Twilight Sparkle of the Royal Guard: The Rising

by King of Beggars

Chapter 10 - Return to Sender

The heat of spring bore down on Spitfire with full midday strength as she touched down on the tarmac of an airfield just outside of Zanzebra. She glanced around, noting that every lot and hangar on the field looked occupied, but there was a distinct lack of crew working the maintenance or dealing with freight. A bead of sweat rolled down her forehead and into her eye, and as she rubbed at it she realized that the crews were probably all aboard their ships or inside one of the hangar buildings – anything to get out of the damned heat.

Near one of the hangars she spied an old well pump. She made a beeline for it and shoved a nearby bucket under the spigot as she shrugged the bags off her back. She worked the pump, grunting with the effort it took to move the rusted handle, until the water began flowing. As soon as it was filled she dunked her head into the water. It was cold and refreshing, so she held her head in the bucket until her lungs forced her to surface for air. She took what was left and dumped it over her head.

“Burrr, needed that,” she muttered to herself as she shook her mane out of her face. She filled the bucket again and began filling the canteens in her saddlebags.

It had taken a few more days than she’d expected to get her house in order. Ponies in positions like hers didn’t get a lot of freedom to drop everything for personal matters. The trip overseas had taken a day and a half, and then another day over land to get to Zanzebra. All said and done, she’d arrived in Zanzebra almost a full week later than she had wanted to.

She sighed as she finished refilling her water supply. There was still a little bit of the precious life-giving liquid in the bucket, so she upended it over her head a second time. She’d stopped earlier in the morning to scrub away a few days worth of travel-sweat in a shallow stream she’d found while flying over the savanna, but without soap, and with the heat being what it was, it was a losing battle against the nasty, greasy feeling in her coat.

Spitfire put her saddlebags back on and looked around. There were a few restaurants and office buildings mixed in amongst the hangars, and in the distance she could see large buildings with signs that read “Hotel” in various languages.

The building that caught her eye, though, was a squat wooden shack that looked like it was pieced together out of old scrapped airships. It wasn’t numbered like the hangars, and there was no writing on it like on the administration buildings. Instead, a neon-lighted beer bottle sat on the roof, flickering and glowing dully in the daylight.

By the time Spitfire had crossed the hot tarmac she was already dry from her improvised bath. The door to the bar was one of those airtight deals that looked like it had been ripped straight out of the bulkhead of an old ship, and judging from the amount of rust on it, the hatch had seen its share of time out at sea. In the early days of airships, before the things were built from the ground up, the gondolas had been kludged together out of old sea-faring boats with wheels and balloons practically duct-taped to them. The door had probably come out of one of those unlicensed wildcat ships built by some backyard tinkerer.

The wheel looked like it was spun open, so Spitfire gave the hatch an experimental shove with her hoof and it moved a few inches, letting out a blast of near-freezing conditioned air that sent a pleasant shiver down her spine. She put her shoulder into it and the door swung open enough for her to slip inside, creaking on the hinges the whole way. The creak announced her presence like one of those bells shopkeepers hang above the door, and once she was inside she found herself getting checked out by nearly every gin-soaked balloon jockey in the place.

The place was as about as packed as she’d been expecting, with a good mix of races from every corner of the globe. Zanzebra was one of the most well-known trade centers in the hemisphere because the skies above it were a confluence of several major jet streams. Riding a high-altitude stream was the best way to get somewhere far away because if you were smart enough to hitch onto the right draft, it saved on fuel, time, and cut down on work for the navigator.

The sea of faces watched her enter with varying levels of interest. A few of the patrons had recognized her, judging from the looks on their faces, and the chatter was starting to go around the bar as word of who she was started making the rounds. Spitfire tried not to let the swell of pride in her chest make it all the way to her head. Normally she would be all over the attention, working the crowd with her stories and flirting a few drinks out of her audience, but she had a job to do.

Spitfire pressed her back hoof against the door, kicking it closed with a hard buck that stung her hoof but probably looked sufficiently cool for an entrance. The fluorescent lights were working, but not well, and closing the door dropped room’s lighting back down to a level more appropriate to drinking. The old radio behind the bar was warbling something that sounded half like throat-singing and half like unintelligible ululating out of its one good speaker. The music was inscrutable, but it was fighting valiantly to fill the room with ambient noise other than the loud hum of an industrial-grade air-conditioner. This sort of bar was all about the ambiance, whether it was intentional or not, and everything from the shitty lighting to the girly-posters and broken floorboards shouted that the theme of the place was ‘Tough-Guy Chic’. It was the sort of bar that discouraged tourism – an oasis for air-jockeys with no room for outsiders – and Spitfire already liked the place.

Spitfire sauntered her way across the room, trying to project the air of somepony that didn’t want to be disturbed. Most of the patrons caught on to her and returned to their drinks and previous conversations, but a few either couldn’t read her body language or just didn’t care. Some of the guys nodded, some tilted their drinks. A griffon lioness standing over by the dart board whistled softly at her, shooting her a wink and clicking her beak twice sharply in the griffon approximation of kissy-noises.

Despite the packed seating area, the barstools were all unoccupied. Spitfire raised an eyebrow at that, but as she hopped up onto one of the seats and spun around to face the barkeep, she got a pretty good idea of why everyone avoided crowding the bar.

The barkeep was a unicorn stallion, a big one at that, and he sat on a stool behind the bar, his back turned to the room as he held an open newspaper in a field of teal-colored magic. Everything from his size, to his look, to the way he sat, communicated that he would have been just as happy with an empty bar as a full one. His bristly mane was cut short in that zebra style that made him look like he was sporting one of those crested galeas the Royal Guard wore. Judging from the haircut and the faint black stripes in his lime-green coat, he was probably half zebra. It was an uncommon mix back in Equestria, but in a trade town like this that sort of miscegenation was way more prevalent.

She tapped her hoof on the bar to get his attention.

“Drink?” he asked simply, his voice a deep baritone.

Spitfire considered declining and getting straight to the point. After a half-second of hesitation she ordered a drink, partly for the taste, and partly because that’s just how things were done when you were looking for information in this sort of dive.

“House special,” Spitfire said, equally simply.

“Ain’t nothing special about it,” the stallion explained. He didn’t even bother looking from his newspaper as he opened a refrigerator and magicked a bottle out. His magic popped off the cap and poured her drink into a mug.

“Thanks,” she said as she took a swig. It was cold and tasted like beer. It would do. “Looking for somebody. Think you could give me a hoof?”

“This somebody a pilot?”

“Nah, he’s a diamond dog, goes by Basenji,” Spitfire clarified.

“Then I don’t know him,” the barkeep said with a dismissive sniff.

Spitfire took another drink, swishing the brew around in her mouth like a rinse as she tried to squash the sudden rise in her blood pressure at the stallion’s rudeness. She was about to try again when someone hopped up on the stool right next to her and butted into the conversation.

“Ay, don’t be like that, Sahib,” the griffoness from earlier said with a disapproving cluck of her tongue. “You sure you ain’t never heard of this Basenji?”

“I don’t know anybody’s name,” he replied curtly.

“That’s just not true,” the griffoness said. “You know my name, and I know you know Spitfire’s name.”

The stallion barkeep made a rude noise with his mouth. “I know your name, Gale, because that ironclad liver of yours is going to put my future children through university. And everyone knows Spitfire’s name.”

The stallion tilted his head towards a bulletin board a little off to the side of the bar. It was crowded with old flyers and posters from air shows. Right in the middle of that mess of papers was a calendar that Spitfire recognized. It was from a few years ago and the page wasn’t even opened to the right month. The picture on the calendar was of Spitfire, along with a couple of the other lady Wonderbolts, playing volleyball together on a sunny beach. The Bolts had done that little bit of publicity for charity the same year she’d made the team as a rookie. She had the same calendar on a stack in her trophy room back home, and knew that the month right after that one had a hilarious pin-up of Soarin lying on a heart-shaped bed, dressed up as a firefighter and holding a rose between his teeth.

It was a little funny to see one of her publicity shots so far from Equestria, but it did make some sense. The Wonderbolts did a lot of goodwill shows in foreign nations, and some of their biggest fans were other professional flyers.

For a moment, she wondered if her dad might have had the same calendar hanging up somewhere on his ship. They’d been estranged, but he’d kept tabs enough to send her a birthday card every year, so it wouldn’t be farfetched to think he might own some merchandise with her face on it. She felt a little rush of heat in her cheeks at the realization that, if her dad owned that particular calendar, it meant he’d seen the pose she’d done for the month that Hearts and Hooves Day fell on.

“Course I’ve heard of Spitfire,” the barkeep said. “There’s not a flyboy in the sky that doesn’t know her name. I got a poster of her above my bunk to chase away the lonely nights, same as everyone else.”

The rest of the bar must have been eavesdropping, because a roar of laughter washed over the room. The sudden laughter was enough to jar the barkeeper out of his state of disinterest. He set down his paper and turned to see what had everyone in stitches.

A grin slowly spread across Spitfire’s face as she watched the barkeep’s expression run the gamut of emotion. His annoyed frown slowly waned as he lowered his gaze to the young mare he’d just been talking to, and his brow knitted in confusion for a moment, like he’d recognized her but couldn’t place the face with a name straightaway – which probably said a lot about what he used the aforementioned poster for. His brow shot up in surprise as he finally figured out who she was, and the corners of his lips pulled up into an eager smile. The smile died immediately as he realized what he’d just inadvertently admitted to her face.

Spitfire chuckled into her mug at the sight of the huge stallion blushing like a schoolboy. “Always nice to meet a fan,” she said as she took a drink. She licked the beer off her upper lip a little slower than she needed to, and smacked her lips with a sigh of satisfaction. “Now then, if you wanted to think a little harder and see if you couldn’t point me in the direction of the nearest diamond dog burrow, that’d be just swell.”

* * *

Basenji looked up from the book in his lap to the dog sitting across from him. He’d become so engrossed in the book that he’d forgotten that he’d been visiting with his uncle Akita. They were sitting on a big mat made of woven reeds that his uncle dragged out of the corner whenever company came to visit. Akita’s wife was out, and his daughter, Djembe, was likely up on the surface, so when Basenji heard his uncle’s voice he knew that Akita must have been talking to him.

“I’m sorry, what?” Basenji said, blinking owlishly at his uncle.

In a pack that was known for having some pretty large dogs, Akita still managed to stand out from the crowd. Akita was Basenji’s father’s younger brother, and despite his size he had a soft-spoken, kindly personality – likely a result of being born runty and having been something of a late-bloomer, according to Basenji’s father.

