Chapter 26: Glittershell Alone
Snails ran down the hillside after Snips. He saw the blue rump and orange tail of his best friend disppear over the edge of the ledge below, running down the hillside further down, hopefully directly toward the flat ground at the bottom of the hill. They were quite a ways down the hill now, and the mists about Snails were thicker, blocking sunlight and darkening the world.
He was almost at the grassy ledge when the fog billowed from left and right, making it hard for him to see more than a length or two ahead of his snout He had just enough time to register a loud blatt and a truly disgusting smell, even by the standards of the thralls, when something smacked him in the forelegs, and he tripped and rolled, falling onto the ledge with a thud. He saw stars and gasped, the wind had been quite knocked out of him.
Snails took in a lungful of the fouled air, all the way up into his nose and mouth, so that he could smell and taste it. He gagged, retched, and threw up his entire stomach contents, which were thankfully almost nonexistent, consisting by now of only some thin liquid that burned his throat on the way up and out. He coughed it out onto the grass of the ledge.
He finished retching, looked up -- and realized he was in real trouble.
The first thing he saw was the wooden stick over which he had tripped. It was shaped and smooth, obviously meant as a weapon. It was easy to see, because it was being held in the grip of a pale bluish aura of Unicorn magic. The stick was floating threateningly over him, in position to beat him unmercifully over the head, if its owner so desired.
It was easy to see who was wielding the club, because the aura was glowing a paler version of the colors of the witchfires in the eye sockets of the disturbingly lovely cream-white face of the undead Unicorn mare who stooped almost over him, framed in her honey-gold hair and smirking cruelly down at him. Coming up behind her, Snails could see the wobbling, white-tufted head of the plump, caramel-coated Earth Pony thrall, whose bloated body had emitted the stench that helped to put Snails down. At the same time, a sinister jingling a bit behind him told Snails that the other Earth Pony member of the Girl Posse was closing in on him from that direction.
Snails had fallen before them. He was alone, cut off from any help. He figured that, in a moment, the monsters would close in from all sides and tear him to pieces. These might be his last moments alive.
The least Glittershell could do was to die as herself.
With that she felt a surge of renewed energy and determination. Reaching into her bag with her own aura, she flung a couple of rocks right at the face of her Unicorn foe.
Caught by surprise, the undead Unicorn flinched from the spinning stones, trying too late to block them with her baton, and succeeding only in pulling her weapon back from a position in which it could not easily strike Gittershell. The thrall did not flinch fast enough, ad one of the rocks thwacked off her left cheek, splattering rotten flesh and tearing loose a piece of creamy-white hide. The club wavered in midair.
Seizing the opportunity, Glittershell sprang to her hooves, ready to fight.
"Hurt ... face?" the mare-thing hissed in rage. "You'll pay!" She pushed the club forward again, swinging it viciously at Glittershell's head.
Had that blow connected, it would have badly hurt, and possibly broken Glittershell's skull to boot. But now Glittershell was quite recovered from her dazing, and on her hooves, and she could move faster than the fastest of the thralls. She easily ducked under the swing, pivoted on her left forehoof, and gave the undead Unicorn a good hard double-kick with her hooves, sending the creature tumbling back to sit down hard.
Caught off balance, the thrall's concentration was broken, and she dropped her stick.
Without even thinking about it -- which, really, was how she always performed best -- Glittershell caught the falling stick in her own aura. As the thrall tried to get back on her hooves, Glittershell swung the baton, slapping the undead creature twice, hard on the head.
The thrall tried to protect her head with her forehooves, and fell forward onto the ground, curling into a ball with her hooves over her head and snout, clearly unwilling to risk any further facial damage.
The Unicorn thrall's gas-bloated comrade made a clumsy lunge forward, and Glittershell danced nimbly back, retaining control of the baton. She rained blows alternatately down upon the Unicorn and the Earth Pony thralls, keeping them both off balance.
