//------------------------------//
// XXII. A Bridge Too Far 
// Story: Chrysalis Visits The Hague 
// by Dan The Man 
//------------------------------//


XXII
A Bridge Too Far






Broken Crop Road
Everfree County, Equestria
22. November, 2015
16:48 pm ICT

The back hatch of the jeep was pulled down with a thump. Then, the changeling on the stretcher was heaved into the boot like a sack of vegetables.
As soon as Edith had climbed on after him and dropped a hastily lowered blanket over its injured form, the motor once more sprang to life and gave a do-and-dare roar.

However, the car itself did not go anywhere - neither forth or back.

Anxiously scratching the unkempt hair under his ushanka, Pierre leaned over to give the creature, and particularly its ad-hoc nurse Edith, a clueless look.
“So… where are we heading?”

She glared at him like at a complete half-wit.
“We should be ghettingh him to a hospital.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” he answered, wheezing distraughtly. “And as soon as you can name me a place we can admit him to that isn’t swarming with riled-up paramilitaries… let me know.”

“Maybe he chan...”
She carefully tugged at his blanket and uncovered his face. “But I thinkh he might have lost chonsciousness.”

“Son of a bitch.”

On the dashboard, the radio began to crackle.
“Hey, Car One? What’s the hold-up? Did you run over a hog or something? ...Over and out.”

Pierre almost lunged at the receiver. “Shalgham, you have no idea what you’re doing, so clear the frequency and shut up. We’re moving in a minute.” Then, with plenty of unease, he pressed down on the accelerator and slowly had the car roll forward.
“We’re sticking to the plan. We’re driving to the castle.”

“You really thinkh that’s a ghood idea?”

“The place’s supposedly around the corner somewhere here. I’m not really keen on spending the better part of the afternoon driving through no-man’s-land with… that thing in my trunk.”

Edith scrutinised the ‘thing’ a bit more closely, professionally gauging its neck with her bony fingers for any signs of veins.
“I hadn't considered that the sergeant wasn’t… you know… real.”

“I don't think you have considered a lot of things.” he just commented. “In hindsight, the whole thing stank to high heaven. There are only so many reasons for a Royal Guard to betray his rulers like that. There just had to be some ulterior motive.”

She shrugged.
“What if we just turn around and head backh the way we chame? Nobody would exhpecht that.”

“Through those checkpoints?” Pierre sighed. “Unless we can cover up all the windows, they’ll spot him. And when they get their hooves on him, then… well...”
Out of respect for the patient in the rear, Pierre cut himself short at that moment.

“Why should they? I thought these chars have protechtion.”

"The glass isn't bullet-proof, if that's what you mean."

"I meant diplomatich protechtion."

“Yeah, it would help immensely if the ponies could actually comprehend the concept of ‘extraterritoriality’… or, you know, also give a shit.”
He sighed pathetically and picked up a little blue passport he had lying under his windscreen. He eyed it almost tragically.
“But they have their swords and their spears, and we have our laissez-passers. I suppose that, if we utilised them creatively, we could take out one intruder by... rolling them up and shoving them down his windpipe. Because if push should ever come to shove out here… that’s all the use we’re ever gonna get out of those things.”

She gave a bitter nod.
“How about...”
Testing something, she pulled the rug even further over his head and limbs, until it covered all of him. “What if we transport him likhe this? That way, we chan smugghle him past the checkhpoints and backh to Chanterlot. We chould always order a dochtor into the Embassy if we have to.”

“...I… wouldn’t count on it...” a vibrating, relatively high-pitched voice sighed.

Edith quickly removed the blanket from his face.
“Hey sergeant… How do you feel?”

“So-so... But you needn’t bother trying to backtrack. I’m sure you’ve also noticed the magic spells they’ve been throwing around at the checkpoints recently? The one that makes the skin prickle?”

Edith looked at him skeptically.

“That… is unmasking magic. The newest trick we learned in the Guard. Forces the disguise straight off any changeling’s face...”
He coughed. “Though it’s still not anywhere near as effective as ploughing into somepony with a loaded cart...”
He struggled to turn his battered body around.

“Do not move. You’ll only make it worse.”

Opening two bulging blue moth eyes, he stared down himself.
“Where… where is my uniform?”

“Your armour? I tookh it off. It weighed you down too much.”

“Oh...”
His head collapsed back on the boot’s mat. “Okay then... I suggest we… we need to move on to the castle.”

“That’s just where we’re going...” Pierre automatically answered. Then he hesitated.
“So, uh… you’re changeling then? A real changeling?”

Golden Dirk eyed him flatly.
“...Surprise.”

