//------------------------------// // Strings of Fate: Vie's Story (γ) // Story: Strings of Fate: Core Series // by Dissoriented //------------------------------// After waiving a fond farewell to Vance, Vie relaxed in her chair as the train was setting out for Manehatten. From there, she could make her way to the Prench embassy and reapply for citizenship. She could finally see her family again. After half an hour, she began to notice something was off. She was on a train bound for Manehatten, yet the train seemed utterly devoid of life, save for a giant plume of red hair snoring loudly several rows ahead. Granted, it was a night run, but such an important financial center usually meant there were dozens of businessponies and construction crews coming and going from the city, and Ponyville’s expansions should have meant these contractors would be in no short supply. She glanced out towards the front of the train to check for signs of life, but before she could check the other way, a blackjack hit her over the head. Strings of Fate: Vie’s Story She had grown up in a rather cozy upbringing with her family in Stalléans. Her parents noted her medical expertise early on as she tended to her younger brother’s scrapes with natural ease. When she got older, she was sent to study amongst the hallowed halls of Mareis’ finest universities. She was fresh out of L’Université de Mareis and eagerly applied to serve in the Mareis police force, hoping to put her medical training to good use. While studying, she soaked up biology and psychology like a sponge. While not particularly skilled in other fields, her soaring marks in the biological sciences ensured she could get any health-related job in all of Prance. Unaware of the things she would see during her time serving on the force, she leapt at the opportunity to, what she thought, would be treating civilians after natural disasters or riots. Prance at the time was on the verge of political upheaval. Clashing opinions between the political elite and the common pony occasionally boiled over from peaceful protests to violent riots. While Vie thought her skills would be put to use tending to anypony with wounds, her services were made exclusive to the police, which soon became the riot police, and then after them the military police. Vie could only sit there and watch as civilian victims caught in the uproar of violence had to suffer with burns, gashes, and broken limbs. It slowly ate away at whatever sense of patriotism Vie had for her homeland and her emotional health. One day, after a particularly brutal clash between protestors and police, Vie snuck off, took government-issued medical supplies, discarded her uniform, and began to tend to the wounded on the other side of the conflict. That was how she earned her Cutie Mark. One of the leaders of the protestors, a revolutionist, noticed her and remembered seeing her before behind a wall of stoic riot shields and tear gas. He knew she could never return to the other side without facing serious punishment and decided to smuggle her out of the descending country. After many hours of needing to convince her, Vie finally agreed to board a train for the Equestrian border. With a fake identity and a small sum of Equestrian currency, she left her home city engulfed in the flames of revolution at the behest of not only a complete stranger, but someone who was supposed to be her enemy. She had just dropped everything - her career, family, and any hope of a stable future - all of it because of some selfish bureaucrats. On that day, she vowed to herself that she would put her skills to use for those who truly needed it. Upon arriving in Equestria under a false title, she immediately found work as a surgeon’s apprentice to pay for her Equine lessons so she could properly meld into Equestrian society. She soon discovered that, try as she might, her accent would not fade. She would forever be marked as an outsider for this, but decided that if her skills were put to proper use, it wouldn’t matter in the long run. After several years working in Manehattan, she was approached by a silver unicorn with an offer to join a covert division of the Equestrian military. While initially hesitant, having had poor relations with government contracting in the past, she eventually decided to accept. A life in the shadows would alleviate any compulsion to change herself to fit in with manestream society, and she could once again express herself as she chose. Besides, a group of nonexistent warriors might be more open to the idea of serving with a Prenchmare. She made her way to the Canterlot safe house, and that was how she joined Mercury Team. ~ As Vie steadily regained consciousness, she was immediately approached by somepony she couldn’t see, due to a light being beamed directly into her face. “Can you understand me?” said her interrogator. “Ugh… Où suis-je?” she responded. “Don’t give me that Prench crap. We know who you are. Now tell us, are you the only survivor?” he demanded. “Go to the moon.” she flatly responded. The inquisitor, having little patience, promptly