Equine, All Too Equine II: The Days of the Prophets

by stanku

Chapter V: The Alicorn

As an experience, teleporting was highly dull in the same way sleeping was. You couldn’t feel a thing, because for the briefest of moments there was no you to do the feeling. In sleep one could at least dream. The comparisons did not stop there. Waking up and re-materializing were akin in the sense that, at both times, most persons went through the fleeting moment of utter confusion: an effect of their very identity, stretched thin by the void, snapping back like a rubber string. Few ever got completely used to it.

Heart appeared on the yard of his mansion holding his breath and eyes closed. He waited a heartbeat. When no part of his body complained of an uncomfortably placed tree branch or a rock, his lids flashed open. When he saw the protruding rosebush a horn-length from his face, his stomach turned around itself. Half a meter more and I would’ve had a brain full of flowers.

He saw movement on the other side of the plant and crouched instinctively. Peeking through the holes and gaps in the leaves, he could see that most of the guards has gathered to the gate. The familiar looking statue flailed above their heads. He could make out Tin Key’s voice but not the words; he spoke much too quickly for that. That should keep them occupied long enough.

The problem was, there were still two more guards at the doors, looking more vigilant than Heart had hoped. He couldn’t rush them without alerting the others. The building had two other exits – the kitchen and the roof – but both were locked tight from inside at all times. He used to personally inspect that the rule was obeyed. Thing is, I’m not there now to do the ordering…

The mansion garden was ideal for sneaking around even in daytime, and the dark cover of the M-clouds made Heart practically invisible among the shrubberies. Now that he paid attention to the fact, the shadows had indeed grown darker since the morning, although Heart’s internal clock assured him that it was still hours until evening. Above him, purple veins pulsed in the cumulus flesh. The storm might break out any minute. Can’t think about it now: need to focus. Focus on Lily. Lily. Lily…

Arriving to the kitchen door, he tried it carefully with a hoof. It was locked. He felt the urge to smash it down, but reined himself in. Then, he heard noise from the other side – somepony was talking. Heart took off his helmet and pressed his ear on the wood, but the thick planks sucked in the words. He could make out two different voices though, then hoofsteps. He got the impression that the other pony had stayed behind.

He knocked on the door and pressed against the wall. There came more noise; somepony was walking; they fumbled with the lock, pushed the door…

…and were yanked flat on the grass by Heart’s horn.

He pressed a hoof hard on the pony’s exposed neck. “Breathe and you’re dead,” he said while glancing at the corridor. It was empty. He turned back to the pony, and cursed the day he was born.
“Please don’t,” stuttered the mare. “I-I-I don’t want t-t-t–”

Heart removed his hoof quickly and bended over her. “Hush, Pin. It’s me: Deck. Are you okay?”

A face like bloated muffin dough turned a frightened look at him. It belonged to Roll Pin, the cook of the mansion. “Captain?”

Heart grimaced. Roll Pin had lived in the mansion longer than anypony else: long enough so that she herself couldn’t say when exactly she had come there first. Many were the cookies Heart had stolen from her kitchen, more for the fun of them both than for the sweet need. The puppy eyes he had had as a foal only needed to wink at her for any treat in the house. And when Hilt had made the windows shutter form the shouting with his wife, no volcano had been as warm, no void as quiet, as the top of Pin Roll’s massive stove. And now she lay at his feet, begging for her life.

“Yes,” said Heart. He forced a smile on his lips, even though he knew Pin would see through it in an instant. “Listen, I don’t have time to explain. Lily’s in danger. I need to get her out of here. Do you know in which room she is? How many guards she has?”

The cook’s limp cheeks quivered as her mouth moved in pace different from her actual words. “Sir… Lily? In Danger? I… I had no idea… Guards? I, I can’t say – the usual number, I suppose?”

Heart’s smile thinned. “What do you mean, you had no idea?”

Pin Roll blinked profusely. “Sir, I thought everything was alright up there! I brought her the dinner as usual: there was nothing wrong with her, I swear!” She huffed and puffed, trying to stand up.

Gently but firmly, Heart pressed her down.

“Tell me, Pin,” he said, very quietly, “How come you haven’t noticed that the mansion has been overrun by hostile forces?”

The old mare looked at the hoof that held her down, then in the eyes that pierced hers like icicles. “Sir… Hostile? What? I don’t understand. Could I stand up now? I have cookies coming.”

Either she’s with them or she’s been hypnotized, decided Heart. Nothing else made sense. He looked into the watery, beady eyes he had once loved like a mother’s, and saw nothing there. Nothing at all. As in trance, he raised his mailed hoof.

“Sir? Sir? What are you…? What are y–”

The first blow failed to knock her out. Heart’s hoof had trembled too much. The second time, it didn’t.

He dragged the mare inside and locked the kitchen door. The kitchen closet had some rags to tie and gag her before shoving her inside. Luckily, there had been nopony else in the kitchen today. Unluckily, he happened to peek into the oven. There were two trays of cookies there, already turning black. He left them in and started his way for the next floor, where Lily’s room was.

Lily… I’m coming for you… Through anything and anypony, I’m coming for you.

***

Mill Stone felt alone. Getting lost in a huge crowd tended to have that effect, as little sense as it made. Even stranger it was to see the exact same loneliness on every face he came across. They were all alone, together.

High above, the sky roared. Mill did not dare look up. The storm was finally about to hit the city, and it would be bad. All around him, ponies were moving restlessly. A beast stepped among them, whispering. It was called the Herd. Wherever enough ponies found themselves alone, it would emerge. As a copper, Mill Stone had met it eye to eye more than once. Before, he had always known where he stood with the Herd. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

Someone grabbed him from behind.

“Helm?” he said as he saw his friend’s face. Or what he at first thought was his face. It was the second thoughts that made him ask.

“We need to get out,” said Helm. The corner of his mouth twitched.

