“It was passed down unto me from my parents. I would then pass it down unto my children when the day comes,” Melody answered with a frown, ears flattening against her head as she crossed her legs rather awkwardly.
Swift raised a brow. “So it’s a memento?” she questioned.
“Yes,” came the answer, though Melody herself still looked as if in a state of unease.
“Why do you fidget so?” Swift pressed further, one of her ears twitching as she shifted so as to put her hooves on the floor, wincing all the while. “Surely something troubles you.”
“I’ve... failed to marry. My parents would want me to have a child as of now, but do you see me with child?” Melody retorted, betraying a flinch of the shoulders.
Something seemed to have clicked in Swift's head in that moment, and her eyes widened a bit. “The memento doubles as a wedding ring of sorts?” she asked, completely shooting in the dark here.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Melody stated with a sigh, shrinking as if she were a child who had disobeyed her parents.
Swift Spear stood straight up, gritting her teeth as all her muscles began protesting against the sudden action with waves of pain. “And they would have given you away, just like that?” she growled, partly from the pain and partly from the shock and anger over what her fellow mare had just relayed.
“Yes. It’s one of the reasons I went to the opera-school,” Melody murmured, shrinking even more now.
Swift sat back down, her body once more crying out in burning pain as she had done so. Something was still nagging her in the recesses of her mind, though—why did those cloaked people at the play carry those colorful... things that lost their color when they encroached her and her very small group? Why did guards spring up as if from borderline nowhere and try to steal the gem? What was so important about a few hunks of sparkling rocks to even warrant such a surprise assault, in the middle of a crowded play no less?
Did Melody know more than she let on? That certainly could have explained her sudden shift in behavior when the whole mess unfolded full force.
“There’s something I still don’t understand,” Swift said, finally.
“Yes?” Melody guessed, her ears going upright for a moment.
“Why did those people and the guards try taking this gemstone,” Swift asked flatly, her question sounding more like a statement as her face hardened. “What explains those strange objects that lost color when they stopped right in front of us?” she added, her wings shifting and seizing up in pain, forcing a yelp out of the mare to whom they were attached.
A few moments of silence passed before the weakened dragoon had received her answer. “I know not the answer to those questions,” Melody answered with a shake of her head, her voice solemn in tone. “My parents never really told me about the gem, aside from it being a wedding gift of sorts.”
Melody groaned and lifted an arm up, before a hand went to gently connect with her face. “Are you playing dumb with me?” she moaned, gently pressing down on her upper eyelids with her fingers.
“No, Swift,” Melody replied quick as a whip. “If I really did know why, I’d have let you know by now,” she added.
“... Fair point,” Swift conceded with a slow nod of her head and her hand dragging down along her face as well as the bridge of her muzzle. Her purple-and-silver-streaked bangs fell in front of her face, the tangled mass almost hiding her eyes even as she then pulled her hand away from her visage. "Did you use the gem to track me with a spell?" When she got a nod from Melody, a wry smile splayed Swift's lips. “Perhaps Pippin would know something about this?” she mused, her ears twitching ever so slightly.
“But what about your armor-plated clothes?” Melody gasped, her eyes going wide. "You're practically exposed! Wounded, even!"
“If I must sacrifice my modesty to get answers, then so be it,” Swift snarled, using a hand to brush aside her messy bangs. “Besides, I need to rest, I need a bath—the clothes can be dealt with at a later time.”
Melody backed down and simply nodded. “Want me to fetch him?” she questioned.
“Please do,” Swift answered rather begrudgingly whilst nodding back. She waited until the sound of retreating hooves had faded from the inn from a loud series of thuds to a dull afterthought before glancing back at her dirtied tail whose hair had hung in such horrid tangles it would probably have to be shaved clean in order to simply brush it thereafter. Silence had befallen the room in which she sat, and she slowly touched her tail with a hand, gritting her teeth to choke back a scream.
Damn, the tail hurt. “I might have to cut it off,” she growled, still gritting her teeth as she spoke. Her ears perked as the sound of hooves hitting the floor hit the phono receptors, and the wounded mare looked up to see Melody coming back into the room with Pippin—who, upon seeing that Spear was almost nude, began to blush on the spot.
“I hear you have a…” Pippin trailed off, shaking as he stared into the emerald eyes of Swift, “question for me?”
“Do you know anything about the gemstone? The one Melody handed to me three days ago?” Swift asked calmly, despite the fact that Pippin’s eyes trailed off from her face to places down below.
“Nothing, I-I’m afraid,” Pippin replied in a stammer, looking back at the dirtied mare’s visage.
“At all?” Swift continued to ask, a brow quirked just a smidgen.