For a few moments, Pierre and Edith looked everywhere else other than at Golden Dirk. Finally, they gathered enough courage to look him in the eyes.
Of course they had never seen real changeling before.
And now that there was lying right next to them, they were indeed mildly surprised that it didn’t turn out to be any beefy, raw kind of predator that was covered in sharpened teeth and toxic barbs. In fact, they marveled just at how tiny and pathetic this one looked. 
It was smaller than an average pony, and quite bony and meatless to boot. The massive head that sat on a thin throat connected to a starved, chitin-hardened torso that was joined by four legs covered with suspicious holes, and two rather frail and tattered fly’s wings.
As lanky and malnourished as it appeared, one would have to take a much closer look - and take note of its sharp fangs and even sharper, though pupil-less, eyes - to identify it as a threat of some sort, rather than something one wouldn’t even bother stepping over on a European forest floor.

“I… well...” ‘Golden’ slowly began, “No harm done, but I was counting on taking it nice and easy with the… whole… revelation thing.” 

“Were you though?” came Pierre’s question from the front. “Were you really?”

“How long have you been doing this?” came Edith’s question from above.

“Doing... what?” he asked back, his voice vibrating quizzically. “Being a changeling?”

“You know damn well what we mean.” Pierre enunciated. “How long have you been… been… ‘serving’ in the Equestrian army?”

“I… um...” The bug-like creature’s face seemed blank, swept clean of any usual pony’s expression. “Eight years, I… joined up right after school, if that’s what you mean.”

“What school?”

“East Canterlot Secondary- ow!”

He grabbed his rib-cage in a fit of pain, but Edith immediately grasped his cool, perforated hooves and tried to restrain them.
“Do not touch your chest. The chollision fractured multiple ribs. If you push down even harder they chould lacerate your lunghs.”

“No way… I’ll walk it off before then.”

Her face was stern and dictatorial. “You stay put. You are badly injured.”

Pierre delivered the next set of inquiries.
“Why did you do it? Why the Equestrian Army?”

He seemed quite confused. “I mean… for what reason do ponies usually join the Guard?  What is there to explain?”

“Who sent you?” asked Edith.

“Sent me? Ehm… Nopony sent me.”

“Well, you surely didn’t end up running around in that uniform out of sheer patriotic fervour, did you?” Pierre scoffed.

“Excuse me...” Dirk stuttered, a bit more meekly, “But where do you think I came from?”

“Why don’t you enlighten us?”

“I don’t know what to tell you. I’m from Canterlot. I’m Equestrian.”

Pierre hit the brake abruptly, sending the changeling sliding and Edith stumbling forward a little.

“Uh… car one? Is everything okay up there?”

Pierre undid his seatbelt and pulled himself closer to the changeling’s head. His red beard was, once again, ablaze.
“Oh, cut the crap already!”
He yanked open one of the sun visors and shifted the mirror towards the changeling. “For your information, your disguise is gone. So you can start telling us all about your mission here, and what you were trying to achieve infiltrating the Equestrian archives. So get on with it.”

He gulped.

“Well?”

“I think, I’ll… I’ll have to explain a thing or two here.”

“Good idea.”

With the audible whine of a pony who just had his sense of self-worth drawn into question, he reared his head and met the humans’ scrutiny head-on. 
“First things first: I am no pony’s spy. Okay? I’m am as… loyal… and reverent… and humble… as any other of Celestia’s servants.”

“As a changeling?”

“...Incidentally, yeah.”

“What, is she your hive queen now, or what?”

“Is 'Princess of the Sun' not enough for you?”

Edith cleared her throat.
“How do you define ‘loyal’? I mean, you handed over top sechret files to me, no questions askhed.”

“Because I needed a favour from you. No other reason.”

“You needed us to slip away.”

“Well, no, just… get off the grid, kinda.”

“What the fuck do you think the United Nations is?” Pierre spat at him. “An international agent shuttle service?”

“...Huh?”

“This is like The Living Daylights all over again, innit?” he hoarsely sneered at Edith before returning to the changeling.
“If you wanted to slip out of the Equestria with those torn-out pages of yours, you should have pleaded with the CIA, or the MI6 or the fucking KGB. You should have left us out of it. We don’t concern ourselves with international espionage.”

“I’m not a spy!” he coughed, until a little bubble of foamy green spittle had formed at one corner of his mouth. “Those ‘torn-out pages’ are of no worth to me! None at all. But, I’d think, they are to you. So... do we have a deal, or no?”

“Why would we trust you?” Edith asked coldly.

“Why not?”

“Because,” Pierre again spat, “I’m not about to let UNEVEG let itself get used by some… jumped-up changeling agitator!”

“I’m not...”
He sighed. Then coughed again. “I think that this’ll be worth your time, okay? You’re the ones looking for those phantom files, not me. Hey... I’ll even accompany you if it makes you feel better. How about that?”

“This is not what I’m worried about...” Edith mumbled.

The convoy turned left.

