//------------------------------// // C'est la vie // Story: Between Needles and Knives // by Dancewithknives //------------------------------// March 3rd Across the oceans from the continent of Polis- the majority of which was Equestria- another large body of land, Eastros resided akimbo to the western world. Unlike Polis though, Eastros was home to many more, much smaller countries. Some of which were only the size of peninsulas while the larger ones were about the size of the larger Equestrian provinces. The reason for many small nation states across the continent was because of balkanization. Natural landforms isolated populations of similar races from one and another and caused them to make separate cultures independent of each other. Some of these landforms were crucial to the land’s survival. The dragon sea to the south separated the pony country of Germane from the continent of Zebrica. The Spineway Mountains created a natural barrier to the untamed dragon territory and kept the dangers away. The largest country in Eastros, once being many independent kingdoms who lived without one another until a king came and united them under one banner, was the proud Stag Lands. The country, being located on the ocean, was the first to be visited by Griffin Sailors, and, obviously, was mainly populated by stags. Deep in the heart of the country, there is a city named White Tail. One of the oldest of the lot, with certain structures that were dated back further than some of Equetria's monuments. Late one night, and as the citizens of the ancient city came home from work, one stag was out running down the dark alleyways and through the streets of the White Tail Ghetto. His name was Troy. He had a coat of brown, tail of red, and mask- the fur directly around the eyes and the divots between the eye sockets and nose- of blue. Atop his head were two proud and single pointed horns. He was what they called a spike, and could trace his heritage back to the exact kingdom where his ancestors were from. But, at this moment it did not matter because he was too busy looking up at the roofs of apartments, around the alleyways and around the corners of the strong stone buildings that had been a part of the city. In the humid afternoon, as the dark evening clouds prepared to drop their rain. He ran as fast as he could, making his short brown coat sticky with sweat and the corners of his mouth foam with saliva. White Tail, being close to the Great Ocean, would experience Rainfall twice a week. The gloomy overcast was a common occurrence to the stags. At this time of the year no one would think twice over seeing their breath in the cold, rainy, spring air like Troy was experiencing. But the faded bleak stone saturated from the drizzling rain, did not comfort the buck. From each shadow that the dark day deepened, Troy could feel his pursuer following him, every drop of rain on a puddle sounded like a hoof stomping in water, and under every shadowy archway he could swear he saw a pair of eyes watching him. The stag looked around in the little clearing the empty street made. He kept looking over his flank for whoever was after him. He was safe at the moment, but not for long. The sun was beginning to set, the overcast already made the city streets too dark. The last thing he needed were more shadows. He needed to get inside and find a place to hide. He took off down the sidewalk again, galloping across the mix of ancient paved stones and the occasional concrete replacement as he tried to regain his bearings. Troy shot down the street, sliding around the corner, but he did not bank the turn. Instead, he kept his hooves on the wet stone and ground to a halt. His racing heart almost broke free from his ribcage. From his frantic and dilated eyes, he ran right into the very shadow he was trying to escape. " Ah! Guten Tag!" Cried out a very high pitched voice. The young stag stopped in his tracks. That didn't sound appropriate for the thing he was running away from. Troy calmed himself and got a good look at the pony he had run into. Like he had originally feared, it was a pony he had intercepted. but unlike who he thought it was, this earth pony was of a red color. She had a blonde mane cropped close to her head and was wearing a bright red overcoat. Her eyes, and her large pure black pupils, looked up at the buck with a strange mixture of adventure, innocence, and wonder. She had been walking down the sidewalk with an unfolded map in her hooves when he almost ran into her, but luckily she managed to sidestep away from being plowed through by him. Regardless of the somewhat rude meeting, the teenaged mare smiled and approached him as he took a step back. "Hallo! Entschuldigen Sie, Sprechen Sie Fetlandisch?” She looked up at him, and even though he did not respond to her foreign tongue, she took his brief eye contact as a signal to continue, “icsuche Den hotel…" she cleared her throat and then, with drawn out syllables, pronounced the word “Mahr-EE-Lant.” She then flipped a corner of the map up so he could see it. Printed in black ink was a palm tree in a circle, below it the name “Maryland Hotels and resorts” was likewise printed. Troy looked at the pony tourist with confusion. For the most part, their failure to communicate came from just that, he simply had no idea what she was saying. Yet, at the same time, he did not want to help her, if it was a normal day, he surely would try. But he was being chased; he didn’t need the distraction. Hopefully, his pursuer would not come out in public, but he was still a sitting duck. He needed to find a place to hide until he could slip away when more stags were out in the streets, and he could be safe. The nineteen year old looking tourist looked at her map again, and then smiled once more at the stranger, " ze …*ahem*’STAaag Lunds’ sind wunderschon. Aber ich finde einfach nicht den Hotel?" She checked her map again, and then crossed her eyes, looking up and thinking hard about trying to translate the next sentence for the native she had just met. “Uhh… Zee…. Saint GrrrAaal Kathedral?... It ist that vay?” Upon hearing the mispronunciation of the place, Troy’s