Harmony's Creed

by Gapeagle

Chapter 35: Nothing is True

"Are you ever going to speak?"

"Octy, I can't answer your questions because I don't know! I would have told you if I did."

"Pinkie, these shards have been in your knowledge for quite some time. What do you mean, you don't know what they are?"

"All we know is that they are similar to Elements, but not. We don't know what they exactly are. Not even Laughter knows."

"Then how does a bloody pirate know?"

"He dealt with them? I don't know. We find most of the shards in the Labyrinth Isles, so we don't really see them often. Assassins are in Equestria, not those islands."

"Leave Pinkie alone, Octavia. She's telling the truth."

"I bloody doubt that, Fluttershy."

The Bearer of Kindness gave me a stern look. A look I had never seen from her before. I grumbled and turned my gaze to the road. I had been trying to pry information about the Crystal Heart from the Bearers for hours. They seemed as much in the dark about it as me. As I am a stubborn woman, I did not let up. That was until Fluttershy's intimidating stare. Though I will never admit it to any soul other than myself, but the stare was almost nightmarish.

"Now say that you are sorry to Pinkie." The Bearer ordered me.

I gritted my teeth behind the mask. "I'm sorry."

"Oh it's alright. No harm done." Pinkie told me in her usual happy voice.

"Ugh..." I placed a hand on the mask. It was the closes thing to being able to rub my face in frustration. The journey felt much longer than what it really was. We were over halfway to the port, but it seemed that we had just started. By the time I reached Baltimare, I was sure that Spitfire would have moved on. If she was still working like an Assassin, she would not spend much time in one place.

"Wait...What is Spitfire doing in Baltimare?" I said my thought aloud.

"Maybe she likes beaches?" Pinkie suggested.

"It always seemed like a lovely place to visit, especially when you've grown up in.....Cloudsdale." Fluttershy said the name of the city with mild distaste.

"With those horrid suggestions out of the way, let's reason why she is there." I retorted.

"Well, you know, Templar stuff." The Bearer of Laughter shrugged. "Who knows, maybe she is there for Crystal shards?"

Fluttershy rubbed her chin. "Oh yes, that may be it. Caramel and Rainbow found some shards on their journeys so they may be still out there in the sea."

"If Caramel is accurate, that would mean such a find is of utmost importance to the Order. There may be more than just revenge awaiting us in Baltimare."

"You mean revenge for you." Pinkie pointed out.

"Oh, of course."

I fell silent as we entered a large clearing in the woods. The grass was high and waving in the wind. In front of us was a large river. By the current and size, I could tell that this was the Bronze River. Our odd route made us not reach it until later in our journey, as Caramel's homestead was much farther south than I realized. We had now finally reached the Bronze River and now our route to Baltimare was easy to follow.

"Let the horses drink. They've been working hard." Fluttershy told us.

We all dismounted and led the horses to the cold waters. The sun was in the west, becoming a bright orange in the late sky. Pinkie looked about the scenery with a fair amount of interest. Her eyes dashed from tree to tree, as if she was following something. I soon realize that she was watching a squirrel making its way across the woods. The Bearer then turned to Fluttershy with a mischievous grin.

"Hey Flutters, wanna catch a squirrel?"

"Oh? Uhh....I don't think that will be nice...." Fluttershy hesitantly responded.

"How will you catch such a creature anyway?" I asked the Bearer.

"Duh. By running, silly."

"Ha, and can you outrun a squirrel?"

"Maybe not, but I can try. Ol' Maud and I used to act like animals all the time. We did tree-running through the woods behind the rock farm."

"Tree-running? What is that?"

"What the squirrel's doing."

I returned my gaze to the small creature. It jumped from one branch to the other, quick and fluid. The idea of a human being able to imitate it seemed preposterous, even to one skilled in the art of parkour. The Bearer of Laughter ran over to a large tree and began to swiftly climb it.

"C'mon Octy! It's fun."

Fluttershy smiled at me. "You can go with her, I'll watch the horses."

I looked at the Bearer in the tall tree. She gestured for me to follow and ran off on the high branches. I had nothing better to do, so I ran to the tree. Feeling grips in the bark was something I was unaccustomed to doing. My knowledge was with wooden boards and stone walls. I grabbed onto a low branch and pulled myself up. The branch snapped and I jumped to another. I then ran up the trunk until there was a split in the tree. There I rested until I jumped to another branch. Pinkie waved at me from a tree.

"Move fast. Most branches won't support you, so you gotta keep moving."

