
Then her eye found the moon, and though she already knew in her rational mind what it would look like, she still couldn't stop herself from the slight, instinctive flinch.
Pale and blemish-free.
The Nightmare was free. She walked Equus once more.
What would become of Equestria now? Princess Celestia- it was anathema to even think, but She was truly... gone. By now, Nightmare Moon would have certainly found Her, and with the standing orders the Princess had given to the upper echelons...
Stand down. Do not fight. This is not a conquering, this is my willing cessation of my rule.
Equestria surrenders.
...Equestria was crownless, and Nightmare Moon was poised to stand up. The only other possible contender for the throne would have been- no, She had been sequestered into hiding, last Bon Bon heard. It hadn't been an EIA operation, but apparently She and a small faction of the royal army were well en-route to their allies in Abyssinia by now, with orders to only return to Equestria at next dawn.
Whether that would take a few hours, or a few years. Come another day, a Princess would return to them.
She stared at her hooves for a moment, taking rhythmic breaths to calm herself, before she shook her head, and set her sparkling eyes forward.
For what remained of the Crown. For Lyra, and for Light.
Her muscles were burning from the run, but she didn't let that stop her from trotting forward to the edge of the ravine stretching out in front of her- because that burn could never match her burning desire to enact justice!
...Cliché, she knew, but she couldn't help what really motivated her.
The famously infamous hole that stretched as a little-known part of Ghastly Gorge to the southwest and eventually tapered at the local cliffs of sheer rock to the northeast was just as grand and mystifying as she'd last seen it, though there were a few immediately evident changes.
The impenetrable wall of fog that swirled around the opposite cliff wall seemed... thinner than usual. Even the entire thick atmosphere of the jungle-like cliffs was almost palatable compared to its regular choking bulkiness. When she took a breath, it actually felt like she was breathing. It wasn't like that the last time she'd come.
The wall of fog was actually so thin that she could almost make out the towering outline of the ruined castle just beyond it. If she squinted.
Feeling an odd sense of dread: Bon Bon looked down from her focused stare at the cloudy horizon, to where there should've been nothing but air between the two massive poles sitting lonely at the cliff's edge.
But where there should've been nothing, there was instead a bridge. An ancient looking plain rope bridge with even plainer planks tied to its suspension that seemed... perhaps too molded to stand upon.
This... was bad. The only bridge leading to the castle had been out for recorded history, and since all paths through the Everfree just lead confusingly back to the bridge posts, the broken bridge was the only way to get there.
But nopony- not even the strongest fliers nor magically gifted of any race- had ever been able to penetrate that wall of fog to fix the bridge; like the Everfree itself, the fog seemed entrenched in an inert area of influence.
If the bridge was back, then...
...She was beyond it. Light was beyond it.
She needed to hurry if she was going to save him.
Bon Bon set her jaw, her eyes on the foggy horizon, and her hoof onto the bridge.
The immediate swaying, squeezing sensation of being suspended in air above a precarious drop too far to even measure set her heart squeezing. Other ponies- lesser, non-winged ponies- may have fallen to their knees in fear. Understandably so; the prospect of falling to her death was- it wasn't pretty.
But Bon Bon was a very stern, very principled mare, and she did not often cow to her fears. Not when she had a duty to fulfill.
So it was that she trotted carefully forward across the bridge, and even as her heart leaped with every step that set the entire aged structure creaking, she never hesitated for longer than it took her eyes to find the next plank to set her hoof onto. Feeling the entire way: the immense pressure set upon her shoulders.
With all the time she'd taken to find the ravine, Light had undoubtedly made it across the bridge already, which meant he was at the castle already, which meant Nightmare Moon had probably found him already. Intelligence and common sense suggested that She was going to use his presence and personal proximity to stall the ascendant Wielders- their only hope.
Her next step was faster, and the bridge groaned under the weight of her haste.
She needed to-
The first snap of corded fibre broke the soundless scape of the night, and so as it broke that quiet calm, it was unmistakable to Bon Bon's strained ears.
As was the subtle sound of fraying rope, and the second snap. And though she had long since thrown herself into a desperate gallop towards the approaching wall of fog, it was still far too late to outrun the sound of that third, heartbreaking snap.
Then the bridge began to fall away.
Bon Bon gasped in thin air that she suddenly realized was far too thin as her entire body dipped with her next step. She didn't have to look back as the terrifying feeling of near-weightlessness flipped so subtly into the exact feeling of plummeting, but she did look down, and she would forever curse herself for looking down.
She saw in slow-motion her hooves leaving the eroded planks and the broken supports as they fell away from her: traveling so much faster towards the fog than she was.
