//------------------------------// // Chapter I: The Foal // Story: Equine, All Too Equine II: The Days of the Prophets // by stanku //------------------------------// The gentle knock on the door was a gunshot in the middle of a bird flock. Deck Heart’s body jerked as if ravaged by an electric shock and his head sprang from the desk in a flurry of paper. “Yes?” he snapped while trying to round up his thoughts scattered in all four winds. From the crack of the door to his office, one of the secretaries peeked inside. “S-sorry to bother you, sir,” she said. “I was, uhm, about to bring you these papers…” “...But thought to make sure I was awake before stepping in,” finished Heart. He yawned widely. “Next time, just give the door a good bang. Serves me right, sleeping on duty. Come in.”   The mare stepped in, closing the door behind her and cutting short the din that momentarily flooded in. The Captain’s quarters were designed to be soundproof to prevent eavesdropping, but the full absence of noise had some drawbacks. For one, it encouraged involuntary napping like nothing else. Seems like father’s excuses for passing out weren’t all cooked up after all. “Well, one might say it’s your duty to be well rested,” said the mare as she walked to Heart’s desk. “We can’t have the Captain’s judgement become clouded due to lack of sleep. Not at a time like this, at least.” “At a time like this…” echoed Heart under his breath. In truth there probably hadn’t been “a time like this” ever before in the Guard’s, or the city’s, history. A week after the near-death experience of the world, the Parliament was still all over the place, literally. Several of the Senators were missing, most probably hiding for the fear of public humiliation and possible charges of desertion. The ones brave enough to have returned were far too busy blaming each other for the catastrophe to get any actual ruling done, which meant that the Guard was the most functional public organization in the vicinity. And Heart was its leader. He could not quite recall when he had last slept, but he was certain it had to have happened at least once during the passing week. The red imprints of paperclips on his cheek were the proof of that. The secretary started spreading the papers she was carrying atop the sea of other documents that flooded his desk. Heart had quickly learned to delegate the task of prioritizing to the army of clerks and to focus all his energy on whatever job happened to find itself under his muzzle. “What’s this?” he asked. “Well, first there’s a report from the pegasi weather patrol unit. They’ve detected signs of an oncoming M-storm building up on the plains, and they can’t guarantee that the barriers will stop it. They’ll monitor the situation for now. Then there’s the weekly grain ratios, ready for your signing. If you wish to inspect our calculations, I can–” “Where do I sign?” asked Heart, reaching for the quill. As he started scribbling something distantly resembling his signature on the designated spots, a loose thought drifted on his tongue. “Give me an estimate: as is, how far can the silos take us?” The mare’s eyes glazed for a second as numbers danced behind them. “Out of my head, I can’t say for sure, but… With reasonable rationing, we should make it over the winter.” Heart nodded. “Reasonable” was a code word for “not enough to feed a pigeon”, but it would have to do. Food was getting scarce, and that was a fact. Actually, it was just a drop in the sea of facts in which Heart swam, but a particularly nasty drop at that. Ever since he had become de facto ruler of the city, he had made a mental vow not to decide on anything but the short term, leaving the long planning for the people who had been elected for the job. Yet, every passing day had meant that the long became a little bit shorter and closer. If the Parliament would not pull itself together at the end of the month, he would have to make some really big decisions; way above his actual mandate. It was either that or let ponies starve to death. There was also the matter of the griffons. True, they had played football with them; even won a few matches. But the game itself was far from over, and there was no telling when it would lose even the resemblance of rules it now had. The words of Cecil still ran clearly in his head, as if she was whispering them over his shoulder right now. Dead things don’t know their own name. It made the Fifth Law’s point rather moot. But the point was that, for the griffons, there was no point. Hadn’t been for a hundred years. “Sir?” Heart blinked. “Hmm? Oh, right, the signature goes theeeere. Sorry.” “It’s quite okay,” she said, starting to pick the signed documents. Even with Heart’s lethargic state of mind, the detective in him noted how deliberately delayingly she went about it; as if she was pushing something off. “Something on your mind?” he asked, looking at some papers. From the corner of his eye he saw a faint blush flash. “N-nothing special, sir,” she muttered, suddenly hurrying up her work. She stacked the papers neatly, then coughed neatly. All around, Chart Top was a rather neat young mare, Heart reckoned. “Go on,” he urged. “Whatever you go to say, it won’t leave this room.” She gave him a shy glance. “Sir… I just wanted to say – I mean, express – my – I mean, ours, the whole staff's – gratitude. For you. For what you’ve done for us all, despite everything you've had to go through recently. Uhm. Thank you.” She disappeared into thin air, or left the room in such a hurry it made no difference. Heart watched the still