The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Mercenary Fort

"Darkwind!" Harshwater complained, bowed beneath the weight of a huge stack of paintings strapped to her back and balanced with her wings. "These paintings are heavy! Help me carry them!"

Darkwind didn't look back, pacing in front of her with his eyes closed and mane hanging in front of them. "No. Think about how much more they'll mean to you having done the work to get them back yourself. Besides, we're inside the compound. Surely you can manage a few more steps."

"You're meeean..." Harshwater pouted, resigning herself to lugging her load.

"Wuss," Valey taunted, backstroking through the shadow cast by Harshwater's giant load in the dim emergency lighting. Manaconduits lined the roof of the tunnel, but their glow was sickly and wan, as if barely enough power was being fed through them to keep the reaction active at all. "We ditched the cart, like, five minutes ago. And at least you're hauling that because you want to. Sometimes, Herman made me move heavy stuff just to annoy me."

"That doesn't make it... any less... heavy!" Harshwater panted.

Valey rubbed her chin. "I'd tell you to think of bananas to distract yourself, or something, but I get the feeling you'd interpret that the wrong way..."

Gerardo loudly cleared his throat. "Perhaps we might track this conversation onto something more suitable than antagonizing our present hosts and benefactors? This is, after all, their home..."

The entry tunnel opened into a hallway flanked with two rows of pillars that provided both ornamentation and easy cover for defenders, and that passed through a sturdy, unsealed metal door into a broad atrium of sorts. There were two floors, with staircases around the edges that led to balconies, catwalks, and an upper level that was bigger and more open than the bottom one. Service windows lined the edges in something between a mall and a food court, and round tables were placed everywhere it wouldn't be inconvenient, hosting ponies who were eating chatting, and playing at least one very intense card game. Mares and stallions of all pony types, ranging everywhere from ten to fifty, looked up, waved or continued what they were doing, walking past on the upper level or staffing counters for clothing repair and financial transactions and maintenance on tools and weapons.

"It's like a city within a city," Gerardo marveled, smiling and impressed. "I suppose you weren't jesting about being far more tight-knit than a mere mercenary group."

"Ironridge was an extended deployment mission," Darkwind replied, nodding back to several ponies and leading the group towards an understated door behind a staircase. "We've been in the city for approximately six years now, though part of the team took the ship and left to do missions abroad for a time easily on. It's only within the last few years that we've all been here, combining our forces. Usually, our ship has all the facilities we need to function as a base, for short missions and between deployments. But when we're in it for the long haul, like Varsidel before this, we try to get a fuller facility. This base is still half-taken down, since we were packing to leave in a hurry on the night of the storm and haven't needed to set everything back up after it turned out we were staying. It's a lot more of a civilian complex now than a military compound. Though, we can still defend it in a pinch."

Gerardo nodded. "Indeed. This was because your ship mysteriously went missing, is it not?"

As Darkwind started talking about leads and tracking devices and how Ironridge's air power was presently limited to Shinespark's ship alone, Valey huffed internally. Her cutie mark wasn't bothering her, but she knew showing her head while surrounded by more mercenaries than she had dealt with in the Flame District would produce a tense and awkward conversation at best. And the ponies hanging out in the atrium had to be less than half of their total forces... Keeping her head low to avoid detection, she peered at everyone from cute, smiling mares to buff, grizzled combat veterans, reminding herself that each and every one of them could go from a cheerful sandwich-eating bystander to an epic ninja at the drop of a hat. It almost made her wings flutter to think about. If it weren't for how close this group of ponies had come to killing her, the prospect of so many opponents who really knew what they were doing in a fight would be positively exciting.

"Darkwind!" A set of hooves came pounding up behind them, and Valey slipped deeper into Harshwater's shadow, closing her eyes against the confounding visuals that came with shadow sneaking. "Glad you're back," a young stallion's voice panted. "I saw you come in and... needed to let you know that the maintenance crew apparently botched the reactivation of the water-heating system. Something to do with corroded pipes. Basically, we'll be having cold showers for a few days longer, at least."

"Aww, yes!" Harshwater stomped a hoof, and Valey swerved to avoid it. "I love cold showers!"

"I'll take it into consideration," Darkwind's voice replied. "Considering our power rationing from Blueleaf, water heating shouldn't be a priority, anyway. If you need to work on plumbing, focus on filtration and recycling systems that can be used without any energy, since the reservoir can't be used to regulate water supply from the Sky District runoff any more. And tell them to turn the lights down. It'll reflect poorly on us if we're seen as getting special treatment from Skyfreeze, and we don't need them this bright to see."

"Yes, sir!" The stallion saluted with a hoof, indicating he wasn't a pegasus. "We're already using the emergency lighting, but... yes, sir! Also, um... if I might ask, what's Harshwater carrying?"

Harshwater chuckled darkly. "Treasure."

"We just got back from cleaning out Kero's old room in Skyfreeze," Darkwind said. "He had some things the new owners decided they sorely wouldn't miss. Harshwater volunteered to dispose of them and save us all the trouble."

"And now..." Harshwater grunted, taking more steps forward. "I'm putting these... in my room!"

"Well, I'm very happy for you!" The new stallion sounded more nervous than happy. "If that's all, I'll be on my way?"

Darkwind turned away. "You're the one who wanted me. But if you're looking for something to do, go to the nursery and tell whomever's on duty I'll be by soon with guests."

The stallion saluted again and raced away, and once he was gone, Gerardo sighed. "Not even a mention of my presence. Were we truly not that memorable of opponents?"