“Did you find the Captain?”

Helm shook his head. “No sign of him. Probably fled hours ago. We should, too.” He started drifting away, although Mill got the impression he wasn’t aware of this himself.

“What’s gotten into you?”

Helm’s restless eyes stopped to him. Beads of sweat gleamed between them. “Can’t you feel it? Something’s coming. Something bad. It’s in the air. My family: I’ve got to find them.”

Mill Stone hesitated. The thing was he, he could feel it, whatever it was. It wasn’t just the storm; not just the fact that they had lost sight of the Captain hours ago; not just the Herd. Something bad. Like blinking in front of a mirror and catching the other side disobeying their que.

The thing also was, they were soldiers. And soldiers leaving home without permission were deserters.

“Pull yourself together,” growled Mill. “We need to keep searching: the Captain might be in trouble. And what d’you think I’m going to have to tell him when he asks where you’ve gone?”

Helm blinked. “Hey, no call for that kind of attitude. I’m just saying we can’t know he’s even around anymore. Maybe he returned to the Station when he saw that signal for help. Ever thought of that? In that case we should get back, too – for new orders.”

“I thought you were going home just now?”

“Hey, some of us happen to got one!”

Before Mill could answer, the heavens split open. Down on the Ledge, every single neck bended up. The roof of cloud spasmed. Giant muscles flexed in the purple flesh as the very epitomes of power and chaos. Yet it was quiet. The last roar had driven all the other noises away, sucking them inside itself like a vacuum. The clouds pulsed once more, trying to contain their own might. And then the sky exploded.

Before it did, somepony down below had reasoned it’d be a lot easier to flee in panic while all the others were still gaping at their doom. Unfortunately for him, ideas like that spread in a crowd like ink in water.

Mill quickly lost sight of Helm in the flood of bodies that ensued. The Ledge had no single exit but several, which meant any direction was equally good for an escape, which then meant no direction was. For a moment Mill tried to hold his ground, to bring even a tinge of order around him. The tide swept him along like a leaf, swallowed his shouts like a hurricane.

The Herd was on the move. It was all alone. There had been no alicorn, not a hint of one. Ísolation pressed them. Solitude choked them. Seclusion trampled them.

They were all alone. Together.

***

In comparison to the rest of Canterlot’s manors, the Captain’s mansion was on the average side as far as bare size was concerned. It didn’t seem like that inside. Apart from the large main hall, the house was a maze. Few rooms were alike in shape, size or furnituring, and there was hardly any logic to how to move around the place. The main reason for the mismatch was that every new Captain had wanted to shape the building during their stay, to better suit their own taste. But since the Captains changed relatively often, none of them could quite finish the changes they had started before the next wave insisted on starting from scratch again. A studious architect, or an archaeologist, would’ve had a field day tracking the hundred year old history of the estate, room by room, floor by floor.

For Heart, who knew his way around the house better than most, all this meant relative ease of sneaking closer and closer to his goal. Whenever a patrol would threaten to corner him, there was always a room to slip into at hoof. Whenever a room he needed to cross had somepony inside, there were three more to choose from. The chaotic floor plan, etched into his mind already in foalhood, spread before his eyes at every turn. Then, too, he had been hiding from the master of the house; his grandfather, who had housed the whole family at one point. It had all been a fun game then. A part of him thought that a game it was still, yet with stakes far different from a furious tickling.

He was in the third and last floor now; Lily’s room lay just around the corner. But before he could turn it, the sound of hoofsteps made him halt and press against the wall. He listened to them approach, then stop at what he estimated was right in Lily’s doorstep. And then they started talking.

“So, what’s your score of the week?”

“Forty two,” came the answer, with a hint of smugness. “Got me three Alis just yesterday – one with leaflets.”

The first stallion scoffed. “Not bad… for a rookie. Myself, I’m comfortably at fifty.”

A low whistle. “What’s your secret?”

“Simple: not telling it.”

“Oh, come on! You still owe me one for taking the extra shift last month so you could run away with that mare. Fair’s fair.”

“First of all, rookies get no debt; second, the mare ended up thieving my bit bag, so it counts not. Third–”

Heart stopped listening as another pair of steps came from behind him. He could barely slip through the closest door and close it before they entered the same corridor. Holding his breath, he heard the steps pass him and meet the other two guards. By the sound of it, they joined the conversation of comparing their points of their looney game.

Two thoughts consumed the majority of Heart’s attention. The first was that the broom cupboard he had squeezed into had barely enough room for him to turn, and that it smelled strongly of mold. The other was that his own guards had turned against him. Old Roll Pin, that he could still comprehend. The pony hadn’t been the sharpest knife in the box to begin with, and the years had done her no favours in that regard. But there was no excuse in the world for his own soldiers to not be aware of what was happening around them. It was inexcusable; unforgivable. It made black tar of Heart’s mind.

There was the third thought, however. Or rather, a fact. He was tired. No, he was exhausted. The hangover of the morning formed a solid base on which the aching blow on his jaw built a handsome nausea. His armor weighed a ton; the weeks of insomnia even more so. And right behind a wall there were four professional soldiers, with all their youth and strength by their side. Heart knew they were his best ponies. He had picked nothing less to guard Lily.

And that was, finally, the fourth thought, so omnipresent he barely acknowledged it anymore. Not a thought anymore; just a word. Lily.

He focused on that thought. Really focused.

He busted through the door right as one of the guards said: “...So long as the boss don’t find out, we’re gol–.”

Can’t give them a moment, thought Heart, in the peculiar calm that one finds in the eye of a storm. He had already caught the first guard by the throat by the time the others were blinking in astonishment. Can’t give them quarter. He wrenched, and the guard slumped like a sack of potatoes.

