Just Roll With It: Kayla-verse

by sunnypack

6 - Coincidentally

Chapter 6: Coincidentally

You know, if it weren't for the ever present danger and the sense of paranoia, I would have liked sneaking around. Reminds me of times when Discord and I played hide and seek.

It was the middle of the night so I wasn't expecting anyone to come out. I kept my disguise on and I stalked towards the gates. I wondered, exactly how was I going to get past it? Could I teleport? Too flashy. Should I somehow disable the guards and get through? Not likely. I wasn't trained in any sort of combat. Should I try and disguise myself with some other illusion and get past the gate while they're out looking for me?

I fingered the collar around my neck. While it had been easy to disguise the collar with a simple illusion spell, it was difficult to extend that field around my body, especially since there was a lot of relative movement between my limbs and my body. Extending the field far would be a huge drain on my power. I don't think I could sustain it for more than a few seconds. Walking as I was, I would get to the gate in a few minutes. I still didn't have a plan and everything kind of scrambled.

I tapped the collar again. It was some kind of metal that was conducive to thaumic charge. I pursed my lips. Could it be possible to keep charge within it? I considered it for a moment before discarding the idea as well. I wasn’t anywhere near advanced enough in magic to achieve something like that. The transmutation I performed stretched the limits of my ability and the spell matrix was already held in place by Tempora, with some pretty advanced Time manipulations I wasn’t even close to understanding.

I sighed in frustration. Sometimes things just go so well and then you hit a brick wall. At this rate I’d have to contemplate going back. I really didn’t want to do that, but I felt like I had no choice, I would have to wait for the ideal opportunity and then escape later. I was about to turn around and trudge back, but I paused. Something sounded suspiciously like the sound of snoring. As I approached the gate, the sound became louder. I waddled closer, marvelling at how the soft pads of my pawed feet would mute the sound of my paw steps. I drew nearer to the sound, stepping into the light of the torches. By now I should have been challenged. I frowned, peering at the guard towers. Boy, sound does carry when you snore that loudly, at that height.

I scaled the ladder carefully, unused to the sensation of a rope ladder. I’d climbed wooden ones before, but these felt wibbly wobbly and I almost smacked my limbs and my face into the hard, rough scaffolding of the tower. Cursing silently, I made my way up the tower and finally got to the source of snoring. I recognised the tiger, it was Naila. The guard was fast asleep, with a dart protruding from her neck. I sighed. This was a fight I obviously had no business being a part of. Conflicting thoughts whizzed around in my mind. Obviously, I could leave the tigers to their fate. The alternative was to take this chance and escape. Who knew the next time I would have a chance to flee?

I snarled, yanking the dart from Naila’s neck. The poison or sleeping drug would have already made it into her bloodstream, but it probably wasn’t a good idea to leave it in there. The tower’s platform had little else but I was able to spot a knife, which I used to roughly section a bit of Naila’s tunic, making a very rough bandage for her neck. There probably wouldn’t be much bleeding, but I wanted to make sure.

Checking her pulse radially, and being surprised that the physiology was vaguely similar to humans. I felt a strong heartbeat and relaxed slightly. Her heartbeat seemed a little fast, but I attributed that to her species. Regardless, there was nothing more I could do for her. Carefully, I peeked over the tower’s low wall. Whoever made that dart shot must have been amazingly accurate or used the aid of some sort of magic. In either case, the tower would have been visible clearly from their position.

Scanning the area, I eventually spotted a small rocky outcropping with muted firelights. They must have lit them after taking out the sentries. I slumped back against the tower and grappled with myself again. Tempora, Star Swirl, Celestia, Luna and Discord, they could all be in trouble, what should I do? Would I regret this chance to escape? I didn’t know if I could find them on my own. I clicked my tongue softly and made a decision.

If I was going to give myself up again, it was going to be on my terms.

–––––

I made my way out, heading towards the fire lights. As I drew close, I could hear the clinking sounds of metallic armour and the rough grunts of orders from a deep baritone voice.

“Gart’nir!” it shouted, as I cast an amplification spell. “Gear up already, we’re beginning attack in half and hour.”

“Relax,” a surly voice replied. “We’ve snuck through the border easily and the poison was designed to last all night. Don’t be so uptight, Commander.”

“If you were not the King’s son, I would have gutted you by now,” the Commander shot back. “You may be protected from death, but I can make this service for you very unpleasant.”

“You forget, Commander,” Gart’nir replied. “That I funded and approved for this raiding party. If you want to go toe-to-toe with me, Commander, make sure you’ve got the strength to back it up. Being the Paymaster does divide loyalties of our soldiers, after all.”

Gart’nir made a small concession. “Let’s make it an hour, this battle gear is so cumbersome to put on.” He yawned. “Besides, I will be taking my place at the rear column. Nothing to be afraid of.”

With that, the Commander grunted and stalked off, yelling orders to various other soldiers within the camp. I had heard enough at that point. They were going to attack the castle.

On my way back to the solidly built castle, I spotted laundry splayed out on sticks. I think they belonged to the local dyer because the fabric was dyed in all different colours. I reached out for one and then hesitated. Ah, I wasn’t going to become a thief just to sneak around. Retracting my paw, I resigned myself to think of some clever explanation as to why I came back without a tunic.