“I was wondering what you were reading,” Akita said as he studied the enormous chunk of amethyst he held. He lifted the other paw and started to scratch at it with incredibly precise care. “That’s the thing you came over to get, isn’t it?”

“This is a journal that Djembe wanted me to read,” Basenji said as he closed the book in question and held it up. It was a plain hardcover book with a blue cover, a few hundred pages thick. “I gave it to her to practice writing songs in and she wanted me to look over some of what she’s written.”

Akita ceased his etching and looked up from his project, his eyebrows lifted in surprise. “She’s been writing songs? Already?”

“Oh yes,” Basenji said with a nod. “She’s not ready to write songs about our people’s history, but apprentices need all the practice they can get. Didn’t you ever see my father sketching out song ideas when he was training?”

“Not really, no,” Akita said, scratching at his temple. “I have no talent in the Ways, not even a marginal one, and so I never paid much attention to Saluki’s craft. What did she write about?”

“Small things,” Basenji answered, flipping through the pages at random. “Things like sewing, the weather, boys, and songs about writing songs. One day she’ll write songs that matter, but right now she’s just learning how to put a story into words.”

“Are they any good?” Akita asked. He set down his art project – a half completed statuette of Djembe’s mother – and reached his long arms out to pluck the journal out of Basenji’s paws.

Basenji pulled the book away and gave an apologetic smile in response to his uncle’s look of confusion. “She asked me not to let you see them,” he explained, laughing nervously. “She’s still a little self-conscious about her craft. She didn’t even want to be in the same room with me when I read them.”

“Oh, I suppose that’s fine,” Akita said stoically, but the look in his eyes said he was more than a little disappointed.

“They’re very good, though,” Basenji said, hoping that a good boost to his fatherly pride might make him feel better. “She’s mastered classical structure in very short order and she’s doing some interesting experimental things with her prosody.”

Akita furrowed his brow, his tail thumping slowly on the ground behind him as he tried to parse Basenji’s assessment. Basenji had seen the look before. His family had produced a long line of drummers – many of them powerful and prolific – but even in such a line there were dogs who had little interest in scholarly pursuits.

“I see,” Akita nodded, his long tail swishing happily behind him. “She is my daughter, after all.”

“As you say, uncle,” Basenji said with a laugh.

“Bah, fine, laugh at your poor uncle,” Akita said with a grin. “Your father used to laugh at me as well. I suppose you can fill in for him in that, as you have in his larger duties.”

Basenji bowed his head respectfully.

“Hm, still,” Akita continued with a shrug, “I wish Saluki would come back already. I feel uneasy with him being in that place.” Akita picked up his jewel and returned to his carving, adding to the small pile of dust and shavings in his lap. “If the Old Dogs sealed that city, it was for a reason… It certainly did your brother no favors.”

Basenji sighed. After discussing what had happened with envoys from Equestria, Saddle Arabia, and Zebrica, it had been decided that the matter of what had happened in the Necropolis should be kept secret. Even in their pack, the only dogs who knew the whole truth were Basenji, Dingo, Saluki, and Shiba.

There had been no bodies to dispose of. The nightmares conjured by Anubis’ curse had left nothing but blood and tattered rags, and agents of the three nations involved in the cover-up had cleaned away what little remained before the excavation team had been allowed into the city.

“It’s safe now,” Basenji insisted. “If there was anything to be sealed away, it’s already left that place. Father believes that as well, else he would never have gone there.”

Akita’s paw went still, but his eyes remained fixed on his work, as though he was contemplating setting it down again. “The whole pack knows something happened there – it must have. Nodog questions it, though, and we don’t dare voice our suspicions, because it’s to do with the Old Dogs, and that makes it drummer business. We may not understand the Ways as you do, but we know to leave drummer business to drummers.” Akita covered the half-finished carving of his wife, cradling it preciously with both paws as though he were shielding the image from what he was about to say. He leaned forward, a sad look in his eyes. “A madness took your brother from us, and when you brought him back, it left him hollow inside… If I must be honest, you must have left something of yourself there, as well. There’s something sad in you, and I worry my big brother will be changed by whatever has changed his sons.”

“That city is dead, uncle,” Basenji said as he broke eye contact with his uncle. “There is a lot that you haven’t been told, but trust me when I say that that place is no danger now. There is nothing there but bones.”

“It’s not just a matter of trust, pup. The pack was damned frightened of what happened to your brother… We’re dogs. We can crush diamond with our fangs and shatter granite with our paws, but ghost and shadows? The Ways? You can’t fight that with fang or claw. Drummers don’t know what it’s like to be powerless. The things you know, the things you can do, they make even the strongest of us feel helpless.”

Basenji rested a paw atop the drum at his side. It was strange to have such an enormously powerful dog praise his strength. Intellectually, Basenji knew that he had power, but it was another thing entirely to hear it from somedog else.

Akita was wrong, however. Back in the Necropolis, Basenji's very faith in the Old Dogs had been shaken. He had been surrounded on all sides by literal nightmares, standing upon the bloodied ground where an unknown number of his fellow dogs had given up their lives, and he’d believed himself damned by the very creator of his kind. For the briefest, most terrifying of moments, he’d given up. He’d felt powerless.

But he hadn’t been alone.

“I know well what it means to feel helpless, uncle,” Basenji confessed. “But it was a good experience, I think. From it I learned that feeling helpless is not the same as being helpless. Fear can rob us of our sense, but we mustn’t let it.”

A smile played across Akita’s features, and his chest rumbled with a deep chuckle. “You’re hardly the same pup who got his tail caught in a rat trap and cried for an hour.”

“Ah, that was very long ago,” Basenji said, shifting uncomfortably.

“I wonder if my little Djembe will ever be the type to say wise things,” Akita wondered aloud as he started carving again.

“I believe she will,” Basenji said. “Wisdom always finds those who seek it.”

The front door opened suddenly, flying open with a clang of iron against stone as the door slammed against the wall. Djembe stood in the doorway, panting slightly.

“Basenji!” she shouted. “I have been looking for you! There’s a pony up on the surface who says she’s here to see you.”

Basenji blinked. He had a few pony friends in the city, but they never visited. “Who is it?”

“She says her name is Spitfire,” Djembe said.

“I don’t know anyone named Spitfire,” Basenji said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “At least I don’t think I do. Did she say what she wants?”

“She only told us her name and that she’ll only speak to you.” Djembe threw back her head and sighed with the sort of throaty groan that only the young could make without shame. “Just come on!”

Djembe turned and ran down the tunnel in the direction of the stairs leading to the surface, not even bothering to close the door behind herself in her haste.

“She was pretty worked up,” Akita commented. “Must be important.”

“Well, you know how excitable Djembe is,” Basenji said as he stood. “There’s no telling how important it actually is until I get up there and see for myself.”

“True enough,” Akita said with a shrug.

Basenji was almost to the door when something occurred to him. He turned back to find that his uncle had set aside the carving and was already reaching for the journal that he’d left on the floor. His uncle noticed him watching and quickly sat back down, trying to look innocent.

“You’ll see to it that gets back to her room, yes?” Basenji said.

“Of course,” Akita said with a nod.

“And by the way… you’re wrong about Dingo,” Basenji added. “Dingo isn’t hollow. If anything, he has too much inside of himself.”

Akita furrowed his brow and his tail began thumping the ground impatiently as he mulled that over. After a moment he merely shrugged. “Drummer business,” he said simply as he reached for the journal and began flipping through the pages.

* * *

Spitfire sat under the boughs of a tree, leaning against the trunk and taking minor refuge from the heat as she waited for the skittish girl with the yellow cloak to fetch this Basenji character. She yawned, as much out of boredom as weariness, and watched the stairs for sign that anyone might be coming.

The big dog that had been with the little female stood halfway between her and the stairs, watching her and trying to look impressive as he held his spear at the ready. She returned his wary stare with one of disinterest.

“You should relax, buddy,” Spitfire said, breaking the silence between them. “I get that you’re on the job but I’m just here to see a dog about a pony. I’m not looking to cause any trouble.”

“Chaga is guard,” the guard – who was named Chaga, apparently – said in very rough Equish as he thumped the butt of his spear on the ground.

Spitfire rolled her eyes. She lifted the flap of her saddlebag with a wing and rooted around for her canteen. Fresh out of the ground, the water had been cool and refreshing, but a few hours in a canteen had warmed it considerably.

Spitfire held out the canteen and shook it, sloshing the liquid around in the metal container. “Drink?” she asked the guard dog. He eyed the canteen but decided to hold his post wordlessly. “More for me,” Spitfire said with a shrug.

A bark echoed up from the stairwell, drawing their attention, and a few moments later the girl with the yellow cloak joined them on the surface. She stopped to catch her breath for a few seconds. She and Chaga shared a few words in their language before the girl turned to Spitfire.

“Basenji is coming,” she said, her Equish leaps and bounds better than the guard’s but still a little rough. “He will be here quickly. My name is Djembe, Basenji is my cousin.”

“Thank you, Djembe,” Spitfire said. She shook the canteen. “Drink?”

Djembe blinked at the offer. “Ah, no, thank you,” she said, shooting a questioning glance as Chaga.

The bigger dog shrugged and the motion was so slight that Spitfire barely caught the movement of his shoulders under his armor.

Spitfire raised an eyebrow at the furtive little glances the two dogs were shooting one another. She’d followed the directions the barkeep had given her and reached the burrow in just a little over an hour. When she’d touched down she’d found these two sitting together under the tree, talking to each other all friendly-like. She hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, but now she was starting to get the vibe that these two dogs might have a thing.

“Heh, you two are cute,” Spitfire said, gesturing her hoof back and forth between them. “Been together long?” She chuckled throatily at the dumbstruck looks that came over them. “Judging from the looks on your faces, I’d say no.”

The rest of their wait passed in silence as the two dogs tried to look at anything that wasn’t Spitfire or one another. Spitfire just sipped her water and smiled at them like a cat watching a pair of canaries squirm in a cage.

Djembe and Chaga’s ears pricked up, drawing their attention towards the stairs as their superior dog hearing picked up the sound of someone approaching.

Spitfire put away her canteen and stood to greet the dog she’d traveled thousands of miles to see.

Basenji didn’t cut nearly as imposing a figure as Chaga did. While Chaga could have easily towered above any non-alicorn Spitfire had ever seen, Basenji wasn’t much larger than a big stallion. He wore a cloak like the one Djembe had, only a deep green color, and he had a satchel and drum hanging from straps at his side that – according to the report she’d read – marked his profession as a drummer. She hadn’t met many diamond dogs, but she guessed that he was probably still fairly young – probably pretty close to her age, actually.

