Equine, All Too Equine II: The Days of the Prophets

by stanku


Epilogue: The Others


Wasted as the incontestable beauty of the day in many senses was, Mr Gruff saw no reason not to honor it with a little stroll accompanied by quiet whistling. Utter destruction had always allured him to a degree. Anyone with years of medical experience could respect the mortal frailty which lay at the bottom of flesh, the fine line between rejuvenation and decay on which life continuously verged, undecided. At times, the decision came from chance; at others, it had to be done by Mr Gruff. It relieved him somewhat, seeing that his choices sometimes coincided with those of nature itself.

Feinsake, during their meetings, had more than once referred to Canterlot as a newborn foal; exposed and scared at heart. Never had she doubted the analogy should lead to any other conclusion save salvation by motherhood. Mr Gruff had always held his opinions tacit on such matters. His view of motherhood indeed shared an intimate tie to salvation, although perhaps in a way reverse to what Feinsake had thought. Gruff suspected the fact had something to do with how differently they understood the concept of mercy.

At some point and not without some original intention, Gruff finally arrived to his house. To his surprise most of it was still standing. The numerous fires apparently had avoided this part of the city. Wind had still made a handsome mess of his front yard, and judging by the door that lay ajar, the insides of the place would not be that different.

On that he was mistaken. Walking inside, he could right away tell the difference the insides of the house had in relation to the outside. Although both lay in evident chaos, only the latter bore the mark of decisively inequine disorder. The corpse of the young stallion spread on his living room carpet was the strongest evidence of this. The little surprise Gruff had hidden among the silverware locker had  clearly worked as intended on the looter. He almost felt sad for the poor kid. If anypony ever bothered to arrange funerals for him, there wouldn’t even be a question of an open casket.

“For anyone else who might still occupy this apartment,” started Gruff with a clear voice, “Know that you can have anything you like that is not edible. I’m going to be moving soon anyway, and I plan to travel light. But all food I must claim for myself. On the risk of a brawl, I should add.”

Only the sound of water dripping down the hole in the roof answered him. Either the colt had come in alone, his mates had been scared off by his sudden demise and possibility of more traps, or they had chosen that a fight with an old stallion would be worth it. On the last point, Gruff would be more than ready, if loath, to prove them wrong.

Something moved in the direction of the kitchen. It headed towards the living room. Gruff’s horn lit up.

“Peace,” said the stallion unicorn who emerged to the doorstep. “Peace, Mr Gruff. I come in peace.”

Gruff’s horn did not dim. There was something familiar in the pony, although he could not quite name what it was. By the look of it he had been through a lot during the night. Dark bags lined his eyes, his fur was matted and shaggy, and what looked like a self-made bandage covered his right side. Gruff himself had all his strength left in him, having spent the night in the deep safety of the High North Lane Mine. If there was to be a fight, it would not be a close one.

“Are you alone?” Gruff asked.

“No,” said the stallion. He swayed on his legs, drew support from the doorframe. “There’s someone else, in the back. That’s why I came here. It needs your help.”

“Do I know ‘it’? Or you for that matter?”

The stallion straightened himself. “Sergeant Fall, at your service. We’re talking of the Foal. It’s in the back. Please.”

Gruff studied Fall for a long while. “Show me,” he eventually said.

The Sergeant hadn’t lied. But neither had he spoken the truth. The Foal didn’t need the help of Mr Gruff. It no longer needed the help of anypony, as far as Gruff could tell, which he did.

“You have to try!” bursted Fall in the small kitchen. “You’re a doctor!”

“Not that kind of a Doctor,” said Gruff, stopping measuring the Foal’s pulse. He had barely been able to find it. “Why did you bring it here to begin with?”

Fall looked downtrodden. “There was nowhere, and no one, else to go. I haven’t met any officers since yesternight. I think the Captain’s dead; Stick too. It was a chaos. Nopony’s in charge anymore. But the Foal was dying… I had to do something… So I came here…”

Gruff’s face remained unmoved. “Your fate in hierarchy staggers me. Nonetheless, what you think I would or could do is meaningless now. I cannot save this foal. I’m not the type, you see.” He turned away and started scouring the cupboards, pulling out food items and gathering them on a table.

Fall stared at him. “So… that’s it? You’re just going to leave? After everything?”

