//------------------------------// // I Cried Out, and the Stars Aided Me // Story: Great Heart Will Not Be Denied // by Cynewulf //------------------------------// I Cried Out, and the Stars Aided Me Edited by the Learned Loremaster of Firearms--he Necromancer formerly known as Lonelybrony, and Randomguy He Who Refuses to Erect a Pretty Moon Princess Temple She heard them over the rain as she shivered in the tunnel. “Lone unicorn? Armed?” “Possibly. But I don’t think it’ll matter. I mean, she’s just one soft unicorn. You think she could even load a gun or use a spear? Her magic won’t be enough.” “How does he even know she’s in the city?” “D’Jalin knows stuff, you know that. He just... knows.” It didn’t surprise her that D’Jalin knew so much about her, but it was still worrisome. Twilight had told her about D’Jalin a long time ago, before she and Rainbow had left on their fateful trip. He was the Mad God King, an exiled Zebra shaman who’d made a name for himself by tearing a nation apart and making the sands run with blood. Twilight’s husband, Macintosh, had come back from there with a hollow expression. She feared for Rainbow Dash in that madzebra’s clutches. But Twilight had told her that he did that. He knew things. Things that were impossible for him to know, and yet he would rattle them off like a filly who’d learned her lesson. Secret bits of lore that no zebra knew, he knew. Where ponies and zebras would be and why, he knew. Forces that received orders directly from him in the sand dunes had been invincible, fading into the wild and appearing everywhere, striking with terrifying speed and force. He cowed conquered towns with a dance and ritual of blood and self-laceration, crying with alien joy to the heavens as he called down curses on his enemies. But he had lost, and in the last battle, D’Jalin had vanished. And now he’s here, to trouble the dead and the living once more, Rarity thought sourly. Rarity was miserable. She was cold, wet, and in pain. She had untreated cuts all over, and they needed to be washed. Her pack’s strap was wearing against her coat and digging into her skin. She needed rest, and there was nothing for it. But first, she needed to find an area not staked out by D’Jalin’s army. It had proved harder than she’d hoped to find an abandoned district. The Zebra’s mercenaries had spread themselves far and with great effectiveness, leaving no neighborhood so far away from a patrol that it was safe. Rarity bit her lip, and waited. She had rested her hooves long enough. She was sure they’d not hear her over the rain, but this passageway led right under the window, and she refused to take the chance. “Now, you heard about the pegasus?” She closed her eyes and drew in a breath. Her plans to move vanished. “Yeah,” the rougher of the two voices responded, “a little. She’s important?” “In with Royalty, Knight of Celestia or somethin’. Big shot. Won’t let anypony touch her, and not ‘cause he’s keepin’ her for ‘imself either.” “Damn shame. Saw her once. Beautiful.” Rarity wanted her gun. She wanted it so very, very badly. It had one shot but she could manage. Just float it up to the window... “I’d like a piece of her too! Heh, but we make do. Steel Breaker is back from raiding up north, around Maldiz. Hearsay is that he’s got a dozen mares in his train.” “Gold, you’re pullin’ my leg. Nah?” She couldn’t take it anymore. She moved on, grinding her teeth. Rarity desperately needed shelter. The alleyways were safe from the Nameless because of their small size, but she knew nothing of the kind about the little tunnels under the streets. In fact, Branch had been rather insistent that she do her best to avoid them at all cost. She could feel eyes on her again, and with every passing moment the sensation of being watched grew more intense. Besides that, the rain was picking up, and she had no doubt that the water would be too high for her soon. It didn’t help that the light in the tunnels came only from the small magical light she provided. Aside from her arcane torch, darkness clung to the walls and danced on the shifting face of the water. She’d not heard any patrols in some time, but it was also late. It is possible, Rarity, that they could have just... gone to sleep. Regardless, she needed to leave. Before... something found her. She knew something would. The Nameless, perhaps, or some other thing even worse that stayed below in the city’s bowels. Root and Branch’s entire village had feared this place, and Rarity was learning to fear it too. Their superstition seemed only prudent. But caution had not yet abandoned her. She took a deep breath, and carefully removed the metal covering the entrance hole, forcing it up into the air. She laid it aside, and only released her breath when it was quietly out of the way. Then, with some effort, she maneuvered her pack through the opening with magic, and then finally herself. As soon as she had the pack on her back, she hurriedly replaced the metal covering. Her breathing was short, and her hooves trembled. It wasn’t the patrols she feared. But no Nameless came for her. With her work done, she vanished into the side streets. Now, to pick a house. Going out into the street again would probably not be too risky, but she simply wouldn’t do it. Not with