“Ungh!” Belle grunted as she was shoved towards the edge of the Steel Wing’s starboard side. Her eyes were still coming into focus from so much prolonged isolation in the dark. Only when she stood before the ship’s railing did she finally capture the landscape in all its glory.
A bitter chilled tundra stretched beneath her. Pale blue and green grass loomed beneath sheets of permafrost. Sticking out of the wide-stretching plains, a shattered mesa lay in two shattered pieces, as if cracked down the center. Built into the fissure of the two halves of the miniature plateau, several tall concrete buildings stretched for the sky. Multiple platforms with decrepit mana turrets lay on the southern and eastern faces of the structures, their rusted machinery overrun with vines and moss.
“Everything is a graveyard, dear doctor.”
Belle jerked, glancing to her side. Shivering.
Past a line of enforcers standing at attention, Shell limped into view. The first thing the mare saw was the glint of the sunlight off the horn necklace rattling beneath his fuzzy chin.
“From former bastions against our enemies to the chambers where we hold our hearts,” he muttered into the icy breeze. “Life is full of strategic retreats, and all we have to return to is decay.” He tilted until his good eye rested on Belle’s figure. “Even if all you do is flee towards one horizon, the past has a way of catching up to you, exhuming old wounds.”
Belle took a deep breath before eventually muttering, “Leave it to you to know the heart of a coward.”
“A pony with nothing to lose has nothing to fear.” He drifted forward until she could smell his rancid breath. “You and I have that in common now. Do we not?”
Belle avoided his gaze. Her tail twitched, struggling to conceal the sound stone in her possession.
“But you and I are going to bring something back,” Shell said in a breathy tone. “The scabs of this war won’t stay concrete forever, not so long as you and I have gifts to share.”
“Sequencing won’t bring her back, Shell,” Belle said. “If it’s closure that you seek--”
“The target remains at large,” Shell said. “I’ll know no closure until she does.”
Belle’s lips pursed. “But I thought you said--”
“Don’t misunderstand me, doctor,” Shell tilted her chin up as he stared at his reflection in her gritting teeth. “If I learn anything from this, it’ll be what to tell her when I reel her in. It’s not just my own vindication that I seek, but Imre’s as well.”
Belle hissed through her clenched jaws. “And… if y-you’re wrong…?”
“For your sake, let’s hope that I am not.” He shoved her towards the railing and shouted over the ship’s deck. “Prepare the transport!”
Dalen trotted into the lavish parlor. He came to a stop, blinking.
Several Xonan servants stood in separate corners of the room, putting the finishing touches on their dutiful tasks. The ponies--all of them mares--dried a bathtub and gathered towels and cleaning oils. A pair stood at the back, hanging and straightening a traditional Xonan gown. Then, on the edge of a bed towards the side of the guest room, Kera sat, freshly scrubbed and dried. She winced as a mare squatted behind her, brushing the last of several long-lasting tangles from her mane. The filly’s hair hung straight for the first time in her life, resembling emerald silk.
Dalen rubbed his chin as he studied the scene. At last, three of the maidens trotted up and bowed before him. “Freet suun mekh thrien trentte bleen, Dalen Xon-Nagu’n. Punh reet fran slemm?”
“Nak veen.” Dalen bowed in response. “Haav reen trentte blunn vaar. Keev shreen rekkh maak glann.”
They bowed again--shortly this time--and trotted off with pleasant, humble smiles. In the meantime, Dalen approached Kera who was still wincing from the last of her tangles being brushed free.
“Do you now doubt our hospitality, child?” he remarked.
“I… uh…” She gritted her teeth. “I-I really could have gone without the two-hour bath and--ow ow ow ow!” She hissed, her entire head witching. “Skull-pull. Ungh…”
“A filly your age has no business wearing her mane in any other fashion,” Dalen said. He received a confused glance from the mare. Looking back at her, he swiftly murmured, “Hraak siul trentte muln riff thiul Ledomuul.”
“Ah…” The mare nodded, smiled, and resumed brushing.
“What’d you tell her?” Kera asked.
