//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: Not Prisoners of Fate 
// Story: Pride Goeth 
// by Zurock 
//------------------------------//

Mrs. Totaler ran a tavern, not a restaurant.  Nopony waited to be seated or served; they drifted in and out as they liked, summoning service with as much as a friendly holler or as little as a polite glance.  There weren't any checks; ponies paid whenever they felt like it, whether up front, at the end, anywhere in between, or even next Tuesday.  The townsponies called their tavern practices simply "being cordial."

And that was how Mrs. Totaler knew that the stranger was from somewhere far outside of the frontier.  The unknown pony hadn't been rude in any fashion, but he most definitely hadn't known anything about how to be cordial.
Immediately she had noticed him when he had first arrived hours ago; she noticed everypony who came in, courteous and mindful businesspony that she was.  But the stranger, unlike most, had merely waited by the door undecided after he had entered.  However before the bartender's busy rounds had allowed her the chance to have invited him to a seat, he had finally moved and selected a lonely spot at a small table in the very far corner of the tavern.  There he had sat silently the whole time, never having once called for service.
In all her twenty-five years at Stony Nook, and even longer at the art of bartending itself, Mrs. Totaler had only seen that kind of hesitant and withdrawn behavior from far-flung travelers unfamiliar with local customs.  She had kept an eye on him all throughout the evening, hopeful that he might have given her a chance to have welcomed him to her friendly corner of the world.

In over three hours the chance had never come.

Tucked in his solitary corner at a narrow table meant for four, the stranger had been nigh motionless for his entire stay.  For some reason he had sat down oddly and never corrected himself, turned off-center from the table.  His left side had kept a good watch over the whole of the tavern, but his right side had befriended nothing but the wall.  Yet even with so obvious a watchpost there had been no way to tell what if anything he had been observing; concealing him almost entirely was a large travel cloak.
Of finely woven, durable, brown cloth, whatever superior origin it had was hard to guess at because of how battered and worn it was.  Several scars were present which had been stitched up by unskilled hooves, some obviously multiple times over during its lifetime.  Dust and chalk made whole neighborhoods upon it; the cloak had been traveled hard recently without any chance to have been washed.  Its great length covered the stranger practically nose-to-tail, long enough to have hung mere inches from the floor when he had been standing, with no more than the barest bottoms of his hooves and the faintest tufts of his golden tail visible.  The only adornment the cloak had was the brooch which kept it fastened about his neck; the trinket was either a very convincingly fashioned jewel or a rounded leaf trapped in hardened sap.  Above, folded up over the stranger's head was a heavy hood which left his face in complete darkness except for the tip of his white snout.
It was a distinct look which was almost too blatantly suspect.  He had at first drawn many more eyes than only Mrs. Totaler's.  Yet in time he had earned his solitude.  So long as he hadn't been making any trouble, the easygoing townsponies had been more than kind enough to have loaned him their polite disregard.

Mrs. Totaler had no such luxury, of course.  Never risk an unhappy customer!
She would have intervened sooner if it hadn't have been for the unusual busyness of the party up at the bar.  It was only after Crumble Pie and her crew had been well placated by drinks and stories that the bartender felt she at last had the opportunity to approach the stranger.  Hopefully he wasn't just some incredibly civil, extraordinarily patient, very angry customer who had all this time been expecting a waiter.
She set aside the few mugs that were still unclean, she laid flat her folded dishrag, and she stepped out from behind her bar... only to right away spy Bookworm quiet and nestled between the legs of the unused stool next to her father.

The filly wasn't being expressly cold to Scrolldozer anymore, but nor had all of her immature resent been washed away.  She had that young look of unhappy pride, sometimes peeking out from her cover to glower sadly at the party she wanted so badly to join again but couldn't after the fuss she had made.  She otherwise entertained herself in her gloom by watching other patrons in the tavern.
Likewise, Scrolldozer hadn't forgotten about his daughter, but if there was some better solution to her tempers than a little bit of spacious solace, he had never figured it out.  It was painful to intentionally ignore his precious foal after he already lost so much time with her each week because of his job at the quarry, and not so secretly it worried him that she had learned so well how to soothe herself by his absence and also that he had come to rely on it.  Every time it happened he prayed that it was just some normal thing; that she was an ordinary filly who was cranky because it was past her bedtime, and that by temporarily freezing her out he was being an ordinary and capable parent.
He prayed so hard sometimes.
Being in the presence of his bantering friends made it much easier to give his daughter distance.

Mrs. Totaler, however, felt a guilty knife poke into her professional pride when she saw the filly and realized that she had forgotten that the child was even there.  She put the stranger aside.
"Pardon, darling," she bent low beside the stool and lured the filly out of her quiet musings, "but are you still thirsty?  You like something more to drink?"
Bookworm gave a rushed smile, wanting only to get back to her own thoughts.
"No thank you, Mrs. Totaler."
"Alright then.  You speak up if you feel the need?"
"I will."
"Okay, darling," the bartender warmly beamed and gave a gentle pat to the filly's soft mane.
Her heart settled, Mrs. Totaler moved on.  She weaved a path with familiar ease, maneuvering around tables on her way to the stranger's corner.  Just once she looked back to smile an extra time at Bookworm.
The filly was watching her intently.

The cloaked stranger took early notice of the bartender's approach but barely budged in reaction.  He didn't sit up more formally, didn't bend in intimidation, or make any great adjustment at all.  Muted and stiff, there was only a slight drop to his nose which made his already hooded face that much harder to see.