In that moment she was wholly Glittershell, not wasting any time or mental effort pretending to be Snails, and she was young and beautiful and graceful and free, and everything flowed perfectly as she danced and fought. Even the fastest of the thralls moved like molasses compared to Glittershell, and she plied her club like a bat in a ball game, dodging aside from the snapping jaws and groping hooves, knocking her full back hard and then moving to the attack, dealing punishing blows with the stick or spitting forth stones with what would have been lethal accuracy, had the thralls being still living.
She hit the Unicorn until she had that thrall totally on the defensive, curling up to protect her face; then beat back the bloated Earth Pony with strong swings to the head, knocking the skull even further askew on the neck and jabbing viciously into her belly, until the rotten flesh ripped and the gas-swollen belly burst, releasing a truly terrible stench. This, Glittersell had half-expected, and she danced back from that loathsome eruption of smell and sound and sloppy putrid entrails that lolloped out of that rent onto the trail.
So caught up was Glittershell in the Now that she actually managed to avoid retching at these repulsive sensations. But she also made a very severe mistake.
For Glittershell was, despite her reflexes and her recent realization, no trained combatant. She was a buck ball player, and a dancer, and if she lived she might one day become a singing star. But she had never before this day been in worse than a childish scuffle; she had never even had militia drill. And nopony had ever warned her of the danger of target fixation.
So, as she took that last leap back from her victory over the poisonously-lovely Unicorn mare and the hideously-ugly death-bloated Earth Pony, she felt a whisper of air disturbed behind her, smelled a slightly different putrid odor, and heard a mad giggle, and the jingle of what should have been merry bells, but which were in this context terribly sinister.
She felt a twinge of fear, penetrating her almost mystical fighting trance. She tried to dance aside from the danger, but she was too far committed to her rearward move.
Partly-decayed but terribly strong forelegs closed on her from behind, clasping her barrel in a dreadful parody of a passionate embrace. She could feel the ragged and tattered coat of the mare-thing's belly against her own back and tail; sense things moving under that putrid surface. She could feel the straps of the bell-harness, and one of the little bells digging into her own coat. The stench, this close up, was indescribable.
Glittershell struggled, twisting and kicking in the monster's grasp. She fought desperately for her young life, with every ounce of strength and fiber of her being.
All to no avail. The undead jester clung to Glittershell with immense strength, fixing her limbs in a nigh-unbreakable hold. Writhe as she might, the young transmare could not slip one limb free to fight back.
The club! Glittershell reached for it with her aura. She groped for it; felt its surface against her telekinesis; then was cruelly disappointed as another aura snatched it away before Glittershell could grasp it. She looked up to see the Unicorn thrall, her beauty badly battered by the self-same baton, but her ability to move and think clearly little-impaired, crouching where she had fallen, grinning evilly at Glittershell. Her pale blue eyelights blazed with malice.
"Said ... you'd pay," said the Unicorn thrall, starting to struggle up to her hooves has she firmly gripped the baton." Think I'lI mar you a bit, before ... give you to Mistress." The baton waved menacingly.
At the side of the Unicorn, the bloated Earth Pony, also badly battered by the baton, was also attempting to stand up. The Earth Pony was having greater difficulties: the beating Glittershell had administered to her seemed to have damaged something within her rotting head. Repeatedly, she got one leg under her, started to rise on that leg, then tried to get another leg under her; only to have the first leg give way beneath her; sending her sliding and sprawling amidst her own entrails. Glittershell could not see how the monster would be able to walk, let alone run, without trailing her own guts behind her in the dirt.
Glitershell had no doubt that she could outrun all three of the thralls, if she could once get free of the one who held her. But that seemed impossible. The monster's muscles were like iron, unyielding in their strength. Its stench weakened Glittershell's own body.
Making matters even worse, the thrall kept up her mad giggling, and at each motion of their struggling bodies, the bells on the thrall's harness jangled and jingled, bells that might have been on another Pony merry, but were here horribly mocking ... bells like those she remembered being worn by a traveling entertainer who had played Diamond Tiara's eighth birthday party ... Merry Bells, her name had been ...