Whereas the aptly-named Broken Crop Road had proven difficult to maneuver, the old ‘highway’ to what, many hundred years ago, had been the centre of Equestria, proved untraversable.

The once broad and proud cobblestone street had shrunken to barely the width of the cars themselves, flanked on both sides by snow, overgrown bushes and dead fragments of decaying plant life.After only a few dozen metres, the convoy ultimately found itself blockaded by a massive, dozen-ton tree stump that lay sprawled diagonally across the path.

“What… the fuck… is that?” Pierre mumbled, massive amounts of wood and moss filling his entire vision.

“Okay, full disclosure...” the changeling breathed, “I’ve never actually been in these parts before.”

“Great. So much for the box van.” Pierre moaned hoarsely, and gripped his steering wheel ever-so-slightly in anger. “Screw it all. I’m not about to empty a whole archive by hauling the books load by load down a two-klick dirt trail.”

“Do we need to, achtually?” Edith asked tiredly, and looked over to the changeling. “I mean… we have our translator now.”

“Well, I’m not carrying him either.”

The changeling cleared his throat.
“I told you I’ll be fine.” 
Then he slowly and shakily picked himself up. “My ribs are almost okay now.”

“Don’t ghet ahead of yourself...” Edith immediately countered. “I might not be a vet, but ribs need at least sixh weekhs to heal.”

The changeling locked eyes with her. Then, demonstratively, he run his hoof over the dark grey leathery skin of his chest. The pained grimace on his insect face had reduced to a minimum.
“Must be tough being a human. Helmet, please.”

Wordlessly, Pierre tossed him Golden Dirk’s shiny Corinthian sergeant’s helmet, which he promptly caught with his telekinetic grip.

“And my armour, if you’ve still got it.” 

“Why the disghuise?” she asked.

“I’m going to turn back into myself now.”

‘Himself’?
The irony of it was lost on neither of the humans. 

“Did you really think you’d ever get in without somepony like me? Our archives are very well protected.”
Straightening up, the changeling lit his horn with a green flame. And before Edith or Pierre could react, another flash had blinded them. Within a moment’s notice, Sergeant Golden Dirk was back to ‘normal’, eagerly inspecting his own light-grey legs and chest before getting to wrapping himself in his plate armour.

“How does this workh?” Edith asked, fascinated by the whole swift transformation process. “Is this some sort of magic?”

Instead of answering, he twisted his left hoof in a rather unfortunate way, and let out a pained yelp.

There was yet another blinding flash.

And another moment later, Golden Dirk had once more been unwittingly replaced by the skinny, ugly changeling.
“Horseapples!” he cursed as he looked at his limb, his voice buzzing in distress. “My hoof’s still sprained. I need to jam it back into position if I wanna walk.”

“Actually, your hoof is disjointed. So I advise you not to.” Edith protested.

“Okay, then you do it.”
He laid his tiny, cold hoof into her palms. “It’s gonna be alright. Believe me.”

“I’m not a bonesetter. If… I do somethingh wrongh now, I chould damage your leg for life.”

“M’am...” the changeling sighed, and locked her with his big blue eyes. Putting on his most trustworthy tone, he told her, “Trust me. Just...”

‘Snap!’, a disjointed voice suddenly beckoned her from somewhere else.

Before she could stop herself, both her hands wrapped themselves around the hoof and twisted it upwards.

There was a rather graphic cracking sound, followed by the changeling yanking his leg away and once more squealing,
“Celestia! It’s… good now, I think. It’s alright...”

Edith immediately yanked her hands away. What the hell had just made her do that?
She was absolutely sure that this was not a good idea and she knew she wouldn’t twist it.
And yet, as though guided by an undiscovered instinct, she lost control over her fingers long enough for them to do as the changeling wanted.
How could that be?

He, meanwhile, casually finished setting up his rather twisted cuirass, and moved to climb out of the jeep.

By the time Ibrahim and the rest of the UN search party caught up to him and the two drivers, he was once again the Sergeant Golden Dirk.

“Hey there...” the young Libyan hailed first jeep’s passengers. “Where did that one suddenly come from?”

“We… ran into him on the way.” Pierre fleetingly explained before pointing down the road.
“The Old Everfree’s down that road, about two kilometres away. Pack ladders and pack spades. We are going on a goddamn adventure!”





With Ibrahim carrying the shovel over his shoulder, and Pierre taking care of the ladder, the seven humans and ‘unicorn’ soon decided to lock the cars as they were and hike the rest of the way into the woods. 
It turned out to be a very wise choice, as beyond the massive tree trunk, the path had soon grown too slim and feral to hold even the most sophisticated caterpillar tracks. In the eternal shadow of the dense branches and leaves above them, they soon trudged through layers of snow that were progressively thinning out rather than piling on. 
Before long they were trudging on soft and muddy soil, their boots caked in rotting leaves. 
Once again, Edith came to feel the familiar warmth of the forest, and once again, her stare was fixated to the floor beneath her feet, much to the chagrin of the colleagues forced to walk behind her.
Around them, wet fog was billowing forth.