"Pardon, sir," Mrs. Totaler didn't hesitate to greet as soon as she was standing before the stranger's table.
The welcome might as well have fizzled into smoke.  The stranger gave not one utterance in reply.  He still sat cold and undisturbed.
"You been perched here lonely for awhile," Mrs. Totaler continued undaunted.  "Anything I can get you?  Something to nibble on, maybe?  A drink, if you'd like?"
Still no response, not in voice or movement.  No sign, not accepting or rebuffing.  Nothing.
The bartender held as long as she could for an answer, but at last she resigned, "Fair enough.  If you have any need you only have to give a shout; I'd be happy to serve."
She turned to leave but stopped upon just barely catching a glimpse of subtle ruffling under the stranger's cloak.
"Sir?" she maintained a hopeful demeanor.
The stranger stayed silent, but he at last turned to fully face the table.  It made clear that the rumbling under his cloak was him rooting around for something.
After a moment more, the part down the front of the cloak widened and a white hoof came out.  It pressed down hard upon the tabletop, delivering a chinking noise, and when it lifted there were two golden bits left behind.

"... Apple juice...," the stranger whispered, distantly stern.

However his money didn't catch Mrs. Totaler's interest so much as his uncovered leg did.
His hoof was as stained, scuffed, and element-worn as his cloak was.  Dirty colors went all the way up his leg as far as she could see, ruining his pure white fur.  Very noticeably his ankle was swollen red.  What's more, the shape of his leg had an unusual contradiction: strong with muscle but thin with age.

Suddenly the stranger caught sense of how exposed he was and he rapidly withdrew his hoof back into the cloak's safety.  He gave a dim snort before dabbing his snout in the direction of the deposited coins.
"Oh, yes sir!" Mrs. Totaler returned to attention, heavy with heartfelt apology.  "One apple juice, right away."
She went to sweep the two bits into one of her apron pockets, but she halted just as she slid the coins to the brink of the table.  Her nose came down over them, almost sniffing something unusual about them.  Finally she stood upright and raised one of the bits to her discerning eye.
In awe she loudly whistled and then said, "These is some old bits!  They don't stamp'em like this anymore.  And look at the year!  They're nearly as old as I am, heh!"
The stranger was once more cold and still.
Never before had Mrs. Totaler's usual charm failed her so thoroughly.  Her dignity was slightly wounded, but not nearly enough to detract from her professionalism.  She quickly corralled her manners and put on her most genteel face.
"There's no problem, sir," she consummately apologized, "they're still plenty acceptable.  Had'em with you for awhile, eh?  You keep here; I'll be back in a hurry with your drink.  Thank you for your patronage."
She dumped both bits into her apron and then departed, focusing on her task and not looking back.
In short order she returned to the stranger, and it didn't surprise her to find that he hadn't moved a muscle.  She dropped a tray onto the table and served him a mug fresh with the fragrance of apples.
"Here you are, sir.  Enjoy."
As expected, the stranger made no acknowledgment of her whatsoever.  Certainly he wasn't going to reveal his hoof again just for a sip.
And fair enough.  Mrs. Totaler gave a courteous tip of her head, picked up her tray, and left.

The rigid stranger watched from under the shadow of his hood as she returned to the bar and got caught up in gabbing with the party there.  He carefully spun his neck, slowly scanning the whole tavern; everypony was busy yammering or stuffing their snouts.  Only once he was absolutely certain there were no interested leers did he reach for his drink.
He cupped his mug and lifted it gingerly to his nose, giving the apple juice a sniff: savory; fresh; pleasantly piercing to the very back of his nostrils.  His heart suddenly quickened, awakened by the memories of a smell that had been missing for a long, long time.  His lungs closed up, jealously holding onto the sweet air, and briefly he got lost staring into the golden portal within the mug.  Lightly he tipped the drink up, turning it just enough to let the bounty lap at his lips.  Only a small few drops of nectar rolled over and struck his tongue, but they were enough to thaw him rapidly.
A thirst decades old roared to life, and the stranger threw himself so far back that his hood almost flopped off his head.  The mug flung up with him and flooded his mouth with its shining treasure.
The liquid hammer smashed the back of his throat and plugged his gullet, letting him enjoy the mouthful of apple flavor until he relaxed and took it into his stomach with one enormous gulp.  Afterwards he could no longer pace himself even that little, and he guzzled delicious wave after delicious wave; a train of tremendous swallows.  Between each one slipped out a gasp, wet and desperate like a pony drowning.  By the time the stranger finally set the drink back down only a pittance of juice remained sloshing about in the mug.

He panted for air, and weighed all of his risks and regrets against the satisfying tingles which still coated his mouth and throat.

The apple juice made a very persuasive argument.  Perhaps he had been a fool to have feared coming into Stony Nook.

His tongue sopped up the tantalizing remnants of flavor on his lips, he caught whiffs of apple sweetness on his own breath, and his hoof refused to let the mug go.  Finally after several moments of idle impatience – a swirl here, a bounce there – he permitted himself to indulge in what little remained.  He drained it quickly, smacked his lips again, and then, even knowing that he had saved himself no more golden dew, he tried to drink a third time.  Naturally the mug yielded nothing more no matter how far back he tilted it.  He shook the tree and no apples fell.  All that came was the whispered scent of fruit.
He peered into the mug with his left eye, shaking the empty cup in frustration.

"Bah..."

In his irritation the stranger carelessly threw the mug down.  It bounced on its landing, rattling as it rolled on its rim.  The teetering was mesmerizing, in an annoying way.  He glared hard enough to frighten the mug into settling, losing his focus for a moment.
When his clarity returned, bringing the warm and lively glow of the tavern back into his senses, he quickly searched for disturbances:

Mrs. Totaler still chatted with the bar party.

Ponies elsewhere murmured and laughed and drank the same as before.

Everything appeared unchanged...  Yet his vigilance still refused to stand down.

