//------------------------------// // Come one, come all // Story: Crystal heart // by A pensive Squirrel //------------------------------// Moonlake was a pristine park on the border of the Diamond Kingdom. There was a narrow stone bridge across a sparkling body of water, not looking too much different to good quality champagne. This was known as Stetson Bridge, after the architect that established it centuries ere. Upon the stage were Salem’s youngest, Sierra, his beloved, Sappheire, and a stallion he had been looking for intently. His figure was gaunt, and his tail scraggly. His straggly mane was worn, withered and sad looking. When looking at the pure perfection and poetry of the mares beside the messenger, it was hard to believe they were the same creatures at all. It was Quicksilver. He had picked the wrong time to reveal himself from beneath the woodwork. Perhaps he was unaware that the King and his highest order of knights were now apprehending him. Either way, his expedience was to come to an end. Upon the bridge another figure appeared, one well known. The King arrived as understatedly as he could for he didn’t wish to enrage the crowd that waited for his ode to ardour. But when he looked out onto the sparkling lake of fine glassy grasses and soft natural ambiance, he didn’t find any ponies at all. He looked again and it was clear that his words were falling idly. There was no one there. Salem gawped in awe at the vacant assembly. It took him a minute or two to get his mind around the odd turnout. He gazed a little longer at the substance of his failure before turning his back on it all. His heart sank and fell from his mouth. He had tried wearing it on his sleeve but his trusted people had developed a lust for it, a taste for his kindly manner. They would only squander it. The first friendly face he saw was his daughter’s. Sierra looked sort of awkward, framed in the distorted glamour of the lake. She pretended not to notice the folly of the people. She and her mother feigned disinterest in the aloofness of the masses. They knew it to be true. Faith was lost. Hope was fiction. He then turned a few more degree and finally found the stallion of his employ. Plain as day Quicksilver stood unmoving at the lip of the rail, his hoof squishing slightly his straggly tail. “You swore an oath. You signed a contract. Get away from my girls you charlatan. My paladins were chasing you, what has become of them?” The Pegasus was mentally sharp. He didn’t stick around to listen to the King. His wings outstretched left and right as he took flight. He was almost clear, barely within range of the King’s extensive influence. Close wasn’t enough. Salem caught the fleeing pest with his impeccable magic skill and dragged the accused back to terra-ferma. “You’ve incited militancy in my Kingdom, you horrible being. Tell me, by whose command do you do these awful deeds?” Salem demanded. He dragged the grounded wingman across the stone and his own mottled scraggly tail hairs until he was left to catch his breath. “The guilders, you were the one that killed them are you not?” “Even if I had motive sire, there is no physical means by which I could subdue and execute all 9 of the cows!” The messenger seemed to laugh in the face of danger. He threw out his wings and beat them rapidly, skimming past the face of the gemstone queen as he did. “I am not a pawn in your game, silver. I am not playing cat and mouse either.” Salem conjured a miniaturised bronze French horn and played a note. Six of the royal cavalry, unicorn division appeared on the bridge with the royal family, well most of them. In robotic motions they saluted, turned and stood ready for combat. “What’s the emergency, your highness?” Salem placed his hoof on the knight’s shoulder and pointed towards a shrinking dull fleck in the distance. “He is the traitor. Quicksilver is the traitor. Have at him!” As quickly as the reinforcements had appeared, they vanished to never be seen again. Soon the trill of a bell filled the snow globe which once resembled a kingdom. The alarms had been raised. Pegasi shot up into the sky at the instruction of the King as he played another note on his musical thing. The Queen, princess and King watched, mesmerised by the sheer intricacy of the capture. Quicksilver fit his name to the ground. No other flyer could match him in flight. The noise died down and the trio turned back to the quiet simplicity of the lake and its love affair with the moon. They couldn’t believe their eyes. They didn’t comment on it either. The tract of glassy grasses was coloured every colour of the rainbow. It was no cosmic event. The subjects both equine and reptile had kept their end of the bargain. All were present and accounted for. Only one dragon was missing. Ignatius. Salem swallowed a heavy lump that had formed in his throat. He composed himself upon the uneven stonework of the bridge and clapped his hoof against the wall. “Doubt is a seed fertilised by hatred. The more we water the soil, the more of it grows. I have not been entirely truthful with you, and for that I am sorry. I have told you to carry on as normal but you can all see that this scheme is failing astronomically. There is a harbinger in the air, and it is watching us. Celestia’s Valkyrie squadrons will pepper our realm with arrows and payloads made of poison joke. Luna’s Night Guardsmen will swarm our villages and hamlets and abduct the foals from their beds. The Imperial Unicorns of Canterlot will supress us with their collective might. And then there is our greatest adversary. Empyrean commands an army so vast, so ruthless, that he has never lost an engagement. This is his forte. We are rank amateurs.” A filly sprung from the amassment and waved he hoof in the air. Salem noticed the tiny detail and pointed the eager young mare, urging her to speak. “You have a question?” The filly stopped jumping, and apparently stopped breathing all together. The crowd split like the red sea as the darling budding child faltered and fainted on the spot. Salem snatched the babe from the floor and supported her against the bridge wall. He felt her forelock. She was boiling hot. She was running a fever so high the