Tales of the Sword Coast

by AdrianVesper

The Black Knight: Part I

The Black Knight

Shining Armor shivered. Rain fell in sheets off the eaves above and spattered on his back. He wrapped his foreleg around his mother’s, clinging close, trying to get under her cloak, as he stared up at the monolithic wooden door in front of him. His mother reached up with her free hoof and rapped on the door.

“Mom, why’re we here?” Shining Armor asked.

“You know why we’re here, Shining,” his mother said. “Your sister Twilight is finally with us, and it’s time.”

Shining armor glanced up at where his sister slept in a sash across his father’s chest, tiny, peaceful and warm. His parents had changed recently. Something about them was different than before. He first noticed it when his mother told him he’d have a sister soon, but that wasn’t what had changed. They started to spend time with strange people who liked to wear black clothes. They told him of a god, a power far beyond his young mind’s understanding. They told him that he was very special, and that this God loved him very much.

He believed them.

Shining Armor started when the door suddenly cracked open, spilling light from a torch lit hallway out into the rain. A figure cowled by dark robes stood in the entrance. “You made it, good,” the pony said.

Shining Armor’s mother ushered him inside. He stumbled over the doorstep, but managed to regain his balance. “Shining, quickly,” his mother urged, leading him down a short corridor into a large room.

Candles on the corners of a stone altar in the center of the room gleamed, but shadows dominated the space. The windows were blacked out. Ponies in robes stood all around him. A single pony stood over the altar with the candlelight playing on his face. Shining Armor recognized him; the others called him Father Dusk.

Dulcet tones rolled off of Father Dusk’s tongue as he began to speak. “We are gathered here today for a momentous occasion. In His love and wisdom, Azrael, the one true God, has blessed us. We have given unto Him our minds and our undying devotion, and we have been rewarded. With the three of His chosen children He has sent us, He will set us, His faithful, free from death itself.”

“Our souls are His,” the ponies in the robes chanted.

Shining Armor shivered. Something rose in the room around him – in him; he felt it. His pulse pounded in his ears as it surged within him.

“Twilight Velvet, bring forth your daughter and place her upon the altar,” Father Dusk said. “She is the one foretold unto us, and through her, He shall speak to us.”

Shining Armor’s mother moved away from him. She pulled his sister from the sash around his father's neck. Immediately, his sister started to cry. Shining felt a pang of sympathy. He understood why she was crying; he wouldn’t want to be pulled from the warm, safe embrace either.

Cooing in his sister’s ear, his mother carried her over and laid her on the altar. She wailed louder when her mother stepped away and returned to her spot beside Shining. When his mother was back, Shining Armor wrapped his foreleg around hers again.

Father Dusk placed his forehooves on the altar. “She’s beautiful,” he said. His eyes started to glow with blackness tinted by violet, somehow darker than the shadows around them. Twilight stopped crying and looked up at him. The candles in the room snuffed out. Only the void of Father Dusk’s eyes remained.

A dagger of shadow materialized over the altar, defined against the darkness by its sheer emptiness. “Bring me the colt!” Father Dusk cried, the sweetness in his voice replaced by venom. “She must be baptized in his blood!”

“Our souls are his,” the ponies chanted. Shining heard them move, shuffling toward him. He clung tighter to his mother’s leg.

“Mom, what’s going on?” Shining whispered.

“Let go, Shining,” his mother said.

Hooves grabbed him and pulled at him. “Mom!” he screamed, holding her for dear life.

“Shining, I said let go!” his mother shouted. With her free forehoof, she pushed at his face. He didn’t let go. Something banged on the door at the end of the hall. Through his mother’s legs, he saw the timbers shudder with the impact.

“I said bring me the colt!” Father Dusk shouted. “Twilight Sparkle, Herald of the Abyss, must—”

The door slammed open. For a single, crystalline moment, Shining Armor glimpsed the silhouette of a pony in a robe levitating a staff. The figure’s horn glowed, and a gout of fire leaped into the room. It clipped directly over Shining’s head. The heat dried his damp fur instantly.

