"Yeah, I know you're getting sick of pulling the damn cart, but I can't pull it, and we need it for the job."
Polaris snorted.
"Well, we're a team, and I don't think you could do my job."
Polaris snorted again, still indignant.
The pair approached the Quiet Cottage in disguise, not quite sure what they would find.
A temporary Quilt billowed atop long poles, pieced together from old clothes and sheets, banners and flags from those noble Houses the Quilt has absorbed, and even patches of monster- and man-skin leftover from hundred of years of Stitchings. Despite it's size, this Quilt was dwarfed by the one back in Ponyville, more of a glorified tent than a proper place of worship.
The morale among the Patchwork Knights was one of weariness and boredom. They huddled about fires, playing dice and drinking mead, talking quietly among the sober, and laughing loudly among the drunk. Growing up among these men and being an honorary Knight himself, Lunar couldn't help but search for familiar faces, and be disappointed when he found few. Clearly the Knights of Brother Patch's flock had been under heavy conflict for some time.
On that note, Lunar pulled his Smoke Mirror shard from around his neck to guide him to the Knight's local boot hill, and from there to the grave of the Knight who'd returned from the Everfree without his brothers or his hands.
It was a typical Patchwork grave, the dirt still fresh and mounded like so many others. It would have been indistinguishable from the dozens of others on the hill, but the power of the shattered Smoke Mirror was already pulling the Knight from the ground, partially rotted stubs clawing out of the freshly-turned gravesoil to answer the call.
The Knight himself was only a week or two dead, and frightening for it. His skull was exposed, and he was naked but for his quilted cape in tatters around him. He pulled himself partially from his hole, dirt gathering around his waist.
Lunar dismounted while Polaris eyed the corpse suspiciously. Another reason she was an excellent mount for a Supernaturalist was she did not fear the dead.
The Knight watched right back, his eyes milky and blind. Kneeling next to him, Lunar pulled the shard from around his neck and held it out in front of the corpse. It held the shard pinched between it's two stubs, peering at it's own reflection, it's dead eyes roaming over it's rotting face, lingering where it's now-decomposed nose had been, gazing into the holes where his cheeks had been. It's jaw ratcheted, dead lungs working air through dead pipes. It spoke in a voice that was part magical, and part terribly real.
"I'm dead, aren't I?"
"Yeah, unfortunately."
"It... hurts, man. Why... Why did you bring me back? How?"
"I used a shard of the Smoke Mirror to pull a reflection of your soul back into your body. I need you to tell me what killed you."
The corpse shuddered, feeling the back of it's head. "My head...I can feel the crack in it. My brain is broken, man."
"That's why I'm asking your soul. Tell me your name, that might help."
"My name is... Mikal. Mikal Steelrich, son of Cane. I was a Patchwork Knight."
"May the Quilt warm you as you wander. Try to remember, Mikal, or more may end up like you and your brothers."
"It's getting clearer... By the Quilt, it hurts... Brother Patch had us bound to the Eclipse Ruins to set up a base camp, then the rest of the Quilt would follow our footsteps. Two days... We were two days out, gonna reach the ruins in the morning. We were cutting loose, playing some dice and having some drinks, watching the sun set. Then the sentries didn't come back. We knew that things were going too smoothly, suddenly it hit us... Whatever was in the forest had been waiting, waiting for us to go to deep. It had us by the balls, then. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Ugh...Why did you do this to me?"
"Focus, Mikal, it will be over soon. What did? Ponies?"
"...Some. Yeah, there were definitely ponies. Some humans, too, or maybe ponies in human form. It was fully dark by the time they hit in force... Oh, by the Quilt... "
"Can you describe any of them?"
"They hit the camp when I was out rocking a piss. That's why they didn't kill me right away, I think. I could smell the blood before I even saw anything. Almost no one was left, Perrell was begging them to let him go. They were piling up the bodies, Higgs, Jorge, Panner... my brothers... Burning them like garbage. A white pony, a unicorn... she must've been the leader, she did the honors. One flash of her horn and they went up like kindling. Then the big red one saw me, didn't say a damn word, just looked at me and started walking toward me. I drew my sword... I wasn't going to die without a fight."
