Turncoat Magus managed to open his eyes, but didn't dare move any other part of his body just yet. He'd landed on his back and was staring straight up at the dark clouds that covered the entirety of the sky. Somewhere up there, he knew was his home of Cirrus, the glorious pegasus capital.
Great! Not dead! he thought. Alright, next step…Legs?
One by one, he moved his legs, causing moderate pain. Still, with any luck he'd be able to walk, but his assessment of himself wasn't over.
Left wing? Still there. Right wing?
The nerves in his back responded with nothing but pain and he became aware of the blood pooling under him. "Still missing," he said aloud. His head sunk a little into the moist earth as he stared back up at the sky. "Maybe I'll just bleed out here."
That thought didn't appeal to him so much, so he lifted his head back up. Where exactly is 'here'?
This was his first time leaving the clouded sanctuary of Cirrus, and so far he wasn't impressed. The earth was dry and cracked without so much as a bush to break up the scenery. Each direction he looked was the same barren landscape, and he began to wonder if it really was worth getting up. Even if he didn't bleed out or die of dehydration, living as a filthy earth pony didn't sound too enticing.
He allowed himself to close his eyes and rest his head for what he told himself would only be a moment. Whether it was minutes or hours that passed, he couldn't tell, but a gentle prod from an unknown entity stirred him back to reality. When he opened his eyes, there was an unfamiliar face staring down at him.
"Are you alright?" the pony asked. It was the voice of an older stallion, and his features slowly became clearer. He was a light blue unicorn with a long white beard and olive green eyes. "What's a pegasus doing all the way down here?" he asked, furrowing his brow.
"Holiday," Turncoat replied. He gingerly rolled onto his hooves and pushed himself up to be face to face to with the unicorn. He could feel the mud and blood coating his back, and his remaining wing hung limply by his side. "Where's the nearest town?" he asked.
The unicorn looked in morbid fascination at the crippled pegasus in front of him. "A day's walk, but you're in no condition to make it, please, let me help you," the unicorn insisted. He took a step forward, causing Turncoat to take a step back.
"I'll be just fine," Turncoat replied. He tried to take another step backward, but his legs decided they could no longer support him, and he fell back into the mud. The warm blood seeping from his open wound pooled under him as his vision began to fade from blood loss. "You know what," he said, feeling his consciousness slip, "I'm not fine." And with that, he passed out.
When Turncoat awoke, he was lying on a straw mattress on the floor of a large tent. The walls of the tent shivered as the wind outside whipped against them. Inside the tent were dozens, if not hundreds, of various bottles, jars, and buckets. They were placed everywhere; the shelves of an old bookcase, the table, the chairs—there wasn't an inch of floor space except for a narrow path from the mattress to the flap of the tent.
Turncoat craned his neck to look into one of the buckets closest to him and saw it was full of what appeared to be water. His mouth was so dry that he stuck his muzzle into the bucket without hesitation and drank as quickly as he could. It was indeed water, but it was stagnant. Still, he drank until there wasn't a drop left inside the bucket, and then he turned his attention to the vase next to it. He emptied seven containers of the stagnant water and then sat gasping and coughing, accidentally knocking over several glass jars that were positioned too close to the mattress.
With his thirst sated, he stood up and looked around. Hanging off the edge of one of the wooden chairs was his blood soaked uniform. I probably shouldn't wear that while I'm down here, he thought, knowing the infamy surrounding his previous occupation. He turned to look at his back and saw he'd been cleaned up and bandaged while he was unconscious.
"Hello?" he shouted, hoping the unicorn might be within hearing distance. The wind outside the tent was his only response, so he opened the flap and looked around. There were thousands upon thousands of clay pots stretching in every direction for further than he could see. A few hundred feet away, the unicorn was levitating several pots using his magic and Turncoat meandered his way toward him.
When he was several feet away he saw the unicorn emptying the contents of each pot into buckets that he had strapped to his sides. Each of the pots only contained a few drops of water, but Turncoat guessed that's why there were thousands of them.
"You're awake," the unicorn said without turning to face Turncoat.
"Mostly," Turncoat replied, nearly knocking over a pot as he continued walking. "What, uh, what exactly are you doing out here?"
The unicorn continued levitating more pots into the air and setting the empty ones down. "Sometimes it rains out here," he answered. There was a short pause and the unicorn turned to face Turncoat. "You're lucky it had rained earlier, or your landing might not have been so soft and we wouldn't be having this conversation."
"Yeah, lucky me," Turncoat said, looking at the bandage wrapped around him. "Thanks, by the way."
"Oh, you're very welcome," the unicorn replied, walking past Turncoat. The buckets strapped to him sloshed as he walked, but he didn't spill a single drop.
Turncoat felt like he was free to leave, but had no idea where he was or where to go, so he followed the unicorn back to the tent. The flap closed behind him and he watched as the unicorn emptied the buckets into the empty containers next to the mattress.
"Are you still thirsty?" he asked, levitating a glass bottle and filling it with the cloudy water from the bucket. Turncoat nodded and took the bottle when it floated over to him. Before he could take a drink, he caught the unicorn giving him a suspicious look. "You're with the pegasus army, aren't you?" the unicorn finally asked.
