//------------------------------// // Dully, the embers still glowed... // Story: Through the Fire and Flames // by DagaYemar //------------------------------// “I’m so glad you’re all right!” Cheerilee shouted, dashing over to Trixie and enfolding her in a tight hug. “Are you hurt? What did those creatures want with you?” “The big one wanted my magic, but other than that I was pretty much ignored.” Trixie replied, blinking tiredly but unable to stop looking between her friends beaming faces. “Is everypony down here? Where’s…?” “We’re right here!” Raindrops said, trotting over to the group. Ditzy slipped off her shoulder and fluttered her wings, lifting up and dropping down onto the blue unicorn. Trixie laughed and struggled to get up from her friends’ embrace. “Thank you…” she whispered, and then looked up at each of them in turn with tears in her eyes. “I mean it. I’ll always remember this. Thank you.” Lyra blushed and scuffed her hoof self-consciously in the dirt. “You act like we would have just left you or something.” “We’d never!” Carrot Top said fiercely, helping Trixie to her hooves. “Of course I know…” Trixie said softly, and then shook her head and chuckled. “Lyra, you are a wonderful musician. But the next time you have a concert in Canterlot, I think I’m going to give it a miss, alright? I haven’t had the best experiences at them.” Their laughter was cut short as the dog with the red vest shoved his way into the center of their group. “No more of this hugging and talking! We had a deal, ponies! Several of them! It is past time we got what we wanted!” “Ah… about that…” Ditzy said sheepishly. Trixie looked about her as the others traded embarrassed glances. “What? What did you promise them for their help? And why do I get the feeling that I’m not going to like it?” “Ponies promised to leave!” the dog interrupted, pointing at the far wall with a sharp jab. Several dogs had already dug open a channel leading upwards. “Is that all?” Trixie blinked. “Gladly. I can’t wait to get out of here… thank you for everything, dirt dogs.” “Dirt dogs?!” the dog shouted, every hair on his head bristling in indignation. “You insult us?!” “But I-“ Cheerilee gripped her confused friend and pulled her back. “Come now, she just met you. It’s not like she meant anything by it.” “But… wha… graah!” the dog gripped its ears and pulled them in frustration, before slouching down with his paws spread out. “Fine. Fine! Just go! Take them and go!” That last bit he barked at a number of the large armored dogs, who circled the group and prodded them in the direction of the tunnel. The six friends needed no further assistance; they were just as eager to get out of the caves and into the open air. Despite the dogs’ continual insistence for silence they talked amiably as they walked, filling each other in on the details of their adventure. “Here’s what I don’t understand,” Cheerilee said. “Why would any of the Salamanders follow this Maralith if she was always acting like that?” “I said the same thing!” Trixie laughed, drawing further growls from their hairy escort. “Grick said something about her acting different than usual, so it might just have been the pearl affecting her mind or something.” “So do you think they aren’t really bad after all?” Carrot Top asked, tilting her head questioningly. Trixie paused to think for a moment, and then shook her head firmly. “No. This Queen Medusa they were talking about sounds pretty bad and they wanted to set her free. Even without Maralith driving them I don’t think they’d be very nice.” “Salamanders are dirty, stinking thieves.” The small Diamond Dog put in. “They make nothing for themselves, just take. Diamond Dogs have fought them for as long as we remember. Filthy snakes take tunnels, Diamond Dogs drive them off, over and over and over…” “I see…” Trixie interrupted, putting a stop to that. That dog in particular had a very whinny tone of voice. “But anyway, all I did was get carried around like a sack of grain. You guys… dodging falling rocks, riding an out of control mine cart, surviving a cave-in!” “You make it sound like we planned any of that…” Raindrops trailed off, cocking her ears forward. “Hey, does anypony else hear that? Like drumming or something…” “That is what I’ve been saying, but ponies never listen!” The dog with the red vest spat, gesturing to the other dogs sharply. “In tunnels, sound carries far. Ponies are never quiet!” The two other dogs wearing vests instead of armor jumped at a spot on the floor and clawed at it ferociously. Within seconds the cloud of dust and grit had cleared, revealing a neat hole opening into a tunnel directly beneath them. Without warning the six friends were shoved through the portal and tumbled into a pile underneath it. Spitting dirt out of her mouth, Trixie climbed out of the pile and looked up. In front of her stood a double column of ponies, mostly earth ponies, all wearing the armor of the Canterlot elite. A row of eight unicorn soldiers stood in a tight clump in the middle of the column, providing light for the party. A bewildered looking Dapple Cross stood at the front, directly in front of a nervous Regal Tome and Money Penny. Bon Bon, who had proven remarkably resistant to the idea of remaining behind where it was safe, was all but climbing over the backs of the soldiers in front of her to get a better look. The two groups just stared at each other for a