Pride Goeth

by Zurock

Chapter 10: Heroes May Not Be Braver

The stallion was awake, though he hadn't felt his senses arouse. Nor did he recall having fallen asleep. He had simply found himself there, alert on the floor of the storehouse and with no memory at all of when his nightly torture had given way to some restless form of unconsciousness. The night had blinked instantly from endless suffering in the dark to dreary weariness in the dawn, as if he had just suddenly started existing again after an imperceivable period of inexplicit non-existence.

Morning light squeezed into the storehouse from the two thin windows. They shined as brilliant strips of pure white, enough to hurt Prideheart's good eye if he looked too directly. But their leaking illumination died too quickly to banish the murky stew of darkness inside, leaving most of the room coated in shadowy gloom. Yet the air, or what trace of it could fit through the windows, had the kind of chilled freshness that accompanied a new morning. The stallion could pick out its coolness from the old dust which polluted the stale chamber.

He worked his legs and mouth to untangle his blanket and cloak from his body, wriggling on his side. During his night agony they had wrapped him several times around in crisscrossed ways. The small workout that came with separating them allowed him a chance to assess himself.

He was hardly any better than all the days before. The ravages of long hunger and extended overexertion were again not erased by a single night of safe sleeping, and the battle yesterday had only further crippled his ability to recover. But he was at least stronger than the immediate night before, and much more lucid. Of the many pains still possessing him, the most poignant (outside of his ever-hot, ever-throbbing dragon-wound) was his smashed knee; its ache had set in deep, whispering threats whenever he left it alone but screaming murder whenever he dared to move it. His other pings, pangs, bumps, bruises, scrapes, and scratches all lingered on and leeched whatever little strength from him they could, but it seemed like they were generally just as fatigued as he was. And his immense hunger, though at first having grown ravenous after the simple apple had been demolished in his stomach, had fallen back into a rhythm which was ignorable from how everyday it had become.

Freed from the snarl of his things he finally stood up, no worse for the wear after a slow effort, though he did have to lean off his aching knee and shake away many sticky strands of hay. He folded and tucked his blanket away in his bag, and then he spent a minute to breath and stretch. On any other morning he might have warmed up for longer, even despite the aggravation it brought to his pains, but Kerby's sinister threat was an echo in his mind. Through each limbering exercise the stallion had dark words for himself, disgusted that he had wasted time sleeping when he should have ensured an immediate delivery of warning to the townsponies.

He hobbled to the storehouse door, concentrating with each step so he could smooth out his stride and hide his injured knee. The lantern hanging on the wall had died far earlier in the night, so much so that there was no whiff of burnt fuel left coming from it. He gave it only small regard, distantly remembering in a blur Bookworm having lit it somehow.

Bookworm.

She had promised to have shared the warning.

Prideheart quickly put his hoof to the door, but just shy of pushing it open he killed his strength.

Standing there with his raised hoof limp, he waited for nothing. His breaths lengthened and chilled, and he waited. The air, the light, the shadow, the gloom; all blended uncomfortably around him.

Finally he pulled his hoof back and used it to throw up his hood, tugging it down far over his face. Then the stranger sighed and opened the door.

Indeed it was morning, and not so young of one either. All traces of dawn's yawn had already vanished from the sky, leaving everything a crystal blue with few interruptions from snow-white clouds. The sun was thankfully still low in the east, but it had built up enough speed to begin its sprint towards noon.

What hour was it exactly? How long had the day been bright enough to allow the heckhounds swift traversal of road and hill? How close were they? No screams of panic and terror wandered between the buildings. No smell of ash or whiff of cinders drifted in the wind. No heat of heckfire made the cool morning blister.

Either the heckhounds had not yet arrived or they had already been fought off.

And the stranger couldn't find the hope for that latter possibility.

Carefully he skulked out of the storehouse, eye leery for any witnesses. But even in daylight the dusty lot the storehouse sat in was a deserted junkyard, and elsewhere he saw no signs of company. Every watchful window was shut by drapes, the river babbled lonely nearby, and not a soul was visible for as far as he could see down the buildings' backfaces.

However he knew he wasn't alone in Stony Nook. Nearby ordinary noises were humming with common activity. Ponies could be heard on the main road of town, blocked from his sight by stone and wood and hay, but none of the sounds rang as clamorous or dastardly. Clops walked, wood creaked under weight, and now and again voices peaked loud enough to hear clearly. It was everyday music, tumbling through the alleys like the wandering hush of wind rolling over a hill.

The stranger slipped out of the lot and peeked down the nearest alley. He caught a glimpse of the broad road which divided the town, and the busy noises came at him louder through the unobstructed channel. But the world was still solitary: he saw no ponies, or anything at all except for a vacant slice of dirt road which stretched until it hit the face of the opposite building. Tenderly he crawled into the alley and slinked his way tight along the wall.

But he had gone only a few steps in when a pony strolled by the alley entrance in front of him. The stranger fast shrunk himself against the ground, hiding in the open shadows, but the passing pony existed for only a blink. From right to left they crossed his view, ambling along the road as if they were going to ask their neighbor for a cup of sugar. Hardly had their tail appeared in full view before their nose disappeared behind the next corner, and then a moment later the pony was altogether gone. Regardless, the stranger stayed tucked and motionless while he watched the alley opening with an intent eye.

His effort was a waste, as the other pony never crossed back and no further ponies came. Somewhere amidst the light clamor coming from the street there was a voice which rose up in brief laughter, joined by others before it all casually faded. The ongoing morning murmurs of the town continued unabated.

Slowly the stranger peeled himself from concealment and started forward again, but his sneaking grew nervous and careless. Certainly the wobbly moves of his damaged knee were of no help to him, but his true trouble was born from something much deeper. His courage was frightened and hopes felt forsaken.

He had no wish to emerge from the alley and discover the aftermath of some vicious battle; to have found the slaughtered remains of innocents who had suffered fire and fang while he had shamefully slept. But neither had he a wish to have discovered what he thought he was hearing: happy ponies living a carefree Equestrian life, like they had always done since even times before he had left this world behind decades ago.

