Seeing Sanguine

by Winged Cat

9: An Unpleasant Trail

"So Fluttershy," Applejack drawled as they neared the tree line that marked the edge of Everfree Forest, having first taken a look around to confirm the three of them were the only ones in earshot. "Ah'm surprised yer goin' along with this."

The direct path from barn to forest did not pass near Fluttershy's cottage, but she glanced in that direction anyway. "W-well...it is Princess Celestia's orders, and..."

Applejack closed her eyes momentarily. "Trainin' a monster slayer."

Both pegasi looked at her in surprise.

At the silent response, Applejack's eyes opened and rolled. "Oh come ON. Cutie mark in killin'. Havin' a reason to make nice with monsters. Somethin' Pinkie Pie'd call 'adventurer'. Ah may not be as smart as Twilight but ah can DO the math."

Sanguine took a step away from Applejack as they trotted on. "Err...that's a bit scary how you can do that..."

Applejack glanced at her. "Is it now? Somethin' else ya hidin'?"

Fluttershy stepped between the two. "Applejack, please don't interrogate her. Sanguine, Applejack's Element is Honesty. It can take a bit of getting used to sometimes."

"Yes'm," Sanguine squeaked, measuring her pace to keep as much of Fluttershy between herself and Applejack as possible. Sanguine hiding behind Fluttershy worked far more successfully than the reverse.

Fluttershy looked at Applejack. "There, see? You were scaring her."

Applejack looked away for a moment, noticing they had passed through the edge of the forest. She had not approached it from this direction often, but if memory served there was a path up ahead. "Sorry, but when somepony's scared of somepony just for figurin' things out..." She sighed, looked back, and stopped. "Uh, Fluttershy?"

Fluttershy stopped too. "Yes?"

Applejack pointed across Fluttershy. "She's gone."

Fluttershy looked to her side. Sanguine was indeed absent.

Applejack began looking around. "Ah didn' think ah scared her THAT bad."

"Up here," came Sanguine's whisper.

Applejack and Fluttershy looked up. Sanguine was shadowing them from above, moving along a tree branch with feline grace.

Applejack walked underneath Sanguine and looked straight up. How her hat stayed on, despite the lack of visible ties, even when her head was tilted straight up was another prized piece of Apple family lore. "What are ya doin'?"

Sanguine motioned upward. "We don't want to be seen, right? So stay off the open ground! And keep your voices down!"

Fluttershy was a master of speaking softly. "Oh! Good idea!" She hovered up behind Sanguine.

Sanguine waved her off. "Get another branch. This one'll snap with the two of us."

In contrast to Sanguine and Fluttershy, Applejack continued speaking normally and stayed on the ground. "Now where'd ya learn to walk like that?"

Sanguine pointed Fluttershy to another branch as she answered, "Following the Royal Guard around."

Applejack cocked her head. "Jus' fer fun?"

Sanguine blinked and forgot to keep whispering. "Nooo? Celestia asked me to."

Applejack frowned and sat down. "Ah KNEW it. Ah think it's high time y'all told us what ELSE Celestia had ya up to."

Fluttershy, reluctant to disturb the centipedes that lived on the branch Sanguine had pointed her to - though she suspected Sanguine had simply not seen them - fluttered down. "You knew what?"

Applejack held up a hoof. "Ssh, let 'er talk."

Sanguine had been perching on the branch. Now she clung to it, fear setting in, mind racing to figure out what offense she might have given. "What? B-but...I did everything Celestia told me to!"

Applejack nodded. "Ah know. An' that's th' problem. Please tell Fluttershy here exactly what all you did - th' rest of it, th' part that was under Celestia's order, during yer sentence."

"I kept killing ponies," Sanguine replied as if it was the most obvious fact in the universe.

Fortunately for the trio, Fluttershy's "WHAT?!?" was muffled by the forest, and only set a flock of birds to flight.

"Well, a pony," Sanguine corrected. "And a griffon. A dragon too." She noticed that Fluttershy's pose exactly matched Twilight's back at the library, save for the lack of bedhead. A stray strand of thought tried momentarily to figure out why that might be, then ascribed it to something about their adventures together.

Applejack's tail twitched. "Details, Sanguine."

"Okay, okay, so...when Celestia came to my town, she asked me a lot of questions. Umm...I think she was more focused on why I did it than what I did. Then she thought about it, talking to other ponies, then she asked if my parents would say goodbye because they'd probably never see me again." Sanguine's eye glimmered. "They...they wouldn't..."

Applejack, suspecting this might not be the worst of the tale, stepped out from directly under Sanguine to avoid potential tears. "Y'all can skip ahead a bit. Celestia took ya to Canterlot, right?"

Sanguine exhaled, happy to move the story along. "Yes, she did. She locked me in a room and gave me some books to read. History, some guard instruction manuals...I thought she was just trying to make me think I wasn't alone, but now I'm not so sure."

Applejack frowned. "Pretty sure she wasn't. Anyway, she had ya study. Then she asked ya to sneak aroun', followin' the guard without bein' seen?"

Sanguine blinked. "How do you know all this?"

"Ah'm followin' a trail," Applejack growled, "an' ah do NOT like where it leads. But go on, what happened next?"

