Zecora's Exodus – Accidents
It was a long way to the Silver Sands prison district. Zecora didn't even know what she would be able to do once she got there. Not only had she never been to the place, but the rumors and survivors of the zone always gave her a vivid fear which would send her heart racing. Tales of ghosts, lifetime inmates, and creatures of the deep haunted her like flies on honey. And now she needed to get there.
She had only seen soldiers on this side of the Silver Sands Valley and wondered if they had taken the town yet. If it was still free, she intended to visit Zephyr for help.
The guards that were after her now, were tactically lead on a loop trail in the woods, and would be distracted for quite some time. Crouching in a small bush, Zecora formulated her next step. She needed to know whether or not the town was overtaken by these degenerates. The old clock tower made the most sense to her; it was tall, abandoned, and was just outside of town in a tactical location. The smell of the ground filled her nose, it was cool and earthy. Her silent meditation was broken by Mystery Meat.
“Ms. Stripewood? Are you alright? You've just been laying there for a while.”
Zecora did not immediately reply to his shy question, instead sinking her head deeper into her folded hooves. She felt Mystery's own hoof being placed on her back in empathy. She didn't want his hoof on her, but was too drained to do anything.
Mystery Meat rubbed the zebra's back, concerned. With all that had happened, and her short tongue, he was sure she had gone through a lot more than he had. He could tell she was a strong willed pony, leagues stronger than he, yet here she lay, dying inside. She had just killed somepony, and her sister was missing. Mystery thought about his own life; what had he lost from this? Nothing! In fact I've gained things from this. I've never gotten so much excitement from a single event. The thought forced him to wince from guilt.
Suddenly Zecora spoke, “We need a place to recon from; to the clock tower we must come.”
The surprised inspector shook his head in compliance. The both of them looked down the hill at the valley in which the quaint town stood. The clock tower was on the side closest to them, and towered over the other buildings. It was one of the first establishments in the town.
“Do you need help getting up?” The inspector questioned awkwardly. In response, Zecora got on her hooves, and gave herself a stretch. With that, she started to gallop towards the towering tower. Mystery Meat did his best to keep up with the black and white blur.
When they got to the entrance of the tower they squinted into the darkness to make sure they weren’t being followed. Deciding the way was safe, Zecora placed her foreleg on the rotting wooden door-frame. The place had fallen into severe disrepair. Lodged sand fell out of the cracks in the door and flittered onto the half buried brick path. The creak of the rusty hinges was excruciatingly loud, but there was no one to hear it.
The dark room smelled of cigars, cheap liquor, and underage sex. Not completely abandoned. Zecora thought to herself. Mystery Meat stepped inside and immediately cut his hoof on a piece of shattered glass which was the only remnants of the lantern that had once hung above the entrance.
“Ah!” His exclamation was systematically stifled by Zecora who had noticed the glass underhoof. She also observed the rotting hay and the decrepit wooden floorboards. They were saturated with moisture and termite holes. Mystery Meat squealed in pain; Zecora held her hoof firm against his muzzle. Carefully, she extended her other hoof to brush off the glass embedded in his light blue foreleg. The door creaked shut behind them. A tear swam down the pony's cheek; it mixed with his sweat and disappeared into his coat.
The glass shimmered onto the ground. Zecora looked at the hoof. It wasn't badly wounded, but she had nothing to sterilize it with, and nothing even remotely close to a bandage. She cursed under her breath and stared at the worried expression in the inspectors face.
“Do not be set aloof; but you must be wary on your hoof.”
The pony nodded his head, and Zecora took her fist from his muzzle. He took a few seconds to force air back into his starved lungs and did his best to ignore the dulling pain in his right foreleg.
They continued on their way to the old stairwell. The light blue pony was now behind Zecora, trotting in a limp. The stairs were dark and ominous, spiraling upwards into silent blackness.
Creaking all the way up, Zecora wondered about her acquaintances in town; whether they were lying in their beds, completely unaware of the danger beside them, or in a cage heading off to the prison. If they Saddle Arabians had attacked, she hoped her mentor Kazum, and her friend Zephyr had escaped.
