With a jerk of his teeth, Prowse pulled the tarp off a complex rigging, in the center of which lay a complex mechanical prosthetic in the gradual stages of being contructed. "Feast your eyes, lassie. The latest and greatest from your Unky Prowsy." Nevertheless, the stallion sighed, leaning against a wall. "Ach, if only it was a mighty bit prettier for all my troubles..."
"I think it looks just fine," she said, trotting towards it with a soft smile. Firelight glittered off her goggles as she slid them higher over her blonde bangs, giving the apparatus a natural look-over. "And a pretty smexy accomplishment for a stallion with three hooves!"
"Yes, well, I could have gotten further with it." Prowse rolled his eyes and glared towards the bricklaid walls. "Only, I've been a wee bit distracted as of late."
"Jee, I wonder why."
"Between the Xonan chatter and Seclorum's incessant beehive mouth, I've been having to juggle my own noggin for fear of my brain running away if I just leave it still."
"You certainly landed yourself with a bunch of cookie creeps!"
"Eh, they're not all bad, lass," Prowse said. "Aatxe has a heart of gold, the poor sod. And the Queen of them tattooed noseblowers is a sight for sore eyes. Still, as long as I lay in this damnable prison, the only pony I could think of was you."
"Awwwwwwwww..." Props cooed, then smiled. "For what it's worth, I'm glad that I've gotten two chances to be with you again, even if one of them turned out to be a total fluke that put the entirety of my team in jeopardy."
"Erm... yeah..." Prowse winced. "I'm so sorry for that, lil' darlin'. If I had known that things would end up like this, I'd have jumped over the bloomin' side of Gray Smoke."
"Uhm..." Props' ears drooped as she sighed into the shadows. "Please, don't put it that way, Unky Prowsy." She gulped. "I've had all I can take of ponies close to me jumping to their deaths."
Prowse bit his lip.
Props gazed at the half-finished prosthetic again. "What's with the hollow manachamber?"
"I ran out of manacrystal actuators to complete the working model," he said. "I had hoped we'd stumble upon some derelict ships with working shards for me to fill in the grooves between pneumatic stabilizers—"
"Hee-hee-hee! Are you silly?" Props stuck her tongue out. "You've got enough crystals in here to make it work! All you gotta do is form a Ledomaritan Helix pattern!"
"Ledomaritan... what?!"
"Something I learned while I was cooped up in this boring place called 'Nightshade Industries!'" Props grinned from ear to ear as she fished her hooves into the stallion's prosthetic and began fumbling around with the inner pieces. "This super smart duderooni named Jasper Clark taught me all about them! We designed a killer augment to a skystone ship, and I was lucky enough to find that very same aircraft and fly it around!"
"Well, look at you..." Prowse smiled. "Gettin' smarter by the hour, lil' lassie, I swear. You're just like your Mum."
Props bit her lip, blushing slightly. "Yeah, well, Mom was the Sootiest of the Sooters. I can't get her grit out of my blood, or her hugs out of my skin."
"She'd be proud of how well you've managed for yourself," Prowse said with a smirk. "Spark knows I am."
Props sniffled, then cleared her throat. With a determined smirk, the mare said, "Don't be proud of me yet, Silly Unky! With a bit of tweaking, I'll get this fourth leg of yours working in no time!"
"I'm much oblidged, lassie."
"And then we'll get you and your friends out of here so you can live your life, start dating again, and work on your fifth leg."
"Hah!" Prowse cackled towards the ceiling and gave his niece a swat on the shoulder. "Now there's the Propsicle I know! Go for the gold, ya grease monkey!"
"Heehee! I'll go with the grease—but not so much the poop flinging!"
"Goddess, I've missed ya."
"Heh..." Props grinned and licked her lips in the firelight while she sweated over the metal limb. "I've missed me too."
"Hello again, old friend," Seclorum muttered from where he sat in a corner of the hold, piecing together and reparing a worn-in crossbow. "Come to nibble a bit more on my neck after biting my head off?"
"I'm a bit full at the moment," Josho said as he shuffled up. "Things have been rather crazy, and—as odd as it may seem—we appear to be having a lull at the moment."
