29 December, Y.C. 969
Blackacre
It was the silence that struck him first.
He didn’t know how long he had been awake. Maybe he had been floating in and out for a while; maybe he woke up all of a sudden, maybe, maybe. Who knew? He didn’t. All he knew were the rough cement walls of the room. They still had faint vertical impressions on them where the wooden molding had held them in place before pouring. They were about as rough as it got; certainly a coat of paint would do them well, but somehow he got the feeling that paint was a luxury this place could ill afford.
Certainly the lone dangling light bulb in the center of the ceiling didn’t do much to dispel that impression.
Off to his sides, he recognized various bits of what looked like medical equipment. None of it looked installed, though; it was more along the lines of a pile of tech than anything else. None of it was even on. To his other side were a half-dozen other beds, but they were silent as well, for they were empty.
This whole place seemed empty. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he got the feeling it was big. The door didn’t seem particularly thick, and every once in a while he heard what might be distant conversation, but it never lasted long. Twice he heard someone walk past outside, but the hoofsteps disappeared as quickly as they came.
He would have gotten up to see for himself, but his forehooves were strapped to the sides of the bed. The bindings weren’t confining, at least any more so than being tied up normally was, but they weren’t going anywhere. Neither was he.
It was unnervingly like a large and silent tomb. He idly wondered if he was dead. If so, this was a hell of a waiting room. Still, if he was dead, would he feel as miserable as he did now? He felt as if he hadn’t eaten in days, and all over his coat felt tingly, like there was a static buildup that just wouldn’t discharge. It didn’t hurt per se, but every once in a while patches of him would start to itch. Which, with the bound hooves, was a lot more irritating that it should have been.
Outside the door, he heard a third pair of footsteps. Well, third time was the charm. They drew closer, and though he tried to identify them he couldn’t; they echoed a bit, and without knowing what the hall was like outside — if it was even a hall — he hadn’t the foggiest idea how to pin down even the size of the pony based on the hoof sounds. Or what if it wasn’t even a pony? A goat? A minotaur? Something worse? The image of a satyr danced through his mind, taunting him with his own little personal afterlife in this depressing little cell —
And then, quite abruptly, the door opened.
Light didn’t pour in, there was no choir of angels, but he winced nevertheless; it was somewhat brighter out there, and with the lone bulb in the room still burning to itself, his pupils hadn’t exactly been exercising lately.
“Ambassador,” came a familiar voice. “Glad to see you’re awake.”
“Amb…” he echoed in a raspy tone. His voice hadn’t been getting much practice either — a thought dismissed as he recognized the white unicorn who had come in. “LeFleur!”
“Dag,” she said with a faint smile, coming up to the bed. “I’m glad you’re alive.”
“Glad I’m…” he repeated, then stopped short. “What happened?”
“You were giving a speech,” she said, moving to sit at the end of the bed. “Do you remember that?”
“Of course I do. We signed the agreement.”
“You were giving the speech,” she said, acknowledging him only with a slight nod, “and then the Mane blew up and destroyed the audience.”
Dag blinked furiously.
“Yeah, I’m not surprised you don’t remember that. It was only a few seconds between that and when we think you lost consciousness.”
“Lost… what happened to me?” he said, eyes narrow. “What did you do to me, who are you, and where am I?”
“In that order?”
“Whatever you’d like,” he said, her tone starting to grate on his nerves.
“I’m the pony who saved your life.”
A pause.
“That doesn’t answer anything, LeFleur.”
“Yes, it does,” she said with a little shrug. “You know my name. You know I am Blackacre’s chief diplomat to the Ponyville talks. Well, was. And now you know that I saved your life. That just about covers it.”
“We’re not in Ponyville.”
“Of course not. We’re in Blackacre.”
“We’re — how did we get here?”
“When the Mane came down, one of my bodyguards put up a shield over our delegation. It didn’t last long, but it lasted long enough for one of the others to teleport us all out. I yanked you off the stage myself,” she said, tapping her horn. “Got you under just in time, but the whiplash knocked you out.”