As she said this, I felt the branch I was standing on give way. I quickly hopped to another branch. To retain my balance, I grabbed a nearby vine. The Bearer of Laughter giggled and swung herself around a trunk to a branch on the other side.

"Let's get a squirrel!" She shouted.

She pointed at such a creature and sprinted after it. I mentally shrugged and followed. Around this, over that, swing on that. Don't fall! I jumped on a dead tree. The tree gave way and it fell on a smaller tree. I used this to easily jump to a nearby branch. I felt a tug at my cape and realized that it had torn on a bough. Well, I was glad Rarity wasn't there to see it. The Bearer of Laughter was way ahead of me. Her tongue hung out of her mouth and her eyes dashed about.

I was not so keen on catching the squirrel as Pinkie was, but the feel of running again was exhilarating. Over this! Over that! I leaped onto some vines and swung quickly to the nearest tree. I was keeping up with the Bearer of Laughter, but she was clearly more skilled at this tree-running. I tiptoed on a branch until I ran to the trunk. Like the did before with the trunk, I swung around it to a branch on the other side.

I swung on a vine to another tree. Birds flew from the hidden nests in the leaves. I looked down. Fluttershy guided the horses on the road below. From the treetops, I could see many different animals running about in the forests. Deer, groundhogs, and the occasional cockatrice. I jumped and jumped, making sure that I did not fall to the rough forest floor.

Suddenly, I heard a loud whistle to my left. I turned to see something that I still do not believe. Running along with me, at some distance, was a figure in white robes. Her crazy hair was a blue darker than the sky. The eyes were of a magenta color. The figure smiled broadly at me. She made a gesture with her hand, as if pointing a pistol to her head. A tree came between us and when it passed, the figure was gone. I blinked and continued. The Bearers were acting the same.

Jump there, go there, swing, hop, go! My thoughts remained on the figure. I didn't want to accept what I saw. I looked at my left again. Alas! There she was again. She had her hand the same way. I heard her make the sound of a gunshot with her voice and cocked her pistol hand upward. She then stuck her tongue out at me playfully. She did all of this while staying with me through the woods.

"What?"

"Haha!" The figure laughed.

The voice, it too was familiar. I knew who the figure was, very well. She seemed to have been enjoying the pain she was putting me through. The figure turned and disappeared in the woods. I hesitated as I wanted follow. My hesitation made me run straight into the trunk of a tree. The force knocked me over and I fell through several branches before finally reaching the ground.

Fluttershy gasped and ran over to me. I motioned to her that I was alright. My back ached from the fall, but I didn't care. The figure remained in my head. Why? Why? That was all that I could think. Pinkie ran over to me. She was cuddling a squirrel in her arms. She clearly was indifferent to my fall.

"Look Octy! I got 'em!" She practically shoved the creature into me.

"I.....I see." I muttered.

"What happened Octavia?" Fluttershy asked.

"Oh? I....I don't know. Hallucinating, that's all."

"Oh, oh, oh! Who were you seeing Octy?" Pinkie asked.

"....It was Vinyl. I was seeing Vinyl running in the trees."

At the sound of my friend's name, their faces fell. I could see sympathy in their expressions. I tried to ignore their looks and slowly walked over to my horse. I silently mounted the stallion. I realized that my sight was altered. I removed Vinyl's mask and inspected it. My jaw tightened as I saw a massive crack in the middle of the mask. My mistake had ruined her mask. The object in my hands was only a piece of wood with two lenses, but the sight of the damage ripped at my heart. I felt like I had harmed her even beyond death.

I urged my horse to get going. The two Bearers watched me ride away in silence. I was so close to feeling the freedom and awesomeness of running in the wind. I had never felt closer to happiness since Vinyl's demise. Now, it had only worsened the wound. Caramel's words came back into my head, but they had no effect. The wound was salted even more by the hallucination. The way she moved her hands, she was signalling her death. Was she shot by Spitfire? I knew that the Templar used such things before, like the odd firearm when she usurped the Brothers in Cloudsdale. No, I do not think that's how my friend died. I could have been simply depicting her and her antics in my memory.

I sighed and rode on. The Bearers had finally mounted their steeds and were behind me. I looked at the sun. We had only a couple of hours of daylight. I wanted to be in Baltimare now more than ever. I could no longer keep my friend's memory through the mask, I now had to avenge Vinyl and put an end to Spitfire's bloody existence.

---

"See? My cooking ain't THAT bad. I can cook more than just pastries." Pinkie boasted.

I grimaced at my vegetable stew. The carrots and the bits of potato were undercooked and quite rubbery. I did not know how the Bearer made carrots able to bend like hers did. We did not have any trace of meat in the stew due to Fluttershy's vegetarian ways. This disappointed me as we could have easily hunted for some creatures in the woods that surrounded us.