slapped Vie. “Gah! Cochon sale! Je vais vous dire rien!” she retorted. The inquisitor responded with another hoof, drawing blood from Vie’s nose. “We can do this all night if you’d like, but my bosses gave me a directive and I don’t want to upset them. You tried that and your whole team died.” he coldly stated. “You haven’t gotten me yet, saleté.” she quickly stated. “You think you’re gonna be able to leave this place alive? Good luck with that.” he said with a wicked grin. Vie began fiddling with the ropes binding her hooves ever so carefully. She could feel they were hastily done and would be easy to escape from. “What do you want?” Vie asked. “Are you the only survivor of your team?” he repeated. “Oui.” she lied. “We’ve only found three corpses so far. What happened to Vance?” he demanded. “I told you, he’s dead!” she insisted. Another hoof. “Quit lying and tell me where he is! You know he’s alive!” he screamed. Vie had finally managed to slip free of her bindings and brought both her hooves around into the inquisitor’s unexpecting head. The guard present wasn’t able to react fast enough, and Vie managed to get her hooves around his neck and permanently prevent him from helping. Vie spotted an ornate knife on the inquisitor. Stiletto. Pristine condition. Black painted wood handle. Garnished with silver. Small circular ruby embedded in the hilt. Seeing as she had no weapon on her, she took the blade. Her first mark with it was the previous owner. Carefully exiting the room, she scouted both hallways. The building looked like a small hospital of some sorts, but she wasn’t sure where she even was geographically. As quickly and quietly as she could, she made her way to what she hoped would be an exit. As luck would have it, she did indeed find one. As luck would have it, it led out into a military complex. Vie, unaware that the Equestrian Army had no connection or knowledge to the events surrounding Mercury Team, thought she was surrounded by hostiles. Creeping her way around the edge of the chain link fencing, avoiding detection in the night set ablaze with lamp posts, she made her way to a storehouse as she spotted some ponies looking similar to her interrogator exiting the building she was just in. Scrambling in through an open window, she landed on the cold concrete floor of the empty building. While checking through the equipment to see what she could use, she found she had stumbled onto a large cache of explosives. “Good to see you’re still around to help out, Stitch.” she jokingly quipped to herself. She hastily began jury-rigging a gigantic bomb out of the entire warehouse. Using this gigantic explosion, she could cover a smaller blast and blow a hole in the fence for her to escape through. “I sure hope this works. Ici va rien!” she thought to herself. She watched the flame snake its way along, split on the diverging pathways, then hid behind a portable restroom as an echoing explosion filled the air, a wall of scorching heat sailed over her, slightly singing her mane. Although the sound had deafened and dissoriented her, by sheer force of will she ran into the breach in the fencing. ~ As Vie ran through the forest, she could still see the light of the flames echoing off the trees. She had little idea where she was even going, but at this point anywhere was safer. She stopped a moment to look back at the inferno she had created and saw soldiers scampering about in terror as their entire warehouse just randomly exploded. She felt no concern for them, still believing they were aware of the threat she posed. She turned back towards the darkness and sprinted off. Eventually she came across a road and decided to follow it for a while. As the dawn began to crest over the horizon, Vie stopped at a small brook off to the side of the road and slaked her thirst. She still had no idea where she was or how safe she would be for the time being. Lifting her head from the stream, she watched the sun rise to greet the land. She had survived so much on her journey. Nothing would stop her now. Vie breathed deep the night air and marched on. ========== Bonus points to: Keystroke: for being my pre-reader and for being Vie’s first fanboy Author’s notes: Hello, everypony! Dissoriented here with a few post-script items to add: The 3rd in the Strings of Fate series, I thought Vie should get her own spotlight, given all she’s gone through. This was actually the first piece I had a rough draft completed for, and had I not fallen in love with the story potential of Vie, it was originally planned she wasn’t to have survived the train. Thank goodness that’s not the case! Had I decided to let Vie not survive Mercury, the whole future of the story would be vastly different than what I presently have planned. Your knife-loving, faceless writer, Dissoriented Disclaimer: “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” and its derivatives are the intellectual property of Hasbro©. I do not, nor claim to, have the rights to any and all intellectual property this story uses and is partly based on. None. Zilch. Zero. Nada. Zip. Muffins!