She saw the dark void below. Too far down to even see the bottom.
For a single instant, she saw her own, broken body.
Bon Bon moved.
Forcing herself to drop fast enough to get her hooves onto the falling planks was frightening, but it wasn't anywhere nearly as frightening as the next moment in which she bounced off the object with nothing under it, and came to just barely wrap her hooves around the escaping, whipping-in-the-wind, length of browned rope that had for whatever reason snapped somewhere halfway down.
She gasped in sudden exertion as the entire momentum of the bridge collapsing hit her all at once: the wind and the uncontrollable gravity buffeting her as her curled body turned and flapping in the crushing fall. The planks whipping in the wind- and she could only assume by the lack of agony that they'd somehow avoided hitting her.
She blinked: her eye caught the fog approaching fast.
She grimaced as she flicked her hoof to wrap most of the rope she was holding in a few, tight loops around her limb in a short second. It might cut off circulation, but it also might keep her alive, and she'd rather lose her limb than her life. The fog was approaching too quickly to process much of anything except the sensation and the adrenaline. so she only had the few options.
The rope tugged at her pastern, and Bon Bon braced for impact: her mind racing. If the fog was solid, she'd be crushed by the speed and the planks falling ahead of her. If the fog was soft, then she'd pass right through it and be smashed against the hard wall of the cliff. If the wall was solid enough to slow her but thin enough to pass through, then-
Something hit her- and Bon Bon felt pain- saw darkness.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Bon Bon, otherwise known as Special Agent Sweetie Drops in direct service to the Crown by way of the EIA branch of the Equestrian Special Forces, came to, she was only vaguely aware of a few things.
One: a dull, thobbing pain in her head that made her immediately groan and wish for more whiskey.
Two: the scent of misty air tickling her nose that was so familiar but she was having a hard time remembering why.
Three: a subtle sensation of swinging, swaying, so close to falling but it was almost like the feeling of being suspended or-
Everything came rushing back, and Bon Bon gasped, and flung open her eyes.
An indifferent, grey wall of swirling mist was the first thing to greet her, and as she breathed in yet another lungful of the heady air, it was immediately noticeable that it was so close.
Identify. Internalize. Think.
The bridge had broken. She'd fallen: grasped hold of the end of the rope, and rode it down. Braced for impact as she hit the wall of fog- and it seemed as though she had been knocked unconscious as she'd traveled through.
Prognosis was good; mental exercises were showing unlikely result of concussion or significant impairment. Physical reconciliation checked-
Bon Bon seethed.
She looked up through one grimacing eye to the sight of her limp hoof above her: tied around her reddened, raw pastern by a thick cord of rope. The ugly sight of her tied flesh had her wincing even further than the actual feeling as the limb had already mostly gone completely numb.
She was hanging by her hoof above the chasm. The darkness far below her, and the moonlit sky far, far above her: blocked slightly by the grim silhouette of her hanging rope, and the outcrop it was tied to.
Every breath threatened to spin out of control; Bon Bon looking down from her hanging limb and placing her other hoof to her chest as she tried to keep herself calm.
How long had she been hanging? Not that long: her hoof hadn't gone blue or been rubbed to bleeding yet, and she still had trace amounts of feeling in it. It must've been a significant amount of stress either way, though. Could she have dislocated it?
Bon Bon flicked her eye up, and tried to wiggle her numb limb. The slight movement from within the cocoon of rope was a good sign- but then her entire body dipped, and her adrenaline spiked as the sound of creaking fibre filled her ears.
Quick as a flash, Bon Bon took in a huge breath, braced what little she could feel of her hoof, and hauled herself up. The rope had already begun to coil away from her hoof covered in sores and welts, but as she grabbed firmer hold of it and swung herself barely forward to throw her other hoof up, she managed to catch herself just as its miraculously-tied end unraveled.
She hung there with both hooves holding firmly to the drooping end of rope, and now she began to sway and tilt even more in the air. Turning by way of the wind: she came to look at the jagged rock wall not more than a few hoof-lengths to her other side.
Every breath was coming deeper and deeper, and she was suddenly very aware of how lucky she was to be alive. Wrapping the rope around her hoof- bracing- grabbing hold before she fell- that was all training and instinct, but if it hadn't been for the fog wall slowing her descent...
She blinked, and began to sway her back hooves under her. Breathing evenly with the exertion as she dipped back, then forward, then further back until her body was nearly straight with her momentum, and then she was tipping forward.
Brace.