“That I speak to you in the unholy tongue of Ledo.”
“Ah…” Kera winced past another tangle or two. “Of course you did.”
“Feeling better now that you’re on the other side of the bars?”
“Oh!” Kera smiled as plastically as she could. “You know it! Those… f-filthy creeps! I couldn’t stand to be in the room one second longer with them!”
“Oh really…?”
“It took me such a long time to figure it out. But they’re all just wanting to save their own skin! They don’t care about me! They don’t care about… about…” Kera fidgeted. “Our Goddess.”
“Don’t you mean my Goddess?”
“No, dude! Ours!” Kera’s green eyes sparkled. “I wanna know more about Nagu’n! I… like… f-feel it in my heart! Her song is calling to me n’stuff!”
“I see…” Dalen slowly nodded. He then glanced over at the mare. “Rekk lum thiul cass thraat. Bleen.”
The maiden nodded. “Dreit, Dalen Xon-Nagu’n.” With a graceful bow, she got up and trotted away on dainty hooves.
Kera watched, her mouth hanging curiously agape. Once she was alone in the room with the stallion, his shadow loomed over her.
“Listen, child,” Dalen spoke, his eyes hard. “I did not become a double agent on board the goddess-forsaken Lightning Bearer because of my brawn. I’ve created veils of deceit so complicated that it would turn your precious mind inside out. I know that you are making an attempt to take advantage of my good nature and Xonan sensibilities. I think it would do the both of us a lot of good if you were to bring the charade to a close.”
“Wh-what are you talking about?” Kera’s teeth sparkled beneath twitching eyes. “I wanna be a true Xonan! Through and through! That’s all!”
Dalen’s gaze hardened like a chest full of daggers.
Kera bit her lip. With a sigh, she leaned back on the bed, pulling anxiously at her straight-as-razor mane. “What g-gave it away?”
“There was simply nothing to give,” Dalen said. “The child I first spoke to--the angry, resentful, and confused child--that is the true you, and I very much doubt that it has changed.”
“Yeah, well, what about the confused part?” She gazed sadly up at him. “You believe in that, don’t you?”
“I once did. But you’ve proven to be anything but cooperative in the past.”
“Well at least I have somepony that I believe in,” Kera said with a frown. “What about you?”
“My devotion to Lasairfion, blessed by Nagu’n, has not changed.”
“Then why haven’t you decapitated me by now?”
Dalen’s eyes twitched. “I beg your pardon?”
“You found me out, didn’t ya?!” she barked, shrugging her forelimbs to the walls of the parlor. “I tried to deceive you! I took advantage of your good grace and all that junk! Shouldn’t you be punishing me for being… uh… tainted by Ledomuul or some crap?”
Dalen sat back with a sigh. His eyes looked distant. “I do not harm foals…”
“I think it’s a whole bunch more complicated than that!” Kera hopped down from the bed and stood before him. Their eyes were almost at even level now that he was sitting. “I think you need somepony to actually care for!”
“What I do and the way I do it--I do it for my family,” Dalen said in a gravelly tone.
“Yeah!” Kera nodded. “Cuz so long as you’re stuck scrubbing the floors beneath other ponies’ hooves, they’re forever gonna be Third-Born, right?”
Dalen bit his lip.
“See, I’m not the only pony who’s see-through!” Kera smirked proudly. “You’ve got a ton of holes in ya, dude. If you were living out on the street like that, the other alley rats would rip you to shreds! It just ain’t safe! No wonder they haven’t promoted you yet!”
“They haven’t lifted me and my family back to glory because of my failure.”
“Nah, I don’t think it’s that clear-cut,” Kera said. “Zytharros and the other dude? They just don’t care! That’s all there is to it, huh? You’ve bent your back for them time and time again, and yet they don’t give you the light of day?”
Dalen was starting to breathe faster. His hooves scuffed against the floor as they coiled inward.
Kera saw it. She saw everything. “I think… what you need is somepony to talk to about this, dude. How long have you been going at it alone?”
