The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Southern Army

Despite their nervous vigilance, the Defense Force line at the opposite end of the road between the Stone District and Blueleaf wasn't difficult for Valey to sneak through. The mountainside was too steep for a direct path, so the road snaked back and forth in a set of switchbacks, slowly rising high enough to reach the lowest levels of the upper city. The ridges created by that switchback gave the pegasi a significant terrain advantage, but also created ample cover for a pair of bat ears and occasionally peeking set of eyes.

Valey swam sideways just below the lip of a ledge, dragging Starlight with her, waiting for her cutie mark to subside and stop indicating there was a guard watching the precise place she would pop up. She had to give it to the pegasi: between their blockades, chokepoint and multiple traps designed to dump heavy refuse down the mountain, they actually seemed more interested in living up to their name defending than in doing anything villainous. Too bad they weren't equipped to defend against her.

She darted up through a break in patrols, crossing the road like a fish sliding across a sheet of ice, and pulled herself into the poorly-swept corner at the base of the next ledge. Plenty of mid-sized rocks and other fallen things littered the road edge, in the ghostly darkness providing perfect camouflage for her to lift her head and take a better peek.

Two guards were approaching, walking close together and shuddering at the night. "I don't like this one bit," one murmured under his breath. "Not at all..."

"Would you rather be anywhere else?" the second asked, his eyes betraying the feigned confidence in his voice. "With your family, for instance? Huddled in your home and hoping no vengeful Sosans came your way, or the way of any of the thousands of other families in the Stone District?" He shook his head. "This is what we've trained our whole careers for. Tonight. We have to be ready."

"I'd rather things have not gone down like this!" the first countered vehemently. "The Ambassador... our own founder... It's so hard to believe he was playing us, and trying to start a war by getting us to fight the Sosans. But even though we know the truth now, all they think is that we did it! Now the Sosans are coming, if not for our heads, then all of the Stone District!"

"Valey and Herman might be gone, but at least Selma's head is screwed on right," the second muttered. "I just hope he can work as much of a miracle here as he says he can. Those Sosans have us badly out-teched, and when it comes to blows, we're going to need all the strategy we can just to keep our home safe, let alone get ourselves out in as many pieces as we came in..."

"Yeah. But the Sosans probably thought the same thing this evening, and look where that got them. They're saying this night is cursed, and I'm starting to believe it..."

The two guards wandered out of hearing range, prompting Valey to hum curiously to herself. "Herman bailed, huh? Wonder what that's all about."

"I don't know." Starlight shrugged in her grasp, limp and listless and not about to go anywhere in her blind, magic-lacking state.

"Hmm..." Licking her lips and sinking back into the shadows, Valey started up the next wall.

---

"Oh, that lemon bag," Valey seethed from a hiding spot near the Defense Force's final blockade. "That is the uncoolest thing I have ever seen him do! Even worse than turning the Defense Force into a sausage fest just to tick me off. Come on, Starlight. We're going to go give this bozo a piece of our minds."

"We are?" Starlight cupped her ears, not even bothering to gaze Valey's way. "Selma? You are, maybe. I don't even know what he did."

"Can't you-!?" Valey started to snap, before abruptly shutting up and groaning. "Right. You can't see. Long story short: that scoundrel has my hat."

At the end of the road, flanked by four pegasi in front of a gate that had been barred closed with a shoddily-welded iron grill, Selma strutted imperiously, eyes closed and confidence aired, a snazzy black beret that was one size too small resting atop his pineapple-shaped mane. His guards were nervous, staring and jumping at every shadow, but he was the one with the experience and intellect to tell which seemingly-moving pools of darkness were illusions and which ones really contained a bat. As such, Valey had no trouble getting his attention without alerting the others.

He didn't seem inclined to raise the alarm either, dismissing the four around him and staring intently at the patch where Valey hid... before beckoning with almost-imperceptible subtlety and walking back into the Stone District proper.

"Boo," Valey said, popping out of the ground once they were in a removed alcove free from prying ears.

"You survived," Selma remarked, staring at her in unmasked disappointment. "How quaint."

"Sure did." Valey remained dangerously stoic. "So, how does baiting Ironridge's trouble magnet factor into your plans, huh? You've got my attention."

Selma blinked. "What are you talking about? I told you, I want you gone! I'm trying to defuse Herman's conflict before it can explode any further, and someone as volatile as you has no role in that!"

"You. Stole. My. Hat." Valey ground each word through gritted teeth.

"What, this?" Selma's eyes widened in realization, and immediately floated the article out to Valey, who leapt out of the shadows and seized it like a ravenous shark. "You left it on the damtop and I took it as a prize. If that's really all you need, take it and be gone! I have far more important things to worry about tonight."

"Oh boy, really?" Valey rolled her eyes, slapping her hat back in place. "You know, since I've got you here, I'm kind of curious: something happen to Herman? Because your mooks were actually badmouthing him earlier."