Eventually, after a lengthy walk uphill, they passed a gorge on one side, the corner of their path already crumbling as they trudged over the plateau. Eventually, the rift rounded the path, and the investigators found themselves standing at one end of a flimsy bridge leading right over it. 

“Bre…”

On the other side, covered by yet more steaming fog, there lay the remains of a once gigantic citadel, with bulky grey towers looming far over them, and a large silhouette of a collapsed dome filling out the woodland scenery. On both sides, the buildings had been partially reclaimed by the rampant foliage of the Everfree Forest.

“Looks... like plenty of space for ‘two sisters’,” Pierre snarked. “Anyway, where do we go now?”

“You should let me take the lead.” Golden Dirk suggested nervously. “There is the chance that there are... sentries on the other side. It’s archive command’s protocol that all sites have at least one pair of eyes on them at all times.”

“You’re not honestly sugghestingh that those are archives that would still be in use.” Edith mumbled a she took in the almost depressing isolation of the place. “The sechretary was right. It’s almost chollapsingh.”

Pierre shrugged. 
“I wouldn’t put anything past the ponies by that point. They’d find a way. Lead on... ‘sergeant’.”

Golden Dirk stepped up to the base of the rope bridge, while the humans all helplessly glanced down into the endless depths of the ravine beneath it. Out of the gorge came the barely audible splashing of a raging stream.

“Ten-shun!” he yelled out authoritatively, and loud enough to make the humans flinch. “At arms!” 

But nothing and no one answered, apart from the same ‘shun’s and ‘arms’ echoing back at the group.

“Authorised United Nations inspection passing through. Form up!”

Nothing.

“Strange...” Golden Dirk mumbled. “This is… pretty out of protocol.”

“Are you sure there is an archive in there?” Edith made sure.

“Yes, absolutely. I mean…This castle has always been treated a special place of interest by Canterlot Command and… the above.”
Reverently, he pointed up. “There must be a reason for it.”

“Yet you’ve never been out here?”

“Never. Archive guards never rotate.”
Clearing his throat, he placed two hooves on the bridge to try and suss its sturdiness.
“This looks like a ruddy ruin, but...”

“But?” Pierre breathed, his fist-rolling impatience palpable.

“Well, whenever the order came through for files to be removed permanently from Canterlot, either for deep storage or… getting otherwise relocated, we would refer to them as, uh, ‘being shoved up the Old Everfree’.”
He grinned a bit immaturishly. He swallowed it when he humour failed to catch on. 
“We all knew it wasn’t for no reason. There was something taking place out here.”

Then, carefully, he began treading over the bridge, putting one hoof in front of the other. 

The others exchanged a plethora of unsure glances.
Particularly Ibrahim and the staffers seemed to silently ask each other: Where was he leading them? Why were they here? And why did Director Abel and the girl from ICMP looking so pent-up and nervous?

Eventually, Pierre managed to usher them all over the flimsy crossing.

The others were naturally quite eager to let everyone else go in front. At some point, it was tacitly agreed to send every man over on their own, to keep as much weight off the bridge as possible.
Golden Dirk was the first to volunteer over. Next came Pierre, who stepped and climbed his way to the other side like a sailor in a storm.
Edith, whose ear still hadn’t quite found her equilibrium yet, was particularly disturbed when her turn came, but decided to swallow her shock for the moment. Not letting go of the - admittedly very low - suspension ropes, she shuffled onward precariously and froze at the slightest hint of a disturbance.
The other UN people, who were only a little less terrified, had already begun to groan and tussle amongst each other by the time Edith had concluded her crossing.

It didn’t take much more time for everyone to reach safe ground once again, and after taking a moment to regroup, they passed on right under a collapsed stone gatehouse and, finally, entered what seemed to be have been a state room at some point in the last few thousand years. 

Even so, this place appeared to be not quite as abandoned as they had first thought. Someone had been here in the interim, and someone had invested quite some time into restoring the old citadel. 
Century-old banners and tapestries, hanging in shreds and with the colours faded away, had been stitched together with colourful scrap patches of silk to hold it together for another few years. Moss and leaves that should logically have covered the thrones, stone tables and marble floors had been scraped away.

“Maybe there are ghosts here. Ghosts with... OCD.” Edith mumbled.

Pierre smiled weakly at that.
“Edith. You’ve got many castles in the old world, don’t you? Are there many in Bosnia?” 

She shrugged. “A few, achtually. Why?”

“What part of a castle would realistically keep the records?”

“I ghuess...” she said thoughtfully, “Judgingh how precious rechords were backh then… the treasury? Or, if they belonghed to the lord, maybe the kheep?”