Slower and slower his approach to the main street became, as if the alley were growing longer and faster than his steps moved. But despite his struggle he did eventually slither up to entrance, and he tipped his good eye out ever so cautiously.

The morning was fairly usual for Stony Nook, or really for any town in Equestria. Many ponies ambled about their typical business or labored with the hardworking heart of a frontierspony. One hammered a fresh wheel onto his partially-repaired wagon, grumbling quietly about the streetfight yesterday that had broken it. Elsewhere a team worked together to finally break down the wreckage of the fallen water tower and clear it away, piling the debris high in another wagon. All throughout the street ponies stood or sat or paced in front of homes and businesses while watching the traffic, sweeping their door mats, or checking morning chores off their lists.

Yet there were a few unnatural hints in everything they did. Their clopping around had whispers of nervousness, and they always checked behind themselves twice as they entered or exited any building. The chatter they shared was slightly hushed for so bright a morning, restrained by something more than mere politeness. Every happy mumbling danced around an unspoken dread. And many, many eyes gazed often westward towards the town's new wall, and on it was a new set of ponies who worked the morning patrol.

Most noticeable of all was a small, tight gathering of ponies in the middle of the main road, their serious looks belaying their grim discussion. Immediately recognizable to the stranger was the gray mare with the pale pink mane. Very obviously she was leading their meeting, nodding at ponies to speak in turn and having open and attentive ears for every word said when herself not paving the way with speech. Some number of very loyal ponies also participated; underlings of some sort by how well-adjusted they were to her mature command. The remaining ponies still deferred to her quite readily even if they had no formal obligation to her: one whom the others addressed as 'mayor,' a mare draped in doctor's garb, an older pony in a stained apron who held a kindly if not quite optimistic smile, as well as a few ordinary frontier folk.

And also in the group the stranger saw the father he had stolen a filly from.

Exhaustion had become that Stony Nook unicorn, as if he too had climbed the dangerous heights of the Pearl Peaks and had fought off a pack of predatory heckhounds. His knees trembled with the same strengthlessness as an elder pony's, his eyes were absent of any sleep yet sharp from helpless alertness, and he twitched uncomfortably with every word traded between the gathered ponies. Worry and fear had broken him down, torn him apart, and afterwards shredded the pieces.

And that was all despite the fact that his lost daughter Bookworm stood right there next to him.

The little filly's usually freewheeling spirit had been crushed, and from tail to nose she was frozen in listless defeat. Her head hovered an inch above the road, so low that the very tip of her braided mane actually rested in a short coil on the ground. Only her ears showed signs of life, spinning from speaker to speaker as the meeting wore on. She was all but chained to her father; he had sewn her to his side and always kept one leg rested over her like an iron shackle. Never again was she going to be let out of his reach, let alone out of his sight. And somewhere inside her the young filly pondered over whether being grounded for life had been worth the adventure she had enjoyed.

The stranger's fixed attention to the hurt filly robbed him of all awareness. The morning village around him turned to pitch darkness, leaving only himself and her in spotlights...

... Right up until a loud gasp cut through the black veil and brought the tide of reality crashing back into him. A townspony just a few steps from the alleyway had noticed him lurking there, and in surprise she had nearly shouted.

Her cry began a chain reaction. One or two ponies snapped to the noise and then gasped themselves, their calls drawing even more eyes and producing even more gasps, and the infection of surprise jumped from pony to pony far down the street, even to the ends of town. In moments the cloaked and shadowed pony was the brightest beacon there.

No longer could the stranger hide, and there was little purpose in fleeing, so reluctantly he stepped out into the open street. He wrapped his limp in secrecy, hiding it behind enduring but false (and quite painful) steps, and he held himself confident like a master tactician who had planned his arrival for that exact moment all along.

The townsponies nearest to him carefully backed off, retreating to the doors of the closest buildings. Some of the more spooked ponies even ran inside, the lights of their eyes then appearing from the corners of the windows or through the cracks of the drapes. Very few had expected to have seen that crazy pony again, and he was only a reminder of things they had very much wanted to ignore. All of Stony Nook ground to a halt.

When Bookworm spotted him she tried hard to speak up, but before she could utter even a peep her father's magic had engulfed her and his earthy glow floated her straight to Crumble Pie. For the sake of her friend, the gray mare caught the filly and held onto the little pony tightly, advising Bookworm to stay hushed and wait. Not that Crumble Pie was encouraging of Scrolldozer to do what he was about to do, but if he still had enough goodness to entrust his daughter to her then she still had enough to trust in his less-wise choices.

Scrolldozer began to stomp his way across the road towards the silent stranger, the only Stony Nook pony who approached rather than fled. Each of his steps smashed his weight into the dirt.

"You...!"

For as much as his growl had an angered harshness it didn't escape a chill of anguish. A sad weariness was grafted to his bones and soaked into his muscles, and his march softened.

"How dare you...!"

All his rage couldn't suppress the tears that began to well up under his eyes. The memories of yesterday – of the worst day of his life – were so close to him that he couldn't fuel his fury properly; that he couldn't escape the terror which had haunted him so completely. All he could do was vent his hot sorrow at the cloaked pony while his stomps weakened more and more.

"Who do you think you are...!?"

At last he was directly before the motionless stranger, but his whole body sagged with unfaded grief. Over the short stretch which he had walked, the part of him that had been so ready to have strangled the cloaked pony had disappeared entirely. Doubtful that there had ever been a part of him that could've done it anyway; for all his boulder-heaving, magical might he was ever a gentle stallion. But the pain had piereced deep enough that he had to have given his suffering a voice, even if he cried at the stranger no differently than one who shouted awful questions at the sky when there was no hope for reasonable answers elsewhere.

"What gave you the right to take somepony else's foal away from them like that...!? How could you do that...!?"

From beneath his hood the stranger quietly observed the shivering pony before him. Agony came from the corners of the father's eyes and ran down his cheeks, marking the dirt with wet stains. Even with the worst of the darkness having already passed, a great fear still lived inside the pony; a terror which the stranger recognized: if ever the father were to feel the fright of losing his daughter again, he would not have survived it.