“It is not something to be discussed with you,” Dalen muttered. “You deserve a righteous life, and it’s evident to me that all you wish to do is sneak your way around such an opportunity to gain what you desire.”
Kera leaned back, fidgeting with her mane. She then blinked and said, “‘You belong to something far greater and older than yourself.’”
Dalen’s eyes darted to meet hers.
“That’s what you said, y’know,” Kera remarked with a smile. “You’ve always been hell-bent on righteousness and restoration. If the other ponies can’t give it to you, then the problem is with them. Not you! Don’t you deserve to be Second Born again?”
“That is ultimately up to the glory of Negu’n,” Dalen said, though his breath shuddered at the end of the proclamation.
“Something tells me somepony isn’t all that sure about it,” Kera said. After a few seconds, she trotted over and plopped down beside him. “So, what’s the harm in telling me all about it?” She smiled up at him cutely. “What’s the deal with this Nagu’n Goddess anyways?”
Dalen glared down at her. “The righteous fury she possesses would crush your fragile little mind.”
Kera’s tattooed brow furrowed. “Try me.”
Dalen’s ears folded nervously upon witnessing that.
“Forty-three,” Zaid said dryly to the prison ceiling. “There are… forty-three bars enclosing the cell that we’re in. The ceiling has seventy-two panels, and there are th-three big cracks in the floor.” He swallowed as he sat up with his back shivering against the wall. “If you multiply forty-three by seventy and divide it by three and then produce the square root of all that…” His voice trailed off as his eyes grew wider.
“What…?” Basso looked over, weakly. “A pattern?”
Zaid whimpered, then glanced back. “It means I haven’t eaten anything in nearly twelve hours.”
Basso groaned and face-hoofed. He looked over towards Zetta who was shivering. “Zetta. Zetta, are you doing alright, filly?”
“The song h-has changed,” she remarked, curling her forelimbs towards her chest. Basso leaned over and hugged her, keeping the mare warm. “This Nagu’n… she’s determined to get someplace, and she’s bringing the entire Sacred Hold with her.”
“Maybe she’s ready to finish us off,” Basso said. “Or… or the war, I mean. Whoever these ponies believe in, it’s gotta be super tough.”
Zetta sniffled, her eyes moistening. “I wish it would just finish us off.” She whimpered. “Nopony else. My family is only two hundred miles from the front. If… if it reaches them…”
“Shhhh… Don’t even talk about that, Zetta.”
“I… I-I don’t know what to do, Basso,” Zetta quietly cried. “I feel like I heard this coming from leagues away. We should have done something to prevent it! I should have d-done something! And now… n-now my family… every family in Ledomare is going to suffer…”
“Don’t give into fear. We still have some aces in the hole.” He turned and looked over his shoulder. “Don’t we?”
Nightshade glanced back, saying nothing.
“Don’t look at me,” Zaid muttered in mid-yawn. “I only play Unoats.”
Basso groaned again.
Nightshade slowly stood up, wrapping a moth-eaten cloak tighter around her figure. “The cultist is onto something, though.”
“I am?”
She squinted through the bars of the place. “They haven’t fed us in nearly a day. For that matter, none of the guards have shown up in hours.”
“Yeah?” Basso muttered. “So?”
“So… they’re obviously detained by something,” Nightshade said. “It’s almost as if… as if…”
A scuffling noise.
Nightshade looked up.
Two guards fell from the ceiling, landing on the floor with a clatter of loose armor. Zetta gasped and Basso stifled a yell. The other enforces began murmuring in shock.
“Damn, if they haven’t got the weirdest sprinkler system in here!” Zaid spat.
“Shhhh!” Nightshade glanced from the unconscious guards to the shadowy space beyond the bars. “We’re not alone!”
Sure enough, with the twanging lengths of black cables, a metal mare descended from the ceiling.
“Hey!” Zaid brightened, galloping up to the bars. “It’s Sexsteel! Yay for Sexsteel!”
Roarke glared at him, then took in the rest of the ponies whose faces reflected off of her lenses. She glanced behind her, checked for signs of movement, then slithered towards the cell itself.