stoic King jittered in discomfort. “What did you want to ask, little one?” Sappheire softly and sensitively asked. She placed her cool hoof on the hellish brow of the filly and cradled her carefully in her arms. The crowd hadn’t broken down into savage and reckless rivalries for their attentions were drawn to the struggling filly. What had taken her ill so suddenly? Salem strode to his wife and stroked the clammy forelock of the hindered child. She was burning up. He felt her chest for a heartbeat. It was faint. “You mustn’t. It will consume you…” Sappheire said as she sheepishly pulled the fill out of the King’s reach. Salem stole the filly from his wife. It wasn’t for safety but because her maternal instincts would endanger the unconscious bairn. His eyes bloomed with purple smoke and his irises turned red. His magic took on a darker hue, more black than anything, as he sent a salvo of amethyst into the filly’s body. She didn’t move. Blood began to spill from her moth and her vibrant coat pink changed to pale eggshell. Salem sobbed briefly in despair, before pulling himself together. He opened the eyes of the catatonic filly and let her head rest against the floor. She was lost. “Wolf’s bane, this was no accident.” Salem hid his face as another tear dared burst through his watertight face. He scaled the wall of the bridge and his horn burnt purple as he performed his audacious spell once more. “A deadly pathogen has been released into our enclosed world. It has many names. It can be translated in many ways. Firstly, monitor closely your children for they will be the most vulnerable. There is no cure. We don’t how they have come into contact with the herb but I know for certain that it does not grow here. In small doses it is fine. It usually thrives in mountains. We live in the lowlands. If any of you and especially your young exhibit confusion, loss of motility or numbness in the extremities, or bowel upset of any form, then you are to quarantine them. This can be managed.” The crowd animated with justified uproar. They threw their limbs in the air in protest, stamping hooves, cheering chants of abdication. They blamed him. “You’ve tainted our food! The King is in league with the Empresses! They promised him a seat in their new world order and he is stepping on all of us to reach it!” “He hates our children! He’d see them locked away or culled for his filthy lies!” “He struck her with dark magic! He killed her! The King killed the filly! Filly Killer, you’ll find your reward in Tartarus!” “Rapist! Sodomite! Our queen should have never fallen for you. The king is evil! He is wrong for the Kingdom. He is poison!” The berating caused Salem to back away from the misinformed mobs and miscreants. He shrunk towards the far side of the bridge dropped his head. He couldn’t reclaim them. They weren’t his instruments anymore. “Enough! This is an outrage!” It was a familiar voice, and not one the King thought he’d be hearing again. He thought his time was up. Upon the bridge landed the mighty drake of scales rouge. He clinched the wall in his massive claws and roared at the ponies and dragons alike. “I have been short-sighted, my King. Thankfully I was given this opportunity to mend my errors. I have noticed these symptoms in the hatchlings as well. They are overheated, delirious and stuttering. They complain of weakness. There is nothing we can do. Hatchlings do not graze on petals and fruits. We eat gems and wild boar meat. Let us not fall into these old patterns. The feuds can wait. Our little miracles are in jeopardy. This is trivial. They are not.” Sappheire pranced up the pulpit and dragged her divine child with her. She held Sierra still and sang to the scared parents and siblings. “This can wait another day. This gathering might have already spread the horrid venom of the flower. I am going home to spend as much time as I can with my beautiful daughter. I welcome you all to do the same.” With that the assembly disassembled. Dragons flitted one way and mares and stallions galloped the other. Soon the glassy grasses were bare again. Salem turned to the towering fiery giant and called for his ear. The dragon obeyed and lowered his head. “I cherish this bond, grand dragon. You have no idea how much I needed a friend. You came to my rescue. You aren’t beastly or monstrous as I have been made to believe. No nobler an ally could I find. None exists.” Ignatius was blushing but it was undetectable on his scales. He silently stayed with the king under the swollen sun. He said nothing, didn’t even move until the royal mares had safely adjourned. He sat down and coiled his spiky tail behind him, not entirely fitting on the bridge. It dangled into the champagne lake. It was a pleasant temperature, and it cooled the searing heat in the drake’s soul. “I was wrong to cast aspersions. What was I thinking? Please tell me, because I am still none the wiser. I don’t want this utopia to crumble. This is a mere island of paradise within an ocean of controlling autocracy and despotic waves. I want to help preserve this. I want to be able to say that I tried, that I was pivotal in our resistance. But we are outnumbered, my King. We are a stain and they will not hesitate…” Salem peered across the lake and took a deep breath. It calmed him greatly. He squared up to Ignatius, his new found chum, and clapped his front hooves together. “Would you in their position? I am spending the rest of the day in the farmlands. You are of course free to do as you wish, but I would strongly recommend you catch a nap before nightfall. We have irritated the Night Empress and her vengeance will be incomparable.” “I should catch up on some shuteye. I’ve been losing track of hours.” “Good. Hopefully my subjects have returned to their homes as my beloved wished. I’m going to run thorough searches of the florists, confectioners and allotments. I am unsure of the ‘banes’ origin but it could be contaminating our food, being sold by mistake or be illegally harvested in our virile fields. All I know is I cannot sleep until I have eradicated it.” Ignatius bowed, his wings folding out as he did. He left the bridge and so did the king. The tract was left sparse once more.