The stranger recalled this unicorn's story, as told to him by Bookworm. It was one of a careless father without enough love to give; of a traitor to the devoted mission of fillies and colts. Yet seeing the father's familiar face was enough to disarm all of the stranger's self-righteous disdain.

In what came as a surprise to everypony there, and certainly to Scrolldozer, the cloaked pony took a slow (to avoid revealing his aggravated knee) and submissive bow.

"I have no redeeming excuses. Unforgivable was my failure to return your Bookworm immediately," the stranger said. "You are entitled to whatever outrage you feel. I am sorry."

Scrolldozer, taken aback with wonder and blinking his wide eyes to wash away the remaining water, stared down at the capitulating pony. After all the raving the cloaked stranger had done yesterday, after all the thunderous shouting, after the stormy march he had departed with; hardly the father had known what to have expected from this encounter. But it had not been this!

"W-Well," some of the father's ordinary voice came back, "as long as you acknowledge it... I guess..." He wiped his eyes and shook his head, then gave the stranger another unknown stare. "She's my only foal. If something had happened-..." He stopped himself from crossing the threshold again.

Rising up, the stranger solemnly swore, "Were such a moment to have come, no hesitation would there have been in trading my life for hers."

His statement would have counted as a 'redeeming excuse' of the kind he had sworn off but for its unrelenting and experienced honesty. Scrolldozer faded back an extra step in unanticipated surprise.

"Ah... er... well... th-thank you," the father eventually managed. It was a bizarre graciousness to have ultimately come from all the doleful wrath he had bled at first. Polite gratitude was perhaps the only genuine response he had.

He started back towards Crumble Pie and his daughter, and his gait was interrupted several times by confused glances back at the stranger. Several times his teeth sunk into his lip.

Bookworm again tried to say something, but her returning father immediately hushed her once more while he gratefully retrieved her from the gray mare. His leg reassumed its secure place, clamping onto her and squishing her against him so tight that any of her breaths he disapproved of wouldn't have gotten in. Her resistance again crushed, the filly stayed quiet and hung her disappointed head.

Crumble Pie didn't consider the matter of the foalnapped filly quite settled just yet, and she nodded a request for everypony to wait a moment.

They acquiesced, and likewise they weren't shocked when she began to approach the stranger to have her turn. But they, along with all the witnessing townsponies, were absolutely flabbergasted when she came before the cloaked pony gracefully and spoke to him in a calm tone, showing not even a faint sign of any expected indignation, resentment, or anger. Few of them even made out what she said to him; only if they were close enough to read her lips or hear her soft and private voice.

"Hey, sir...," she greeted, and then she armed herself gingerly with a glum sorrow. "... It wasn't right, you know?; not bringing her back straight away. It killed Scrolldozer, how he couldn't do anything for his daughter..."

But the shallow grief made a sudden turn into gratefulness, and the mare bowed her head, speaking plainly, "But... a mountain of thanks for anything you did to keep her in one piece. It would have really been the end of him if anything had happened to his little wiggler. And also... well, I sure am glad to see you back in one piece too."

The stranger at first returned no answer, but after a long delay his hooded face tipped down in acceptance.

Crumble Pie flashed a small smile before she eased around to return to the others. But, again surprising all, she openly nodded an invitation for the forgiven stranger to join them. Murmurs of startled suspicion flew about, and even the cloaked pony himself seemed none too certain about her unexpected gesture. Yet his hesitation only made the gray mare amble more slowly, and she beckoned to him all the stronger; no demand, just hopeful encouragement.

Timid as a fish walking up onto shore, the stranger eventually assented. He followed behind Crumble Pie with little enough wary speed to keep his knee silent and to allow his good eye time to scan the faces of those he was approaching. Their disagreeable looks told him all he needed to know. Even Bookworm seemed detached from him, though in her case there was no hidden scowl or concealed derision. She only cowered as he neared.

Once back into her place amongst the gathered ponies Crumble Pie motioned for some extra space to be made for the stranger, and the others uneagerly obliged. Room opened up next to the gray mare herself – far more than necessary to accommodate a single pony – and the cloaked pony took his spot there as Crumble Pie's guest. He held himself half-a-pace back, slightly outside of their circle.

The rest of Stony Nook began to crawl curiously out into the open, cautiously intrigued by the appearance and acceptance of the stranger. They still stayed far back, only daring to observe what was happening from a distance, and by number alone they weren't quite a full town assembly like had occurred yesterday. But more and more ponies joined the spectators as they came by and saw what was going on or as the speedy rumor mill churned out invitations to every corner of the tiny town.

"Alright," Crumble Pie tried to resume the meeting as if they had never been interrupted. Her cheerful tone did little good; most of the group's stone cold attention was being unfavorably spent on the silent newcomer. "Mayor?" the mare called, then louder, "Mayor! You were saying, about the patrols?"

"Hm? Oh. Oh yes. Ah." Desk Job's scattered wits gradually collected back together, and she covered herself with a cough. "I... think we might need to compel a few more ponies to share patrol duty. The ones who have been doing it so far are no Royal Guards, and they've found all the pacing, and turning, and keeping a sharp lookout, to be very tiring, which is no good. If a few more ponies helped then it'd be easier on everypony. I'm just worried bcause it was hard enough to draw up any volunteers to begin with. I don't know how we're going to get more without twisting legs."

"Hmm... I'd rather not force anypony do anything they weren't up for," the gray mare replied. "We'll cobble up a few ponies who might be willing, and see if we can't talk them into it."

"Sure, Crumble Pie. Whatever you think is best."

"Good, good," confirmed Crumble Pie, "let's do that, then."

She then turned to halfway face the stranger, leaving herself able to still fully address the group as well.

"Now, before anything else," she announced, "and as long as we've got our friend here back, maybe we can learn a thing or two that might be helpful." Her effort to sound wholly inclusive of the cloaked pony were earnest but almost overdone. She pressed on more effusively when the others initially responded with doubt. "Or maybe we might even have some good news! What do you say, sir? Anything to share about what you saw out there?"