“It’s him!” somepony shouted.

“Stop him! Get the Shadowspawn!” Father Dusk cried.

The corridor smouldered. The hooves grabbing at Shining were gone. He clung to his mother’s foreleg still, but when he looked up, the foreleg ended in a charred stump. His mother was nothing but ash drifting in the air. The figure’s horn glowed again, and a ring of blue flames burst into existence around him. The figure strode through the doorway.

Shining Armor dropped his mother’s leg and ran. He darted through a doorway and found a counter beneath a window. He jumped up onto the counter and beat his hooves against the window’s shutter – once, twice, three times. The latch snapped, and he tumbled out into the rain-slicked alley behind the house. He scrambled to his feet in the mud, his heart racing.

A stack of wooden crates rested in the corner against the wall. He ran for it and scrambled under one of the crates. His chest felt like it was going to to burst.

He curled into his hiding spot. Shouts and screams rippled out from inside the house. All he could see was a slit along the ground. He cringed as a detonation thundered in his ears.

All he could hear after that was his own beating heart, and a baby’s cry.

He waited, listening, completely still, and barely breathing. Somepony scrambled out through the same window he’d escaped through. Hooves touched down in the alley. The crate blocked his view of the pony, but he saw blood drip into the mud.

“Need to find the colt... need him...” the pony gasped. Shining Armor recognized the voice as Father Dusk. Shining held his breath.

A second voice, strong and vibrant, pulsed through the alley. “Vile scum, die as you lived!” A flash of light shined through the slit beneath the crate. When it faded, Father Dusk was a corpse in the mud.

A second pony stepped into view. “Child, if you’re here, come out. I won’t hurt you,” the voice said.

Shining Armor curled deeper into his hiding place. A baby, his sister, wailed louder than before. The pony standing in the alley snorted, hesitating, then walked out of sight. Shining waited until he was sure the he was alone in the alley before squirming out from under the crate. He ran, and he didn’t look back.

Eventually, he found a dry spot far away from the house. He curled into it, sniffling. Tears built, running down his cheeks and dripping into the pile of rags beneath him. Stallions don’t cry, he told himself over and over again until sleep eventually took him.

---

Shining Armor sucked in the scent of warm bread loaves and fresh apples. His stomach rumbled. He had nowhere to go, nothing to eat. He’d made do on scraps offered by strangers, but every day he got thinner – and hungrier. He missed the house with the warm fire where he used to live. He reminded himself that was the same house with the mother that eventually tried to have him killed.

He lurked between Market stalls, a ragged cloak given to him by a nice old mare wrapped tight around his shoulders. She was gone now. He didn’t know where she went, only that he had one less place to find food. He suspected she was dead. The strange ponies at her place only told him she’d gone to Celestia when he asked, whatever that meant. Maybe Azrael has her soul now, he thought.

He stared at a brown puddle in a gutter behind one of the stalls and licked his dry lips. Usually, he tried to drink just after it rained, or from one of the public pumps around the city. He wondered what the puddle would taste like.

A reflection moved into view on the surface of the puddle, resolving into a white filly, a few years older than he was. He looked up. Loaves of bread peeked out of a sack slung over her shoulder. She wore a knit cap around her ears. She bore a Mark on her flank, though Shining Armor couldn’t see what it was from this angle. His own was blank.

“Hey kid, you hungry?” she said.

He nodded. She smiled and passed him a loaf of bread and an apple. Then, she took off her cap and shoved it onto his head. It didn’t sit quite right with his horn in the way, but at least it warmed his ears.

“Thanks,” he said, smiling. He took the apple in his levitation, a bit shakily, and tucked the loaf of bread beneath one of his forelegs. As he took a bite, he savored the sweet juice flowing down his throat.

She smirked. “Don’t thank me.” She turned away and looked back over her shoulder. Now, he could see her Mark in full; it was a jester’s cap. “Oh, and, you should run.”

