//------------------------------// // Three Lullabies // Story: Beyond Horizon's Edge // by Broseph_Stalin //------------------------------// Chapter XVII. – Three Lullabies The lighting in the hallways was dim, perfectly tuned for nocturnal eyes. For a pony, the murky light and cold aura felt to one as though they were swimming in a sea of shadow. Twilight had barely gone more than twenty feet from her room before very nearly stumbling across a suit of armor that was placed in an alcove along the smooth walls, cold to the touch. The only source of light (that she was able to spot), were greasy-burning candles which sat every two yards or so down the seemingly unending hallway. The clever unicorn quickly calculated where she currently was. Thankfully, the pathway the princesses had taken to get to the guest chambers was mostly straightforward coming from the main audience chamber. She figured that her best bet was to get herself there undetected, and then collect her bearings in the space of the grand hall. Twilight padded down the hallway, grateful that the runner beneath her hooves muffled her travels. The spell she had summoned merely absorbed and reflected light around her; it would do nothing to stop any tiny scuffle of movement or unbated breath that could betray her position. Twilight rounded a corner, and spotted the better-lit passageway that marked the gangway to the grand hall. Coming up to the heavy door, she stopped, a grimace forming on her face. There was bound to be somepony in there, she couldn’t just open the door without notice. She walked over to the strange mechanism that opened the door, and eyed it carefully in the murky light. Just as she had set herself close enough to see, however, she jumped straight in the air as a great bang resounded, and the door swung open to reveal several of the elders that had been present in the pre-jury. Twilight reeled back, tucking herself in a corner alcove, and prayed that nobody had seen her. Ekina shuffled past her slowly, bones weary and eyes hazed over from being awoken in the middle of the day. None of them were happy to be having to get up again in just a few short hours to decide the fate of some wandering foal, either. Twilight watched as Ekina of various color and size went into their respective chambers. She noticed with an odd sense of realization that they were very plain in color. Almost all their coats were stained with an earthen grey, green, or brown pigment, and all were gifted with bold, crimson eyes- the very same kind that she treasured about Ento. Ento. Her stomach fluttered as a nervous pang shot out through her body. An echo relayed the message to her brain, indicating the epicenter was her very own beating heart. She knew this by instinct, just as she had known it of her feelings every other time. With a determined gait, she stepped out from cover and trotted nimbly past the few stragglers remaining from the group. She glanced ahead at the door: it was closing fast! She was going to miss her window of opportunity! Daring against fate, she galloped as fast as her hushed masque would safely allow towards the quickly shutting door. Just barely brushing against the cool metal edging of the lock, she let out an internal shout of triumph as she passed into the grand hallway. But the thought crashed down into stunned shock as her robe was caught on a snag of the metal latch. With a tiny gasp and eyes wide as twin moons, she felt herself heaved against her forward gait. The metal brooch around her neck choked into her as the heavy door yanked her delicate form backwards. The door locked behind Twilight with a resounding krik-clang that echoed from one end of the great stone hall to the other. Oh no! She gasped, terrified. She tried her best to muffle the instinctive back-beat of her panicked wings, but they only locked up in a painful, bone-crunching pop. She tried desperately to slip her robe out of the crevice, but it would not give her a single inch. She tried wriggling out of it desperately, but the metal brooch merely cut deeper into the soft tissue of her throat as she struggled, choking, against the hold of the robust material. The unicorn was trapped. Short of deftly ripping her robe in half and destroying the spell she had cast on it, there was no way that she could get out of this mess. She felt her mind wallow in self-defeating thoughts. Hope seemed a fleeting thought, a bitter wish. Twilight pricked up her ears quickly: alien voices were speaking, and hooves were approaching from the dank recesses of the dark hall. This merely ripped away any little bit of hopefulness she held left in her, abandoning her with an all-too mortal sensation of nakedness. So this is how it ends, she thought morbidly. Trapped like an animal, just waiting to be snapped up in fate’s vicious maw. Hot tears streamed