Glittershell remembered the light blue coat, the curly purple mane, the dark blue eyes -- addded decay and sadness to that mental image, and came to a horrible realization ...
"Merry Bells?" Glittershell asked, unsure of whether it was worse if she were wrong, or if she were right ...
The effect was immediate.
"How ... name?" The creature gasped, whirling Glittershell around in her grasp, gazing deep into the young Carrot's eyes with her own hellish deep blue witchfires, burning deep within her eyeless sockets. Her putrid breath wafted into Glitteshell's nostrils.
Despite the extremity of her situation, in which she knew she needed to say something fast to save her life, Glittershell flinched before the horror of that decomposed face, leering at her from such short range.
"Name! ..." repeated the monstrosity. "... Know ... name ... how?" Each word was plainly an agonizing effort, forced out from rotting vocal tracts.
Glittershell could only gibber.
The creature's face contorted in anger. It lifted Glittershell until their noses almost touched -- Glittershell's healthy but embarrassingly-masculine orange snout and its own hideously-eroded feminine face, once a pleasant light blue but now blocked with all the lurid hues of decomposition. Her putrid stench suffused Glittershell's nostrils.
"NAME!" the thing shouted, spittle and what Glittershell greatly feared were bits of the inside of its mouth spraying the teenaged transmare directly on her own nose.
"Glittershell!" she squeaked, and, as the thrall looked at her in puzzlement, Glittershell went on to explain. "Ponyville. Diamond Tiara's party. Eighth birthday. I was nine. A colt. Snails."
The thrall's witchfires flared in astonishment.
"... 'Member ... you ..." it said. "Fell ... punch ..."
"Yes!" said Glittershell. " I was dancing on the table! I fell right into the punch!"
"Diamond ... mad ..." the thrall observed, and begin wheezing strangely. Her purple mane, which had been hanging limply, fluffed out a bit. The thrall loosened her grip.
"Oh yes," agreed Glittershell. "She was real mad. We made up, though. We're friends now."
The thrall grimaced, and wheezed some more. Her mane fluffed out further.
With a shock, Glittershell realized that the wheezing was laughter. Good, honest laughter.
"You are Merry Bells," Glittershell said wonderingly.
Merry Bells let Glittershell go and nodded.
"Wow," said Glittershell. "I really liked you at that party. You danced around in your bells and told jokes! You were really funny!"
Merry Bells again nodded. "Funny," she agreed. Her mane fluffed out further.
Glittershell smiled back at her. Merry Bells was no longer a monster. She was a Pony for whom things had gone badly wrong. Glittershell's eyes moistened, as she realized just how badly wrong.
Merry Bells must have noticed Glittershell's change of expression, because both her mane and her hers drooped. "Not ... now," she said sadly, through her decayed lips. "Not ... funny."
Glittershell didn't know what to say. She looked helplesly at Merry Bells.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the Unicorn thrall, now fully on her hooves, was advancing with her club ready to strike. Her bloated Earth Pony comrade was also standing, and stepping forward more slowly, trying to avoid tripping over her own intestines.
In a moment, Glittershell would have to bolt.
Would Merry Bells stop her?
Glitershell met Merry Bells' gaze.
Merry Bells jerked her snout almost imperceptibly down the hillside, in the direction Snips had gone. She nodded.
Glittershell gave a brief nod in reply, and whispered "Thank you."
The club swung.
Glittershell leaped to the side, turned, and without further hesitation ran down the hill, skipping and leaping from one lodgement to the next, far fleeter than were the shambling thralls.
By the time she had attained a broad enough ledge that she felt comfortable stopping, turning around and looking back the way she had come, the thralls had apparently been left so far behind that she could neither see nor hear them -- not that she could see or hear all that well in the Mist. In any case, they were no longer closely pursuing her; so she tried it down the rest of the hill, heading for the edge of the Mist -- and freedom.
Glittershell had made it all the way down the hillside; the way from here sloped down gently to the north. It was, as always, difficult to navigate in the grey murk, but she could see the direction in which the sky seemed slightly brighter, and that was the way she went.
