Crystal heart

by A pensive Squirrel

Early bird catch'eth

Salem woke with a foetal mass of shivering Empress held in the convexity of his body. He rolled her across the hard mattress but stopped her before she could roll of the side. He leaped from the bindings of bedding, stuffing his hooves into his grieves and boots, fastening his rustic dragon mail. His armour was forged of dead dragon scale, not to mock or spite his allies, but because it was by far the most lightweight and durable fabric known to equine kind.

He grasped the ghostly mane at the back of Luna’s neck and lugged the deceivingly weighty mare down the stairs and into the bar where soaks were still sleeping from a night’s dogged drinking.

“Your minds are safe just as long as she is grounded. Tie her wings and gag her.”

The poor stallion seemed to have forgotten himself. He was bottom rung now, so low down he was touching the floor. The lubricated whelps and whelks managed strained chortles.

“Thinks he’s all that and a sack o’ oats, this braggart does! I didn’t even like yah when you were king, so why would I give a crap when you’re poorer than me?”

Salem’s latescent agenda was about to be revealed in a cinematic display both gregarious and vain, two things of which would his day bane. His phosphorescent eyes glinted madly in the dank inn. Dark scarlet arcs of lightning travelled along his distorted horn and in an instant, the rancour of the denizens became stiff servility. They bowed, spilling their pints of proper dry cider, and they saluted, elbowing fellow patrons in the chin and eye.

The boozing bandits quickly mobbed the second seed of Equestria and hauled her over to a pillar. One secured her with a length of rope he wore as a belt while another spread drool on the floor from his cadaverously loose lower lip.

Then they hogtied the mare and escorted her unwillingly into the early morning song.

Salem gulped, thinking perhaps his speech had been overheard. He had thought the bar empty after his brawl with martingale. There was no keeping an addict from his vice. This Salem was familiar with. In a little sequestered island in his mind, he knew the diminishing morality and efficacy of his modus operandi. Eventually there would be no more willing participants in his arcane game.

He had stared long enough at the landlady for her to clip him around the earhole.

“Jokes like him should be locked up. Damn near blinded me. Are you taking the mick as well? Why don’t you take a picture? The bruise will fade!”

“Good morning to you as well, Ms Foster. Your mane is looking as grey and tatty as usual. I hope you don’t mind the impromptu tenant. This won’t show on our rent will it?”

“I’ve seen nothing.”

“Good answer. I let loose last night, really opened up to my family. Were any of your customers passed out in here? If so, give me their names and addresses and I will be quickly out of your frizzy hair.”

“I sent them packing when you and that crook started trading blows next to my antique saddle collection.”

“That’s a relief. There’s a bit of a warzone upstairs, better fetch the handyman. I know one, he is my daughter’s husband, but he is also dying from colic.”

“Why would I?”

“The flat’s a bit of a state. Send a quote under the door. After today I won’t be living here anymore.”

The mare buffed a pint glass ready for its incoming shelling. She wiped the bar down too, turning the strong spirit optics so that the fancy lettering of the labels faced the clientele.

“Where are you off to now?”

“Thought I’d potter about the place, take in the sights, visit the museum, have a bite to eat. Maybe I’ll look for a job to pass the symptoms of my syndrome- four walls syndrome that is. You know I have to say, what Empyrean lacks in finesse, he more than makes up with eccentricity. He has transformed this little sideshow amusement part into something liveable, somewhere to thrive.”

The mare despondently looked away, her mind entrapped in different schemas. She rubbed her blackened eye to soothe it and downed a shot of something potent.

“I’ve been robbed three times, and that’s just this last week. It’s different, aye, but it has no heart, no soul. It’s like an inhuman framework of obscene taxes and gendarmerie whose only loyalties are to the bourgeoisie. Coin speaks loud around here.”

Salem leaned over the bar and stoked the purpled cheek of the mare, her eyes obstructed by the bulbous swelling around it.

“You’ve been good to us. Admittedly our holdings are vastly under code. I am sorry for my conduct the night ere; I was testy from fruitless hunting for employment. I was brushing up on my mathematics and English, I thought perhaps a career as a schoolteacher or even the headmaster would serve the people well.”

“Think nothing of it. Thanks for stopping that rumpus.”

“It’s what friends are for. Our mutual relationship is built upon tenderness and compassion, is it not? You scratched my back. I will return the favour. I will cast a charm over this building, make it so the cullies have no amorous thoughts whatsoever, no libido whatsoever, I’ll take away every scrap of self-control they have. Better I hold the strings.”

“I don’t know, Mr Sombra.”

“You don’t want calm? I’ll give you profit. I can make them generous, charitable. I can coerce them to drink water and think it’s the best damned pint they’ve ever had. I can make them your slaves, make them worship and praise you. How does that sound?”

Foster rested her hoof on the bar and looked away, hoping the kitchen staff might notice and help her. Her hoof was soon encased in Salem’s. He concealed his face beneath the cowl of his cape and spun around in a cascade of gleaming tarnished silver and ravishing rouge.
He left the mare to pensive thought while he broke into canter for the first step of his plan.

Comments

[A pensive Squirrel]

Very much belated, but I have finally resumed work on this piece. No one is watching this by now I guess but just in case you are out there, here's more gritty gravelly grandeur for your enjoyment. Not much more to go now.