“He’s meant to be a moderator, isn’t he?”
“If he isn’t, I’ve just managed to waste an excellent bottle of spirits,” Kaiya chuckled. “But I’m reasonably certain he’s a moderator.”
“Then why, pray tell, is he aiding one of the pieces?” Fronk-Kais growled at his opponent. “He cannot possibly be a neutral party if he is aiding one party and not the other.”
“Don’t be childish, Francois,” Trilychi chided bemusedly. “Kaiya was cunning enough to choose a piece who, through her Lady, has paid my price for information. If your pieces paid my price, they would get just as much information as the Handmaiden did.”
“I know you think me stupid but I’m not nearly that stupid. She paid no price; you just like pretty…”
“Stop.” The glacial cold and implacable command in just one word made Fronck-Kais freeze as Trilych thrust his borrowed face up against his, the look in his multicolored eyes absolutely murderous. “You wonder why I treat you with an almost puerile disdain, Fronck-Kais? It is because of this very thing: your inability to speak wisely and only those words that it is wise to speak.”
“My, so easily needled, Lord Trilychi,” Kaiya chuckled. “He’s at least intelligent enough to know what would most anger you, and say that thing. I myself am perplexed: I thought you regarded Amarra as a joke outside her merits as a warrior.”
The deadly eyes turned on her. “You know that to be false.”
“I do, but that simple fib was enough to disrupt the legendary coolness of Lord Trulychi, Eighth of the Helles.” Kaiya took a short draw from the mysteriously still-full bottle. “You present two possibilities, both equally interesting: first, that you are pretending greater regard for her than you feel in the pursuit of some subtle goal incomprehensible through the application of ordinary reasoning; or second, that you have greater regard for her than you’ve permitted to be known and for reasons similarly incomprehensible, believe that these are the best circumstances to tip your hand.” She sipped. “As I said, both are equally interesting.”
The murderous look evaporated and Trilychi returned to his divan. “You think it’s that simple?”
“Well, I considered the possibility that you were doing it for your own amusement, but you’re not known to waste your time with such pointless triviality,” she smirked.
Trilychi treated her to a dim look before turning his attention back to Fronck-Kais. “In your own stupid way, you make a point: it seems that Amarra paid no price for the information I give so freely to her servants. I will give you the opportunity to pay the price she did, however, and shall aid your own servants just as freely.”
“And what price is that?” He asked, immediately certain that the price would exceed any possibility of him meeting it.
“Through force of sheer persuasion and personality, rally the strongest beings of the Dark to your banner and lead them to a world entirely foreign to their experience, in an environment that is the most uncomfortable possible for beings used to a mildly warm environment, and cause them to zealously charge forth to destroy the essentially limitless numbers of a Prime whose goals they have sympathy for.” Trilychi looked steadily at him. “And do it all at will, with minimal preparation.”
Fronck-Kais gaped. “The price was that idealistic intervention of hers? You actually expect me to imitate traits that we both regard as weakness and contemptible?”
Trilychi smirked. “You wanted to know the price, Francois. You get no relief by appealing to the fact that for Amarra, those traits are instinctive and natural, and that I regard them as otherwise weak.”
“As ‘otherwise’ weak?”
“If they were weaknesses in her, explain her success.” He shrugged mismatched shoulders.“ I’ll save you time, Francois: there is no explanation in our philosophy. In Amarra Drae’thul, compassion, kindness, idealism, morality, friendship, and loyalty are strengths. ‘Virtus and the love of the people for them’, as it were.”
Fronck-Kais eyed the jumbled being. “You’re mocking me again, aren’t you?”
“To a limited degree,” Trilychi admitted. “But for the most part, I’m quite serious. There can be no rational argument with the fact of her success. It is also not possible to argue with the fact of her status or the fact of her power. Finally, it’s not possible to rationally argue with the fact of her characteristics that we regard as weaknesses. Please, if you think yourself wiser than I, posit an explanation that would tie all of these facts together.”
“It hasn’t occurred to you that she’s successful despite her weaknesses?”
“Of course it has, but that is inadequate. To explain how one so apparently riddled with crippling weaknesses can acquire the kind of…”
“I’m thinking that it’s time to show my hand, just a little.”
Both of them turned to look at the placid vixen. “What was that?” Fronck-Kais asked.
“The budding argument is fun, boys, but there’s a game to play and I think it’s time that I showed what’s truly in my hand,” Kaiya replied. “Until now, it’s just been the Handmaiden and while she has proven to be enormously successful, more than I could have wished, no one Void dragon can see to every little matter in a world as vast as that of Sol Selune.”