Gruff said nothing, but only continued stacking the items. There was plenty of dried vegetables, some flour… Water was what he lacked most. He would have to find a working well from somewhere, and then –

He stopped as the familiar sensation of foreign magic tingled his neck. He sighed deeply.

“You can’t force me to do the impossible,” he said wearily without looking at the Sergeant.

“But I can make you try,” said Fall. He stepped forward and closed the cupboard before Gruff’s face. “And for your sake, I hope I don’t catch you slacking.”

I really am too trusting, thought Gruff while bending over the Foal again. As before he first checked the pulse, which was as weak as it would ever get before disappearing. Aside from that, he had no idea how to continue. There seemed to be no visible injuries, no clearly broken bones, nothing deviant. Except that the whole creature was by nature deviant. He had not the faintest idea what kind of experiments Feinsake had made herself go through during her pregnancy – his role had merely been to extend its course – but the effects were evident on the foal she had left behind. Evident and elusive both. Gruff could not even swear the creature was equine.

“Get on with it!” demanded Fall behind him. “If the Foal dies, there is no reason for any of us to live. Maybe that gives you some motivation.”

“Why do you care about it so much?” asked Gruff, studying the creature before him. “It’s not an alicorn. And even if it were, it’d be a fake one. Manufactured. Engineered. Not the real thing.”

“I said get on with it.”

The tingling turned to stinging on Gruff’s skin. Why were all fanatics so attracted to him? Feinsake had been bad enough, but her bits had been good. Stick had at least retained some of her charisma. But what the Sergeant was asking was simply blind mad, both in intention and content.

Weak as a puff, the Foal coughed.

“See?” burst Fall, the glee on his voice sickening Gruff on the spot. “It’s alive! There’s still hope!”

Gruff’s jaw tightened in rhythm with Fall’s grip on him. “I will need to use my horn,” he said.

“Do whatever you need to do.”

“I’m glad you agree with me,” said Gruff, his horn lighting up. “Oh yes.”

Delicately, Gruff lifted the Foal’s head. And then, in one swift motion which left no room for feeling, he broke the uppermost vertebra of its tiny neck.

A fleeting moment passed on Fall’s face when a void consumed the little thought his mind still clung to. Gruff neutralized him before he could even blink. The stallion slumped on the floor, devoid of life.

A little while after, Mr Gruff walked out of the front doors, his saddlebags filled with all the food he could carry. On the gate he threw one more glance at his old house. A sense of drama urged him to say something, but the only options available were far too trivial for his liking. Instead, he recalled the controversy he had shared with Feinsake.

She had always thought the greatest virtue of motherhood to be mercy. That a mother could forgive anything her foal would ever do, and love them more for it. The point had been one of the few Gruff agreed on with her. Mercy was the essence of motherhood. But what Feinsake had conceived as the mother’s mercy towards her foal, Gruff had always understood rather as the extended mercy for herself. The true mother’s mercy, for him, in fact presupposed the complete opposite. It wasn’t dying for the other which was hard, but continuing to live in their stead.

On the way back, Mr Gruff whistled no longer.









                                                ***





The Ledge lay still like the corpses that littered it, up until one of them decided it was not dead after all. Mill Stone’s body trembled at his first cough, then jerked as a cluster more exploded from within him. He stood up, spitting dust and shards of memories. The picture they formed on the ground resembled one of those ink stain tests he had to go through as a recruit. Now as then, he could not but think of the image as a bloody senseless mess.

A metallic clang echoed around the clearing as Mill dropped his helmet. The hoof-shaped dent on its side was proof that it had saved his life, if not his consciousness. The last recollections he had were a blur. Bodies pressed together, screams drowning in the tumult of running, a terrible sense of suffocation… And above all, loneliness. He shuddered.

After the reality of the situation, in the view of the perfect sunshine, had hit him, Mill tried to think of what his training had taught him to do next. There was a protocol concerning complete catastrophes in the Guard’s Guidebook, but unfortunately Mill could not recall but the first clause of it: find somepony higher up. From all evidence it was clear he was that somepony. He would have to decide what would happen next. The notion struck a chord stranger in him than he feared ought to have been the case. He wished Helm had been there.

Helm.

“Helm!” he cried suddenly. He looked around, turned a few promising looking bodies, then shouted again. And again. And again. He shouted until the rest of the dust he had swallowed climbed up his throat and choked him.

He tried to remember where he had last seen Helm. Instead he could only recall how he had seen him – scared. Terrified. He had wanted to flee; Mill had tried to stop him. And then they had been separated.