Shining Armor’s ears perked. The beat of hooves thundered behind him. He glanced over his shoulder. Three adults bore down on him, running along the narrow space behind the row of Market stalls. “That’s the thief!” one of them shouted. “See the hat!”

Shining Armor dropped the loaf in the puddle and ran. He’d heard stories about thieves getting their hooves chopped off for stealing. The filly, already several paces ahead of him, turned a corner. He followed and nearly slipped on a loose stone as he tore around the bend. He managed to keep her in sight while she raced down narrow alleys and side streets. At every turn, he checked over his shoulder. Soon, only one pony chased them, a thin, lean looking earth pony. The two others had fallen well behind.

He turned another bend into a deserted alley. The filly was gone; he’d lost her. He stopped, panting, and listened. He couldn’t hear his pursuers anymore. He sucked at the spot he’d bitten out of the apple to wet his lips with the moisture.

“Psst, hey kid. In here,” a shrill voice said. It sounded like the filly. He focused on the spot it came from and saw a hole in the base of a high wooden fence running along the side of the street. He squirmed his way through the broken planks, tearing his cloak on a jagged edge, and emerged into a tiny, overgrown, urban yard. When he noticed the filly leaning against the fence, he glared at her.

“Hey, sorry,” she said. “You looked hungry.”

“And gullible?” he asked. “What were you hoping, that you’d just have to outrun me, not them?”

She giggled. “You’re smarter than you look.” She tilted her head. “What’s ‘gullible’ mean?”

He frowned and took another bite out of his apple. When he finished chewing, he said, “Nothing.”

“Well, hey, you kept up. We should be friends. Work together.” She raised her hoof and grinned. “I’m Jinx.”

Shining Armor furrowed his brows. “How often do you eat?”

“Every single day.”

He raised his right forehoof and bumped it against hers. “Shining Armor.”

“Shining Armor? Really? Did your parents give you that name?” She laughed. “We’re going to call you ‘Shiny’.”

“Fine.”

She raised her hooves to her mouth and squealed quietly in delight. “This is great! I heard unicorns make really good pickpockets!”

In front of Shining Armor’s eyes, a thick foreleg shot through the hole in the fence. It looped around Jinx’s neck. Her eyes went wide, but before she could react, it yanked her through the hole. Loaves of bread tumbled out of her satchel and scattered on the ground.

“Gotcha!” the deep voice of an adult mare shouted. “You shouldn’t have squeaked, street rat!”

Shining Armor dodged back when the forehoof returned. “Now where’s your friend...” the owner said.

“Shiny! Run!” Jinx cried.

A picture of Jinx with a bleeding stump where her right forehoof had been formed in Shining Armor’s mind. No, he thought, a strange sense of calm falling over him, and slammed his hooves down on the invading foreleg. He was rewarded with a pained cry. The hoof withdrew, and he followed it out.

The mare on the far side of the fence held Jinx down with one foreleg. After squirming through the hole and regaining his footing, Shining Armor lunged at her. His hooves bounced off the adult pony’s hard shoulder. His target barely flinched.

“Why you little...” the mare said

In the blink of an eye, the mare struck him in the face with the back of her hoof. His head snapped to the side, and he bounced off the fence. Something wet oozed out of his throbbing nose. He smelled blood. Before he could recover, her hoof came down on his throat.

Shining Armor pushed at the foreleg attached to the hoof pressing down on his neck, trying to dislodge it as he struggled to breathe. He fought, choking, wishing he had the strength to break his attacker. Something surged in response to his wish, building to a crescendo and flowing down his foreleg.

The mare spat on his face. “Stinking little thieves!” she said. She turned her head away and opened her mouth, calling “I found—”

The fur around where Shining Armor’s hoof touched her foreleg turned to ash, exposing the skin beneath. Veins running through the pale flesh turned black. The mare toppled and fell off of him. As soon as he was free, he jumped to his feet and pressed his back against the fence.

“Woah, Shiny, what’d you do?” Jinx asked as she stood. “What was that? Magic?”