eyes lit up as if he finally understood what the pony was saying. The Saint Gaal Cathederal! That was a great place to hide! Troy looked off in the distance and saw the Gothic towers of the cathedral in the distance sticking out higher than the other projects and smaller modern buildings in the city. Without showing any hospitality to the lost young mare, Troy shot around her and began to sprint towards the large temple where he was raised. The pony, confused by the fact that she had asked help from a mainly silent stranger, read his body language and understood her, but then shot off without saying a single word, tilted her head. Maybe this was a stag’s way of showing hospitality, or maybe he was late. Either way, she needed to stay humble, so she straightened herself up and called out, "Danke! Auf weidersehen!" Troy ran across the darkening streets, not looking back as he raced his way towards the menacing and large place of worship. He pounded through the puddles, and shot up the ancient marble stairs at a rate of two at a time. The oaken door, standing twenty feet high, was the last barrier to salvation. Troy reared against the large doorway and pounded against it with his hooves, shouting for it to open and save him. He pounded, harder and harder, sounding like a police raid, and, finally, the door opened. Troy slipped in through the crack in the wooden guardians and then used His back to force it closed, keeping him in and evil out. The young buck, with a heaving chest, shifted his attention from the door to the dark candle lit recesses of the enormous temple. Rows and rows of pews, all having white candles at each end, were all aligned to face the center altar at the far end of the room beside the colossal organ. The pillars, standing high up into darkness were sculpted with visages of angels, of the tales of the sun god blessing the pious stags of old, sat half illuminated by the large chandelier hanging from shadows. It was dark here and the tiles were cold, but at the same time, the candles were warm. It gave Troy a feeling that he seldom ever felt anywhere else. Home. Growing up without a family was hard, being a lowly spike such as him made it even worse, but that did not matter here in the temple of worship devoted to Saint Gaal. He was an orphan, he had no immediate family, it was by pure chance that he learned later in life that he had an older cousin that was much in the same circumstance, but, the orphans here, the sisters, and the abbess of the enormous temple was his family. This was his home. While he did turn to “doin work” to survive as he became a buck, the life and times that he had here were not far from his mind. He hated White Tail, if he could, he would like to watch it and its ghetto burn to the ground, but this stone structure was his home. He stayed in the city only because he knew that the cathedral was always near. If a fire ever did break out in the city as Troy had wished, he would be one of the stags running around with buckets of water just to ensure the Cathedral’s survival. A quick tempo of clicking traveled from the far end of the temple. A form, cloaked in black, approached Troy. Strangely, the cloaked figure did not frighten the stag, but calmed him. "Sister Florence!" Called out the buck. The host neared, revealing the face of purity. Beneath the ceremonial robes of the Kasha, the kind, old , understanding eyes of Sister Florence greeted Troy. Her robes covered her entire body and a sheet pinned to her many pointed rack made a canopy over her head. If the temple was his home, then the abbess and Kasha of the structure, Sister Florence, was his mother. For as old as she was, the doe was especially beautiful. Troy had seen a picture of her from when she first became a Sister of the Temple. Shiya itself was the only who knew why this kind, beautiful doe had become what she was today rather than being swept away by a riot of suitors. The beads on her rosary beneath her robes clicked together while she walked across the clean tile floor. Her black robes, as was demanded by her creed, were always on her no matter where she went. If Troy did not know better, he probably would have guessed that she still wore them when they were being washed! Beautiful, Pious, Kind, Moral, and devout… She was some kind of wonderful. " Oh my! Mercy, Child, what are you doing out at this hour! You must be chilled." Troy, no matter how old he became, would always be called “child” by the aging doe, just like she would do with the rest of her orphans. He approached the Kasha slowly and with a sense of security and forgot the outside world. " Sister Florence, I need to hide here for the night." The two met in the center of the cathedral, " oh mercy! What is happening, pray tell?" "I don't know!" He confessed, " Glasgow and some of the other guys did some work and something attacked us today! I ran... I didn't do anything I swear!" Troy, moving from extreme fear to security, began to break down. Everything from the last few minutes began to add up on his poor soul, and the Kasha saw it. "There, there." She cooed, reaching up and embracing the younger buck, keeping sure her rack did not tangle his spikes. She held her face close to his and gently stroked down his neck with her slippered hoof. Troy relaxed and enjoyed the feeling of safety Sister Florence provided as she comforted him like back when he was just another faun from the orphanage. Sister Florence moved her head and then whispered into his ear, " You've been a very naughty boy." Before Troy could react to the odd statement, a sharp pain cut right into his chest, shocking his body. He looked down and saw a large purple knife pointing out from his chest, a blade that was much too familiar from earlier in the night. Troy looked back at the keeper of Saint Gaal's Cathedral, and watched as her black robes, from the hood making a screen above her rack to the cloak around her body glowed green and then reshaped itself as a grey coat with the name "OMNISHIELD" on the sleeve, leaving the doe he thought of as a mother dressed severely out of character. His pursuer was much more devious than he thought.