• Published 23rd Jun 2016
  • 8,265 Views, 538 Comments

Things Are Rarely as They Seem - Orkus



Habeas Brittle, a carefree changeling who left his hive, is attacked by a grim figure as he wanders through the Canterlot countryside. Wounded greatly in the scuffle, he is found and cared for by a filly belonging to a widowed mare with a dark past.

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The Glade

When Habeas caught up to Persica, he did so by traveling through the less-dense part of of the woods when he had the chance. Lurking behind the thick bushes, ignoring any irksome thorns he happened upon to best of his abilities, he quietly observed what it was the earth pony was doing in that heavy-looking apparel on the road under the light of the moon; her spear moving about in the air in an almost rhythmic pattern.

For what seemed like the longest time, all she did was patrol the area leading from that part of the road to the area near the house. It was odd, and Habeas wanted answers more than anything else at the moment. But the last thing he wanted to do was march out there and politely ask the intimidating, armored pony if she was in the mood for a cheerful conversation. Might as well ask a dragon if it was in the mood for changeling stew. The thought sent shivers down his back.

He took one step forward to get just a foot closer to the road, if only to get a better look as Persica's passing shape, when an audible snap sounded out from below him. His blood freezing in his veins, he realized a moment too late that he had trodden upon a stick. Persica instantly stopped in her tracks the moment she heard the sound, and spun her head in the direction of the brush where the changeling was concealed in with a spear at the ready.

Well, no need to worry just yet... Habeas thought to himself hopefully. There's no way she would think it was me, much less walk in to investigate. She'd sooner suspect a squirrel or some other animal before thinking it was me...

"Habeas, are you in there?" she asked. The changeling squeaked in fear.

"W-will you attack me if I said yes?" he responded shakily.

Persica lowered her spear and sighed as her unlikely fear was realized, before mumbling a small chuckle and lifting it back up. "I won't hurt you. Get out here."

His feet still trembling for a few seconds more, Habeas tugged nervously at the bandana wrapped around his neck when he left the brush and walked onto the road. Getting close to Persica at this spot felt eerily reminiscent to that night where she attacked him and left him in such a damaged state, but he tried to drive out the worried thoughts by speaking again. "How'd you know it was me?"

"Call it a hunch," she said, irritation coated lightly in her low volume. "What are you doing out here? What business of yours is it to follow me?"

"Because seeing you just leave the house at this late hour was quite a curious spectacle to witness," he replied. "Why are you out here, patrolling around like some lost guard?"

"Reasons that are my own," she grunted.

"What is that supposed to mean? Why are you acting like this?" he inquired again, demanding answers. Persica let out a grumpy huff and tapped the bottom of her spear to the ground as the blade remained above her head, unsure on how to think of an excuse until she realized there was nothing she could use to defend herself from the truth.

"So, you really want to know why?" she asked. Habeas nodded his head, and she in turn sighed. "Then follow me. I want to show you something that'll tell you all you need to know about me. Something... personal."

Abruptly turning about, the mare began to trot over to the edge of the dirt path lining the woodland several meters away until she was off of the road. As she entered the forest, Habeas felt confusion build up inside of him, but he followed suit and went into the dark woods. The two ventured through it without a word as the sound of insects chirping and buzzing went about, passing by thick bushes, trees with gnarled and aged bark, and the occasional boulder. It appeared as though this would continue for the rest of this peculiar walk, until Persica began to speak.

"Has Peach Blossom told you of who my husband was?"

He responded accordingly. "Yes, she did. She told me his name was Chantilly Cream. If I may ask, how'd the two of you first meet?"

Hearing this question with clarity, Persica smiled in reverie. "What can I say... we met as foals, became the best of friends, and that friendship later evolved into something more when we got older."

Habeas smiled at the description. "That sounds sweet," he said, before his left brow slanted. "But you told me you were not a knight, yet you have two sets of armor. What did you two do together, I wonder?"

Persica uttered a long hum. "My husband and I... we were monster hunters," she said at last, gaining a surprised expression from Habeas.

"'Monster hunters'?" he questioned with a hint of disbelief and awe. "You?"

"Yeah, monster hunters. Together, we fought against dragons, wrestled with cragadiles, faced off with hydras, et cetera," she confirmed. "And for most of our adult lives, that was what we did for a living. And we excelled at it. We went from town to town offering our services to those in need, and if there was a problem with one or more of the local wildlife, we dealt with it and were paid afterward. Either by reasoning with the beast, chasing it off or defeating it when no other option was available, we got by easy enough. The challenge was exciting, the money was plentiful, and... we were together."