door for a moment, then turned the chair to stare into the distant horizon that spread beyond the city. Sunshine flooded the streets, the buildings, and the figures he could make out from up here. A rare sight this late in the autumn. He had of course seen the same view before. Only now did it feel like he actually saw it. Had he really saved the city? Everypony seemed to believe so, now that he had held that little speech a few days ago. Somepony had had to say something out loud then. There hadn’t even been that many ponies present, and the kernel of his message could have been squeezed to “Okay, the worst didn’t happen, not yet, but unless we want to make sure things stay that way, we better start doing something about it”. Not very inspiring, if you had asked him. But the speech had started a rumour, which had started a story, which had started a legend. Of a pony who Had Been There And Done Something. Nopony knew exactly what that was – Heart least of all – but it had made an impression on the public. And apparently there had been a reporter following the speech, for the next day the city’s biggest papers were dealing what was basically the juiciest version of the rumour in a spiced up form. Heart couldn’t remember having said half of it. The fact bothered him less than he knew it should. They had called him a hero, yes, but he had read enough comic books to know what eventually happened to heroes. They got sacrificed. For the Greater Good. Heart had nothing against that, not as such, not as long as the Greater Good went by the name Lily and was his daughter. Of all other kinds of “Greater Goods” he’d steer clear away from. They reminded him all too fondly of Feinsake not to make him sick on the spot. But there was more. At times like this, a city needed a hero. If one could not be found, one would be created. Everypony knew that, even if they didn’t know that they did. It was one of those laws of the world that never got written down, which no experiment could ever prove. That only made them stronger. Heart could feel the grip of the Law moving his limbs, his mind, his words. He was becoming something more than himself. It reminded him of what Hilt had said, on the last night they had met. “What we are and are not goes beyond us.” That was the Law speaking, right enough. Heart really did not know what to think of it. So he didn’t. “I’m just doing what needs to be done,” he whispered at the window. “Might as well be me doing it.” The air moved in the room, and Heart knew the door had been opened slightly. “You awake, old mate?” Heart turned around. “Always, old bugger. You sneaking to steal my drinks again?” Lieutenant Cowl performed his world famous “got me there” expression, a piece of art in and on itself. “Just thought to let you know: the squad has returned.” “What squad?” Cowl cleared his throat meaningfully. “The squad.”   Heart’s easy smile evaporated. He stood up and grabbed his Captain’s uniform from the rack while striding for the door. “What did they find?” “Don’t know: I came straight to here.” He fell in pace with Heart as they half-galloped through the next room, drawing all the eyes on themselves. Heart tried half-heartedly to button his uniform, but avoided getting slowed down by the task. The squad had returned. And perhaps with them, the answers he had been starving to hear ever since he climbed out from the pits of Tartarus itself.                                                 *** In the gloom, the stallion’s ears pricked up. He kept on lying still in the bed, listening. Aside from his own breathing, he could not hear a thing. The silence was absolute. Nothing could have assured him more of the fact that, contrary to the usual, he was not alone in his bedroom. So it has finally come to this, he thought. They had found him. But as far as he could tell he wasn’t dead yet, so either somepony hesitated or – and this made his train of thought pause – they were waiting for him to wake up. Familiar tingling gathered in his horn. With any luck, he might still have a chance. He acted quickly. A bright light flashed, banishing the night in an blink of an eye and leaving any opened ones blazing. He got up and saw two stallions staggering in the doorway, whining and rubbing their closed eyelids. Both wore shabby cloaks with deep hoods, and had their manes cut off. As expected, thought the unicorn while sneaking between them into the living room. There were six ponies there. Four of them were unicorns. All had the same blank cloaks and shaved heads. None looked especially threatening alone, but together they managed to create a very terminal impression. “I don’t suppose you came here for the silvers,” said the unicorn. “No doubt you’ll take them anyway. They’re in the top drawer over there.” The intruders exchanged a few looks. “You knew we were coming?” one of the unicorns asked. The pony sighed. “I had the just the inkling of a reason to believe so, yes. I’ve made all the necessary preparations, too. I even stacked the silvers neatly so you wouldn't have to ransack the whole place in search of them. They’re in the top drawer, right over there, like I said. I’d hate to leave my heirs a mess to clean, not on top of all the funeral arrangements.” “We didn’t come here for your bloody silver.” “Yes, I realize that, but you might as well have them, now that you’re here. They’re worth quite a lot, you see. Quality craftsmanship. And what’s a petty theft on top of a cold blooded murder?” “We didn’t come for your life, either,” continued the same unicorn. “Get dressed. The night is chilly.” The pony paused for a moment. Things we’re not going along the script he had mentally written for this occasion. When he thought about it, the intruders really did not look like they wanted his blood. Their faces were solemn, but not in any way hinting at murderous intentions. And every hood had this strange, round symbol painted on them, which he could not quite make out in the dim room. “Where are you going to take me, if I may ask?”  “To see the Foal.” “The Foal,” echoed the five other ponies, and touched their foreheads with their hooves. A shudder came that close to running down the pony’s spine. Even if the encounter had not been arranged to end him, it clearly had something to do with his work. Why else would they be saying something like that? Was the point not to lynch him but to make him regret his deeds? To make him repent? Either way, he didn’t seem to have much choice. Clearly they weren’t going to fall for the nasty trap he had hidden to the top drawer. It was such a shame. He had spent years waiting to witness it in action.                                                 *** In the lobby of the Guard House, a dozen ponies saluted as Heart marched in, with Cowl right on his heels. “At ease,” hurried Heart. “Now, report.” A Sergeant stepped forward. “It was just like you said, sir. A mine full of bodies, including Chancellor Feinsake’s. Judging from the smell, they’ve been there for days. We also found several suspicious instruments, notes, books, and other equipment which–” “Yes yes,” interrupted Heart. “Did you find anypony alive?” “No, sir. Not even remotely.” Heart’s heart sank. He should have sent somepony there earlier. But there had been a thousand and one other things to do, each one more urgent than the other, and one mad, blind pony was not difficult to lose on the background then. Not that a part of him would have liked nothing more but to do just that; to forget everything that had happened there. He doubted he ever could, though. Not when Lily had been there, too… “I left a few soldiers guarding the site,” continued the Sergeant. “How would you like us to proceed, sir?” Bury the whole thing under all the gravel you can find. That’s what his heart said, but the Captain in him would never allow it. It was a crime scene. It would have to be treated as one. “Follow the protocol,” said Heart distantly. “Seal the area. Look for evidence. Haul up the corpses and deliver them to the mortuary. I appoint you in charge over there; get a forensic team there at once and start the investigations.” The Sergeant saluted. “Yes sir.” Heart studied his young face. He had seen it before, he knew he had, but for the life of him he could not recall the name that came with it. “What’s your name, Sergeant?” “Willow Fall, sir.” “Watch you back over there, Sergeant Fall. The mine is treacherous all by itself. There’s no telling what horrors might make it even more so.” When the squad dispersed and Heart was left alone with Cowl, he said: “I think I bribed that pony once: on the night when I went to report to Hill about Berry Pie’s murder. Who in the hay made him a Sergeant?” “I did,” answered Cowl jovially. He shrugged at Heart’s raised eyebrow. “If we punished everypony who has touched a black bit around here, we’d soon be running short of ponies to do the punishing. You know this. Fall is a stand-up soldier; worth his weight in gold in a pickle. He had been waiting the promotion for a while, and as soon as you gave me mine, I chose to keep the good deeds circulating.” “Without my approval?” “I believe you snored slightly more approvingly when I came to ask you about it,” said Cowl, smiling into his moustache. “Anyway, why’d you bribe him in the first place?” “It was the easiest way to get in, and I was in a hurry” said Heart. He headed back to his office. “Took me twenty bits to make a private obey an order.” Cowl, walking by his side, let out a low whistle. “With those prices, even I would’ve had to pause. For long enough to reach my baton, of course.” Heart only snorted at that. After some wordless walking he said: “I don’t know what scares me more: the knowledge that I will never get the answers I wanted, or that fact that I wanted to know them in the first place.” Cowl gave him a sideways glance. “What were the questions?” Heart laughed dryly. “Would that I knew even those. Was Feinsake really going to give birth to an alicorn? How could that be? And if Twilight’s heir’s cutie mark was all she needed, why didn’t she take mine? Who was that blind pony I left there to die, after he had saved my and Lily’s life, apparently for no reason at all? Why did Feinsake want to start a war with the griffons? What happened?” “That’s plenty enough of questions all right,” admitted Cowl. “Bound to be a few right ones hiding there. Who knows, maybe the forensic will find a couple of those? And answers to fit them?” “Perhaps,” said Heart. “We need to send our best there, then. I’ll tell Violet to–” He stopped on his tracks. Cowl cringed, then laid a hoof on Heart’s shoulder. “I forgot again,” muttered Heart, staring at nothing. “How could I forget? How can I forget?” “It slips by my mind sometimes too,” said Cowl quietly. “It’ll get better, after the funeral.” “Better?” echoed Heart, his lips barely moving. “How can it get better, Cowl? How?” To that, Cowl said nothing. “I’m sorry,” said Heart after a while. “I didn’t mean it.” “I know you didn’t,” said Cowl. He squeezed his friend’s shoulder. “It’s a bloody disgrace. What a waste. I swear, that Feinsake bitch… We ever meet in the afterlife, she better pray it’s true what they say and that you can’t remember a thing of your life, ‘cause if I do, and I see her, I’ll… I’ll… godsdamnit…” He sniffed, and wiped his eyes into his sleeve, muttering something which Heart was not sure he wanted to hear. “We should go out tonight,” he said quietly. “Just the two of us. A drink for her memory. After Lily’s bedtime.” Cowl sniffed again, looking away. His hoof still touched Heart’s shoulder, now searching support rather than offering it. “Hmh. Yeah. Good idea. I’ll have to let Soy know. She’ll understand. The old place?” “The old place,” said Heart.   “Nothing like the old place,” continued Cowl. “Beats a brand new world every time, a good old place does. No doubt about it.”                                                 *** The line between cowardice and caution has always been fluid, at least for those who’re not quite sure on which side they themselves generally fall. Mr Gruff had no illusions of himself in this regard – he was a firm coward. This didn’t mean he was extremely prone to getting scared. To the contrary, only a very few things in this world could make him truly frightened anymore. He had seen too much of the other side to be afraid of such mundane things as violence, for example. Granted, he didn’t particularly like the prospect of getting beaten up, just as he didn’t fancy waking up to a cold room. Such discomforts he did his best to avoid. But right now, walking through the city night with a bunch of completely strange ponies, he was getting kind of worried. It was no secret that he had enemies. That pretty much belonged to his job description. There were few things that united the numerous religious sects of Canterlot more than their bitter hate of Mr. Gruff. He could not understand them. From a certain point of view not completely inequine, he was actually doing all the poor foals a favour. Getting to birth was not such luxury in this day and age. And many a mare had thanked him for his services afterwards, although they always made sure nopony else saw that. All things considered, he had a hard time imagining himself as the spawn of Tartarus that someponies made him to be – in speeches held to hundreds. His current company no doubt had attended such meetings. Still, he was not completely assured that they wanted him dead, or even to punish him a great deal. They didn’t seem like the type to start torturing ponies. A difficult to describe air of ordinariness hung over each one of them, despite their clear attempts to cover it with all this cultist business. That symbol they were all carrying didn’t resemble anything Gruff had ever seen. He still hadn’t had a good look at it, but basically it looked like a conjoined sign of the sun and the moon. Wrapped together, the two celestial orbs seemed to be consuming each other. It had some style to it, he had to admit. More at least than the moronic forehead bumping did. Despite the deep mid-fall darkness, Gruff had a pretty good sense of which part of the city they were in now. It was called the Ledge. The name was accurate in its unimaginativeness. In the old days the site hadn’t had one single name, for it was divided into numerous subsections which were all very particular about their identity. Food alone had had a baker’s dozen’s worth of blocks dedicated for the culinary arts. Once, the place had been the jewel and pet of Canterlot’s cultural heritage. It had all gone downhill, literally, when the Catastrophe had hit the land. The enormous halls and towers of marble, jade and crystal had collapsed to the valley below. Their ruins still lay there, now haunted and shunned by everypony save the most daring. Rumours said that all kinds of treasures could still be found there, if one knew where to look. Almost a kilometer above, there was nothing but the Ledge and what remained of it. Lots of ponies still resided there, for the housing situation in the city was as acute as one might expect it to be in a city built on a mountainside. There’s another incremental favour of mine, all for the common good, thought Gruff in passing. They stopped in front of a building in no way distinct from the others around it. “Shabby” was just the right word for it in Gruff’s mind. Built of wood like most of the buildings on the Ledge, it had not a trace left of the proud elegance of the old Canterlot. It even stood straight, a thing the ancient architects would have called a sacrilege. Their holy duty had been to bend their structures into a frozen dance flowing in the melody of the mountain; not to crudely fight against it. Before, a flat floor had been unthinkable in Canterlot. All this and more Gruff thought while trying not to think about what would come next. That turned out to be nothing, for a while. Then, the front door of the shack opened. The unicorn who had so far served as the spokespony for the group turned to Gruff and nodded towards it. He felt in his bones that this would be his last chance to escape whatever fate they had in store for him. Inside, there could be anything. He could not fight nor bribe his way out, but perhaps he could manage a decent bluff. “I’ve got friends who’ll start looking for me if I don’t turn up to the arranged meetings,” he said to the spokespony. “Powerful friends.” The unicorn nodded at the door again, more insistently. Gruff tried to think of another lie, but the last one had already scraped the bottom of the barrel. It was true he had affiliations among the highest ranks of the city’s social pyramid, although it was also true that they’d rather