This dog definitely didn’t look like a fighter, but if Twilight was right, they didn’t need him for his physical prowess. All the same, Spitfire couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment as she watched him walk past the other two dogs to join her under the tree.

“You’re Basenji?” she asked.

“Yes, I am Basenji,” he replied, dipping his head in a respectful nod that Spitfire returned as a reflex. “You are Spitfire? I do not believe we are acquainted. What business could you have with me?”

“I’m here to deliver you a letter,” Spitfire said as she rooted in her bags for the scroll Twilight had given her. “You need to learn how to answer your mail. This is the third one you’ve been sent.”

“From whom?” Basenji asked, cocking his head in surprise.

She found the scroll and held it out between her teeth. “Twilight Sparkle,” she answered.

Basenji grabbed the scroll and tore the wax seal off with a flick of his claw. “Twilight Sparkle has sent you?” he asked hurriedly as he unrolled the letter and scanned the pages. “She has been attempting to contact me? Is she well? Is something wrong?”

“It’s in the letter,” Spitfire replied. Judging from his reaction, he probably hadn’t gotten the other letters Twilight had sent – which was good, since it meant that he wasn’t purposefully ignoring Twilight’s call for help.

Basenji worked his way through the note and the color slowly bled from his face as he read. Halfway through the note his legs gave out from under him and he fell on his rump. Djembe and Chaga made a move to rush to his side but he waved them back without lifting his eyes from the page.

“Is this true?” he asked tremulously as he reached the bottom of the letter.

“I didn’t read it,” Spitfire admitted, “but that is from Twilight, so whatever’s in that letter is as good as her word.”

Basenji sat on the ground, his eyes unfocused as he stared at the letter he held gently between his paws. Suddenly, a flash of anger came over him, and he crunched the scroll up in a fist.

“Please wait here,” Basenji said as he stood and shoved the letter roughly into his satchel. “I will need to speak to someone, but I will join you again soon.”

Spitfire blinked at the heated look in Basenji’s eyes. She wasn’t sure what Twilight had written in that letter, but this guy looked absolutely livid. “Uh, you got it, bub, I’ll be right here.”

Basenji turned without another word and stalked back towards the stairs at a jog. The two younger dogs must have noticed the change in his demeanor as well. They followed after him, barking and whining worriedly in their native tongue. Basenji ignored them as he hurried towards the stairs. Considering Chaga was concerned enough to walk away from his post to follow, Spitfire guessed that Basenji wasn’t the type to get angry like this often. There was an old saying that warned to be careful of someone who was slow to anger, and in Spitfire’s experience it held water.

“Wait here, he says,” Spitfire muttered as she wiped the sweat from her forehead. “How can it be so much hotter here? It’s the same sun as in Equestria. Celestia must hate this place.”

Spitfire looked around and realized with a start that she wasn’t as alone as she’d thought. Another diamond dog sat a short distance away, at the edge of a cliff overlooking the forest valley to the north, staring off into the far distance. She’d seen him when she’d flown in, but he’d been so quiet, so still, that she had completely forgotten about his presence. Even now, looking directly at him, he was more like a statue than a living thing.

The quiet dog was a little bigger than Basenji, but not by much, and his frame was far leaner. He wore a traveling cloak, like the one that Basenji and Djembe had, but it was tan-colored, as bland and unassuming as the dog that wore it.

“Hey!” she called out. “What’s up?”

The dog remained unresponsive save for a flick of his tail that tossed up a little cloud of dust and dry grass. Were it not for that slight bit of movement, she might have gone back to the theory that she was looking at a statue overlooking the valley, like a gargoyle perched atop an old building.

“Hey, I’m talking to you!” she shouted a little more forcefully. He continued to be unresponsive so she sat back under the tree with a huff. She began rummaging through her pack for something to eat while she waited. “Leave me alone up here, in the heat, with a deaf dog… This guy better be worth the hassle.”

* * *

“Wait here,” Basenji said firmly as he turned a corner and the door to Shiba’s den came into view.

Djembe and Chaga had followed him the whole way from the surface. He hadn’t spoken a word to either of them to this point, and halfway to Chaga’s den they had stopped trying to get a response from him. The suddenness with which he broke the silence must have been enough to shock them into compliance.

“Talker Basenji,” Chaga began, his voice steady but strained with worry, “this is Alpha Shiba’s den. Is… Should I come with you?”

“Wait here,” Basenji repeated.

The door to Shiba’s den was the same iron as every other door in the burrow, but his position as the pack’s alpha was reflected in the diamond embedded in it at eye-level. It was a useless piece of ostentation, given that Shiba’s den had its own tunnel, so you were very unlikely to knock on the wrong door.

Basenji turned the handle and shoved the door open without knocking. Because every dog was capable of easily digging through the walls of another dog’s den, entering without announcing yourself or gaining permission was the height of insult.

Shiba, to his credit, didn’t appear startled to have his door thrown open unannounced. He was sitting in front of a hearth with fire stones burning beneath a cauldron large enough to feed a whole family. He was holding a clay bowl in one paw and feeding his face, as he always was whenever Basenji saw him.

“You’re not one to be rude,” Shiba said as he dumped the contents of the bowl back into the cauldron, “so I assume you must have a good excuse for invading my privacy.”

“I don’t want to hear that out of your fat, ignorant face,” Basenji spat out. “You’ve invaded my privacy enough that you can hardly blame me for doing the same in turnabout.”

Shiba looked up at the ceiling, his head quirked to the side. “Invaded your… Is this about your mail again?”

“You know it is!” Basenji snapped. “A messenger brought me another letter just now.” He dug into his satchel and pulled out the missive, clenching it in his fist as he shook the paper. “This is from Twilight Sparkle – the third such letter from her. You probably read the other two, so I can only assume you know exactly what’s in this one. Why would you do something so stupid as to keep this from me?”

“Because it’s none of your business,” Shiba said coolly. He reached for a long steel ladle and began stirring whatever was in the pot. “Forget about that letter.”

“None of my business?” Basenji asked. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. For all the insults he was hurling, Basenji knew that Shiba wasn’t actually as stupid as he was acting. “How can you say that? You were there when I explained to my father what happened to Dingo. You were there when we discussed the possibility that the perpetrator of that heinous act was still at large. Twilight Sparkle has confirmed the existence of such a thing and tells us it’s in Equestria, and you think, for even a second, that this isn’t my business!?”

Shiba growled angrily, baring his teeth as he threw the ladle against the wall, making a mess as the soup he’d been scooping spilled on the floor.

“I don’t give a cat’s ass about what happens in Equestria and neither should you!” Shiba barked as he rose to his full height, attempting to bring his size into the discussion. “There’s some monster running around eating the horses? Good! Let it fill its belly on them until it bursts! There’s an ocean between it and us, and that makes it their problem, not ours! Now stop questioning my leadership and get back to your duties to the pack!”

Basenji narrowed his eyes, refusing to be cowed by the display. “I told you once before that you didn’t even know what my duties were, and your words prove that beyond all doubt,” Basenji said. “Don’t question your leadership? You don’t lead me – I’m a drummer. You have no right to interfere in my affairs.”

Basenji shoved the letter back into his satchel and turned to walk away.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Shiba demanded. “We’re not finished.”

“Yes we are,” Basenji replied without turning to give Shiba the respect of telling him off to his face. “I’m going to Equestria. A drummer goes where he is needed, and our sister needs my power.”

“You will not leave,” Shiba growled in warning, “or I will break your legs right now. You should still be able to drum with only your forepaws, right?”

Basenji snickered. “I’m not afraid of you, Shiba. I never have been and I never will be. I can count on one paw the dogs strong enough to possibly face you equally in a fight, but I know at least two of them that hold me in higher esteem than they do you. One of them is my uncle and the other is standing outside in the hallway. Neither of them will be very happy to see harm come to me.”

No further threats came his way, so Basenji walked to the door.

“Basenji, wait… please.”

Basenji froze as he heard the alpha’s pleading tone. Shiba had always been a proud dog, bordering on arrogance. Basenji had never before heard him say the word “please” with sincerity.

Shiba was on the ground, on his knees with his forepaws flat on the ground. He looked panicked – frightened, even. “Please,” he repeated. “Please stay.”

“Shiba… I’ve… I’ve never seen you beg before.”

“Do you think I want to?” Shiba asked. “I’m doing this for our pack. Saluki is in that forsaken tomb of a city, Djembe is a child, and Dingo is insane. If you leave, then we have nodog here who can defend us. What if this monster decides to come for us the way it came for Dingo and those other dogs? It came to them in their dreams. It manipulated Great Anubis himself! You can’t leave us at its mercy… please. I can’t defend this pack without your help.”

As Basenji watched the huge alpha plead for him to stay, the words his uncle had spoken to him less than an hour before rang in his ears.

“Drummers don’t know what it’s like to be powerless. The things you know, the things you can do, they make even the strongest of us feel helpless.”

All at once Shiba’s actions and attitude these past few months made sense. He was a very traditional alpha, using his size and strength to intimidate any member of the pack he wasn’t able to reason with. Shiba must have known that he wouldn’t be able to get his way by reasoning with Basenji, so he had simply done what he always did when his words failed him – he shortened the leash and hoped he could frighten the dissident into shape.

Shiba had been afraid. He was the leader of their pack, and so the truth of what had happened had been revealed to him in full. He hadn’t been shielded from the terrifying reality of the events like the rest of the pack, and the story must have unnerved him to his very core. Shiba was strong, he was a great fighter, and he was a leader – but none of his strength or skill or leadership could stand up against an enemy that could best a god. Akita had said it well when he'd said that claw and fang meant nothing to entities that commanded shadows and nightmares. Only the Ways could protect the pack, and only drummers knew the Ways.

Basenji had never liked Shiba, but he’d never hated him. He stepped up to the big alpha and placed a paw on his shoulder reassuringly.

“Stand, please,” Basenji urged him. Shiba did as he was asked. “I must leave. If this entity has taken root in Equestria, I have to believe that it’s done so for a reason. I cannot allow it to go unchecked. I don’t believe this is merely a threat to our pack. This is a threat to all dogs. To all beings in this world.”

“There must be somedog else who can go,” Shiba said. “Perhaps Saluki can be convinced, or maybe a drummer from another pack.”

“Another drummer might prove equal to the task, but I was the one who was called,” Basenji said with a shake of his head. “I am already involved, and so must see this thing through until the end.”