Shining Armor shook his head. “I don’t know! I didn’t mean to do it!” He reached up and wiped at his face. His hoof came away bloody, but his nose had stopped bleeding. His muzzle didn’t hurt. His throat wasn’t even sore. His flank tingled.

Jinx poked at the mare with a forehoof. She lay still. Her chest didn’t even move. “I think she’s dead,” Jinx murmured.

“Good,” Shining Armor growled. Shadows clung to the edges of his vision. He felt alive: energized.

Jinx stared at him. He could see fear in her eyes. She gestured at his flank. “Your Mark,” she said.

Shining Armor twisted and looked down at his flank. An image of a shield with a magenta star emblazoned across it and three stars above it had appeared in his fur. Did I earn that for killing her? he wondered, glancing at the corpse.

“We should go. The others will be here soon,” Jinx said, already trotting away.

Shining Armor planted his hooves. “Let them come.”

“What!” Jinx cried. “I’m leaving Shiny, with or without you.”

“Go,” Shining Armor said. Something seethed in his veins. He wanted more.

“Fine!” Jinx said. He heard the clop of her hooves as she ran away.

The shadows on the edge of his vision receded. He shook his head to clear it. She’s right. I have to run, he thought. I killed her! They might kill me! He turned to chase after Jinx, but she was already out of sight. He opened his mouth to call for her.

“This way! This is where I heard it from!” a pony shouted. The voice came from just outside of the alley.

Shining Armor shut his mouth and ran.

---

Shining Armor slid a collection of hard-earned bits into a pouch at his hip. A warm fire crackled nearby, surrounded by his fellows, orphans and runaways. Two buildings wedged together shrouded their little hide-away from the skyborn eyes of the Flaming Wing. It was a safe spot to sleep. He yawned, drawing a warm scrap of fabric closer around his thin form.

“Ey Shining!” a voice called.

Shining looked up. An older colt stared down at him. Shining Armor had earned his Mark a while ago, but this colt still stood a head taller than him. “What do you want, Hinge?” Shining asked.

“Come on, Shiny. You know what I want. I give you food, a warm place to stay; I get what you earn,” Hinge said.

“Are you robbing me?” Shining Armor said.

Hinge kicked him in the face. It hurt. Shining recoiled, rolling onto the ground. “It’s not robbin’ to take what’s mine!” Hinge shouted.

Shining Armor gripped an iron spike he’d filed to a point in his levitation. He whipped it out from his pouch and turned. Aiming at Hinge’s face, he struck. It was over in an instant. Hinge fell beside him, the spike lodged in his eye.

Shining Armor climbed to his feet and casually pulled the spike out of Hinge’s face. He wiped it clean on Hinge’s fur, then stowed it. Killing had been easy for him, even though he’d never been able to kill with a mere touch since the first time. It helped him survive. He glanced at the other young castaways around him, staring at him in shock. He snorted and turned away. I’ll find a new spot to sleep, he thought.

Before he reached the street ahead, a figure in a dark cloak stepped out of a doorway in front of him, blocking his path. He tried to step around, but the figure moved with him. He glimpsed a beak beneath the hood. “What do you want?” he growled.

“If you want a job kid, you should follow me,” the griffon said, a gleam in her eyes. “You’re strong, and you don’t hesitate. The Ninth Street Vixen is always looking for ponies like you.”

Shining Armor quirked a brow at the Griffon. “A job doing what?”

“Headhunting.”

---

Shining Armor walked along a jagged ridge.

To the right side of the ridge, he stood clad in black armor covered in blood. The heads of his enemies piled around his hooves. There, he was powerful, victorious.

On the left, he cowered behind a silver shield. Hungry shadows circled him. He was weary and outnumbered. There, he would surely die.

A figure blocked his path, Father Dusk. The shadows pulsed as he spoke.

“You’re going to have to make a choice. You can’t walk the line forever.”

His sister, a baby lavender unicorn, materialized in front of him. A dagger formed from shadow hovered above her. She looked up at him with black eyes.