"It sounds as though you were nearly content with your profession, and from first-hoof experience with you, you had the proper skills for it," the changeling commented. "What made you stop?"

"I became pregnant."

"Oh."

"So... yeah..." Persica murmured again nostalgically, kicking an armored hoof at a small pebble in her path as she sensed they were closing in on their destination. "Chantilly and I eventually wanted to settle down and start a family while we were still young enough to do so. Our jobs around Equestria became fewer and fewer as time marched on, and when we found out a foal was on the way, we practically stopped altogether. Our last job was taking care of an infestation of changelings that were camped out and threatening some inhabitants of Canterlot's outer country area. Once we had driven the creatures away from the land with some shouts and displayed blades, we finally settled down on my parents' old peach farm as we had planned for a while."

It was then that Persica and Habeas exited the trees and entered a clearing filled with nothing but dirt and short grass. From what the changeling could see, it was a small glade. The sight that immediately caught Habeas's eye as he looked around was something reflecting a bright sheen of moonlight coming from around the center of the area, and when the two eventually grew closer to it, the changeling could see it was a sword embedded in the ground. It had a long, steel blade of grand craftsmanship, while a long, red ribbon flowed from its pommel in the wind like a flag.

"Peach Blossom told me he passed away in an accident," he spoke as he examined the weapon from where he stood.

"Well... it was no accident. It was... because of me," she responded dejectedly, causing Habeas to look back at her in surprise and sheer bewilderment. "It was a warm summer day almost eight years ago. I was due to give birth in roughly three months, life was as still and peaceful as we wanted, and all seemed normal. But that turned out to not be the case. With nothing to warn us, a lone changeling appeared out of nowhere on the edge of our property as dusk approached and quickly caught our attention. What I'll never forget about this changeling was that it had one eye as red as a rose petal, and clearly meant to snatch away our gazes with the way it tauntingly pranced about on the treeline near our house."

"I do not know anything about a red-eyed changeling," Habeas spoke up. "I am sorry."

Persica appeared to ignore his words as she focused her gaze on the sword, and simply went on. "The moment it saw us getting ready to apprehend it, the red-eyed changeling ran off into the woods. I wanted to run it down alongside Chantilly, but he told me to stay behind because of the child I bore. He said he could handle it, and I truly believed he could. But when he pursued after the changeling and failed to return after an hour, I grew fearful." Persica closed her eyes from behind her helmet's visor. "I... I never should have let him do that. I gathered my gear and set out at once to find him."

The mare's unflinching stare toward the sword only tightened. "I don't honestly know how long I ran around looking for Chantilly before I discovered him. Minutes. Hours..." she sighed. "But when I heard a ghastly wail, I followed where it came from and found him lying against a tree in this small glade, crying like a child."

Habeas's expression became very uneasy at this description, and Persica still continued. "The changeling had somehow beaten him. I don't know how, but it did. The creature fed off of Chantilly and left him in a tortured state I will say was very much worse than death. It drained his heart dry of every last bit of love for anything that lived within it, leaving nothing but blackness; charred and withered. A wretched husk. What I saw in his eyes as he looked at me was all he had left. Despair, misery, anger, fear, and hate."

She continued, her voice becoming lighter. "As I attempted in vain to comfort him he jumped to his legs with a roar, shouting out that I was dead to him, and that I had betrayed him. Then he... attacked me. He tried to kill me, without a care for anything else except my death. I tried my hardest not to fight back - I attempted to subdue him - but in my pregnant state, I was much too slow. After one fatal slip-up, the... thing Chantilly had become managed to strike his sword across the left side of my face, leaving my eye blind and scarred. And he laughed as he saw me reel back and cry out in pain. With... sheer panic and fear for the child within me taking over, my instincts acted for me before I could halt myself. After he had thrown me to the ground and was rearing up to plunge his sword at me once more, I sent... I sent my spear into his chest and killed him."

Habeas was silent with shock and wanted nothing more than to ask Persica to halt in her tale, but still she went on. "So he passed here at this very spot, but I made sure to bring him to Canterlot and bury him there. Peach Blossom doesn't know how he died, much less what his and my professions were, and I plan to keep it like that. But almost every night when I go to sleep, in my dreams I see that horrible moment in full detail, but played out in different, hellish ways. I look into his eyes, and I see the same unremitting hatred and utter despair smoldering in them when he attempted to take my life. A monster of guilt and remorse. A twisted creature made to haunt me. And I deserve it for abandoning him when he needed me most, Habeas."