“And how did we get here?”
“We brought you,” she said bluntly.
“Why.”
“Because the eight of us from the delegation had just teleported out of what looked very much like a blast crater,” she said with an air of the obvious. “Someone tried to sabotage the talks, and I’d say they succeeded. The Mane came down in green and black. No way in hell were any of us going to risk going back there.”
“But you were in that crowd too!” he said. “Why would you stand under your own explosion?”
“Yeah, and we got out, because we hid bodyguards in the delegation,” she said. “You took two hundred and sixty-six casualties. We took none. Do you honestly think they’d let that slide? No, we made a judgment call and booked it over the river.”
“You should have stayed.”
“Well, it’s too late for that now. Besides, you’re here now, where we can take care of you.”
“About that,” he said, lips tight.
“When I pulled you off the stage, I may have put a little bit too much into it,” she said, with a sheepish rub of the neck. “Your body isn’t, uh, used to having that much magic in it; the charge took a while to dissipate.”
“I see.” He paused. “And this also explains why I’m tied down.”
“Right,” she said, deliberately ignoring the sarcasm. “Didn’t know how long you’d be out, and didn’t want to risk you falling out of bed or something. The last thing you need right now is a concussion.”
“Well, thanks,” he said, then wiggled his wrists. “So…?”
“So…” she said, glancing away from him.
Dag didn’t like the gesture, no more than he liked the few moments’ silence immediately after it.
“I’m being detained.”
“Yes,” she said quickly, glad that she didn’t have to out and say it. “I’m sorry. I told them not to, that there was no reason to, but Gaston wants you confined until he can assess you himself.”
“Assess,” repeated Dag. “Assess me for what? What have I done? What am I accused of? I pushed hard to get that deal passed, you and I both did, and you know it!” His voice had risen now, echoing unnaturally in the room. “If anyone’s chaining me up it should be Dodge or Appleloosa because I gave you the biggest concessions anypony’s ever gotten out of trade negotiations!”
“I know,” she said firmly. “Believe me, I know. But given the current situation….”
She trailed off, reconsidering her line of thought.
“After the bombing,” she started, but paused, distracted.
After a few seconds, Dag raised an eyebrow. “…yes?”
LeFleur shushed him, instead pointing to the ceiling.
A few more seconds of silence passed. Again, nothing.
“Look, I don’t know —”
“Do you hear that?” she asked quietly.
He blinked at her. The room was silent; it might as well be a grave. He couldn’t hear anything other than the blood rushing through his ears.
“The light,” she said, pointing to the lightbulb. “Watch.”
He watched, squinting his eyes; it was a bright bulb. He watched it intently for a few seconds… did it just flicker? He made to rub his eye, but the straps held his hoof back. Fine; he stared at it some more. Did it flicker again, or was he making it up?
“It’s not your imagination,” she said in that same quiet tone. “Listen.”
He did — and this time, he could almost make something out. Not so much a sound as a feeling, transmitted to his ears through the bedframe, through the floor.
Thump.
Something very, very far away….
“You hear it,” she said, recognizing the look on his face. “Good. It’s louder up closer to the surface, but I was worried that I’d be imagining it myself down here.”
“What is it?”
“Artillery fire.”
Dag’s mouth opened, but no words came out. His jaw worked a few times.
“Probably from the Appleloosa batteries, but who knows. They might have moved the ones in Dodge farther down to put pressure on this front.”
“What.”
“You heard me,” she said, her voice bitter. “The Mane destroyed any chance of reaching a settlement. The official investigation took a grand total of three days to point their hooves at us. How incredibly convenient that the entire Royal Army was already here, waiting.”
“But… but…” he stuttered. “The Army takes its orders from the Princess. She would never….”
“She did,” said LeFleur sharply. “Not that she could have done much to stop them. Half of Equestria wants your blood. They saw the photos, saw one side of the story, and that’s good enough for them.”