“The keep…” Pierre repeated, looking through the non-existent roof above them, trying to seek out as many towers as he could. “Which one of those would be the keep?”

Edith sought the tower in question out before him. “Up there. The thickhest always is the kheep.”

Even Golden Dirk was inclined to agree.
“Follow me.”

Equines and humans, she mused, were not quite as different as one would have expected. In how many ways, however, would still have to be found out.

Passing into one of the few wings of the citadel that still stood, they entered a dilapidated corridor. 
As they marched further into the poorly lit stone hole, Ibrahim huddled closer between Edith and Pierre.
“Mister Abel… I’ve really got to say something now.”

“Oh, what?”

“I do not think we should be here.”

Pierre smirked, unimpressed.
“Good for you.”

With clattering teeth, Ibrahim latched on to Edith next.
“Look, I know there is nothing here! Nobody with half a brain would maintain an archive inside this… this dump. The books would waste away immediately with all this moisture and frost.”

“How chan you be so sure, Ibrahim?” she asked with feigned childlike innocence. “We were brought here by a Royal ghuard, after all.”

“I don’t trust this guy.” he breathed knowingly. “He comes out of nowhere and claims to know the place? This just screams like a trap.”

“He just said he’s never been here.”

“That kind of makes it worse! We’re going to fall through the goddamn floor because of him!”

“That’s enough now, Ibrahim.”

“I’m serious. You don’t need to be an architect to see that this place is completely derelict!”

After several meters of kicking compost and increasingly big rubble out of their way, they soon found themselves at what could only be the ground floor of the keep. Quite appropriately, they also came across a massive metal door with heavy grates and some bolted iron plating that seemed to lead back down into the ground.

“Those ponies and their pompous goddamn doors...” Pierre snarled, his senses on the edge. “This one looks fat and juicy though. I trust you have the key for it.”

Nervously, Golden Dirk chewed things over.
“I’ve got a key. It’s a master key. Every NCO gets one. Though I’m not sure if...”
He magically lifted a key out of a pouch hidden under his cuirass, and carefully let it float towards a verdigris keyhole. The tiny copper key was quickly swallowed by the darkness of the ancient mechanism.

“And now?”

A little blue flame lit up inside.
“Horseapples!”
Alarmed, Dirk pulled his key out in an instant - only to realise that the copper instrument had its head melted cleanly from the handle.
“Oops.”

“What just happened?”

“Some kind of… precautionary measure.” he stammered. “A trap. A fifth grade liquefaction spell the lock’s been infused with. Anything that’s not the perfectly right key… is rejected.”

As the unicorn impotently retracted his stump of a key from the hole, Pierre was already gritting his teeth.
“Ibrahim. Hand me the spade.”

The Libyan stepped forward, but he hesitated when he looked up and down the formidable portal.
“Are you gonna do what I think what...”

“No, actually I was going to use it ring up a locksmith. What do you think?”

“Mr Abel...” he began to whimper, “I know I’m not gonna stop you or anything, but... wouldn’t that technically be breaking and entering?”

The others respectfully kept their silence at that bombshell.

“Is it?” Edith asked back.

“If we don’t have the right key, we can’t just force our way into a foreign government facility… if it actually is a government facility, which I really don’t this it is”

“Forcingh? Who is said anythingh about forcingh?”
She turned to the unicorn among them. “Sergeant? As a… a supervisingh member of the Archives staff and as a… de-fachto representative of the ghovernment of Eqhuestria, do you allow us to... help you ghain entry to this archive?”

Mystified, he glanced up at her. 
“Huh? Oh, uh... yeah, sure.”

“Really?”

“I mean, you have my permission to… you know, do whatever you can. And must. Yep.”
It wasn’t like this Sergeant had a lot to lose.

Pleased, Edith nodded. “Well, there you gho, Ibrahim. We’re in the chlear.”

Here, Pierre couldn’t hide a smile - she definitely was a fast learner - but Ibrahim just began to shift around the corridor uncomfortably, his soles creaking incessantly. He was not satisfied.
“No offence, but who is this guy again?” he hissed as he pointed a thumb at the guard “I know I’ve never seen him before.”

Golden Dirk shrunk back uncomfortably, looking as though his masquerade could fall off all by itself at any moment.

But Pierre, quite coolly, retorted by relieving Ibrahim of the spade and shoving him down the corridor.
“How about you don’t ask too many stupid questions and do something useful? Take Ruman and head back to the bridge.”

“And… and do what there?”

“Hold the fucking fort while we work. Make sure that there won’t be any misunderstandings... should any come marching down your path.”

“You… you know  we might cause an international incident here, right? And I have family back home.”

“Get out.”

Helplessly, Ibrahim went shuffling off the way they had come, towing one of the helpers along, though not before mumbling a final, “This isn’t right. This is bullshit.”

