//------------------------------//
// Going North 
// Story: Demon Heart 
// by SoulboundAlchemist 
//------------------------------//


3
Going North

Dusk Shine was the only pony on the platform, but no other sight could have made Nyx’s heart beat faster. He had obviously spent the night in the station, sleeping on one of the chairs. He wore nothing, and he was shivering with his arms folded over his chest as he leaned against the train. His cloak was probably still damp from last night’s rain, but his mane was dry now – a ruffled purple mop, with shades of violet and pink running through the middle.
Twilight swore under her breath as she slowed to a stop in front of Dusk.
Smiling his strange smile, Dusk righted himself on all fours. “Where are you going in such a hurry, Silvertongue? Didn’t we have a date?” he asked. “You stood me up like this before, remember?”
“You know I’m in a hurry,” replied Twilight. “For the same reason as last time.” She was still standing in the entrance of the station, looking tense, as if she couldn’t wait for Dusk Shine to leave. But Dusk pretended not to notice Twilight’s impatience.
“Then may I know where you’re going?” he inquired. “It took me four years to find you last time, and if luck hadn’t been on your side Blackfire’s stallions would have got to you first.” When he glanced at Nyx she stared back icily.
Twilight was silent for a while. “Blackfire is in the south,” she answered at last. “So we’re going north. Or has she taken up residence somewhere else now?”
Dusk looked down the tracks. Last night’s rain shone on the polished tracks. “No, no,” he said. “No, she’s still in the south. Or so I hear, and since you’ve obviously made up your mind to go on refusing her what she wants, I’d better go north myself as fast as I can. Faust knows I don’t want to be the one to give Blackfire’s stallions the bad news. So, if you’d be so kind as to allow me to accompany you part of the way? ... I’m ready to leave.” The saddle bags he levitated from the platform looked as if they’d been all around the world a dozen times. Apart from the bags, Dusk had nothing but his wet cloak with him.
Nyx compressed her lips.
‘No, mom,’ she thought. ‘No, let’s not take him!’ But she only had to look at her mother to know that her answer would be different.
“Oh, come on, Silvertongue!” said Dusk. “What am I going to tell Blackfire’s stallions if I fall into their hooves?”
He looked lost, standing there like a stray dog. And hard as Nyx tried to see something sinister about him, she couldn’t, not in the pale morning light. All the same, she didn’t want him to go with them. Her face showed that very clearly, but neither of the two purple unicorns took any notice of her.
“Believe me, I couldn’t keep the fact that I’ve seen you from them for very long,” Dusk continued. “And anyway…” – he hesitated before completing his sentence – “you still owe me, don’t you?”
Twilight bowed her head. “If you want to look at it like that,” she said, “yes, I suppose I do still owe you.”
The relief was plain to see on Dusk’s face. He quickly levitated his saddle bags and went over to the train door with his bags.
“Wait a minute!” cried Nyx as Twilight moved to help the stallion. “If he’s coming with us then I want to know why we’re running away. Who is this mare called Blackfire?”
Twilight turned to her. “Nyx,” she began in the tone she knew only too well: ‘Nyx, don’t be silly’, it meant. ‘Come along now Nyx’.
Her horn glowed as she cast a forcefield spell, blocking her from her mother.
“Nyx, for Celestia’s sake! Lower that forcefield! We have to leave!”
“I’m not lowering this forcefield until you tell me.”
Twilight’s horn glowed as she attempted a counter spell but Nyx cast another spell, encasing Twilight’s horn in a magic absorbing forcefield.
“Why won’t you tell me?” she cried.
The platform was deserted, as if there were no other ponies in the world. A slight breeze had risen, caressing Nyx’s face and rustling in the leaves of the oak tree that grew by the tracks. The sky was still wan and grey and refused to clear.
“I want to know what’s going on!” cried Nyx. “I want to know why we had to get up at five o’clock and why I don’t have to go to school. I want to know if we’re ever coming back, and I want to know who this Blackfire is!” When she spoke the name Twilight looked around d as if the mare with the strange name, the mare she and Dusk obviously feared so much, might step up onto the platform. But the station was empty, and Nyx was too furious to feel frightened of someone when she knew nothing about her other than her name. “You’ve always told me everything!” she shouted at her mother. “Always.”
But Twilight was still silent. “Everypony has a few secrets, Nyx,” she said at last. “Now, please lower the forcefield. We have to leave.”
Dusk looked first at Twilight, then at Nyx with an expression of incredulity on his face. “You haven’t told her?” Nyx heard him ask in a low voice.
Twilight shook her head.
“But you have to tell her something! It’s dangerous for her not to know. She’s not a foal anymore.”
“It’s dangerous to know, too,” said Twilight. “And it wouldn’t change anything.”
Nyx was still standing behind her forcefield.
“I heard all that!” she cried. “What’s dangerous? I’m not lowering this forcefield until you tell me.”
Twilight still said nothing.
Dusk looked at her, uncertain for a moment, then put down his bags. “Fine,” he said. “Then I’ll tell her about Blackfire myself.”
He came slowly towards Nyx, who involuntarily stepped back.
“You met her once,” said Dusk. “It’s a long time ago, you won’t remember.” He cast a knowing glance at Twilight. “How can I explain what she’s like? If you were to see a cat eating a young bird I expect you’d cry, wouldn’t you? Or try to help the bird. Blackfire would feed the bird to the cat on purpose, just to watch it being torn apart, and the little creature’s screeching would be as sweet as honey to him.”
Nyx took another step backward taking the forcefield with her, but Dusk kept advancing toward her.
“I don’t suppose you’d get any fun from terrifying ponies until their knees were so weak they could hardly stand?” he asked. “Nothing gives Blackfire more pleasure. And I don’t suppose you think you can just help yourself to anything you want, never mind what or where. Blackfire does. Unfortunately, your mother has something Blackfire has set her heart on.”
Nyx glanced at Twilight, but she just stood there looking at her.
“Blackfire can’t look after books the way your mother can,” Dusk wet on. “In fact, she’s not much good at anything except terrifying ponies. But she’s a master of that art. It’s her whole life. I doubt if she herself has any idea what it’s like to be so paralyzed by fear that you feel small and insignificant. But she knows just how to arouse that fear and spread it, in pony’s homes and their beds, in their heads and their hearts. Her stallions spread fear abroad like the Black Death, they push it under doors and through mailboxes, they paint it on walls and stable doors until it infects everything around it of its own accord, silent and stinking like a plague.” Dusk was very close to Nyx now. “Blackfire has many stallions,” he said softly. “Most have been with her since they were foals, and if Blackfire were to order one of them to cut off your horn or one of your wings he’d do it without batting an eyelash. They like to dye their coats black like crows – only their leader has white one her legs and wings – and should you ever meet any of them then make yourself small, very small, and hope they don’t notice you. Understand?”
Nyx nodded. Her heart was pounding so hard she could scarcely breathe.
“I can see why your mother has never told you about Blackfire,” said Dusk, looking at Twilight. “If I had foals I’d rather tell them about nice ponies too.”
“I know the world’s not just full of nice ponies!” Nyx couldn’t keep her voice from shaking with anger and more than a touch of fear.
“Oh yes? How do you know that?” There it was again, that mysterious smile, sad and supercilious at the same time. “Have you ever had anything to do with a true villain.
“I’ve read about them.”
Dusk laughed aloud. “Yes, of course that almost comes to the same thing!” he said. His mockery hurt like stinging nettles. He bent down to Nyx and looked her in the eye. “All the same, I hope reading about them is as close as you ever get,” he said quietly.
Twilight was stowing Dusk’s bags in the train. “I hope there’s nothing in there that might come flying around our heads,” she said as Dusk boarded the train behind Nyx. “With your trade I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Before Nyx could ask what trade that was, Dusk opened his saddlebag and carefully lifted out an animal. It was blinking sleepily. “Since we obviously have quite a long journey ahead of us,” he told Twilight, “I’d like to introduce someone to your daughter.”
The creature was almost the size of a rabbit, but much thinner, with a bushy tail now draped over Dusk’s neck like a fur collar. It dug its slender claws into his purple back while inspecting Nyx with its gleaming beady black eyes, and when it yawned it bared teeth as sharp as needles.
“This is Gwin,” said Dusk. “You can tickle him behind the ears if you like. He’s very sleepy at the moment, so he won’t bite.”
“Does he usually?” asked Nyx.
“Yes,” said Twilight, settling in next to her daughter. ‘If I were you I’d keep my hooves away from that little brute.”
But Nyx, like Fluttershy, couldn’t keep her hooves off any animal, however sharp its teeth. “He’s a marten or something like that, right?” she asked.
“Something of that nature.” Dusk used his magic to pull a piece of dry bread out of his bag and gave it to Gwin. Nyx stroked his little head as he chewed – and her hoof found something hard under the silky fur: tiny horns growing beside his ears. Surprised, she took her hand away. “Do martens have horns?”
Dusk winked at her and levitated Gwin back into his saddlebags. “This one does,” He said.
Bewildered, Nyx watched him settle into his seat across the aisle. She felt as if she were still touching Gwin’s little horns. “Mom, did you know that martens have horns?” she asked.
“Oh, Dusk stuck them on that sharp-toothed little nightmare of his. For his performances.”
“What kind of performances?” Nyx looked inquiringly first at Twilight, then at Dusk, but Twilight just pulled out a book and Dusk, who seemed to have come far, judging by his bags, stretched out on his seat with a deep sigh. “Don’t give me away, Silvertongue,” he said before he closed his eyes. “I have my own secrets, you know. And for those I need darkness.”