lose a leg than so much as nod at him on the street. At times, he was indispensable. At all other times… well, perhaps his brother would mourn for him, should he ever find out he had disappeared in the first place. He swallowed and walked into the house. There were four more unicorns inside. These were also wearing cloaks, but significantly better ones than the lot outside. They were black and white, reaching all the way to the ground so as to hide their owner’s legs, and had the intricate symbol painted on the spot covering their cutie marks. Aside from its occupants, the room seemed like any other living room in the world. Like as not, it probably was somepony’s living room. One of the unicorns opened a hatch in the floor with her horn, then pointed into the gloom with a hoof while looking Gruff in the eyes. Why must all the cultists always gather underground? he wondered while descending down the steps with the four others. For a second he thought to ask the question aloud in a sorry attempt to lighten the mood, but he didn’t want them to know his throat was drying out quickly. The situation was turning more unsettling by the minute, which started testing even his usually steady nerves. To calm them, he tried to focus on the facts around him. The tunnel, like all others in Canterlot, had been dug through solid stone. It didn’t resemble a usual cellar, nor was it a mine, which severely limited the actual functions it could have been designed for. Smuggling was the likeliest alternative. With food prices climbing up every day, the black market business had escalated into the most profitable business around. The Parliament did everything it could to guarantee an equal distribution of supplies, but it was fighting a losing battle even before it had dispersed itself. Gruff had heard rumours that the public economy had days to live. After it would collapse, these tunnels and Canterlot’s food supply along with them would be left at the hooves of moneylenders, loan sharks and outright criminals. Suddenly, a waft of cool air blew on Gruff’s face. He halted in surprise. “Keep moving,” said the mare behind him. “I just felt wind,” he said, touching his cheek. “Where are we going?” She answered by nudging him with a hoof. Such insolence sparked something sharp inside Gruff. He looked over his shoulder, blinking in the light of the mare’s horn. “I’m not taking another step before somepony explains to me what’s going on.” The stallion who had been walking before him touched his shoulder gently. His face, and the parts of the neck Gruff could see, had also been painted black and white. The smile he offered him also has a painted look to it. “I feel your fear, brother,” said the stallion. “Our fraternity is built on it. Or will have been, until you meet the Foal.” “What bloody Foal?” asked Gruff, trying his best to ignore the oddly fond hoof touching him. Even through his suit, he could sense the sympathy of it. He liked it not one bit. “I demand a proper answer.” “Then you must finish the stairs you’ve started,” said the pony. He let go off him and showed the way. “My name is Bolt the Just. You can call me Just Bolt. On my life I swear, nothing bad will come to you. Come, we are close now.” Gruff grinded his teeth behind the cover of his lips. The youth reminded him of a used cart seller. Weirdly enough, the notion gave him some comfort. A pony he would have felt obliged to trust would have been way more suspicious. In any case, at this point a shy curiosity was growing on him. He hadn’t felt this this much excitement in years. The stairs went farther than he had anticipated, but finally came to a halt. At the end of them was an opening and, indeed, open air. As if guided by fate, the moon chose to show its face the moment Gruff stepped from the tunnel, offering him a generous view of the surroundings. They had arrived into some sort of a large indentation in the bare cliffside. At first Gruft thought it was the Catastrophe’s doings, but the smoothness of the floor and the ceiling suggested that the large underground space had been merely exposed by the cataclysm. What the place had originally served as, Gruff could not tell, for there was nothing around but wind, coldness and moonlight. And the Foal, of course. It sat on the edge, facing the nothingness spreading before it. Even from afar Gruff couldn’t but admire how pleasantly the pale light played on its smooth, black and white fur on which byzantine patterns played. Particularly noteworthy was also how still the foal sat – one could have mistaken it for a statue. But apart from all this, it was just a foal. “Wrong,” said a voice behind him. It sounded strangely familiar, yet he could not quite say if he’d heard it before. “What is?” he said, facing the speaker detaching from shadows. “You were thinking it was just a foal you saw,” said Stick, or the pony who once had been known by that name. “It is not.” It took Gruff some effort to stifle a cringe at the sight of the pony, and that said a lot. Two terrible scars above his eyes made what must’ve already been a creepy appearance truly gruesome. That made the eerie tranquility and easy timbre of his voice even more disturbing. An impression of ventriloquism was inescapable. “Do I know you?” asked Gruff carefully. Stick’s nonexistent gaze aimed right through him. “We have met. In a sense. The matter is complicated.” Gruff frowned. “Feinsake? Is that you?” Stick smiled, and Gruff gasped. “It’s not,” said Stick. “Not completely.” “Fascinating,” said Gruff. “I’ve never heard of anything similar. How