"So...?"
"Well, slit my throat for trying, but I figured you and I could catch up a bit."
"What's to catch up to?" Seclorum remarked. "You're screwed. I'm screwed. Nopony is happy. We all want to get out of here." He grunted. "Feels like just any other moment of the same ol' war."
"Only that war is over, buddy," Josho said.
"Heh. Maybe outside, it is," Seclorum uttered with a bitter smirk. "But in here? The battle wages on. So long as my identity is not mine, I don't see how I can afford to rest. Hell, I don't deserve rest."
"Secchy, war is all you and I have ever known," Josho said with eyes squinting. "I'd say it's what dayum well defined our friendship. But it doesn't have to be that way forever. We can move on. Hell, you can move on."
"I don't see what the point is."
"There's gotta be a tomorrow after all this crap," Josho said. "The world you go back to isn't going to be the same as when it was when you were captured and whisked away to this place. Xona's sheathed their swords and Ledomare's pulled back from the front."
"Heh..." Seclorum spat into the shadows. "Friggin' crazy."
"What's so wild about that idea?" Josho squinted. "You've settled in rather nicely with the tattooed ponies here. Surely a part of you can perceive doing it in the long run."
"Just because I can get along with one measly queen and her closest goons doesn't mean I can forgive the whole lot of them for all of the merciless things that they've done."
"Need I remind you that you and I have done some pretty nasty stuff ourselves?" Josho gritted his teeth. "Secchy, you're a tough stallion... but it takes an even tougher one to learn to let it go."
"What?" Seclorum narrowed his eyes on the obese pony. "Like you did?"
"I'm dry, Secchy."
"Hah! I'm willing to bet! As fat as you've become, I doubt you've gotten your horn wet in years—if you catch my drift."
"I mean I've kicked the bottle," Josho said. "For good."
Seclorum's eyes fell on him for a few seconds. "Yeesh, Josho, you shoulda just killed yourself."
"I sorta have, in a way..." Josho wandered over and had a squat beside his old friend, sighing. "Getting caught up with that damn pegasus and all of her colorful friends, I started to see who I was and what I was doing in a really nasty light. Ain't nothing pretty about what we were doing, Secchy—not the missions we ran, the tasks we were given, the uppity mare in a diamond girdle whom we all worked for..."
"Criminy!" Seclorum chuckled, loading a crossbolt into his weapon and cocking it. "Almost sounds like you discovered you had a bastard son and turned a new leaf!"
"Not too far from the truth, in a manner of speaking."
Seclorum blinked, then turned to gaze dully at him. "Not all of us can afford to go soft, old friend. But, for what it's worth, I'm glad for you."
"I'd like to be glad for you too, Secchy," Josho said quietly, his eyes warm. "It's a new world waiting for you out there. It'd be a damn shame to buck it up as soon as you're out of this place."
"Hmmm... have you taken a good look around you?" Seclorum leaned forward with a glare. "Have you seen the nastiness that fills this place? The conniving ways of the broodlings that stalk us?" He slowly shook his head. "Oh no, old friend, everything is and shall always be 'old world.' And if you think having limped through this hellhole day in and day out is gonna make me 'soft,' well you've got another thing coming." He stood up, wincing from his aching old bones.
Josho frowned up at him. "Just because hating is easy, old friend, doesn't make it courageous."
Seclorum shuffled to a stop, then swiveled towards him. "It's not about courage. It's about strength. You and I both know the world doesn't have the balance to stand on anything else for too long." He marched off.
As the stallion left the obese pony's sight, Josho could see several cloaked figures standing in a solid line at a distance, with at least half of them staring his way.
Josho leaned back, blinking.
Razzar was still. Then, in eerie silence, he pivoted his mask and turned to face his comrades. The edges of his hood glowed as he presumably discussed the present situation with them. The six figures stood in close proximity to the hold's brightest torches.
Josho rubbed his chin, his nostrils flaring as he stared and contemplated.
"Hey..."
Aatxe turned around and did a double-take.
Rainbow Dash shuffled towards him. "Do you have some water?"
"Uhm..." Aatxe squirmed slightly. "For consuming purposes or... excreting purposes?"
