A Beginner's Guide to Heroism

by LoyalLiar

VIII - A Name That Shall Live In Infamy

Chapter VIII
A Name That Shall Live In Infamy

We left Hodunk the following morning, Graargh and I, and wandered on. Without a map, compass, or signpost, I listed lazily to the southwest, orienting myself by the sun. The journey went slowly, with meals coming in the form of whatever we could gather off the trees and prairies we found along what barely passed for Equestria’s roads.

For the first two days, the only other pony I saw was Graargh, who proved quite useful at scrounging up breakfast in the form of the berries and apples and other miscellaneous fruits that I could never seem to locate. He frequently offered me fish as well, but I held firm to my belief that carnivory was an unforgivable abomination.

In response to those claims, Graargh seemed to subscribe to the Wintershimmer school of morality; namely, not caring whatsoever. In a similar vein, he also didn’t seem to care much about giving up his cave. He was singularly obsessed with his parents, and the one time the topic came up he broke his impressively stoic silence to tell me all about their claws, and how loud his father could roar, and how strong…

That was the last time I mentioned his parents.

Around the second day of our journey out of Hodunk, we stumbled onto a ‘real road’—by which I mean a decently wide path through the forest marked by the parallel grooves that proved the passage of heavily laden wagons. There was no paving; no stone or crystal. Just dirt. Still, as flimsy as it was, I wasn’t going to be picky about the telltale sign of civilization. We followed the road due east that day, and when the sun set, Graargh and I made camp and laid down.

The following morning was… interesting. Most notably, I woke up with a sword at my throat. I remember groggily thinking that the feeling was weird, and that there wasn’t much use in a razor when I hadn’t yet started growing enough of a facial mane to bother shaving.

“Give up and I might not kill you, you fucking bandit scum.”

The voice was a mare’s and it startled me out of my sleep with enough shock that I very nearly decapitated myself on her steadied blade. It was also familiar, in a groggy sort of way. Only in my sleepy state did I not immediately recognize Gale’s word choice, though I see no reason to hold onto false suspense while recording this tale after the fact. I couldn’t see her, only her weapon, wrapped in a vibrant pink aura.

“Um… hello?” If there was some sort of eloquent way to greet somepony holding a knife to your throat, nopony had bothered telling me. As an afterthought, I added “I’m not a bandit.”

“Don’t waste your time, shitstain. I’ve heard about all the raids, and the kidnappings in these woods. You’re loaded with crystal money even though we’re on Equestrian soil, you’re dressed like you’re taking it in the ass from Wintershit, or whatever his name was, and there’s no way you’re old enough to have squirted the colt out.”

At those words, and the sheer idiocy of the logical leap behind them, I took a step back from the hovering sword and spun around to at least face the mare addressing me. I had a whole witty retort lined up, and I was ready to use it.

“Look, Gale…” I took a slight breath, adjusting my dialogue on the fly as one must when being held at swordpoint. “Ma’am…”

“Fuck you! I’m not old enough to be anybody’s ‘ma’am.’” Her sword danced through the air, returning it’s sharpened point to hover a hair’s width from the apple of my throat. “You want me to shove your stallionhood down your throat?”

I looked down at the sword nearly in my throat, and then back up at her.

“On the one hoof, not really. I don’t know if my mouth can stretch that wide. On the other hoof, I would love to see you try.”

Clearly, she wasn’t expecting that answer, nor the sudden burst of magic which followed, picking her up off her hooves and slamming her into a tree hard enough that the bark shattered. Naturally, a blow like that made her drop her sword, so once my head cleared from the magic, I reached down and picked it up in my teeth.

The blade was curved on its leading edge—an almost sure sign of pegasus make, since arcana was more efficient at stabbing with a hard point and straight blades. A huge notch let me see the ground through the middle of the blade, which seemed like a really obvious source of weakness in metal… but then, I didn’t know a lot about skysteel. What I did know is that the gold and amethysts that made up the weapon’s guard were dramatically more expensive than some wandering unicorn could reasonably afford; they only confirmed my suspicions developed when I watched her pay for her meal at the inn in Hodunk.

“You know,” I said to the groaning mare resting at the base of the tree trunk. “Accusing a pony of being a slaver and then threatening them with a stolen sword doesn’t seem like a great strategy. Were you hoping I’d offer you money to let me walk away?”

“I don’t want your blood money, you sick fuck!” she shouted at me, her horn bursting to life. “I want you to let that foal go!”