That woke up the other three. “Hey hey hey hey!” began the second. His eyes were nailed at the fallen guard, whose neck was what orthopedists see nightmares of. “Whah–”

His words choked on his throat as Heart’s magic clasped it. He was about to twist again, but another force blocked his. Heart’s eyes met with the third guard while their magics fought over the second’s life. The one called rookie was yet to move a muscle.

“Stop him!” screamed the third guard over the choking sound of the second. “Stophimstophimstophim!”

The rookie flinched, his horn lighting up, but not before Heart scraped the bottom of whatever barrel fuelled his horn. Shouting his lungs out, he swung his neck and the guard he was holding. He collided with the second one, brought him off balance. He scrambled fervently to get up, to shout, but quieted when his helmeted head broke through the wall next to him.

Despite having no wind left in him, the second guard managed to cast a spell to protect himself from further telekinesis. It was no shield against a nasty kick to the forehead.

In Heart’s vision, the red mist settled down. He breathed like a volcano. Black smoke filled his lungs. Energy crackled over his horn, which swayed along with him, leaving colored strands lingering in the air to evaporate. Nothing else moved in the corridor. He felt the rookie’s eyes on him like a tiger does, when it knows the deer has seen it. Come on. Do it. Go for it. One spark. A shadow of a glow. Do it.

“Do it!” he shouted at the youth, who almost jumped out of his skin. Heart took a step forward. “Do it. Make a move. Defend yourself. Do it.”

The youth’s mouth twitched open. “My gods… my gods… You killed them… You killed them all…” He fell to his knees. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I swear, I only gambled once! For my life, I didn’t know it was that serious! Please, please, I don’t want to, to… I don’t… want… die…”

The sobs came out like the tears: fat and flooding. The pony shook all over now, barely able to breathe. Heart’s mute stare went right through him, like he wasn’t there after all. For an eternity Heart stood there, trying to make sense of what he had just heard.

And then he walked right past the covering guard into Lily’s room. It was empty. He returned to the crying pony and kicked him in the ribs. He yelped, curling into an even tighter ball.

“Where’s my daughter?” asked Heart. Ash fell from his lips as he spoke.

“I… I don’t know… in the office… in the office… I don’t know… I don’t want to… die…”

Heart pushed him on his side with a leg, then pressed down his chest until he could only wheeze.

“She is in the office?” said Heart. “On this floor?”

The youth’s nod was the sorriest thing in the world. It made tar run in Heart’s veins.

He bent over the guard until their horns touched. And then he whispered, “Don’t move.”

Next, he marched straight into his office. Nopony crossed his way, which was just as fine, because he couldn’t have cared less if they had.

Nopony stood in guard at the door. He wrenched it from its hinges and hurled behind him while striding in.

Somepony sat in his chair, back towards him. The chair turned slowly around. A smile came along with it. The smile he had seen nightmares of.

At first he was about to sent the whole thing, chair and pony, to meet the pavement below via the window. What stopped him was the gaze that was not there; the blindfolded eyes which looked past him, to the corner. They drew Heart’s focus along like a rope.

“Dad?” asked Lily. She was looking at him in slight worry. “Why’d you break the door?”

Heart heard the question, but his mind was still working on the sight before him. By Lily’s side, there was another filly. Or a colt, he could not quite tell. Either way it was way younger than Lily; at most a couple years old. It, too, was looking at him. But unlike with Lily, this gaze questioned him for nothing. Instead, it seemed to put him into question.

“It was a lousy old door,” said the pony by the desk. “Needed to be changed anyhow. Go on, keep on playing now. Your father and I have some adult things to discuss.”

Lily looked at the blind pony, then at Heart, and then she returned, with the foal, to the game of Monopony they had been occupied with before Heart’s entrance. All this happened like the most natural thing in world.

Heart turned to face the blind pony. The prospect of sending him flying had never stopped being an option, but now it floated so deep in the background he could barely recognize it anymore. In contrast, the running steps approaching them were all too familiar.

“Everything is quite okay!” called the blind pony as five guards, two of them cultists, appeared in the doorstep to meet Heart’s glowing horn and beastial expression. “We simply had an irrelevant accident with the door! Now, why not one of you make yourself useful and go fetch it back from wherever it landed, yes? There might still be a chance to reattach it. No point in wasting quality woodwork, is there?”

“Sir…” said one of the guards without taking his eyes off Heart. The face stirred a memory within him: a name. His name was Fall. “We found three bo–”

“Did you now?” chirped the blind pony, rounding his desk and walking in between Heart and him. “Well, upsetting as that may be, there’s no crying over spilled milk, is there? ‘Daring be thou who throweth the first stone’ – words of wisdom. Besides, what adults we would make, bickering and arguing in front of children? An excuse of an example, that we’d be.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Heart saw Lily following the scene. Little by little, his horn died down.

“A paradigmatic attitude,” said the blind pony. “Nothing that I wouldn’t expect from the Captain, of course.” His cream white blindfold turned to the five guards. “That door, now…?”

Five minutes later Heart, Lily, the foal and the blind one were alone in the room, sealed in privacy by the old door. Fixing it had went smoothly with so many helpful hooves around. The whole ordeal was that close of assuring Heart he was actually dreaming, or perhaps gone insane.

Behind his desk, the blind pony looked at him. Two glasses and a bottle had appeared before him at some point, signaling an invitation. At this point, refusing it would’ve cut the last hair that still held the whole world in one piece.

Heart sat on the carpet opposite to him. For a while, the only sound in the room came from the occasional dice hitting the cardboard in the corner.

“Would you mind doing the pouring?” said the blind pony, waving at the bottle. “I’d loathe to neglect my duties as the host, but even more would I loathe to spill the fine liquid all over my guest.”

Heart made no move. “Are you sure you got the roles correct here?”

The ever-present smile peaked briefly. And that was that.