“When you meet again, she will bathe in your blood, unless you have the strength to stop her. Choose wisely.”

The dagger pointed at him. It flickered and lunged at him. He hesitated, not sure which way to dodge. It raced toward him, about to plunge into his chest.

A loud knock on the door to Shining Armor’s room woke him. He groaned, rubbing his eyes. The dream lingered in his mind, almost identical to the one he’d had the night before, and the night before that.

“Who is it?” Shining Armor called.

“The Vixen wants to see you,” a voice answered from the far side of the door.

Shining Armor rolled out of his warm, soft bed. “Tell her I’m coming,” he said.

“Tell her yourself,” the voice called, already retreating away from the door.

Shining Armor sighed. It barely took him a step to reach the low table on the wall opposite the bed. He was grateful for the tiny room; it was far better than the street. He dipped his hooves into a water-filled bowl on the table and splashed his face. He shivered as the cool moisture soaked into his fur, jolting him awake. He wondered how long he’d been asleep. It felt like he’d only been out for a couple hours.

He closed a book he’d left open on the table. One of the first things the Thieves Guild had taught him was how to read at a basic level. He needed to be able to understand notes with details about his targets. On his own, he learned to read far more complex information. With the money he earned, he purchased books on mathematics, myth, and magic. He’d managed to learn a few simple spells. For some reason, protection spells, specifically Abjuration, came to him far easier than the others.

He opened the door and headed out into the narrow corridor beyond. After locking his room behind him, he trotted down the guildhouse stairs to the first level, where the Vixen’s office was. The floorboards creaked beneath his hooves in the silence. Even with the shuttered windows, he could tell it was sometime during the day; the guildhouse was far more active at night.

When he reached the Vixen’s door, he took a deep breath, raised his hoof, and knocked.

“Enter,” her voice rang out.

Shining Armor slipped into the office and shut the door gently behind him. A wrinkled mare with a greying mane sat on the far side of a mahogany desk. Her cold eyes flickered over a scroll in her hooves. “Sit,” she said, not taking her eyes off the scroll.

Shining Armor settled into a chair for guests. She set the scroll on the desk. “I see you’re awake,” she said, sliding the scroll across to him.

Shining Armor peered at the scroll. Cadenza, Mi Amore. Tall. Three tone mane. Purple eyes. Unicorn, like most nobles. An address in the city. Under guard, he noted, picking out the key information. He recognized the name. She was the daughter of one of Manehattan’s Duchesses.

“This came to me recently,” the Vixen said, finally looking at him, “and I thought, who better to take this one on than my very own Bloodhound?”

“You know I don’t like that name,” Shining Armor muttered.

“You’ve earned it. You should be proud of it. You’re one of my youngest hunters, and you’re the best.”

“We’ve had this conversation before.”

The Vixen chuckled. “We have, and it never gets through to you.”

Shining Armor gestured at the scroll. “Why her?”

The Vixen leaned back in her chair and sighed. “Shiny, Shiny, Shiny... Why do you always have to ask questions?”

“Humor me,” Shining Armor said.

“If I were to guess, it’s because she’s an only child, a lone daughter, her father is dead, and her mother is old. I’ll bet some of her aunts have their eye on her inheritance,” the Vixen said. “Satisfied?”

So, not anything she did, he thought. He checked the reward written on the bottom of the scroll. Even accounting for the guild cut, it was a tremendous amount. Usually, he’d have to do three jobs to make that much. Still, he prefered bounties posted by the Flaming Wing, as the targets were criminals.

The Vixen’s gaze hardened, focused on him. “You’re not turning this one down.”

Shining Armor nodded. “I’m not.” The pay was too high to reject the job. “But why wake me up for it?”

“Two reasons. One, her mother is out on a trip, and she’s bound to have taken some of the family’s personal guard with her, so it’s good timing. Two, it’s an open bounty,” the Vixen said. “There’s going to be competition.” She smiled at him. “You’d best get moving.”