I shook my head. “He’s lost, crazy filly. I’m taking him to find his parents.”

“Yeah, and I’m the fucking Queen.”

I tsk’d her with my tongue, just to see how she’d react. “Language, Gale. There is a foal present.”

She hurled a spell in my direction—a fairly advanced stunning bolt that implied magical training; not wizard training, but certainly more than even a random bandit was likely to possess. Fortunately, I was able to embrace the most ancient of magical dueling techniques, passed down from master to apprentice since time immemorial.

I casually stepped to my right. The spell missed.

At that point, I considered attacking her. That proved rather unnecessary, however, when a massive brown paw slammed into her side, knocking her to the ground with such force that she bounced up again from the dirt. When she came to rest, blood was dripping from her temple and her eyes fluttered shut.

Of course, I was more concerned by the grizzly bear. The adult grizzly bear.

I started gathering magic into my horn as the creature turned to me and… smiled? Then it roared, with uncomfortable familiarity.

“Graargh?”

A burst of green flame consumed the bear, and when it cleared, my little colt friend stumbled woozily toward me. “Was good?”

“Howargat...” That was not at all what I had intended to say, merely the mangled pieces of several thoughts that all tried to express themselves at once. Words tend to fail in situations like that. I finally settled on feeding him his own words. “Yes, Graargh. Was good.”

“Yay!” The little unidentified shapeshifting cub-colt creature (I know, doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it?) smiled, before stretching out his forelegs on the ground and laying down to return to the sleep that the mare next to the tree had interrupted.

“Also, never repeat any of the words she just said. Your parents would kill me.”

Normally, I would have been consumed with curiosity about how Graargh’s magic had changed not only his shape, but also his age. However, in that moment, Gale’s not-insubstantially bleeding brow demanded more immediate attention. It looked like one of Graargh’s claws had gotten deep into her there. I was grateful I only got clawed by Graargh as a colt; my coat had covered up the scabs of my own wounds easily, but the mare’s injuries couldn’t be left on their own. I only had Wintershimmer’s book, though, so I resorted to digging through the mare’s bag for medical supplies. It didn’t seem wrong; I was going to use them on her anyway.

After ripping a few bags of hardtack and dried fruit out of her backs, and pulling what looked to be a bedroll from the ropes holding it onto her saddlebags, I removed a heavy bag that clicked and jangled as I moved it. A brief glance inside confirmed my suspicion: they were coins. More specifically, Equestrian bits. Solid gold bits, not the silver kind that most ponies used to buy bread and corn and whatnot. Given how much she’d overpaid for our meals back in Hodunk, she probably had enough money to buy a small castle. Tragically, however, there weren’t any castle salesponies nearby, and castles tend not to be very effective at treating head trauma; they’re more of a ‘prevention’ type solution. Thus, I set the bag aside and kept digging.

Near the very bottom of the bag, where I supposed it wouldn’t be terribly useful in a pinch, I found a pack of medical supplies: mostly balms and herbs I didn’t recognize, but a needle and thread and more than a bit of some potent alcohol as well. The herbs weren’t labeled, but I was a decent enough alchemist to identify them by smell and taste. Without seeing any better solution than using her limited supplies, I set to work.

---

“Who’re you?”

Those were the first words she said to me when she woke up. I was paying attention to the potato soup I was mixing (in a pot I also found in Gale’s pack) with some food Graargh brought me from the forest, so I didn’t notice her waking up until she sat down next to me.

“Hmm?”

In apparent thanks for my medical treatment, and for sparing her life, Gale slapped me behind my ears. After I shook off the momentary pain, I found her offering me a disgruntled look. “What am I supposed to call you?”

“Mortal Coil,” I told her somewhat mournfully.

She gave me an altogether familiar look. “Yeah fucking right.”

I drew in a deep breath for my usual explanation, and then realized she wasn’t from the Union, and probably wouldn’t immediately understand. “It’s kind of a long story.”

“I’ve got time, Mortal Coil.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t call me that.”

“You just told me it was your name.”

“That’s what I’ve been told, too, and I’ve yet to find evidence to the contrary. Just ‘Coil’ works.” She rolled her eyes at my suggestion. “I take it since you didn’t stab me in the back while I wasn’t looking, you’ve come around to the thought that a single young, attractive unicorn carrying no chains or shackles couldn’t possibly be a slave-taking bandit. Or was it just my charm?”