frozen moment in shock at the suddenness of it, but then the moment was shattered as the red-vested dog poked out of the rapidly closing hold above them. “There are your ponies! Now get out of Diamond Dogs’s tunnels!” The dog disappeared back into the ceiling with a pop and the hole closed up after him. Trixie blinked and turned back to her friends. “Wait, what exactly did you promise them?!” … “Let me get this straight.” Princess Luna said, carefully looking up from the report hovering in front of her. “There is a large, highly skilled force encamped directly underneath Canterlot in a series of unmapped tunnels of which we had no knowledge of, who think that said tunnels now belong to them?” Money Penny sifted slightly under the look her princess was giving her, but remained professional. “It appears so, although the Diamond Dogs don’t seem to want anything other than to be left alone.” Luna pondered the dilemma as she returned to the report. She had covered the distance back to Canterlot in nearly half the time it took her to reach Xenophon, straining herself to her limit and beyond. But even so, she had arrived only after the drama had completed, and everypony involved had returned to the castle. She’d come in with the full of her power at the ready, prepared to take up the fight with her sister. But instead she had found that Corona hadn’t even been present. Had the dragon been lying? It stretched coincidence that this robbery should occur simultaneously with his threat, but there just wasn’t enough information to make the connection. What was the goal? Her eyes were drawn to the top of the report, detailing the original theft in the archives. The hourglass dated back to the times of that wing’s creator, Starswirl the Bearded. Luna had never known that the hourglass was anything more than a decoration, an affection her sister kept around to remember her friend by. It was disturbing that an object of such power could have been lying around undetected for so long. We shall need to set up an investigation, to see if there’s anything else my sister had collected without my knowledge. “It is unacceptable for any force to be encamped around Canterlot,” Luna began, returning to the problem at hand, “but… it cannot be overlooked that they helped us in our time of need. They are owed a favor.” Money Penny paused in the transcript she was preparing. “Do you mean to give them the tunnels after all?” Luna shook her head. “No, that is unacceptable. But the existence of these tunnels honeycombing the mountain beneath us presents a security problem that these Diamond Dogs could be the solution to. Perhaps they would be willing to work with us. We should need a liaison to speak with them; a military mind… perhaps Dapple Cross, to make up for his behavior in the crisis…” “Dapple was just doing what he thought was best!” Money said quickly, then clamped her mouth shut as she realized she’d just snapped at the princess. Luna blinked and turned her attention fully upon her secretary. Money Penny was allowed a little freedom with her suggestions, as the princess had found she had a solid head on her shoulders, but this was the first time the white mare had talked back at her like that. Money Penny started blushing furiously and buried her face in her scroll. “I mean… I only meant that he didn’t have all the information we do now. He was just doing what he thought was… best.” Luna smiled softly and turned back to her paperwork, to save her secretary any further embarrassment. “Very well, but he is still the best pony for the job. He might impress the Diamond Dogs with his attitude. If they fight as well as the record says, I would prefer they fight with us instead of against.” Especially now. Right now, we cannot afford to have our attentions split. Luna’s eyes drifted up to an open window in the ceiling above her, and her thoughts turned to her sister. Wherever she may be… … “Well, that wass jusst horrible.” Ravid complained for the thirty-seventh time. Behir kept count. What is it going to be this time? Even odds she’ll claim I didn’t do my part properly. Odds are one in four she goes off again about how she’s next in line to lead. Two in seven she curses that grey pony that smashed her in the face, but that’s what she complained about the thirty-sixth time, so bad betting there. One in eleven for bemoaning how tired she is of travelling… “Why didn’t anyone think to try and recover the pearl before we left?” Ravid continued, oblivious to Behir’s mental gambling. …and a rogue outlier takes the winnings. “Magical as the artifact wass, it wass sstill just a fragile gem.” Behir tried to explain. “Without our natural protection, the lava ssurely would have desstroyed it.” “You could have at leasst tried! Ass the new leader of the nesst, it was mine by right. Aren’t we almost there, I’m tired and need to resst…” Behir wondered idly if he’d ground his teeth enough to make them as flat as a pony’s yet. Two days of this! But nearly over, if I can just weather a few more minutes… His thoughts were derailed as one of the soldiers he’d sent ahead slithered around the bend and bore down upon them quickly. “Ssir.” Grick said, halting before the two of them. “There’ss a problem.” “What iss it now?” Ravid whined. “And you sshould give your report to me, not him!” “Go on.” Behir urged in a tight voice, ignoring his companion for the moment. Grick looked uncertain, and