//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7 
// Story: The Wager 
// by kudzuhaiku 
//------------------------------//

	The day had started off like every other day, with the everyday commonplace routines of life taking place as they always had. But then, the day had changed. The routine and commonplace gave way to unusual and extraordinary, as unique circumstances allowed the unthinkable to happen. 

Anomie rose slowly and struggled to her feet, clutching the back of her head, she could feel the blood trickling through her fingers as she pressed her hand to her split scalp. She gazed around her, stunned and unable to take in every horrible thing she saw. 

The front half of the house was gone, crumbled away. Bodies lay in the rubble. Up the road was the gate, and Cerberus lay dead, one of his heads having rolled quite some distance away. Charon’s headless corpse had fallen not too far from Cerebus. Night Fright had died shortly after Charon fell, her front legs ripped from her body before she was thrown into the wall, causing some of the house to crumble. Dark Eye’s lifeless body lay partially buried under the rubble, her wings twisted and broken into unnatural angles. Calpurnia was nowhere to be found, but was probably dead like the others. Starling had been skewered on a fencepost and had died from her impalement. 

Squeaker made a few plaintive whimpers though, and Anomie moved to her brother’s side. He was ripped open, bleeding, but he would live. She touched him, tried to comfort him, tried to make sense of all of this. She pulled a tapestry from the rubble and pressed it into the oozing gash in her brother’s side, saying nothing, but stroking Squeaker’s face. Then, she rose, climbed into the ruined living room and found her bow. 

She had business to look after. 

After some digging around, she found her hunting arrows, the ones with the horribly barbed tips, with the barbs pointing in both directions. Once they went in, they were almost impossible to remove, either from pulling or pushing through. She slung her quiver over her shoulder, kneeled down to kiss her brother one last time, touched Dark Eye briefly and wished she had said “I love you” one last time for Dark Eye to hear, and then she wordlessly said goodbye to her family with a wave. 

Anomie went hunting. 



 

She found her prey securing a ship, moving stuff on board. The dead lay all around him. she was a fair distance away, and Anomie had a good shot. She knocked an arrow, let her breath out slowly, and let fly. 

The arrow struck Tirek in the chest, causing him to bellow and look around. 

The second arrow struck him just above his navel. Tirek looked down in annoyance at the protruding missile, growled, and ripped it out. His flesh slowly began to heal even as Anomie watched. Anomie felt a sinking feeling, remembering her lessons from Kelphos about regenerators. She needed to get closer and strike a fatal blow, such as decapitation, and then she would need to burn the body somehow. She let fly with another arrow and cried out in grief stricken sorrow, a furious banshee wail. 

Anomie released a hail of arrows as she approached, each one finding their mark, one of them even going into Tirek’s eye. While they hurt a great deal, none of them actually did much to slow Tirek down. 

The two combatants neared one another, Tirek brandishing a spear, and Anomie her bow. There was no exchange of pleasantries, no words, no  communication other than Anomie’s inhuman snarls. She sank one arrow into Tirek’s throat, which actually slowed the centaur down for a moment. He ripped the arrow free and staggered as he struggled to breathe. The blow, while not fatal, had weakened the fell being. 

Grunting, Tirek charged, and Anomie did nothing to move, brave and defiant, she stood there, firing off her last arrow as Tirek closed the distance finally between them. 

The centaur skewered the smaller human female on his spear. 

Anomie stared down in horror at the spear that had entered her stomach, just below the ribs on the right side. She could feel that it had exited out behind her, also just below her ribs. She glared defiantly up at Tirek, braced herself, summoned her will, and began to push herself forward along the spear, her lips pulled back in a defiant snarl of hatred. 

“You wish to die bravely little one,” Tirek growled. “So be it.” 

Anomie pushed forward, feeling the wooden shaft of the spear tugging and pulling at her insides as it traveled through. Tirek leaned into his spear, thrusting it through Anomie, taking cruel pleasure in watching the girl embrace her own death with noble dignity. 

Finally, the two beings were standing hoof to toe, Anomie now standing inches away from Tirek. With an impossibly fast gesture, she drew her dagger out from behind her and in one fluid motion, slashed at Tirek’s throat, cutting him down to his neckbone, causing his head to tilt unnaturally backwards. The centaur gurgled in surprise, and his spear slipped from his fingers. 

Anomie staggered away, still skewered. She knew she had little time. 

“Die!” she spat through bloody lips, the taste of her own blood and feces rising up into her mouth. She stumbled through the shipyard, looking for something, something she knew she needed. She reached a nearby lamp post, and, at its base, there was a barrel. Straining to keep alive long enough to finish her task, she began to drag the barrel back to Tirek’s body, the spear still skewered through her body, acting like a cork. 

With a final grunt, she tipped the barrel over towards Tirek’s writhing body. The area flooded with lamp oil, drenching Tirek. Anomie stumbled and straddled the equine half of Tirek, reached back towards her dagger sheath, and pulled out a rod of flint. 

She struck sparks with her dagger, and, in seconds, both of them were ablaze in the ignited lamp oil. The flames spread quickly, consuming the pair as they died, locked in hatred. The fire ignited other things, including the barrel, and soon, most of the shipyard was burning, the flames rising into the sky, a pillar of smoke and fire alerting the other islands that something was terribly wrong. 



 

“It wasn’t supposed to end this way,” Discord sobbed as he stared at a marble statue of a human girl holding a bow, a fierce look of determination on her face. 

“I know,” Celestia replied in a wavering voice. 

“I actually wanted her to be happy,” Discord confessed. 

“I know, “ Celestia said sadly. 

“I wanted her to find love, to be happy, to have a chance to do something good, to be loved… loved. I figured that if something could love her, that maybe you could love me,” Discord said, absolutely heartbroken. “I was afraid if I just said it, you would think I was joking, I had to show you, to make you see, I didn’t know what else to do…” he said, his words fading into whimpers. 

“i know,” Celestia whispered, pressing her muzzle into the draconequus and weeping. 

“You knew?” Discord asked, feeling Celestia nuzzling him and taking some small measure of comfort. 

“It took me a while, but I finally figured it out. I forgive you, and you are loved,” Celestia said. The draconequus responded by whirling around rapidly, throwing his forelegs around Celestia’s neck, hugging her close, and breaking into fresh sobs of grief, unable to look at the statue any longer. 

The pair held one another in their sorrow, lamenting their shared loss, and taking comfort in one another. Discord howled mournfully, feeling something entirely alien and unknown inside of him, something that even with his thousands of lifetimes he had no words to express as he clung to the large white alicorn. “Don’t ever let me go,” he begged. 

Celestia wrapped her wings around the serpentine figure and held him close, saying nothing, feeling her own heart soar as she had finally forgiven Discord and let go of her own hatred. Love flooded in to fill the gaping hole left behind by the core of loathing that was now gone. 

The two figures clung to one another, sobbing, finally letting go of the past, old hurts, and moving into the future, together, finally sharing something in common, the love of a girl.