Shining Armor stood and headed for the door. “Hold on,” the Vixen said. He paused in the doorway and looked back at her. “You haven’t let me down yet, Shiny. Don’t let me down this time. The guild’s reputation, and my reputation, is on the line here. I’m sending backup with you. Take Artemis and Vellum.”

Before he could protest, she held up a hoof. “They’ll only get a ten percent cut, each, regardless of who does the actual killing. I don’t want them getting in your way trying to make more bits.”

---

Shining Armor breathed air in through the vents in his masked helm. He peered down through the dusky gloom at the courtyard of an urban estate from a vantage point on a nearby rooftop. Two ponies flanked the front door, the plates of their polished armor reflecting the light of a lantern hanging above the door.

He shifted beneath his own armor: chainmail over a thin layer of leather. Unicorns that relied on magic in combat typically avoided armor, especially heavy helms that impeded their horn. As he understood it, most material except for specially woven fabrics made it harder for a unicorn to ‘feel’ the ley lines that fueled arcane spells. When he cast spells, he hardly noticed his armor.

He tested the weight of his favored weapon, his shield, a round wooden disk with a metal rim that he’d ground a sharp edge on himself. He also carried a bow slung across his back, along with six arrows. After seeing how strong his levitation was, the Vixen had insisted he practice using a bow. Eventually, he convinced her his time would be better spent learning magic. He was a poor shot, but he could still launch a projectile further, faster, and more accurately by bending the bow than by throwing it directly.

Vellum appeared beside him, clad in dark grey fabric over light armor. He blended into the night. The only sound when he moved up beside Shining Armor was the soft clink of chain links. “Artemis should be back soon,” he said quietly. “We did some lurking. I think the target’s room is on the second floor, east side. Artemis flew in closer to check it out.”

Shining Armor nodded an affirmative. He suspected that the Vixen had sent Vellum along complement his own skillset. Vellum was an earth pony that prefered quiet solutions, like the switchblade mounted on his wrist and the poisoned spike attached to the end of his tail. As for Artemis, they needed a scout.

A few seconds later, he spotted a shape against the sky. Artemis swooped in to land beside him, her talons clicking on the rooftop. She carried a crossbow slung across her back. “Her room is on the east side. It’s the only lit second story window on that wall of the building.”

“How do you know?” Shining Armor asked, eyeing the lit window.

“I peeked inside and saw her,” Artemis said. “I should be able to get the window open quietly. If she weren’t awake, I would have slipped in and finished this.”

“We move together,” Shining Armor said.

“I say we wait until she’s asleep, then climb the wall and take her out,” Vellum said.

Shining Armor shook his head. “I don’t like climbing.”

Artemis chuckled. “Why? ‘Cause you’re bad at it? You can stay behind if you want.”

“We move together,” Shining Armor repeated. “And climbing leaves us exposed. We don’t know who else is here.”

“What’s your plan, anyway?” Artemis asked. “Take the guards head on?”

Shining Armor nodded. “Yes.” He eyed the two guards. “You two take one; I take the other. We hit them fast. They won’t know what’s happening until they’re dead.”

Artemis shook her head wearily. “Kid, I’ve been at this game way longer than you have. There’s no way we’re going to beat down those two tin cans without waking up half the city, provided they don’t kill us first.”

“The armor around their neck is vulnerable. If you hit them there while they’re surprised, they won’t get the chance to protect themselves,” Shining Armor said.

“I like Vellum’s plan better. I don’t care that you’re the Vixen’s new favorite. I’m not going to let you get us all killed,” Artemis said.

Shining Armor snorted. I thought I was working with professionals. He frowned. He didn’t want to argue. “Fine. We’ll wait a few hours for night to set in, then move in.”

---

Waiting at the base of the east wall, Shining Armor glanced up to check his team’s progress. He’d managed to get over the estate’s courtyard wall without making too much noise, but he wasn’t keen on attempting to climb another. The window was dark now. Presumably, the target was asleep. Artemis tinkered with the latch, trying to leverage open the glass panes quietly. Vellum clung to small hoofholds between the mortared stones, already halfway up to the window. Vellum would be the one to sneak into her room and deliver the killing blow.

