//------------------------------// // 34 - A boring day in court // Story: A Penny for your thought // by Damaged //------------------------------// Stick led the way to court, we passed a few ponies in the halls. Some of the guards I recognized and gave smiles and nods to, most of the others I didn't. "You sure you want to sit through this with me today?" I leaned up and pecked her cheek with a kiss. "I want to be close to you." My whisper had the effect I wanted, Stick pressing against me gently. The call to enter came and we filed in, side by side, along with all the other courtiers. "All rise for Princess Mi Amore Cadenza!" I stood and waited for her to find her seat. She looked tired, more tired and worn than the previous night. Something didn't seem well with her but I assumed it had to be something other than us. As we sat I leaned in against Stick. Morning business was first. Stick brought up her business with the mare, the business we had that was public at least, and all seemed agreeable. I did notice some not-so-kind glances from others in the room. "Ignore them, they are all trying to get concessions from Princess Cadance as well, although they are trying to get them without offering anything." Stick pecked me on the cheek again and I smiled. Ugh, so boring. I swear I closed my eyes for just a moment. I was relaxed and I was walking through an empty human city. I was a pony but it just seemed right to be one, even in dreams. I felt a tug at my side and looked, there was a hungry beast there, biting at me and tearing, I could see rot setting into my side where they had bitten. In my dream I screamed and ran, but the thing kept up with me, moving on from it's first spot and tearing the flesh from my flank. It didn't hurt like it should, it felt… nice, but a glance revealed it swallowing my cutie mark. As dreams will, it ended suddenly and I looked quickly to my flank. My shawl was covering the flesh there but I could see my side was okay. It didn't feel okay though. It felt cold there, icy. It had felt nice to have bits of me torn away in the dream but in the waking world it didn't. I felt it then, the slight coolness inside. I shuddered as the sensation of having a part of me torn away, of all the agony it would entail, was suddenly born as Stick drank. She stopped as suddenly, of course, my emotions running from love to fear and agony. "Penny?" She sounded worried, but I knew what she was, changelings could lie to your face and it wouldn't phase them. My hooves clattered a little as I scrambled to get away from Stick, fighting down the panic to run and scream. I ran and ran. The guards were surprised first by me galloping out and then by the monster that was chasing me. Terror beat in my heart and I worked my hooves faster and faster, leaping down the stairs and out the front gate. I had almost trampled the guards at the gate, their exclamations were heard dimly behind me. I knew the beast still chased me. I had no clue what startled her, or why Penny had felt terror but I knew what it was at seeing one thing. Me. Tears stung my eyes as I ran after her, my magic helping to right one of the guards knocked over by her headlong charge. "Sorry about this…" I took to my wings, the buzzing getting me off the ground easily and letting me see the trail of destruction behind Penny. It could fly, of course it could fly. I pumped my legs harder and harder, trying to get out of the city and into the cold hills. My efforts finally paid off as I turned out of an alley and had open ground to a forested, crystal-dotted tundra. With no thought as to using my magic, I could almost feel as something was eating at my flank. Pain exploded there and I screamed. Penny was running for the forest and I knew I had to do something. My wings were not built for tucking and diving, but I got above and just in front of her and dropped. She was getting closer really fast and I reached out with a hoof and my mental faculties. "Penny!" The Master was right. There was a pony coming right for us. He had promised new slaves for our mines and Master was always right. Lifting a claw wreathed in darkness, I gestured to my sister to wait. My hooves failed me, I tumbled in the snow as Stick… the beast, had pinned me down. "Penny? What is wrong? What happened?" Her words were lies, she didn't care for me any further than as a convenient food source. I tried to buck and fight my way clear but even as I did I saw a flash of green over the beast and she seemed, somehow, bigger. My heart raced as I stared up in terror. "Penny! Damaged! Byron!" The words, spoken together, seemed to break into some part of me. I looked up, stunned. "I am your Queen!" I panted, falling to what she had called me, what she had named me when she wanted somepony to be stronger and in control. She went limp under me, her body trembling not just from the cold. They had stopped just short and one of them seemed to have overpowered the other. "Now." I gazed up at Penny, feeling a tightness that had been around me seem to lift. "What…" I began to try and make sense of what I had felt, seen. Neither of us, wrapped in our own little hell, had seen the shadow creatures break from cover, race across the terrain. But when they both landed on Stick and pushed her off me I knew something bad was happening. Stick looked dazed, enough so that both the creatures, seeming to be a cross between a wolf and a cat all wreathed in dark smoke, were leaving her and turning to me, between me and Stick, heck, between me and the city. "You look strong, pony, you will see, we fit big collar to you, you work in dark places." I shuddered as one of the creatures spoke, it's voice sounding like what you would expect a snake would, if it talked. "Lay down and cower now, we will only make it