the possibility of an encounter with the long Nameless hanging over her head. So she had three choices. “Does it really even matter, Rarity? We’re out in the open at last,” she whispered, and remembered how wet she was. Rarity shivered in the cold. Could she make a fire? She supposed that there must be something flammable in the houses, but she’d have to risk falling asleep inside. But there was nothing for it. She couldn’t sleep like this, or else she’d be useless and sick in the morning. She had to stay healthy for Rainbow. She picked one of the available doors at random and slipped into a grand old house by the side entrance. She came out in the kitchen, and was pleased to find that it was undisturbed. Good. That bodes well! I’m sure if those ruffians had moved in for the night this place would be a mess. It still surprised her, how normal this place could seem. The little island and the counter could be from Canterlot. A lonely pitcher sat on the counter, abandoned in the rush to escape the cataclysm. It could have all been an old Canterlot mansion, really. The oven was obviously old, but some ponies preferred more traditional or magical preparation even in the modern day. She paused by the oven. This would actually be a splendid place for a fire. Carefully, she eased the pack off her back and winced. Under her coat, it had rubbed her raw. But she had no choice. She needed it. Rarity found the gun and pulled it out, eyeing it. “What a piece you are,” she whispered into the stormy night. It filled her with a kind of terror that she liked. The Griffon weapon was old, beautiful, crafted by expert smiths a generation ago at most. It was a study in overwhelming force, and on the outside it had a facade of grace. Her cold, wet state drew her back into the present. Sighing, Rarity found a stool in the kitchen and took it apart with her magic, flinging the parts into the oven’s firepit for fuel. Figuring it would be enough, she pictured the old diagrams she’d learned in school and cast a tiny tongue of blue fire. The stool went up in flames. It looks like the spells that kept this place intact don’t protect it from flame, she thought, taking note. She huddled by the open oven door, enjoying the warmth. Magnificent. The fire was not large or impressive, but it served her needs. Already, she could feel the chill leaving her. Rarity dug out her tarp and used it as a blanket, spreading it out beside her makeshift campfire. It would be fine, sleeping in the house. For one night, at least, it would be fine. Root and Branch had said not to, but surely one night wouldn’t make any difference. She would be fine. She loved her fire. She could pretend that the eyes that she’d felt on her since she crossed over into Jannah slowly receding. Yes, she could stay here for a long time. She looked back at the gun. She had intended to check the rooms, but the urgency of the precaution had left her. What a fine weapon it was. What craftsmanship! And to think that she could simply pull it up... like so, and point... and suddenly the world was changed. What a marvelous invention, that could hold power in such an elegant frame! All one had to do was wield this beauty, and the nasty faces and the leering, hard eyes of those guards would fall and be downcast and terrified. She could feel the hypothetical fear in the air like a timberwolf, and she liked it. Power, what every Lady treasured as a commodity. Power flowing from the mouth of this Griffon artifact. Rarity yawned, and laid the gun at her hooves. She continued to stare at it, her eyes tracing over every detail. She wondered what Rainbow was doing, up in the Citadel. Was she struggling to get free? Perhaps right now, she was bound in chains with her wings behind her back... Not Rainbow. She sighed. Not my Rainbow. She wouldn’t let them pin her wings back. She’d kill them before that, or die herself. Or escape. But she would still be trapped, and with no one to help her. Rarity felt suddenly powerless again, and no gun could help. She wanted to cry, and a Lady’s keeping of a stiff upper lip be damned. She was wet. She was cold. She simply could not be expected to do this. She wanted Rainbow back. Rarity buried her face in her hooves, the gun near her horn, and cried. The warmth of the fire did nothing for her mood. Rarity knew she was dreaming. She knew that this was a dream because Rainbow Dash was performing a Sonic Rainboom, her signature move. Young Flyer’s Competition. Oh, yes. She was falling. She’d forgotten. Rarity opened her mouth and screamed. Clouds raced by. Her heart was hammering in her throat, and she flailed. Her hooves made contact with something, and she heard a sickening crack. There, above her, were the still forms of the Wonderbolts. Out cold. She was still screaming, and now she knew there was no help coming at all. She’d probably doomed her only help. But there was Rainbow. Perhaps that was the moment that Rarity first saw her. Rainbow’s face tense with determination, her eyes hard, her mane flowing back, her hooves outstretched. She was about to cry out again for Rainbow, but then the world was cast in color and she felt hooves lift her up. The alicorn was kind of new, though. As Rainbow bore her up to safety, she saw the alicorn following closely. The