“Please tell me that you’ve come to break us out of here!” Zaid pleaded.
“Not right now,” Roarke’s voice rang forth, though somehow still maintained a whisper. “We are too deep into the Hold for a successful breakout of this many ponies. Besides, I suspect a moment of opportunity will arise that we can take advantage of.”
“Moment of opportunity?” Nightshade whispered. “Like what?”
“Hey!” Basso pointed as Zetta stared at the metal mare with a gaping expression. “I know that pony! She’s the one who spoke to us from beyond the wall of the other cell we were in!”
Roarke glared over her shoulder. “He will be getting out last.”
“Oh…” Basso’s ginormous earlobes drooped. “I’m sorry… for whatever I did.”
“I don’t get it!” Zetta squeaked. “What is this? Have you come to break us out or not?”
“All in due time.” Roarke gulped. “You ponies need to know…”
Nightshade leaned forward. “Know what?”
Roarke gazed weakly from beyond the bars. “What I have witnessed… of this ‘Nagu’n.’”
“Br-bringing home the southern b-birds, a pegasus’ job begins,” Rainbow Dash murmured as blood trickled down her face. The branches from her forehead had reached a good four inches by now, and the coat along her body had grown dull and shaggy. “And cl-clearing all the gloomy skies to let the s-sunshine in…”
A wave of pain flew through her. She writhed against the metal shackles chaining her to the dais. Her panting figure undulated with tiny whimpers.
“We m-move the clouds…” She gulped. “And melt the white sn-snow. When the sun c-c-comes up… its warmth and b-beauty will… glow…”
Hoofsteps.
With a weak sniffle, Rainbow Dash glanced up. Her foggy vision twitched from red to yellow and back. Three shadowed figures trotted into view, standing just beneath the anchored pendant of Loyalty.
Two Xonan guards in royal armor trained their poleaxes on the bound, mutating pegasus. In the center, a familiar equine in a gray robe trotted up.
“M’sella’nar vm’beraat’sun calla’sath,” the mare said, her blank muzzle moving like a ghostly mouth against the darkness of the chamber. She trotted a full circle around Rainbow Dash, observing the effects of chaos on her body. “Hmmm… Lasairfion Xon-Nagu’n rekk’arthan syl’rak’tuh drem’a’darr.”
“Dreit, trelliuth massadreen,” one of the guards said, nodding.
As the mare shuffled to the side, her robe unfurled slightly. A fetlock with red, yellow, and green bands flashed in the ruby light.
Rainbow’s breath sucked in. “You…” Her eyes darted up as she hissed in a dark voice. “You are n-not the interpreter…”
The two guards rattled in surprise, gazing straight at Rainbow.
The mare looked at her, then at them. She squatted low as something exploded from within her robe.
Th-Thunk! A steam bolt flew into one of the guards’ neck.
“Hckkkllt-pbkkkktkt!” He gurgled on his own blood.
“Ledomulian trentte!” The other rushed the mare, only for her to blast up on steam vents and drape the cloak over his face. He slammed blindly into one of the poles chaining Rainbow in place. As he stumbled backwards, ripping the robe free, the mare landed on his backside. In place of tattoos, she carried a complex rigging of steam tools and hydraulic cables. None of this weighed her down from the act of stabbing him repeatedly in the neck with a serrated dagger.
“Hraauckkt--Aaaughhhlghkkt!” He fell down like a wet sack of meat. Panting, the mare dismounted and sheathed her bloodstained weapon.
Rainbow Dash was already rattling furiously in her binds. “You?! How… how in the flying f-feather did you get here?!”
“I’m not the one you should be pointing a hoof at,” Khao said as she icily turned around and glared at the pony. “Didn’t I warn you, Austraeoh?” Her eyes narrowed. “Didn’t I warn you that horrible things awaited you in this part of the world?”
“Darn it!” Rainbow Dash hissed, her eyes rolling back as more blood trickled down her forehead. “I need to get free!”
“No,” Khao shook her head. “First, you need to see.”