The quiet stranger turned his head up, lurching light up his snout and almost revealing himself.

"... You have heard nothing?" he asked in a ghastly and dim voice.

His statement could have benefited from more grace, and many of the ponies there heard it as insulting and foul. Hailstone in particular frowned, showing her clenched teeth, and her wings flexed aggressively.

Crumble Pie refrained from dealing out harsh yells but she still wielded enough loudness to command order, and then she generously explained to the stranger, "We've all been here this whole time. You're the only one who went out. Well... besides the wiggler. But she-... she came back late in the night... without you... right?"

This time the stranger flung no incidental insult as he furiously gasped, "Have you fools done nothing to prepare?" And though his utmost outrage was spat at the group as a whole, it seemed he almost directed it squarely onto little Bookworm. His hidden gaze snapped to the cringing filly.

She suddenly pressed again her father's restraint, very distraught, and begged for forgiveness, "I tried, mister! I really did! I tried to tell'em! But-!"

"That's enough, Bookworm!" Scrolldozer admonished. A strong squeeze with his leg wasn't enough to settle her so he took control with his magic to lock her down. Once she was imprisoned in his glow he put his face in front of hers and patted his hoof over her artificially-sealed lips, emphasizing, "Enough of your wild stories!"

Fearful darkness flooded the stranger's heart, but at the same time the whole of it ignited with savage fire.

"Have you not listened at all?!" His scream sprayed indiscriminately, but yet the heat of his harsh attention seemed especially narrowed onto Scrolldozer. "Injudicious varlets! Ineffectual; unthinking; willfully blind!"

The past twenty-four hours already hadn't done well for Hailstone's patience, and far less of an affront would have been enough excuse to have hung that mouthy stranger by his own cloak. She didn't wait for a word more and she stormed across the circle, scowling directly into the darkness of the stranger's hood while flaring her wings.

"Oh, here we go again, huh?! Of all the rude nutcases out there this one had to stumble into our town!"

"Craven nag!" the cloak pony spat back, remembering her from the battle in Stony Nook yesterday. "Do what you are well at and cease spoiling my presence!"

"Holy leaping mountain goats!" Hailstone snapped. "What a piece of work! That's it, buddy!" Her wings rolled each other up like sleeves drawing back before a tussle.

"Hailstone," Crumble Pie commanded.

The name shook the earth, even without the might of rage or the blaring blast of a bellow. It froze the rambunctious pegasus, and even every other grumbling voice in the group down the tiniest whisper also went cold. The stranger too, in fact, was quelled.

"Eyes in the sky, Hailstone," the gray mare continued, hard without grating sternness and with authority as solid as granite. "Check in with the scouts."

"Crumble Pie, you've got to be kidding-"

"Now. Go." Far from any jest, her air was as deathly frigid as a polished tombstone.

Hailstone moaned in exasperation, having one last frustrated stare for the stranger, but then she obeyed. Up off the ground she floated and then out into the sky she soared, zipping westward in the direction of the mountains.

Meanwhile, the change in the gray mare's demeanor had already spread a chill through every other pony, both in the gathered group and amongst the spectators. Their faith in her was a bridge through which everything was allowed to flow freely, good or bad. Mrs. Totaler was one of the few who stayed steady enough to speak.

"Now, Crumble Pie," she tossed the question out with nervous maturity, "you gonna let us know what you're thinking there? Sure as sunshine everypony here could use a calming explanation or two; that ain't a look of content you're wearing."

"I think," the gray mare responded to Mrs. Totaler, though her gaze held to the cloaked pony, "we shouldn't be taking any chances."

Her silent focus became theirs, and again the watching eyes and open ears of Stony Nook turned upon the stranger fully. Crumble Pie faced herself completely towards him and stepped closer, coming before his unpierced veil. Quite formally but very soberly she addressed him.

"Yesterday we had pegasi out looking hard for Bookworm. They didn't turn up anything before it got dark, so they came back for the night and gathered early this morning to try again. But before they could leave, Scrolldozer showed up with his wiggler. So... 'no need anymore,' we thought. That should've been that. However..."

A turn came upon her voice; a generous twist that fit her naturally but still made everypony twinge with confusion. They hadn't understood it when she had said it the first time earlier that morning, and they understood it no better now that she was saying it again.

"... I told'em to go out and scout about anyway..." Innocently the gray mare peered at the cloaked pony. "... to look for you."

The stranger gave no response. Or at least none visible outside of his cloak anyway.

"So," Crumble Pie went on, "they're still out looking right now. When Hailstone comes back with'em maybe they'll have seen something... but in the meantime..." All of her was earnest; was open; was inviting; was pleading politely. "... it sounds like maybe we missed the avalanche for the boulders. So I have to ask again: please sir, can you share what you found out there?"

Her request cleared the air, banishing muttered doubts and leery glances from everypony. They waited for an answer.

But the stranger seemed almost unwilling to give it. And what reason he had – good, ill, innocent, or awful – was as hidden as his face under his hood. Yet as the silence sharpened it poked at him further, and suddenly his voice spilled out from his shadowed face. It was much softer than before, but still it smoldered.

"Young Bookworm had joined me many miles out, and to my side she held for the journey entire. Your questions she could have answered."

Bookworm didn't understand his intent and, mistaking his words for a mantle of blame, she tried yet again to desperately plead her innocence. But this time, rather than be silenced by her impatient father, she quieted herself when she saw the stranger ask for forgiveness from her with a humble tip of his head.

What she didn't catch was how his hidden stare moved immediately on to Scrolldozer, lightning and fire ready to shoot from his eyes and burn a hole into loathsome father.

Crumble Pie cast a glance at Bookworm as well. The opportunity had been there earlier to have questioned the filly over where she had been and what she had seen, but regretfully the gray mare had forgone it in favor of giving Scrolldozer his space for recovery after his heart-shaking ordeal. To have so soon pried his daughter away from him again, for interrogation? Or worse, to have made him stand by and suffer through the recounted details of every danger she had been through? That had seemed too big a cruelty to have visited upon a father and a friend; at least without some time for healing first.