“I-I wish I d-did,” Pippin replied with a hasty nod of his head, the blush still plastered on his azure cheeks. Swift's brow climbed higher, and she wanted to ask why he began stuttering. His eyes moved to the mare’s hips, where a spear identical to the one she wielded was plastered upon.
“I see you’re staring at my cutie mark,” Swift stated, a small smirk curling on her lips.
“O-oh dear!” Pippin cried, hastily looking back up at the mare’s face with widened eyes and shrunken pupils. “Sincerest a-apologies!”
“No need to apologize; I chose to sacrifice my modesty for the time being,” Swift replied, her smile widening a teensy bit before curling into a frown. “But on a serious note, what do you know about the palace guards springing up on us a while ago? It would seem fishy to me that they would do such a thing in an opera-themed school of all places.”
“No. I haven't the foggiest.” Pippin shook his head, his visage maintaining its shocked expression.
“She does have a point; that many guards would not have needed to enter the school even if the king himself sat amidst the audience,” Melody conceded, nodding her head slowly.
“Nor would those people who carried those bizarre, glowing orbs have the need to do the same,” Swift added, glancing towards her disheveled wings for a moment. “What do we need to do once I recover?” she asked, turning back to the people who helped carry her into this inn.
“Whatever we need to do, we must lay low for a while. The guards probably have us stamped as wanted persons simply for resisting them—borderline fleeing the city, even,” Pippin sighed, a frown curling his lips. "And possibly a few others, if they managed to flee as well."
“They’ll likely scour the neighboring cities as much as a group of maids service the king,” Melody piped up, worry flashing in her eyes. “We cannot stay for long.”
“Pippin, hand me your dagger,” Swift stated abruptly, her face hardening.
“W-why?” Pippin questioned, flinching.
“My tail is in such bad condition I am afraid I can no longer keep it,” she replied, frowning.
“W-what?!” both Pippin and Melody cried in unison, irises shrinking as Swift’s words ran through their minds.
“I’m afraid it must be done; otherwise, it would be cumbersome to keep at best,” Swift sighed. “I would not reach such a decision in any other circumstance; now then, please hand me the dagger.”
Slowly and hesitantly, Pippin withdrew his weapon and approached Swift, handing the dagger to her with a shaky hand once he was close enough for her to grasp it. Swift then stood up, pain shooting throughout all of her nerves and forcing her to emit a yelp of surprise. She stumbled away from the bed, dagger in hand, and towards a bare wall on the other side of the room.
Grasping her tail with the other hand and shutting her eyes tightly, she began the very painful job of hacking her own hair-tangled limb off with the dagger. She felt blood ooze from the wound she created, some of it splashing onto her bare legs before trickling down them in a manner akin to sweat. Soon, all she had left was a bleeding stump, much to the wide-eyed horror of Pippin and Melody.
“I’ll get some bandages and rags,” Melody murmured before fleeing the room quickly.
“Even this has an upside, as painful as it is,” Swift growled, her voice tainted by underlying pain. “I’ll be damned if I had kept this in its current condition only to let someone else grab it.”
“Have you been... grabbed by the tail before?” Pippin asked, worry flashing in his eyes.
Swift turned to him quickly, and there were dark streaks running down her cheeks from her eyes. “Yes,” she answered, her voice almost hushed. “It was when I was a little girl—something I would rather not get into.”
Pippin just barely caught a faint glimmer in the corner of the dragoon’s left eye. “I’m... terribly—”
She cut him off by raising the hand that clutched the severed limb and spoke up, “Don’t apologize; this was my own choice. Sometimes, limbs have to be removed to ensure survival.” A tear streaked her face from her left eye, trailing down an erratic path before letting go of her visage and plummeting to the floor, and her breathing began to turn hitched.
“I... I understand.” Pippin nodded after swallowing a lump in his throat. “I’m just concerned for your well-being,” he added as he saw another tear descend down the mare’s face.
“I know,” Swift murmured, her voice pained and soft as she lowered the hand holding the severed tail, turning away from the earth pony and towards the nearest wall. A frown still lingered on her face, but it was no longer of the angry, very pronounced sort. The frown made her look almost sad, especially considering another tear falling away from her face.
Her ears fell flat on her skull as she continued to stare at the wall, her chest rising and falling in tandem with the hitches in her breath.
Pippin approached the almost-naked, bleeding mare with slow, cautious steps. He paused when Swift suddenly threw her own detached limb against the wall, her eyes narrowing as her hitched breath hastened. She glared at the spot the tail landed against, which left a small bloody spot in the wake of its impact before dropping to the ground.
“Is there anything else you need help with?” he asked softly.