The rock wall was just as hard as she'd imagined it to be, and affirmed her thoughts that she'd be suffering a broken bone or twenty if she'd hit it at full speed. As it was: when just her hooves took the full brunt of her swing before the rest of her body, it still sent a painful jolt through her teeth.
But as her body impacted the wall, she pulled the rope taut- and held it.
Bon Bon took deep, concerted breaths as she took a single moment with her head curled to her chest and her body against the cliff to just breathe. In, and out; in, and out.
And then, she opened her eyes, and agonizingly stretched her back out. The soft pads of her frogs stung and probably began to bleed as she firmly held herself by her back legs to the sheer face of the cliff, but then she pulled the rope to her side, and took her first step up.
Breathe. Breathe. Hold firm, and keep going.
Every step made her aching muscles burn. Every moment she felt all over again how her hooves chafed from the intense friction of holding the rope as tightly as she could manage. Her lungs felt like fire with each breath of thin air. Her nose had begun to bleed at some point, and she could taste the iron trickle running down into her mouth. Her ears were filled with the sound of her own pained grunts.
Yet still, Bon Bon continued to climb. Over and over: she grabbed another length of rope, took another step that filled her body with pins and razor-sharp needles, took a deep breath, and then did it again. Gravity pulling her relentlessly down; her resolution the only thing keeping her going.
She climbed.
When one reddish-brown hoof that had once been cream-colored crept shakily up over the side of the cliff and met dead grass, its owner knew it was only the very beginning of the end, and relaxing would have certainly killed her.
When its twin came to rest upon it, it was followed on its heels by a face covered in red from more places than one. Red cheeks, red nose and red ears- but cerulean eyes burning with determination. Nostrils flaring with seething breath that would never ever quit.
Most of her body had long since stopped registering any signal other than pain by the time Bon Bon hoisted herself over the edge of the cliff, and as she swung her third hoof over and let go of the rope, it was nearly too painful to allow herself to push up one last time and roll over onto her back.
The grass under her- it hurt. The panting air in her dry, open mouth- it hurt. Her hooves, rubbed so raw that they had begun to bleed slightly- oh yeah they hurt.
But she was alive. Her pelt was riddled with cuts and bruises and she was bleeding and numb in too many places to count, but she'd scaled the cliff. She'd survived.
And there was no time to celebrate.
The poking, shifting sensation of the myriad things in her saddlebag caught between her body and the ground was the first real indication that she needed to move, but as she gradually opened her stinging eyes, she found an even better one in the sky above her.
The completely white moon.
Equestria was in danger.
Her voice was ragged and torn as she raised it in a throaty groan as she pushed herself to her hooves, but there was nopony around to blush at her masculine chords. Lyra would've even called it sexy, knowing her.
Sweet Celestia did she miss those golden eyes.
Her hooves- and she sucked in a furious scream of pain as they throbbed- found the ground under her, and amazingly: the immense sound of creaking bones was the least of her concerns as she stood.
She took a slow step forward- and stumbled.
Her chin met the ground faster than she could think, and the world tipped sideways for a vague second of lost consciousness that all too quickly slapped her awake with a miraculous new pain.
She spared an eye for the hoof that hurt so much more than the others- but then quickly bit her tongue and jerked away.
She knew ponies with purple fur. She was not one of them. Her hoof was not supposed to be purple.
Tartarus damnit.
It was a frightening thing to confront her own injury. Every time she looked at it through the corner of her eye, it seemed to throb even harder. Not to mention the small springs of blood leaking from her sores. The longer she sat, the longer the grass would run red, and the higher the chance that she'd pass out.
Nopony liked admitting they were injured or needed help, but Bon Bon was injured, and how she wished there was somepony around to help her.
But she was alone. Alone on the other side of a broken bridge that all of three ponies had crossed in the past millennium. Maybe four ponies in the entire world knew she was out here, and only one could possibly help her, and if her junior agent did that, then she'd be putting this entire operation in jeopardy.
So, Bon Bon did what needed to be done.
First, she found her emergency canteen in her saddlebags, which was absurdly difficult on her back. It was ultimately worth it, though, to douse her burning flesh in the cool liquid. With her hoof cradled close, she took a moment to shudder and luxuriate in the momentary relief before she snapped her eyes open and let her empty flask fall to the ground.
She was lucky she'd packed the gauze- luckier still her bags had survived the trip- and how lucky she was that nopony was around to see her bite her lip and snort back blooded tears as she began to wrap her pastern in the white cloth.
It stung- mother bucker it hurt! Son of a stinking mule- it hurt!