“In other words, your do-gooders split into three groups and you want to hedge your bets,” Fronck-Kais smirked.
“When it’s so easy to do, why not?” She chuckled. “First, I lay as wager unending defiance.” In the upturned palm of her hand, a figurine depicting a dying soldier on the ground burying a spear in the heart of the enemy that evidently just killed him materialized. Fronck-Kais could feel the significance and power of the wager wafting off of it like waves of heat and felt his eyes grow wide.
“And with that wager, I invoke The Crusader and The Inquisitor,” Kaiya continued, reversing her palm so that it faced down towards the board. Shadows flowed into the space and solidified into the image of a human in exquisite fully-articulated plate mail bearing a long blade in one hand and gazing upwards at the Weaver’s Cruciform held aloft above her head. The armor bore the same symbol, stylized in a way that was shockingly familiar—for Fronck-Kais vividly remembered its twin on dozens of snow-white banners as they snapped and fluttered in the stiff breeze above the Blood Plain, the symbol of the Teutonic Order, held aloft as they charged into battle to shatter Quezelzege’s armies.
The other figurine that flowed into existence was much more simple: a human in hood and cloak holding a lantern against her chest, her grasped hands and bowed head projecting an attitude of prayer and submission. Where The Crusader was obviously one of the dread members of the Order, The Inquisitor seemed to be little more than a monk or hedge clergy of some sort praying over a lantern. As he watched, she moved the two pieces onto the board occupied by his Ministry piece.
“A member of the Order and a… priestess.” He blinked. “And you imagine that this is enough to beat odds of thousands to one.”
Kaiya smiled in a way that sent a chill up Fronck-Kai’s back. “I admit it’s not quite a fair fight but I don’t think you have tens of thousands of minions to spend.”
“Ten thousand to one?” He scoffed.
“As you know from personal experience, my dear Fronck-Kais, a Templar is an army unto himself.” She replied casually. “Especially a Templar named Drake.”
“So how far out does the Friendship Express go?” Dawn asked as she turned away from the window she’d been staring out of. “Cuz I just know we’re gonna spend most of our time walking or something.”
“You could have always gone with Spite to the griffins,” Twilight mentioned.
Dawn stuck her tongue out at her. “And have to beg a ride every time I wanted to go anywhere? Ugh, no thanks sis.”
“Ya’ll haven’t already gotten used t’ that after six months, Dawn?” Applejack chuckled.
“I’m happy to just not fly especially after the Griffinchaser Mark Eight incident,” Dawn retorted with an involuntary shudder.
“But you were so good at peddling.” Pinkie commented from the ceiling.
“You threw me off a cliff!”
“That’s how you learn, silly!” The pink pony grinned. “Fear of mud is a great way to motivate beginning griffin-chasers. Especially when it’s Rarity cuz she shrieks and does this really funny dance.” Pinkie immediately went into an upside-down rendition of the white-coated unicorn grimacing as she tried to lift all four hooves off a phantom muddy ground, right down to the “ew, ew, ew” in Rarity’s higher-pitched accented voice.
“Does she ever turn that off?” Dawn sighed. “Seriously, Pinkster… we’re off to stop some dastardly plot by some crazy evil blackness thing and you’re… you’re…”
“…being Pinkie?” Twilight deadpanned.
“Being Pinkie!” Dawn agreed, looking up to where Pinkie was still incessantly imitating Rarity. “It’s so bad that I don’t even notice her being a pain in my plot anymore. C’mon, Pie… please? Just… shut up and be the cool mare for a while?”
Pinkie stopped in mid-bounce, which had the bizarre effect of her hanging in midair as she twisted her head around to look at Dawn. “But it’s so funny!”
“Not when we’ve seen the same joke played out every single time she encounters dirt,” Dawn retorted. “I mean, I’ve only known her for a few months and I’ve gotten so used to her weirdness that it stopped being a joke. You’ve known her for, what, her entire life or something? And you still think it’s funny that she’s an uptight priss?”
Pinkie considered this and giggled. “Well, yeah!”
Dawn buried her face in the nearest seat back. “Great… I’m on a mad crusade with my sister, an apple farmer, a priss, and a clown. Somepony out there’s laughing at me.”
“Ya get used t’ it, sugarcube,” Applejack consoled her, patting the lavender pony on the shoulder sympathetically.
“Oh goddesses, please no…” Dawn groaned.