Helm had wanted to go home. Helm was not here. Deductively, then, he might be home. The thought made sense, at least more so than anything else around did.

But first things first: he would have to report to someone. There had to be someone higher up somewhere. The best place to start looking was of course the station, where he chose to head next. Across a field of trampled bodies. Disconcerting as the observation was, deep within Mill a voice whispered – extremely diligently – that it was not really his problem anymore.

The route across the city contained many more such issues which really were not his problems. Their scale went far beyond him. All the ruins, all the death, all the sorrow: it overwhelmed him. His duty was to find somepony who knew what to do next, who would tell him what to do next. After that, perhaps he could consider some of the surrounding chaos a problem specifically of his. But until then… No way.

He arrived at the station and walked right in. It was easy, there being no front doors. Somehow they had ended in the middle of the lobby. The funny thing was, this was not the first novel feature Mill noticed about the room. He hardly could recognize any familiarity under the mess. The Captain would explode if he ever saw this. Mill felt obliged to consider at least that much to be his problem. Thus he started cleaning.

He managed to tidy a spot on the main floor quite neatly before collapsing where he stood. A laugh like a rubber band stretched to the point of snapping escaped him and rang around the hall, bouncing along the walls. Uncontrollable shaking came next. He couldn’t have thought there was any place on earth lonelier than the crowd he had been part of yesternight. What a grave mistake.

“Excuse me?”

Mill looked up. A pony stood at the end of the stairs leading to the second floor, eyeing him carefully.

“Identify yourself,” said Helm. The automaticity of the command was not the least disturbed by the tears he still shedded.

“I’m nopony,” hesitated the pony. “Just a technician. Tin Key. That’s my name.”

Mill got up, wiped his eyes. “You got an ID?”

Nervously, the pony pointed at the white collar all the technicians wore in the guard. “That’s all I have.”

Mill advanced towards him. The pony remained still, yet seemed to shrink the closer Mill got. The fact, among the whole appearance of the pony, reinforced the image he had of the average crime scene technician. He stopped in front of him.

“You alone?”  

Key nodded.

“You’re saying there’s nopony else in the building except you?”

“I-I can’t be sure: I only arrived recently… But it seems like it.” Key’s lower lip trembled. “How… how about you?”

Mill shook his head low.

Key sat down, buried his head into his front hooves. “My gods… My gods… They’re all dead…”

“They’re not,” snarled Mill. The pony’s weakness, spilled all over him, made bile rise up his throat. “They’re momentarily disorganized. As are we. So we need to recoup.” He paused, trying to think something more to say. “We need to find an officer. Any officer.”

Key kept on weeping. Mill sneered.

“Coward,” he spat before climbing rest of the stairs. There had to be somepony else around. Had to be. This was the Guard’s headquarters: the most natural location for everypony to gather. Sooner or later.

The second floor was in much better condition than the lobby. Apparently the storm had not reached up here. Only a few windows had been smashed in, and the wind had thrown around some papers, but overall he could not spot much difference to how the place usually looked like. Save the fact that there was nopony anywhere. Not a soul.

He smashed a nearby table in half. “Buck!” he cried at the emptiness. “Buck buck buck! Buck!”

“I told you,” said Tin Key’s quiet voice by the door. “There’s nopony here.”

“Wrong,” said Mill. He turned around to stare at Key. “There’s us. That’s a start.”

An unbelieving grin tempting mockery spread on Key’s tear-stained face. “Us? A lone grunt and a technician without a team? Give me a break…”  

Mill’s face grew grim. Then he noticed something.

“Why did you come here?” he demanded. “What did you come to find if not a new start?”

Key’s smile withered. He turned to leave.

“Hey!” shouted Mill, stepping forward. “I asked you a question!”

Tin Key kept on walking. Mill sprinted after him, cut in his way. “Why did you come here?” he repeated.

Tin Key tried to sidestep him. Mill blocked his path. When Key tried again, he shoved him so hard he fell on the floor, yelping.

“I asked you a –”

“There was no place else to go!” yelled Key. “I have nothing else! Nothing except the Guard! Nothing except…” His broken voice died down to more weeping. “Fall… Where did you go… Fall…”  

Mill stared at the sorry sight. And then, without looking behind, he left the building.