She shrugged. “Yeah, that’s definitely it.” She rolled her eyes again, and I remember wondering why the action hadn’t started to give her a headache. “You took care of me while I was knocked out. Thanks.” I offered her a nod in reply. “Also, I don't know what you did with my sword.”

So she had looked.

“Oh, and you fought off a damn bear. I’d at least wait until the world stops spinning before I took a stab at you—pun not intended,” she hastily amended. Not wanting to linger on that poor choice of words, she steered the conversation back to its original topic. “Who in Tartarus are you?”

“Archmage-in-Exile Coil the Immortal, formerly of the Crystal Empire, reigning Pale Master, at your service.” In retrospect, I wouldn’t have believed me… But she did.

“So you really are part of an evil Celestia-damned cult?” And then she glanced around for her stolen sword, which was nowhere to be found. (For the record, I had given it to Graaaagh to sleep on. It seemed like the best option at the time.)

“Evil cult? What… That doesn't even make any sense.”

“You're wearing black and red robes!” She protested, grabbing the lapel of my jacket.

“It's my favorite jacket!” I told her. “And it’s absolutely not a robe, since its hem doesn’t even cover my hind legs. And before you say something equally idiotic, it isn’t a cloak either; it doesn't even have a hood. And what's wrong with red and black?”

“Everypony knows evil ponies wear red and black, dipshit. I bet you've got a weird twisty dagger somewhere in there too…”. When her horn started trying to dig around in the lapels of my jacket, I decided I'd had enough. Flicking the tip of her horn produced a gasp, and cost her the focus she needed for her spell.

Then she flat-out punched me in the muzzle. “Don't touch my horn, pervert!”

I staggered back a step—something of an athletic feat, given that I’d been seated. She punched hard. “You were the one trying to get inside my jacket.” Against a future Mortal Coil’s better judgement, I returned to my seat beside her, and then crossed my forelegs over my chest. “The colors have nothing to do with good or evil. It’s the formal attire of my order.”

“Ha, I knew it! You are part of a cult!”

I groaned. “A wizard order. Not… I don't know, Tartaran summoners or something? Do you not know what an order is?”

Gale scoffed. “Why should I? Do I look like I was born with a silver spoon up my ass?”

“You’ve gone a long way to hide it, Gale, but I know you’re a noble-born unicorn.”

She winced. “How—”

“That stunning spell you slung at me, rather unwisely I might add, was Frail’s Fundamental Three—notable for the fact that it overrides the subjects control of their body by illusion instead of by the brute force of evocation.” I smiled at her with half my muzzle, not bothering to turn my head as I continued. “Common-born unicorns, like merchants, and even most hedge mages, don’t know illusion magic. It’s particularly difficult to learn. If you aren’t a traveling mage or a noble, that kind of magic is only good for parlor tricks and crimes. And while I gave thought to the possibility that you might be some sort of illusionist-thief, hiding in plain sight so you could steal all that gold you’re hiding in your bag—” that produced another wince, “—if being a crass, dirty traveler who drinks too much were just an act, you would have been more subtle in attacking me, now that we’re out here by ourselves and not in front of an audience.”

Gale slapped me across the face.

After a moment of forced calm as I let the throbbing in my cheek fade—she really didn’t pull her punches—I forced a smile. “Now, if I had to guess, I’d say you’re an estranged noble or something. That would explain the chip on your shoulder—which, I should warn you, is at risk of taking your foreleg off. You fight just a bit like you’ve received dueling training… though you shouldn’t quit your day job.”

This time, when she swung at me, I caught her foreleg in my telekinesis. “Uh, uh. One of those was quite enough.”

“Yeah? Well, fuck you, Mortal.”

All my amusement at our little game vanished, and with probably more force than was necessary, I flung her foreleg back to her side.

I say ‘probably more force than necessary’ because the telekinetic thrust spun her around twice, tossing her back a good few feet onto the forest floor.

“Don’t call me that.”

Gale growled. “Well, if you’re gonna be a huge ass about it, fine. I didn’t ask you to play twenty-fucking-questions with my past.”

“I’m afraid that the act of holding a pony at swordpoint and accusing them of foalnapping doesn’t exactly give you a lot of ground to stand on.”

“You’ve got to be joking.” Gale growled. “Look, I wasn’t the only one thinking it, okay? You stunned out some little colt right in the middle of him telling everypony why he was with you! So what was I supposed to think? What fucking reason could you—a stallion in evil robes who explicitly told us he was from the Crystal Union—have for running around out here with some colt?”