Satisfied that Applejack was not in fact a disguised unicorn with mind reading magic, Sanguine continued, "Oh, w-well, it was three weeks after I'd arrived at Canterlot that Celestia said she had a mission for me. She needed me to check in on an old friend. She gave me an address, and a letter saying I was there to collect some old books. I went off to Appleloosa by train. Once I was there, I went straight to the address - it was an old unicorn stallion. He looked at my letter and let me in. He said I was just to go to the library and get them then leave, but Celestia said he might be forgetful so I really should look around. I d-did, and..."

Applejack's voice softened. "Go on."

"I'm no unicorn, but when a spellbook's open to a page that talks about making a fog that'll steal days of life from other ponies and give them to the unicorn making the fog...and I saw him d-doing the kinds of things I saw described in there..." Sanguine squeezed her eyes shut. "I pinned him to the wall and held a hoof to his neck. He didn't even struggle much. Afterward, I put him in bed and called for the sheriff, told him I was there on royal authority to pick up books but when I went to say goodbye to the unicorn he'd gone to sleep and wasn't waking up. I showed him the letter and said Princess Celestia wanted me to return as soon as possible, so he let me go. That necromancy book was on the list Celestia wanted me to bring back."

Fluttershy's jaw was wide open. A fly buzzed into and out of her mouth.

Applejack's expression was neutral. "An' the griffon?"

"That was a week later. Celestia asked me to work with a cop in Manehattan, tracking down a missing colt. I...kind of had a feeling where we'd find him, and my hunch was right: an old, abandoned factory. The-the griffon had, haaad..." Sanguine gulped. "She was eating him, said she was up to a leg and wanted to build up to being able to swallow a pony whole. So I...so I..."

Applejack waved a hoof. "...ended the problem in a furious rage? Ah think we can skip those details."

"Yes. Thank you." Sanguine sighed. "I heard they'd be able to regenerate his injuries, and they were going to edit his memories so he'd think he'd fallen down a well or something. Celestia was in town, so she came by to pick me up. She and the cop went into a room and there was shouting but I was so scared I couldn't make it out and I..." Sanguine sniffed, a tiny mild hot rainstorm now under her chin.

Applejack watched the tears come down and refrained from noting out loud that she had called it. "Alright, alright, we get it. An' that's when Celestia had a change of heart?"

"Ehh?" Confusion layered over Sanguine's regret.

Applejack steeled herself to get that part of the tale out of Twilight, or Celestia herself. "Forget it. Butcha didn' do any more killin' after that?"

"W-well...Celestia's chariot wasn't available, so we were flying back, when a dragon came out of nowhere and tried to eat us. Actually I think it was aiming for Celestia but it got me instead - just, snap..." Sanguine brought two hooves together to demonstrate. "...and I was in its maw. I bucked out through its neck. But THAT'S the last I killed, until those timberwolves."

"Uh-huh." Applejack considered just a moment, picturing how the events fit together. "Probably sabotaged the chariot so's she wouldn't have guards around, but the dragon wasn't countin' on you. Ah doubt she'll let that happen again anytime soon."

"Anyway, that's about all that happened. I spent most of my time in Canterlot in my room. I had a lot to think about. And then I came here." Sanguine fought back her tears. The story was done; she wouldn't have to think about that aga-

"Ah bet you did," Applejack's voice interrupted Sanguine's relief. "Equestria ain't had an assassin in th' royal service since...ever, or at least a long time."

Sanguine's eyes widened. She finally lost her grip, sliding over the branch and recovering mid-air to make a belly flop on the ground instead of landing on her back. "ASSASSIN?!?"

Applejack nodded. "That's what she was trainin' ya for, sounds like. Good thing she came to her senses."

"B-b-b-b-but that's IMPOSSIBLE!" Sanguine protested. "We're talking about PRINCESS CELESTIA! She would NEVER-"

Applejack cut Sanguine off with a wave of her hoof. "She DID, but it was temporary. Ah'm gonna ask Twilight to have a little talk with Celestia about it - this's her territory, an' I do not envy her." Sighing, she continued, "But there's a good side."

Sanguine just stared. "How can there be a good side to all that?"

"Well." Applejack smiled and tipped up her hat. "From whatcha said, ya've been slayin' monsters. Even if some of 'em were ponies."

Sanguine's gaze fell to the ground. "So...I...may have to kill ponies?"

Applejack faltered, her attempt to cheer up having tripped into nearly unleashing another tear storm. "Naw. It's yer choice who ta - it'll always be yer choice. An' that's why we're here now, so Fluttershy can show you how NOT to kill. Ain't that right, Fluttershy?"

No response. Fluttershy stood stock still, jaw still open, mind attempting to process what she just heard.

"Ah SAID, ain't that right, Fluttershy?" Applejack tapped her on the shoulder.

Physical contact broke Fluttershy's shock. "O-oh umm yes whatever you just said yes that's right can we please stop talking about this?"

"Yes PLEASE," Sanguine added.

"Sure thing." Applejack nodded, then pointed into the forest. "So Fluttershy, ya wanted us to meet a manticore? Which way?"

"This way." Fluttershy trotted off, leading the other two toward what she felt was an infinitely less scary subject.

Comments

[Cheryl Chrome]

Oh man... Did not see that one coming.