There was nopony else around, and though she was fleeing a fate worse than death in a realm of terror inhabited by monsters from beyond the grave, she felt oddly free. She was Glittershell, all Glittershell: she didn't have to pretend to be Snails; to be a stallion. She could be herself, and, right now, she was very alive. She had always been excited by danger.
One worry nagged at her: aside from the obvious one of encountering more of the terrible denizens of Sunney Towne. That was the fact that, despite she had gone in roughly the same direction as Snips, she had not yet found her friend.
Trotting along rapidly into the slowly thinning mists, alive and free and herself, the whereabouts of Snips seemed but a minor mystery. She and Snipsy had been getting into trouble together for their whole lives, ever since they had met a decade ago as very small children. They had almost gotten bitten or petrified or squashed or drowned or zapped or squashed (again): neither had ever taken any serious harm from these adventures. Nearly getting killed was simply something Snips and Snails did together. Snips and Glittershell would be no different.
She became so happy thinking these thoughts that she did not even realize the significance of the fog billowing more thickly ahead of herself, or recognize the object she dimly spied hrough the mists: until it turned around and glared at her with glowing dark-blue eyes.
Glittershell pulled herself up to a full stop, which was maybe not the smartest thing for her to do, look for all she knew the fog ahead might conceal a whole quad of undead. And the figure stepped forward, and gazed at her, and she saw who it was. And Glittershell shrink back in fear, for this was no mere thrall.
This was a Wraith.
This was Roneo.
"Hail and well met, maiden," he said to her, and though his greeting was friendly, it did not allay Glittershell's fears, for well she knew that he lusted after her life.
Glittershell drew a stone; spun it.
"Stay back," she warned, in a voice she hoped was firm. "I'm not afraid to use it!"
"Well, aye," said Roneo. " Why should you be? 'Tis but a stone." He smiled.
She flung the stone.
It passed right through Roneo, causing him to flicker slightly, but otherwise not seeming to harm him at all.
He blinked, but his expression stayed mild. "'Tis but a stone," he repeated. "Such cannot harm a Wraith. Thou wouldst need a blessed or magic weapon to do that."
"Oh," said Glitershell, feeling foolish. "I'm sorry."
"I be not sorry that thy weapon could not harm me," pointed out Roneo, reasonably enough. "I dinnae like to be hurt. Nopony does."
Something occurred to Glittershell. "Do you hate me?" she asked.
"Hate thee?" Roneo was taken aback. "Nay, wherefore should I hate thee?"
"Then why do you want to kill me?" Glittershell asked. "I mean, Ruby told me your story, and you sounded kind of nice. Not mean or evil."
"I ... I am not evil," protested Roneo.
"But you want to hurt me," Glittershell pointed out. "I've never done anything bad to you."
"Thou didst kick dear Sandwren's jaw right off," protested Roneo. "She is one of my hardest and loyallest workers!"
"Only because she bit Snips on the butt. Real hard!"
"Snips was fighting her at the time," argued Roneo.
"He just wanted to leave town," said Glittershell, gazing into Roneo's eyes. "To live. All we want to do is live. We don't want to hurt you. We just want to get out of town. Please don't hurt us."
It was Roneo who was the first to look aside. Did he look ashamed?
"Thou ... thou dinnae ken," he said softly. "Thou'rt still part of Life. I am part of Undeath." He lifted his eyes, gazed back at her again. I am, from moment to moment, by eating the life around me. The warmth of the world. The green growing things. The beasts at play. And ... best of all ... Ponies!" As he said that last word, his lips parted in a snarl, his eyes flared blue, and he roared and charged Glittershell.
She bolted.
She fled through the swirling mists, and Roneo pursued, though how closely she dared not turn her head to see, for she could hear his hungry howl, and his galloping hooves, now joined by other galloping hooves, closing in on her from several other angles behind her. Roneo's cries came from more than one direction, and Glittershell remembered Ruby warning her of Roneo's ability to duplicate himself.
