In the dark and strange-smelling confines of Zecora's hut, three fillies cautiously sipped at cups of steaming tisanes, a zebra washed her hooves in a bowl of water, and a human lay sprackled over a table at the side. He stared happily up at the ceiling with pupils the size of the night sky, utterly unresponsive to the world. None of the Crusaders knew what exactly had been in the paste Zecora had pushed down Yrr's throat, but it was darned effective. He hadn't screamed in apocalyptic agony once, even when Zecora had slammed his knee back into place and jammed a needle of strange reddish wood into the flesh just above it.
Zecora had listened to the story so far as she'd worked, her impassive expression betraying nothing. She'd kept listening as the tale continued and wound down as she'd washed her hooves. She finished, briskly drying them off on an old cloth, and then turned to the expectant and silent Crusaders. Sad weariness etched lines around her eyes.
“You extrapolate from a dusty old tale? On it hinges whether you succeed or fail?” she said softly.
“I know it sounds strange, Zecora,” Sweetie Belle started.
“We all know it pretty well,” Apple Bloom said.
“You're not helping!”
“But it's worked so far,” Scootaloo hastily interjected. She gestured at Yrr, who was currently serving as a table for several empty cups that gently rose and fell on his chest. “Humans do exist, and I found one. If one part's true, the rest has to be as well, right?”
“I do not know if this is a human, so I cannot say. But even if so, it wouldn't tip the other factors any way. You expect me to be a … Moochick, to pull out some surprise, but I tell you now, I have no Rainbow, Light or otherwise.”
Zecora turned away from the Crusader and examined the red wooden needle where it protruded from Yrr's leg, the fabric of the clothing there cut away. Reddish veins radiated from and bulged out of the skin in a scarlet spiderweb, clustering thickly around the mangled-looking knee. From inside the knee, worryingly organic creaks and squelches sounded and the knee shifted internally from time to time.
“But it's not – I mean, we didn't think you'd have the exact one in the story, not really,” Sweetie Belle babbled, hopping down off her chair and cantering up to Zecora's side. “It's – it's got to be the same pattern, though, right? You're the smartest, mysteriousest pony we know; you've got to know some way to take down Tirek.”
“Methods and objects I know of, which could help in such a task,” said Zecora slowly and quietly. “But each is beyond your reach, more inaccessible than the last. Balefire's recipe is locked away in the Zebrican Library, and its defences and guards are beyond legendary. The Black Spear could slay Tirek outright, but it was lost in the ocean depths beyond all sight. And Starswirl's last notes were scattered north of here, in the Eldritch Wynd. Nopony who yet lives has or ever will make that find.”
“Well, then, we don't go out of our way for those.” Scootaloo rose to her hooves where she sat upon a battered old bed at one side of the hut's main room. Her eyes were wide and desperate as she stared around the hut and up at the looming masks and shelves; she was all but shouting. “You've got to have something here! A potion that can act like a Rainbow of Light or Element of Harmony, or an old weapon locked away, or -!”
“Peace under my roof.” Zecora whirled upon her, her expression sharp, and Scootaloo reluctantly subsided. The zebra turned back to Yrr with a sigh. “I have nothing at hoof. Bare shelves, my dwindling supplies, my hide and little more. The breakthrough you seek just isn't something I store.”
Silence fell over the hut then, broken intermittently by the burble of the great cauldron in the room's centre. The fire at its base was dying, becoming little more than a thin pool of embers.
“I am sorry – truly I am – that I cannot give you what you seek,” said Zecora. “But I do have an offer for you, though all else may seem bleak.”
Apple Bloom looked up, her expression guarded and weary. “Let's hear it.”
“On the morrow, I will leave this place, cross the sea, and – reluctantly – return to Zebrica, the land of my birth,” said Zecora. “You three could come with me, to be safe for a time from this hell on earth -”
“What?” yelped Scootaloo. “You're saying we should just jump ship?”
“Tirek is a foe who all rightly dread, but beyond the sea his grasp does not yet spread. He cannot be fought, no matter that our cause be just. All we can do is run away, and run away you must. It isn't right that foals should fight a war. You would only perish, and what for?”
“We got family here, this is our home!” said Apple Bloom, slamming down her cup and leaping down from off her own seat. “We're never going to walk away from it. Not ever. I'll never walk out on Granny Smith and Big Mac and Applejack.”
“Is it your family's reaction you fear?” said Zecora. “What do you think they'd tell you to do, were they here?”
“I … they'd not want to see me be a quitter!”
“Be a quitter? They love you, and they'd forgive. Don't you think they'd want you to live?”
