//------------------------------// // Never Too Late To Begin Again // Story: Yaerfaerda // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// Jex paced around the mound of soft sand and dirt as well as he could. His crutch of a prosthetic dug into the earth with each turn, and he wrapped his good arm around himself as he shivered from the chill of bitter desert night. “Okay, so maybe I can guess as to why you let me live,” the imp said. “You're a pony and a Noble Jurist. I suppose there's something beneath your squishy exterior that sympathizes with all walks of life, even life that doesn't have all its legs to walk with. So, seeing an ounce of good in my being, you decided to spare my existence and allow me to live so that I could improve on my state of being.” “No, don't be ridiculous,” Roarke droned. Seemingly impervious to the cold, she squatted a few feet above him, attaching her scant piece of remaining leg armor to the chunk of skystone pilfered from the crashed battleship. “You are still of utilitarian use to me. Simple as that.” Jex swiveled to a stop, his jaws chattering. “Oh.” His ears twitched. “Even still...” He glared her way. “I thought the plan was to bring both of Haman's ships down!” “Indeed.” Roarke nodded. She pressed a button on the side of the armor piece. A panel popped loose, inverting to form a rotating dish that aimed towards the sky. “It was.” “And yet...” Jex's eyes thinned. “You let one of them go! I mean, from the way you were speaking before the mission, it seemed to me that this was going to be a do-or-die exercise!” Roarke crawled up to the very top of the blasted mountain and dug the skystone in at the summit. “Your point...?” “I've seen you in action, pony!” Jex rasped. “You could take on an entire army of reindeer if you wanted to! Your fighting skills know no limits. Perhaps it would have ended with your untimely death, but you could very easily have fought your way into the belly of the second ship and ruptured its core before perishing.” “Mmmm...” Roarke gave the shard a few flicks. The skystone pulsed with an ethereal amber glow while the tiny dish continued spinning. “Perhaps.” “So why didn't you?!” Jex exclaimed. “Surely you know what's at stake! You have friends and colleagues in the far north! Now they're at risk of fighting two battleships instead of one! I mean... I can't speak for the pony mind, but isn't that something worth fighting for? Even to the death?!” Roarke trotted back from the glowing shard. She brushed her hooves off and muttered, “You ask me if perhaps I should have laid my life on the line so that my friends may live. In a brutal world without choices, I would agree with you. But I no longer see the world in the same way Roarke Most Rare did. This it not all one big game that ends in my sacrificing myself. There is always another option. To believe otherwise is to submit to defeat.” Jex squinted at her. “Since when were you so simple-minded? Life is hardly that fair.” “Only when we let it come to that. However, now I am convinced that we're put upon this plane to enact a difference, a harmonious difference. And before you attempt to contradict me, keep in mind that I've been taught by the best.” “Uh huh...” Roarke tilted her head up, gazing into the cloudy night sky above the arid mountains. “There'll always be something worth fighting for, Jex. Very rarely are you able to find something worth living for. But once you've grasped hold of it, it's fruitless to let go. For a moment there, I had forgotten that lesson.” Jex was about to retort when he heard strange thunder from up above. He tilted his head up and his ears drooped behind his skull. The cloudy sky became cloudier. Flashes of yellow and red lightning brimmed. Soon, the thick mists were descending, approaching the gravel-laden summit. Frightened, Jex stumbled back, falling on his rear end. The skystone shard pulsed from where it had been planted in the earth. Its amber glow intensified. Suddenly, one after another, black spheres descended from the clouds above, their skystone engines pulsating in sequence with the shard that Roarke had planted. Soon enough, the mountain was surrounded by no less than twelve looming Lounge aircraft, circling in close orbit, scanning the two lone figures stranded there. Roarke tilted her head aside. Her muzzle was slightly curved as she said, “It is never too late... to start again.” Deep in the dim streets of Val Roa, nestled between two spaciously curved towers, and shadowed by looming balconies and bronze-capped ledges... A square-shaped piece of tile shifted loose from the rest of the panels bordering it. It shook slightly at first, then rattled, then finally lifted up altogether. A pair of green eyes peered out, anointed with a glowing green horn. Kera looked left, then looked right. At last, deciding that the coast was clear, she slid the panel sideways so that it rested on the street's floor just above the hidden lid to the sewers. With meager grunts, she pulled herself out of the hole and rolled to the side, panting and sputtering for breath. Not long after, she heard desperate and persistent grunts from the hole beside her. With a groan, Kera rolled her eyes, then sat up straight. She crawled over to the edge of the pit, leaned her horn down, and tugged with as much magic as she could muster. Prince Eine gasped as he felt his body lifted up and dangled just above street level. He was pulled to the side, and then the magic aura faded. “Ooomf!” he grunted as he crumpled down onto the floor just beside Kera. “Meh...” Kera wheezed. “At least you're as light as you look.” “Uhm... I-I have to be at least three years older for the muscle mass to efficiently—” “Yes... Yes. I know.” Kera rolled her eyes. “Goddess, will you let it rest, already?” “Sorry...” “And quit apologizing! You're gonna be king soon! Time to own up to stuff, y'know? Be a buck for crying out loud!” Eine shuddered, gazing down at the hole to the sewers. “I think it's obvious to both of us that I've got a lot to learn about the true state of my kingdom.” His jaw clenched. “And just how few of my subjects deserve my trust.” “Don't go all mopey on me,” Kera said. Struggling, she shoved the heavy tile plate back into place and set it even with a pulse of mana. “So maybe Chrysalis has turned a few deer over to the dark side. You've still got a kingdom to run. If not today, then sometime soon. The key part right now is keeping you alive for when it happens.” “Where are we?” “Beats the heck out of me,” Kera said, standing up. She stared at the sky and saw slivers of starlight beyond the cylindrical towers. “This whole city of yours was built on crazy. I mean, it's pretty in the daytime and all, but I couldn't make my way from Point A to Point B even if I tried.” “Then... we're lost?” “Yes.” Kera grinned. “I couldn't be happier.” He gazed at her cockeyed. “Huh?” “The key here is to remain hidden. And that's one thing I'm good at in a city, no matter how strange it may be from the inside out.” “But... Sharp Quill... the Soul Sentries...” Eine trembled. “They could be looking all over for us!” “And they will look and they will look and they will rub their hooves to the bone. So long as we lay low, we can choke them out. Leave 'em starved for results.” Kera paced back and forth, peering down the available avenues. “You'll continue to be a no-show, and the public will start to worry. Soon enough, they'll start asking questions. That'll put Chyrsalis' goons up against the wall. And by that time, hopefully, the Noble Jury will have dropped the hammer on them, and you and I will be free to show our faces.” “You make it all sound so very simple.” “No.” Kera shook her head. “I make it sound so very stupid. Which is how I know it'll work.” “Uhhhh...” “Come on!” Kera tugged him along, keeping their voices low as the two tiny figures darted into a nearby alley. “We've gotta find a place to hide!” “I-I don't suppose our hiding spot will have couch cushions and running water?” “Heck, no!” “Awwww...”