As soon as this obstacle had rolled out of his way, Pierre artfully twisted the shovel between his fingers, and after conspiratively scanning the other attendees’ taut faces, pushed against the door with his shoulder. 
As to be expected, it was more than able able to hold its own, despite all the rust and sickly green oxidised copper.

“Okay people,” he suddenly cooed.
Edith couldn’t recall him having ever sounded as hoarse and subdued as in this moment.
“Once we’re through that door, we best not waste the time we’ve got. Spread out and screen this place. I want photos and I want video footage. I want to prove that this place does exist, and I want to be able to serve it to the horses on a nice silver platter.” 

The others all nodded.

“You might be aware that we are a little… strapped for time - Royal Guard units are inbound as we speak. I want you to carry out your duty and… and while you’re at it, take the opportunity prep your witness statements for later on.”

That did not do much to heighten the handful of UN workers’ resolve. Especially after Ibrahim’s grim reminder.

“Just know that we’re not taking a risk here. You are not in any danger. At least until the contrary can be proven, this search will be lawful. And if anyone’s causing an international incident, it’ll be them, not us.”
He blinked at Edith.
“And you? Take your ‘sergeant’, and see if you can identify anything of relevance in there. Key words, appropriate time periods, the whole shebang.”

So he screwed his efforts up a notch. He rammed the spade into the tight space between the door and the frame, right into where there should have been the bolts. There was a short noise of rotting wood gnashing, but the tool jammed, and when he pulled it out, it was visibly dented on its ever-so sharp tip.
Unabashed, he jammed it right back in and forcefully began to lever the shovel around in the crack, under the awful grinding sound of iron kissing steel.
After a minute of perpetual gnawing and creaking, there was the rewarding sound of the medieval latch, weathered and rusted by centuries of holding a heavy castle door against the wind, water and frost of the Everfree, giving way.

“I can not believe this actually worked.” Pierre mumbled as he put his weight against what was left of the lock. 
Everyone else was soon joining him at pummelling the door.
Only Golden Dirk stayed back warily, stroking his helmet’s fake mane. 

The door slid open a handful of degrees. As soon as the gap had grown big enough for Dirk to slip through, he immediately snuck his head inside.
“Hello?” he shouted into the room. “Inspection! All sentries, attend!”
Of course, there was no reply.
“Better… better safe than sorry. Stay back until give the clear..” Dirk gulped and slowly crept deeper into the ominous darkness of the gap...

Edith took an bracing step back.





Voices echoed. Many from far away, and others from uncomfortably close.

“Wait! Don’t move! Stay just like that...” one raspy exhausted one shouted.

“Edith...” another whispered pathetically.

 “Oh shit! I’m stuck. Get me out!” one yelled, spooked. 

"Kud si ti pošao?" another sneered, thick with scorn and lust.

“Edith?” the other repeated.

“Are you two still alive over there?” the other inquired.

“Edith.” it said.

"Spusti to dole, djevojčice." another again teased.

“Heavens, is that a dome up there?” one asked.

“Edith!” one shouted.

“It belongs in a museum. Heh, I always wanted to say that...”

They became more numerous. And they became louder.

“They fell?”

“Edith!?”

“I made that mark. Four weeks ago, in Canterlot.” 

What marks? What was going on? The voices soon started overtaxing her head...

"Znaš li pucati iz tog pištolja?"

“Edith!”

“I don’t like this. Give me a second.” 

“My name is Šarić, Edith Šarić. I am working with UNEVEG, and I possess a royal commission...” she suddenly heard herself state. 
But why?

"Kakva lijepa ptica!"

“Edith!”

“Mister Abel! Mister Abel! Let me in! They’re right on top of us!”

"Žuri! Svi gledaju."

“Who is on top of us?”

"Stani! Mi smo Srbi!"

“Edith!”

“Government troops! Pegasi! They’re coming down the cliffside! At least a company of them!”

"Pucaj na svakog ko prođe ovuda! Razumiješ?"

“How did they know we’re here?”

“I don’t know! Ruman’s trying to hold them off at the bridge, but he’s only got his laissez-passer and a smartphone! They’ll be in here any moment!”

"Skupi ih! Skupi ovce! Skupi ovce!"

“Edith?! Where the hell are you?! Edith!”

And just like that… they were all flushed away. They disappeared as though they were water caught in the suck of an emptying sink.

Something had gone terribly wrong. 





This was the first thought that entered Edith's head as she came to.

She coughed.
Her throat was swollen like yeast dough and burned awfully. It felt like she had swallowed glass dust. Her tongue and gums were completely dry and sore. Her mouth was filled with thick, suffocating mucus. Bereft of all consciousness, she rolled over. The floor beneath her head was hard and studded with little sharp pricking rocks that mercilessly furrowed into her exposed skin. The pain breathed some life back into her.Her head felt heavy, and it thumped like a drum.