up in her eyes as the metal brooch dug deeper into her throat. She tried desperately to pick out the forms of the creatures before her. With the dim light and cloudy tears staining her sight, it was near-impossible to discern anything. What she heard first was a deep, rich voice. It seemed to flow like hot liquid over the speaker’s tongue, much like Ento’s. “Are we alone here, Bresel?” the male voice inquired. A pause. “Yes. It is merely you, Beseus and I,” came a slightly more high-pitched and shrill voice. This voice struck Twilight similarly to the idea of putrefying honey: a taste could repulse, but its bite was incredibly complex and abstract. A grumble resounded from the male voice. “As much as I wish it could be just you and I, for once…” It trailed off, ire heavily present in its rich tone. “I know, Skeren, but that is out of our control. And you know he only means well. Besides,” the female voice added, a creeping smile present in her voice, “At least he is quiet. Isn’t that right, Beseus?” Twilight merely heard a pause, and assumed “Beseus” had nodded in silent agreement, true to his character. “There, you see?” A stoic comfort was held in the female voice, a bit of sugar in the bitter ambrosia. “Now please, tell me what it is that is on my Lord’s mind?” “The entire situation, you know this. Ponies, showing up in our land out of the blue? And to deliver one who has strayed so far from our own flock, no less?” Twilight’s vision had cleared somewhat. As her eyes adjusted, she picked out with more clarity the three figures that stood some six feet from her ensnared form: the Lord and Lady, accompanied by the hooded and gaudily-decorated wizard that seemed to stick by them every second. Twilight spotted a look of intense concern on the Lord’s face. The Lady merely tsked in reply, shaking her head slowly. “Pay it some small heed, my husband. They are simply doing the job that was set upon them. Though, I am very curious as to how the colt had gotten past the northern wall.” Her look of concern seemed to match her lord’s almost consistently. The Lord nodded. “You don’t think they planned this as a whole setup in order to come here, do you, wife?” he implored. The Lady merely shook her head in disagreement. “No. No, I think he has led his own path in this, Skeren.” A pause held still in the air for a time. Finally, the Lady broke it, continuing her discourse. “The poor colt. He must be scared stiff. Death is a grand honor, but an ignoble death such as this can only lead one to stray along the path of the damned.” She shook her head once more, as far more solemnity was held in the action this time. At this, Twilight barely stopped herself from screaming outright. This is what she had feared the most: she knew Ento would find comfort in facing death’s embrace while Twilight worried away the plan to save him, but this… This changed everything. Knowing that he was probably scared to death somewhere in a cold, dark cage only tore her heart to pieces further. She felt her mind return to focused clarity as the Lord’s voice spoke up. “As saturnine and upsetting as it may be, the colt will get his three lullabies before he is laid to rest,” came the patriarch’s voice, with a considerable touch of sentiment. At his solemn words, he reached out a hoof to comfort his wife. Twilight was touched at the gesture as the Lady took it and moved in closer to her husband. “He has chosen his path now, Bresel. There is nothing we can do for him.” The Lady merely sighed, and looked up into her Lord’s face. Twilight was struck with the odd realization that her eyes were an icy emerald color. “I suppose you are right, but I cannot escape the feeling that this is fate’s way of telling us something. No single Ekina has crossed the border in some millennia and a half, so far as we know. And now it is that ponies from the North come to… grace us with their presence. Why is this?” She swallowed hard as she said this, searching her lord’s face for some answer to her unfathomable question. The Lord could do nothing but shake his bearded head slowly. A smooth, silken voice spoke up apart from the pair. “Perhaps we should take advantage of this opportunity that has been put before us.” At the court wizard’s voice, the Lord had stood up in his full height, ready to shout his lungs out at Beseus. The Lord was stopped short by the Lady, who placed a gentle hoof on her husband’s mouth, and turned to the mage. “What do you mean, Beseus? Please go on.” The hooded Ekina nodded to his Lady. “Here we stand, with our greatest enemies inside our very halls. They have taken a great pain to show up here and deliver a transgressor into our hooves. Do you not think that, perhaps, they have the capacity to be reasoned with? Maybe talks of peace and reunion should be brought up amongst ourselves after the trial. After