Suddenly, Selma smirked. "Something happened? Oh, you could say that. What happened was me. I killed him. I backstabbed him, pushed him over the edge just like he sent you and all those poor, martyred Sosans. And given that he's fat and heavy and lacks wings... well, I've seen neither hide nor hair of him since. Perhaps he's alive, perhaps he could turn up still, but I've had all the time I need already to rally the Defense Force behind my back and my back alone. We're defending, now. And say what you like about my motives, but there's a very unhappy pack of ponies just down the road, and I'm going to keep the Stone District safe from them. A noble goal, don't you think?"

"Yeah. I heard your goons jawing about it," Valey muttered. "Congrats, Mister Good Guy. Have you considered that if it happened, Herman probably wanted it to happen, that he could survive the fall, still show up and find a way to wreck your plans, or that you might just not be able to hold against all that Sosan rage and firepower?" She raised an eyebrow. "I mean, it's swell that you think you can do this without me, but really, I wouldn't have anything to do with this if you got on your knees and begged."

"Touche," Selma spat. "For how much you complain about Herman, you appear to hold a very high opinion of him." His grin returned. "Since I doubt you'd be insane enough to object to a peaceful end before this war can even start, though, if you really wish me to brag... I was thinking of inviting whoever provides themselves as the leader to parlay. We banter, we squabble, we waste time, and ultimately I challenge them to a duel in which the loser must refuse to advance. I'll read the situation, and should it seem like it would calm them at all, I'll happily throw such a match if it preserves a ceasefire. Either way, I'd stall a long time. The goal would simply be to outlast their rage, or wait until an official proceeding can incriminate Herman and convince the Sosans we are not their enemy. I may even extend them a hoof in friendship as proof of our desire to do better."

"...Really." Valey nodded slowly. "And when they don't buy it and blow you up?"

"Look in the sky," Selma commanded.

Valey stared up. Against the ghostly blanket of clouds that looked long past due for a storm, a lone airship hovered, propelling itself lazily in circles above the Earth District. She hazarded a guess, from the design and dirigible, that it wasn't Shinespark's ship.

"I see you see it." Selma shrugged. "That was the vessel I appropriated for your escape. Too bad that ship has sailed; I now have need of it myself. Now, I really would like to do this bloodlessly, but in the event I can't bring Sosa and the Defense Force to such easy reconciliation, I'll settle for protecting my district, and that will be accomplished through the spectacular overkill of crashing an airship onto their little forward camp down there."

"Crashing a what?" Valey's eyes bugged. "Hold on, you might have to repeat that a time or three. Are you insane? I mean, obviously yes, but aside from that."

"Insanely brilliant, perhaps." Selma smirked again, beginning to pace. "First, the Sosans have a... history with airship crashes. If flooding their factories got them riled up, dropping a ship on them will break their spirits entirely, and at the very least wipe out their advance fighting force. Second, it wouldn't be me to do it. Ironridge is currently host to a band of mercenaries I very much despise, who happen to be in the official employ of Herman, who is quickly becoming known as the architect of this little skirmish. It would be almost disgustingly easy to pin this on him."

Valey inclined an ear, listening.

"The mercenaries, as it turns out, are down an airship," Selma narrated. "This one isn't theirs, though I wanted that one to be. Theirs was, according to my surveillance, taken by a pair of highly disreputable stallions fleeing the underground while abandoning their loyal companions to be taken captive by the Defense Force and mean old Selma. In short, it's very much gone enough that I can say this one was theirs and have the math add up. And if any nosy inspectors try to dig too deep, I set up months in advance just in case an obscure loophole transaction entitling this particular ship to their name, so dirt on them would come up in a search."

"...Yeah, you're crazy," Valey decided. "There are so many things that could go wrong with that plan I can't even start. You realize how much of a mess this could make, right?"

Selma narrowed his eyes. "You can laugh at my plans and put Herman on a pedestal all you like, but the fact is I'm the one who's still plotting while he's at the bottom on a lake. In this world, results speak for themselves."

Valey stared... and sighed. "Eh, suit yourself. I'm looking to bail anyway. It's your reputation that stands to be ruined. But seriously, why tell me this?"

Selma shrugged. "I may never get a chance to brag about this to a living soul ever again, and you're both smart and unscrupulous enough to understand everything I'm doing. Sometimes I think it's almost a pity we dislike each other so much. We'd make an excellent team... But then, I'm me and you're you, which means you're about to make a lewd joke and run off cackling while I question why I ever thought you possessed intellect in the first place."

"Slick." Valey ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth. "You know, you're probably not wrong. Anyway, tip from me: I just snuck around the camp down there, and it's mostly Blueleaf citizens freaked out that you're going to invade and finish what you started. Actually not a lot of Sosans at all, and none of the top brass. So try and hold off on that airship thing, since they might be perfectly happy with a ceasefire too... and something tells me going for the big boom would give Herman a warm fuzzy. Thanks for dunking him for me, and screw you for stealing my kill. I'm outta here."

Like that, she was away, carrying Starlight into the Stone District in a beret-wearing pool of shadow. Selma watched her go, chuckling to himself... only to immediately have his mood ruined when it started to rain. He stalked back toward the barricade, muttering under his breath about grandstanding being no fun when he was soaked and freezing, and giving at least one forlorn glance to the hat he had just parted ways with. It was too small, anyway.

Comments

[sploopy slooder]

jesus fucking christ STOP TALKING TO HIM.