then decided the safest bet was to address the space between them. “I traveled right up to the edge of the colony, but there were no guardss at the entrancess. And… I could ssee ssunlight pouring out from the entrance.” Behir blinked at the news, then broke out of his shock and shot off down the tunnel. He heard Ravid and the rest of his forces struggling to follow, but none of them managed to catch up to him before he reached their ancestral cave. He blew past the old doors and pulled up short in horror at the opening to the great open space in the middle of their home. The sunlight wasn’t coming from a hole in the ceiling of the cave. Indeed, the sky through the gaping crater about them showed a starry night. “Ah… I have been expecting you.” Dimly he was aware of the others piling into the arena behind him, but Behir only had eyes for the painfully bright alicorn lounging on a large stone dais in the center of his home. Even in his horror, his mind gathered in all the other little details automatically. The frightened salamanders peering out fearfully from their private caves scattered around the bowl of the cavern. Several great holes that had been smashed through the walls randomly, as if a great beast had rampaged in and out of them. The shambles of the royal abode that Maralith had lived in behind the podium. A scattering of bodies that must have been the few soldiers left behind to guard the colony. All of this he took in, but the sheer enormity of that dais arrested his attention like iron to a magnet. “What have you done?” he whispered. He would have sworn the salamanders next to him couldn’t have made out what he said, but Corona fixed her gaze on him. “Oh, dost thou meanest this?” she asked, kicking aside a broken piece of rubble with her foreleg. Corona was standing in the shattered remains of what had been the petrified statue of Queen Medusa. “I had no intention of allowing you to use the power of the Hourglass to return your Matron to life. I knew telling you of the artifact’s properties would stir you into action, but its powers were for my use and mine alone. With it, I would have returned to my former glory in an instant. But instead I find that you are incapable of recovering the Hourglass at all. It seems I have gotten ahead of myself for nothing.” The alicorn stamped her hoof down sharply on a chunk still in the shape of a claw and ground it into slivers. Most of the salamanders around Behir, Ravid included, hissed as if struck at the action. But Behir could sense that this was only a show, and the other talon was about to descend. “Fortunately,” Corona continued, “I have need of any allies I can find, at the moment. I can always expunge the rest of you once you no longer serve any useful purpose. But I am a fair Queen, and I will offer to you the option of choice. “Serve me of your own free will, or you may address my companion.” She turned her attention to their left and Behir followed her gaze, already dreading what was coming. But even his darkest fears didn’t prepare him for the sight of a great red dragon looming suddenly out of the nearest ruin in the cavern. No… it is HIM! Suddenly, Behir was very conscious of his golden skullcap and bracelets. Around him the other salamanders were shaking like leaves and Ravid was actually crying. “Hello, little thieves.” The great dragon breathed, moving ever closer to the huddled mass. “It’s taken a long time, but we finally meet. Are you prepared to pay for what you have taken, little thieves?” At this moment time seemed to slow for Behir. In his mind’s eye the possible futures spread out before him, though there were woefully few of them, and somehow he knew the entire fate of his race hinged on this moment. So Behir did what he did best; he weighed his options and made a choice. In an instant he turned to face the blazing alicorn and threw himself prostrate on the floor. Keeping his face pressed to the floor, he still managed to roll his eyes enough to watch what was happening around him. All the other soldiers were falling to the ground as well, hurrying to follow his example. Ravid’s eyes were still streaming, but a look of rage and humiliation had suffused the fear in her features. A soft hiss slowly built up from the caves around the cavern as the other salamanders saw their army submitting. On the dais, Corona smiled in triumph. “You have chosen wisely. Leave them be, Solrath. They are no longer thy prey.” Outrage flashed across the dragon’s great face like quicksilver and he whipped his head towards the alicorn savagely. “What did you call me?” he growled dangerously. “My name is Solrathicarnon!” “And thou failed to delay my sister for more than ten minutes.” Corona countered, not impressed in the least. “Perhaps thou canst earn back the rest of thy name, Solrath, if thou canst prove I have not underestimated thee as well.” The two titanic forces glared at each other for a full minute, but it was the dragon that turned away first. The newly christened Solrath barred his fangs over the cowering salamanders before disappearing into the hole again. The sound of breaking stone boomed out after him as he vented his rage. And Corona laughed, a great echoing laugh that drove shivers deep into Behir’s bones. What have I gotten us into? he thought, but for once he couldn’t come up with an answer. All he could hear in his mind was the deep echo of that laugh…