A prick of grim humor touched the gray mare. Again her dearest friend's love for own his daughter had justly but unhappily interfered with protecting Stony Nook.

"A little late to ask her now, I guess," Crumble Pie moaned the quiet thought. "You going to fill us in yourself now, sir?"

This time, after but a single heavy breath, the stranger was forthright.

"Northwest along the river the beast's trail led us, finding its way to an old quarry. It is yours of old, I was told. There we saw the terrible extent this evil threat."

An icy wind crawled down the road of town. Everypony listened closely.

"It is not one monster which preys upon you... but thirty!"

Pony upon pony punched out gasps at the revelation, even as far away as some of the homes on the other end of the street. But though some had certainly sobbed from sheer terror, not every gasp was the product of fearful surprise.

"That-... that can't be right!" Desk Job ardently disbelieved.

Home Remedy, adjusting the fit of her white coat after the ruffling moment of shock, concurred aggressively, "I haven't had to treat a serious burn in all my years here. How could there possibly be thirty of these things running around out there?"

"We worked in that quarry for years and never saw a monster like that," Scrolldozer joined in. He was slightly more agitated than the rest but still no less resolute in his doubt. "I think you're confused, sir." Yet his hold on his daughter tightened, squeezing her like hooves clasped in fevered prayer.

However, the filly suddenly resisted. Through groans and squirms she shouted, "Dad, he's telling the truth!"

"Hush, baby. No more from you about strangers, and adventures, and fire dogs-"

"Heckhounds, Dad! They're heckhounds!"

"No, darling," still her father suppressed her, though his own inner-parent increasingly fumbled as her tantrum swelled. "I know you think you know so much about this because you've read all these books, but honey those are just stories! The gates of Tartarus are guarded by Cerberus and he would never let-"

"I told you! There's a crack in the quarry floor! That's how they got out!" erupted Bookworm. Her voice peaked at some of her highest registers, shredding the ears of everypony there, and her eyes started throwing out bitter and disgruntled tears. Her violent thrashes changed form, going from genuine efforts at freedom to forceful pushback against her father for its own rebellious sake, becoming almost hateful as her disgust grew. She fumed at him in one piercing shriek, "You never listen!"

Scrolldozer's leg had no trouble absorbing her spasms (and if necessary he could have always fallen back on his magic), but something in him changed. He threw no more faked paternal wisdom at her. A silent distress issued from him, told not with any words or actions. It was so much louder than his daughter's precisely because of how lifeless it was.

But his short, cold eternity shattered to sound of one frightening hoof-clap against the street.

Awakening, Scrolldozer found the darkened face of the stranger pressed into his own. Even underneath hooded shadow the scowl assaulting him burned bright like a flare.

"A wiser pony might love their foal enough to value her gifts!" hissed the cloaked pony. His infuriated fire absolutely seethed with profound indignation. He cared not at all how dangerously he wielded his tongue like a dagger, "If any threat there is here to her wellbeing, it is you!"

The insult alone slapped Scrolldozer so hard that he was almost flung back. Bladed words, swung to slice deep; it was how personal and specific they were that allowed them to rip into his body. The father, however insulted he might have been, didn't come back with even the shyest flick of aggression. Noiseless, the smallest of mists clouded his eyes; the well of his tears had run too dry from dipping so far into grief yesterday.

It didn't take a pony familiar with him to see that he feared a truth had be spoken to him.

But the soft submission he showed was not found in Crumble Pie.

The stranger suddenly discovered a gray hoof sunk into his chest, violating the safety of his cloak and blocking him like a brick wall. For the very first time he saw something on the mare's face that resembled genuine fury, and it was frightening, like the flashing crags of a mountain taking terrifying shapes in the crackling illuminations of a wild thunderstorm.

Yet, much like a burst of lightning, her full anger disappeared in an instant and only the rumbling echo of thunder lingered. With a great displeasure, bordering on rudeness, she shoved the stranger two steps back.

"That's not helpful," she managed to rebuke him with only a growl.

The stranger said nothing. Nor did any other pony there dare to speak up in the wake of her rare, dominating authority. Even Bookworm, just moments ago so rebellious, had her face down in silent shame and her lips pulled tight over her teeth, struggling no more.

Accepting control of the situation, Crumble Pie allowed the quiet to rest a spell. Then, bold before the cloaked pony, she did not attack him further but instead stoutly asked for confirmation, "... Thirty?"

"... Verily...," the humbled stranger returned, and then in a wintry whisper, "... and having now found this village, they mean to strike here with all their fire."

No words came from Crumble Pie as she stared hard at the cloaked pony, but nor did any doubt spring from her as well.

The reaction was quite different from her fellow townponies, many of whom were still petrified with disbelief.

Seeing this, the stranger again appealed to them with an unhelpful anger soured by their blind lust for self-destruction, though his hostility was oddly tempered by watchful glances towards the gray mare.

"Scheming in the quarry we found them! Making designs for your destruction! Ages have they been caged in Tartarus' sweltering pits, their evil ferocity devouring itself in hunger, and they will not waste this chance to revel in the butchery and mayhem they have desperately craved all their imprisoned lives! At their head is a leader so cruel and unmerciful, and to him I spoke! He swore to relieving his bloodlust on you!"

"What?" the still-recovering Scrolldozer nervously scoffed. "You just sat down and had a chat with one of them? No. No! This is crazy! Crumble Pie!" He actually loosened himself from his daughter and groveled before the gray mare, laying his fearful hoof onto her shoulder. "Crumble Pie... I am begging you not to believe this..."

The hoof she placed over his was warm, but the tiny smile she gave back was loud with sorrow, and it wordlessly asked for his forgiveness.

Scrolldozer gently started to weep.

"Crumble Pieee!!"

Raining down over the village came Hailstone's anxious voice. And her return sent a similar unease into everypony; her absence had been far too short for her assigned task. But the reason for her speed came descending with her.