It occurred to him some two blocks away that he had no other place to go, either. He had a flat nearby, true, but what of it? His parents had been gone for years, thankfully. There was no single soul in the city who would recognize him as a friend and who did not work in the Guard. None whom he would care to meet at this very moment at least.

He sat next to a fallen street light to consider his options, and lack thereof. There had to be more guards alive in the city. There had to. So why were none of them around at the station? Where were they? What were they thinking? Did something keep them from recouping? Perhaps a war had broken out, and somewhere there was a big fight going on. Yeah. It had to be that. What else could it be? Everypony couldn’t have just gone home, could they?

He laughed loud at the thought and at the absurdity it represented. The Guard could not go home. It existed so that everypony would have a home to go to. They all knew that.

Helm also knew that. And he had wanted to go home.

Mill stopped laughing. It had started to hurt his lungs. The ravaged street rang with fresh silence, the weight of which he could feel on his shoulders. Nothing weighed like loneliness. Nothing except nothing.

I’m done with crying, he told himself. I need to do something. Anything. I need… to find somepony.

Perhaps it had been a random chance that had guided him already towards the direction of Helm’s house, but he did not stop to ponder about the fact. He just kept on walking, then running. He galloped along the streets which he did not recognize, past the houses he did not know. Over the bodies he did not see. And then he was there.

Helm lived in one of the block flats near the centre of the city. Many had suffered a lot during the storm; some were not there anymore. Mill stood surrounded by the ruins, trying to make sense of the sight, his ears ringing with silence. It deepened the closer he got to his friend’s apartment. At the front door even the ghosts were absent. He knocked on it.

A crack appeared between the frame and the door. From within, a corner of a frightened eye peered.

“Who are you?” an equally scared voice whispered. “What do you want?”

“I…” started Mill. “Uh. Is Helm there?”

The door slammed open and hit him on the face. The next thing he knew, he lay on his back on the street, staring into a mare’s face pressed half an inch from his. Compared to her eyes, the storm of yesternight was but mild drizzle.

“You know my husband?” she demanded. “You know where he is? How he is? You do? Do you?

“Jade!” cried Mill. “It’s me! Mill Stone!”

The pools of violet blinked, and the tempest disappeared. “Mill?”

He tried his best to avoid any sudden movements and to speak slowly. “Yes. Yes. We met briefly last year. In the Guard’s Heart’s Warming Eve party. I spilled punch on your dress. You remember?”

“My dress…” repeated Jade equally slowly. “You’re that idiot?”

“Yeah,” said Mill in relief. “The same. Could you get off me now?”

She did. Mill got up, shook off worst of the dust, then gave his first good look for a year at the mare. It might as well have been a decade. Terrible exhaustion did that to a pony.

“I don’t know where Helm is,” he said. “That’s why I asked.”

Without warning, Jade burst crying. Panic overtook Mill.

“Hey hey hey,” he said, kneeling over the collapsed mare. “I meant nothing by that. Come now, come now. Everything’s okay.” He hesitated, then put a hoof on her shaking shoulder. “Everything’s okay.”

She bounced up and shoved him away. “It’s not! Look around yourself! Look! Does this look like okay to you?” She wiped her eyes clean of tears, if only to make room for more. “I haven’t seen my husband since yesterday morning. I haven’t slept since. And then the idiot who ruined my favourite dress knocks on my door, saying everything’s okay…”

Mill watched her pave the ground. Magic concentrated at the tip of his horn, but he quenched the instinct to use it. “I’m sorry, okay? Look, it hasn’t been that easy for me either. I didn’t mean any harm. Not now or in the Eve’s party.”

She eyed him doubtfully. “Why are you looking for my husband?”

There was no honest answer he could give her which would not sound lunatic, so he said, without batting an eye, “They’re calling troops at the station. All hooves who can move. I… I was ordered to spread the word. I figured Helm might be here.”

“He’s not at the station?”

“Not as far as I know.”

The mare’s eyes moistened again. “Then where is he?”

Mill could not meet her gaze. “I… I don’t know…” He coughed into a hoof, then happened to glance at the still open front door. A colt about the age of five stood on the porch, looking at them with round, sleepless eyes.

“Grain!” yelped Jade as she saw him. “What did I told you? Get back inside this instant!”

The colt flinched, then reared back, only to stumble on the carpet behind him. Jade hurried to help him up. Mill followed her tending to the foal as if from a theatre audience. He almost felt like reaching for the popcorn.