From below, a hint of red suddenly glinted.
Suspicious, the stranger leaned himself around his table.
Standing there shorter than the tabletop itself was a red-haired, violet-eyed filly who was beaming up at him eagerly.
"Hi, I'm Bookworm!" she announced herself, truly trying for politeness but with so little control that she almost leapt in excitement.

The stranger knew precisely where he had last seen her, and he glanced quickly at the bar.  The party continued unabated; nopony there had detected her absence.
The filly's hungry smile had only grown wider by the time the stranger looked back at her.  Abruptly he retracted his hoof into his cloak.

Bookworm nudged herself a dainty inch closer.
"What's your name?" she asked.

The stranger turned his head, confronting her with his left side.  From behind the shadow of his hood he studied her.
He fixated first upon her little horn, almost helplessly; it was the first detail about her which stood out to him, sticking him in the eye.  The nub was tiny and harmless even for a unicorn her age, yet he appeared so peaceless about it.  A few wordless whispers came from him, as dark and malevolent as the curses which dribble like saliva from restless wraiths better left alone.
Then suddenly his heart turned around.  He pulled her horn from his eye, and any under-breath curses became not the spite of haunting phantoms but his own self-castigating murmurs.

Old fool, be fair!  It was not her fault she was that way.

His cleared eye let him draw back and take in the whole of the filly: her pint-sized body stuffed to the brim with oversized enthusiasm; her bright and beautiful face so alive and warm; her new smile, written on her like a verse of pure joy.
She was perfect in every way a lovable filly could be.

He became absentminded during his review of her, and without thinking he brought his hoof out again.  He lifted his spent mug for another go but set it down immediately upon consciously feeling its empty weight.  Again he muttered unhappily to himself.
Bookworm was content to wait for an answer to her question, though she did have to focus on her patience.  She had after all keenly noted how icy the stranger had been to Mrs. Totaler, so that he now showed at least some faint amount of life enthused her to no end.  And besides, his cloak made him like a delicious book with an unlabeled cover, simply begging to be read.
If there had maybe been just a little more light in that dim corner of the tavern then she would have noticed the very guilty, very charmed grin which appeared under the stranger's hood.

Discarding his frosty silence, he declined to fully answer her request for his name and instead only told her, "It is not relevant."
The little filly twisted her head in curiosity, enough that the end of her braided mane dusted the floor.  In her head, gloomy and disappointed soldiers marched against a colorful band of imaginative barbarians.
She rather liked his incomplete answer.
Inquisitively she followed up, "Your name?  Or your name?"
"What?" the stranger replied bluntly.
The filly laughed, tickled by her own perceived cleverness, "Is your name Not Relevant?"
Misinterpreting her again, he reaffirmed, "It is not."
"Relevant?"
Saliva sputtered from the edges of her giggling grin.
"It-," he started to belt before suddenly halting.

Ah.  What a game!

Rather than show her playful mischief an angry retort he merely hummed a laugh and eased back in greater comfort.
"My name I'd rather not share," he told her explicitly.  "All my apologies if that disappoints you, young Bookworm."
"Aw," the filly whined, but only with the lightest sprinkling of dashed hopes.  Regardless she tried one extra time to slip around his defense, asking, "Is your name a secret?"
Briefly he pondered.
"Verily," he decided.
"So... can I know the secret?"
"Without exception: no."
"Aw."

The ordinary fun tricked the stranger into such relaxation that he again mindlessly picked up his mug only to recognize that it was empty and drop it.

He suppressed his thirsty frustration and questioned the filly earnestly, "Why have you come before me, young Bookworm?"
"I saw you," she chirped.
The stranger expected more, but she let the simple reason stand on its own.
"Nothing further?" he asked.
She thought, rolling back and forth with whimsy, before she reanswered him, "You look interesting."
The stranger admired the uncomplicated honesty of the response and he grunted happily.  Even in the darkness of his hood his smile started to become visible.
"I should say," he complimented the filly, "that I find you rather interesting."
Bookworm instantly illuminated with mirth, positively delighted by the inroads she had made.  She reared up and clutched the side of the table with her forehooves, only just tall enough to get her chin over the edge.  Her springy energy nearly pulled her all the way onto the table.
With her large eyes shimmering, she exclaimed, "I love stories!  What's your story, mister?"
"‘My story?’" he asked.  But this time he had made no mistake interpreting her.  Purposefully he draped himself in playful ignorance, as much as his body was draped by his large cloak.
"Yeah!" she beamed.  "I mean, you gotta have a good story!  Look at you!"
"Hm!" he purred loudly and suspiciously to string her along.

He observed her quietly without any further words, waiting to see if her eagerness would fade as he stretched out the seconds.  He even tested glancing away with disinterest, wasting his eye on nothing in particular, and when he came back she was still clinging to the table like a puppy who wholeheartedly believed that table scraps were eternally forthcoming.
Pleased and also quite amused, he didn't violate his silence but instead started to lean towards her slowly, tipping nearer as if he had a phenomenal secret to share.
Bookworm's heart fluttered and she let out a young gasp.  She inched along the table edge closer to him, lifting her forehooves in baby steps.  Her little hind legs, up on their tippyhooves, wriggled along to keep up.
Deeper he bent.  Closer he leaned.  His lips were still sealed.
And the filly reciprocated, so captivated and breathing ever faster.  She tried so hard to scramble along the table edge, sprinting like a caterpillar towards the finish line, too captured by her own imagination to understand how her awkward standing was actually limiting her speed.
When the two ponies finally met, noses breathing on each other, the stranger stalled.


He had known from the start that he shouldn't have risked the sojourn into Stony Nook.
That he shouldn't have risked entering the tavern.
Ordering the apple juice.
And now this.

