//------------------------------// // 3 - The Oracle // Story: Limits of Mercy // by Beware The Carpenter //------------------------------// Dear Zecora I'm sorry I haven't written to you in so long; it's just... I've been busy... and I've had a lot on my mind. I thought I could deal with everything on my own but now I don't know what to do: Equestria has been taking in thousands of refugees from the civil war in Oatlantis; and a lot of them have ended up in Canterlot, though I'm sure you already knew that. The school's taken on hundreds of new students for the new school year; and the first day of school was just lessons about the cultural differences and recent history we should be aware of. There's been a lot of mixed results. A lot of the new students are behind everyone else academically; meaning some of them have needed to get reshuffled into younger classes, or else slowed down everyone their own age. Most of the native students seem to be taking this OK; but it only takes a few people getting angry to cause trouble. I've done my best to talk to the new kids, and am thinking of starting a new netball team with some of the other pegasi fillies; but there's... something else. A few days ago after school I found a filly crying in the girl's bathroom. When she first saw me she screamed at me to leave her alone; but then after a moment she stopped and realized I wasn't Sky Fire. Her name was Summer, and she was one of the new refugees; and on the first day she'd run into Sky Fire. She said they'd hit it off right away, and then after only dating for about a week she let him sleep with her. Before then he'd come and talked to her every day; but when he didn't find her the next day, or the day after that she went looking for him and found him kissing Epiphany Dazzle. When she confronted him about it he brushed her off; and then she talked to some other girls about it, who told her what Sky Fire was really like, and laughed at her when she said she thought Sky Fire had really loved her. Summer Tide feels heartbroken, and humiliated, and she's terrified of what her mom will do if she finds out. Her mom's the only family she has left; her dad died in the war and she'd lost track of her two brothers, and doesn't even know if they're alive or dead. I tried talking to Sky Fire about this, but he doesn't think he's done anything wrong and he won't apologize; and in the end all we did was argue. I don't know what to do Zecora. I knew that Sky Fire wasn't always honest, but this is low even for him; especially with how much he knows about what she's been through. He's my brother, and I know I should love him. But after these last few days all I can feel is that I almost hate him. Dear Sky Blaze Do not give into the common posit; That love and hate are opposites. Though it may seem they stand apart; Love is nothing without it's counterpart. If Apple Bloom claimed to love hard, honest labor, Working for the good, of all of her neighbors; yet she also believed that to live as a thief taking from any who she thought she could leech, was perfectly fine and equal in all ways to the life that she has chosen in her nights and her days. Would you believe her, and think her sincere If something she 'loved' could also be jeered; And find no reproach, no hate in her mind. Would you believe that her 'love' was just fine? To truly love anything is to hate that which hurts it and discharges blasphemies against the core of its spirit. If you say you love justice, you must hate oppression; and cannot love freedom without hating repression. If you love what is honest, you must hate deception; And to truly love goodness is to hate evils inception. If you say that you love marriage and family: Children raised lovingly by their mother and daddy; Who through sacred union, have tied close their lives No matter what hardship, or hindrance betide. Then can you, in honesty; not hate that which acts only to satisfy lust; with tryst after tryst, with commitment that's phony? The thing to remember is that there's a difference, between a person; and their deeds of diffidence. And now as for your friend Summer Tide... The sun was hot; the pace was merciless and one sip of water was rationed per hour. The pegasus colt next to Sky Blaze stumbled, caught himself in the nick of time, and used the jolt from the chain around his neck to pull himself back in line. He was giving it everything he had to keep the pace the buffalo demanded, but he'd fractured his hip in the battle last night; and would be dead soon. The weak who had been lucky were left strewn around Ponyville wherever they had fallen. Those moderately lucky had been thrust through with a buffalo horn; granting them a quick and painful death. Those least lucky were forced to run, dragged for about a minute if they fell, and killed if they failed to get back up again. Almost everyone by now felt that they were on the brink of exhaustion; but then, most ponies had no idea what actual exhaustion was, and underestimated their bodies potential for adrenaline. For Sky Blaze, this was no worse than the cross country runs she'd done with her family; and knew from experience she could maintain this current pace for at least seventeen hours before needing to stop. So far