Popcorn. Food. Hunger. It finally occurred to him he hadn’t eaten for over 24 hours. There had been no time to think about it too deeply. There still wasn’t, but his stomach did not care of such details. It grumbled loudly.

“Do you… do you happen to have food in there?” he managed.

“We do. Why?”

“Well, I… I could use a bite of breakfast… if that is okay with you. And Grain.”

“Aren’t you on duty?”

Mill shuffled his hooves. “Uhm… This was the last address I was supposed to visit. Helm might come home any moment now. I might as well hang around for a few minutes.”

She looked at him in silence. “There’s some leftovers from the breakfast we had. You can have them.”

“Thank you,” said Mill. “Thank you.”

She disappeared inside, leaving the door open. Mill closed it after himself.







                                                ***




In the Ledge there was a house of no particular importance. In the first floor, hushed voices grasped their way over an air of doubt.

“It has been hours now… How long can he stay down there?”

“Should we go see him?”

“He told us not to, didn’t he?”

“Did he? When?”

“I heard him say nothing. Just climbed down there the moment he woke up.”

“We’re doomed.”

That last line quieted down the rest of the cultists. They all turned to one hunched up figure in the corner. The hood of his robe had been pulled over his face. Rays of sunlight cascaded through the torn curtains, throwing golden stripes on his otherwise shaggy appearance.

“We’re doomed,” he repeated. “We failed to protect the Foal. Now all is lost. We’re doomed.”

Nervous glances criss-crossed the room. Someone coughed. Another one slipped into the kitchen and out through the back.

“Brother,” started the cultist who had coughed. “The Prophecy… perhaps there’s something we have missed… some metaphor we haven’t interpreted correctly…”

The hooded pony stood up. All the others took a step back. All except one.

“The Prophecy has been fulfilled,” he said. “Can’t you see it? Shouldn't you see it? What a First Prophet you are…”

Bolt the Just, First of the Prophets, corrected his bearing. “That’s right. I am the First Prophet. And I say you are wrong.”

The hooded pony spat on his feet. The room gasped.

“You’re a fool,” he said. “You all are, continuing to play this stupid game without knowing the rules. You thought the Prophecy would solve all your problems? Purge the realm of evil and suffering?” A hollow, dry laughter burst from within the hood. “Didn’t the storm do just that?”

Bolt’s expression tightened. “Despair is the cruelest of poisons, brother.”

The hood was thrown aside. “I’m no brother of yours. All we have in common are these stupid robes, and mine’s been itching from the moment I put it on.” Violently he pulled the cloth over him and tossed it aside. “There, much better.”

“How dare you?” cried somepony from behind Bolt. “That’s sacrilege!”

“What, this?” continued the pony, stomping the robe under his hoof. “Or this,” he said, rubbing the white and black paint off his face.”

Bolt sensed sudden movement behind him. “Everypony calm down!” he shouted while blocking the path of the would-be assailant. “Fighting gets us nowhere. Please! We can’t let our base emotions dictate our behavior like this.”

A thin sneer cracked the lips of the dissenter. He was young, Bolt now saw – roundabout of age with him. There was also something familiar about him; something he could not quite put his hoof on. Not until he could.

“Brother,” he started again. “I feel your despair. And not for the first time. Then as now, there is no light for us in the horizon; only darkness. All I ask you is to do what you did then, and share the path with me.”

The youth frowned. “What are you on about?”

Bolt stepped forward. “Don’t you remember? High North Lane Mine? We were both applying for the inspector’s job. Under Iron Hard.”

The youth’s expression did not change. “Might be were. Big deal. This job’s been an even bigger mistake than that one.”

“Not a job. A destiny.”

“Whatever,” said the youth. “It’s not paying my bills either way. You keep your destiny; I’m keeping my time. Adios.”

He headed to the door. Fervent whispering arose from behind Bolt as every pair of eyes in the room watched the pony leave.

“What nerve…”

“Is he really letting him off that easily?”

“I wouldn’t have, was I the First Prophet…”

“Should we scram, too?”

Bolt felt how the moment was slipping into waters he did not wish to navigate. Responsibility forced his shoulders. Duty held up his chin. Indecision choked his throat.

“Wait,” he gasped when the youth was almost out of the door. “Wait. You can’t leave.”

The youth stopped, then gave a long, slow stare at Bolt. “You’re forbidding me?”