Twilight smiled to herself as she looked out the window, watching the lighter forests south of the Everfree whiz by as they headed east. After Trixie had passed her test with flying colors, Spite had insisted that they return to Canterlot and determine who was going where. She’d further insisted that they do so via her teleportation magic so that, if they needed to take advantage of it in the future, they’d know what to expect and further, would know that it wouldn’t harm them. It turned out that despite the odd way Spite described it, her teleportation was no different than any other and they emerged at the Palace gates not even a second later. Spite’s suggestion was that, at minimum, Rainbow and Luna should go north with her because they could be certain that Luna’s magic would be needed to counter more of the psychic chaining that had affected Consul Halia, and Rainbow was known to the griffins as a close and dear friend of the heroic Gilda.
Spite then insisted that Twilight and Dawn go east, relaying a message from somepony by the name of “Trilychi” that Twilight would be needed there. The rest of the girls had volunteered for one group or the other; Rarity, surprisingly, wanted to go east because “I hear that the views are simply marvelous, darling” and both Pinkamena and Applejack felt that they’d be most useful going somewhere that they didn’t need to rely on charity or temporary magical wings to get around. Fluttershy, in her characteristic “I’d like to, if it’s OK with you” way, expressed a desire to go with Spite, saying that she had lots of bird friends in the griffin lands; Twilight also suspected that the shy pegasus wanted to go north because Spite was the only other person any of them knew that was even somewhat as affectionate towards animals as Fluttershy herself was.
Truth be told, Twilight would have wanted to be the one going east even if Spite hadn’t insisted. The wastes in the east were relatively unexplored and unknown, for reasons that all the books she consulted were extremely vague about, and Twilight was excited at the prospect of exploring someplace new. Her friends and sister seemed to understand this because not one of them commented on her mining the library for every relevant book she could get and packing them into the cargo car. What was to be done with them when they arrived at the end of the line hadn’t occasioned much deep thought from her as of yet, but having the car detached and left at the end of the line seemed like a good idea.
At this point, her musings were interrupted by Rarity trotting into the car, mostly because Pinkie’s exaggerated imitation of the alabaster mare stopped as abruptly as if somepony had thrown the off switch. Being Rarity, the fashionista probably knew exactly what Pinkie had been doing; also being Rarity, she had evidently decided that acknowledging Pinkie’s imitation of her was beneath her dignity.
“Enjoying the scenery, Rares?” Dawn asked, not moving from her position of having buried her face in a seat cushion.
Rarity showed no signs of having heard the deliberately disrespectful nickname. “Why yes, darling. Thank you everso much for asking. The trees are simply marvelous this time of year, all green and beautiful and lush.”
Twilight studied the elegant unicorn a moment, smiling knowingly. “So who’s wearing the new dresses?”
Her friend beamed and trotted over, floating her ever-present sketchpad out of her saddlebag and starting to flip pages. “I was thinking something… leafy, perhaps a fall theme with all the various colors,” she replied, proudly displaying a gorgeously flowing dress fit to a certain slim, long-limbed, broad-winged, rainbow-maned pegasus mare. “It would do a lovely joy of complimenting a long cut with her delightful coloration. A little contrast, not too pretentious or gaudy…”
“What happened to not sticking Rainbow in a dress?” Twilight grinned.
Rarity affected a perfectly innocent look. “I’m not!”
“Rarity…”
“Darling, I’m just throwing ideas around,” the other unicorn insisted. “If I didn’t constantly experiment and imagine designs, designs wouldn’t come to me when I need them. Besides… do you know how long I’ve waited to see what Dash’s mane looks like grown out? It’s a rare opportunity that no dressmaker worth her tape measure could pass up.”
“I might give her a hard time, but Spite was totally right: Rainbow looks much more awesome with the long mane thing going on,” Dawn opined, removing her face from the cushion. “So Twi… whatcha make of the luminous black magic flowing across her chest? Looks creepy, but it doesn’t seem to be doing anything evil to her.”
“I think that’s… I…” Twilight frowned. “Spite talked about infusing her with something to save her life and how she couldn’t predict what effect it’d have. I think… she infused Rainbow with parts of herself, somehow.”