Heart filled his glass halfway, the other up to the brim. He noted it wasn’t the usual stuff, but from the stock in the basement, perhaps as old as the house was.

They raised the glasses simultaneously. Not a drop was spilled on either side.

“Why do you bother with the blindfold if you forgo the whole fumbling business,” said Heart. There were a million things that made no sense right now, but the apparent ease of movement which the blind pony showcased was a particularly bothersome detail.

In response, the pony cracked the cloth covering his eyes. The sight made Heart almost choke on his drink.

“Convinced, I’m sure you are,” said the pony, pulling back his bandage. “I do understand your suspicion, though I can hardly explain the minutiae of it. Honestly, it’s a mystery even to me, the way I seem to grasp my surroundings despite my obvious condition. I sort of… trust that things are where I think they are, and go with that.”

Heart took an ample sip of his wine.

“However, such things ought not to derail us from the general theme of our meeting,” continued the pony. He extended a hoof across the oak. “Call me Stick.”

Heart stared at the limb over his glass. I can tell you where to stick that, at the very least…

“Hah!” exclaimed the pony. The hoof withdrew casually. “A good one. A sharp mind, you have. Very edgy.”

Despite the stale, dry air of the room, a chilling breeze blew over Heart. “How did you…?”

“Read your thoughts?” said Stick. He shook his head slowly. “Would that I could. It’d be a ball, certainly. Alas, mine is only the privilege to an educated guess. A bit like with the sight thing, I suppose. I have this sense, you know, of a thing like a letter – better, a color. A form. A whisper. I could go on hours, just describing the sensation of it. Hmm, yes, it is very puzzling, I agree, especially from a non-unicorn as myself. Or more precisely, from an ex-unicorn…”

While speaking, Stick pulled back the mane on his forehead. Under it there was a furless, round spot of bare bone marking the spot where a horn had once been.

“A story for another time, I’m afraid,” he said, letting his hair cover the stump once more. “Again, we are trailing. There is much and more we need to discuss in time we don’t have. So, if I may be so bold as to break this to you frankly – how would you like to rule the world?”

“Yes!” came a shout from the behind. “Manehattan, come to mommy. Now let’s see you beat those apples…”

Heart blinked. “What?”

“The world,” said Stick. “You know? That thing we all live in. I’m offering it to you. Take it. It’s your destiny, etcetera. Do I really have to sell this to you?”

There came another silence interrupted only by the occasional roll of dice. And then Heart said, “What?”

Stick sighed. “Look, all I’m trying to–”

The rest of his words came out choked. His forelegs twitched on the table for a moment, but then eased down. His lips curled back, and his teeth glowed green in the light of the halo surrounding his neck. “You do this kind of thing often?” he managed.

“You’re insane,” said Heart. “Insane. I’ve met crazies, loonies, whackos, idiots, madponies: all sorts. But nothing like you. Nothing as purely insane.” The steel plates shook over his shoulders.

Stick gagged. “Deck. Please. Not in front of. The children.”

Heart closed his eyes. The children. The absence of die rolls roared in his ears. On top of that, another voice told him that, were he to kill the lunatic, he’d better be ready to treat the five guards waiting behind the door just the same. There was no way out. In times like that, the only route was to go in deeper.

“Much obliged,” coughed Stick as the halo released him. He wheezed, groped for his glass and knocked it down on the floor. “Ah, blast it, I can’t see…”

“Take mine,” said Heart, opening his eyes again. He offered his drink towards the eager hoof which snatched it smoothly and emptied quickly, with no apparent difficulty.

Something about that bothered Heart the Detective a great deal, but the Father and the Captain told him to shut up and focus.

“My apologies,” said Stick, wiping wine from his lips with the back of his hoof. “Tact, or its lack, remains a great fault of mine. Must be all those cellars I’ve spent my years in. Anyhow, my cause is of some urgency, as you must of course know. The enemy at our gates and so forth…”

“The enemy?” asked Heart warily.

“The griffons. Who else? Me? Why, what have I done to – yes yes, we will get to the whole Ledge incident in a moment – hurt you or your kin, ever? Wasn’t it me who saved you from the pits of High North Lane Mine? Hmm?”

Heart could not decide which irked him more: the whole mindreading business or how casually the pony acted upon it. Either way, he wished the knack had been mutual. Now that he had decided not to kill the freak, he found he had more questions for him than could be in reasonable time–

“–Why not begin with the obvious one,” said Stick. “The motive, Deck! The cop you are, not starting with the motive!”

“Will you stop doing that already?” growled Heart. Sparks gathered at the tip of his horn.

“My renewed apologies. Bad habit, thy name be Stick.”

“Why?” asked Heart after a pause. “Why the griffons? Why the cult? Why me? Why anything?” Suddenly, he leaned forward. “Don’t say it: I know already. Power. It’s always power. Dress it, boil it, serve it on a bucking plate, it changes nothing, means nothing. Your smile reeks of it, just like Feinsake’s did.”

Stick smiled at him. “Too true. More so than you realize, I would say. It’s not my smile I’m wearing, but hers. It’s all hers. The plan, the execution – all of it. For, you see, I don’t actually want power. She does. Did. For me, it’s just noise. Another voice. Compelling, yes, but not overwhelming. It urges me, see? ‘Do this, do that, quickly now…’ So very tiresome… Haven’t seen a good cellar for ages… In any case, I don’t want it. Power, I mean. I mean, I want it, but not want it, see? It’s she, doing all the wanting. So I’m thinking, back in the mine, why don’t you have it all? Does that make sense to you?”

“No.”

“Figures,” said Stick, his neck tilting to the left. “Let’s put it this way. You said it yourself. A lunatic. That’s what I am. How do you expect one to lead a city? Insane, the bare thought! And that’s not even to mention that I’m blind! No no no no, don’t say a thing, think nothing – I beg you. Hear me out first. Good. That’s good…” He reached for the bottle again, but suddenly slapped the hoof with the other. “No more wine! I can’t stand the taste…”

Heart tried his best to ignore that. “What do you want, then?”