I bit my cheek. “As I just explained, it isn’t a cult; it is an order. My late mentor and I wore jackets like this to show we belonged to the Order of Unhesitating Force. But since he is my late mentor,and it's awful hard to have a cult when you're just one pony, I'd say you can probably calm down.”

Whether it was my impeccable logic or my charming demeanor, my request was granted. Gale stared at me for a few moments, took a deep breath, and wandered over next to me—mostly to find a comfortable seat on the rather small log I was using for a bench. “You didn’t answer my question at all, dipshit. Why are you out here with some colt?”

“I just told you I wasn’t in a…” I coughed, in realization. “That would be ‘colt’ as in ‘young stallion’, wouldn’t it?”

She nodded, snickering. “Well, I should fucking hope so. If you were about to tell me that you were ‘in a colt’, I’d probably kill you.”

“As delightful as that thought is, Gale, and as much as I agree with you, you have about as much chance of killing me as an earth pony does of growing a horn.”

Gale rolled her eyes. “You’re such an tool, Mortal.”

I stomped heavily on the soil, and I felt my ears fall back against my scalp. “Do you understand how terrible that name is?”

“Yeah.” Gale turned to me, donning what she would surely refer to as a ‘shit-eating grin’. “It fits you pretty damn well. Were your parents just fucking clueless or something?”

“I'd say it's none of your business.”

She gave me a look that told me she wasn’t going to stop pressing. And, to be entirely fair to myself, it was a really cute look. Not like a puppy with wide eyes; she wasn’t pleading. What convinced me was the genuine intrigue, the unmistakeable curiosity of a pony who wanted to learn.

It didn’t hurt that she wanted to learn about me. “Alright, fine. You want a terrible story, we can make a trade. When I’m done, you have to tell me what you’re doing out here with a stolen sword.”

She bit her cheek, and her eyes wandered to sky, thinking. “Deal,” she finally decided.

“Okay. So thirty years ago, before Queen Jade, the ruler of most of the crystal ponies was Warlord Halite.” She looked at me with confusion, and I motioned her not to interrupt. “Before Commander Hurricane showed up from the east, Halite led a huge army of barbarians who attacked the Diamond Kingdoms for resources, and sometimes prisoners. My mother was one of those barbarians.”

“Sounds like a bitch,” said Gale.

“She’s not the nicest pony in the world, no. But she was a crystal pony—a crystal earth pony, I should clarify, even though almost all of them are. My dad, on the other hoof, was a Diamond Guard. A regular, non-shiny unicorn. He served under King Lapis, Queen Platinum’s father.” Gale seemed riveted by my story, and I continued.

“The crystal barbarians liked taking Diamond Guards prisoner, but as I’m sure you’re aware—” I paused for a moment to give her a slightly smug smile, “—taking a unicorn by force is a dangerous prospect. Like I said, the crystals didn’t have many unicorns, and all the Diamond Guards were. In the short term, you could use a suppressor ring, but if you wear one of those too long, it starts to poison your horn, and eventually, it’ll kill you. So instead…”

“Instead what?”

I yanked Gale’s stolen sword out from beneath Graaaagh with telekinesis; her eyes widened at where I’d hid it, though I quickly retrieved her attention. I tapped the blade twice with a hoof, and then drew that same hoof in a straight line down from the tip of my horn to the base of my skull.

She gasped. “No shit?”

“Yeah,” I told her. “It makes even basic magic excruciatingly painful. Stronger, if you can manage to hold the spell, but most ponies can’t. They pass out just trying to use silverware. Well, as you can guess, Dad doesn’t like the crystal ponies too much. And since that’s where I came from, he doesn’t like me a ton either. As for mom… when a crystal pony has a non-crystal foal, it's a sign of shame. It means your blood is weak or something stupid like that. So being born a unicorn and not sparkly, I was an embarrassment to her too.”

“And they named you after somepony dying because they were hoping you’d kick the bucket?”

“That’s the short of it.” I forced a kooky grin onto my face, hoping it would lighten the mood. Mostly, I think it made her suspect I was insane, but she did chuckle. “At least they didn’t call me ‘Bucket Punt’ or something.” The comment earned yet another little laugh. “Well, now that we’ve talked about that delightful subject, you want some soup? I’m not much of a cook, but it’s fairly hard to screw up potatoes and leeks.”