She quickly noticed how badly her cheeks and forehead were stinging. When she realised how turgid her eyelids had become, she dared not to open them at first. Slowly, she strained her muscles and felt the inside of her right hand. 

The glove that had previously been on her was gone. The hand itself was sticky and hot and flaky from countless scabs. 

Battling on against a terrible fit of vertigo, she tried to take a look at her right hand’s empty grasp. But she couldn’t see it. All she saw was bright whiteness, reflecting on her iris back into her mind.

She tried to rub the trauma out of eyes with her other hand, only to notice that it was covered in crumbling dust that quickly scattered onto her face. 

She flinched and she coughed.
The coughing soon turned into a horrifying, agonising splutter.

With her first hand, she rubbed as fast and hard as she could, but the light in her eyes wouldn’t lift. 
It was all to no avail. She was blind. 

Stumbling around, she tried to grab hold of something – anything – she felt. She began to panic. She didn’t know where she was, she was confused. 

Sliding on her knees over stone and what felt like carpets, she soon felt she was shuffling over cardboard. And paper. And book bindings.

What were all those things doing down there?

She reached down with her feeling hands - and was promptly spurned by a sudden burning sensation.
Something was on fire. 
Immediately alert, she let her instincts take hold and threw herself onto the hot spot, her dressed arms ahead, and tried to stomp out the embers before they could spread.

It was by now that she first noticed how dry and and unpleasant the air that she breathed was feeling. 
Every breath she was taking felt like she was inhaling powdered chili, violently painful. 

Before she could sink even more onto the floor and go prone, she managed to knock her forehead into a solid stone slate. Tumbling backward, she sprawled on the dusty carpet, still madly trying to rub some life into her unseeing, worthless eyes.

But she could hardly make out anything. It was dark, she had no light, and the thing she held in her right hand… 
Wait…

What did she hold in her right hand again? 
She knew she had just held something – her muscle memory assured her she did – but what exactly this thing was, she couldn’t wrap her mind around.

Her memory was in a bit of a white blur. Which way should she move? Where was the exit?
Exit… of what?

Where was she?

The anomalies in her mind became larger and more abrupt, like a constantly expanding chasm during an all-consuming earthquake.

Why was she here? How did she get here? 
For the moment, all those things were completely lost on her. It was like one of those deep-sleeping nights in which she would fall out of her bed, haunted by nightmares, and first take a look around and get a feeling for her surroundings.

What was this? She was wide awake and alert one moment, and the next… nothing. She was here, and…

A cough from some other place.

That voice…

She instinctively decided to go after those sounds, that familiar voice of her colleague Pierre.

She scrambled to her feet and tried standing up… but her head and shoulder were raised into a thick, noxious layer of fumes that made her skin prickle with pain and eyes, mouth and nose sting.
So she dropped back down, where she found herself greeted by a much cooler gust of air. 

Her sight returned, and her panic budged a bare bit. She could see that it was almost too dark to see a thing – which was a start, at least.

A faint reddish gleam illuminated the space, the light bouncing off slick metallic forms and sharp shimmering blades.
Her surrounding began come back to her.

Walls… pillars…

Her ailing feet knocked over something metallic and lightweight – a scaffolding, perhaps. Or a ladder.

A ladder!

Feeling her way past the the tall wooden railing, she soon was leaning against a solid surface. A cupboard, maybe? Or a shelf?

Another weak splutter from somewhere.

Squinting heavily and sharpening her ears, she slid along the shelf on all fours.

After some ten meters of shuffling, she stumbled over what felt like a bundle of clothes on the floor. Only by feeling it a second time did she realise that the clothes were still being worn. Someone was sprawled on the floor before her. Her fingers felt their way up to the face. They came across soft mushy skin and thick strands of resilient hair. A beard. Not anyone’s beard.
Pierre’s beard.

“Hey...” she breathed. The pain of opening her mouth and trying to speak overwhelmed her though, and she succumbed to another painful coughing fit.

“Edith? Edith, is that you?!”

That voice echoed through the room from behind her.
She turned to look for it with her unfocused eyes.

“For Allah’s sake, open the fucking door already! Edith!”

It was Ibrahim.

Forlornly, she scrambled back into the direction from which voice hailed, mindlessly leaving Pierre’s limp body where it lay.

“I… I can see you!” Ibrahim yelled. “I can see you, Edith! Come closer! Stay down!”

She scrambled faster towards the saving voice.

Like a toddler who had not yet mastered the art of walking on her own two legs, she crawled over stone tiles and up steps and stairs that seemed to suddenly throw themselves into her path.

“Come on, Edith! Well done, you’ve almost made it.”

Faster and faster she moved. After what seemed like half an eternity, her longing face ran right into a cold iron door latch. 
As her cheek leaned against the cooling metal, she knew she had reached the surface.