did this happen?” Stick waved a dismissing hoof. “Not important. Perhaps someday you can perform all the analyses and dissections you want on me. But before that, we need you to finish the work you have started.” “What work?” Stick nodded at the foal. The question how he knew the right direction passed through Gruff’s mind, but right now it was just one tiny riddle in a sea of enigmas. He glanced at the edge, where the foal was still sitting, still staring into the night. “I don’t understand,” he said. Stick walked next to him. Nothing in his movements hinted of hindrance caused by his condition. “A few months ago, Feinsake came to you with a request you conceived as rather strange. She wanted to delay the birth of her foal. You obeyed. Last month, she called for you again, with the same intention. Again, you obeyed, although it made you a murderer.” “Now hold on–” “First you drained the lifeforce of Feinsake, to keep her body weak enough to stop the birth, even at the risk of miscarriage,” continued Stick without missing a breath. “Next, you resurrected her with the life of her secretary. Her name was Chip. You turned her youth into a heap of ash.” Gruff stared at him. “If you’re not Feinsake, how can you know all that? There was nopony else there.” “I’m sure you would know,” said Stick. “I have memories. No, that’s not the right way to put it. I have memories of memories. Glimpses of mirrors below ice.” He looked at Gruff. “Let us not cling to irrelevancies. I’m not offering you accusations but a redemption. You have sinned, but your sin was for a higher purpose. All you need to do is to carry out that purpose to its end.” “Why don’t you finally cut to the business, then?” Stick smiled playfully. “I’ve made you nervous. Forgive me.” He looked at the foal, then said something which to Gruff sounded like Saddle-Arabian – a short sentence or a name. Whatever it was, the foal reacted by starting to approach them. I don’t understand, thought Gruff as he followed the foal’s surprisingly steady progress. It’s just a unicorn foal. I know nothing of children.  “Look closer,” said Stick by his side. Gruff paid him a sideways glance. If the pony was simply guessing his thoughts, he was doing a bloody good job of it. When the foal stopped in front of him, he followed the advice and gave it a good look. He kept on looking for a long while. “Can you see?” asked Stick. Gruff flinched as if he had woken up, then took a few slow steps backwards. “No. No. It can’t be. Impossible.” He looked at Stick. “It’s a trick!” Stick smoothed the foal’s black and white mane with a hoof. “Listen to your own heart, Mr. Gruff. Listen to it beat and ask me then: is it really a trick?” Gruff made a suffocating sound. He lowered his eyes on the foal, who was looking curiously back at him. Curiously. As if there was more intelligence behind those strange eyes than the first sight would imply. To his horror, Gruff felt a strong urge to kneel. “No need for that,” said Stick. He bent over the foal’s ear, whispered something, and watched as it paced to the cloak-clad cultists. They disappeared up the stairs, leaving Gruff and Stick alone on the cliff. “What do you want from me?” asked Gruff after a while. “What could I possibly have to offer for… for…” “Everything,” said Stick. “You have everything to give. Despite what you saw, the Foal is not yet ready for the task that is fated for it. Feinsake, formidable as her efforts were, could only manage a beginning. As I’ve said, it is you who must finish it.” Gruff, his head spinning, sat down on the cool stone. “Finish it…? I… How…?” “All will be explained to you in good time. Have no fear of failure. Providence leads us now. Defeat is beyond us.” He walked to Gruff, helped him stand up. “Say, how would you like to be a prophet?”                                                 *** For once, It was a quiet night in Canterlot, and nowhere else was it quieter than in Mercury. That was not the name Heart and Cowl knew the bar by, though. For them it would always remain the Blueberry Inn it was, no matter what the actual owner decided to call it. The same went for their trusted table at the far back corner, which at some point had been threatened to be replaced by a flygel. Heart had had to pull a few strings and abuse his Lieutenant's badge to stop that, but the end had outweighed the means. Old places did not crop up like mushrooms after a rain. Wrapped in gloom and lethargically drifting dust, Cowl and Heart studied the rest of the bar with a critical eye. “It’s got too modern,” judged Cowl. “All those colors don’t belong to a proper bar. I dunno the names of half of them.” “The music’s all wrong,” reflected Heart. “What, they think this is a circus? Or an opera? I can’t even tell.” “And what’s with the drink names?” said Cowl, picking up the menu. “I can’t even make out the letters!” “You’re holding it upside down,” noted Heart. Cowl grunted, and finished his bright teal drink served in a glass as thin as his sense of adventure. He had already broken one of those by sneezing at them. “Can’t even keep darn menus right way around here…” “It might be that we’ve turned old,” said Heart, turning his attention to the rest of the customers. All could have theoretically been his children. The nasty thought that one or two of them actually were his children crossed his mind, but he flushed it away with another “Sunset Shimmer”. It had cinnamon in it, gods knew why. “No no no, everypony else‘s just too young,” corrected Cowl, slurring a bit. His brow wrinkled in concentration. “How old are