all,” he said, turning his hooded head directly to Twilight as a slight smile drew itself across his features, “an enemy turned is, certainly, a friend earned.” No, no, that can’t be right, Twilight thought at the glance, mind racing. It’s impossible to see me right now. The hex… it’s working, I know it has to be. This speech left both the rulers’ faces stuck in individual positions of confused thought. Finally, the Lord spoke up, his heavy voice quavering slightly. “You honestly think that we should…” The rest of his sentence dissolved into unimportance as Twilight’s heart raced faster than she had ever felt it go before. Beseus had begun to amble slowly towards Twilight as the Lord gave his long-winded speech. A familiar but still unsightly Ekina smile grew larger upon the wizard’s face for every step he took towards the unicorn’s trapped form. Twilight shivered; the absurd sensation of being a trapped mouse looked on by a starving cat gnawed away at her anxious belly. Blood pounded in her ears. A terrified thought pervaded her mind: her heartbeat, the essence of her very physicality, was a screaming beacon for her position! It must be! It pounded away faster and faster, like great war drums in the empty hall of some abandoned castle keep. The court wizard stopped just in front of Twilight, his violent smile revealing razor sharp teeth, eyes narrowed to ugly slits. He turned back towards his lord and lady as the former finished his question. Beseus nodded in agreement. “Exactly that, my lord. I think it will help our kingdom far more than it could hurt it,” he purred. “We’ll just have to be… careful about how we move around the dark recesses of our heart’s desires, won’t we?” At this, he turned to Twilight, and winked. Opening the door, he stepped past her with an ever-so-delicate brush against her cloak. With this, she was free, in more sense than one. Fear released its grip on her mind and body, and she jumped forth, out of the way of the door. She felt her breath returning, and strained to even it out quietly. Twilight waited still as the Lord and Lady followed Beseus through the heavy doorway to the chambers, and left her alone in the giant hall with a resounding clang. The unicorn’s face was a model of pure and utter confusion as she racked her mind, attempting to figure out what had just happened. Had the court wizard’s gestures towards her supposedly-invisible form been products of a mind overstretched by fear’s grip? Or did they mean something more? ‘Moving around the dark recesses of our heart’s desires.’ The wizard’s voice echoed in her mind. What could that mean? Twilight smirked, disregarding the cryptic message. No sense hanging around here. I have an Ekina to find… And a wrong to be righted. With a curt nod to herself, she traipsed towards the opposite end of the empty chamber, towards the grand golden gate that she had seen Ento escorted through. Stopping at the gaily-adorned gates, she huffed out a long, heavy breath, and pushed the gate open just enough to squeeze by- but not too little that she was caught once more. With a warm heart, she trekked boldly into the inky blackness. . . . . There was a ghost in the castle's cells. It had to be a ghost; Ento didn’t know what else the strangled moaning in the corner could be. Because before the guards had shut the door to the hallway, what little light there was in the detainee’s quarters had revealed to him an empty row of prison cells. Now, the moaning was getting loader and louder, picking up in vibrato slowly but surely. Ento felt drowned in unreasonable fear, saturated in horrendous thoughts that intruded on his waking mind like a rooting darkness. I am going to die. In a mere sum of hours, his heart would cease to beat in his very chest. He knew that he should take comfort in it. After all, it was an Ekina’s grandest step in life to pass on to the next! But dread returned once more: such a reprehensible death as this would only lead him to an eternity of damnation. No Ekina knew where the damned went after their life had been snuffed out, but whispers from mages and shadows never painted a hopeful picture. Ento’s spirits only sunk lower as the sobbing moans turned to strangled, undulating shrieks. Screwing up his face, he covered his ears as the sound bounced off the hard stone walls, and felt another sensation of merciless fear rake away at his insides with cold, sharp claws. A single desperate thought of Twilight shot out in brilliant clarity: his mind’s last, feeble attempt to console him. Anger simply batted away the tiny impression with a deft swipe. Hopelessness took over his mind, and he screamed out. “Please! Will someone come in here and just stop the screaming!?” He didn’t know who it was he was even calling out to. Acid tears burned his eyes and razor teeth cut into his lip as the undulant