"Next time, I'm going to cook." I told the Bearers.

"But you're a musician." Pinkie remarked.

"And you're a bloody rock farmer." I responded.

"Fine! Flutters is going to cook!" Pinkie pointed at her friend.

"What? Oh, I'm not sure if I can." Fluttershy said in a worried tone.

"I'm sure it will be better than this." I gestured at the bowl in front of me.

I could see Pinkie's glare from across the fire. The camp we had set up for the night was a modest one, with two tents. I had assumed that I was sleeping under the stars, but the Bearer of Laughter preferred sleeping on the dirt, so I had gained a tent. The horses were all tied up to a tree close by. Their constant neighs annoyed me to no end. The Bearer of Laughter crossed her arms and gave a frustrated grunt.

"Well, since you are like that, I shall have the rest of the food."

"Be my guest."

I handed her my bowl. After the days events, I was not hungry in the first place. When Pinkie took the bowl, I walked away from the camp. The sounds of the forest increased as I made more distance from the warm fire. The night was not yet dark enough for the forest to be shrouded in shadow. I could still see some ways into the woods.

I found a large tree and sat at the base of the trunk. The grass next to it was comfortable. I pulled out Vinyl's injured mask. The wood's smoothness was gone due to the crack. The crack was large enough for one to see through it. The artful symmetry in the mask was lost with such a horrid wound. The forest became silent as I sat there.

"Oh Vinyl....Why do you still torment me? Am I being a true friend by seeking revenge? Should I leave you to be forgotten like every other Assassin? What should I do?"

"Just hang in there, Lady Octavia."

The ghostly voice startled me. The voice was smooth and masculine with a slight twirl. The echo that followed was ominous. My eyes darted around. There was nothing in sight. The voice began to chuckle. A chuckle that was pure evil.

"Are you afraid? You shouldn't be. I mean no harm."

"Show yourself!" I yelled into the forest.

"Hehehe, so pitiful you humans are, really. You have no understanding of this world. So much has been lost to the centuries."

"Who are you to say so?"

The ethereal voice chuckled again. "Hehehe. You shall soon know. Just know this, Nothing is True."

A figure walked out from the foliage of the woods. I stared at the figure with shock. Her electric blue hair, her bright eyes, her mocking smile. She placed her hands in the robes of her bloodied white robes. She was clearly amused by the situation. I felt myself backed up against the trunk of the tree. My heart raced with fear and every other emotion possible. What spirit was in front of me?

"Vinyl? Is that you?" I asked the familiar figure.

"Heh, the one and only." She answered.

~

Author's Note:

Where is that collective "wut?"

Ghostly voice is done on my check list. :P

Comments

[Linkonpark100]

I actually saw that coming.

[Gapeagle]

5273104 I know ya did.

[Not so New Brony]

A mask is an object, not a living being. Damaged would be a better choice in place of injured.

Also, this is either a case of hallucination or it's someone pretending to be Vinyl...or, it's really Vinyl and she's somehow faked her death.

[Gapeagle]

5273129 No, I used injured on purpose. To Octavia, the mask is almost a living thing. And she's the one writing this. So there.

And we shall see....

[Not so New Brony]

5273151 That's an interesting way of putting it, though I really wonder if referring to an object as a living being is mentally healthy, though with what Octavia's been through, completely understandable.

Also, such a tease

[Linkonpark100]

5273105 Pshaw, you know me too well.

[Gapeagle]

5273199 I don't know why, but I found this hilarious.

[Linkonpark100]

5273228 XD

[Wolf Blood]

Vinyl either faked her death or Octavia is just staring at a phantom like Ezio in Revelation's Gaeagle you are doing an awesome job

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/163/8/c/ezio_and_altair_at_masyaf_by_solarwolfen-d3ir0b0.png

[predatornc]

Vinyl VINYL VINYL VINYL VINY MISS SPELLING HER NAME YEAH!!!!!!!!! *grabs chair and throws it to ground* YEAH VINYL YEAH

*sister walks into room* Ca- *lifts sister up and starts spinning* F#$@ing VINYL YEAH!

[Gapeagle]

5280984 I was wondering when you'd show up.

Hope your Sis is ok....

[Gapeagle]

5292193 Oh shoot! I thought I escaped with that one.

Good job mate

[Gapeagle]

5304120 Well, he kinda lives in a Homestead right? So of course he'll be similar.

[Mythic Day]

What? huh? How? I blame discord....