//------------------------------//
// Dusk 
// Story: Through the Nether 
// by StormDancer 
//------------------------------//

Night Whimsy had taken the night off after her run-in with Silent Sentinel. Dive Bomb, after getting a look at the massive bruise to her chest, had decided his special somepony could use a helping hoof to get home. Silent Sentinel had disappeared to the place all the recruits who showed-up their superior officers went to and Magnus had taken over for the startled Vague Notion who had found the... remains. Arcane Barrage had requested leave to think about things and left with the crate containing the remains towards the Castle proper. Shortly thereafter, Duty had been relieved, the princesses had disappeared, and the search for the intruder had been ultimately suspended since more than a day had passed since the incident with no success.

And all of that left Mistral with quite a few questions and far too few answers. Well, questions and the need to blow off a bit of steam after Arcane Barrage's stupid little comment.

As a result, she had taken to making a few laps around the castle to cool off and get a bit of a break before her actual shift started.

She had been quietly gliding between towers, as her position often required, when she happened to glance down over the Plot. All around, the lawn had been trampled, the flowerbeds rooted through, and the decorations searched. Everything had been returned to its original positions but, after a month of visiting nearly every night, the absence of a stationed guard and the darkness of the open grave just felt wrong to her.

Dropping into a landing upon one of the small outcroppings along an overlooking wall, she turned her amber gaze across the still trees and flowers that had, until recently, been a secure and peaceful retreat within the Castle grounds.

As she looked over it now though, she almost couldn't see the peaceful little respite it had offered. She certainly couldn't see it for a final resting place anymore.

The longer she looked, the more tiny differences she found. Near the birdbath, a new batch of night lilies had been planted. Over near the wax leaves, a bench had been replaced after a clumsy guard had accidentally broken one of the legs. A few of the wall sconces had been updated to help with the search, making the whole place just a bit brighter than it had been previously. And everywhere, positively everywhere, the lawn had been torn to shreds by the countless hooves of the Guard, singlemindedly pursuing a criminal without consideration for their own presence.

Softly, she huffed out her frustration. Not only had a hero's rest been disturbed, not only had their remains been desecrated, not only had the perpetrator escaped completely unhindered, but the very peace that the garden had offered had been completely destroyed.

No doubt the Guard would point out that it was much safer now, what with the increased visibility and presence of patrols, but those very same qualities robbed it of much of its charm. She could no longer swoop down and feel alone with her thoughts, no longer able to wander slightly in her mind as she stood there. The changes that had been made to ensure the security of the garden had simultaneously robbed it of much of the very definition of what it meant to be a sacred thing... a royal garden and a hero's grave.

She frowned. Even from here, she could see the patches of dead flowers from where the gardener had been unable to replant from the careless guards.

She blinked and tilted her head as she looked again.

Looking over the garden carefully, she began to pick out the batches of new plants the royal gardener had started bringing in. She had noticed them before, seeing a great number arrive over the last month at the Plot, but she had just assumed it was a gesture to show respect for the departed. Now, after looking over the garden for so long, after flying over it and visiting and walking through it for the last month, she saw something new.

With a chill absolutely not related to the temperature, Mistral spread her wings and made for the Main Hall where she hoped her Princess resided.


-~oOo~-





"And you're saying he was just lying there? Just.... on the ground, out in the open?" the junior sergeant repeated as his quill flitted over the form he had been filling out for the last ten minutes.

"Yes. Once again: yes. Just lying there, on the ground, unconscious and looking like he got pegged in the head by some gryphon linebacker during the Bridlebowl." The pegasus mare, a slight little beige pegasus with a loop of construction tools slung across her neck, sighed for what must have been the twentieth time in as few minutes. "Look, I'm just supposed to be working on the crenelations but with the whole to-do about some invader or whatever, seeing somepony on the ground not moving seemed like something you'd all want to know about." With a deadpan look, she added "Can I GO NOW?"

While the junior sergeant internally grimaced, outwardly, his face remained blank. "I'm sorry for the delay ma'am, but with any report... any report of this nature at least, we need to make sure we haven't missed anything from the original witnesses. A Guard member did not find the victim, so we can't tell what the witness might have seen or possibly changed from 'checking' on the victim." His light blue eyes looked up and caught her own, "It's just standard procedure, really."