But then again, the only written orders he kept to were those inscribed upon his heart.  And when he looked upon the angelic face of the endearing filly, now so close to his own...
... in his heart, he felt-...

Oh...!
... What harm was there?

"From over the Pearl Peaks I have come," he revealed, all but singing it to an adventurous tune.  He knew full well how the filly would react.
And she did not disappoint.
"Wooooahh!" her eyes flashed larger, and a thrilling thunder rocked her enough to shake the whole table.  Her floodgates opened, "Really?!  Dad, and Ms. Crumble Pie, and Mrs. Totaler, and Mayor Desk Job, and everypony else says that nopony lives over the Pearl Peaks!  Like, sometimes there are ponies who go over there to explore but nopony stays there!  I read once about all the expeditions that went there again and again, and they tried to set up towns, but the pegasi couldn't get their rainclouds to work, so their farms didn't have enough water, so they couldn't eat, and they had to come back!"
"Ha!  Few can survive there," the stranger chortled, suddenly self-righteous.  He sat back up, and a tone came over him which was dark and vindictive.  "Certainly not anypony crippled by the crutch of magic, or anypony desperate to lick the hooves of a becrowned fraud.  To endure there, one must have strength and independence of their own!"
The million little hints he was leaking enthralled Bookworm.
"What's over there?" she begged for more.
"Wild lands," he responded romantically, "untouched by the vain rule of the lordly feckless.  And a forest, great and unending, overspread with liberty.  Freedom shines through crystal light, loosening the mystical shackles which enslave ponykind.  Those of mighty will can thus forge their own destinies."  Some of his overreaching melodrama melted away, revealing underneath hints of raw honesty.  "Beyond?  I know not well.  There are vast waters whose horizons I have not seen past.  And unknown trails to places further which I have never trotted... though... there was once a time when... I had hoped to seek out more freedom through them..."
"Eeeee!" the filly squealed.
He was such a living storybook!  She wanted to read every chapter; every page; every word!  She hardly knew where to begin!
Drumming her excitement on the table, she threw out the first of a thousand random questions which littered her mind, "So there are other ponies there too?  Who did you live with?"
The stranger flinched, recoiling like the filly had thrown at him not a question but a spear.
"Others...," he mumbled.  "... There are others, but they-... they..."
"... Mister?"
Bookworm felt the excitement kicked out from under her as all the stranger's vitality drained into silence.
He concluded with only a low, dour snort.
"Aw...  Is it a secret too?" the hurt filly lamented.
"... Verily."
"Okay...," she yielded with a disappointed moan.

But she was fast to regain her traction.  In her head was a pile of a million questions for him, and she scooped her hoof in to grab any old one.  She was worried however that the last question had ended so sorely because she had somehow asked it in the wrong way.  Concentrating, she put on a practiced guilt-free face which she knew adults liked, contained her tingles of excitement, and with a cautious tremble asked her new question.
"What do you do over on the other side of the mountains?"
The stranger spoke not a word in immediate reply.  His latest mistake still weighed his neck down like an iron collar.

It hadn't been the filly's intention to have attacked his heart; he knew that.  He hadn't needed her adorable false face to have sold him on her innocence.  It was proper and natural for a foal her age to hunger for the world.  He didn't blame her.
Really the mistake had been his.  He had exposed himself by having stupidly entered Stony Nook.  And by indulging her, he only risked more mistakes.

Oh, but look at her!
No darkness; no secret burdens; no awful entanglements!
Pure light; a precious child; a wonder!

Old fool, how could one abandon such a heavenly smile?

The moments ticked by without a stir from the stranger and Bookworm began to deflate, fearful she had blown her amazing opportunity.  Heavy sadness dragged one of her hooves off the table and it dangled limply before her.  Her upright form started to crumple...
... when very suddenly a remarkable whimsy came upon the stranger and he propped himself up.  Frivolous with bluster, he boasted, "To survive in those far lands, many arduous endeavors must be undertaken.  Yet perhaps none are so frequent as the dispatching of giant, pony-devouring bull weevils."

He had hardly put a disguise over his blatant lie, having worn it like the oversized mask of a holiday pageant.  It would have been more mature to have literally seized and pulled the filly's leg.
But Bookworm wanted to believe.  She had recognized his horribly phony sound, but did she ever want to believe!

Her hooves clamped back onto the table stronger than before.
"Really?!" she gasped.  "You've fought bull weevils?"
He was fast to correct her, still heedlessly flinging about his fun dishonesty, "No, little filly.  Not any of the usual mold, but enormous bull weevils!  Monsters whose hulking size makes them more than a match for three ponies!  But yet in single combat have I bested them time and again!"
"Oh, wow!  You must be super strong!"
"Just so.  One must be."
His posture began to support his absurd tale.  His hooded head went high, his chin pointed towards the unseen horizon in search of another adventure, and his chest nearly burst from his cloak, shoved heroically forward.
"The beasts have unsoothable temperaments; they are whirlwinds of angry destruction!  Their bladed horns make deadly their ferocious charges!  Essential is courage, young Bookworm, for in but one attack they fell any challenger!  They are rampant beyond the peaks, and relentless!  Each day their rampages must be beaten back, sometimes twice before morning's meal!"
"That's amazing!"
Dazzling light filled Bookworm's eyes.  Her mind could see the battles so perfectly, more crisp than any rendering she had ever found in one of her books.
"Ah, there is nothing so extraordinary in it," the stranger somewhat toned down his exaggerated bravado.  He had of course never actually fought a bull weevil before, but her continued good faith in his obviously fraudulent heroics was a bit addictive.  He couldn't help himself from feeding her imagination, so he slipped in a hint of truth, "I have stood against fiercer evil before."