Behind her flew a flock of five other pegasi; the scouts she had been sent to retrieve. They were all red in color but only because of how much breathlessness had painted their faces. Each of them beat their wings into blurs like hummingbirds, casting off so much sweat it made a small sun shower. Regrouping with them hadn't taken long because they had already been scrambling back to Stony Nook in alarmed panic when Hailstone had crashed into them.

The pegasi all came down together and landed before Crumble Pie, the town meetings spreading out to give them space. While the scouts heaved, sputtered, and all but collapsed from their overexertion, the quarry pegasus hurried to relate the dire news.

"Crumble Pie...," Hailstone wheezed, choking on dread more than air, "... we got problems."

"They're coming," the gray mare assumed, grim and slow. And her prediction put a shiver in everypony there. Most grabbed somepony close, holding tight to try and keep their hope from leaking away.

Hailstone, only briefly taken aback by the accurate guess, realized what she had likely missed while away and glanced at the silent stranger.

"Yeah," she nodded at Crumble Pie in dismay, "there's some two dozen of those things blazing a trail down the road right for us."

The terrified townsponies cried out, some soft and desolate but others loud with despair.

Yet no voice rose greater than the stranger's, who furiously but unhelpfully scoffed at the report's undercount, "Their pack numbers more; a score and a half!"

No danger could dull Hailstone's dislike for the cloaked pony.

"Hey buddy, they know what they saw!"

Crumble Pie didn't have the patience, and fast she came between the two ponies as they growled and moved towards each other. She didn't need a temper, and it only took a strong stare and a few solid words to halt their advances.

Order restored, she quickly questioned her quarry pony, "How long until they get to Stony Nook?"

"Uh, ah... Thirty minutes, maybe? If we're lucky?" Hailstone's glance threw the question to the still-recovering scouts, and they shook their heads in exhausted agreement.

Although it was critical information, knowing the countdown to doom was little help to most of the townsponies. Again they began to wail with fright, dismay, and grief.

"Quiet, please!" Crumble Pie drowned them out. Her shout had the blunt impact of a fallen boulder pummeling the earth, blasting away all other noise and seizing everypony's attention. "We don't have the time to be cracking apart. We need to figure out what we're going to do."

"T-T-The wall!" Desk Job cried. She frantically pointed down the road at their recent construction. "W-We have the wall now! I-It'll keep them out! R-Right?"

From his spot in the street the stranger studied their eight-foot wall, the patrol ponies on top no longer pacing because they were worriedly watching the proceedings in town. Stones were stacked high, mortar was laid thick, and no doubt the talent of these stone craftsponies had built something solid against breakage or shattering; a defense concrete against the muscular force of any heckhound...

... But in his mind the cloaked pony had a far different worry. Clearly the sights of yesterday came back to him: heckhounds leaping down quarry terraces without so much as an uncomfortable twitch to their thick legs; and heckhounds vaulting high and far over a gap of water, from dock to barge.

"Of its own that wall will not help you," he suddenly warned the townsponies. "Over it they would scale as indifferently as a cat passes over a tall fence. Only defended will it earn you anything."

Again many ponies there read his grinding tone as rude disdain, offering back foul leers and offended stares. But, if only out of fear, and especially because Crumble Pie gave a cheerless nod to it, they trusted the warning.

Mrs. Totaler spoke up, "Then we've wasted our time! And speaking of, we don't have enough; two days at least until any help from Princess Celestia comes."

Nopony heard the stranger growl, though a few may have incidentally caught the angry way his hood shifted to stare daggers at the older mare.

"Well, m-maybe the message went faster than we thought and the Royal Guard are already on their way here-" rambled Desk Job.

"We can't count on something so unlikely," Crumble Pie cut her off.

"Then-, then-, then...," Scrolldozer burst in, seizing his daughter as tightly as ever, "... it's hopeless! If the Princess can't save us then we're defenseless! We have to leave! We have to get out of here right now, and make for Mule's Head!"

The stranger's deadly glare shifted to the father, sharpening. But again few noticed.

"Yes!" the desperate mayor agreed. "We need to flee! Just... gather everypony up quickly and abandon Stony Nook!"

As more ponies joined in to echo the same terrified sentiments, the incensed grinding of the cloaked pony's teeth grew louder. His reddening gaze bounced from pony to pony, furiously listening: 'home was already lost!'; 'the only prayer was to run far, far away!'; 'their only chance had been the Princess!'

Behind his dead eye, in the base of his horn, a blistering and painful fire blazed. An oily, black spark flared.

"NO!!"

Everypony cowered and cringed as if the heckhound attack had already started. Raucous, wailing with rage, and utterly antagonized beyond any reasonable measure, the stranger pushed into the center of the road and screamed at the whole town. Never since the halls of Canterlot, when a vain princess had been before him offering a worthless apology for having foolishly endangered the lives of so many innocent ponies, had he been so inestimably infuriated. For each and every pony there he had the endless vitriol to paint an image of Stony Nook's sins, dropping an embittered canvas before them one by one and splashing out portraits with his unrestrainable vehemence. Yet he had no mind or control for it, and he took his many madnesses, compounded them all together, and unleashed them in one unstoppably massive outpouring of fiery torment and lunatic indignation.

His dragon-wound opened like a shattered dam, spilling out waters boiling; a searing tide so overwhelming it would wash over the world.

"Again and again you slither from your responsibilities, trying to pawn away your ultimate duty towards each other to absent and false hopes! But the truth bites you now: no Sun was ever going to guard you from darkness! In throwing your lives before her you have only been spoiling your own chances to protect yourselves! That hesitating cowardice consuming you has let this final hour sneak up upon you! Do not flee from it further! Defend your home! Defend your lives! Within you already the courage has revealed itself, trying to cry out to you so you might seize it! Did you not hear it, when your wall you labored to build?! When you defeated the first of the monsters on your own?! In your hearts there is the strength to face this disaster, whatever end it leaves you at! If your love for each other is not a lie then fight for each other! Leave it to nopony else!"

This was now the second time the assembled ponies of Stony Nook had stood in trepid silence and listened to the frothy ravings of a pony who hid himself under cloak and shadow. And they were no more amenable than the first time to his suicidal ideas, answering him with their dark glares, their turns-aside heavy with contempt, and the way their whispers – even in that moment of existential threat – were crusted with such derisive scorn.