***

The train must have traveled fifty kilometers, and Nyx was still trying to figure out what he could possibly have meant.
“Mom?” she asked, when Dusk began snoring across from them. “What does this Blackfire want from you?” she lowered her voice before she spoke the name, as if that might remove some of the menace from it.
“A book,” replied Twilight, without looking up from her book.
“A book? Then why not give it to her?”
“I can’t. I’ll explain soon, but not now, all right?”
Nyx looked out of the train window. The world they were passing outside already looked unfamiliar – unfamiliar houses, unfamiliar roads, unfamiliar fields, even the trees and the sky looked unfamiliar – but Nyx was used to that. Whenever they had gone to visit her grandparents, she never felt at home. On those occasions, Twilight was her home, Twilight and her books.
“This friend we’re going to see,” she said, as the train passed through an endless tunnel. “Does he have any children?”
“No,” said Twilight, “and I’m afraid he doesn’t really have time for children unless they need his help. But as I said, I’m sure you’ll get along well with him.”
Nyx sighed. She could remember several friends, and, with the exception of Twilight’s Ponyville friends, she hadn’t gotten along particularly well with any of them.
They were traveling through mountains now, the slopes on both sides of the track rose ever more steeply, and there came a point where the houses looked not just unfamiliar but really different. Nyx tried to pass the time by counting tunnels, but when the ninth swallowed them up and the darkness went on and on she fell asleep. She dreamed of martens with jet black fur and a book wrapped in violet protective spells.