Bookworm buzzed.
It was everything she had ever wanted to hear from a mysterious wanderer!  It was all the wonderment she had so often read about, now finally come to her boring village!  It was every fantastic adventure which she knew in her heart to be true, at long last freed from a prison of pages!

"So mister, why did you come to Stony Nook?" she hoped and hoped and hoped for another astounding answer.
But unfortunately the stranger crashed back into reluctance.  His fanciful ego vanished.  He turned inwards.
Quietly, but very specifically, he insisted, "... I will not stay...  I am only traveling through..."
The filly had to force herself to smile through the discouragement.
"Oh... well... where are you going then?"
"Hm..."
He abruptly turned his gaze towards the darkened windows set in the tavern's front wall.  Thin glass held back a moonlit night; murals of an empty blue road which cut through town.
"... Where do these roads now lead?" he questioned in surprising ignorance.
Bookworm squirmed.  In all her reading she had devoured plenty of atlases and she actually had a fair sense of where Stony Nook sat in the world, but only academically.  Never in her life had anypony actually asked her for directions.
"Um... what do you want to go see?" she petitioned him.
The stranger gave a snort; not dismissive, not hostile, but neither was it particularly interested or enlightened.
The filly screwed in her courage and tried her hardest to be helpful.
"Okay, well mister, which road did you come from?  The west road?  Cause, I mean, the Pearl Peaks are that way."
He didn't answer, but the way in which he half-turned towards her struck the filly as a reaction of surprise.
She hiccuped, "You didn't?"
Again the stranger gave an indifferent snort, and he looked back towards the windows.
Bookworm thought on his odd reaction for a moment before she suddenly jumped with a new idea.
"Oh!  Mister!  If you didn't come that way, you should definitely go that way!  Some ponies have been talking about a monster down the west road!"
"‘Monster?’"  The stranger whipped about to face the filly.
"Yeah!"  Bookworm's enthusiasm completely betrayed her father's earlier admonishment.  "A few ponies tried to go that way and they came back all scared!  Everypony is saying a monster attacked'em!"
Her sunshine didn't sell the seriousness of the story, and the stranger swiftly began to doubt.  The alarm and worry which had snapped him straight dissolved away.
He murmured with only friendly interest, "‘Attacked?’  Is that so?"
"Uh-huh!  I mean, maybe!  Everypony says so!  How about tomorrow we go and try to find the monster?"
"'We,' young Bookworm?" the stranger teased, now able to enjoy her little fantasy for the pure imagination it was.  He played along, "No.  On the dangerous hunt for monsters is not where a growing filly belongs."
"Well," she argued her dream blissfully, "maybe it's just a big bull weevil who came over the mountains!  Then you can fight him, and I'll be safe!"
"Ha!  It is no bull weevil, I am certain," he laughed, "and regardless, no closer than a league would I ever lead you to any perilous predator."
"Aw, but I could really be a big help, mister!" Bookworm gaily protested, and she touted herself, "I know everything about monsters!  I've read all the old myths, about sirens, and cyclopses, and hippo-griffins.  I've read the new stuff too, like Darkwing's On the Origin of Beasties.  Oh! oh!—and I've memorized everything by Star Swirl the Bearded, including his Bestiary of the Dark and Dangerous!"
"Dedication impressive!" the stranger chuckled.  So as not to discourage her studiousness, he found a new reason to reject her, "Yet even so useful, I could never shepherd along one who has no journeying experience."
A well-chosen snare; she fumbled immediately.
"I-I've... gone some places before.  O-Outside of town.  Uh, with my dad," she gibbered unconvincingly.  She couldn't persuade her lie to be dishonest.  "I m-mean, he's taken me to Mule's Head a few times before so that we c-could ride the train places..."
"Riding in comfort is not to be likened to hiking in toil," advised the stranger.  He considered his empty mug again, and under his cloak he rubbed his empty belly.  "One must measure the miles carefully in water and food."
"I c-can do a big trip on hoof, mister!" she asserted herself.  Where experience had failed, blind confidence would succeed!  "I've read a lot about camping, and travel, and heroes journeying to faraway places!  I bet I can do all that!  I probably don't need the train to get to Canterlot!"

In an instant something changed about the stranger.  The shadows of his cloak crept down over what few parts of him were visible.

Bookworm rambled on, "I don't think it would be very hard at all!  I could probably do it without Dad!  Oh!  Mister!  What if instead of the west road, you and I go down the east road?  I'll show you that I know the way to Canterlot!  We can go there and-"

"No!"

The stranger's outcry hadn't boomed like thunder, even considering that he had struck the table with his hoof.  It may have been the tavern crowd which had made him so wary of making a scene, but then again his eruption had simply lacked much froth and fire, nor did much seething follow it.  He instead withdrew into quiet insecurity.  His hoof crawled back into his cloak and disappeared.
"... To that city I will not go," he whispered.
"O-Okay, mister," the surprised filly hurried to smooth things over.  "We don't have to go.  Um...  M-Maybe instead we can-"
But she noticed that the stranger's attention was elsewhere.

His left eye was brought to bear on each and every table in the tavern.  Thankfully most everypony had been too busy laughing and drinking to have noticed his small outburst.  Only a few of them had thrown harmless glances towards his table, and he watched them vigilantly from beneath the shadow of his hood until every last one of them turned their short-lived interest away.

"... Mister?" Bookworm called with a touch of dread.
She heard him direct some chilled words at himself under his breath.
"Filly," he then grunted at her, "your company has been appreciated, but the time has come for you to leave."
"No no no, mister, please, I'm sorry!" the distraught filly begged.  She dropped from the table edge and rushed around to all but grovel before him.  "I really am!  We don't have to go to Canterlot, or look for monsters, or anything!  Please let me stay!  I want to hear more!"