cries bounced off the walls, faster and faster. A sharp crack of an opening door seemed to catch the screaming off-guard. It stopped immediately, disappearing as if the sound had never even existed. Ento blinked into the dazzling light as a single figure stood framed in the doorway. “What? What is it?” came the guard’s thick voice. It was muted slightly through the imposing helmet he wore, pinching his speech into a tinny echo inside the long room. Ento blinked harder, trying to clear away his stinging tears. “Nothing. N-Nothing,” he mumbled, taking a series of short, deep, heaving breaths. “Keep quiet, eh? It’s the middle of the day, y’know,” the guard grunted moodily, and walked away, letting the door shut slowly on its own. Ento lay down facing the cell wall, and began sobbing gently to himself. If he had stopped for merely a half second longer to look on at the door, he might have noticed the way it awkwardly bumped back open as it swung close. And if he hadn’t been crying to himself, he may have even been able to pick out the tiny oof that preceded the door’s deviation from close. And, if he had been a mere inch closer to touching the bars of the cage’s door, he would have felt the tiny vibrations that rumbled the steel bars in their slots at the contact of some unknown entity. He did, however, see through thick tears the small flicker of light that danced for an instant on the smooth stone walls. He also heard a smart crackle, as if someone had lit a fresh candle in the room. He even felt his heart soar into the grandest heights of ecstasy as he heard the whisper of a very familiar voice. “Ento!” The cry seemed to be a warm breath in his ear, and yet a foghorn’s bellow from the coast of the great sea. He sat bolt upright, mind reeling in blissful anticipation. His emotions betrayed anger’s solid reasoning, though, as he spotted Twilight standing proudly before him, garbed in a flowing silk robe. He cursed himself for an instant: he had fallen victim to his foolish heart once again! “What in the great name of Alik’Kr are you doing here?” he whispered harshly. It wasn’t a question. It was a profanity, weighed heavily with the taint of deceived ire. The unicorn’s face seemed to drop like a lead weight at his question. The Ekina allowed himself a small smirk at her reaction. “Ento…” she began, her lowered voice seeming caught on the verge of strangled tears, “it’s me. It’s Twilight.” “Oh. So that should just make it all better, then, should it?” he asked, voice contemptuous. His predator’s eyes focused into dangerous blood-red slits. “You think you’re here to just save the day, are you, then? Because that always helps, right? Oh, gods, don’t make me laugh,” he spat, and added a bitter yelp of a laugh to prove his point. Twilight’s face merely sat in shocked outrage. Her mouth moved silently, like a fish that had been dragged straight out of the comfort of water’s embrace, and thrown onto the hard wood floor of an airless existence. Tears sprang from the corners of her eyes. Finally, she sucked in a breath, and choked out a response. “Ento… I’m here to help you. To save you…!” Her tiny voice was a plea, and it held all the weight of a heavy heart being slowly crushed into dust. Ento merely stood up in defiance and shouted at her. “Just get out. Go away, I don’t want to see you here!” he said, feeling his teeth click nervously. Twilight tried to silence him, desperately tried to ask him to please, be quiet, but this only urged him on more. Standing up to his full height, he felt anger clawing at his heart. “Get out, you stupid creature! Don’t you dare come back here!” he snarled, hot anger burning at his belly. He was going to be sick. Twilight did this! Twilight did this, and she was here to make it worse! I don’t… I don’t… Oh gods, why? Why me? “I said out!” he bellowed, frightened at himself and everything around him. Twilight let out a single simper, and then jumped back behind a couple of salt barrels as the door crashed open, and the guard walked in, furious. “Right, what in the name of Tuni’Ro’s goin’ on in ‘ere? Eh?” he barked sharply, and advanced on Ento’s standing form. “I’ve had it to here with your fuggin' bellyaching, and I ain’t getting any sleep so I guess Ima just have to shut you up!” With this, he drew a dagger callously, and advanced on the lone prisoner. Ento shot to the back of his cell, horns clacking against the stone wall. “Please, no! I’ll be quiet! I will!” he pleaded, voice stretched thin and airy as fear enveloped his mind. The guard merely kept forward, menacing the terrified colt. “Shuddap, you.” He stopped for a moment, thinking. “Lord an’ Lady won’t like it if I give you back damaged. So I’ll tell you what. You keep your damn mouf shut, or I’ll be forced to claim that you got a bit rebellious an’ had to add a few new air holes to your