Stick’s ears pricked up. The blindfold turned slowly to Heart. “The strangest thing. Nopony ever asked that from me before.” His lip curled in thought. “Couldn’t say, really. I really couldn’t.”

“Really,” said Heart. “Well I tell you something. I don’t want the power either. Never did. Your games – or Feinsake’s, whatever – they move me none. So take you sorry excuse of an offer and–”

Stick raised a hoof. “No no no no no – you do not understand. I wouldn’t be making this offer to you if I knew you wanted power – in that case I’d simply let you take it. This isn’t the first time that I’ve handed the choice to you. Remember the mine? Remember what I asked you there?”

“I do. Unfortunately. You have my answer already.”

“Ah,” said Stick. “Yes. I’ve thought about that. A lot. Your daughter. She was on the way, wasn’t she? In the way of an alicorn. You couldn’t do it. I get that. Few could. So I thought to make it easier for you.” Stick pointed into the corner. “An alicorn. Take it. Have it. Use it. And the world will be your oyster.”

Heart glanced at the foals safely immersed in their game. “I see no wings.”

“Not yet you don’t. That’s because Feinsake could not finish her work. But she did enough: the ground is set, and I have just the pony working on the rest, right as we speak. He tells me there is a way to do it that won’t cut a hair from Lily’s mane. A way longer, but a way nonetheless.” Stick leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Between you and me, all the blood and sacrificing… not really fit for an alicorn, am I right? That was Feinsake’s problem: she wanted it all too quickly. All for power, Feinsake, as you put it. It doesn't have to be that way.”

“Even if I believed you,” said Heart, turning around, “Which I don’t, why can’t you believe it when I say that I don’t want the power.”

“Sure you do,” said Stick. “Power to protect is power all the same. Alicorns were made to protect. Let it grow, let it prosper, and it will shield us all in the end. From what, you ask? I said it already. And before you go on with the ‘griffons are not our enemy’ line, consider the fact that you have no idea what has transpired in the city, or in the Cliffs, in the past few hours.”

Heart stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“A war. You can’t stop it, for it has already begun. It took less engineering than I could’ve dreamed. The first blood stains the ground. I can smell it from here.”

Heart stood up. “What have you done?”

“Nothing that wouldn’t have happened by itself, in time. And even the bit I played came not from my mind.” He tapped his temple. “Occupied, remember? It was Feinsake’s idea to use the griffons’ degradation for the good of all ponies. One of her cleverer ideas, mind you.”

“For good?” managed Heart. “We’re talking of war!”

Stick stood up, walked around the table. “Sometimes, the only medicine to depression is getting angry. Works for crowds and people in the same measure. The pony race has always had its finest moments in the midst of strife. You know the legends. Was it not Nightmare Moon who first awakened the power of the Six? It was the enmity of the Sisters on which their friendship could be elevated. In that order only.”

Stick stepped easily to the Foal, lifted it from the game to his lap. His blindfold sucked in the stare of the mismatched eyes like a sponge.

“You recall what I said about the blood and sacrifices?” he said. The blindfold turned to Heart like a gunpoint. “It’s not all a lie. A power like that of an alicorn demands a sacrifice. Be it the Sun, the Moon, Love, or Friendship – an alicorn of anything – what is sacrificed for a greater unity of two is their shared difference to a third. Inside and outside. War is not the opposite of true Friendship or Love – it’s their condition.”

He put down the Foal and continued, “Or was there ever a moment when the love of your daughter burned brighter than with your mortal enemy standing by her side?”

Lily watched Stick, then her father. “What’s he talking about, dad?”

“The fate of the pony race rests in your hooves,” said Stick, staring at Heart. “Unity or death. Friendship or chaos. A future… or nothing.”

“Daddy?” asked Lily, slightly more worriedly.

Heart wasn’t listening. He was feeling – feeling the eyes like pearls black and white on him. They were speaking to him, in him.

A future for nothing. A Word for a world.

His mouth cracked open. “No.”

And the window exploded in a shower of glass. A gail swooped into the room, killing all the candles. The purple lighting that struck the yard outside set the room ablaze. In the bright glimpse it offered, Heart saw the city in lavendel flames. An M-storm at the peak of its glory.

Suddenly, everypony was shouting. Stick for the guards, Lily for his dad, the guards behind the door which Heart’s horn now fought to keep closed at all cost. The wind screamed like a dying animal. Only the Foal stood still, staring. Heart’s mind was about to snap for the strain it was under, but still he could not tear his eyes from the creature. Nor shut his ears from the whispers at the back of his head.

Are you a violent pony, Deck Heart the Captain?

I’m a soldier, thought Heart. He backed down as Stick started towards him. Violence is my profession.

Are you a soldier out of love for duty? Out of duty to love?

“End this madness!” shouted Stick. “Right now! Right now!” He came at Heart hard, reared and kicked him. His mind occupied, Heart could barely shield himself from the blow. Yet deep within, his thought remained calm as a breeze.

Out of family, really.

“I’m offering you everything!” screamed Stick. “Everything! Take it! Take it! Take it!”

His last kick made it past Heart’s fragile defenses and hit him square in the jaw. He staggered back, horn flickering, and saved himself from collapsing by grabbing support from the table. The bottle of wine shattered on the floor. Another lighting hit the ground somewhere, briefly coloring the room in purple blaze toned by Heart’s flickering horn.

“Why aren’t you taking it?” said Stick. “You should’ve taken it. I even asked you nicely first.” Carefully, he picked up a shard of glass among the ruins of the bottle.

Heart heard him only distantly. In his mind, the tranquil voice boomed even louder than the storm.

I could be your family.