"Dishonorable discharge," Turncoat replied, holding the glass bottle between his hooves and watching the sediment swirl around. "But yeah, I was," he took a sip from the bottle and crunched some of the sand between his teeth, "Just a common guard though."
The unicorn mulled over the response for a moment and went back to emptying the buckets. "You know, it's your kind's fault that the world is in the shape it's in," he said without looking at Turncoat.
"Fully aware," Turncoat replied with a small laugh. "But if you bring that up to the wrong pony, you're liable to get your wings ripped off." He finished the rest of the bottle and swished his tongue around his mouth.
A howling wind blew outside the tent, causing the walls to shake violently. It didn't bother the unicorn, but Turncoat thought it sounded like more than just the wind making the noise, almost like hungry wolves circling their prey. After a few moments the sounds subsided and Turncoat turned to look back at his host.
"So is that what happened to you?" the unicorn asked, refilling the glass bottle from the bucket.
"See," Turncoat started, "I was labeled a traitor from the day I was born. Not a good thing when your father is King Magus, king of the pegasi. He hoped my older brother could straighten me out, got me into the guard, but I never really fit in. Too much free thinking as they called it. Maybe one too many times I'd suggested we could solve our resource problem by creating a truce of some sort with the earth ponies.
"Well, just this morning, my brother decided he'd had enough of me. Brought forth a bunch of 'evidence' that I was conspiring against the empire. Ordered my execution, but I wasn't having any of that. We fought and I left a nice, big gash across his stupid face, but got me pinned after that."
"And he ripped your wing off?" the unicorn asked, already knowing the answer.
"And he threw me right off the edge of Cirrus," Turncoat finished. He downed the rest of his water and waited for a refill. The bucket floated over to him and poured the last of its contents into the glass.
"So the tyrannical King Magus is your father?" the unicorn asked, and Turncoat nodded.
"Turncoat Magus, at your service," he replied, holding his glass up as if to toast. "And I don't believe I've gotten your name. Now, I was under the impression unicorns had all but died out."
"Oh, there's still a few of us around," the unicorn replied. "My name is Obertuous."
"Well, Obertuous, I appreciate your hospitality, but I have to go kill my brother now." Turncoat placed the empty glass on the floor and stood up. "If you could just point me toward the nearest town, it'd be a great help."
Obertuous just shook his head and smiled. "You're not ready to do anything like that yet, please, sit back down." Turncoat stood awkwardly for a moment before taking his seat on the floor. "Let me explain something to you," the old unicorn said in an almost condescending tone, "There's a lot of hate in the world right now, and I truly believe we're on the cusp of war. You need to be careful down here. Even without that uniform, ponies are going to know where you come from. You will likely be seen as an enemy in the eyes of most."
Turncoat nodded in understanding then quickly stood back up.
"Sit," Obertuous commanded. "I'm not done. How exactly do you expect to get back to Cirrus if you can't fly?"
"Uh, airship?" Turncoat replied impatiently.
"The only airships I've ever seen are military ones. Do you really expect they'll just let a rouge pegasus board one because he has a personal vendetta?" Obertuous sighed. "You're young, I understand this, but please just stop and think."
Turncoat slunk down onto his stomach and rested his head. "What should I do?" he asked at last.
Obertuous passed him a full vase of water with his magic and sat down next to him. "I can't tell you what you should do," he said. "I understand that you want revenge, but you could look at this as a blessing. You're free from your old life—you've been given a fresh start. If they think you're dead, why go looking for trouble?"
Turncoat sipped from the vase, still unable to quite quench his thirst. Is the old stallion right? Should I just accept my fate and make the best of it? Could I live as a common earth pony?
"I don't expect you to stay out here with me," Obertuous continued. "I feel like the Ocean may hold some answers to your questions. If you travel east of here, you'll reach the town of Grogport. From there, you'll see the Ocean."
The books that Turncoat had read in school briefly mentioned the Ocean. It was supposed to be the biggest body of water on the surface. He assumed that the unicorn meant staring at it long enough would give him inner peace or persuade him that the surface wasn't a bad place to stay.
"I can give you some water for the trip, but I can't help you much past that."
Turncoat looked down into the empty vase and felt his stomach rumble. "I appreciate it," he said, standing up.
Obertuous smiled and began corking several glass bottles and placing them into a saddlebag he removed from under the mattress. "Make them last," he said, closing up the saddlebag. "The only rain that falls seems to be by accident." The unicorn's words sounded bitter, but it wasn't directed toward Turncoat.
"Thanks," he said, taking the saddlebag and swinging it onto his back. The weight of the bag pushed down painfully onto his wound, but it was something he'd just have to ignore. "If my path leads me back to Cirrus, I'll try to snag you a nimbus cloud or two."
The old stallion laughed. "Worry about yourself first," he said. "I feel that your path is going to be a long one. Oh, here, I have one more thing for you." He used his magic and levitated a tattered hooded cloak over Turncoat. "It'll keep the sand out of your eyes, and it's a little harder to tell that you're a pegasus."
"Cool, thanks," Turncoat said. "I guess you can keep my old uniform then. Sorry that I bled all over it."
"I'll keep it for you," Obertuous replied. "You never know, you may come back for it someday."
Turncoat smiled and paused in the open flap of the tent. His first impression of the surface hadn't been the best, but at least he'd found there were still good ponies living there.