Gale’s magic took hold of the spoon and brought a sizeable taste to her mouth. “Hmm…” I noticed her frown and wrinkle her nose, though her ensuing commentary made those signs entirely unnecessary. “How the honest-to-Celestia fuck did you manage to screw up potatoes and leeks?”

“...Magic?” I shrugged. “Whatever, you don’t have to like it; just eat enough that you don’t get sick. Remember, you got mauled by a grizzly bear.” I briefly glanced over to Graargh, still sleeping away; he’d managed to roll over onto his back when I removed the sword from beneath him. “Your turn: where’s the sword from?”

She took a deep breath. “My dad’s a pegasus. It’s his sword.”

“Ah, so you’re a half-breed too?” I observed. “A unicorn mare and a pegasus stallion; think of the scandal! Guess that explains why you turned into a criminal.”

“I’m not a fucking criminal!”

“The sword at my throat a few hours ago told a different story. And for the record, I’ve never heard of a pegasus that rich.” I twisted my horn toward the weapon. “That’s a lot of gold and amethysts for a sword somepony actually expects to be swinging around in a fight. It looks ornamental.”

“No, it’s real,” she told me. “Dad fought against Halite’s army with this, like you were talking about. He was in the Legion.”

“And your huge bag of gold?”

Gale swallowed heavily, and her eyes flashed back to her bag. “I only promised I’d tell you about the sword.”

“Fair enough.” That response surprised her; she shook her head as if trying to clear her ears. When I didn’t press her further, she seemed happy.

Gale tapped her hoof on the dirt for a few seconds. “So… if you don’t like your name, what do your friends call you?”

I looked sideways at her. “Wintershimmer called me Coil; that was the best I ever got.”

“Wow.” She looked square in my eyes. “Do you not have a nickname? What did your friends call you?”

“What friends?” Gale reacted to that comment more than I expected. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, ponies loved me back in the Union.” I hoped the pain I suffered from using the past tense in that sentence didn’t show on my muzzle. “I just didn’t have a lot of time for sitting around drinking or what have you. I was an apprentice to an archmage.”

“Hmm…” She tapped her chin, thinking. “What do we do with ‘Mortal’?”

I promptly stopped listening to Gale mumbling to herself, instead sampling a bit of my own stew. True to Gale’s vulgarity, the stuff was nightmarish; I may have inadvertently proven myself the world’s greatest poisoner, having constructed a near-lethal concoction out of common vegetables and water alone. I gagged down a few gulps of the substance before I could no longer take it.

Fortunately, my attention was stolen from my culinary torture by Gale thrusting her hoof toward me. “I got it! I’m gonna call you Morty.”

“Morty?” I cocked a brow. “A donkey name?”

“Better than ‘Bucket Punt’, like you said.” I snorted, and coughed up a mouthful of potato soup; that reaction put a broad smile on her face. I only later realized I had laughed at my own joke. “It’s a donkey name, which fits you perfectly because you’re a huge ass, it’s easy to say, and honestly, it sounds more like a real name than what you’ve got.”

“Like it.” Gale and I both turned to where Graargh was rolling over, watching us with his dark puppy dog eyes. “Better name. Morty.”

“Look what you’ve done, Gale.” I rubbed a hoof over my face. “If I have to put up with being called that all the way to River Rock, I’m going to go legitimately mad.”

“You’re going to River Rock too?” Gale let one of her brows rise on her face. “What’s in River Rock for you?”

“I’m looking for an archmage.”

“I’m going to meet Cyclone,” Gale told me, as if that name were expected to be intimately familiar to a pony raised in the Crystal Union.

“Huh… Well…” I took a slow breath. She swore a lot, and I didn’t know enough to really claim I could trust her.

On the other hoof, she was really hot.

I was, after all, seventeen.

“You want to travel together?”

Gale stared at me for a second. Then she grinned, and laughed just a little bit.

“You know what, Morty?”

I smiled back.

“I’d rather get mauled by the fucking grizzly.”

Comments

[RoboRed]

Helluva way to wake up.

[Dr Induction]

Those two get along like a house on fire.

[RexDraconum]

7319041 And not in a good way.

[djthomp]

“I’d rather get mauled by the fucking grizzly.”

The legendary romance begins!

[Julian the Dreamer]

I love how these two interact.

[Pensive]

“I’d rather get mauled by the fucking grizzly.”

We could arrange that...