neck, eh? Now, shuddup. Damn well I’ve got to stay up in the middle of the day because you decided to go on some joyride past the walls.” He sheathed his dagger with twang, and stormed out, grumbling under his breath. The door shut behind him with a solid click. Ento merely dropped to the ground, sobbing heavily. He felt blood weep from his unhealed wound and tears pour from his face. He didn’t care. What good was caring now? Twilight stepped up to the sobbing form. Her voice was a gentle whisper, though it quavered just as much as when the pair had first met. “Ento… My dear, it’s okay. I’m here for you. Please don’t cry, okay?” she consoled softly. The Ekina merely turned his head away from her, though his sobbing did quiet down somewhat. “I-I just…” he gasped through choking sobs, “I just wanted to explore. To go on an adventure, and feel like my life meant a damn thing. I didn’t know what would happen. I didn’t plan to get stuck here. I didn’t plan t-to…” Twilight spotted his head move slightly in her direction. “I didn’t plan to… to fall in love,” he sniffed gently, as the last few tears seemed to dry up. “Ento…” Twilight began, her voice level, “Fate has its funny ways of dealing cards to its unsuspecting players. Instead of dreading the hand we have, let’s pool ours together now, and make sure we get the grand pot in the end.” Her voice had grown in surety at every syllable, every letter, and every word that fell out of her mouth. She stepped forward slowly, stopping at the bars, and squeezed her head through gently. “Come here. Please,” she commanded softly. Ento dragged himself up on all four hooves, and walked the short length from the cell wall to Twilight’s form. Apprehensive, he stayed back a half step from her reach. He glanced down at his hooves, the sensation of being an embarrassed little filly came into mind. “I’m sorry…” he mumbled thickly to the floor. “What, Ento?” Twilight asked. Ento huffed out a breath, and looked up, eyes bloodshot and watery. “I’m sorry Twilight. When the princesses told me that you were a princess, as well… My mind clicked right into anger and fear. I thought you had told them about the punishment for straying from Ek’Rael, and they were dragging me off to death because you had told them everything.” The word was a heavy breath. Ento searched Twilight’s visage, desperate for some sense of compassion, some sort of understanding. Finally, after a lengthy pause, Twilight spoke. “Ento, I never even spoke to either of the princesses since you had arrived. When I heard that you were going to be put to death…” She laughed awkwardly, “I went insane myself. But I told myself, 'Twilight Sparkle, there is a creature out there that you love, and you need to save him.' And, well, here I am,” she said, breaking into a devilishly embarrassed smile. Ento raised an eyebrow at this. He could feel the sludge of hatred melting off his beating heart, revealing a cherry-red sensation of pure, unadulterated love. Hot blood rushed to his face in a familiar perception of embarrassment. “You came here to save me…” he mumbled, seemingly dumbstruck. Twilight nodded in reply. “Me. Just a boring, old Ekina.” At this, Twilight broke into another broad grin. Ento merely sighed, but found his lips pulled into a similarly-ecstatic smile. “There is nothing boring about you, Ento. You are the most incredible being I have ever had the extreme pleasure and good fortune to even know. And I couldn’t say in a hundred thousand years how thankful I am to have had you step into my life.” At this, Twilight reached out with a hoof and pulled Ento closer to her, in the same embrace they had shared not a day earlier. The fantastic scent of her body wafted over him, an all-too familiar smell of mountain grass and lilac. Frayed nerves snapped back to life, and his heart beat steadily once more. Her head reached up, up his neck with a hot breath, and stopped at his ear, nuzzling it gently as her snout picked its way through his short, unkempt mane. “…I love you.” It took three simple words to send the colt’s mind ablaze with burning adoration. Ento grabbed her, and pushed her even closer up against him in a loving embrace. He almost willed their two forms to coalesce into a solid, unbreakable creature. Tears sprang up, unbidden, as happiness washed over his shattered mind in a rush of ecstasy. “I love you, too. Gods, how I love you, Twilight,” he gasped to the little purple alicorn that he held in his embrace. He could feel the spot where her tears were soaking his coat. After what was easily an eternity, the pair separated, though neither of them wanted to be further than an inch apart. Action demanded their attention now, though, as the reality of the situation loomed over the lovers. Ento glanced morbidly around at his surroundings. “So, I hope you have a plan to get us out of