"What happened then?"
"There were too many. Flashes, flashes and I'm surrounded by unicorns, I can't move. The white one is looking at me. She laughs, giggles like a little girl... The red one kicks me in the head, and I fall to the ground... It hurt so bad. I feel her grab my hands with magic. Did you know that pony magic burns? When they grab you? She pulled me up, off the ground, she wouldn't stop laughing... I dropped my sword and she made fun of me, said, 'Oh, my poor baby, did you drop your fancy knife? Let Mama fix you up,' And then she... Oh, Quilt, the pain... my hands..."
The corpse shifted, where it had been standing still, gently swaying as if drunk, it began to shiver. It stared blindly at the stumps of it hands, a dull, crackling roar boiling from it's rotting mouth. "Monsters. Quilt-damned monsters. Why did you bring me back? Haven't I been through enough? Kill me! Kill me! Kill me, please!"
Mikal began to beat his head on the ground, his arms flopping wetly against the dirt. Lunar grabbed the corpse, holding him still.
"Not yet. You're not giving me enough, Mikal, I need names, numbers, details, dammit! Help me hunt them down!"
"She tore my hands off. They played with me, like cats. The red one kicked me again. They were there to kill us, why would they talk about anything else? It was meant to be a massacre, why would, would, would, it be anything but? But... but why but? Why butt? But, I... I... can't, Lora, I'm going to be a Knight, a Patch cannot be a soiled cloth... I... love you, Lora, Quilt save me, I love you so much... Quilt forgive me..."
"Nevermind, I guess. You're done." Lunar unfolded his hand cannon, switching to Undead rounds.
As Lunar kicked the last of the newly-grown sod over the corpse, he picked out his shard of the Smoke Mirror, dusting it off and polishing it on the shirt he usually didn't wear. Then he heard Polaris stomp twice behind him, something that he trained her to do to warn of intruders.
When he turned around, Brother Patch had seemingly appeared out of thin air, as he often did, arms tucked into billowing sleeves, mismatched eyes staring blindly out underneath a patched hood.
"Hullo, Brother. What can I do ya for?"
"Hullo, Lunar."
"How could you tell it was me?" Lunar was disguised as a traveler, with a wide hat to cover his face, a shirt and a billowing coat to cover his form. His face had matured in the time he'd been away, a Supernaturalist's life aged one quickly, not to mention the scars.
"There's only one man in Questria who could ride this horse." Brother Patch rubbed Polaris' head and she rubbed back, nickering. He was a tall man, taller even than the horse. "Though he was no man when I last saw him. Besides, Flannery already sent me a letter."
"It's good to see you, Patch." The two embraced, the familiar smell of crypt and embalming potion washing over Lunar. "Good to see you're still kicking."
"As long as the Quilt has need of me, I will serve." Patch bowed, smiling in spite of himself. "Speaking of serving the Quilt, what sorcery were you performing on Brother Steelrich? Necromancy? I was under the impression Supernaturalists were supposed to avoid that sort of thing."
"Simple communication with a recently-departed soul, far from a full resurrection." He held up the Smoke Mirror shard. "With this, it's completely safe on my end."
Patch took it, holding it gently like a baby bird. "What a marvelous little trinket. I... I can see myself in it."
"That's what it does. Draculus told me he took the original Smoke Mirror from the Lord of the Dead himself. He tried to use it to open a gate between the living world and the dead, to create a limbo where Undead were all-powerful. So I stole it and broke it. Now, I keep a piece of it with me so if anybody wants to put it back together, they'll have to kill me first. It's proven useful in the past. And the present, as you can see."
"So, what did you find out?"
"Not much that I didn't already know, but I now have eyewitness account that the attack on the Knights was, in fact, ponies, and there is evidence of an extensive infestation within the forest itself. They're being territiorial, they have something hidden that they don't want us to know about, and while they definitely need supplies to support a significant population, the raids were likely just a distraction. They're planning something, Patch."
"So what do we do?"
"You stand around and look pretty. I'm going in there to catch me a magical pony."