Shiba looked like he wanted to argue more, but he gave a resigned nod of his head and gently brushed Basenji’s paw off his shoulder. He went to where his ladle had landed and picked it up, shaking it dry and wiping it clean on his vest – which itself was fairly dirty.

“Why do you have to be so pigheaded?” Shiba asked as he scooped stew into his bowl.

Basenji smirked. “I was just thinking the same thing about you,” he quipped. As he left, Basenji added, “If something does go wrong, send for my father.”

Shiba waved a paw dismissively, so focused on his stew that he couldn’t even manage a proper goodbye. “Stay safe,” he muttered, barely loud enough to be heard over the shrieking hinges of his door.

* * *

Saluki’s den was one-part living space, one-part library. Basenji’s own collection had never grown very large, simply because he’d always had access to his father’s personal library. Saluki had spent a lifetime collecting books and stories, and himself penning more than a few.

The history of dogs was long and well-remembered. A drummer was expected to know hundreds of songs of varying length and complexity, but there were more songs than that many times over. Older songs, and songs that were less relevant to modern times, were written down in a sort of short-script that only drummers could read.

Basenji stood in front of one of his father’s bookshelves, flipping through a paw-written songbook with brittle, yellowing pages that had been written by his great-great-grandmother. He huffed in exasperation and set the book back on the shelf. He pulled a few more volumes down, making the iron shelves groan at the change in their burden, and piled them on the floor next to him.

“I don’t understand this,” Djembe said from behind him. “How can you be leaving again?”

“Twilight Sparkle needs my help,” Basenji replied.

“And just like that you’re leaving again?” Djembe asked. “What do we do if somedog comes in need of your wisdom?”

“That doesn’t often happen,” Basenji said with a shrug. “But if somedog needs guidance, they will find it. I was just telling somedog today that wisdom finds those who seek it.”

Djembe scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest haughtily. “That’s not something I want to hear from the dog that’s supposed to be my teacher. What about my training, huh? Who’s going to train me?”

Basenji looked up from his sorting and lifted an eyebrow. He swept the room with a paw, indicating the room they were in and the many shelves filled with books around them.

“You can read,” Basenji quipped, “I don’t think you’ll have to look very far for the wisdom you seek.”

“I don’t need books, I need a teacher,” Djembe snapped. She stomped the ground petulantly and uncrossed her arms enough to recross them more firmly. “If you are leaving then I will leave as well.”

“You’re not coming,” Basenji stated authoritatively. “And you don’t need me to hold your paw through the rest of your lessons. You’re already very near the end of your training. You can complete it on your own.”

“And how am I supposed to know when I’m finished, eh?” she countered.

“You’ll know.”

“How?”

“Because you’ll be finished,” Basenji said, shrugging again as he returned to scanning through the books.

He had to fight to keep the smile off his face as he led the poor girl in circles. Was it maybe a little mean to be so vague with his apprentice? It certainly was, but it was also tradition – and fun, great, great fun. It was every apprentice’s dream to one day be in a position to be just as obnoxiously vague and mysterious as their own master was to them, and Basenji wanted to wring a few more minutes of that out of his cousin before he set off on his journey.

“Well then I’m finished now,” Djembe said, “I’ve just decided it.”

Basenji smiled. “Do you really believe that?”

Djembe threw back her head and groaned. “Argh, why do you have to be so difficult?”

“You’ll understand when you’re older~” Basenji sang.

“Now you’re just being a jerk.”

Basenji laughed as he stuffed a couple of small songbooks into his satchel. He left the pile of books on the floor and started browsing another case. There were several more piles scattered around the room.

“Do this jerk a favor and put those books away for me, please,” he said. “Spitfire is waiting and I have to leave as soon as Chaga returns with the things I sent him for.”

Djembe hesitated, but after a moment of indecision she stepped forward and began organizing the shelves. She put the books back in order almost faster than Basenji had taken them down. Part of her early training under Saluki had been to organize the collection of books, and Basenji had to admit that her system was much better than the one Saluki had taught him, which was less of a system than a general policy of putting the books wherever they fit.

“I still don’t understand why I can’t come with you,” she said.

“Because you’re not ready to carry this sort of burden,” Basenji explained gently. “There may be an element of danger, and I don’t think your father would appreciate me dragging you into something like that.”

“All the more reason that I should come with you,” Djembe insisted. “You might need help. I’m a drummer, too. If there is a need for my skill then shouldn’t I also go?”

“Even if you were finished with your training, I wouldn’t want you involved in this,” Basenji said.

“This is about what happened to Dingo, right?” Djembe asked, her voice lowered to a half-whisper. “Twilight Sparkle was there when you found him, and now she’s calling you on business so urgent that you’re dropping everything to rush to her side… It wasn’t just a sickness, was it? Something… something hurt Dingo, didn’t it?”

Basenji took a deep breath, held it, and let it out with a long sigh. He could lie to her, but she was smart enough to know he was doing it. “Yes,” he said, deciding that that much truth couldn’t hurt.

“And now you’re going to go after it.”

Basenji placed another book into the satchel at his side. “Yes.”

Basenji felt his younger cousin wrap her arms around him as she buried her face into his chest.

“I don’t want you to get hurt, too,” she said.

Basenji returned the hug as he carefully scratched behind her ears. “I won’t lie to you and say that that won’t happen, because I might,” he confessed. “I can promise you, though, that I won’t be alone, and that I’ll do everything I can to stay safe.”

They stayed like that for a while, Djembe holding on to him like she would never see him again, quietly crying into his chest as Basenji scratched her ears. At some point the front door had opened, and Chaga stood in the hallway, giving them a moment of privacy.

Djembe finally pulled away, wiping her face clean with the inside of her cloak as she called for Chaga to come in.

“I have the things you requested,” Chaga said as he set down the items he held in his arms.

Chaga had gone and retrieved a few basic things from Basenji’s den – a sack of gold coins, one of jewels, a few books, some strips of dried meat, and a large water skin. Basenji took the basic travel necessities and placed them into his satchel. The canvas bag was bulging at this point and heavy enough that the weight was noticeable. He adjusted the strap to account for the burden.

His preparations complete, he placed a kiss atop Djembe’s head and clapped Chaga roughly on the shoulder. “Look out for one another, and be good,” he told them. “And finish putting these books away.”

He left Saluki’s den and made for the surface. He passed a few dogs on his way out, and though they looked at him curiously none stopped him to ask where he was going. Word that he had left would get around soon enough.

The trip to the surface was quick and uneventful. The last time he’d left on a journey it had been in the dead of night, and he’d snuck out past sentries by digging an exit through a tunnel close to the surface. Now he was leaving again, this time intimately aware of the danger he might be facing. His first foray into adventure had almost seen him stupidly dying of dehydration in the desert, and as he climbed the steps to the surface he quietly promised to himself that the next time he knocked on Anubis’ door, it would be as a very old dog.

When he reached the surface the sun told him that there was just enough time to reach Zanzebra before dark, so long as they left immediately. Spitfire was waiting for him under the acacia tree that Djembe and Chaga frequented.

She stood as he approached, her eyes drawn to the pack at his side. “I was wondering what was taking you so long,” she said.

“We shall leave in a moment,” he said as he walked past her. “I must say one last farewell, and then I will be ready to go.”

“I talked to that guy a bit ago,” Spitfire explained as she jerked her head in Dingo’s direction. “He’s a real chatterbox.”

“As you say,” Basenji said with a laugh.

Basenji stood next to Dingo, joining his brother’s vigil as he squinted into the distance. “Equestria is in that direction,” he said, stating aloud what was now obvious to him.

Dingo’s ear twitched.

“I know you heard what we were talking about,” Basenji continued. “You know I got a letter from Twilight Sparkle. She found the one responsible for sealing away Great Anubis in your body. That’s what you’ve been watching.”

Dingo’s ear twitched.

“Based on what Twilight Sparkle said in her letter, I believe I know what this is, but I will need to consult the old songs before I’m willing to speak it aloud,” Basenji explained. “I will stop this thing, though. I promise you.”

Dingo reached up a paw and scratched lightly behind Basenji’s ears, and the gesture was so alike to what Basenji did when he was speaking to Djembe that he laughed aloud. “I’m not a pup anymore,” he whined in a shrill approximation of his little cousin’s beautiful voice.

Dingo’s ear twitched. He stopped scratching and gave Basenji a few brotherly pats on the head, just hard enough to sting.

Basenji slapped the paw away with a chuckle. “Enough. I have to go… If I don’t come back, watch over our dogs, okay? Especially little Djembe.”

Basenji began walking away.

“Be strong.”

Basenji froze at the sound of a once-familiar voice that he hadn’t heard in over a year. He turned slowly, eyes wide as he stared in disbelief at his brother. Dingo had turned his head to look over his shoulder, a broad smile on his face.

“Did you just…?”

Dingo’s smile widened almost imperceptibly before he finally looked away.

“Hey, you coming?” Spitfire shouted. She’d already put her bags back on and secured them. “Unless you can fly, we got a long walk back to the city.”

“Yes… yes I am coming,” Basenji said. He went to join her and together they headed for Zanzebra.

* * *

Spitfire sat on the floor in her cabin, her back pressed to the bed and a half-finished bottle of bathtub rotgut next to her. She stared at the ceiling fan and watched it spin ineffectively on the lowest setting. One of the blades was missing, so someone had broken off the chain that adjusted the speed to prevent anyone from turning it up too high and shaking the thing loose. Even on the lowest speed the fan swung in a lazy, hypnotic circle on the ball joint that connected it to the deckhead.

The trip back to Zanzebra had been quiet. Neither she nor Basenji really knew one another, and Basenji had spent most of the walk with his nose in a book, so they’d been perfectly comfortable walking in silence – at least for a little while. Halfway back the pressure of the silence had gotten to Spitfire and she’d offered to fly ahead to make some arrangements for them. Basenji agreed to meet her at the airfield once he was in town.

Spitfire had told Twilight that she would drag Basenji back to Equestria if she had to, but that had been mostly bluster. Diamond dogs were almost entirely muscle, even skinny ones like Basenji, and she didn’t like her odds of making it the whole way home with something that heavy sitting on her back. Luckily, she’d made a friend in her brief stopover in Zanzebra, and Gale the griffoness was more than happy to give them a lift. She had been on her way to a job in Western Equestria, and she’d agreed to drop them off somewhere they could catch a train back to Canterlot.

It was also convenient that Gale was an independent contractor with her own ship. According to her, she usually hired small crews on contract and let them go once the jobs were over, and since she was between jobs at the moment it meant that they had the run of the ship to themselves.