Apple Bloom opened and shut her mouth, her face screwing up, and then turned to face the wall. “Coward,” she hissed, her voice raw. “You're a coward. We're not cowards!”
“If I had a weapon with which to slay Tirek, I'd be using it myself,” said Zecora, her tone even. “No matter what, I will not imperil your health.”
Sweetie Belle looked up from her cup. “So we've come all this way for nothing?” she said, something broken in the tone of her voice and cast of her expression. “You're not going to help, and we came here and got Yrr hurt for nothing?”
“The human's hurt has at least vanished. A sanguine thorn saw that safely diminished. Take it back to its home. Let it be where it wants to roam.” Zecora regarded the now-healed knee with a faint nod, and yanked out the piece of wood. Yrr still smiled vacantly up at the ceiling. “Before you leave, there's something you should collect. A powder of my own creation, to quickly undo the opoid's effect.”
Scootaloo thrust out a hoof. Zecora regarded it, and then plucked down a little sachet from a high shelf with her teeth. She dropped it into Scootaloo's hoof, and the filly plucked it away without a word.
“You don't wish to run, and I understand. However, my offer will continue to stand,” Zecora said quietly. “On the morrow when I leave, I'll pass by Ponyville and speak to your kin. If they agree you three should be safe, then coming with me will be no sin -”
“Don't you dare!” screamed Apple Bloom as she rounded suddenly on Zecora. “You'd dare to try and take us away, you're not a friend, you're – you are an evil old witch!”
Zecora stood silent in the face of the onslaught. Sensing the moment of their departure, Scootaloo leapt up and pulled at one of the ropes that still looped around Yrr's chest. He had enough motive instincts remaining to stand upright off the table rather than slide to the floor, but just swayed dreamily where he stood. Sweetie Belle trudged over to beside Scootaloo, the floor fixing her attention.
“Believe me when I say I am sorry, Apple Bloom,” said Zecora. “But you cannot ask me to help you build your own tomb.”
Apple Bloom kicked the door of the hut closed behind her, and angrily stalked some distance away from it, furiously swiping at her eyes with her hoof. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle stumbled after her, Yrr ambling in their wake.
“You okay?” said Sweetie Belle.
“I'm fine,” spat Apple Bloom. “Walk out on the Apples. Hah.” She took a steadying breath and turned back to the others. “So what now? We got to re-plan.”
“We … we can go find one of the things she mentioned. That Black Spear or … or Starswirl's notes. What the hay's the Eldritch Wynd anyway?”
“Horrible stretch of forest north of the Everfree, infected with the bad sort of wild magic. It eats explorers. All of them.” Apple Bloom spun in place. “Come on, help me think. I'll show her, old foalnappin' doubter.”
“What's there to think about?” said Sweetie Belle, her voice far too subdued. “The story's gone wrong. We were wrong all the time.”
“No,” started Scootaloo. “Not necessarily.”
“But she was our only -”
“No, she wasn't!” Scootaloo rounded on Sweetie Belle and seized her by the withers. “Think! Who else is a really smart pony we know, who's solved all sorts of problems?”
“Mayor Mare?”
“...Think harder.”
Sweetie Belle's face screwed up. “Twilight?”
“Yes! She's our Moochick. We were just barking up the wrong tree when it came to Zecora. It's Twilight we've got to go to. Heck, she was the one fighting Tirek, remember? Of course it's been her the whole time. If anypony knows how to take him on, she knows.”
“Not that I'm fixin' to dampen what sounds like it could have the roots of a markedly better plan,” interjected Apple Bloom, “But she lost to Tirek, remember? She's captured. She might be like Fluttershy was, all … Discorded again. How are we going to get our hooves on her”
“They managed to break themselves out of being Discorded when it happened the first time, didn't they?” Scootaloo drew away from Sweetie Belle and paced in a tight little circle. “And I'll bet you anything Tirek's got her and the others in Canterlot, if he's not currently sending them out on spying missions.”
“We can free her. And Rarity! And the others.” Sweetie Belle's expression lifted up from studying the ground, and her earlier zest gleamed once again in her reddish eyes. “And they'll know where to get a Rainbow of Light or how to re-activate the Elements of Harmony!”
“This is actually something slightly resemblin' a sensible plan,” Apple Bloom said. “Of course, breakin' into Canterlot and freein' them will be a mite tricky. And what are we going to do with Yrr?” One of the human's eyes had regained some focus, and was spending it all on following the movements of a butterfly in the still morning air.
“Keep him with us,” Scootaloo replied firmly. “We're still following the story, so we still need a human. At least it's not going to hurt him to walk now. And if we just let him stay on the effects of Zecora's powder a little longer, then we won't need to gag him again yet.”