The mare, clearly doing her best to remain 'polite' despite her growing impatience, leaned back into her seat and rubbed a hoof across her face as she nodded irritably. "Fine. Just.... fine, whatever. It's not like I'm working on the castle of the rulers of Equestria or anything."

If pegassi could mold frustration as easily as clouds, the junior sergeant was positive this one would have already woven a noose... and perhaps the tree to use it from... by now. He cleared his throat uncomfortably and pulled out another twelve page form, earning himself a glare that could have cracked marble.


-~oOo~-





With a final tug, she pulled another crumbling rib from the loose gray leather that her side now resembled and frowned. Being dead had long ago lost its horror for her, but being dead and not rising properly... that was taking some getting used to.

Her fingertips had finally 'healed', if returning to sharp spikes of weathered bone could be considered 'healed', but the rest of her was still a nearly useless thing. Between her pulverized sternum, multiple cracked ribs, shattered spine, and huge swaths of missing skin, there was precious little left that she could use to even identify herself as Forsaken, let alone formerly human. That went, of course, without mentioning the complete absence of everything from just above her bellybutton down.

Beside her, a small pile of broken and torn bits had been growing as she worked to fix what she could. Bits of skin that had caught or torn, a number of rib fragments, a chunk of elbow that had hit the cobblestone walkway wrong when she fell, and a number of teeth were mixed in with a few fistfuls of gray-black mess that had formerly resided within her abdomen made up the majority of the pile. Where she couldn't tie parts off, she had resorted to digging free or tearing loose so she wouldn't get caught on things if she had to move quickly again.

For a moment, she paused, her skeletal fingers drifting over a shriveled thing that reminded her entirely too much of what she remembered a heart was supposed to look like. It had fallen out when she had propped herself up against the wall, hidden by decorative ivy, behind a statue some half hour prior. There was something uncomfortably strange with looking at ones own organs and idly wondering if you really needed them any more.

For a few more moments, her fingers hovered above the dried lump before gently resting upon it.

She could just leave these all here, hidden in the bushes, discarded and unknown until some little creature would drag them away to bury for the winter or have for a light snack. She really had no use for them anymore. Her lungs didn't breathe and her heart hadn't pulsed in years. The last time she had eaten, it hadn't gone through her intestines anyway. No amount of ale would ever harm her liver and she rather strongly doubted that the various other dry, hard, lumps had any remaining function anyway.

And yet...

Even dead, they were a part of her. They were a very personal collection of useless, broken, dead... things. 

She stared for a few moments more. There were, of course, many Forsaken that had been patched up and cobbled together. More than a third she had served with had sported one or more parts 'salvaged' from open graves or enemies that had recently fallen. She even knew a warlock who kept a small chest of jaws for different social gatherings.... 'just trying to be fashionable' he had explained.

But these were hers.

Her, she corrected herself. These bits and pieces were actual parts of her own body.

Gently, almost lovingly, she picked up the blackened lump that had fallen out, and turned it slowly in the bit of moonlight that filtered through the ivy. She could see the dried musculature, the dead veins and a number of things she wasn't familiar enough with to identify. There were nooks and crannies, holes she was certain weren't supposed to be there, and a number of cracks. Frowning slightly, she recognized the brittle charring from where her mace had fallen through and cooked the organ through her chest.

Useless. Utterly useless now. No amount of bandaging or medicines could have saved someone with that kind of injury. Nothing short of magic could have turned the blackened lump of charcoal back into a proper heart.

Idly, she ran her thumb over the surface, watching as grains and grit fell away with the sound of sand, darkening the lawn beneath her further.

"So, this is how I end," she thought. "A bit disappointing, but at least I'll not have tripped down the stairs or some other nonsense."

With a slightly bitter flinch, she carefully placed her heart back upon the pile of broken bits and leaned back to rest.

She hadn't needed to rest in so long, it had actually been confusing when the notion had struck her. She was so used to simply waking up, grabbing her weapons, finding a smith and racing back out into the fray that the very sensation of lethargy, of weariness, had become foreign to her.

Now, propping herself up on an empty ribcage, a spine that ended well before her missing pelvis, and bracing herself on chipped bone arms seemed almost too much to manage.

She needed to move. Her instincts told her she needed to move. Her training told her she needed to move. Her common sense was screaming that she needed to move. But she was simply too tired.

With a sigh, uttered from lips without working lungs, she sunk back against the wall, hearing the soft clack of her spine against the marble.

Just a few minutes, that was all she could afford. Just a few minutes.


-~oOo~-