One was chasing her from behind; a second from a bit to the right of the first; a third from a bit to the left of the first. That last one was between her and the only way she knew out of the mist not blocked by the first one. She had to try to work her way around that one and back toward the edge; it was her only hope. Then, maybe she could find Snips on the outside ... he had to be safe, she had to figure he had got clear before the jaws of the trap closed, because if not ... that was too terrible to imagine.
Glittershell judged the distance; put on a burst of speed. She'd slipped Roneo! She turned toward the edge of the Mist, galloping for a freedom now but a few minutes away ...
She tripped over something hard.
At full gallop, it was all Glittershell could do to keep from snapping her leg. Indeed, had she been one of her ancient bestial ancestors, far less flexible of body and mind, she probably would have broken a foreleg, and been wholly crippled. As it was, she stumbled, tottered, fell and rolled in the dirt, but due to her reflexes, and the fact that she knew had to fall, she did not actually break anything. There was a flare of pain from her right foreleg as she tripped; brief small flares of pain as she rolled over small stones whose presence she had somehow managed to miss until just now; then came to a stop on her left side.
Her head spun dizzily as she started to struggle to her hooves. I've gotta get up, she told herself. Gotta get outta here! Before I'm caught!
She stood, shakily. Her right foreleg ached, but it supported her weight. That's all it needs to do, she thought. Pain's not so bad. I can ... She took the first tentative step to where she supposed was the northeast.
A barrage of small stones whistled past her. One struck her on the right side of her neck, stingingly hard. She rocked on her hooves, and nearly unbalanced as she came down too hard on her injured leg.
But she did not fall down.
I can do it! she thought ...
... and a big brown stallion with yellowish-brown glowing eyes leaped on her from the right side and brought her back down on the ground beneath him.
He did not smell all that foul -- though if truth be told, Glittershell's nose and mouth had become rather desensitized to the odor of putrefaction over the last half-day. But his eyes glowed, and he was very cold, and Glittershell at once knew she was grappled by a Wraith.
She didn't recognize his face, but she recognized those eyes -- the eyes of the very first hostile Wraith she had seen, glowing with a pure malice she had not seen in any of those of the others. And she remembered who it was, and a cold that had nothing to do with the Wraith's power chilled her heart.
"Gladstone," she said, trembling.
"I see mine own dear sister has been speaking of me," Gladstone said, grinning down at her. "and so spreads mine own fame, running before me." He put a hoof on her shoulder; stood up, effortlessly holding her pinned to the ground. "Do I live up to that fame?" He asked, grinning even more widely.
Glittershell could only stare up at him speechlessly, frozen in fear.
Gladstone laughed. It was by far the cruellest laugh she had ever heard, and -- given where Glittershell lived, -- she had heard some pretty cruel ones. It spoke of somepony who would not only do you to death, but do it with glee, and enjoy it all the more if it was by slow torture.
He had caught her. He would kill her. He would make her his thrall.
Glittershell couldn't imagine anything worse.
"My," Gladstone said, leering down at her. "Thou'rt a comely maiden." He snuffled at her. "And still maiden in truth." He suddenly bent down and kissed her; right before the withers, on a part of her neck where only a special somepony might rightly put his lips.
His lips were dreadfully cold.
And, as Glittershell shrank in revulsion from that vile kiss, she realize that she could, in fact, imagine something worse.
Much worse.
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Gladstone would be the kind of pony to get some enjoyment out of the eldritch powers undeath affords him. For most sadists, the thrill lies in control; in control over another and power over them, the power to hurt them, to lift yourself up by dragging the other down. There's little more power over another than enslaving them beyond death.
I... understand the feeling, in a sense, at least a little bit. I've had dominant, even sadistic fantasies even since before I knew about sex.
I almost wish I could have talked to him before all this happened. Perhaps if he found a healthy way to indulge himself, or at least have someone to talk to about it, things might've gone differently.