they'd only been running for about five hours; and those who'd collapsed, were those who'd been injured in the battle with less visible injuries. There were two more ponies like that who wouldn't make it till tomorrow evening; but the rest would probably last until they reached whatever part of the buffalo Pridelands they were headed to; as long as they kept their emotions in check. That last one stood as an uncertainty. Everyone was afraid; both for themselves, and for their friends and family who they had no way of knowing if they were alive, dead or captive. Most of them were now in shock, putting one hoof in front of the other because that's the only thing they could do; and for some of the others, there was the guilty uncertainty of having killed someone for their first time. It was a look she'd seen before; in comrades, and a mirror. The earth pony running to her left and one space back had killed someone; the blood still splattered his coat, and the glances he kept throwing it showed mixes of accomplishment and guilt. The unicorn in front of him was completely clean; but she knew he'd done it too, maybe even enjoyed it, and the hateful glances he cast at their captors showed he was ready to do it again. He might be useful. The ponies weren't the only ones struggling with being killers, of the nine buffalo she saw; at least three had the same expressions. So why had they done this? The colt to her right wobbled. He was about to fall and if Sky Blaze moved now she could catch him with her wing; but for what? If she caught him now, he'd be dead within a few hours anyway; she would have only prolong his suffering, and drawn punishment on herself for breaking the rule of touching other prisoners. He needed to die; she'd been waiting for it for the last two hours! The colt fell, Sky Blaze whipped her wing out from the ropes she's worked free and stretched it out to catch him, a moment too late. The colt hit the earth with a pained shriek as his hip broke in two; and Sky Blaze swerved back in her own line, shoving her wing back under the roped before the wardens noticed. A minute later the chain line stopped, and everyone who had been behind him moved one space forward. Now Sky Fire was close enough that if he turned slightly to the right, and she to the left; they could see each other's eyes without being noticed. He began winking to her in a modified morse code; “Focus.” “Sorry.” she winked back to him. She hated apologizing to him; but he was right. If the wardens had seen her wing free, they would have bound it again, maybe even broken it; and every pony in this convoy would suffer a major blow to their chances of survival. Sky Fire was OK which meant when they picked their locks that night, (assuming he still had his multi-tool), one of them could assassinate whatever unicorn was in that box; taking out the only anti-air capacity the buffalo had. The assassin would lead as many of the buffalo away on a chase; and the other sibling would free the other captives. “Assassin or liberator?” “Assassin.” he winked back. “Tungsten?” “No.” she hadn't seen him either; something she was glad for even though they could have used his help. With his telekinesis he could pick multiple locks simultaneously, and though he wasn't as strong as either of them; but he wielded an impressive amount of magic making him surprisingly dangerous for someone his size. “Hurt?” “My jaw hurts.” he winked sarcastically; indicating where she'd kicked him the night before. Her own jaw hurt too. Sky Blaze wished there was something more to talk about, something else Sky Fire would say that would keep her mind focused on what was happening; but he didn't, and the argument of last night began replaying in her head. Last night… they had fought? She didn’t know what she would have done if she had gained the upper advantage, how badly she would have hurt him before she stopped or even if she would have stopped. Then, just a few hours later, they had been fighting, side by side, and it had seemed so easy. It's not that he didn't deserve to be beaten of course. Summer Tide had given him her heart and virginity and then dropped because she didn't 'perform' as well as he'd hoped; and he continued to make it sound like it was a joke. That he'd slept with Carrot Sauce and Misty was unimportant, yet still had the power to infuriate her; and then there was that little claim about role playing violent rape with Tempest Dive. That, bothered her. She realized Sky Fire was winking again; and coughed to ask him to start over; “You can relax by the way.” he repeated, “I’ve already saved us.” “How?” “Four O’clock” Sky Blaze managed to cast a subtle glance behind her and saw a large gray buffalo, his breath coming in heavy pants with his face contorted in pain, masked tears slowly tripping down his face, barely keeping up with the general pace, and only by a hair’s breadth. She looked back to Sky Fire, “I fought him last night, and delivered internal bleeding to his abdomen. He began running at the head of the herd and has been slowly falling back ever since. He can’t go on much longer but the buffalo revere their elders and won’t leave him behind. Either the whole group will slow down to a manageable pace and the rescue party will