Stick raised the piece of glass, but stopped when Lily lunged herself at him, biting him in the ankle. He shrieked, and kicked the filly in the chest so hard she flew backwards on top of the Monopony board, where she curled up crying. Heart tried to get up, but Stick pushed him down, and there was no strength left in him to fight against it. Meanwhile, the door was about to crack from its hinges again. In the glow of another lighting, the piece of glass gleamed like an eye of a beast.

“Everything,” said Stick. “You could still have it. Why refuse it? Why fight it? It’s your destiny. Take it. The griffons are dead already; extinct. Their sacrifice is a formality. What is that – what is that? – compared to everything?”

One of the hinges on the door gave up with a loud crack. The others were seconds away from following. Heart’s breathe was already there. Stick stood somewhere in his horizon, in the haze the whole room was now. Only himself and the Foal remained in pitch-perfect clarity.

Not a family, thought Heart. A destiny.

What is the difference? asked the voice black and white. Can you even tell?

You’re saying you can’t?

“Time’s up,” said Stick. The piece of glass rose at the same time the first guard broke in. “Choose. Decide. Accept.”

Heart looked at him, not even seeing the shard anymore. A temptation to say something clever would’ve had a field day, save for the fact that he could not make anything up. So he simply smiled.

“So be it,” said Stick. His hoof pulled an inch back, dived towards Heart’s pulsing throat in rhythm of Lily’s scream…

…Only to be leashed by the grey aura gathered around him. Stick made a sound like something small being stepped on. His neck twitched as it turned to look at the Foal, whose horn glowed with the same, fine grey light.

“Why?” gasped Stick. “Whyyyyy... ?” His ears perked up, catching words nopony else heard. A mixture of pain and rage ravaged his face. “No… no no no no no. That’s not… I’m not… I don’t want to!”

He wrenched his limb against the Foal’s magic, and the shard moved half an inch closer to Heart’s artery. “It’s his problem, not mine! His fault! His! Guards, do –”

His sentence ended with a shriek in mid-flight and a crash with the guards who were too slow to get out of the way. The Foal’s horn wasn’t glowing anymore: its whole body was, emanating the eerie grey light. Heart could swear its legs weren’t even touching the ground. He had no time to check though, not in the middle of grabbing Lily and jumping through the broken window.

He had dropped from the second floor of the house once or twice before – when he had been both twenty years more agile and foolish, and not carrying a hysteric foal in his lap. If the bush of roses they landed into had had any leaves left, it might’ve took off the first edge of the hit. As it was, it only made the spikes sink deeper into his flesh.

“You okay?” he asked weakly from Lily, who had landed on top of him.

“No!” she cried. “Dad, what’s happening?!”

“I wish I knew, Lily, I wish I knew. Now, could you please get off me? I think I broke something…”

Luckily, that ended up only being a rib, maybe two. Nothing he couldn’t jog off, which he did, although it made his insides burn. As he had expected, the yard was empty all the way to the gate. Most sane ponies tended to opt for inside locations during an M-storm. There was no sign of Tin Key at the gate, nor of Cowl. Lightning rained on the city wherever he looked. At least four of the buildings on the street were aflame. Their inhabitants were pouring out, desperate for new shelters of which there were none. That was the thing about M-storms. They didn’t turn you into sugar or any of that crap. They just got you dead.

Different kinds of shouting hit Heart’s ears from behind. Guards were filing out of the mansion, with Stick on the forefront, pointing furiously at various directions and shouting. There was no sign of the Foal.

“What do we do, dad?” asked Lily, digging into his armored side. “What do we do?”

Stick’s pointing was directed at their direction in increasing measure. Guards enclosed on them. Heart could not run, and he certainly could not fight. Although he would, if it came to that. Oh yes.

“Lily,” he said while keeping his eyes on the approaching guards. “Remember what I said about looking?”

“Not again,” sobbed Lily. “Not again…”

“Don’t look back. Whatever happens, don’t look back.” He pushed her away, but she wouldn’t let go. She wouldn’t let go. Heart could barely stand up anymore. She wouldn’t let go.

“Deck,” said somepony behind him. Heart turned to look who it might be, though he knew already.

“It’s over,” said Cowl. He took a step forward. “It’s over.”

Heart laughed. “How long have you been in on this, exactly?”

“In on what?” Another step.

“This,” said Heart, waving at the guards who now surrounded them. “This... betrayal…”

“Nopony’s betrayed anypony,” said Cowl, stopping a bit closer to him than the closest guard. “Nopony except you.”

Stick, who had momentarily vanished inside, came jogging at them, carrying the Foal who was all too limp to be conscious. Past Cowl and the guards, maybe twenty meters away, Heart saw a sewer lid that had cracked slightly open.

“Funny,” he said, looking at Cowl. “I had this thought it was just the other way around.”

“You were going to quit!” shouted Cowl. “Walk away just like that! Never mind the city, the people, the whole of bucking ponydom! Don’t you see the times we’re living in? The brink everything stands on? You think you can just walk away from that?”

Thick smoke cascaded over them, colored by the never ending lightings, filled by the distant screaming. Heart felt faint in the same way he imagined a person falling from very high does.

“I never asked to be a savior,” he said. “Never.”

“We’re way past thinking of who asked for what. We’re at war. War, Deck. The griffons have already seized one of the grain silos: they’re emptying it as we speak.”

“He speaks the truth,” said Stick, who had at least made it to them. He dropped the Foal from his back on the ground. It wasn’t moving. “And the Guard remains leaderless, scattered. You need to see the big picture here, Captain.”

“Why me?” said Heart. “You seem to have no trouble making my soldiers dance to your tune. You’ve already turned them against me. Have them, for all I care. What do you need me for?”

“Against you?” said Stick. “Are you deaf? I told you: I want nothing to do with anything that isn’t a nice, comfy cellar! I never turned a single guard against you! It’s you who shed the first blood; you who attacked the ponies who had sworn their lives to protect you and your daughter. That’s exactly what they were doing before you killed them!”