this mess, because I’m fresh out of ideas, Twi. I’m sentenced to death. An ignoble death at that.” Ento’s face fell quickly as the reality dawned on him. He looked to her with pleading eyes. “I don’t know what you ponies call it, but the damned Ekina here go to a place called Excarbane when they pass on. And I absolutely do not want to be cursed to an eternity’s plane of fire.” At this, the pony grinned smugly, much to the surprise of Ento, whose face was in stunned shock. “I certainly anticipated that,” she whispered back, voice full of self-confidence. “And I do, in fact, have a plan, and I know you’ll love where I got the inspiration from.” Ento nodded in reply. “Go on.” “On my way here, I read that book of yours, The Adventures of Entar’Ma the Brave. One particular story struck me as considerably moving: The Serpent and the Shiv.” At this, Ento nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, I’ve only read that some hundred times,” he said jokingly. At this, Twilight laughed quietly. Her tinkling giggle sent a tingling sensation from the tip of his nose to the base of his tail as the Ekina smiled. “But how does that help us?” “Think, Ento. In the eyes of everyone else, you’re just a prisoner who has broken the vows you've held towards the kingdom. But, if you were to, perhaps, show that you have more to fight for than they would believe…” The pony's voice trailed off as she looked expectantly towards her love. Ento’s face was a study in shock. “Well, I understand, Twilight, but surely you don’t mean…?” Twilight merely nodded, her grin still as prominent. “Exactly. And don’t worry. I’ll be here by your side the entire time, okay?” At this, she placed a hoof gently on his chest. He could feel his heartbeat against her touch. “Okay, Twilight. We’ll do it. So long as I know you will be by my side the whole way through.” Twilight nodded again, and the pair met in another warm embrace. Ento let himself fall into the bliss of her gentle scent once more. . . . . A time and space far removed: A single hot-air balloon was drifting lazily across the noontime sky, pulled by what seemed, at first glance, to be a large cyan bird. Upon closer inspection, it was found that the bird was, in fact, a pegasus adorned with a beatific rainbow mane that whipped care-free around her head and rump, and the balloon was actually streaking at breakneck speeds. Inside the simple purple hot-air balloon was an assortment of other ponies, who hunkered down in the basket’s cover: a white unicorn, another yellow pegasus, and a pair of earth ponies, one pink and the other a hard hue of orange. The balloon itself was speeding south at massive speeds. “I can’t believe we’re going on an adventure to save Twilight!” Pinkie Pie shouted, jumping up. She soon ducked back down under the cover of the large basket as her mane whipped wildly around her head, stinging her eyes as the wind screamed past. “Now, sugarcube, we’re comin’ tah save Ento, too,” Applejack reassured the pink pony firmly. Pinkie apologized profusely, both to Applejack, and the estranged entities of Twilight and Ento, wherever they may be. Applejack unfolded the simple piece of parchment once more. Worn-out creases had started to form where nervous hooves had deftly folded and unfolded it multiple times, and a dash of owl pellet stained a corner, a tribute to Twilight’s clever use of the owl’s stand to hide the note. Applejack stared blankly at the seemingly-cryptic writing of Twilight’s flowing wordage. My dearest friends, Ento in danger. Please, use the hot air balloon to fly yourselves to Ekina castle ASAP. Head directly south, look for the castle on the side of the great mountain. Be ready for a fight. I can’t say what will happen, but I know I can count on you all being here to help. P.S. Please actually feed Owliscious. I forgot to do so for the past two days because Ento had been here. Your Friend, T.S. Applejack smirked at the unicorn’s scribbled signature at the bottom of the letter. Here they were, speeding blindly south to Celestia-only-knows-where. Applejack's troubled thoughts were interrupted, though, as she heard Rainbow Dash’s voice call out to the four in the basket. “Hey, guys, how far am I supposed to be flying for!?” she cried over the gusts of wind. Applejack stood up, and peeked over the edge of the basket. “Ah dunno, RD. All Twilight said was tah keep going south until we found ‘a castle on the side of the great mountain.’ Ah can’t really give you more information than that. I’m sorry, hon,” Applejack shouted back. She caught Dash’s groan as it was sucked back by the blasting turbulence. “You mean, that mountain?” came Fluttershy’s delicate voice on the other side of the basket. Applejack followed her hoof, and spotted, on the edge of the afternoon horizon, the biggest darn mountain she had ever seen in her life.