“An’ how would that work?” Applejack asked. “Ah mean, Ah’ve heard of transplants and such, medical treatments usin’ organs when there ain’t a medical unicorn around to do some fixing…”
“If I understood her correctly, the principle is similar, except instead of transplanting organs, she transplanted bits of her… um, soul, I guess.” Twilight’s frown got heavier. “I don’t know how that could work. I guess she wasn’t really confident either because she talked about it like it was a desperate last-ditch treatment she had to resort to because she had no other option. I mean, it’d certainly fit with her claiming to have no idea what the treatment would do and what would happen to Rainbow if she was awoken from her coma earlier than usual.”
“OK, super, but what do you think of the magic flow?” Dawn persisted. “It looks like there’s part of her vein and capillary network that has magic flowing instead of blood, and it’s the sort of magic that Spite uses.”
“I think it’s a physical marker of Spite infusing her with magic that’s utterly foreign to her body in an attempt to save her life,” Pinkamena said, still in casual defiance of physics, right down to her straight mane flowing towards where her feet were. “Sort of like a surgical scar, but made of remnants of the magic.”
Dawn looked up at her. “Pinkamena, I presume.”
“No, Pinkie,” Pinkamena corrected her. “Well, yes, Pinkamena also but the way you say that makes it sound like you’re talking to a different pony than me. I’d have thought you’d have gotten used to my serious side and my fun side being two sides of the same coin.”
“Pinkster, for me, your serious side is your fun side,” Dawn informed her. “You’re way cooler when you’re being subtle and nice instead of when you’re being insane and nice. I don’t know why the straight mane isn’t your norm instead of your exception, but it’d be great if it was.”
Pinkamena looked at her for a moment before grinning. “Maybe it will be. Maybe it won’t. It’s so much more fun for me if I’m the only pony that knows. Anyway, back to Dashie.”
“I think your theory is good,” Twilight said, looking up to the earth pony mare and deliberately ignoring the part of her mind screaming at the impossibility. “It’d make perfect sense that such a dramatic change would leave scarring.”
“Well, I know she has a slimmer profile and longer mane…” Rarity offered.
“Well, yes, she’s got those things but I find the other things more… interesting, I guess,” Twilight responded. “Her eyes looking exactly like Spite’s, her wings were broader and shaped oddly, and especially... well, I’m not sure if you girls heard it but at one point during the conversation, she growled at something. Growled like a dragon, as a point of fact.”
“So ya think that by doin’ the infusion thing t’ save her, Spite accidentally… what, made ‘er part-dragon?”
“That’s my hypothesis at this point,” Twilight nodded. “Which raises all sorts of questions about what Spite actually did. I know she said that the klesae had wounded Rainbow’s soul so whatever she did must have helped with that somehow, but… you can’t take out your soul and give it to somepony else. Or slice off pieces of it and graft them on or whatever other possibilities are plausible. All my books are clear on that: distinct, indivisible, and fundamental.”
“Twi, do any of yer books contemplate somethin’ like Spite?” Applejack asked. “Looks like a dragon but can teleport, and do that spell that sorta moves someplace outta reality, and instantly heal broken bones an’ such?”
“Well… none…”
“So maybe yer books aren’t the best guide?” Applejack grinned a little. “Amazing as that might seem t’ you.”
Twilight treated her to a dim look before sighing and chuckling at herself. “Yes, I guess you’re right. I just wish we had time to find out what Spite did. Rainbow seems perfectly fine, but how can we know? Spite doesn’t seem to be sure, and she’s the one that did whatever it was she did.”
“Twi, darling, we’re all concerned about Rainbow but there’s no point in worrying,” Rarity told her, reaching up to pat her on the shoulder. “We can’t do anything right now. Besides, she traveling with Fluttershy and Princess Luna. I’m sure that if there’s anything wrong, they can help her.”
“Yeah, sis. Auntie Luna isn’t gonna let her favorite niece’s friend die,” Dawn added. “Besides, Mum and Auntie Luna both gave her a thorough magical look before we even left the hospital and if anypony could tell that something wasn’t right, it’d be them.”
Twilight smiled a little and gave Rarity a brief hug. “Thanks girls,” she said, seating herself and scooting close to the window so she could watch the landscape go by. “You know, I’d have never thought that the southern edge of the Everfree could look so… pleasant.”
“Well, it is a great deal thinned out from around Ponyville,” Rarity said as she look the seat opposite Twilight, leaning so she could also watch the scenery. “It’s why I volunteered to come, Twilight: I’ve heard that the views were marvelous down here and I simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see for myself. Why, all that delightful green rushing by makes me think of a Gala—green is in this season after all—and the nice celebration we can have when this is all over.”
“Doncha think it’s a bit early to be planning a shindig, Rares?” Dawn grinned.