newcomer was beautiful, with a coat of molten gold and a mane like the sun. And then suddenly, Rainbow and the Wonderbolts were gone, and she was soaring up on wings of her own. “Rainbow!” Rarity looked everywhere, panicked. Where was Rainbow? What was this? Yet she didn’t waver from her ascension. The alicorn and she kept the same pace sunwards, and then... Rarity had always been a heavy sleeper, and she didn’t wake until it was on her back. She screamed into the night. The fire was out, and she could feel something equine on her, his hooves trying to pin her down. Rarity felt a hot, rancid breath on her cheek and she screamed again. She thrashed, but her attacker was too strong. She could feel him crushing her, pinning her to the ground. He was yelling something, but she wasn’t paying attention. She reached out with her magic and found the gun right in front of her. He hadn’t seen it in the dark. She turned it around, pressed her cheek against the cold floor, and fired. It was like a cannon right beside her head, shattering her ear drums. She could feel heat and something wet as the fire briefly illuminated the kitchen. The top of her head felt hot, like it was on fire. Her attacker was male—she could hear him screaming. He rolled off, and she heard him rolling and crying in the dark. She kicked at him, screaming again, trying to put as much distance between her attacker and herself as she could. She thought she heard something else, but the dying stallion’s last cries covered it up. She covered her ears and tried to feel for her pack. Where was she? The flash had ruined her night vision. Her face was wet. His spit? His blood? Oh. Oh gods... Rarity shook violently, and touched her hoof to her face. She summoned up her little magical light, but it winked in and out with her convulsions of horror. The hoof was smeared with blood. Crimson stained the off-white of her coat. The light went out. She scrambled away from the body, hyperventilating and fighting the urge to retch. He was all over her, on her coat, in her mane! He was dead over there, she knew it. The light stayed dead. She couldn’t see him. She wouldn’t. He was probably torn to shreds, the way the captain had described the “buckshot”... Rarity crawled a bit and vomited. It was then that the other hoof came down. She felt something on her again, and before she could stop them, she’d been thrown against the hard wall. Somepony shone a light in her eyes and blinded her. “Gods, look what she did to ‘im! Got his—” “Do I look like I care? Just hold on to that gun!” The stallion who had her against the wall was doing something. She tried to look, but she put a hoof behind her head and she was stuck. It didn’t matter anyway. Rarity felt something cold touch her horn. Something iron. “No!” She really struggled now, kicking at this stallion. He grunted as she made contact, but Rarity had no leverage and the inhibitor ring slipped over her horn. It was like an amputation. The warm magic background radiation of her world was gone. She couldn’t even feel her horn anymore. The stallion laughed, and she had never hated anyone or anything more than she hated him at that moment. Him and his disgusting laugh. “She’s safe. What was that? Lemme see it.” Movement behind her, and a low whistle. Sound bounced all around the stone walls of the kitchen, confusing her. The one holding her spoke. “Gods, lookit! Where’d ye get such a thing?” Rarity refused to answer. She didn’t see it coming, with the inhibitor leaving her feeling numb and her eyes to the wall. She didn’t even hear his hoof whistling through the air before she felt it on the back of her head. Her face was crushed against the wall, and she went limp. She tried to open her eyes all the way, but her head pounded and she closed them again. Rarity groaned. “Ah, doesn’t matter. Looks like we found her! Didn’t even have to try.” “Nope! Description was... pretty accurate. Let ‘er loose, I ain’t seen her yet.” She felt the pressure on her back evaporate and then the floor coming up to greet her as if she were a thousand miles away. The sound of her own body hitting the floor was like a distant muffled drum. Rarity tried to focus on the mercenaries, but when she saw blood beside her... she knew she’d be out before long. She was done for. No magic, no gun, bleeding all over the ancient house. Alone, with Rainbow far away. I’ll join her in her imprisonment, at least. The two mercenaries were earth ponies decked out in black chainmail. The one who’d actually grabbed her was the taller one, dark red with a golden mane and for an absurd moment, her mind thought he was Big Macintosh. The thought made her want to cry. The other stallion was smaller, with a strange gun of his own mounted on his saddle, and a small bit with what she assumed was a trigger. The Captain on the way over had called it a rifle, she remembered. A battle saddle, he’d said with a grin. They both got their eyeful, as if they were trying to convince themselves that this was the pony who had killed their associate. An unpleasant smile slowly blossomed on the face of the larger stallion, and it made her feel exposed and dirty. “Been a long time. Since we been back to the Acropolis,” he announced. His partner, surprised out of a reverie, caught