They could barely see anything in the swallowing noire, but there was rather nothing to see. The steeple was a vacant square box. It had tightly sealed shutters on all of its sides, forcing the moonlight out.
Mystery Meat removed one of the hooks that held the shutter in place. The wooden frame crashed down to the ground in a deafening crash. Zecora manually relaxed her face and hoped that nopony would notice the noise. The topaz pony gave her another one of his nervous smiles. She threw him a glance that could spoil milk, proceeding to push him out of the way so she could get a better look outside.
The town was mostly dead, not a single pony seemed to be awake. The buildings were a pale navy in the essence of the nighttime. There was no panic it seemed. Have they not yet invaded the village? She asked in her mind. Zecora looked out further, over the side of the bowl shaped valley. There, in the very far distance she saw a blink of orange light. She could only assume that it was another camp, on the other side of the hill. She didn't need to look out of the other windows to know what she would see. Their town was surrounded.
She had encountered this tactic in the book called “The Art for War” by Tsun Hoof, a far Eastern pony who was a legendary commander for Princess Celestia a few centuries ago. The Saddle Arabians wanted there to be no resistance when they took Silver Sands. They intended to siege them into submission through starvation. And as they would wait for ribs to start appearing, they would send those who attempted to escape, into the most terrifying place in Equis.
“Hey Zecora, I think we have a problem.” Mystery said, looking out of the tower. Zecora snapped out of her momentary to examine his concern. Five soldiers were galloping to the tower at an uncomfortable pace. They were advancing from the entrance side of the building. In other words there would be no avoiding a confrontation. Zecora wasn't sure she could take on the bulk of them; clearly Mystery Meat was more of an ancillary holding her from her goal. The guards were only about a minute away, but did not see Zecora watching them.
“We must flee; do follow me.” She whispered into Mystery's long ear. Zecora vaulted over the side of the window frame. The crisp night air cleared her lungs of the damp and moldy environment. Her hooves held firm on the ledge of the opening and no noise was made by her skillful maneuver. She avoided looking down, but she knew what would happen if she fell
The guards smashed into the building like a tsunami, the door sent hurling off of its hinges. A sharp exclamation came up from below. The broken lantern claimed another victim. Zecora started her descent, being extra careful of shaky infrastructure in the shape of loose gutters, and improperly mortared stonework.
A sloppy noise was heard from the window and she reflexively looked up, just in time to catch two rear hooves with her forehead. Her earlier trauma finally reached its threshold. She was already unconscious before breaking on the ground like a sack of sand.
Mystery looked on in utter agony, he realized what his poorly played out vault had caused. He looked down over his shoulder, still clinging on to the immovable edge. Seeing her body, he gasped; her back leg was mangled in several places, and one of her ribs broke the skin on her side. At least she isn't bleeding. He thought to himself. Then he continued to mentally bash his own brains in for such a stupid thought, there was nothing good about this.
The guards made a loud racket climbing up the stairs and rushing into the empty steeple. The realization that he would be caught if he didn't move forced him to temporarily forget the battered mare on the ground, far below him.
“'Ey! The one window is open officer!” An official sounding voice resonated from above. Mystery Meat shimmied on the ledge, and around the corner to rest under a closed shutter. The sliced foreleg, combined with the unbearable tension of his weight, forced him to pray that Celestia doesn't let his muscles fail him now. He could hear the soldier's loud breath as he looked out of the window.
“Hahahahah!” The trooper laughed, “Bitch fell. Mystery solved. Let's go down and pick'er up.”
“Zecora?”
“It's her. She'll take a moment to adjust.”
“Are you sure about this Hear?”
“No. But that is why we must do this.”
Zecora could not for the life of her open her eyes. She could only taste her mouth, and hear two oddly symmetrical, angelic, voices.
“She is now awake sister.” Hear's voice sounded.
“Zecora, we do not have long before you wake, but you must do something for the good of all of Equestria.”
The other entity spoke, “I am Taste. My sister, who is accompanying me, is Hear.” Zecora had already deducted this with her mind.
“Where you are now, you can only experience what we can give you, so listen carefully.” Hear added on.