Spitfire sighed as she let her head loll back against the bed. Gale’s airship was quick, but it’d still be a couple of days before they were in Equestria. She decided to cap off the bottle and secure it in her saddlebag under the bed – there was no point in drinking the whole thing tonight.

Spitfire’s ears perked as she caught a faint knocking sound coming from somewhere in the ship. Old boats like this tended to have engines that knocked, and metal hulls loved creaking, but she’d been around airships enough to know what those things sounded like, and the shallow, irregular thumping noise wasn’t like anything she’d ever heard on a ship before.

“The hay is that…?” she wondered aloud as she rose to her hooves.

The sudden movement caused the gasses in her stomach to churn until they found an escape as a massive belch. Spitfire flinched away from the odorous stink and banished the possibly flammable gas with a few flaps of her wings.

She left her cabin and tried to zero in on the source of the noise. Gale’s ship was pretty big – an older commercial model with a massive hold for cargo. It was the sort of ship that was built to emphasize room for freight to maximize profitability, which meant that the crew deck was disproportionately small compared to engineering and the hold.

Spitfire followed the noise and found that it wasn’t coming from either the hold or the engines. The source of the thumping seemed to be coming from the deck above. She climbed the stairs leading up to the main deck and opened the cabin door to find Basenji sitting at the bow of the ship.

“Oh, right, drums,” Spitfire muttered to herself. “Guess I’ve had a little more than I thought.”

Spitfire considered just turning back around, heading to bed, and sleeping the next few days away until they were in port, but the more she thought about it, the less appealing that idea was. She stood in the doorway for a while more, watching as the diamond dog sat with his back against the railing, hunched over with a book in one paw and the other gently tapping the drum sitting at his side. He was so entranced by whatever he was doing that he hadn’t even noticed that he wasn’t alone anymore.

Basenji had been there when her dad died. In fact, according to the action report she’d read, Twilight’s rescue of this dog had been the thing that had led them to that ancient city. Basenji had even been the one that had broken the seal and let out the curse of Anubis. If she were a petty mare, she could easily lay the blame for her father’s death on Basenji’s head – but that would be more than petty, it’d be insulting to the memory of her dad. She only knew him from the stories she’d heard from old friends of his, but she knew soldiers, and she didn’t know a one that would want anyone laying the blame for their death on the head of someone they’d died trying to help.

Still, it was a little weird to think that this quiet, bookish diamond dog had been the impetus for an event that had more or less consumed her life for nearly a year now. As such, her every attempt to this point to try and talk to him was awkward in a way that she couldn’t quite explain, even to herself.

Spitfire sighed. This was stupid. This dog was a friend of Twilight’s, he’d known her dad, and – most importantly – he was going to be joining the team in the hunt for the thing that had killed her father. He was likely going to be fighting at her side, and she couldn’t be feeling weird around him as they were going into battle together.

“Screw it,” she said under her breath as she stepped onto the deck and shut the heavy steel door behind herself. The only thing to do was to treat this like any other unfamiliar or uncomfortable situation she’d ever face – fly face-first into it and see what happened.

She’d closed the door a little more forcefully than she’d meant to, and the loud crash as the door slammed into the frame was enough to draw Basenji’s attention. The dog looked up as she walked across the open deck purposefully. There was a strip of some kind of meat dangling out the side of his mouth.

“Having a snack?” she asked as she sidled up to sit beside him and took a deep breath of bracingly cold air. They were still over land, but close enough to the sea that she could already smell the salt in the air.

Basenji looked down at her and quirked his head in confusion. After a moment he seemed to realize that he still had the jerky in his mouth. He quickly tore the meat free and shoved it into the satchel at his side.

“Ah, apologies,” he said as he swallowed what was in his mouth.

“For what?” Spitfire asked, raising an eyebrow. “For the meat? It’s not as uncommon in Equestria as you’d think. I’ve made friends with more than a few griffons in my day. They always told me, ‘If it’s not smart enough to ask you not to eat it, it’s fair game,’ and I’m agreeable to that line of reasoning.”

“Then my apologies for the assumption,” Basenji said. “Little have I traveled outside of my homeland, and so I am perhaps unwittingly being overcautious to avoid social misstep.”

“It’s cool,” Spitfire said with a wave. “Most ponies won’t blink at it. They may take a few steps back on account of the smell, but I don’t mind it, myself. I’ve even had something sort of meat-like once.”

Basenji’s ears pricked up at that admission. “Truly? How did that come about?”

“You know the Sultan of Bruneigh?”

“Ah, I am not so good with politics beyond those of my pack,” Basenji admitted shyly, “but I have heard that the Great Sultan is a dragon who leads ponies.”

“You heard right,” Spitfire said. “About ten years ago the previous sultan got into an argument with a dragon. The dragon ate him and put on his crowny-turbany-thingy, declared himself the new sultan just to spite the old guy.”

“Did his people not wish to take revenge for their leader?” Basenji asked, stroking his throat in the way someone with a beard might stroke said beard.

“Old guy was a jerk, new guy surprisingly wasn’t,” Spitfire said with a shrug. “Anyway, we did a show for him about a year and a half back. He put out a spread for us and thought he’d get a chuckle out of serving a dessert course of chilled monkey eyeballs – I took it as a challenge.”

“Indeed?” Basenji asked, sounding impressed. “What were they like?”

Spitfire’s face screwed up at the memory of the cold, salty little orbs of goo. She could still practically feel them bursting in her mouth.

“Gushy,” she said succinctly. “I ate the whole bowl, though. Nopony else on the team would touch them. One of my teammates, Fleetfoot, ran off and puked into a six-hundred-year-old vase that was worth more than this airship.”

Basenji chuckled. “You are an interesting pony, Spitfire. I might ask, though, what brings you out at this late hour. Can you not sleep?”

“Nah, I could sleep,” Spitfire explained, “I could sleep like a log, but I decided I wanted to spend the time drinking instead. Just one of those nights where you’d rather be awake, ya know?”

“As you say.”

“What about you?” Spitfire asked. She looked down at the book he was holding in his left paw. He’d closed the book on one of his digits, marking the place he’d left off. “What are you reading?”

Basenji opened the book and ran his digit pads gently over the page. He frowned thoughtfully before leveling a studious glare at Spitfire. “You are Twilight Sparkle’s messenger, but I must ask… Are you… privy to the events of last summer?”

“Yeah, I’m plugged in,” Spitfire said. “Anubis, curse, evil dog stuff – I’ve heard the story.”

“Good, good,” Basenji said, nodding with each utterance. “To answer your question, I am studying the old songs of my people. This creature that Twilight Sparkle has crossed swords with could be one of several things. There is one possibility that jumps to mind most immediately, however… I am not comfortable even speaking the thing’s name until I am absolutely certain, and for this I shall need to further consult the wisdom of the Old Dogs.”

“That’s fine, just make sure you’ve got the right guy and we can talk about it when we’ve got Twilight in the room,” Spitfire suggested, “that way you don’t gotta explain it twice.”

Basenji seemed to be greatly relieved by her suggestion, and he lowered his head in a grateful bow. “A thousand thanks for your understanding and patience.”

Spitfire chuckled at the formality. She took the opportunity to lean forward and catch a glimpse of what was written in the book. The script looked messy, or maybe it was neat and the writing was just supposed to look that way. In either case, the page was indecipherable.

“So those are songs?” Spitfire asked. “Twilight said you drummer guys use music to make your magic. Is that like a spell book, then?”

“No, we have no such thing.” After a moment’s pause he leaned over and held the book open so Spitfire could get a better look as he flipped through the pages. “There is nothing of the Ways in these songs. Songs are merely stories, a way for drummers to record the history of our people – it is simply information. They have no more power than any other song.” Basenji chuckled softly as he closed the book and stowed it in his satchel. “Singing is no requirement for mastery of the Ways. This is most fortunate, as my own singing voice is rather less than pleasant, despite my best efforts.”

Basenji picked up the drum he’d been absentmindedly beating on earlier and placed it in his lap. He tapped it once, waited a moment, then tapped it again, twice, and with more force.

Spitfire gasped as she felt her heart skip a beat. The third tap of his drum had washed over her like a wave, and for the tiniest of moments, the cold night air had left her as she felt a sensation of warmth over her entire body, like she’d just been lowered into a hot bath.

“The drum is what is necessary for a drummer to interact with the Ways,” Basenji explained. “Every thing that lives has a heart, and each of those hearts has a beat. These heartbeats are all unique. None are the same.”

Basenji tapped out a slow, steady beat on the drum. “Bum-bum-bam-bum-bum,” he said as he hit the drum.

He held his paw still atop the drumhead for a moment, then beat another rhythm, fast and sharp. “Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam.”

He placed both paws on the drum and quickly tapped out both rhythms at the same time, one with each paw.

“Hearts,” he explained as he played his drum, “beating separately, yet together. The many beats become one, creating a heartbeat for the entire world, made of the rhythm of all that lives. Those who are strong in the Ways can hear the Heart of the World, and with our drums we add a new beat to it, influencing the shape of it. It is a subtle art, more so than the magic you are used to, but it has its uses.”

As Spitfire watched Basenji play, she started to understand why Twilight had said they needed him. She could feel the vibration of his drumming in the air, on her fur, on her skin. The beat of his paws against the drum filled her with warmth like a summer’s day, and she could almost hear this great big worldly heartbeat and the way that her own fit into it.

She realized that she’d been staring, and a she felt a flush of heat in her face that she knew had nothing to do with her drinking or whatever his drum magic was doing. She brought up a wing to cover her face, pretending to wipe her nose clean along the ridge. It was gross, but at least he wouldn’t see her blushing like some kind of stupid girl.

His paws went still and he sighed.

“I feel I must once again offer my apologies,” Basenji said. “I have said overmuch of a topic that you surely must find spectacularly dull. Even amongst my own kind, most care only for what I do, and care very little for how it is done.”

“It’s cool, yo,” Spitfire said with a sniff. She looked away, trying to appear nonchalant about the whole thing. “It was… interesting.”

“You are ever gracious,” Basenji said. He toyed nervously with the strings that held the skin of his drum taut, plucking at them with his claws. “If it is not an imposition, might I ask how it is you have found yourself entwined in these dangerous affairs?”

“Same way you did, I guess,” Spitfire wearily. “The bad guys made it personal.”

Basenji’s brows knitted together in confusion. He scratched at the little crease between his eyes and opened his mouth wordlessly. He shook his head.

“I do not understand,” he said.

Spitfire stood and put her forehooves up on the bow to look out at the sky. She opened her wings, angling them so the wind blew through her feathers without lifting her into the air. She wasn’t flying under her own power, but the feeling of wind in her wings was calming. The ocean was finally close enough that she could see the moon’s reflection in the water. It was a good night.