The door squealed and opened. She nearly fell into the waiting arms of the young Libyan archivist, who immediately dragged her tired body through the portal and out into what seemed to be a cold, windy side room.

The only warmth she felt was in the frantic breath of her friend.

“Oh Edith...” he gasped. His voice was breathless, and he sound like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “Why did you guys lock yourselves in? What did you do in there?!”

She didn’t understand.
Her unfocused eyes darted everywhere while she tried to understand what he wanted from her. She didn't know what he was talking about. She could only barely remember what had happened a few minutes ago.

Her racing thoughts were brought to a screeching halt by strange echoes reverberating through the room.

It sounded like bolts being unlocked, like furniture being shoved to the side, and a crowd of very angry people moving through an adjacent room.
Those sounds were brought to a point by someone yelling, 
“Spread out! They couldn’t have gotten far!”

“Damn...” Ibrahim breathed… “Now they’re here.”

Sitting the confused woman against a wall, he got up and strided off with quick steps.

“Ibrahim...” she croaked.

“For all things holy, Edith, stay where you are!” he shouted. “I’ll bring help here.”

And with those words, even he walked away. Edith could not speak loud enough to call him back.
She was alone once more.

Her eyes began to recover. Through the blinding white light, individual facets of shadows and details were soon forming.
She could see a long corridor, leading into the unknown.

How much would she have given just to know what on earth was happening...

Again, echoes interrupted her.

“Halt! Stop, you thieving scum! Stop!”
It was quickly followed up by muffled thuds of violence.

That was the last straw.
Something told her that she had to move. She could not wait here any longer. She had to get out.
Edith knew not out where, or even what out of, but she did know that she had to get out.

So she picked herself up and shuffled, still sliding along one side of the wall, down the hallway.

“Where are the rest of your pals? There must be more! And you, just shut up! We’ll deal with you later, monkey!”

Her feet carried her only as fast as her mind raced. It was agonisingly slow.

Crashing into alcoves and whirling blindly around corners, she raced aimlessly through the building, with no plan and no patience.

It took some time to walk by what could only be a glass pane.
She felt the cold white light of day on her sore face, and reflecting in her palsied eyes.
‘Outside’ was very near.

“Did you hear that? The main corridor! Somepony’s running down the main corridor!”

She didn’t think twice about it.
She reached around for a handle or lock with which to open the pane, and when she found nothing of the sort, she struck out.

The glass was thick. It was held together by various little lead frames. The effort needed to smash it was only barely what the weakened woman could muster.

Her elbow hurt hideously, and despite her thick coat, she was surely inflicting many bruises on herself, but she soon felt the first shards popping out.
Cold air washed over her face.

“What the hay… smoke? Did somepony set the place on fire?! Private! Get the fireponies here. Right now!”

She ignored the voices echoing behind her.
As soon as she felt that there was not much left between her and the saving outside, she stuck her head through and pulled the rest of her body along.
First, she tried clambering on to the building, frantically trying to reach a sill she could step out on...
But then she fell.

All she saw as she dropped was white, closing in on her faster and faster. 
And before she knew what had happened, her flailing body crashed into a snowbank.

It punched the last strength and willpower out of her. Her head was seemingly spent spinning away and off into space, her already unsorted thoughts being whirled in all possible directions.

Motionlessly, with her face partially sunk in icy wet snow, she lay there, waiting for her fate - whatever it might be - to wash over her.

That is, until she heard the unmistakable crackle of a walkie-talkie.

“Corporal, bairal abhi tak dippo main kyon nahin hain? Baraf tere liye kuch zyada hain kya?” someone said.

“Haan, mujhe uski yaad aati hain. Koi aur chaara hota to mein usse mere saas ke saath chodke nahin aata.” someone else answered.

She heard heavy footsteps trudging over the ground.

Over the corner of her eye, she noticed a towering man above her, blotting out the sun.

“Kya matlab mein rasoi duty pe hoon? Rasoi duty pe tu hain.” he commented.

Then she was seized by several hands- one on each leg and arm, and two more latching onto her shoulders - and lifted out of her little saving pile of snow.

“Muhjse nahin hua officer career. Sab ki nafrat sar pe lene ke liye chaar baras akademi jaane ki koyi zaroorat nahin thi.” a commanding voice ordered.

The hands were rough and cared little for her own comfort as she was carried away. Squinting as firmly and precisely as her eyes allowed, she gazed up at her saviors.

She saw khaki-brown overalls, and blurry faces, tanned deep brown and some sporting some rather impressive facial hair.
One had wound a bright-blue turban over his forehead.

Edith was so thoroughly confused, she did not know whether to worry or to feel relief. 
She felt rather content that she was rescued, though. 
It was over. Whatever this had been.

There was only one thing that really nagged her in the very back of her mind.

Where was that incessant vibrant buzzing noise coming from?