Heart shook his head. “No. No. That’s not how it –”

“Oh yes it is!” cried Stick. To the shock everypony around, he kicked the Foal lying limp on the ground. “This thing got them riled up alright, but how do you expect a newborn – let alone a lunatic – lead a city to war? I was merely trying to help you do the one thing that seemed so important to you: protect your bloody daughter from the bloody griffons!”

Heart’s head was spinning. “But you kidnapped me on the Ledge…”

“That was his idea!” continued Stick, pointing at Cowl. “He thought it’d be clever, making to think the Guard was about to get hijacked; that it’d surely make you come to your senses. And I thought I was the insane one…”

Heart looked at Cowl as if he saw him for the first time. “In on what, you were saying…?”

“It happened on the night in the bar,” said Cowl grudgingly. “Yeah. I went straight to another place after we split. Thought to get thoroughly drunk. But he came to me, and we started talking… One thing led to another… He seemed like the fella with the plan, or several, but no idea how to make it happen. So I told him to take over the Guard.”

“You told him to…”

“Just for long enough to call you back to reality!” yelled Cowl. He marched to Heart, grabbed him by the neck and drew him to the point where their horns met. “Maybe you didn’t ask to lead, maybe you did. In any case, the city needs to be led, and right now it doesn’t get much choice. The griffons are –”

“Tell me,” said Heart so quietly only Cowl could hear him. “How come you know all this about griffons? And why didn’t you share your knowledge earlier?”

“I tried, but you wouldn’t –”

Heart’s headbut put an end to his sentence and front teeth both.

“You told me nothing I didn’t already know!” Heart shouted as Cowl staggered back, blood spilling from his muzzle. “You warned me late on purpose! You want this war just as bad as he does! You can have it for all I care!”

He started walking, with Lily squeezed to his side. Nopony stopped them. The gates were right in front of them, as ajar as they would ever be. Farther down the street, one of the houses collapsed into a ruin of flames, dust and screams buried under rubble. Heart walked on.

“What are you doing?!” shouted Stick. “What are you doing?! Stop them! He’s your Captain! Stop them!” His voice had suddenly turned shrill, as if broken inside in countless tiny shards.

Sergeant Fall, who hadn’t blinked since the Foal had hit the ground, said, “What have you done?” He looked up at Stick, face blank. “What have you done?”

“Deck,” said Cowl. He spat half a tooth on the ground. “Deck. Please. We need you.” His horn lit up. “I need you.”

Heart increased his pace. Above there came a sound like a lightning tearing in two. The sewer lid was right at his reach. The broken rib was a knife stab inside him. The lid was that close. Behind him, he could hear Stick’s shouts turn into explanations tinged first with annoyance, then with fear. From the corner of his eye he saw Lily forcing her eyes shut, clasping onto him right on the spot where the rib hurt most. He could taste blood.

The lid was in his reach… as the lightning hit the gate and made the world go white, then black.

***

It was a wondrous sight, in its own, ruinous way. Whole blocks were still aflame, and most others were smouldering. Carmine light of the rising sun mixed in with the darkest umbras in a patchwork of shadows. Silence rang above all else. Even the usual high wind was quiet as a grave. The smell of ash and smoke climbed all the way to the Cliffs. Cecil had no reason to believe they wouldn’t have to get used to it for a long while.

“Do you think it’s ironic?” said Falke. She sat on a ledge above her, cleaning her feathers. “Or simply funny?”

“Funny?” asked Cecil hollowly.

“Think about it. They pushed us into this rock to slowly die. Instead, it allowed us watch in safety as they met their maker. Has to be something comedic there.”

Even if “funny” wasn’t Cecil’s word, she would have had to admit that there was something twisted in how things had turned out. While the city had been ravaged by the worst M-storm in a hundred years, the Cliffs had sheltered each and every griffon from everything but the terrible sounds. A million ton of rock over your head tended to do that, even if it was not meant to. All of a sudden, the city was the desolate periphery, and the Cliffs the promise of the future.

Ruffling the last of her feathers, Falke stood up. “It’s about time we got down there. You coming?”

“Yes,” said Cecil, after a pause.

“Great. I’ll let the others know.”

“But I won’t be coming to the silos,” continued Cecil. “Not right away. There is someone else I must pay a visit to first.”

“Should I be asking who that might be?”

Cecil turned around. “Not unless you need to.”

Falke humphead at that. “Just don’t get into trouble. I don’t expect the ponies to be at their most hospitable at the moment.”

Dead things rarely are, said Cecil, but only to herself.

As the griffons returned to the silo they had begun emptying yesterday, Cecil headed deeper into the city. Up close, the shreds of beauty she had witnessed from afar paled into cruel mockery. There was so much distance could hide. The countless bodies, for one. There were living ones among the ruins also, moving in small groups or wandering alone, but she saw it best for everyone to keep her presence a secret. Only once she stopped to make a contact, to help a pony stuck under a collapsed pillar. She left him there though, realizing she had mistaken the hunger of rats for signs of life.

Finally, she arrived at the Captain’s Mansion. Or what was left of it. She could barely recognize the building from her last visit. There had been more intact walls, for instance. And a roof. And the yard had not been filled with charred corpses.

Cecil tried to identify Heart among them as best she could, but could not manage better than a guess. The damage was too overwhelming, not to speak of her disgust. Only one of the guards seemed somewhat familiar, but she was certain it was not him. Heart didn’t have a moustache that dense.

She was about to leave, but noticed the opened sewer lid outside the gates. It was clear someone had escaped the storm there. It was considerably less clear who it was, especially when you could not see one meter into the underground darkness. Only a very stupid creature would plunge in there. What did the fate of a single pony matter for her anyway? They were supposed to be at war now. In any case, she was probably the last living soul Heart would like to see right now.