“You got involved because they took your brother away and you wanted to do something about it, right?” she asked. “It was pretty much the same thing for me… Sky Chaser was my dad.”

“Oh…” he said quietly. He folded his paws in his lap, laying them atop his drum and fidgeting nervously. “Oh… Spitfire I am…”

“Don’t say it,” Spitfire said without heat. “I’m so tired of everyone apologizing to me like I’m a helpless little orphan or something. I heard it from Twilight, I heard it from the Captain of the Guard, every service buddy of my dad’s that I’ve tracked down and talked to… I don’t want to hear it from you, too…”

“I am… I am sorry for being sorry… my apologies.”

Spitfire couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I guess I can accept that one,” she said as she lightly nudged his shoulder with her hip. She dropped to the deck and sat back next to him.

This was easier than she’d thought it would be. Basenji was a very nice dog. He was soft spoken, polite, and seemed to have a pretty good head on his shoulders. Once she’d gotten over the initial weirdness she’d been feeling, she’d found it very easy to talk to him.

Or maybe that was just the liquor talking. Either way, she was starting to like this guy, and she had a feeling that sobriety and the cold light of day wouldn’t change that.

“You must miss him,” Basenji said.

“I didn’t know him well enough to miss him,” Spitfire explained. “My parents split up before I was old enough to remember them ever being together. Mom told him not to come around, and I got so used to him not being around that when I was old enough for it to be my decision, I never went looking for him… Somehow that makes it hurt more – the fact I could have known him if I wanted to, but chose not to… that’s what kills me about it.”

“This is understandable,” Basenji said. He spoke softly, his words measured and deliberate. “It is a frailty of living beings to most treasure that which they have never possessed. It is fine to have regret – this is to be mortal, for one would not fear mortality if one lacked the capacity to have regret – but in time we must all learn to cope with loss.”

Spitfire laughed humorlessly. “Coping’s been hard,” she admitted. “I’ve always been… kind of a hothead. I got that from my mom, and from what I hear I get my fondness for drinking from my dad. It’s not a good mix, especially in someone like me who has difficulty,” Spitfire gestured vaguely with her hooves and mimed the act of throwing something off of her chest, “expressing emotions. It’s been a tough year.”

Basenji leaned his head back, doing that beardless beard-stroking thing again, and staring up at the balloon holding their ship aloft as though the words he was searching for were written on it.

“There is an old song which is perhaps suited to your circumstances,” Basenji began. “I shall spare you the horrors of my singing and tell it to you in simple Equish. It goes thusly: Long ago, a very young dog was digging tunnels far from his den. As he descended into the earth he happened upon two gems, each nearly so large that they could feed a large family for several moons. In fact, so large were they that he could carry only one. He made his choice and went home, certain that he could return later for the other.

“The gem was the finest the dog had ever tasted. It was good, and there was much of it, and he was happy. Later, when he returned for the other gem, it was gone. Another dog had taken it. The young dog returned home, and there was still much of the first gem to be had, enough to last many moons. But the young dog was haunted by the memory of the other gem. Could it have been even better than the one he had chosen? Had he chosen poorly? Thoughts of the lost gem consumed him, and though all whom he shared the gem with told him that it was good and there was much of it, to him it was small, and tasted of brimstone and dirt.”

“So in this story, my relationship with my dad is the gem that I never chose?” Spitfire asked, arching an eyebrow.

Basenji shrugged. “This is an interpretation that one could make, yes. One is meant to take away that, though regret is natural, one should not be consumed by it. Your father would not wish you to wallow in your regret. Short was our acquaintance, but I knew friend Sky Chaser to be a stallion of good cheer, who wished the best for those around him. I should think he would want no less for his own child.”

“Things are getting better, slowly,” Spitfire said. “A big part of why I was having such a difficult time was because I just wasn’t even allowed to know what happened to him.”

“Ah,” Basenji said, recognition dawning on his face, “yes, all parties involved decided secrecy was prudent…”

“Yeah, I get why, now,” Spitfire admitted. “It’s downright spooky, but knowing what happened has made it easier to deal with, even despite said spookitude. And now that Twilight’s got me in the loop, I feel like I’m finally doing something. I’m real objective-oriented, see? Sitting around and quietly coping with emotions isn’t my style. When I’m just treading air is when I end up doing really stupid shit like starting a bar fight with a Royal Guard.”

Basenji’s eyebrows went up at that, and Spitfire had to admit it was kind of cute.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said with a smirk, “and yeah, it was Twilight. We’re friends now, but back when we first met I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder for her. I got a few good shots in, too. Pretty sure I loosened a couple of her teeth.”

Spitfire decided that, for the sake of good storytelling, it was a good idea to leave out the part where her best shot against Twilight had been a sucker punch after the crazy unicorn had pinned her against a wall by her throat.

“As a diamond dog, I am very familiar with this method of making friends,” Basenji said. “My people are rather spirited, much like yourself and Twilight Sparkle. You would do well in a pack.”

“At least until I started trying to eat diamonds,” Spitfire quipped.

“I am certain that we could accommodate you with some fresh eyeballs,” Basenji replied.

Spitfire laughed.

“So is this what you do?” Spitfire asked. “You tell stories and help talk other people through their problems?”

“Simply put, yes,” Basenji said. He rapped his digits against the drum. “I also play music.” After a moment he added, “I should like us to be friends, Spitfire. To that end, my door shall be open to you should you ever wish to hear either story or music.”

“I’d like that, thanks,” Spitfire said with a smile. “I actually wouldn’t mind hearing some more of your music now, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course, friend Spitfire.”

* * *

Cadance leapt into the air with a beat of her wings and landed in the center of the bed, bouncing as she struck the mattress. She flipped herself around with the inborn agility that only pegasi had.

“Pomf! What’re we going to do on the bed, Twilight?” she asked as she gave Twilight a look that was an oddly arousing mix of innocence and sultriness.

“We’re going to sleep,” Twilight grumbled as she slipped off her chakram holster and levitated it onto the night stand. She climbed onto the bed, groaning as her flanks throbbed with the effort. “For a thousand years.”

“A thousand years?” Cadance repeated with an exaggerated gasp, clearly feigning shock.

“A thousand years,” Twilight insisted.

“You can’t sleep for a thousand years,” Cadance said. “You’ll miss our wedding.”

Twilight collapsed onto the mattress with an exhausted groan. “Then wake me up when it’s time to get married and I’ll just go back to sleep right after."

"What about our honeymoon?"

Twilight flicked her tail dismissively. "You have permission to do stuff to me in my sleep if you need to.”

“But you told me to stop doing that,” Cadance said.

“Only because you kept waking me up,” Twilight replied. “Right now I feel like I could sleep through anything.”

Twilight tried to crawl the rest of the way to where her pillow was, but her body refused to listen to her. Betrayed by her own body, and sore beyond reason, she buried her face into the sheets with a huff. The mattress shook as Cadance got up and inched her way closer. Twilight sighed as she felt Cadance’s hooves working at the tense muscles in her back.

“My poor baby, you worked so hard for me this week,” Cadance said, sighing as she massaged her fiancée.

“You knew about this, didn’t you?” Twilight asked. She was trying to affect a little bit of heat in her voice, but it was hard to work up any kind of anger towards the mare who was giving her a rub down.

“You’ve asked that every night for the past week,” Cadance replied. “There’s absolutely no way I could have known that a Royal Betrothal Discharge from the Royal Guard required you to complete seven labors. Those forms were drafted up a thousand years ago by the first Captain of the Guard. Even my aunts had forgotten what was in them.”

“Seven labors my scarred rump!” Twilight said as she pounded a hoof angrily on the mattress. “Slaying a pony-eating manticore, wrestling Cerberus – these would have been proper labors! But what did the legendary guards of old – warriors that I’ve idolized since I was old enough to read – ask of me? Cooking lunch for the entire regiment by myself! Cleaning all the latrines in the castle! I had to polish the floors with only a dishrag and without using magic! Do you know how many floors are in this castle? A lot, Cadance – a lot.”

“So they hazed you a little bit,” Cadance said with a snigger. “We’re a whimsical people, it’s to be expected. Every stallion in the Guard back then wanted to marry my aunts. Did you think they would pass up the chance to give a little grief to whichever of their romantic rivals won the big prize? At least this last one was over quickly.”

“A ‘spanking machine’ is supposed to be an excuse to touch somepony else’s butt under the pretenses of a sexy party game,” Twilight grumbled, “not an actual machine.”

“That thing was so cool,” Cadance said.

“You wouldn’t be saying that if you had to get in it,” Twilight countered.

“I'd be in it right now if you’d have let me bring it up to our room,” Cadance said. Twilight could practically hear the pout in her voice.

“My first act as a princess will be to have that infernal contraption burned,” Twilight insisted. She turned her head enough to shoot a warning glare at Cadance. “No one will know about this. If my family finds out about these stupid hoops I had to jump through, I… I don’t know what I’ll do, but you better believe I won’t be happy.”

Cadance’s hooves started drifting south. Twilight flinched a bit as she felt Cadance kneading at her sore flanks, but to her surprise it was actually helping soothe the dull throb that came from being strapped into what had basically been a siege engine with a paddle on it.

“My lips are sealed,” Cadance said.

Cadance and Twilight both groaned as their moment of privacy was interrupted by somepony knocking on the door. In their private chambers, nopony would be allowed to disturb them except for the guards outside the door, and Twilight had told them on the way in that she didn’t want to be bothered until morning. That meant that either it was really important, or somepony else really important had ordered the guards to stand down.

“Should I ignore them?” Cadance asked. She applied a little more pressure to Twilight’s flanks, subtly suggesting that her personal preference was to ignore the knocking.

The idea was tempting, but Twilight thought better of it and shook her head. “Better see who it is,” Twilight said.

Cadance let out a throaty, annoyed little huff as she got out of bed and went to the door. She opened it just a crack and stuck her head out to see what the guard wanted.

Twilight leapt to her hooves at the sound of Cadance’s shriek. In only an instant she'd gathered her magic and teleported into the hallway. She appeared with the usual bang of displaced air and found herself staring at the startled faces of Cadance, the two Legionaries stationed outside the door, Spitfire, and Basenji.

“Burning stars, Twilight!” Spitfire shouted, holding a hoof to her chest. “You scared the ever-loving piss out of me!”

“Basenji, you’re here!” Twilight exclaimed excitedly.