Dag slumped back in the bed, stunned. He knew that the settlement was important — what settlement wasn’t, to at least somepony? — but this was unthinkable. At least to him. He knew the Princess had been pressing for a peaceful resolution, but he had always thought that was just for the sake of a settlement, instead of heading off something… darker.
“I need to get back,” he said. “Need to get back. To tell them you didn’t do it, you nearly died getting out, and you saved me. They’ll have to listen. We can still stop this.”
“Stop this?” she said with the faintest of laughs. “Dag, I don’t think you understand what happened here. There. Everywhere.”
“Enlighten me.”
“You know the Ponyville river. Big, full of water. Not quite frozen yet. Trees on both sides.”
“I do,” he said frostily.
“It’s brown now,” she said, eyes narrow. “The only reason it’s not red is because the body armor drags most of the bodies down so they drown, and their guts freeze before spilling too much.”
He started to say something, taken aback by her language, but she pressed on.
“There aren’t trees there any more, Dag. Not on either side of the river, not for a hundred feet back from the river itself. There are craters. Craters and fields of black, and every once in a while a stump. And under the layer of charcoal and snow and dirt there are trenches, and those are full of bodies, because we don’t have enough ponies to both fight off Equestria and bury our dead.”
For a long moment, the room was silent, save for the faintest sound hovering just at the edge of perception.
Thump.
“Two hundred and sixty-six ponies died on and under the Mane,” she said quietly. “The last estimates I saw put two thousand dead in the three days since, and that’s just on our side.”
“Our side.”
“Yes, our side. Because, like it or not, you’re one of us now.” She gave a sad smile. “They burned you, Dag. No one’s talking about a settlement now, and when they do, they talk about it like it was hopeless. You’re missing, presumed dead. Even if you could get over the lines without being shot on sight, the official story is that you failed at your job. Some ponies are saying you scuttled the talks on purpose. Some are saying you pushed too hard and we snapped.”
“What!” he fumed. “I —”
“That’s not the official story,” she said, raising a hoof. “Officially, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Unofficially, no one cares. You’re dead, and the time for talking is over.”
“I refuse to accept that.”
“Then you’ll have to be disappointed,” she said with a shrug. “You’re here and you’re safe. That’s a far sight better than everyone else on your team. You shouldn’t even be alive.”
“So you keep telling me,” he said. He started to go on, but caught himself. LeFleur saw his hesitation, and in an instant her expression softened.
“I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this,” she started, “but you deserve to know.”
A sharp intake of breath. He had known this was coming, deep in his mind, but had pushed it away, pushed it —
Somehow, he managed to keep his voice steady.
“Jackie.”
LeFleur turned her head away.
“I’m so sorry.”
Time passed.
He couldn’t say how much. It could have been seconds. Could have been hours. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered any more, now did it? He had one job, and he didn’t do it. Death, that’s all he had managed to produce. His team was dead, his friends, his colleagues, his Jackie.
Slowly, he became aware that there was a hoof on his. He raised his head and stared at it, bleary-eyed, the pale white coat a sharp contrast to his own violet skin. He clenched his hoof, and though hers lifted slightly, she didn’t take it away.
And, in that moment and of all things, he was grateful for the equine touch. All those words were words, but here was somepony real, someone who understood. The thought rattled around inside him, small thoughts in a great hollowness. This was real, but nothing else was; but Jackie was, and now she wasn’t. He didn’t know any more.
“I need to go,” said LeFleur, pressing his hoof gently. He realized it was no longer tied to anything. When did that happen? What did it matter anymore? “I’m so sorry.”
He watched her without seeing, watched with eyes wide shut as she went to the door, slipped out into the hall, and closed it behind her. A half-second later, the slightest of clicks. They might trust him with his hooves, but he was still a prisoner here.
He was trapped.
Jackie was dead.
Once again time stopped having meaning for him. This time, though, the tears flowed freely.