“No,“ hurried Bolt. “Of course not. Everypony is here only because they want to.” He turned to the rest of the cultists. There seemed to be less than a moment ago, he could swear. “You decided to come to the Foal, not the other way around. Now, I know it is not with us anymore. But we are. And we can still choose to stay. All I ask you,” he continued while looking to the door again, “That you are certain you trust your decision, whatever it is. Doubt is our worst enemy now.”

“I’m pretty damn sure I want to be long gone from here, thank you.”

“Then,” smiled Bolt, “Why not say your farewells to him before you leave. He has earned that much from you, wouldn’t you agree?”

The room fell silent. Bolt and the youth kept staring at each other in the eyes. Bolt made sure not to blink first.

“You’re… you’re inviting me to meet him?” the youth said.

Bolt walked to the hatch in the floor and opened it wide. “We’ll go together. Just like before.”

The youth eyed both him and all the other cultists eyeing him. His ears twitched a couple of times. Ordinary cultists were not invited to meet the Blind One. That wasn’t something that happened.

“I’m sure he’s expecting us already,” said Bolt.

It was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. The youth closed the door and walked through the hatch, almost meekly. Bolt gave the room one general glance, then followed in his wake. The bang that shut the entrance made everypony upstairs flinch.

Neither spoke anything in the stairs or in the tunnel, but the closer they got to the ledge ahead, the slower both of their steps turned. It was as if neither really wanted to be the first one to meet the Blind One. Eventually, when the bright glow approached them, the youth almost came to a halt. Thus it was Bolt who first entered on the ledge below the Ledge.

The cliff bathed in sunlight, blinding him. When his eyes gradually got used to it, he saw the pony whom (was it really only last week?) he had found in the darkness under the city. Or, as he now knew, who had found him from the darkness of his mind.

The pony stood right on the edge of the cliff, facing the nothingness that spread at his feet. It chilled Bolt to see him like that. The wind was unpredictable here, and a random gust could well throw even an adult off their balance. The pony seemed to be bothered by the prospect not in the slightest. He just stood there. As if he was actually waiting for them.

Only now did it occur to Bolt that he actually had no idea how to address the pony properly. “Blind One” was more of a description than a title, and it was never used in his presence. Would “your holiness” do? “Your excellency?” “Master?” “Prince?” All those sounded wrong. He served the pony as his saviour, yet he did not even know what to call him.

“What is it?” the blind pony suddenly asked.

Bolt glanced at the youth, expecting him to say something. The paleness of his face hinted that no such luck existed.

“We… We came to seek your council,” started Bolt. “We… I mean, some of us, uhm… feel the weight of ignorance in our hearts. The Foal is lost. The storm has wrecked the city. We don’t know what to do.”

Wind toyed with their manes, and nothing more. The doubts that had gnawed Bolt ever since yesterday raised their heads once more within him. Some of the cultists had found the Blind One in the Captain’s Mansion’s yard, badly injured and unconscious. There had been no sight of the Foal. They had carried him to shelter overnight, and come the morning they had brought him to the house on the Ledge, which still served as the headquarters of sorts. Bolt had been there along with a bunch of others, huddled in the tunnel as the storm raged. At some point the pony had come to his senses. Or at least he had gotten up and walked down here. Not a word, not a gesture to guide his followers. Such things tended to test the faith even of the most pious. People had been trickling away all day. The youth next to Bolt had just been the tip of the iceberg; the one to say what they all had been thinking. They were doomed.

Come here. 

Bolt was not sure he had actually heard the words: only that he needed to obey them. They both did. They walked to the pony, one in each side of him, although not as close to the edge.

“What is your name?” the blind pony asked.

“Flint,” said Flint. His voice sounded a lot dryer than it had upstairs. “My name is Flint.”

“Do you doubt yourself, Flint?”

Flint glanced sharply at Bolt. “Why… Why would you ask that?”

“Because you are shaking.”

How does he know? asked Bolt from himself, for the umpteenth time. Flint was indeed shaking, now that he paid attention. Shaking in pure sunlight.

“You said we would be saved,” he said. “You said that. But now the city is ruined. And there is no Foal. There’s nothing.”

The blind pony turned his head so that they could see his left, burn-scarred face. He raised a front leg, waved Flint to come closer, which he hesitantly did. The hoof landed gently on his quietly trembling shoulder.

“What can you see?”