The longer she pleaded, the higher her distress climbed.
It worried the stranger, and he started another hasty search of the tavern.  Nopony seemed to have noticed the rising commotion, but it was only a matter of time.  If a simple request would not dismiss her, then he would need to do something more compelling.
Suddenly he swiveled to face the filly head on, hushing her with the sharpness of his turn.  His shoulders went broad.  His head lifted, tracing a thin outline of light upon his shadowed face.  He began to lean forwards.  Slowly he closed in nearer to Bookworm, creeping over her in the manner of a stalking beast.
His newly menacing presence squeezed her against the floor and she landed on her rump as her hind hooves fell out from under her.  Each inch he came closer had her wriggling backwards, pushing herself against the wooden floorboards.  Her eyes scaled wider and wider as the darkness under his hood consumed more and more of her vision.
He finally stopped when his snout was perched so close that she could feel his nostrils dropping hot breaths onto her own nose.

"Little girl..."

The stranger's tone was almost decorated with cruelty.

"... you should flee back to your parents, lest you come face to face..."

A hoof slithered out of his cloak.

"... with... something... truly..."

The hoof climbed.

"... frightening."


He flung his hood back, and as fresh light spilled over his liberated face Bookworm released a long, soft, dying gasp.
He was marred by grotesque injuries.

In the middle of his forehead there was only the broken stump of a unicorn's horn, jagged where it had been shattered and with cracks running down the remainder.  Within the fractures there appeared a sickly color; almost some kind of awful glow, as of diseased magic languishing inside.  Numerous small pustules sat atop the serrated edges of the stump, all filled with a poison-tinted fluid.  They grew from thready veins which wormed their way out of the devastated horn, and upon closer inspection the whole revulsive network pulsed with the mistimed throbs of a defective heartbeat not his own.
His white fur had receded unevenly around the horn's base, yielding the ground to black and rotten flesh.  A streak of dark corruption ran down from the infection and engulfed his right eye.  Like with his horn, the fur around it had retreated in favor of tainted skin, black wherever it hadn't taken on a toxic hue.  The eyeball itself was dead, iris and pupil murdered.  All it was now was an empty, clouded orb with a pale, ill tinge.

So disgusting were his injuries that they distracted from the unharmed portions of his face.
He was an older pony who had seen enough moons to have been a fresh grandfather.  Where once he had probably worn a mane clumpy and lush, now it had thinned down into shy curls which clung to his head and evaporated down his neck; the golden color had not yet gone at least.  The fullness of his once-youthful cheeks was fighting a losing battle against the gaunt drain of a waning life.  His good eye too showed its age, now no more a fire of golden red but instead a tired ember which had lost its shine.
Still, there was some unconquerable determination left inside of his body.  Hard muscles could be seen down his neck, their power unrelinquished.  Under his fur most of his skin was still tight, like he had indeed gotten older but had resisted shriveling into an elderly form.

He pushed his ruined visage into Bookworm's frozen face.
"Quit this encounter, filly," Prideheart twisted his lips into an awkward snarl.

Tiny trembles came into Bookworm.  Her quivering hoof covered her half-open mouth.  But in her eyes was a perfect stillness, locked onto the stallion's disfigurement.
From deep within her shaking throat came an awed mutter of, "Oooohhhh..."

But then her face illuminated like an instant sunrise.

"Cool!" she held the note long in amazement.  Then breathlessly she unloaded, "How'd that happen?  What's the story behind it?  Was it the bull weevils?  Please tell me, mister!  It's not a secret too, is it?  I promise I won't share it with anypony!  No; I super promise I won't!"
Suddenly and fearlessly she reached her hoof out towards his dragon-wound just to try and steal a curious feel of it.
Prideheart sat up straight before she was able to touch him, dazed by her unflappable response.
The filly continued to bombard him with endless questions, cutting herself off every time another excited thought leapt out from her imagination.  She only scarcely remembered that he wasn't any actual storybook and could slam his cover shut in her face with a hard ‘no’ if he so wanted.  Those worries in the back of her mind manifested as repeated, doe-eyed interjections of, "Please, mister?"
Caught stupefied, Prideheart scanned the tavern again.

Not another soul had glimpsed him.

Quickly he threw his hood back up, concealing his downcast and defeated frown.
"No," the stranger denied the restless filly.  Glum despair filled him, and he moaned, "I apologize, young Bookworm, but I can afford you no more time.  Please leave."
One last time she pleaded, achingly sincere, "Mister, I'm sorry..."
"Please," his own plea was also so pained and sincere, "return to your parents."
He faced the table again, and a limp hoof came out of his cloak and reached for his spent mug only to give it a helpless push away.  Then he sat stiff and motionless against the corner same as before, with his dead eye to the wall and his good eye overlooking the whole of the tavern.

Bookworm's mouth fell open to say something which died before it could even crawl halfway up her tongue.  She collapsed in surrender, taking her sagging hooves and using them to haul herself away one tiny bleak clop at a time.  There was no bedtime story tonight, and those kinds of nights were the worst nights.
The walk of shame lasted forever.  Plodding along, an ocean would have drained faster one dismal drip at a time.  Her head rode the floor the whole way, and her braided mane dragged along the ground like an anchor.  When she at last reached the bar she went straight for the same empty stool she had been sulking under earlier.
Crumble Pie on a lucky chance noticed the stool shift a step as Bookworm slumped herself back between its legs.  The gray mare looked to Scrolldozer, silently signaling him.
He peeked down at his daughter's backside, recognizing that she must have wandered off at some point, and his brow turned with a measure of guilt over his obvious failure at vigilance.  He didn't speak a word to the filly, pitying himself instead.  Fatherhood was overwhelming as it was; how he wished that, instead of this night at the tavern watching her while distracted by his friends, neither she nor he happy, he could have spent the evening with her doing one of the rare fatherly things he was actually successful at: reading Bookworm to sleep with a bedtime story.