Thunk!

Artemis thumped against the wall and plummeted, a crossbow bolt through her neck. She slammed into a flower bed beside Shining Armor, the impact kicking up a cloud of dark soil and petals. She gurgled as she tried to breath, blood frothing at the corners of her beak and out her nostrils.

Above, Vellum released the wall and dropped. A second bolt arced out of the darkness and caught him in the shoulder before he hit the ground. He landed with a crunch, one of his hind legs twisted. This time, Shining Armor caught the direction the bolt came from: around the front of the house. He shifted, raising both his shield and his bow in his levitation as he moved to Artemis’s side. By the time he reached the griffon, she was already dead.

“Vellum?” he hissed. “You still with me?”

“That hit threw me off,” Vellum said. “I landed all wrong. I think my leg is broken, but I’m alive.”

Shining Armor nocked an arrow and focused on the corner of the house. He kept the shield in a fixed position in front of him and concentrated on using his bow. He glanced at Vellum. The shaft of the crossbow bolt had broken off. Dark blood oozed from the wound, spreading across his torso like a shadow.

Letting his concentration slip for a moment, Shining Armor tossed a healing potion to Vellum. Unfortunately, they only had one. “Take that to stop the bleeding, and get out,” Shining said. Vellum swigged the healing potion, then pulled another vial, an invisibility potion, from his cloak and held it out. Shining Armor shook his head. “You keep it.”

Vellum shrugged, drank down the second vial, and disappeared. “Good luck,” his disembodied voice said.

“Thanks,” Shining Armor whispered as he advanced with his shield and bow at the ready. He kept his eyes trained on the corner of the building. When he reached it, he whipped around the bend, leading with his shield.

The front courtyard was empty aside from the corpses of the two guards. Both of the guards had a crossbow bolt through their throat. Two shooters, most likely, Shining Armor thought. To take down both guards without raising the alarm, they would have had to hit them both at the same time. When they hit Artemis and Vellum, they didn’t have a third bolt to spare on him.

Shining Armor cautiously moved forward, approaching the front door of the estate. When he reached it, he found the doors wide open. Before advancing into the building, he cast a spell, manifesting an arcane shield to compliment his material one. He used his shields to cover to either side, in case they were waiting to ambush him, and crossed the threshold.

No bolts greeted him in the entry foyer. It was as deserted as the courtyard outside. He illuminated his horn, using the subdued glow to light his path in the dark interior. His hooves clicked on the marble floor as he trotted toward a curved staircase with a polished banister leading up to a second floor balcony. They could be in her room already, he thought. It didn’t matter – as long as there was only one hunter left to collect the bounty at the end of the night.

“Lady Cadance, run!” a voice shouted from the hallway at the top of the stairs.

Target’s on the move, Shining Armor thought. He took the steps two at a time. A row of floor-to-ceiling glass windows, the small panes supported by a wooden latticework, ran along the back wall of the balcony, revealing a moonlit veranda and the starry sky. Through the windows, he glimpsed her silhouette – tall, slender, with a thin sleeping gown flowing around her body as she ran across the veranda.

As Shining Armor reached the top of the stairs, a second, hooded pony stepped out onto the veranda and raised a foreleg with a crossbow strapped to it, pointing it at Cadance. She froze. My kill, Shining Armor thought. Without missing a step, he dropped his bow, bashed his way through the window with his shield, and burst out onto the veranda between the Cadance and her attacker.

Shards of glass flashed in the moonlight as they flew around him, deflecting harmlessly off his armor. He swung his arcane shield into position between him and the shooter, his other terribly out of position after shattering the glass.

The barrier lit as a bolt struck it and fragmented. Through the transparent shield, he caught a good look at the shooter. From the shape of her muzzle poking out from under the hood, he guessed that she was a mare. She carried two crossbows attached to her forelegs. The cranks she used to reload them poked out to either side. She was alone.