"Look, does it matter?" Rainbow frowned, motioning with her hoof. "I just need—like—a small jar's worth."
"I can manage something like that." Aatxe shuffled over towards a series of metal barrels positioned against the wall. He grabbed one of several tin cups and uncapped a spicket, pouring a liberal volume of water into the container. "Here..." He passed the cup to her. "If you're about to drink it yourself, be warned. It's gonna have a weird, metallic taste. Lots of newcomers are worried after their first sip. Now, if you're going to give it to the shape-shifter..."
"Lemme worry about that," Rainbow muttered, turning around with a frown. "Ponies like you and Seclorum have done enough.
"Wait!" Aatxe stretched a hoof out.
The pegasus jolted to a stop, turning to look dully at him.
Aatxe bit his lip. After clearing his throat, the stallion avoided her gaze and said, "I think your show of compassion is a good thing. I'd like to help in anyway I can, I just don't... don't..."
"What?" Rainbow glared. "Don't believe in doing things the peaceful, harmonic way?"
The stallion sighed. "No." He gulped. "But I'd like to... again..."
Rainbow Dash blinked at him.
"Where—if you don't mind me asking—exactly do you come from?"
"It's..." Rainbow fidgeted slightly. "It's a land called Equestria."
"Equestria..."
"If you used to fly your airship around these parts, I doubt you heard of it," Rainbow said. "All the ponies around here ever seem to want to do is wage war and kill each other."
Aatxe shook his head with a weak smile. "Not me. I did the bulk of my work along the frozen coasts of Alafreo and the Southern Straits. Ponies are in small number along the shoreline, so my crew and I resorted exlusively to being traders. As soon as the locals saw us, they knew we only wanted to do one thing: barter and trade. We... we made lots of merchants happy to see us, because we only ever brought profit in our wake. It was... it was a really warm feeling, to know that we were making things better for the landscape, week after week." He gulped and glanced into the shadows. "Something I dwell on a lot these days..."
Rainbow Dash slowly nodded. She gave a prolonged exhale, loosening the tension in her angry muscles. "It was wrong of me to snap at you, and I apologize. But still..." She glared once more. "I can't excuse what's been allowed to happen to that battered creature in the other room."
"I'm not proud of it myself," Aatxe said. "I'm not proud of a lot of things. But we had to do what we did in order to survive."
"And when the day comes that you finally make it out of here..." Rainbow narrowed her eyes. "Will you be ready and willing to live with yourself?"
Aatxe shook his head. "No."
Rainbow twitched at that.
With a sigh, Aatxe spoke. "Miss Rainbow Dash, I... I-I've been here for seventeen years. As much as I want to relish in the hope that somepony like you brings to this place, I... I-I feel that I just can't." He winced slightly. "This place is my prison. And yet... it's also something of a home now." He looked up. "I want to get back to the Tarkington and power it up—so that, if nothing else, these poor mares and stallions stuck here with me can finally find freedom and peace. But me?" He slowly shook his head. "I don't know what life the future could hold for me. I'm almost scared to find out."
"Yeah, well..." Rainbow took a deep breath. "Take it from a pony who's been lucky enough to do the exact opposite of you. It's totally worth it to be constantly flying again. That's a home in and of itself—an awesome home."
Aatxe sighed. "I wish I could believe you. But it doesn't matter."
"Dude, come on—"
"I am glad for one thing," he said with a weak smile. "Now that I've met you, I know that I'm not alone."
She blinked at him. "What do you mean?"
"In the last few years, everytime I've looked at my reflection, I've seen a ghost of my past self, somepony who's died slowly day by day for having been forced to do things that he's never wanted to do." He gazed at her. "I see your face... and I see the same pony, and yet you've managed to remain heroic and thoughtful in spite of that? How... j-just how does that work?"
Rainbow blinked. She jerked slightly, hearing and feeling the rattle of her loyalty pendant. A slight grumble, and she said, "Tell you what, I'll show you."
Aatxe blinked. "Show me?"
"But first thing's first." Rainbow spun, clutched the cup of water in her hooves, and flew back towards the furthest niche of the hold. "I gotta have a talk with somepony..."