All these thoughts and more went through her head as she prepared a makeshift torch and lighted it in one of the smouldering ruins. There was no oil to fuel the flame, but it should last long enough to let her get a peek deeper. Just a peek.

The sewer smelled decisively worse than she had expected, but compared to the burned stench any change was improvement. In the glow of the torch, she sought signs of anyone descending here recently. The tunnel was narrow, and only one sidewalk followed the river of filth, which streamed quietly into the gloom. There were no hoofsteps there, and she was certainly not going to begin looking for them in the bottom of the murk. Luckily, she didn’t need to.

What looked like a full plate pony armor lay in pieces in the middle of the shallow current, gathering grime. Apparently somepony had indeed come down here, lost their armor and continued onwards. Most likely along the current, for that way lay the way out. Cecil had no proof whatsoever it was Heart. No proof whatsoever. And yet…

The tunnel was much too tight to allow her to extend her wings, so she walked along the sidewalk, kicking rats as she went. At some point the torch died down. Nonetheless she pressed onwards, albeit more carefully. The blackness was dense enough to make even her eyes less than useless. As a consequence, her ears worked overtime, catching the slightest deviation from the flow of water.

“Heart?” she said after walking a bit further. “Is it you?”

A needlepoint green glow grew gradually stronger until it revealed not only a horn, but a face to go with it. A face like what a ghost might wear.

“I’m not sure,” said Heart. His voice barely carried over the stream. “What're you doing here?”

“I wish I knew,” said Cecil.

“Welcome to the club then.” Heart’s light flickered, threatened to die down, but balanced out eventually. He coughed into a hoof, and the blood that came up did not escape Cecil’s attention.

She stared at him, unable to decide whether she should be glad or sorry for finding him. This hadn’t been how she had imagine the encounter to go. How exactly she had imagined it, she could not say. But not like this.

“The storm’s seized,” she ventured. “You want to get out of here?”

Little by little, Heart’s horn extinguished. Cecil thought he had died. But then he spoke, “I will. But I won’t be needing your help for that. There is something else I have to ask, though.”

Light returned for a brief while, this time illuminating not only Heart’s face, but a little filly curled into a ball on his lap. Her breath was shallow, yet steady.

Cecil’s eyes widened. “You’re asking me to –”

“Not asking,” he whispered. “Begging.”

“No,” said Cecil. “No. What would I tell her? She’d run away the moment she could. No. I didn’t come here for this.” She kneeled next to him, slipped his hoof over her shoulder. “You’re coming up with me even if I have to –”

She froze at the sight of Heart’s side.

“Yeah,” said Heart at her expression.

“This was done by magic,” she said. “How…?”

“A long story. Not important.” He smoothed the mane of the foal, who curled up tighter against him. “Not anymore…”

Cecil rose up slowly. “I didn’t come here for this.”

Heart looked up at her. “I thought you didn’t know that.”

“Shut up. You listen to me. Fine, I’ll take her up – and you right after. That’s all. And if you try to argue, I’ll leave you both here.”

Heart smiled. “Should’ve known better than to argue with a griffon.”

“Yeah. You should.”

Like a plucking a rose from a mountaintop, Cecil carried Lily back the tunnel and to the street, where she wrapped her into whatever cloth she could come by. The foal never so much as grunted, her sleep thick as midwinter ice. Next Cecil looked for bandages, or anything to tie Heart’s wound, and something to help lift him up the shaft. It would take more than her bare hands to haul a full grown stallion out of a sewer. Briefly she considered fetching help, but there was no time. Luckily, she found quickly enough a roll of thick rope that had survived the fire.

“Melancholy is the curse of you ponies,” she said while returning to the tunnel. “Too much dwelling in the past.” She bent over Heart, feeling her way in the pitch-black darkness. “Come now, make yourself useful for a change and light that bone of yours. I can’t patch you up blind.”

There was no response. Not even a tacit one.

Cecil waited for longer than she could tell. And then she tied Heart’s wound as best as she could, dragged him to the lid, roped him and hauled up into the sunlight.

“Told you,” she panted next to his unmoving body. “Should know better… than to argue… with a griffon.”

She collapsed on the street, completely out of breath and strength. Lying on her back, she saw the foal’s head peek from the bundle of rags she had wrapped her into. Thick as her dreams were, she wouldn’t sleep forever.

Not without help she won't…

The thought was there, in the distant horizon of Cecil’s strained conscious. A little closer and it might’ve counted for reality. A little bit closer, and they could both touch the sun.

The sun. It had now risen, valiant as ever, more beautiful than ever before. Colder than in an eternity. It shined on her and the foal both; on all of the city and the world together. Exposed forever.

Let it shine, thought Cecil calmly. Let it shine for all its worth. She got up, scooped up Lily and started flying for silo five.

The Cliffs got all the shade we will ever need.

Author's Note:

Finished.

Almost. Or did you think I'd forget the fates of the rest of the cast? They shall all have their place in the forthcoming epilogue.

Thank you all for reading!

Comments

[Lesolan - Rest In Peace]

Holy balls...

[Nuramor]

Sooo...What just happened?

[terrycloth]

6649346 Everyone got struck by lightning and died? But I'm sure all the bad guys got away.

[stanku]

6649945
6649346

I suppose my love for open-ended stories got to me again.

[stanku]

6729835 It's a mad mad world out there.

[stanku]

6832246 Hmm. When you put it that way, yeah, there's some discrepancy in the consistency of his behavior, and although I right away see a few routes to explain that, they're mostly only implicit in the text. Definetly something I could have elaborated more.

[stanku]

6918849 Gotta love them griffons.

My only concern with Cecil is that she became a tad too similar to Gilda. You think that?

[Snapplejack]

That was supa intense yo