Shining Armor lunged, swinging the bladed edge of his shield at her. She dove to the side, and with a clear shot around his arcane shield, fired her second crossbow. A lance of pain shot into his chest as the bolt punched through his thin armor.

Shining Armor didn’t even flinch. Instead, he carried through with his shield and brought it down on her prone form. The edge buried into her spine between her shoulderblades; it was done.

Her cloak had fallen away from her flank when she dove, revealing her mark on her white-furred flank: a jester’s cap. For a moment, Shining Armor stared at the body. Jinx? he wondered.

“Who’re you?” a lovely voice asked from behind him.

Shining Armor turned; it was Mi Amore Cadenza, his target. For the first time, he saw her. Their eyes met through the slits of his mask. She looked back at him with her silken gown wisping around her, her violet eyes shining in the light of the moon, and concern written on her face. Ripping his shield free from the body, he took a step toward her. She was in reach. He could kill her with a single blow.

He hesitated. He’d never hesitated to kill before. He took a shuddering, wheezing breath. His side burned. I earned my mark by killing, he thought. He glanced at the corpse. Or did I earn it by saving her?

Two armored guards burst out onto the veranda behind Cadance, weapons ready. They rushed in front of her. “Drop your weapon!” one of them shouted.

It was too late. He’d lost his window. His head swam as he eyed the railing. A one story drop, then he could run. He took a step toward it, and stumbled, collapsing against the railing. His bloody shield slipped from his grasp and tumbled off the edge through a gap..

Gasping, he looked at the corpse on the veranda. Did I cause this, by killing that pony in front of her all those years ago? Would she be dead if I stayed with her? he wondered.

“M’lady, stand back!” one of the guards shouted.

A shadow fell over Shining Armor, and he looked up. Cadance stood over him. She reached down with a forehoof, and pulled his masked helm off of his head. She’s seen my face, he thought as he faded away into unconsciousness.

---

Shining Armor woke up on smooth, hard surface. A colored pattern of light shined down on him from above. A visage of the goddess Celestia wrought in stained glass stared down at him. The morning Sun behind her lanced through the window and illuminated the panes. He shifted, reaching up to touch his side. His armor was gone. When he touched his ribs, he found his flesh whole.

He remembered flickers of consciousness: being carried through the streets, his armor being removed, hooves touching him, and his pain vanishing. Blinking in the bright light, he turned his head. A dozing pony in white robes with a wispy, grey beard reclined next to him.

Shining Armor swallowed to wet his throat and said, “Where am I?”

The old pony started awake. Fumbling for the pair of spectacles in his lap, he peered down at Shining Armor. “You’re in a temple, on an altar where we healed you.”

Shining Armor shifted into a sitting position. He closed his eyes, a sense of vertigo washing over him. “How many hours?” he asked.

“Six, give or take. You were in pretty bad shape when you got here.”

Did she bring me here? he wondered. He could only hope. Her face was burned into his memory. He wanted to see her again. How can I? he thought. “Can you make me better?” he asked.

The old pony chuckled. “We already did.”

Shining Armor shook his head. He couldn’t be the killer anymore. He couldn’t be the pony that slaughtered Jinx and considered murdering the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. He had to escape it all; the Thieves Guild, his past, everything. He glanced up at Celestia. Maybe she can save me.

I have to be better, Shining Armor thought. “I meant... I want to change. I’ve done bad things. I want to be better.”

Author's Note:

Acknowledgements:
Editor: Idle Prose

Comments

[Crimson Dawn]

Hmm a story talking about Shining Armor and his past? Interesting. I wonder if we will get other character back stories for the ones who have some mystery. We know about Twilight, Rarity and now Shining armor but who else has an interesting story to tell? I think we know enough about AJ (unless there is something you kept secret) and I am not sure about Fluttershy or Rainbow Dash. Pinkie could be interesting. We know she had that book but that is it and it seems there is more to Pinkie than what Twilight knows...

[Spectrumancer]

Shining's Backstory!

[Norad2]

Just more of your stories. Quietly being awesome.