The gray mare wasn't about to let responsibility quietly fall by the wayside though, even if the filly's temporary absence had probably been nothing, and she asked, "You go somewhere, wiggler?"
"Uh... to the potty," Bookworm responded blandly.
"Mm," Crumble Pie nodded, accepting the answer but only after an unsure delay.  She observed carefully each lethargic little nudge of the filly's body; something very different from how the filly had started the night.  "So," she guessed, "getting a little tired there, wiggler?"
Bookworm leaned around the stool leg, but looked up at her father instead of Crumble Pie.
"Yeah," she said, worn down by unhappiness.
Retreating back under her stool, she glanced across the tavern to the far corner.

An empty table sat with a lone mug abandoned upon it.





For a third time Prideheart dropped his mouth into the river and guzzled generously, taking in water until he nearly drowned.  He was coughing when he pulled up, and between the harsh gasps he wiped his lips clean with his foreleg.  The water had a bitter flavor, dusty with sediment, and had gone down him with a biting cold, but at least it had been refreshing.
After three tremendous drinks his stomach was stuffed with an enormous block of ice.  Yet despite that he was still so exhausted with thirst!  He dared not go down for a fourth time however; falling ill to water intoxication would only add to his troubles.
How he would have preferred to have instead filled his belly with more of that delectable apple juice!  The flavor had been forgotten for so many long years that it had become new and heavenly again!
But maybe the short taste of paradise hadn't been worth the cost.

Curses!
Curse those craggy mountains!
Curse his body, aged and magic-battered!
Curse all of the choices which had led him here, whether wise or foolish, whether ill-thought-out or fortune-guided!

A galloping pattered somewhere nearby.
Prideheart snapped alert and grabbed his lowered hood, ready to conceal himself.  But as he quickly searched the riverside he saw no intruders or onlookers.  Nopony was up or down the riverbank, nopony was in the darkness across the water, and nopony was coming through the alleys between the buildings.  Nothing.
He let the hood go.
Distinctly somepony had been clopping along but they must have been on the main road, on the other side of the buildings and hidden from sight.  Prideheart waited and listened for the sound to recur, but it did not.
Relieved, he turned back towards the river and withdrew a canteen from his cloak.  It looked like any other, being covered over in a padded cloth, but on the inside it was quite primitive: large leaves dried and pressed together into a hardened shell, with a strap made from forest vines twisted into rope.  Only a puddle's worth of water sloshed about within it.
Prideheart popped the wooden cork and lowered the canteen into the water, mouth upstream.  Once the canteen was swelling with icy-cold water he recorked it and stashed it again under his cloak.  He would need more water later if he was going to correct his error and leave this mistake of a town.

But departing immediately would have been a grievous error of its own.  He was in no shape to undertake another journey of unknown length, and he had only made the forsaken decision to have entered Stony Nook in the first place because of his ailing body!
His hooves were on fire, a scrape away from openly bleeding.  His spine was a crooked arch of pain with a spike driven into the very center, terrible pinches spreading in both directions.  Anytime he so much as stood, let alone walked, there was a tremble which sliced into his shivering bones.  And he couldn't even begin to take count of his sore muscles, every last one complaining as loudly as they could if they hadn't already been silenced by numbness.

The crossing over the Pearl Peaks had been brutal.
Prideheart was not the pony he had been forty years ago when he had made his first trek over those forbidding crags and across those dangerous cliffs.  Back then, even suffering from his dragon-wound, he had been composed of a more muscular vigor, a more enduring resilience, a more determined attitude; a more able body in every way.  In fact, the trip had been made with all of his follower ponies and he himself had daringly shepherded many of them through the perils.  Every dear pony had been brought safely over the mountains thanks to him.  The first passage had been a difficult but triumphant experience.
Not so, this second trek back over to the Equestrian side—his lonely return.  Time had poisoned him with age and rusted his memories of the mountain pass.

How he had clawed up steep rock faces only to be aghast at how quickly the efforts had sapped his strength!

How he had navigated short, treacherous distances only to be appalled at how soon he had needed to lay down and rest in the snowy mountain winds!

How he had carefully moved from ledge to ledge only to be dismayed by how graceless his every leap had become!

What he remembered most was falling.  Falling and falling and falling.  Many times on the climb up certainly, whenever his grip had suddenly lost its strength.  But many times on the trek down also.  He had all but rolled and crashed down the other side of the mountains.  After each tumble he had laid stiff and wallowed in the pain, sure that he had broken a bone or two, but every time he had always found himself to be in one piece.  One battered, twisted, beaten piece.
When he had finally reached the foothills on the southeast side, staggering from a body in tatters, he had acknowledged himself lucky.  By all rights the journey should have killed him.

He should have died up in those mountains.

But luck was relative.
Owing to his poor judgment, he had spent all of his food and water by the time he had descended into the foothills.  Physically eroded, devoid of supplies, and in a land for which he had no maps and only cloudy memories, it had very much seemed like his second victory over the Pearl Peaks had been entirely hollow.  Death was going to have claimed him lost in the wilds regardless.
He had been spared that fate by pure fortune: in his blind stumbling through the hills he had come upon a stream which had saved him from thirst.  There had been nothing to have eased his agonizing hunger, however.  He had learned enough about scavenging in Dryearth Forest to have survived there, but the knowledge hadn't translated to the rocky hills.  Better that he had starved upright and walking than had starved laid out from a poisonous meal.
Badly in need of rest but at the borders of starvation, he had followed the stream onwards for two days.  Finally, in the light of a particularly bright sunset, he had crested a tall hill and seen the orange landscape spread out before him.  The guiding stream spun its way down and joined a larger river, and that river rolled southeast where in the faint distance he had seen it curve around a small village.