the idea rather quickly. “Long while.” “They got some more mares in, I hear.” “That’s far away, though.” Realization at last dawned on her. Rarity tried to to rise to her hooves to back away or get the ring off or anything. Not that. Anything, anything at all, but that. They laughed at her as the smaller stallion circled around to the only other door. There was nowhere for her to run, not anymore. Slowly, they closed in, and Rarity’s terror boiled over at last into fury. She would show them. If they thought they would turn her into their plaything, they would experience a rather rude awakening. It was as if all the long line of her defunct house rose up in her at once. She felt like she was on fire. At the moment, I’m thinking a horn where it shouldn’t be, you... No time for thinking. She was moving, charging the smaller stallion right in front of her. His laughter died on his tongue, and his mouth was still open as two things happened at once. First, Rarity’s horn bent the chainmail on his shoulder inwards with such force that it snapped, and her horn pierced the flesh at an awkward angle. He howled. The second was that the door behind him exploded inwards and a third stallion jumped on his back with a roar. The newcomer, the smaller mercenary, and Rarity rolled on the floor in a heap. Rarity managed to slip away, her head aching from the primal charge, and to her joy she found that the inhibitor was halfway off. She pushed at it with her hooves while the other mercenary shouted. It was off! When she turned to face him, the larger mercenary was hooflocked with none other than Branch, the earth pony guide she’d left behind at the Wall. She called out to him. “Branch! Duck!” He obeyed immediately, leaving his attacker confused and off balance. Rarity picked up the pitcher she’d seen earlier with her renewed magic and swung it at the villain’s face with as much force as she could muster. He sputtered and went down, behind the counter and out of sight. Her vision in the dark had always been poor; she couldn’t see a thing. Rarity summoned magical light that sat on the edge of her horn. The smaller mercenary lay still, the destroyed door on top of him. Root was beside him, panting. Branch trotted out of the shadows, a scar over his eye but otherwise fine. It was Branch that spoke with a smile. “We couldn’t leave ye, mila—” She didn’t let him finish. She was on him, hugging him, sobbing into his shoulder. He looked over to his brother with a perplexed look and shook his head. “So... that feeling I’ve had all this time, that I was being watched?” “I suppose could be us, aye. Mares have intuition ‘bout such things, least m’goodwife says it’s the truth. I think perhaps it were us, but it could just be the place,” Branch explained. “Bad place,” his brother agreed between bites of bread. They’d brought her things up themselves, and offered her bread and some watered wine for her trouble. She’d accepted gratefully, and let them do most of the talking. From the rooftop, she gained a good view of the Acropolis. The brothers were sure they’d be able to sneak in before the next evening, and she had rejoiced. Or tried to. Whenever joy at seeing Rainbow again flourished, she would hear that rattling whine and the booming sound of gunfire right beside her face. She wouldn’t touch it again. She would rather die; there were things worse than death. At any rate, she feared it more than the mercenaries would now, and attempting to use it would only get her into a confrontation she was sure to lose. So when they had been busy helping her, she’d thrown the gun into the drains. It was an empty gesture, really. A quick inventory had uncovered a severe lack of ammunition for the weapon, with only two more shells surviving the water. But she couldn’t bear to keep it even as a tool to bluff with. It scared her. “But we didn’t make it very far, if ye ken. Honest, we didn’t.” “Felt awful,” Root chimed in. “Yes. And I’m glad we turned around and found you!” She sighed and laid down, looking out over the city. “How did you find me, anyhow? I’m a little worried about that.” “Smoke. Went up yon chimney and called us from afar. I assume that ye lit a blaze, aye?” She nodded. “That’s how. We’d all but lost ye before that.” “Glad we didn’t.” “I’m glad you found me as well, gentlecolts. I bore you no ill-will before, and even if I did, ‘twould be all fair between us now. I can’t thank you enough for your bravery.” Branch smiled, a little embarrassed. “Thankya, it were nothin’.” “I’d say it was a lot of somethi’s. They all hurt,” whined his brother. Rarity smiled softly as that remark began a silly round of play-argument. She looked back at the city. A dead city, like a wide graveyard, with the acropolis like some sort of grandiose mausoleum at the center of it all. Only it held the living, and not the dead. Specifically, it held Rainbow Dash in some cell. With adrenaline gone, she felt exhaustion take over once more. She needed rest for tomorrow; it was the day of Rainbow’s deliverance. Or at least, she hoped. Rarity shivered. She could still feel eyes on her, but now she rested easier. The colts would keep her safe. It’s just the city, I suppose. It’s getting to me, with its creepy atmosphere. The city waited as she fell asleep again.