She spat out the torn end of the length of sterilized gauze, and tugged a final time- muffling a tortured shout into her lip as her bound hoof roared in pain- but it was done. Her bloody, swelling pastern was neatly bound in thick wraps of white that would keep the worst parts of injury at bay.
Sweaty and red-faced: she inspected her hoofiwork for a moment. Turning her limb around and around to see if anything else was immediately wrong that she might have to fix.
It wasn't broken. It wasn't bleeding tremendously. Not dislocated nor completely useless. Just a quick wrap and the swelling would eventually die down thanks to the fact that it was also an open wound, which saved her the trouble of taking her pocketknife and doing some impromptu letting.
Self-fixing. Leave it and forget it.
...If only she could.
She sighed, and rolled herself over onto three hooves. At least the other three were okay enough to support her, and though cradling the constantly-aching fourth to her chest was a reminder that her agile potential had been more than triply reduced, it did make all the other pains less noticeable.
Small blessings.
After gathering the few things that had fallen out of her pack, Bon Bon began to slowly limp forward; three hooves and a sense of sickly knowing deep in her chest that she couldn't quite shake off as she crept into the undergrowth. The massive greying plants of a forest struck dead each a solemn reminder of what she was walking into. What she was soon to face, and how daunting it was even then.
She'd never intended to challenge Nightmare Moon to one-on-one combat. Something that insane would have required immense amounts of anti-species gear of all three kinds, and she'd packed light for the sake of moving fast.
But now, even her paltry goal of somehow smuggling Light away seemed impossible.
She limped on.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The eminent tower of the castle's entrance loomed overhead. Once sturdy grey walls broken down through time into improvised windows, to shade with midnight colors the forgotten memories of an age nopony remembered, and of things nopony had seen.
The moss-covered steps to a castle once flush with life left behind.
Simple bricks laid in odd patterns in the grass only telling whispered stories of what had once been.
The massive arched door lovingly emblazoned with a crest of a kingdom killed by treachery left carelessly open.
The momentous open hall to welcome processions and dignitaries alike now faded beyond memory; arches high above webbed over and forgotten their purpose, and even the ceremonial platform looking over the room had long since fallen to join the ever-present rubble.
The entire room was covered in rubble, and for Bon Bon, the secret agent with three workable hooves, it was a complete nightmare.
She huffed a annoyed breath as her one good front hoof bumped again against a stray brick and nearly sent her toppling. She fixed it with a heated glare and kicked her good hoof into it: the small object unfortunately not being flung away as she'd hoped as it instead exploded into a thick mist of dust.
She coughed and squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to wave the dusted relic of architecture currently floating around her face away. Ugh- some brick dust had gotten into her mouth!
This place was sad. Sad and pathetic.
When she finally stopped breathing in millennium-old clay, she set her weight onto her front hoof again and tried, again, to see if there was anything in the room to give her any clue as to where Light had gone.
Five identical hallways across the giant circular room that each told her nothing about anything. Every structure had crumbled; every tapestry had fallen to dust; every hoofprint was lost under old garbage.
Whether it had been beautiful in its own time, it was pretty damn ugly now.
Since before she'd joined the EIA, or probably even been alive, Princess Celestia had regularly commissioned works of art depicting this castle in its prime. It wasn't so often: maybe one new painting every four or five years, which made it all the more impressive that Canterlot Castle was absolutely covered in the works.
In every hall and every room of the white marble palace there likely hung a masterwork of brushwork and oils of striking landscapes which brought to life stout grey walls and vibrant, living stonework. Portals to the past through which could be seen the immense history. Arches painted in bright motifs. Stories carved into the stony mold. Opulence in common quarters and colors.
Blurry recreations of tapestries that the Princess had once gone on record as saying were: 'Mere shallow pools to the depth of striking detail there once was.' Magnificent, sweeping works across entire rooms capturing the minute details of thousands of lives lived within these walls, that the Princess had sighed and said were just 'far too still.'
She had seen ponies driven to tears over some of the beautiful works on display at the castle. Even felt some strings being tugged herself, a few times.
Yet the Princess only ever seemed to frown looking at them: something sad to Her small expression.
Bon Bon shook off the memories of the oil-soaked scapes, and as the colors bled away, she was left again in the quiet, cold halls of grey.
She'd begun walking forward: chosen to enter through the middle hall, but she was beginning to regret that decision. Her thought had been that the most generic entrance would yield the widest possible net of visual area in which to spot dweeby little colts, but so far she'd only seen the endless sights of grey tunnels.
And they seemed like actual tunnels, because she'd gone down some very prodigious flights of broken stairs on the way. Some, unfortunately for her, lacked steps: forcing Bon Bon to improvise.