“I suppose we're still facing the same problem as before,” said Apple Bloom grudgingly. “Gettin' to Canterlot's quite a stretch, it could take us nearly the whole day. We'll be plumb tired and sore even before we have to do any rescuin'.”
Silence prevailed once more as the Crusaders considered the problem. Sweetie Belle punctured it with a squeak that could have shattered glass. “I've got it! It's brilliant!”
And a short while later, three fillies and a human stared (or drooled vacantly) up at a sea serpent, whose purple head dripped river water.
“Why, yes,” said the sea serpent. “There is a river that flows all the way to the base of Canterlot. Joins up with this very one a short way to the south. Why do you ask?”
Within Tirek's throne room, Fluttershy bowed. She held the position for a few moments before a great voice boomed, “You may rise, Kindness. Do tell all.”
Fluttershy drew in a breath, and did exactly that. Spike could only feebly murmur, “No, please, stop talking to him,” once before Tirek absently made him drop convulsing and whimpering to the ground.
Once she had finished without interruption, Tirek rubbed his beard. “Well, well,” he remarked. “One woods witch slipping through the net is no great surprise. She can be attended to in short order. And I suppose I'll have to arrange something with regards to foals who haven't yet received their marks or greater magic.”
“What about those three? And their creature?” said Fluttershy.
“The latter rings familiar,” said Tirek. Magic flurried briefly around his vision with one casual gesture from a huge hand, and clouds rolled in the sky outwith. Sunlight jabbed down through them, scouring, seeking …
… finding.
A serpentine smirk crawled onto Tirek's face and stayed there for some time.
“My word, doesn't history repeat,” he purred. “Not perfectly in this instance though, I feel. Where do they even get these things?”
“Give them to me. Let me take guards and flush them out and put them to blades,” said Fluttershy in a hoarse whisper. “Please, I need it.”
“Patience,” said Tirek. “They're on their way to us, with nothing about them that poses any sort of risk, and they are now always in my sight. Why spend effort hunting them? Let them come, and when they do, we welcome them. Let them stand in my presence. I shall assess the mettle of this human. I comfortably anticipate disappointment”
“And after? And after?” Fluttershy's gaze alternated between Tirek and the patch of ground before his front hooves.
“Then, if any of them are left, you get to be creative again, Kindness. Teach more of your old friends new tricks.”
Fluttershy's smile sharpened.
Amidst the stone rubble at Tirek's hooves, nestled amongst other familiar pieces, there was something that looked very much like a fragment of curling horn.
And in a quiet hut deep within the Everfree, Zecora watched her fire die. The bubbling of the murky liquid inside the cauldron had long since petered away. The place was beginning to feel cold again for the first time since she'd moved into it.
The masks on her walls stared down at her. They weren't meant to offer judgement – that was a function of other spirits who had their own totems – but they were meant to act as reminders. What of, depended largely on the situation.
For one thing, there was the encounter with Fluttershy. Tirek now knew she existed and where she was. Would she last until tomorrow? Would she last for so much as another hour? The ashes offered no answers, and the whisper of the wild Everfree wind against her walls was for once an irritating distraction rather than a soother.
She would have to leave quickly. She could sleep rough with the forest as quiet as it was. Sleep, fetch the Crusaders in the morning, and then back to Zebrica for the life she'd left behind, albeit made significantly more difficult. Not that she'd retract the offer.
But, of course, she was fooling herself if she thought the Crusaders would actually be at their homes. Zecora loathed self-deceit, particularly when it happened to her. Fillies made of the same stuff as the older Elements of Harmony absent anything resembling adult sense wouldn't stop just because the spooky old zebra in the woods said it was a bad idea.
Where were they now? She knew the answer and felt a cold coil of dread in her gut at the thought. It was out of her hoofs, beyond her ability to intervene, she had no choice but to let them go …
Self-deceit. There was always a choice. Only the certain consequences of one of the choices held her back.
Down one road, she ran out of this hut and across the sea. She might have family back home who were still alive, and one day when her mane and muzzle were grey, she might be able to look at herself in a mirror again.
Down the other road, she ran out of this hut. And what followed would end … well, she doubted it would be anything good, per se.
Zecora stood and turned away from the ashes. “Hell's bells,” she muttered to herself.
From around her hut, from shelves and hooks and from old boxes that had never been opened and which lay under her bed, she retrieved what she'd need. Flasks, ceramics, her fine and beloved cloak with all the useful inner pockets. Rope. A crossbow and bolts. An old set of four seven-league shoes, suitable for cross-country.
Canterlot was almost directly south, if she remembered correctly.