–––––

Turn out I didn’t really need a clever explanation.

“So you don’t have any clothes back at home either.” The leader-guard person, eh I’ll just refer to him as the Captain, gave me a most unimpressed glare. I averted my gaze and kept my head down, kicking at the floor morosely with my hands behind my back.

“Actually, you were right, they were all back at the servant’s quarters.”

Nikta growled. “So I opened the door for nothing?”

“Well I wouldn’t say for nothing, I did go out and back–“

“This is giving me a headache,” the guard on the right barked. “Just let the stupid cub go and the next time he wants out, he won’t be getting anywhere unless we see papers from the King himself.” The others seemed to agree.

Nikta rolled her eyes at me, whacking me over the head with an open paw.

“Don’t be stupid,” she commented, and went back to her post, all of them leaving me alone in the antechamber. As they left I let go of a breath. Well it looks like this route of sneaking was definitely closed to me.

I made my way back and found Kayla missing from her sleeping spot.

“Oooh he’s gone, what do I do?!” I hear her muttering out loud from within my room. Time to make a dramatic entrance.

“Probably shouldn’t have locked him up in the first place,” I commented mildly. She hissed at me and leaped back on top of my bed. I chuckled as she flailed to get her footing as she recognised that it was me and that I wasn’t going to immediately attack her, or something. Her spear was nowhere in sight.

“Thought I’d drop by and give you a warning,” I said, breaking the silence that ensued my dramatic appearance. Kayla slowly got down from the bed, but still remained tense, regarding me with suspicion in her eyes.

“What is this warning?” she asked casually. Her paws twitched.

I leaned against the doorframe giving Kayla a look. “Well there’s a bunch of soldiers outside your village right now. Some guy named Gart’nir is apparently in charge of them. They want to take the castle. The sentries were knocked out with some sort of sleeping dart. Just thought you should know.”

Kayla’s expression turned frantic as she processed the information. She headed to the door, but then turned back, regarding me with quizzical eyes.

“Thank you,” she said sincerely. She paused for a while. “But why did you come back?”

“Well to be fair, you may not have made the best choices regarding me, but that doesn’t mean I’ll sleep better knowing that I just ignored a possible invasion and helped some people kill other people. If you could fend them off somehow that’d be great.” I shrugged. “This isn’t really my fight, but you’ve at least treated me fairly well.” I drew myself up.

“But this is where we part ways,” I finished, heading for the door. “You owe me for this and I think this is worth my freedom.” I punctuated the end of my sentence by tugging on my collar. The small thaumic charge holding it together broke with a snap and I handed the collar to a shocked tigress.

I could only smile grimly as I stared at the collar.

“Next time,” I grimly stated. “You might want to ask someone if they wanted to become your spirit guide before snapping a collar on their neck.”

–––––

Tempora worked her unsteady way up the twisting spires of the never-ending staircase. She thought it might be some sort of cosmological joke that the ruler of Equestria, the alicorn of Time, would spend all her time walking up a staircase. She knew she was gaining elevation, as the ground was dropping away and she knew that she was getting closer to the core of the structure. She sighed once again, bending her head and plodded along.

–––––

Star Swirl tried his best to calm down the panicking children.

“Where’s Harmony?” Discord cried, looking around.

“I’m sure he’ll be here soon,” Star Swirl said, waving his arms around. Privately, he wondered where the heck his apprentice was. Clover was so much better at handling foals than he was.

“Mother? I thought she was coming with us?” It was the Sun Princess that had spoken. Ugh, talk about overpowered. He gestured for calm again.

“Yes, yes I’m sure she’s on the way, your mother is not a complete idiot.”

Celestia pouted and kicked the unicorn in the shin. Star Swirl yelped and danced back from the irate foal.

“What?” he muttered. “What in Tartarus did I say?”

Celestia kicked him again. “Don’t swear, Mother said so. Also, stop being mean.”

Luna nodded. “Swearing is bad,” she added helpfully.

“Oh for pony’s sake. Lay off will you two? Otherwise I might decide to just leave you here and go look for the shield myself.”

At that the foals suddenly fell silent.

Good, Star Swirl thought. Some peace and quiet.

Discord touched a claw and paw together. “You won’t really leave us behind, would you?” he asked plaintively.

Celestia gave him large round eyes, Luna followed suit. “You’re going to leave us?” she choked with her eyes welling with tears.

“No, don’t go!” Luna wailed, clinging to Star Swirl.

The unicorn moaned and wiped a hoof across his muzzle. “By all the frigging Stars…”

“Fine! Stop it! I wasn’t going to leave you!” he flopped down on the grass and laid his head between his hooves. He suddenly had a headache.

“Yaaaaaaaay!” the three cheered and they all hugged him. Discord doing so hesitantly, he kind of knew that Star Swirl disliked hugs.

Star Swirl just mumbled a couple of silent obscenities to himself and rubbed his aching forehead.

Author's Note:

A

Comments

[Zenith Sparkle]

Knick knack paddy whack give a? Missed me?