“Darling, it’s never too early to plan ahead,” Rarity retorted loftily. “Such as, how I might convince Spite to try something… complimenting.”
“You want to make a dress for a dragon?” Twilight stared at her fashionable friend like she’d spit her bit. “Rarity, are you feeling OK?”
Rarity covered her muzzle as she giggled, making the fillyish action somehow demure and ladylike. “I’m joking, Twilight. I think she’d react rather… strongly to any suggestion that she allow me to make her a dress.”
“That didn’t stop you from assaulting Rainbow Dash with your tape measure,” Twilight smirked.
“Rainbow Dash doesn’t have claws,” Rarity pointed out with a little smirk of her own. “Besides, I promised that I wouldn’t put her in a dress, and a lady keeps her promises.”
“Say, speaking of what a lady does, how’s the entire Jade thing shaking out between you and Sweetie?” Dawn asked. “I mean, the entire ‘tinker, tailor, assassin, dressmaker’ thing is possibly the coolest thing in the history of ever but it’s always seemed a little outside your wheelhouse, if you know what I mean.”
Rarity turned to fully face Dawn, her expression becoming icy and cold. “Jade is dead,” she informed the light pink pony in a void that perfectly matched her expression. “I buried the mask, the blade, and am putting it all out of my mind.”
“Did Sweetie?”
The cold thawed a little. “What?”
“Did Sweetie bury the mask, the blade, and put it all out of her mind?” Dawn asked, showing no hint of the childish smirking that she normally did. “Her sister’s been hiding the fact that she kills others on commission. And this changes nothing?”
Rarity went silent and then looked away. “I thought it was alright for a while but then…” She tossed her mane. “…she figured out where I laid Jade to rest and… she wanted to… she wanted me to show her how, tell her more. It’s been up and down since then… she wants to explore that part of my life, I insist that there’s nothing left to explore, that it’s all gone. She resents me for not being open with her and then, after a day or so, forgives me and the cycle begins again.” The fashionista shrank a little. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Why not tell her?” Pinkamena inquired from a position directly above Rarity’s head.
“Because she might want to… follow in my hoofsteps,” the alabaster unicorn admitted. “And I don’t want her to. I want her to be successful, find a good stallion, settle down. Assassins don’t get to do that, don’t get to retire, at least not usually. Being one of the Elements, being the first assassin in a thousand years to see Nightmare Moon and be commanded by her, being a close personal friend of the royal family…” She treated Twilight to a brief smile. “…allows me to do what assassins normally can’t: break the chain, leave it all behind, forget all about it, and focus on my public face and my dresses. I can’t allow Sweetie to reforge the chain… I just… can’t. She might never escape it.”
“You don’t think she’d understand that if you told her?” Twilight asked, laying a wing gently over her distressed friend. “You have a really smart little sister, Rarity. Are you sure that she’s not smart enough to heed your warnings?”
Rarity gave her a deadpan look. “Cutie Mark Crusaders?”
“Point,” Twilight acknowledged. “Have you explained your reasons at least?”
“Of course, darling!” Rarity looked slightly affronted. “She’s much too old to accept ‘because I said so’, even if it took that unfortunate Sisterhooves Social to awaken me to it. Yes, I’ve told Sweetie why I don’t want to talk about it, yet she persists.”
“Rarity, if ya already sat ‘er down and told ‘er why not an’ why you don’t want to tell her, ya can’t do much else ‘cept trust that she’ll grow up a bit an’ trust that ya’ll are refusing out of love, not cuz ya think she’s too young to hear it,” Applejack assured her, adding a light pat on the shoulder to Twilight’s wing. “She’ll come around…”
“…although maybe you should show her some things,” Pinkie suggested as she turned and began walking down the side of the car to return to uprightness. “What Spite said, about it hurting more to need to fight but not being able to fight, than losing some of your innocence by learning how to fight, is true.”
“But she’s so young…”
“Rares, do ya think the thing that sent a big horrible demon-shadow after Rainbow Dash is gonna give two shakes that Sweetie is young?” Dawn asked her with a snort.
Rarity frowned. “I… see your point.” She sighed and leaned into the consoling wing Twilight had laid over her. “I wish I didn’t, though. Learning how to be Jade was… very unpleasant.”
“Demanding?”
“More than you could understand.” She sighed and leaned against the window. “Twilight, darling… is it just me, or does the landscape seem to be passing more slowly than it did?”
Twilight leaned over her friend and immediately noted that she was right: they were definitely slowing down. “Maybe we’re nearing the end of the tracks?”