“It is good to see you well, my sister,” Basenji said, rapidly patting his chest to settle his heartbeat. “Though perhaps it was my mistake to believe that I would be surprising you with my visit? It would seem that it is I who is most surprised.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Twilight said apologetically.

“Basenji, it’s so good to see you,” Cadance said as she tapped the diamond dog on the shoulder. When he turned to face her she gave him a quick hug. “It’s been so long. Come in, come in, please.”

Cadance wrapped Basenji's paw in her magic and pulled him into the room. Twilight caught Spitfire’s eye and motioned with her head that Spitfire should join them as she followed Cadance and Basenji into the room. The guards outside their door still looked a little confused, but they closed the door behind Spitfire and resumed their duties as normal.

Cadance led their guests over to their little sitting area, where a pair of matching couches faced each other separated by a glass-top coffee table. She pointed to one of the couches and took a seat for herself on the one opposite it. The diamond dog, with his dusty cloak and filthy nails, looked amazingly out of place on Cadance’s neatly upholstered neon-pink couches. He gingerly climbed onto the couch, sitting at the edge of the seat and apparently trying to make as little contact with the cushion as possible.

“Is it not comfortable?” Cadance asked with hospitable concern.

“I understand that it would be rude to decline the hospitality of a host’s offered seat,” Basenji said as he struggled to maintain his precarious balance, “but I do not wish to dirty such lovely furnishings.”

“Forget the couch,” Cadance said with a scoff, “a little dirt is no problem. Get comfortable, please. You get comfy, too, Spitfire.”

“Thanks a lot, Your Highness,” Spitfire said as she took a seat next to Basenji.

“You’re Twilight’s friend,” Cadance said. “If we’re not in public you can call me Cadance.”

“Or Mi Amore Cadenza,” Twilight said as she sat next to Cadance. “She loves it.”

Cadance rolled her eyes. “Pay no attention to her,” Cadance said, “she’s just sour because she took a spanking for me today.”

“Cadance!” Twilight said in a sharply whispered hiss.

Basenji and Spitfire exchanged confused, yet curious, looks.

“I have been told that you share a den,” Basenji said, changing the subject to Twilight’s great relief. “Is this an Equestrian custom of which I am not familiar or should I take it to mean that the two of you have entered a partnership?”

The smile that bloomed on Cadance’s face was so wide that it made Twilight’s cheeks hurt just to look at her. “We’re getting married soon.”

Basenji’s jaw dropped. “Truly?” He turned to Twilight for confirmation and she gave him a nod and a smile of her own. He looked to Spitfire, dumbfounded, and held out a paw as though to ask if she had known about it.

“Twilight said you guys were good friends, so I figured they’d want to be the ones to tell you,” Spitfire said with a laugh. “The look on your face is great.”

“This is wonderful, wonderful news, my friends,” Basenji said as he clapped his paws together happily. “Congratulations to you, my sister.”

“Thank you, Basenji,” Twilight said as she leaned against Cadance and put an arm around her. “I’m pretty happy about it, too… And, hey, your Equish is getting really good!”

“I have not been idle these months,” Basenji said confidently. “I have studied much since we have last seen one another.”

“How have you been, Basenji?” Cadance asked. “Is Dingo doing alright?”

Basenji’s ears folded down flat against his head. “Ah, yes, Dingo is… doing perhaps better than I would have imagined,” he said. “However, I feel we must discuss the important matters before pleasantries are further exchanged.”

The mood of the room shifted immediately, as though a switch had been flipped. Twilight let go of Cadance and leaned forward in her seat.

Basenji got off his seat and rummaged through his satchel. “I have consulted the old songs, and I wish to verify a few details.”

“Hit me,” Twilight said eagerly.

“You have told that the creature consumed the hearts of the changelings which infested your city, yes?” He pulled out an old book, bound with a soft brown cover that looked to be made of animal hide, and set it on the table.

“They found most of the bodies at the bottom of a crevice, with their chests cracked open like lobsters,” Twilight said grimly. “It also ate all the eggs in their hatchery.”

“Yes, yes, this is important,” Basenji said as he flipped through the book. He paused and flipped back a few more pages to read something, then went back to his satchel. “You have also said that it described itself as a ‘watchdog’?”

“Yeah, and he called me the same,” Twilight said with a frown. “Maybe because I’m a guard? He said, though, that we’d slipped our leashes, whatever that meant.”

“Strange, but also telling,” Basenji said with a sigh. He pulled out another book, similar to the first, and set it atop the open book already on the table. “There are several creatures which could be considered a ‘watchdog’ – most notably your own Cerberus, the legendary guardian of Tartarus. His kind is rare and powerful, but they lack in intelligence and the predilections towards the devouring of hearts. The same goes for several other creatures which could fit this description.

“Creatures which eat hearts are more common, but these are not the sort of creatures which are ‘leashed’, in any sense.” Basenji stopped speaking, apparently having found something of interest in the second book. His lips were moving, and he was making a series of very quiet growling noises under his breath that sounded like he might have been talking to himself in his native tongue. Twilight and the other two ponies in the room sat quietly as he worked through whatever he was reading, and a few moments later he continued on. “We must also consider the victim of this entity’s ploy – Great Anubis.”

“It sounds like you’ve got something in mind,” Twilight surmised. Basenji was acting very… squirrely. He seemed afraid. The impression she was getting that he might well spend the whole night going in circles unless she gave him one last little prod. “Care to share with the rest of us?”

Basenji closed his book with a sigh and sat on the floor, pressing his back against the couch. “I have said to you that Great Anubis is the protector of souls in the land of the dead, yes? This is necessary because there are a great many things which would like much to prey upon weak, disembodied souls in that realm. They are… abominations, demons – predators which have existed since the dawn of dawns. Great Anubis shepherds his charges and does battle with these horrid things.”

“And you think one of these creatures is the thing that Twilight talked with?” Spitfire asked.

“Yes,” Basenji said. He rested a paw on his drum, an action that Twilight had come to recognize as a nervous tic of his. “According to the songs of the Old Dogs, one of these creatures was fiercer and more cunning than the others, and even amongst other demons, he was feared. Great Anubis, in his wisdom, saw opportunity to use that fear, and so he subjugated this demon, made of it a pet… and this creature’s name was Ammit, the Eater of Hearts.”

Twilight’s heart began pounding. She finally had a name for this thing, and a tingle of excitement went up her spine as the biggest piece of the puzzle fell into place. It was no matter that this creature was a demon so fierce that it was feared by other demons, what mattered was that it had a name. Until this point he had just been a concept, a faceless malevolence that was waiting in the wings to pounce on her when she least expected it. But a name gave it form, gave it substance and made it more real than it had ever been before.

If it was real, it could bleed, and if it could bleed, she could kill it.

“Why does it… eat hearts?” Cadance asked. Twilight felt a twinge of shame at her excitement as she saw the look of nervous fear in Cadance’s eyes.

“There are few things in the land of the dead which possess physical forms,” Basenji explained. “Only beings which belong to that place have bodies, and only the truly divine and truly profane belong to there. One cannot easily kill beings which can possess life in the land of death itself. If you wish to extinguish the flame of such a being, you must consume its life into your own. The heart is the seat of the soul, and so by eating the heart, the soul is consumed.”

“Wait, hold on,” Spitfire interjected. “If we want to kill this thing, we have to eat it?”

Basenji shook his head. “No, it left the land of the dead and is now in the realm of the living. In this realm there is no such thing as true immortality. One can be ageless and powerful beyond reason, but one cannot exist in this realm and be truly beyond the reach of death. At the moment, he is as susceptible to the rules of mortality as we are.”

“Then we can kill him,” Twilight said, “send him back to the other side.”

“As you say,” Basenji said. “If Ammit’s vessel is destroyed, then his essence will return to the land of the dead, just as any of ours would. We have need but free it from his mortal shell and he will once again be within Great Anubis’ reach.”

“So our solution is just to send him home?” Spitfire asked. “All the trouble he caused and all we’re going to do is deport him?”

From Spitfire’s tone, Twilight got the impression that Spitfire wanted something a little more permanent than death. She also had a feeling that Spitfire just might be reconsidering the heart eating option.

“Great Anubis was betrayed by his own servant, friend Spitfire,” Basenji said as he leveled a look of grim certainty at the mare. “I believe you would be well served to trust in him to carry out a proper sentence for Ammit’s crimes… he will no doubt make it very unpleasant.”

Spitfire wore a look of rebellion, but she slowly lowered her hackles and nodded as she pressed herself into the corner of the couch between the armrest and the back.

“What about this business with stealing dead bodies?” Cadance asked.

“Ammit does not belong in this world,” Basenji explained. “His true body cannot exist here. In order to slip free from Great Anubis’ grasp, his form will have to have been discarded, leaving him as little more than a ghost. According to what he has said to Twilight Sparkle, he is stealing empty vessels, eating hearts and gathering power to create a new form suitable to this realm… I shudder to think of how many souls he must devour to create a body capable to housing a soul as large as his own.”

“What happens if he gets a new body?” Twilight asked.

“As I have said, nothing is truly deathless in this realm,” Basenji replied, “but it will be… difficult… to destroy a perfected vessel.”

“Difficult, but not impossible, right?” Spitfire asked.

“As you say,” Basenji said with a nod.

Twilight used her magic to draw her weapon from its holster on the nightstand and levitated it across the room. She set it on the table in front of Basenji. “You make any progress on figuring this thing out?” Twilight asked.

“I have proven… deficient to this task,” Basenji said. He picked it up and held it carefully between his paws, tracing the symbols etched on the ring with his claws. “Have you learned anything?”

“Magic doesn’t work on it unless it’s mine,” Twilight explained. “And when I do cast magic on it, it’s incredibly efficient. The amount of magic I focus in it also seems to add to the sharpness of the blade. I can cut through steel pretty easily.”

“What do you mean magic doesn’t work on it?” Spitfire asked. “This is the first I’m hearing about this.”

“That thing came out of the Necropolis,” Twilight explained, “and my brother, Cadance, Luna, and even Princess Celestia all failed to cast even a basic levitation spell on it. Considering they’re the four strongest magic casters in the entire kingdom, and it’s a weapon that they can’t defend themselves from, we were keeping a lid on it.”

Basenji set the chakram back on the table with deliberate care. “Power enough to move the sun and moon in the skies but they cannot lift this small ring? This is… abnormal. Further testing is warranted.”

“Sounds good to me,” Twilight said with a nod.

“Ah, I have also enlisted the aide of a friend in deciphering the writing upon your weapon,” Basenji explained. “His name is Laughing Bison, and he is currently engaged in research in Amarezonia. I will make contact and let him know that I have changed locations. He has promised to send word should his research bear fruit.”