Flint gazed the landscape before them. “Uhm. Nothing special? Wasteland. Mountains over there. Ruins of the old city below.”

The blind pony nodded. And then he pushed him off the cliff.

“What can you see?” he asked when the waning screaming abruptly ceased.

Bolt’s mouth hung open. Every muscle in his body had turned into a block of iron. He couldn’t move an eyelid.

“While you think about it, I’ll tell you what I see…” said the blind pony. “I see no wasteland; no mountains; no ruins. I see nothing. Do you know what, in the end, that is?”

“Possibilities,” he continued at the same breath. “In void, everything is equally possible. I never promised you salvation. I promised you redemption. That, too, is possible in nothing. In fact, the way things are for us now, it is only nothing that makes it possible… For, you see, freedom is what nothing is all about.”

“You… you pushed him off the cliff…”  

Bolt yelped when the hoof touched his shoulder. Instinct pressed him to scramble away. He couldn’t. For his life, he just couldn’t.

“What can you see, Bolt the Just? Honestly?”

Bolt squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t know how to pray but he tried nonetheless. The echo of Flint’s scream chimed louder than ever between his ears. His tongue struggled to form the words his life clung to.

“I… see… nothing.”

The grip on his shoulder turned into a pat. “My words exactly. Now, get back up there, round up everypony who’s still around and order them to start searching for supplies. Food and water are top priority. Weapons too.”

Bolt backed away slowly. Only when he was sure he was far away from the edge did he open his eyes. The blind pony had returned to his original position, as if he and Flint had never trespassed on his tranquility.

Bolt ran back upstairs and did everything he had been told to. When somepony asked where had Flint gone, he looked at them for a long while and then answered, “He didn’t see nothing.”

Back on the ledge, Stick stared at his precious nothing, basking in all the warmth the sun had to give. It was like being smiled at, really. And like Feinsake had once said, nothing spreads like a smile.







                                                ***




“The roar of the manticore shook small stones loose from the cliffside, and the bones of ground itself shook. Rawr! What a fell beast! Full of fury and power! Not a bear nor a chimera, nor any other creature, had ever crossed its way in the woods it roamed as the lord. Not until Rainbow Dash the Loyal, at least. The air was a blur as the pegasus sped towards the red feline; its roar barely dead in the forest clearing. But this was Rainbow Dash we’re talking about, after all…”

Mill Stone became aware that he was being looked at. Jade stood at the door of the living room, an unreadable expression on her face. Their eyes met briefly before she nodded at the direction of the clock. It was almost nine.

“Whah happened then?” asked a tiny voice next to him on the couch. “Did Dashie win?”

“We’ll have to find that out next time,” said Mill. “I wager it’s time for you to hit the hay for today.”

“But I wanna know now,” complained Grain. “Now!”

“Don’t you want daddy to know, too?” said Jade, walking to them. “And how can he do that if you read the whole story tonight?”

The foal’s round, sleepy eyes looked at her mother. “Daddy’s not home yet?”

“I’m sure he’s right on his way,” said Mill when he noticed Jade had no answer for that. “Working a late shift again probably. Your dad’s a very important pony, you know? The Guard would be lost without him.”

“I’ll send him to your room the moment he comes through the front door,” said Jade. She scooped the colt up to his back and headed upstairs. Grain put up some obligatory resistance, but Mill could see the fourth story of the evening had worn the kid out good. That much was assured by that fact that Jade returned downstairs in short order.

“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know if I would’ve had the energy to read all that to him. He’ll sleep like a log now.”

“Consider a fair exchange for the breakfast,” said Mill. “And for the lunch. And the dinner.”

She smiled at him. “The supper is on the house then.”

He smiled too, and followed her to the kitchen. As she laid the table, he stretched his shoulders tense from all the reading and playing he had done with Grain. Foals were really something. The world might’ve come to an end, but castle’s needed to be built and dragons slain all the same. Mill couldn’t exactly say how he had ended up to fill in the role of a playmate, but once he had, it had felt more natural than he could’ve imagined. Helm was a lucky stud to have a kid so unshy and bright as Grain.

Watching Jade work, he couldn’t help thinking that wasn’t the only reason Helm ought to be called lucky. After the intense first impressions had been dealt with, he and Jade came along like old friends. After the breakfast, when both knew he was supposed to leave, neither came around to actually saying it. So they didn’t. And the next moment, he had been playing with Grain. It was all bit of a miracle, really.