you, anyway?” “Around thirty?” ventured Heart. “Hah!” “Okay, okay, closer to forty,” he conceded. “But I know for a fact I’m younger than you. I had to wear a fake moustache to get in here the first time, but you walked right in without the portier giving a second glance.” “That’s ‘cause his little brother cut a debt that way,” said Cowl. “Anyway, I recall the moustache didn’t do you much good. Didn’t the portier make you eat it?” “Perhaps I shouldn’t have called him by all those names,” said Heart. He focused on drawing random patterns of spilled beverage on the table. It was made of good, honest oak – not the fancy mountain crystal like all the others around. The initials he had scraped on the bottom where still there, too. “It all happened ages ago. Ages.” “In another life,” rumbled Cowl, leaning on his front legs. For a while, they let the silence carry the discussion. When enough time had passed to clear the air of melancholy, Cowl waved a waiter over and ordered two apple brandeys. “Never saw Violet drinking nothing without a little drop or two of the stuff in it,” said Cowl quietly when the glasses arrived. The contents were clear as water, and made Heart’s throat burn just by sloshing around. “To spike the taste, she always said.” They drank for Violet. Nothing was said; the drinks were raised and emptied in one go. It was the Guard’s way, although you could not find it written down anywhere. “Bloody hell,” coughed Heart. “No wonder she always had such a sharp tongue…” Cowl’s shaking affirmed the opinion. He started telling a story about the time when they had been patrolling near the Cliffs with Violet, and ended up in the middle of a gang fight. Heart listened with half an ear, and not only because he had heard the tale a dozen times before. Should I break it to him now? he thought. It has been decided already, so what point is there in delaying the inevitable? I might not get an opportunity like this for a long time. Him and me here drinking the night away in the Inn, as if the world hadn’t gone mad after all. “You’re not listening,” observed Cowl. Heart blinked. “Uhh…” Cowl pardoned him with a wink. “It’s okay, I understand. Heard it all before.” “Yeah…” Cowl’s eyes narrowed. “But that ain’t the long of it. You’re thinking something.” Heart squirmed a bit on his seat. He had forgotten how long friends he and Cowl actually were. Besides, Cowl was no fool, a proof of which was that he’d often prefer to keep this a secret. “Which one is it this time, then?” continued Cowl, fixing his posture. “Lake? Or Lily?” “Cowl…” “Lily it is – I saw how you flinched at the name.” He leaned slightly over the table. “Want to talk about it? And don’t you think saying no.” Heart stared back at him. It seemed that the die had been cast on his behalf. He might as well stay to witness it land. “We haven’t talked since that day,” he said. “Not really, I mean. Not about it. I don’t know if it’s me or she who’s delaying. Gods know I have no clue what to say to her.” And that was the first lie of the night. Heart had the premonition it would not be the last, and not only on his side. Cowl combed his moustache with a hoof. “She been staring empty walls a lot lately, has she? Waking up at nights, screaming? Any that sort of thing?” “No.” “Generally a good sign, that,” said Cowl, one of nature’s own psychologists. “Sometimes talking only makes things worse. I’ve seen it, same as you. Every felon knows this: the more you talk, the more screwed you’re gonna be, one way or another.” Heart studied his friend’s face with a renewed sense of comprehension. It was an honest face, and loyal. There was a lot he could love about that face. But some things Cowl and he could never share. Not because Cowl couldn't understand what it meant to be a father (he had four sons to testify to the contrary) or because Heart would have been somehow smarter (which he doubted). At bottom, their differences came to a much finer grain, and the thought that in truth they really were alike was not the smallest of them. “I don’t think the analogy applies here,” said Heart. “Was worth the try.” “It’s the way she looks at me sometimes,” said Heart, his gaze moving from one empty glass to the next on the table. “Especially when I’m wearing the uniform. Her eyes… She’s always been such a quiet kid. Keeping to herself mostly. And to the books. She reads them until the text fades from overuse.” He looked at Cowl. “Her eyes; it’s as if she wanted me dead sometimes.” “You know it’s only you looking back at yourself, right?” said Cowl slowly. “They’re her eyes. I don’t know what I see in them anymore.” Cowl shifted on his seat. “Maybe it’s, you know, some phase or something? She’ll get over it. Maybe she should go out more; make friends of her own age. There’s this kindergarten I could–” “She’s never, ever again going to be trusted to ponies who haven’t sworn to die at my command,” said Heart. “Never again.” Cowl eyed him warily. “That might not be something you want her to hear.” “I told it to her yesterday. She will be safe. I swear, she will be safe, even if I have to stay awake over her bed every night for the rest of my life!” “You’ve been doing that a lot lately?” “Every night, Cowl.” Cowl sighed. It was all he needed to say, if not everything he wanted to. “I know what you’re thinking,” said Heart. “You think that I can’t keep it up, that it’s wrong to try in the first place. And you’re right – it is impossible. At least, as things stand.” There was a point hidden in that last bit. Cowl did not fail to notice it, as his confused expression