Twilight sat back in her seat with a sigh. Basenji’s arrival had relieved her of tension that she’d been carrying around for so long that she’d stopped even noticing it. She’d gathered the clues, but Basenji had been the one with the knowledge and resources to decipher their meaning. The sense of gratitude she felt was almost overwhelming.

Twilight sat there for a moment, basking in the sense of relief until the familiar caress of Cadance’s feathers against her shoulder shook her out of her quiet reflection.

“I think Twilight could use some coffee,” Cadance said, smiling radiantly. “Spitfire, Basenji, you two must be starving, would you like something to eat?”

Their guests nodded and Cadance went to ask the guards to see if one of the on-call chefs could make them a late dinner and some snacks.

They spent the rest of the night talking and laughing together into the late hours of the morning. Twilight knew that the reality of the danger they were facing was at the back of the minds of everyone present, but for the moment that didn’t matter. Right here, right now, they were together, and everyone was safe.

* * *

Author's Note:

These chapters are getting longer and longer. This chapter was initially going to be a little different, a lot more adventurous for one thing, and Spitfire was going to get into a fight with Shiba, but I think I like the way things turned out better than what I'd originally set out to do. The characters know their motivations better than I do, most of the time.

The blogpost that accompanies this chapter release has some information about future plans for this series. be sure to check that out. It can be found here!

This releases a few days before Halloween so I hope everyone has a great night! Happy Halloween!

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it and that you'll join me next time!

Please be excited!

Comments

[Gaberdude]

Great chapter. Lengthy, but good. Oh, and a Happy Halloween to you too.

[Disguised]

And the team is back together again.

[Azarias]

The gang's back together, and we've even got a replacement pegasus!

Let's just hope that the pegasus spot isn't a red shirt position.

[Thunder twister]

I am always excited for chapters of this

[Lord_01010000]

Sorry, but sense it's so close to Halloween...

6577896
Sky Chaser was an Earth Pony, not a Pegasus.

[TheStratovarian]

Woohoo! A lovely update!

[Sonikah]

Good chapter.

For future reference, Twilight is female so she'd be a fiancée rather than a fiancé.

[Nonchalant]

Someone make a Basenji badge with the words "as you say" please. They actually fit his character pretty well.

[rdaniel_76]

I love the bar scene.

[Ri2]

Ammit? In retrospect, that's pretty obvious...

I LIKE Basenji and this drummer thing. Very imaginative.

[Bloody_Tofu]

Bwahahahahah the image of Twilight in most of her armor in the spanking machine... oh if only I could draw. I can just see Candice sneaking a peak around a door frame face flushed as she watches.

All told I love the extra character development and the bits of world building for the Diamond Dogs that this had. I've adopted a good chuck of your world lore for a MLP RPG game I run semi regularly and my players love it and this story.

[MeadowRosePony]

Yay! I love it when I get to read new chapters in a well-written story and this one definitely fits the description!

[Aerowind]

“Pomf! What’re we going to do on the bed, Twilight?”

Oh god, I got that reference.

[Crystal Moose]

Eeeee, I see another ship in there. I dig it. Lol.

Also, I am so very happy to see Basenji back in the fold. I know I said it before, but seriously, this has got to be one of my favorite OCs in this entire fandom. And I normally loathe OCs. I guess because he's legitimately interesting, rather than just an author stand-in.

[Royal Blaze]

Awsome chapter

[ForSpite]

Oh, the enemy is an adorable crocodile -hippopotamus. Well, adorable from a distance. Both those creatures are quite dangerous, the hippo more than the crocodile, really.
img05.deviantart.net/be9f/i/2005/032/6/0/anubis_and_ammet_by_terra_fen.jpg

It was an uncommon mix back in Equestria, but in a trade town like this that sort of miscegenation was way more prevalent.

Huh. Lovecraft flashbacks aren't always a good thing.

[Seether00]

And now the pieces are in one place

[TheMusicMan]

Achievement unlocked: Got the band back together!

[Backlash91]

Loved the interplay with the diamond dog's culture. Very interesting. I look forward to more, and have yourself a wonderful all hallows eve.

[raw666]

That's unique, a female demon that eat hearts. Looks like Twilight and Ammit will be butting heads. Though I wonder what the weeding will face since I think Christalist is dead.

[Skydancer]

And this kind of thing is why I follow this story. Excellent characterization. Keep up the good work!

[Zasyri]

...and if it could bleed, she could kill it.

I love all the references in this chapter. This story is really picking up speed now, I can't wait for the next fight scene, whenever that'll be. Good job on this and thank you for writing it! You keep up this kind of pacing and I guarantee you that we will all "be excited" as you so humbly request. Thanks again!

[JMP]

This story is fantastic, and I really enjoy Basenjii's character in this. As always, the dialogue between Cadance and Twilight is absolutely hilarious.

[Hodios]

Spoilers below for those not caught up with chapter ten.

6280999

Called it~!

[Dramon Creator]

Is it weird that I'm really interested in learning more about the Great Sultan of Bruneigh? I can't help but think that there's something fascinating about a dragon ruling a kingdom justly after eating the old ruler alive.

Apparently, Spitfire is attracted to musicians, or is it just the mystical drums? Whatever the case, this is very much the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

It seems that the Corpse Stealer is Ammit, Devourer of the Guilty. An ancient beast that has shaken its leash, finally free to hunt as it pleases. Twilight and the rest of our heroes have a difficult battle ahead. This was a great chapter, and I'm sure the next will be spectacular.

[jimbrony]

Ammit was generally displayed as a female, but it's whatever.

I like the basfire ship.

[SilentMech]

I ship it. Is it bad that they pretty much just met and I am already shipping them? Especially considering that Basenji could be blamed for the death of Sky Chaser. Also, if Ammit replaces Sombra because he ate his soul, then I am okay with this change. Anyway, the bard, the monk, the rogue, and the cleric are finally together, let's see how long it takes for them to solve the problem!

[SilentMech]

6579179 Their is a similarly set up story actually on here. Just replace dragon with Yveltal, and Sultan with king. Fair warning, it is a Displaced story with pokemon as the base concept with MLP.

[Brinn]

Really loved this chapter. So much great world building and character interaction.

[Fourpony]

kicking it closed with a hard buck that stung her hoof but probably looked sufficiently cool for an entrance.

Wonder how Twilight handles having two friends with this attitude. If she hangs out with Dash for any length of time she is gonna have to mention how the two act alike.

trying project the air of somepony that didn’t want to be disturbed.

"to"

Akita’s paw went still, but he his eyes remained fixed on his work

Delete

He left the pile of books on floor and started browsing another case.

"the"

“But you told me to stop doing that,” Cadance said.

41.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mcttm4eO9y1r3k1m8o1_500.png
I really enjoy this Cadance.

“I'd be in it right now if you’d have let me bring it up to our room,” Cadance said.

img03.deviantart.net/4657/i/2012/280/3/2/cadance_portrait_by_kp_shadowsquirrel-d5fyv7i.jpg
Where is this going? I don't know, but I like it.

Interesting, Ammit. Hmmmm, the thing that ate the hearts of the wicked. But was Chrysalis wicked or just trying to do right by her species? Also, is a small part of her still alive but trapped with Ammit?

[Aziraphael]

Awesome chapter is awesome. Seriously, as others have said, the character interactions and world building are incredible. I especially love what you've done with the drummers. They remind me a lot of a pseudo-religious order I created for an old D&D campaign, and the uniquely MLP flair you've given them is perfect.

And for the record, I totally ship Basenji and Spitfire. Seriously, they would be adorable together.

[predatornc]

Amazing chapter for one amazing story
Good Job

[Biker_Dash]

These chapters are getting longer and longer.

I have no problem with that. A lot of my favorite stories commonly have chapters in excess of 30k words.
Outstanding chapter.

6579522 Glad to see that I am not the only one to see a possible budding romance.

[Mister Morden]

Interesting, our enemy finally has a name!

Excellent chapter! Looking forward to seeing more.

[Spectrumancer]

6579767 6579522
*attempts to not ship it*
*fails miserably*

[Felius]

on-call chefs

The privileges of royalty...

[AyanamiRei]

Wow! That is certainly one nasty creature! I am curious though as to how Twilight's Chakram plays a part in this. I wonder to what would happen if someone were to cast a spell and Twilight shoved her Chakram into it, would it be able to eat/dispell other spells?

[sopchoppy]

We're getting the band back together...Loved the chapter, all the characters came through vividly and the world building is excellent as always.

[Iamawesome]

So we are getting more into Egyptian mythology here. Isn't Ammit that dog that eats the souls of those judged unworthy of afterlife in the Egyptian version of the underworld?

[DarkPinkie]

6578995 Would probably require quite the deal of chewing. *Crunch* *Crunch* *Crunch* It would go as one chewed.
At least its not horse sized spiders, those would probably actually have big enough muscles to make real meat out of, and the chitin big enough to make armor plates out of. I mean, At that size it would probably be thick and hard enough to stop most small arms fire, yet be light enough that it won't slow you down too much.

[Archy the Hobo]

I, for one, am quite frankly appalled that I didn't find this in the comments:

[Dire Wolf]

Soooo, Twilight's going to order that "infernal contraption" be burned as her first act as a princess eh? I have the sneaking suspicion that Cadance orders it moved to storage and it's "accidentally" misplaced......to her and Twilight's honeymoon suite, with some inconspicuous help from Celestia that is.

Another great chapter, I love your interpretation of Cadance's personality, loving, kind, compassionate, playful, with a bit of sadomasochist for spice. Wonder if Twilight's prepared for the wedding night?

[Themexininja]

i am excited

[Breakfateschain]

Ammit, called it

[SoleReclaimer]

6580705 I don't know much of Egyptian myths but it does seem the dogs or Zebrica in general follows the Egyptians while ponies/Equestria is Greek or roman.

[Dragonwaz]

6579005 here have this

[Hodios]

6585007

Haha, thank you~!

[Hodios]

6580705

Ammit is a combination of lion, hippo, and crocodile elements that would eat the souls/hearts of those whose hearts were heavier than a feather from the Goddess Ma'at, who held domain over Order, Rightness, Morality, Justice, and etc.

EDIT: correction on Ammit's parts.

[Satto Kez]

Chapter are indeed getting longer but it's a good thing that I like long chapter!
And don't worry, I like how you had this chapter progress!

As always I love this story, thank you for making this and I'll waiting for the next chapter.

[neokiva]

i.imgur.com/3s2ebRw.png
Twi in armor is hawt.