hurt a little." My eyes flashed between Stick and the creatures. They didn't sound like they were likely to be friendly, so I ruled out that. I had one spell I knew and the weakest horn-push of anypony I knew… "Wait, is my friend okay?" They paused in their advance, one glancing back for the barest moment. "They will live, maybe. Their kind are less useful in mines." "Then leave her, take me instead." I was frantically trying to call up my memory of the spell, the one unfamiliar symbol would be the sticking point. "I will go peacefully if you let her go." They laughed. "Stupid pony, we will take you and kill her anyway, we don't care if you come peacefully. We will take you." I stepped back a pace or two, realizing they were backing me toward the forest. I searched my mind, trying to get a clear image of that missing symbol. The memory of those pages reminded me of another, seen earlier. I fought at it and dredged it up. The timing pattern was all over the place, the symbols I could remember of the strange spell were all new, but for some reason they stuck with me. I tried it first, nothing happened. They stepped closer and, to focus, I had to keep my ground. I tried the spell again and felt a pinch at my nose from the effect not working. I stumbled back a few steps and my rump hit a tree. "No more running pony. Come with us now." My mind raced over the pattern, my horn must be strobing with patterns, at the speed I tried to cast. But I felt it work. My horn felt on fire, my magic tearing from me in a torrent. It wasn't enough. Heat welled up, focused and was suddenly everywhere. There was screaming and this time it wasn't mine. When the creatures had pounced on me it had knocked me into the ground hard and I lost focus. I got back some wits just as I saw the shadow things back Penny up against a tree. The burning flames just exploded right in front of her. I screamed as I saw it and was instantly shaken from my confusion. The flames didn't seem to stop and I put up a sphere around me as I charged in. It was taking every ounce of my magic to keep the flames from burning me to a crisp but I searched and searched. The tree stump, burning still, was just in front of me and so was Penny. Oddly, there seemed some kind of protective ward around her, but the tip of her horn had been scorched. I tried to move into the bubble with her, or pull her out into my own but the spell seemed to be strong and I had to move back out. The fire still raged there, burning the snow away to steam and still licking across the permafrost under it. I cried in the snow, praying to Celestia, Luna or anypony I could think of that Penny would be safe. "What happened here?" It was Sharp and some other guards. I didn't register for a few seconds that one wore quite the elaborate armor. "Penny just… she got really scared and freaked out, ran out here. Shadow things were waiting for her!" I pointed with a hoof at what was left of the two creatures, about half of one of them, singed and black. Shining Armor stepped up. "Where is she?" "She tried some kind of spell I think, or something, the fire just burst everywhere. She is in there, wrapped in some kind of force." I waved a hoof at the still-burning flames. I fell to the snow, all the strength gone from me as tears half-hid what he did. The sphere of power he built not only wrapped the flames but a good chunk of the ground too. Shining glared at the fire and the ball squeezed down. Icy ground met flames and slowly forced them to fail and, suddenly, a pop at the side of the ball was Penny coming out of the mess. My energy was all spent, or so I thought, but I was still first over to the unconscious mare's form. "Penny!" She seemed to rouse a little, her eyes not focusing. One trembling hoof reached up to bump my leg. "Queen…" She was out again. I didn't think I would survive. My horn ached when I woke, the constant throbbing of it told me, in no uncertain terms, that I was alive. "Penny?" The voice sounded broken, but I knew it was her. Not the monster, not the beast. "Stick? What happened?" "You tried to cast something you shouldn't have. Best guess was you messed it up pretty badly." Too many words came at me, each pestering my thoughts to try and make themselves known. "I killed them?" I dared open my eyes now, the dim room revealing a darker pattern just to my side. I knew it was her. "My Queen…" I reached a hoof out to Stick who held it in both her front legs, nibbling on my fetlock. "My little snack." She sounded amused. "The doctor wants you in overnight, I have convinced him to let you go so long as you don't channel through your horn." My ear twitched, I felt the crystal still there and smiled. "Get me out of here, please. But I need to talk to Silver. I need to learn faster…" I saw a slightly worried look on Stick's features as she helped me sit up. A crystal pony came in, shaking her head. "I want to keep you here but I will admit I need the bed. There have been a lot of ponies acting quite odd of late. Thankfully none are trying to cast spells they shouldn't. Equally thankful is that you didn't burn out, but you will be a little strained." There was no mention of the beasts, was it they who had made me so afraid of my marefriend? "I… promise I won't cast that, or try to, again. Oh damn my teacher is going to give me such a lashing for this…" My little line got the desired result, the doctor giving a nod and making to shoo us from the room. We walked out in silence, but I kept my flank against Stick's. I couldn't channel to feed her, but I hoped she was okay. "What did you mean by that in there?" "Stick, sometimes ponies want to hear something, it can help you get what you want to say it. It wasn't a lie, I am not going to try that again and I bet Silver is going to yell at me."