“Your future will affect all of Galavaria, and maybe even all of Equis. It is crucial for you to make your decisions positive and influential to others. I have tasted many of your possible futures and all I can tell you is that there will be much suffering before your journey is over.” Taste said enigmatically.
Hear continued, “We can sense your mind asking many questions, but we cannot answer from out location, which is leagues away. You must seek the advice of our other sister, 'See'.”
“She lives on the tallest cliff in the Cracked Earth City. Tell the oracle there that you are the Glimpse Pilgrim. She will help you speak to See.” Taste spoke in an ethereal-like voice which echoed in a space of unimaginable proportions.
“We must release you now. But we will likely speak with you again. Best of luck, mare of destiny.” Hear's soothing sound, slowly melted away, and taking with it, the taste of her own palate.
Zecora flashed her eyes open in pain, closing them immediately. She was breathing fast and shallow, a dull throbbing coming from every inch of her body. She attempted to try to remember what had happened, but couldn't. I need to calm down. Deep breaths… Deep, breaths... Her irregular breathing wouldn't cease. Every time she tried to inhale deeply, a sharp knife plunged into her side.
Zecora made another attempt to open her eyes. Nothing happened. Her eyelids lifted, but she could see no light. Am I blind?! A wave of panic hit her. She calmed, and her breathing began to regulate when she saw a pale glimmer, barely visible in the black.
Zecora tried to move, all she got was sharp pains in her legs, and a surge of vertigo. It was so dark that there was no possible way for her to tell which way was up, left, down, or anywhere. All she could orient herself by was the cool stone floor, like a jagged coral underneath her, the tear-jerking pain in and on her body, and that calm light, just barely in her vision.
She moaned out a plea for help. It was barely audible.
“Heh heh heh. Look at that, she's coming to, Niav.” A bone grinding, gravelly voice coursed her ears.
“Don'cha move now. You're in bad shape. Jus' lay there and rest darlin'. Breathe, slowly now, gooood. If you're listenin', blink twice.” In her incapacitated state, Zecora took comfort in the powerful, yet broken, voice. She complied, whimpering as she manually moved her eyes to blink twice.
“Very good… Now, I'm going to pass you some water the way it's done down here, so don'cha get alarmed now.” Not understanding what he meant, she ignored the statement, focusing instead on the new noise: the slurping of water.
Just as unexpectedly as it began, it stopped. Now Zecora heard the other pony's hooves, clopping on the rough floor, approaching her. Zecora felt a cold, slimy, hoof touch the tip of her muzzle and lift it off of its side; her face was now facing what she believed was up. In this position, she was able to breath with a lot more ease. The other pony was currently trying to close her starved nostrils. Not contempt with breathing only out of her mouth, Zecora tried to squeeze out of her captors grasp.
He said nothing, but simply put more force behind his grip. After a few seconds of fidgeting, the wounded zebra had no more energy to resist, and just let him starve her of precious oxygen. She felt him move, and then his damp breath on her face. Before she knew what had happened he gently jammed his lips onto hers. Great, I get to get raped before I die. She thought in vain. A gentle trickle of water distracted her from this thought however, instead making her realize just how thirsty she was. Now she gladly accepted the hydration coming from the heavily calloused lips, it was almost like kissing sandpaper.
She began to slowly suffocate and her vision of the pale light started to fade. The pony closed his mouth and lifted himself off of her, letting her have a few inhales of the damp air. When her breathing slowed once again, he let her have some more of the precious life-juice. They repeated this process, until all of the water in the stranger's mouth was gone.
Zecora's eyes began to adjust to the darkness, and she attempted to look at the odd pony. It was still very hard to see, and the only glimpse she was able to catch was of a white mane, and grey pelt.
However, the water had done miracles to her dry throat and oral cavity; she was even able to choke out a few words.
“Thank you.” She paused to regain her composure and continued.
“I have . . . no view . . . may I . . . please . . . look at you?”
With her final inquisitive statement, Zecora fainted; her head once again slid to the uncomfortable rock below.
Grey hooves lifted her body with ease, and carried her away as gingerly as a mother would carry her child; their forms disappeared into the swallowing black.