“You know, Neato,” said a particularly deep shadow in a mock-jovial tune, “It doesn’t truly reflect well on any-pony when I’m forced to take action.”
“I got you the information,” replied the Unicorn mare, bitterly. She was the only individual in the room who had the unfortunate fate of being in a well-lit, clearly visible location; having an uncomfortable awareness of the possible futures this conversation could foretell for a particularly unlucky pony didn’t help, either.
“Yes, I will concede, you did. You found out the various schedules of the members of Dusk House. Congratulations, indeed, would be in order, had it not been for one insignificant-” the shadow bobbed nearer, and in the darkness a set of grit teeth flickered ominously, illuminated by the glow of a horn, “-thing.”
Silence reigned in the room as the hidden speaker composed himself, and with a quiet chuckle he continued, saying, “Nopony remembered you, which, I must say, is a fantastic talent to have. Unfortunately, you left some documents behind that linked me to your . . . shall we say . . . endeavors. Which, sadly, rather forced my hoof rather ahead of schedule.”
Slowly, each trot deliberately with enough force to make a loud clack noise with every step, a Unicorn walked out of the shadows and approached the now visibly terrified Neato with a hollow smile.
“Did you want to get out of our little contract so desperately? Because you could’ve simply talked to me. I would’ve made the extermination of our little agreement essentially painless,” he said, the lighthearted tone never leaving his voice. “But I can’t believe that, can I? Because if you DID do something that silly, well, there’s no telling what I would do. But it’s a non-issue, isn’t it? Because it wasn’t on purpose at all, or so my associate tells me. Is he . . . correct?”
“Right,” Neato muttered back, her throat bobbing up and down as she swallowed air nervously.
“Fantastic! I would’ve been disheartened to learn it was otherwise,” the Stallion said, loudly and with a grin on his face. “Of course, seventeen other ponies would’ve been pleased as punch to hear the contrary, but they’ve all caught something awful, isn’t that right, Shade?”
“Sixty four, and all but one of the main family. The documents they sent to the Council were all located and destroyed as well,” said another shadow huskily, one that Neato had completely overlooked.
“All but one?” The stallion’s smile froze for a moment before re-thawing, and he said, his tone chipper, “I’ll have to talk to you about this mysterious one, but that’s nothing dear Neato needs to hear right now, is it? No, it isn’t. Shade, if you would be so kind as to give Neato her obligatory tonic,” he murmured, before walking back into the shadow’s nonchalantly. When finally enshrouded again, he concluded, saying, “Ah, yes, and Neato? I want some blueprints, next. The humans are building something, as some recently wealthier Pegasi have told me, and not only do I want to know what, I want to know how. It shouldn’t be difficult; I know you have sources everywhere . . .”
A door opened and closed, somewhere in the darkness.
“Here are the components,” uttered the same guttural voice from earlier, before a package was slid from the shadows across the stone floor with remarkable smoothness. “Follow the instructions and it should prevent buildup in the lungs; basically, it’s a tea. Only give it to the sick pony, clearly; don’t drink it yourself.” For a brief moment, the hidden Shade cleared his throat hesitantly, before tentatively finishing with, “If you pull off what the boss wants, he said I can stop giving you things to treat the symptoms and just give you a cure.”
“Well, doesn’t that make you a good pony?” Neato lashed back, venom and sarcasm dripping from her tone in equal measure.
Shade was silent.
“Am I allowed to leave?” Neato finally asked, growing more and more nervous at the sudden cessation of sound.
“Yes. Good-” Shade started to reply, but Neato was gone long before the final word could exit his lips,”-luck . . .“
Well, he thought for a moment, this sort of work isn’t exactly favorable to attempts at a budding romance, anyway.
With a sigh, Shade turned around and trotted deeper into the shadows.
And inevitably ended up face-planting into a wall hidden in the gloom.
I get why we have ambient darkness, he thought to himself even as he gingerly rubbed his nose, Tartarus, we’re a part of the Nocturne House, but, surely, we can afford some torches or something for practicalities sake; this is the third time this morning!
Finding the door in the darkness was difficult, but after a few circuits around the room in general Shade eventually found it, and with a sigh of elation walked through into a significantly brighter room.
The stallion from earlier was sitting at a table, a look of well-intentioned bemusement playing across his face.
“Did you lace our dear associate’s potion with the requisite amount of, ahem, cure, Shade?” he asked, in a tone of voice that would’ve been more at home discussing the weather.
“Yes, sir,” Shade replied.
Well, he thought, depends on what you mean be ‘requisite’; I mean, yes, there is poison in the mix, and yes, it will continue emulating the effects of a bad bout of pneumonia, but it’s not even close to the amount needed to kill somepony, if that’s what you mean by ‘requisite‘. When her brother stops taking the, ahem, ‘medicine’, he’s going to start feeling better. Oh, Tartarus, you’re talking right now and I’ve been just buzzing you out while I think . . .
“So . . . what’s this about one remaining?” the stallion murmured, quietly, before drinking from a steaming cup of tea.
“A filly, no more than a foal. I spiked the water-supply, but the child survived. Poison will have deteriorated at this point, though,” Shade replied, only pausing momentarily to try and process the question for any hidden meanings.
“A filly. And how exactly did this . . . foal stop you from completing your objective?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, surely it would’ve been simple enough to just drop the little thing in the well after everything was said and done.”
There was a long silence before the stallion simply sighed at the mute Shade, and muttered, “Your soft heart is going to get you killed someday.”
“Be that as it may, I don’t kill foals. Anyway, for all intents and purposes, all that will be identified is that a mysterious disease struck the family, and now . . .” Shade moved to the opposite side of the table and sat down, “. . . now only a young, uh, Moonshine, I believe her name was, has survived. Not even their papers endured, once we finished the search. The Council of Three will be deciding where she goes. Since, technically, she’s not even in the modified family’s will, in all likelihood she will be raised by either the state or by one of the other Houses. She’s a non-issue.”
“Maybe,” murmured the other stallion, “maybe. Nevertheless, I don’t enjoy having a legitimate inheritor around; perhaps if she had been a bastard, I’d be more at ease.”
“You mean if she had been more like me.”
“Don’t make me regret your moment of mercy, Nightshade,” the stallion continued, blithely ignoring the comment. “I’ve heard of far too many myths where these situations are reversed upon the foal reaching adulthood; I will not be pleased if she grows to become a thorn in my side.”
“She won’t,” Shade replied.
“Good,” the stallion muttered, before he happily asked, in a far more familial tone, “So, I want to know; how’s little Penumbra doing? I hear he’s started levitating objects . . .”