catch us, or he’ll fall back with a few buffalo, the rescue party will catch them and the old guy will make some kind of deal for his life. Trust me.” ……………………………………………………………………………………………………. Sky Fire was almost right. Two hours later the buffalo elder who Sky Fire had wounded was now being supported on either side by younger buffalo who had interlocked their horns with his, but he was still weakening. They'd just woven, at a merciful pace, through a lightly wooded area; and the path went over a small ditch about two feet wide. The jump should have been foals play, even for the exhausted hostages; but as the two young buffalo sprung over it, the elder caught his hoof on the edge and came tumbling to the ground with a cry of pain. The youths stooped to try and help him but he, but just lay there, panting in exasperation. Calls were passed to the head of the column and with a chorus of grunts and sighs of relief; the columns came to a halt. The palanquin slowly turned and then the six buffalo carrying it turned in unison and came galloping down the column, and every buffalo bowed to it as it passed, kissing the earth as it palanquin’s shadow passed over them. When they reached the elder there was a flash of a teleport, Sky Blaze bowed her head and through the legs of the buffalo honor guard saw the much smaller pale blue legs of what was definitely a pony who seemed to be looking over the elder. There was a short cry of pain, and blood splashed against ground. There was the flash of a teleport, the blue pony legs disappeared and the palanquin rocked slightly with the added weight. The honor guard turned around; began trotting slowly between the ranks of pony captives and buffalo captors, though Sky Blaze began to doubt that either group had more freedom then the other. Once again the buffalo bowed as the palanquin passed, once again they kissed the dust as the shadow went over them and – “STOP!!!” The honor guard obeyed, “Go back!” They turned on the spot and began galloping back towards the elder’s corpse. “No, stop you idiots, you’ve gone too far!” the buffalo stopped once again, and after exchanging confused, fearful looks began slowly pacing back along the line for a fourth time until they stood just a few steps away from Sky Blaze and Sky Fire. “Stop!” The buffalo did so. The palanquin tilted as if whoever was inside was leaning over, almost jumping out of the palanquin; Sky Blaze stared back, trying to see the face of the unicorn but couldn’t see anything. The chains binding her shackles to the ponies in front and behind of Sky Blaze shattered and she felt herself gripped in a suffocating telekinesis and raised up out of line, along with Sky Fire, to be eye-level with the unicorn in the palanquin. Daddy had trained them to break free from telekinesis; so if the unicorn was distracted just for a moment they could - “… So Rainbow Dash wasn’t gay after all.” “Well it’s nice to meet you too.” Answered Sky Fire without missing a beat, “Who the hay are you again?” There was a snort from inside the palanquin followed by a bolt of lightning which cracked the air just inches from Sky Fire’s face, blasting the sand and transforming it to a pool of molten glass. The other nearby prisoners cowered in fear and Sky fire twitched slightly as he blew out a smoking lock of his mane away from his eye. The curtain of the palanquin was yanked open to reveal an azure unicorn mare covered with a sprawling, full-body tattoo of some kind of multi-headed snake or hydra. A long white mane billowed behind her, and a large, feathered talisman that glowed with a reddish light; as she reared dramatically on her hind hooves. “I am the Oracle; knower and seer of all, mistress of the ethereal realms, liaison to the earth spirits, defender of the Aether, vanquisher of the horde of specters and guardian of the buffalo people!” “Trixie?” The word was out of Sky Blaze’s mouth before she even knew it; her eyes had just locked onto the mare’s cutie-mark of a wand juxtaposed over a half-moon and confirmed the answer. Trixie was the show mare that had inadvertently brought mom and daddy together for the first time all those years ago. She’d heard the story from her mom numerous times, and seen snapshots of it countless hundreds due to the whole ordeal having been immortalized in a series of magnificently timed photos taken my an ‘armature’ photographer of daddy cutting through Trixie’s assistants and mom kicking Trixie in the head, which now hung on their living room wall. At the time it had seemed like a random brawl over nothing; but later it came out that mom's then-vice-captain Spitfire had hired Trixie to take mom out so Spitfire could resume control of the team; and might have if Derpy hadn't inadvertently blundered into the situation. Trixie had spent some time in jail, and that was the last thing that Sky Blaze had ever heard of her. Sky Blaze pursed her lips and thought. Trixie had apparently somehow enslaved a tribe of buffalo razed a town and taken captives for who knows why, and now seemingly had recognized herself and Sky Fire as being the kids of two ponies who had arguably wrecked her life twenty something years ago; but that didn't necessarily mean Trixie was the kind of person to hold grudges... right?