The plate that hit the floor shattered into dozens of shards, yanking Mill back from his thoughts. Jade was trembling against the sink, sobbing.

“I’m sorry,” she said when Mill walked to him. “By Luna… Ah. I’m sorry, I don’t know what came to me. All this stress… The day has been crazy. My gods.”

“It’s okay,” Mill said. His hoof waited for a moment, then brushed her back. “It’s okay.”

This time she didn’t burst out in disagreement. This time, she hugged him tightly. Mill did not resist.

“I’m so glad you came to us today,” she sniffed. “Without you, there wouldn’t have been anypony else. I would’ve thought they’re all dead. Or worse, that it was all chaos out there.” She pulled apart from the embrace, looked him in the eyes. “It’s good to know the Guard is still out there, doing its job.”

Mill forced a wooden smile on his face. “Yeah.”

They enjoyed the supper in silence. For the whole time Mill was terrified that she’d start asking questions about the Guard; how they would deal with the situation; would there be emergency ratios; was Captain Heart still in charge. But she never said a word, but kept on staring at her vegetables in quiet.

The food was quickly consumed, although they ate in no hurry. There wasn’t much extra to spare. Jade had told him there would be enough food in the house for the rest of the week, but beyond that… wasn’t something they had discussed. That tacit understanding was that everything would’ve returned to normal by then. The Guard would take care of everything.

“Thank you,” said Mill when he finished.

“Don’t mention it,” she said. She started collecting the dishes. Mill offered to help, but she would have none of it. Instead she guided him to the living room with a cup of tea.

Mill Stone did not have extended experience of living rooms. He had never lived in a house with one. But he could tell this was basically a paradigm of its kind. There was a couple of old sofas with mismatching colors. A rug with unravelled corners. A tiny stove where to keep the cold away. No photos anywhere, but that didn’t surprise Mill much – few guards could afford photographs in this day and age. Instead, there were a lot of drawings by Grain, although Mill could not decide which of those depicted his family and which some horrible monster.

Mill had been to the Grand Hall of Parliament a couple of times. He had seen the finest rooms the Captain’s Mansion had to offer. He had seen pictures of the old Canterlot Castle at the peak of its glory. But no other place in Equestria had made him as envious as this simple living room.

“You could stay for the night.”

Mill turned around. Jade was drying a plate by the door; a plate that needed drying as bad as a desert would have.

“I mean, to wait for Helm,” she continued. “We have extra mattresses. It would be no problem.”

Mill looked in turns at her, then at the plate into which she had almost rubbed a hole. “I… I don’t know. He might’ve turned up to the station by now.”

“I know he wouldn’t,” she said. “This is where he’d come first. Wherever he is.”

“I really should be reporting back myself…”

She put down the plate, then walked to him. “Stay. Please. I don’t feel safe spending another night alone with Grain.”

Mill did not need to ask a reason for that sentiment. All day shadows had been gathering behind the windows, lurking in the ruins. Scavengers were finally on the move, along with ilk far worse.

Still… this was not his home. It was Helm’s. It did not feel right, staying here for the night without his knowing.

But wouldn’t he like his family to be safe? And if he couldn’t guard them himself, wouldn’t Mil be his first choice for replacement?

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll stay.”

“I’ll make you a bed here,” she said, her relief evident. “And feel free to have more food if you get hungry during the night.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, don't thank me for that: we have barely leftover to offer.”

“I didn’t mean that,” he said. “Eh, well I do, of course. But also, thank you for letting me stay here for the night. For trusting me that much.”

She only smiled at that.

When the bedding had been laid on the living room floor, the last of the sunlight had disappeared. The small stove offered now heat and illumination both. In its glow, Mill Stone stood at guard, watching the streets by the window. It was quiet out there like it was in here. Quiet, yet not calm. A thousand worries and a million questions littered his mind. What if Helm would not come home tomorrow either? What about when Jade found out there was no Guard anymore? Where would they get food for the next week? Was there even “them” to speak of?

For the longest while, he had no idea what tomorrow would bring along.

For the longest while, he knew he wouldn’t be worrying about it alone.

Around midnight, the shadows outside started moving. Mill didn't let that mind him too much. The looters would have plenty of empty houses to rob before they’d turn to the inhabited ones. The glowing stove would be enough of a signal that this house belonged to the latter category.

Despite everything, he fell asleep smiling.