“I hope not!” Dawn groused. “We’re not even passed the Everfree yet! It’s gonna be one hay of a walk to get wherever we’re going.”
“It was always going to be,” Twilight sighed, thinking wistfully of the car full of books she’d hoped to have near enough to be within easy teleport distance of their destination. “Still, you have a point, Dawn: I could have sworn that the tracks are supposed to go well beyond the Everfree.”
“Ah could go up an’ check,” Applejack offered.
“That’d be great, AJ. Thanks.” Twilight treated the earth pony to a smile as she trotted by, heading up to the engine. “Perhaps there’s an obstruction on the tracks?”
“It’d be the perfect place for it,” Pinkamena commented, actually frowning. “Area of dense trees, lots of shadows to hide in, our view of the air obscured, plenty of trees to fell across the tracks, and we know that something very bad is lurking.”
Twilight looked askance at her pink earth pony friend, starting to feel slightly uncomfortable with seeing Pinkie remain in her thoughtful and serious persona for more than a few minutes at a time. “Ambush?”
“It couldn’t hurt to be prepared for that eventuality.” Pinkamena sighed. “I’m ashamed to admit, however, that I have some serious doubts about my effectiveness if it comes to a fight. It’s a choice of simply immersing myself in what seems to be regarded as my ‘insane’ aspect or being helpless and useless.”
Rarity looked sidelong at Twilight before looking confusedly at Pinkamena. “You talk as if you don’t like to be the Pinkie we all know and have gotten used to, darling. Didn’t you defend that… aspect of yourself to Spite?”
Pinkamena smiled a little. “You said it… the Pinkie you’ve gotten used to. Be honest, Rarity… do you enjoy being around me when I’m popping out of potted plants, getting in your face over a Pinkie Promise, or babbling like a buffoon? Or do you like me, and tolerate the rest?”
Rarity looked pained. “Pinkie, we’re your friends. We like you. Everypony has little things about them that annoy, but friends look passed that. You’re no different.”
Pinkamena grinned in her face-splitting way. “That’s not an answer, but at the same time, it is. I think that if you enjoyed it, you’d have said so.” She suddenly pulled Rarity over and hugged her. “Thanks for pretending, though.”
“It’s what friends are for, darling,” Rarity replied, patting Pinkie on the nearest arm.
“So what’s making you all normal now?” Dawn asked. “It’s cool but it’s sorta… weird.”
Pinkamena shrugged. “The world is changing, and I’m changing along with it. It’s getting easier and easier to just… stay calm, I guess.” She grinned widely again. “And it’s really, really fun! Ponies talk more to me and listen more. I get taken seriously. More ponies come and get hugs. I don’t do as many parties, but the parties I do make ponies happier. I don’t know why but I feel…” The grin faded into an expression of quiet joy. “…I feel like I’ve figured something out that’s really important and now I’m a better Element of Laughter than I was.”
Dawn snorted, grinning. “Heh… trust the nutso pony to be the one that came out of the Guardian thing a better pony than she was when she went in. That’s great, Pinkster.”
Pinkie just smiled and shook her head, giving Rarity another quick chaste squeeze before letting her go. “So, Twi, what do you think the plan should be if…”
The door to the forward cars suddenly shot open. “We got a heap o’ trouble, girls,” Applejack announced as she trotted through. “Ain’t a normal obstruction across the tracks. Somepony built somethin’ there, a big somethin’. Ain’t no way we’re gettin’ any further on the train.”
“Can you describe it?” Twilight asked, thinking regretfully of her books a second time.
“Big ol’ structure of some kind. Crenul… crenul…”
“Crenulations?”
“Ayup. Bunch of those all along the top with holes cut inta the sides. Looks sorta like a tiny castle or somethin’.”
Dawn frowned as she looked at Twilight, her brow furrowing in an all-too-familiar way. “Sis, that sound like fortifications to you? Like somepony…”
“…was expecting us a long time in advance.” Twilight finished grimly. “Even bits that they started building the moment Lashaal came west. But who are ‘they’?”
“Probably things that work for that Evil that Spite was talking about.” Dawn looked out the window. “I say, it’d be great if we were somewhere else when they come to see who’s on the train.”
“I am afraid that it is far too late for that.” As one, the five mares in the car turned towards the source of the strongly masculine voice with the clipped and precise accent and found themselves looking upwards. The creature that greeted them seemed to fill the end of the train car and bore a slight resemblance to Spite, except for the fact that he was much larger and seemed more… indistinct, more shadow and mist than defined form.