1) - to (fairly certain this should be a "t")
2) - seem_but (Pretty certain you need a space here)
3) - had figured (what's with the "II" there)
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Gladstone has Snails/Glittershell.
Oh dear.
That's equal parts concerning and hilarious. It's not easy being the comic relief.
As for Glittershell, amazing display here in both physical and social capability. Fight without thought, care without thought, run without thought. She is at her best in the moment, flowing from action to action. (I do have to wonder how you perceive her talent...)
Of course, acting without thought is rarely a viable long-term strategy. It certainly doesn't offer much in the way of contingency planning, especially not when pinned by a Wraith who actively enjoys his undeath. I have no idea how she'll get out of this. Even a knight with shining scissors riding to her rescue might not suffice.
Miss Glittershell made a fine showing. A question what was her talent again? Another is Does Sweetie Bell's help count as a Talent consultation? Either way what really struck me was how far Roneo has fallen. The pony who was so deeply disturbed by killing some peddlers, has now openly and willing killing other ponies with out much hesitation.
8013245
Glittershell's talent is performance art. That touches on more than one skill useful in a situation like this though.
Glittershell ALMOST reached Roneo by making things personal like that. He's not naturally evil. But it is not that easy to overcome the Curse.
Roneo was being honest when he said that neither he nor Starlet would be especially cruel to Glittershell -- aside from the cruelty inherent in killing and enslaving her. Though Starlet is crueller than Roneo. Neither of them can hold a candle to Gladstone in the cruelty department, though.
8011249
What's even funnier is that this is pretty much true in vanilla canon. Note what Snips and Snails are doing in the very first episode they have an important role in, "Boast Busters." Going to fetch an Ursa, just to watch Trixie beat it.
The fact that those two are still alive implies a lot about their degree of skill in dangerous situations. And, unfortunately, also their lack of common sense.
Glittershell is very much a creature of instinct and the now, rather than of intellect and the future. Luckily for her, her instincts are rather good. She is a natural survivor type.
The same, is basically true of Snips.
Though, as you see by the end of this chapter, Glittershell's luck can run out.
8010809
Yes. Glittershell got caught by the nastiest one of them all.
I Have You Now My Pretty.
His commenting that he could SMELL her virginity was not a good sign.
8013517
And yet, I'm some what inured to monsters doing that. My apparent unflinching attitude in the face of horrible, horrible thing courtesy of the White Court
8013943
Well I'm glad you didn't feel that was over the top villainy in terms of dialogue. But then, despite his Freudian Excuse, Gladstone is very much a classic villain: he would have been quite at home in a nineteenth-century melodrama.
8010629
Yes. Gladstone is a natural sadist, and one who has unfortunately been supernaturally empowered to well beyond anything of which he would normally have been capable. And yes, I write him very much from my own darkest side.
It's possible that Gladstone could have been saved if not for the unexpected thrill he found in killing on that disastrous patrol. If that hadn't happened, it's likely that Ruby would have help them get into an urban Mason's Guild and he might have become a happier Pony in the exercise of his true talents. Grey Hoof and Three Leaf would have wed, and Gladstone might have met friends, fallen in love, and enjoyed professional achievements that taken together might have laid his darker side to rest.
There is, after all, a reason why Ruby didn't think of Gladstone as a monster growing up, aside from the usual resentment felt by a younger sibling toward an older brother. He probably wasn't that bad in the beginning.
8014619
Truly tragic, isn't it? Despite what Ruby would say to him later, had that horrible incident on their patrol not happened, they would all have found great boon in her relationship to Luna. She wouldn't have left them behind.
Speaking from personal experience... it can be thoroughly confusing to find physical/cerebral enjoyment in degradation and suffering of others, when one is also a sensitive person. It's easy to hate oneself for it.
Is that something Gladstone had to deal with as well? Before the explosion of violence later? I'm not trying to exonerate him, mind. It's more that his situation is of particular interest to me for the reasons mentioned above.
Wait, what happened to the latest chapter?
I was just about to point out how Gladstone falsely claims to be strong when he's just powerful...