But Hailstone, of course, didn't shy away from taking her answer straight to his concealed face.

"You're nuts!" she spat. "We had to drop a water tower on just one of these things to stop him! We don't got any more for the other two dozen of'em!" Her striking hoof left a bruise in the dirt below. "If we stick around, these things are going to sweep in here and cook our pony hides!"

Right back the stranger returned her hostility, cutting his own hoofprint into the road.

"If you have nothing to die for then you've had nothing to live for!"

"Oh, golly, brilliant plan! 'Line up like a buffet for them!' 'Roll over and get eaten cause at least that's noble!'"

"Wings ever make a pungent coward! Flap away to your clouds, if you have no legs on which to stand!"

Hailstone's wings did come out with a furious snap, though obviously not for escape. She swung them a hair away from clipping the stranger across the nose.

"Okay, first," she snarled, "the only reason I haven't slugged you yet is because I'm nice enough not to! Second, it takes a real coward to say we should just give up and go out in a blaze of pointless glory!"

"It no longer matters what becomes of you here!" Again the cloaked pony was screaming at all the town, even if he did channel it directly at Hailstone. "The hour of avoidance has long passed! The pale haze of profane evil is already devouring your home! Now is left only the question of how you will face this baleful moment of destiny! With strength and love for each other?" His exposed nose nearly stabbed the pegasus. "Or with the same surrender and spinelessness that led you to this fateful choice?"

"Or – better idea – we can show some brains and actually try to save our tails by getting out of here!" Hailstone shouted so loud that she actually lifted off the ground.

And to the stranger's chagrin the supporting chorus of the town joined her.

"I love Stony Nook plenty," Mrs. Totaler said sadly. "Been here since the start; breaks my heart to see it end like this! But heck if it wouldn't be worse to lose somepony 'stead of just some rocks and wood! I can build another tavern, old as I am!"

Home Remedy grumbled, "I practice medicine to heal ponies so they can live longer lives, not to bury them on the battlefield of their own home!"

"Bartenders, doctors, accountants," Desk Job bitterly enumerated, "builders, quarryponies, foals, fathers, mothers. What do we have to stop monsters with?"

"I don't know what you're expecting us to do, sir," Scrolldozer said, backing up the mayor. "We're not any fighters. Look at us!"

Every muscle in the stranger tensed, clinging tight and strained to his bones. His teeth had almost been whittled down to the roots, and so much steam puffed from his nostrils that a distant observer might have mistaken him for a chugging train engine. He felt he loved their innocent lives so greatly that he could see only cowardice and villainy in their reserve, supremely despising their ordinary pony hearts and the sanely-selfish choices they made.

And suddenly, his hoof flew up and tore his hood down.

"Look at me!" Prideheart howled.

Look the townsponies did. Stares were disgusted and horrified, when not simply startled by the sheer shock. Gasps were small, too interrupted by trembling mouths which tried and failed to find the words to describe the revolting sight.

Skin blackened with incurable decay. Lost eye slimy and sickly, and crusted with the condensation of pure nausea. A horn nub more cracked than the driest earth, and more diseased than a bilious swamp; the pustules on top pulsing with glowing poison.

Unseen was the thousands of protected lives.

"Who you are matters not," Prideheart roared over their silence, now blending his outrage with his own desperation. "Fright matters not; nor courage, nor might, nor body, nor blood! If you cannot find the will to turn and stand before an evil, whether all-powerful or of ignorant malevolence, then the world will be swallowed by darkness. If not here, elsewhere; and if not engulfed all at once—"

A cold and brutal quiet stung him, creating a pause of defeat, if ever a brief one.

"—then one foal at a time..."

The townsponies did not answer him. Many of them still stared at the horror of his injured face. Nowhere he looked did he see agreement with him.

These ponies, too, he was not one of. There was no reason he could possibly give for them to soundly listen. His language had been too changed.

Scrolldozer at last came forward, not to Prideheart but to Crumble Pie. He was so subdued as to be cowering, and in a dead whisper he spoke for all of Stony Nook:

"There's so little time. We need to leave right now."

No possible preparation there could have been in him, nor in anypony there in Stony Nook, for the gray mare's heartbreaking answer:

"Well now... hold on a second..."

The father's jaw dropped at her hesitation. His words pilfered, he only bent low before her and tried to grab her hooves; to plead for her to revoke her ill-considered joke; to beg for her to stop all the world, nod in agreement, affirm his beliefs, and save his daughter. And he cried because he knew that she did only the things she believed were best for all, not the things she knew others wished for.

Tenderly Crumble Pie helped her friend to his hooves, standing him up gently before she gave a soft rub of her cheek on his neck. Then to the rest of Stony Nook she turned, and she addressed them firmly:

"Listen up! These... heckhounds... are some thirty minutes to storming over Stony Nook; maybe less. Mule's Head, on the other hoof, is a few hours away even if we hoof it. And we can't do that. We got older ponies, stiff as rocks. We got foals, with their pebble legs. We're not going to be able to roll our whole village down that road with any speed. When the heckhounds hop the wall, race into Stony Nook, and find it empty, are they going to just stop and have a picnic? No, they'll come after us. They'll find us on the open road, well before we ever make Mule's Head. And then what kind of position will we be in?"

"Th-Then we-, we-... we smash the bridge!" Scrolldozer came besides her and still, with all his desperation, tried to flee around the hopelessness of the situation. "Once everypony is across we just... tear it apart! Then we'll be safe! They can't cross the river!"

"Can't touch the water," Crumble Pie dismally corrected him, loud enough to share it with the whole town. "They can cross the river just fine if they find a way over it. Now, I can't think of how they'd do it without the bridge, but... it only takes them finding one way and then that's it for us. I can't, in good conscience, bank everypony's life on them being too dumb to beat some rocks together and come up with a solution.