“Imagine my delight when the very targets of my vigil along this frightfully dull section of track roll right up to the barrier and simply stand here, planning,” he continued, drifting gently down to the floor so his indistinctly draconic face was at their level, seeming to pay no attention to Twilight lighting her horn and constructing a solid wall of magic between them and the shadowy being. “Really, I had hoped that this would be vastly more interesting but, such is the life of my kind. Now, where shall I begin…”
“You’ll begin nowhere,” Twilight told him, glaring. “Get off our train and leave us alone.”
He snorted a puff of shadow and chuckled lowly. “Mmm… defiance. I’ve not enjoyed real defiance since… oh, so many years ago.” The shape of his head flowed into a tilted position. “Decades? Centuries? Millennia? Ah, it all blends together in the end…” The flow reversed and Twilight felt predatory eyes boring into her. “And yet, you hear me speak, you watch a shadow threaten you, yet you fear not. Curious little creatures.”
“Well, it freaked us out the first time we saw it but you’re not as cool when you do the shadowy trick,” Dawn informed him with an exaggerated yawn. “Spite…”
The shadowy dragon recoiled, hissing as he reared up. “You speak its name!”
“What, Spite?”
He hissed again and Twilight suddenly felt a surge of force impact her shield, causing her to take an involuntary step back from the sheer momentum as the dragon threw itself against her barrier, suddenly distinct teeth bared. “That name! How do you know it? Why do you speak it? When have you laid eyes on it?”
Twilight didn’t dare take her eyes off the creature but if she could, she’d have exchanged glances with her sister. Why would the thing attacking them know Spite? And why did it react so strongly at the mere mention of her name? Reinforcing her shield, she forced herself to meet its furious, predatory eyes calmly. “What is it to you?”
Her shield sparked as the shadow dragon raked his claws over it with a snarl. “It is abomination!”
“How so?” Twilight inquired, keeping her voice casually polite. As the dragon growled and raked her shield again in impotent fury, she heard a very faint clinkclinkclinkclinkclink as if somepony was tapping rapidly on metal then stopping suddenly. She tilted her head curiously, perking her ears to try and catch it but it didn’t repeat. The dragon seemed to take this as an affront, batting even harder at her shield and snarling as sparks from the backlash cascaded over his face. Almost the second he touched the shield, Twilight heard it again: clinkclinkclinkclinkclink, but slightly louder this time, closer.
“How is Spite an…”
“Do not speak the name!” He roared, lashing at her shield, trying to dig his claws in and use pure physical mass to get through; a quick surge of energy frustrated his ambitions.
“You don’t seem able to do anything about it.” Dawn snarked. “So why should we not use Spite’s name?”
A low, guttural growl came from the dragon-shaped shadow. “You do not know, cannot know, what that… thing is. Anathema! Blasphemy! Abomination! It obeys a mortal! It slays its own! It is unnatural and grotesque! It… it…” He seemed to lose his voice from the thickness of the revulsion welling up in his tone. “…it keeps a mortal form as its own. Mutant thing!”
All the while through the rant, Twilight could distinctly hear the clinking sound growing closer and closer until she could see the unopened door behind the shadow dragon begin to move very, very slowly, creeping open soundlessly. Not wanting to reveal what she was seeing to the dragon, she forcefully averted her eyes and looked at him. “So she’s an… outcast among whatever you are.” She paused. “What are you? Are you a klesae?”
The question made him freeze and Twilight got the distinct impression that he was dumbfounded by her question.
“A… a…” His face came into being enough that she could see the amazement in his black-scaled expression. “A klesae?”
In the brief moment that she’d taken her eyes off the door, it had opened and filling the frame was what seemed to be a griffin but… wrong somehow. Twilight only got a glimpse of it before the roiling of the dragon’s form obscured the shape behind his drifting shadows.
“Why would you assume me a klesae?” The dragon asked, looking and sounding genuinely curious, seeming to forget entirely about Spite. “Have you no idea of what one…?”
He stopped abruptly and the roiling nature of his form suddenly froze. “I could hear ye goin’ on aboot Spite, m’lad,” a husky feminine voice, strongly infused with a lilting accent, commented from behind the dragon. “And I think I could add a bit to what ye was sayin’. That Spite lass is loyalty. She is honor, and friendship, and familial love as well. And yes, she is also death ta perverted things like yar kind.”