She wouldn't elaborate.
And even though she was now covered head to hoof in grey brick dust as well as blood, sweat and grass, she continued to limp on. Thanking every moment of stumbling down slopes and passing collapsed walls that the pain in her hoof was gradually fading.
Except for the single moment in which she accidentally clipped her injury on a stalagmite of corroded bricks. She'd continued, eventually- after falling to her knees and seething for a minute or three...
But as it was that she traveled through the dark, dank tunnels, she was not-too-soon rewarded with a sudden opening, as the tunnel she'd been traveling through opened up into a large, circular room that extended far up.
Though she felt slightly more relaxed at seeing the end, finally, there was nothing of immediate interest in the tower room besides more bricks and rubble. So she continued forward to the first door she'd seen that hadn't collapsed since she'd started walking.
Bon Bon stepped out into the open air: breathing in her first cold breath of fresh air in... who knew how long, as she was faced with something altogether new.
The grey path of stone bricks she'd trotted along continued out in a straight line: flanked by strangely green grass as it lead into and disappeared under... a mountain of bricks.
Where once had been a street- she was only guessing by the darker bordering on the road in front of her and the general layout- there was now a catastrophe. The path she was on lead a medium distance away and right into a large, circular facsimile of a roundabout, yet only the front quarter of it was visible as around it and to the foreseeable horizon there were only ruins.
Not... even. It was just bricks. Mounds and mounds of decayed bricks that had fallen apart so long ago there weren't even foundations left. Nothing to tell buildings apart from towers; nothing to separate pathways from garbage dumps.
Where in Tartarus was-
Something clicked in the back of her pain-riddled, exerted mind, and if she'd had the free hoof to do it, she would have clopped herself in the face.
Instead, as she was three-hooved and battered beyond belief, she settled merely instead for biting her lip. Her already-bruised lip that twinged in more pain than she'd been expecting, making her cringe slightly.
Not her smartest move, but nether had been coming here. And as she was only just now remembering, she actually did know where 'here' was, as well as where Light probably was!
Because she'd seen a map of the castle before!
Deciding that, yes, it was worth it: Bon Bon set her butt onto the cold stone, and put a hoof to her face just so she could sigh into it.
She'd totally forgotten- because all it took for her to lose composure was extreme amounts of pain and fatigue, like a wimp- that a part of the mission briefing a week ago had involved her getting very acquainted with a hoof-drawn map of the castle grounds, courtesy of Princess Celestia Herself.
Her Highness had been so generous as to personally draw her a map, and she'd gone and wandered around like a lost idiot. Really, she deserved capital punishment. Maybe they'd reinstate flogging or branding for her and her possibly world-ending incompetence. Would be the least of what she deserved.
As she should have remembered, the castle was built into a large, hollow hill: the outside parapets and ramparts massive deterrents to protect a large city in the middle hold. The 'castle' was really a massively walled settlement, and the 'walls' were.... okay, they were still walls, but not to defend the diarchy: they were meant to defend the ponies within.
And the Sisters' thrones and quarters were both in... the outside walls. And she'd made a blind beeline right for the ruined city in the center. And now she was still sitting around wasting time thinking about how dumb she was.
Dumb or not, she had a job to fulfill. She was just glad Lyra wasn't here to tease her.
She spared her one good hoof to roam about in her saddlebag as she swept a critical eye around what remained of the city grounds. The grass had held up surprisingly well, considering they were still in the Everfree. Oddly kempt, too; most things in this forest tended to just erode and fall apart.
That gave her slight hope, though- as she pulled her continually-useless compass out by a hoof- that it might actually work.
She stared down with skepticism written across her face as the needle within the small wooden object dipped and swayed and spun. But slowly, very slowly, it began to stabilize as each unhelpful pass against north was met with a slight resistance.
And slowly, the needle ground to a halt, and gradually began to turn the other way.
She felt a hard smile coming to her face as the needle finally landed on a definite direction of east-southeast, and tilted unmistakably up to nearly touch against the glass. That was the direction Light was in, and that confirmed her thoughts. It was the direction of the old Throne of the Moon.
Smiling, Bon Bon turned to throw the compass back into her bag so she could get a move on and find Light- but something stopped her. Something just in the corner of her sharp eye. Something that changed.
She twisted away from her bag to stare carefully with wide eyes down at the compass again: not daring to blink as she watched the slight movement of the needle within.
The slight movement became quick.
The needle was tilting down. Fast.
Bon Bon was a very principled, very stern mare.
Yet in that one moment, she could truly say that she felt fear.