"But," she continued to address her ponies, though she moved over before Prideheart, letting him know that she was speaking to him too, "that doesn't mean we got to let everypony stay here like some kind of feast for'em. I don't agree with everything our friend here said but he's right that we can't just run, and also that our new wall won't do any good without ponies on top it to keep those monsters off. So... some ponies should definitely leave for Mule's Head; the elders, the foals... But other ponies are going to need to stay behind and hold the wall for all they're worth. That'll give time for the rest to hopefully get to Mule's Head. Understand?"

Nopony spoke, but nor had Crumble Pie expected anypony to.

She moved to the side of the road to a building whose face had a front porch one step high. Climbing it, the extra head of height gave her a clean look out over the crowd and at the faces of all her sister and brother townsponies.

"I love you all," the gray mare told them, "and so I'll stay here and keep those beasts back myself, if I have to. But... I don't think all alone I'll be able to stand for long. Despite how much you all praise me for it, I've never started a quarry here by myself. It takes a lot of ponies working together to do something big... So, if there are any of you who are willing... please... help me."

From the silent and still crowd Scrolldozer was the first to emerge, leaving his daughter back with the unvolunteered ponies.

He was a mess, already sobbing and with snot running from his nose. As he walked he wobbled, hardly able to carry himself. But regardless he stepped up onto the porch with Crumble Pie, turned, and stood next to her, even as he wept over his abysmal fate.

The gray mare was fast to embrace him, wrapping her one leg around his and holding him close against her, shedding a few small but happy tears herself.

Immediately, Hailstone and the rest of Crumble Pie's quarry crew came forward and gathered on or just in front of the low porch. The out-of-town builders also joined them, though most were new residents who had only been with Stony Nook for a few weeks or even just a few days. That short time had been enough to have let them know Crumble Pie well. They came up with the same heart as any one of her crew.

And then, from the remaining crowd of ordinary townsfolk, many ponies started to break and approach.

Central among them was Mayor Desk Job, who held her disbelieving head low and murmured grimly to herself. To think, at that very moment she could have been far away in a comfortable, magically-cooled office in a Manehattan skyscraper listening to the soothing sound of an inked pen scribbling over a beautiful financial spreadsheet. It would have been quieter, calmer, more lucrative, and above all safer.

Though, perhaps, far more lonely.

Crumble Pie was delighted to see Desk Job coming forward. She leaned down off the porch and greeted the mare with a silly, heartfelt, faithful tease, "Mayor! What would we ever do without you?"

"Probably blunder about like a headless corporation, I guess," the mayor sighed, resigned but amused.

The stream of ponies peeling away from the crowd only increased, until the greater share of them had stepped up. The gray mare took heart in seeing so many come forward. Not only were they that much stronger together but each also had individual talents they could bring, like the noble Doctor Remedy. (Whether one thought that her primary talent was her medical knowledge, instead of her uncannily dark ability to motivate ponies, was a separate issue.)

One of the many ponies to volunteer was the quiet Mrs. Totaler, who almost slipped in under Crumble Pie's radar. For her the gray mare stepped down from the porch, confronting her.

"Now, Mrs. Totaler," apologized Crumble Pie, "I'm moved by your willingness, but I think twenty-five years is enough for anypony to give one town. You might be the only pony in all of Stony Nook who's been here since the beginning!"

"All the more reason to stick it out to the very end, I wager," the older mare replied.

"I appreciate it, but I think you've earned your ticket out of here. Besides, I need somepony respected enough to head up those ponies who won't be staying. They'll need a clearheaded pony to hold'em together and lead'em down the road." The gray mare gave an aside glance at Scrolldozer behind her, the stallion still weepy and shivering. She emphasized, "You know... to make sure all our foals make it safe to Mule's Head."

"... I understand," Mrs. Totaler nodded. She didn't waste any more words and hugged Crumble Pie, more like mother to daughter than like pleasant acquaintances. The many messages in it were clear: 'I promise,' 'I'm sorry,' 'Good luck,' 'Goodbye,' 'I love you.' After it the older mare returned to the very thinned crowd.

Those left with Mrs. Totaler didn't seem so perfectly comfortable with their choice to be the saved. But most were either fillies and colts—who in all the blessed names of princesses and all the cursed names of demons would never have secured their parents' permissions to have stayed behind anyway—or were elders—experienced enough to know how much less their older bodies could now bring to a fight, even if their spirits were still young.

Gazing over her large family Crumble Pie bowed in approval of the division. And then every silent pony watched as she stepped from her group and approached the one pony in all the town who still stood apart from the rest; who hadn't joined either camp.

Prideheart had watched the whole proceeding as if he were outside of it all. And now, with Crumble Pie before him, he remained cold and silent. He noticed readily how the gray mare couldn't seem to meet both his now-revealed eyes at once. Alternating she stared at the dead one, foggy with its toxic cloud of color and sunken into its pit of rotten flesh, or focused on his good one, the blazing red-gold of it still clear enough to shine with some amount of young heroism despite the withering age of the face it was set in.

"Sir...," she began, "... certainly you don't owe Stony Nook anything. But that didn't stop you from jumping in the way of that monster when he came for me, or from chasing out after him for our sakes afterwards. Now I'm sorry that I can't agree with you that ponies should live up to this... mountain of a noble standard that you have, and there's nothing I'm going to do to ask you to come down off that peak for us. But... well, just looking at you, I'd imagine you know something or another about handling fights and maybe laying battle plans. If you still have it in you to offer whatever help and experience you have... well, I'd turn over every stone in Equestria to find you the proper thanks. You're welcome here with us."

She held her hoof out to him.

"There's no such thing as a stranger in Stony Nook."

A frosted wind slipped down through the road of town. Everypony watched closely.

But he did not take her hoof.

He bowed before her instead, descending low to the road. Openly he struggled to get down, not hiding his weakened and aching knee as it quaked hard to hold his shifting weight. All the way he went, stooped in front of her with the crooked fracture of his horn touched to the dirt and the long length of his cloak folded up around his sides.

"Come whatever fire, here I will stand unshaken," Prideheart swore. "If the hounds break this line to pursue those innocents of yours, then they shall have to give chase slowed by the weight of my corpse gnawing on their paws."