Stony Nook.

His memory had appropriately told him nothing of the village; it hadn't been there forty years before when he had last passed through that land.  He had also harbored no wish to have interacted with the ponies of an Equestria he had long ago forsaken.  But his own stupidity and age-grown weakness had left him in such a desperate bind.  He had needed food and a safe place to recover.
It had taken a whole day's more of feeble marching to have reached the village, and he had grumbled and wavered with indecision the entire way.  He had arrived during the dimming divide between afternoon and evening, still unsure as to whether the risk would have been worth the reward.  By following the river on its north side he had reached the unguarded stone bridge into town and had crossed it without detection.  Thereafter he had lurked behind the buildings and within the alleys, staying out of sight.
He had decided upon a straightforward plan: food wherever he could find it and rest wherever he could take it, all without being discovered.

The plan had not included going to the tavern.

He didn't even remember why he had chosen to break with his strategy and undertake such a stupid risk.
For food or drink?  To have been bought with the scant few bits he had saved from his Canterlot days?
For warmth or whimsy?  To have escaped the cold, or seen Equestrian ponies again up close?

All pointless.
Ignorant old fool.

There by the riverside, the angry Prideheart recommitted himself: on the next morning he would depart Stony Nook whether or not he was hungry or rested.  There had been no value whatsoever to the risky foray into the village; nothing had made it worthwhile.

...
Such a tender smile on her face...

Prideheart shook the thought out of his head and blocked it from re-entering by drawing up his hood.
The stranger didn't trust himself to scavenge for food in the darkness.  Normally he had faith in his well-honed ability to sneak, but after all his many idiotic mistakes that day he felt no more stealthy than an inept late-night burglar sure to be the noisy catch of some sleepless townspony.  He would go to bed hungry.
Carefully he snuck behind the buildings and entered one particular alley he had chosen earlier.  It was thin and clogged with obviously forgotten debris; an ideal place to stay hidden and unvisited throughout the night.  He slipped between a pile of mossy stones and a heap of splintered lumber which hosted a city of spider webs, and there he unladed himself.
From out of his cloak he withdrew his canteen fully, strap and all, and set it aside; something so cold and wet was not a pleasure to snuggle with.  He also withdrew a travel satchel of similar natural construction to his canteen.  Inside the satchel was a woven blanket which had been folded many times over.  He dropped the satchel aside and, without the blanket to stuff it, it slouched limply on the ground.  The blanket was thin and altogether modest in size – his cloak was a more thorough cover – so he simply left the blanket folded and threw it onto the cold dirt to act as a pillow.
At last he lowered his weary, aching, bruised body down and laid on the earth.  He always put his right side towards the ground; it was a long-entrenched habit which allowed his good left eye to be a lookout if necessary.  He tucked his hooves in close to protect them from the night's chill though that squeezed his water-bloated belly uncomfortably.  The liquid weight pounded against his tightened stomach muscles, but he endured it.
A little discomfort in his stomach, after all, wasn't as bad as the blunt pain which forever came from his dragon-wound.  It wasn't as sharp as it had been in the first few weeks after his searing, but thereafter the low agony had been like a specter of icy fire which gnawed endlessly on his face.  A dimly boiling flame lived under his corrupted skin, a hot squirming crawled over and over across his skull, and a prickle pulsed down his veins with every tired heartbeat.
Tight and tense, burnt and bloated, fatigued and famished; the stranger tried to release his troubles and sleep.

...

...

Bah...

Why had he even come back to his forgotten homeland, doomed by a faithless princess?  It had been necessary to have broken with the Dryponies in order to fulfill his promise to protect them.  But why had he chosen to suffer the mountains and return to Equestria?

Why had he not gone to the sea and sailed away from the atrocious power of magic?  He was no shipbuilder or sailor and would probably have died on the waves, or more likely under them, but at least that would have succeeded in keeping him away from the Dryponies.

Why had he not gone beyond Dryearth Forest to the far off unknown in search of a paradise outside of magic's corruptive reach?  That had been his original intention forty years ago before he had been shackled to the Dryponies' throne.

Why had he not gone anywhere except for back to a land of villainous magic?  He cared not to see again any of the ponies who had been left behind.  He cared not to know if magic's perverse taint had further eroded his former home.  He cared not for anything at all in the land of Equestria!


... But somewhere in Equestria was her.
... Had he been called over the mountains by that small, futile wish to have found her and apologized?


A damned and foolish hope!

Even if by the greatest miracle of coincidences he were to have crossed her path he would not have recognized her anymore, nor she him.  Their one and only meeting had been chiseled into his memory, polished and immortalized by a lifetime of shame, but it had been so very long ago.  Time would have changed her too much.
And there was no hope that she would have ever recognized him.
How could she have recognized an ultimate betrayer she had never seen before?

... Old, worthless fool...

The stranger lifted his head just to strike it down against his folded blanket hard enough to feel the small, jagged pebbles underneath.  He sealed his mind, locking away every last one of his own infuriating, despicable thoughts.  But that silence inside him only made room for the voices of devils to rise.  Always during the unbearably long hush of every night, his shadow enemy came forth from out of the pure darkness, speaking at him evil histories and calling upon an army of torturers who unselfishly wielded their fires, and their brands, and their pitchforks.
Supposedly Nightmare Moon had dominion over the wicked dreams that haunted ponies in their restless slumber.  It was said that the guilty were tormented by her because of her endless lust for vengeance.

How quaint.

What awful nights for the stranger, sleeping under a silent moon!