"You did go down pretty easily," Harshwater grumbled. "You, at least. Valey's hiding. And I did offer you a rematch."

Valey poked her eyes and mouth above the surface, since they were in a back corridor with no prying eyes. "You think I should come out? I might cause a hullabaloo just by being here, you know."

Darkwind shrugged. "That's your call. Everyone knows we aren't trying to catch you any more. They also respect your strength and won't cause trouble if you make it clear you're not looking for it. Though, if you're not looking to stay here for a while, it might be better to save yourself the effort."

"Ehhhh..." Valey glanced away.

---

Several turns later, Harshwater reached her room, promptly kicking Valey out of her shadow as she maneuvered her stack of paintings through. "Oof!" she proclaimed, setting them all down. "There. Perfect. All right! I'm good!"

"Congratulations on your acquisition." Gerardo nodded, standing politely by and not barging into her quarters. "Now that that's taken care of, I believe there was something else we came here to do?"

"Enjoying yourselves? Hanging out? We have a pool." Harshwater rolled her shoulders, flexing stiff muscles. "Ow. That was bad for my delicate pegasus posture."

Darkwind said nothing, giving Valey and Gerardo a look that made it clear that they were the guests and could stay or leave as they pleased.

"Ehh..." Valey sniffed the air. "Starlight's a ways away. Pretty sure she's still down in those caves. You know what?" She grinned. "I'm feeling bold. Let's go march into a crowded space and be all 'I am here!' and see if we can spook some dudes. Then make sure it's all in good fun. In that order. Right now, I kinda wanna do something just because I can."

"Try not to laugh too evilly," Darkwind advised, nodding in permission. "Not many of us have met you after the events in the Flame District, and a lot of ponies will be looking for signals that you don't hold our assault against us."

"Starlight?" Harshwater glanced sideways at her. "How do you know where she is?"

"Eh." Valey shrugged, tapping the tip of her nose. "I can smell her at a distance. No clue why. But it's useful sometimes, so why question it?"

Harshwater blinked. "Weird."

"Story of my life," Valey said unapologetically, preparing to round a corner. "If that was even a tenth of the weirdest... Woah!"

She backstepped thanks to her cutie mark, but not in time to avoid a collision with a mare walking around the corner. Valey took a glancing hit, but the other mare sat back, rubbing her muzzle with a hoof. "Uhh..." Valey blinked. "Sorry?"

"Oh my. I'm so sorry; I wasn't looking where I was..." The mare, a unicorn, blinked back, eyes widening as she recognized who she had just hit. "Admiral Valey! It's you!" She broke out into a smile.

Valey folded one ear, and then the other. "...Really? It's me? That's the reaction I get? You're happy to literally run into me sneaking around your home? Not abject terror or maybe vengeance for kicking someone's rear in the Flame District, or at the very least horny awe of my ridiculous new manecut?" She rubbed the back of her head with a hoof. "I'm pretty sure that bow isn't still there..."

"Hah!" Gerardo crowed, interrupting. "It seems as if we are popular with the locals after all! Whatever you've done, I heartily approve."

"Bow?" The unicorn's face scrunched, and she ignored Gerardo. "Terror? I'm grateful! Thank you for not killing my brother in the Flame District!"

Valey stopped her with a hoof. "Okay, hold up. One more time?"

The new mare looked slightly worried, but repeated herself. "When Kero said we had a job to take you out in the Flame District, everyone was worried because you have a reputation and we're just normal mercenaries. But you left everyone who went down there alive! I wanted to thank you for sparing my friends and family, even though we weren't trying to do the same for you."

Then, she got down and bowed, leaving Valey's jaw slack. "Hold on, what?" Valey looked around. "Does everyone here feel that way? This is my reception here? Everyone thinks I'm Hero McHeroface or something?"

Harshwater scuffed at the ground unhappily with a hoof. "I don't like to admit it, but you easily could have killed me several times, and we all knew it going in. But you didn't, so..."

"Sixteen pegasi faced you in the tunnels," Darkwind said. "That's hardly the majority of our company, but enough that almost everyone had a sibling, parent, lover or best friend with their lives put on the line. Nobody expected it to be bloodless, and many thought we wouldn't succeed at all. Some even wonder if it's not a coincidence that the last job Kero gave us before disappearing had such a high projected cost. Whatever he deemed a fair price for that would have been high, and now he's gone before any of us see any of it." He closed his eyes. "But yes. Most everyone here has loved ones you didn't kill even when it would have increased your own odds of survival. Normally, that counts as risking your life to save someone, but when the ones you're saving are your enemies... Let's just say there are a lot of ponies here who are fans of yours."

"Wow." Valey blinked several times. "Like, for real? Because speaking of weird things that happen to me..."

The new mare nodded. "It sounds like I'm the first you're hearing this from? Well... on behalf of everyone..." She looked Valey straight in the eye. "I hope you've forgiven us for fighting you, and for working for Herman when he was trying to destroy Ironridge. All of us are indebted to you. Thank you."

"...Huh." Valey sat there, almost dizzy, and let herself smile. "You know, I think I could get used to this."

Comments

[RoboRed]

Well, ain't that heartwarmin'.

[Streit]

Finally she gets the recognition her actually pretty selfless acts deserve.

[Venlinelle]

Valey continues to remind me of Wayne, in a good way.

Reread edit: This chapter is still so sweet.

Also, I don’t recall ever getting a clear answer on why Valey can smell Starlight. She can smell emotions because she’s a proto-changeling, but why Starlight??