Persica placed her hoof upon the sword's pommel, the choir of insects surrounding them nearly overcoming the sound of wind-rustled leaves overhead with their chirps. "Heh. It's... ironic, really," she gave off a small chuckle after some time had passed, her head bobbing with it. "I fought monsters for most of my life, and just as I thought it was time to settle down, I was wrong. I let my guard down for one minute, and paid for it in the most heinous way I could imagine. That's why I'm out here. That's why I patrol the road and the area around my house. So I never make the same mistake again. Because Peach Blossom is all I have left."

A single tear droplet, shining silver in the moonlight, fell from within her helmet to the ground below and touched the dirt at the sword's base. Habeas was at first speechless with shock, but overcame the urge to remain silent when he stepped forward and began to open his mouth.

"Persica, why would you think like this? It was not your fault. You were too handicapped to chase and fight a creature as nimble as a changeling. You had an unborn daughter to keep safe," he spoke to her, his voice tender and soft. "Your guilt... your self-hatred... that's what I've been sensing around you. It hasn't been aimed at me, it's... toward yourself. That's the negative bitterness I've been feeling when I'm near you."

Persica turned her head until her good eye was glaring his way. "Who're you to judge me on my feelings, changeling?" she snapped. "What's it to you about the condition of my emotions? Why do you give a damn in the slightest?"

Habeas's normally mirthful face was devoid of anything except seriousness and concern. Without so much as thinking of the consequences, he took a deep breath, put his hoof onto her armored shoulder, and kept it there.

"Because you're my friend. And I don't want to see a pony as wonderful as you to suffer under such repulsive and deplorable feelings of self-loathing when you have no reason to in the first place. Feeling like this is not healthy, Persica."

The words pierced Persica's mind like the tip of her own spear, and as though stunned by them, she let Habeas' hole-filled hoof remain where it lay, unable to force away the small amount of comfort he was giving.

"Let's get back," she mumbled a minute later, finally building up the will to move herself out of his foreleg's range.

Habeas silently agreed. Persica hoisted her spear back into her full grasp and upon shifting a final glance at the sword, the pair left the glade through where they had entered it to begin with. The travel back to the homestead was in complete silence, as neither had the thirst for further conversation after the events that had come between them, and during the short trek Habeas thought to himself of the tragic tale she had shared with him.

When they reached the barn first, they both entered the red outbuilding together. While the changeling moved to where his bed of hay sat, Persica was deciding on whether or not she should leave right then or say something first.

She eventually sighed when she reached her conclusion, pulling her helmet off and revealing her scarred face. "Habeas," she spoke again. The changeling immediately and respectfully turned to her as he heard his name being called.

"Yes?"

"I wish to apologize for assaulting you on the road, and again later when I found you sleeping here in the barn," she said to him. "Ever since the day I lost Chantilly I've seen all of your kind as being the same pitiless monsters to be killed on sight. But you... you're different than what I've been led all my life into believing. I never once thought a changeling could express benevolent actions and emotions except for nothing more than when performing a cruel ruse. But what you've done for me around here so far is as genuine as I bet it could ever be."

Habeas easily raised his good hoof. "You have no need to apologize," he spoke. "You and your daughter have given me shelter, food, and care for my troubles. And, let's face it, had you not harmed me as you did, you might never of known such a positive fact about me, yes?"

The earth pony gave him a small smile. "I suppose so. But if it's all the same to you, I wish you a good night."

"And you as well," he said with a quick bow. Habeas began to lay down on the pile of hay and books as Persica was just starting to leave, when she stopped and looked back at him.

"Before I forget, Habeas... please, don't tell Peach Blossom the story I shared with you about Chantilly," she implored with concern evident in her tone. "She is not yet ready to process such... horrible information."

He quickly nodded. "I understand, Miss Persica. I will not tell her."

"Good." She resumed her journey to the barn door, and pressed a hoof on it until it opened for her. "I will see you in the morning."

And with those last words, she quietly departed from the barn. Habeas had a lot to think over with what had occurred between him and Persica, and this idea gradually consumed his weary mind, even as it started to eventually drift back off into deep sleep.