The speaker stepped out from around the frozen dragon with the distinct clinkclinkclinkclinkclink Twilight had been hearing, and she could now see why. The griffiness was sheathed from head to hind in articulated plate armor, elegant helm fitting the subtle curves of her head and face, jointed gauntlets covering her talons and even sheathing their razor sharpness in polished steel, even chain mesh covering her wings, attached to wingblades that fit so snugly and perfectly over the hard bony ridge on the leading edge of a griffin’s wing, it was hard to tell they hadn’t been somehow melded into the bones themselves. As the griffin walked, Twilight caught a brief glimpse of an empty scabbard strapped across her back and an intricate and familiar symbol—one that resembled the cruciform that Spite had given the griffin consul to protect him—emblazoned on the armor over her chest.
“And bucko, ye might not be the spirit o’ hate an’ hunger like a klesae but…” She reached back and twisted something with vicious force. The shadow-dragon made a sound that sounded like a pained gasp and his form melted into smoky shadow, rapidly vanishing like fog before the sunlight, revealing the long, elegant sword that fit into the scabbard across the griffin’s back. “…yer made o’ the same toxic rot.” With a practiced, elegant motion, she turned the blade around and slid it soundlessly into its home before turning to look at a surprised Twilight and the other four mares.
“Well, good evenin’ m’dears,” she said, the edges of her beak lifting in a broad griffin smile. “I trust that ye are unhurt?”
“Uh, yeah.” Dawn eyed her. “And who the hay are you?”
“Lady Templar Elizabeth Rachel Drake, at your service,” the griffiness replied with an elegant bow. “Though I much prefer t’ be called either Elli or Serafine.”
“I take it that Spite asked you to follow us?” Twilight guessed.
“In a manner o’ speakin’.” Elli chuckled. “Wasn’t entirely my choice, but I find meself grateful that someone farced it upon meh. O’ course, the greatest joy is that I haven’t the slightest notion o’ who ye are, other than my charges.”
“An’ that makes ya… happy,” Applejack deadpanned.
“O’ course. It means I get ta know ye and meet ye before I know yer names,” Elli smiled again. “So if ye don’t mind…” She suddenly reached a hand up and smacked her helmet with it, producing a loud clang. “Curse me for a wanker… I forget ta tell Del that it’s safe t’ approach!”
“Ye needn’t worry, Sera, I could see it.” As one, all five mares turned around to see a griffiness, just a bit smaller than Elli and wearing a lovely cloak that appeared to be made of silk or another similar material, emerging from the doorway that led to the front of the train. Her head and chest plumage was a snowy white with a rich pattern of charcoal rings and grey splotches that continued on to her leonine hindquarters, and her brilliantly amethyst eyes, with the same jewel-like qualities as Spite’s, were alight with a gentle happiness and warmth.
“Delphine Miriam Drake,” she said with an elegant bow that precisely mirrored the one that Elli had offered, her accent milder and more lyrical than Elli’s. “A pleasure, and a delight, to meet you.”
“Sister, ah told ye to stay concealed,” Elli sighed, her tone unmistakably that of an older sister addressing a misbehaving younger. “These creatures are not kind and good like those of the Helles. Ye cannot cavort about them safely, darl.”
“And yet, sister, I remain perfectly well, without so much as a damaged feather from the tools of the Evil,” Delphine smiled tranquilly. “Come now, let us forget this and busy ourselves coming t’ know these that Kaiya would see shielded from Evil’s machinations.”
“Spite sent two of you?” Dawn looked between them. “I get that we might need a little hoof up but, seriously?”
“Spite didn’t send us, lass, though we would have happily answered her call if she had,” Delphine told her as she walked closer, her cloak swishing almost soundlessly around her. “We are here at the request of Kaiya Aon, and to fulfill a debt of honor ta her. It’s likely that Spite has no idea that we’re even here, and most regretfully, that situation shall likely persist.”
“So who are you two?” Twilight asked them as she stepped aside for Delphine to slip by and join her sister. “You’ve told us your names, but not who you are.”
“We’re sisters in arms, representin’ different orders formed with the intent o’ protectin’ the innocent and strikin’ down th’ Evils that plague our home,” Elli replied, giving Delphine a one-armed hug when she drew near. “We are also literal sisters, born t’ the same mother.”
“The Ninth Archangel, who plays th’ game on behalf of both Dark and Light, bid us come here and look after ye,” Delphine added, smiling as she nestled into her sister’s casually affectionate embrace. “So who are we? We are for now your guardians, Elements of Harmony.”