showed. In the corner of his eye, Heart saw the die fall like a star from the sky. “I’m going to leave the Guard.” For a moment, the complete lack of reaction on Cowl’s face made Heart think, in bottomless relief, that his friend had seen this coming. Such illusions shattered along with glass on Cowl’s grip. “You can’t do that,” he said. “I can and I will. At the end of the month, you will have to vote for a new Captain. No, let me finish. This is not a random impulse or a decision made in panic. I’ve been thinking this seriously even before Hilt died. Since then, the circumstances have spoken for themselves. I can’t be a father and a soldier at the same time. I didn’t ask for the decision, but it’s up to me to make it, and that’s what I’ve done. You can punch me if you like.” He actually expected him to. Cowl really looked like he wanted it, and deep down Heart had a hunch that he deserved it; if not for this, then for something else. At the end, it was perhaps only his offer as such that saved him from its fulfilment. “Now, you listen to me,” he said. “You literally can’t resign just like that. Not just because the city’s living the end times, not because losing you would be the biggest blow for the Guard since the Catastrophe, and not even because it would make me resign, too. No, the regulations forbid the Captain from resigning by himself. It’s the law.” “I’m aware of it,” said Heart calmly. “Only the majority vote of the Parliament, the Chancellor or the unanimous decision of all the higher officers can discharge the Captain. And you’re the only Lieutenant whose consent I don't yet have.” Cowl stared at him. And then he walked out. Considering it was only the third worst outcome Heart had been expecting, he dared to feel quite optimistic about his situation. In truth he would leave the post regardless what anypony else had to say about it, but going by the official route would save a lot of trouble. It bothered Heart somewhat that he hadn’t gotten to tell Cowl the whole truth. He would learn it eventually in any case, but he hoped from the bottom of his heart that a peace would be made between them before it came to that. Around him, the bright neon lights went on whirling, the dull music playing, the little ponies dancing. He followed them with less than a detached frame of mind. Or he did, until he recognized one of the meaningless faces, and was recognized in turn. It was the shy secretary, name of… “Top,” said the mare, about ten minutes and a few more curious glances later. “Chart Top.” “I swear, I had the name on my mind just during the day,” said Heart. “The name label must’ve played a role then,” she said, gracing the vicinity with another one of those perfect smiles. Slender it was, easy to surface; yet full of joy, especially around the edges where the well-worn dimples lived a life of their own. The pearls of sweat she had earned by dancing were only stressing the tender youth that her whole presence radiated. Far from pushing Heart into the contrast, it actually spread on, aided by the long looks she was giving him one after the other. “You been working long in the Guard?” he asked, trying his best to keep his voice casual. “Joined last week, like many other secretaries from the Parliament. There’s no work there anymore. I wanted to do my share for the city, so…” A lot of the bureaucracy had indeed switched sides on its own in the aftermath of the Parliament’s downfall, Heart reflected. There had been nopony there giving orders, or too many giving the wrong sort of ones. It was a stroke of luck, really. Guard had been in desperate need of clerks when the duties of running the city had fell on it, but technically Heart could not have seized the state apparatus without declaring a martial law, which as such was the very definition of a grey zone, both in a legal and moral sense. “That was no small decision, mind you,” he said. “The work you’ve all done has been irreplaceable. It’s too bad there’s little more in the way of a reward we can offer you save a lousy pay and a few words of gratitude. Another smiled lit up her face. This time, the sunny impression had a touch of dusk mixed in, heavy with possibilities. “Oh, I’m sure you can come up with something… perhaps on the more personal side… Such small things often count their weight in gold when it comes down to gratitude.” Heart was not sure whether what was currently happening was actually happening. Was it only fair, then, that he played along just to be sure? “An innovative idea,” he said. “It’s a shame we haven’t had the time to get to know all of you… personally.” That came out a lot cheesier than he had thought it would, but Top didn’t seem to mind one bit. “I don’t suppose there’s anything we could do about it, is there…?” she said, leaning across the table. “You do work so much, sir Captain… Wouldn’t it be wrong to bother you with work after hours?” “I live for my work,” said Heart, cracking a grin. Mentally he was kicking himself in the groin. Gods, I’m more rusted at this than the locker room’s doors. Then the thought that he ought to be rusted crossed his mind. “Perhaps we could… uhm… finish the introduction session in my place? It’s just a few blocks away.” Maybe he ought to have stay rusted, reflected Heart later, when they were strolling the streets to her place. Lily was waiting, after all, and he had just had his worst argument in years with his best friend. What he was about to do didn’t fit really well with that. In truth his only excuse, had anypony asked him, would have been was that he was still alive.