The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

The Last Battle

Valey stepped out of the shadows and into the arena, the early evening sun barely cresting the colosseum bowl. Howe stood to the side; someone had informed him that this battle would speak for itself. Morena was waiting.

"Hey." Valey stepped into the arena, nodding in respect. "...Looks like you've been crying."

Morena didn't wait for an official invitation to attack. Her thick, fur-collared battle cloak left her back like an ascending bird as she flew forward, moving her muscled bulk with far more grace than Wallace before her. A hoof hooked out, grappling for Valey, and Valey grappled back, throwing them both into a midair spin. Valey added her momentum to it rather than resisting, and Morena landed with her on top, bouncing toward the edge of the arena.

"Would I ever want to hide it?" Morena spoke as she rolled, constitution so strong that she could control her breathing and speak even as she was pounded against the ground. "You were there yesterday. You saw my daughter return. And you know your role in it!"

Valey jumped off before Morena could take control again of the spin and crush her herself. Morena followed her into the air, a long-buried fire in her eyes as she brought about a double-hoofed slam to drop Valey back to the stage. "Yeah I do!" Valey panted, swishing to the side and diving to hit Morena as she landed. "I got lugged across the continent so that windigo could show off that it was looking for Melia and wanted to change!"

Morena rolled when she hit the ground, countering Valey's dive with a punch. Valey blocked the punch with a blow of her own, throwing all her force behind the hoofstrike, then pumping her wings to dive past it, drawing a punch with her other hoof for Morena's face.

"But do you know my role?" Morena took the punch with a headbutt, flipping onto her forehooves and bringing a kick around with her hind legs to pin Valey to the ground. "The journeys I've made and the places I've searched? From the forests and cliffs of Mistvale to Varsidel's war-torn heart?"

"Yeah!" Valey grabbed her dropping legs, swinging around and slamming both rear hooves into Morena's thick side. "It's awesome dedication! I feel for you, having someone you'd do that much of anything for."

Morena skidded, taking the blow without falling over and breaking apart from Valey. "Hm."

"Hmm?" Valey didn't approach, raising an eyebrow.

"In another age and another time, Wallace and Diego and I were a completely different group of adventurers," Morena narrated, slowly walking forward before launching herself at Valey again. Valey planted her hooves and caught the tackle, prying her grasping forelimbs apart and trying to take the grapple war despite being half as big as she was. "We discovered for the sake of discovery. New horizons were all the reward we needed!" Morena grit her teeth as Valey refused to go down, twisting her to the side. "It was a happy time."

"Yeah!" Valey broke her stance, lunging with a hind leg and driving it into Morena's belly as she was thrown toward the ground. At the last moment, she used the pressure from holding apart her adversary's grip to shoot beneath Morena entirely, launching several more slams and pummels at her underside as she scooted between her hind legs. "And that's why..." She grabbed Morena's tail, converting all that momentum in a circle, slamming down with both forehooves and sending Morena crashing to the ground. "It stinks, what happened to you!"

Morena bounced, flipping over as she came back up and catching Valey with a hoof before she could dart away. "Would you understand?" she growled, slapping Valey in a circle, knocking her wings with calculated precision and stopping her from flipping away. "The pain of losing that? The fire of looking for something, rather than looking for anything? For six long and empty years!?"

Pow! She finished juggling Valey with a mighty punch, not bothering with a buck, one forehoof sending Valey flying towards the edge of the arena. Valey bounced and skidded, coming to a heap near the edge and rapidly rising before anyone could time her out. "Six years?" Valey spat, tasting blood, and wiped a hoof across her muzzle. "Nah. My six years were spent a lot more pointlessly than that. But I do know about looking for something!" She climbed upright, brushing off her bruises, and nodded.

"Tell me." Morena sat and spread her forelegs. It was clear the invitation wasn't to tell her with words.

"Yaaaaah!" Valey wound up a soaring strike of her own, kicking off from the wooden floor and speeding straight toward Morena. A single-hoof punch met her, Morena mirroring her tactics from before, and Valey beat her wings in a test of will, refusing to be pushed back just as Morena refused to budge.

"This tournament can make wishes come true," Morena warned, pressing back against Valey's force. "One wish, every year, for how many millions of citizens? Wallace has told you before. I'm telling you now." She dropped her hoof with a sudden twitch, reaching around to slam Valey from below. Valey rolled to dodge, and Morena immediately switched, coming down from above.

Valey hit the ground on her back, all four legs extended as Morena bore down on her with two huge forehooves. "Hearing you loud... and... clear!" she growled, bracing herself against the ground to force away the mare who was pinning her.

"Wallace's heart. Diego's heart. My heart. All three of us, beating as one..." Morena stared into her, applying just enough force to keep Valey down. "Our will and determination was unstoppable. Show me you understand what this means!"

"Rrrraaaugh!" Valey pulled in her legs, then surged, throwing Morena off her just enough to dart free. "You want me to show you what it means!?" She dug in a hind leg and pivoted, counterattacking with a flurry of unblocked blows to Morena's head. "Here's what it means!" Throwing herself into a flip, Valey vaulted over Morena, only to find her opponent ready. A purple hoof kicked her back halfway across the arena, and Valey skidded, landing upright. "It means every single one of the fighters beyond this point wants something so badly, it gives them superequine strength, doesn't it? You guys may have had your wish granted, but now I'm going on, and you're not going to let me go without a fight!"

"It means more than that!" Morena stomped, mane lifting briefly in an intangible wind. "Everything we fought for all these years, my two best friends and I, it was you and your friends that answered our dream! What happens to that fire of purpose now, Admiral Valey of Ironridge? Where does it go?"

"Where does it go?" Valey countered, watching for an opening that wasn't going to come. "What are you doing now, standing in my way? You heard Puddles. You don't need to wish for Garsheeva to fix her any more, and bananas if you're paying back Izvaldi for their help if you go down there and find they weren't actually helping!"

Morena grew tired of waiting and lunged, flying toward Valey again like she had pegasus blood in her ancestry. "Are we standing in your way, Valey?" she growled lowly, hitting Valey and rolling as they once again vied for dominance. "Or are we waiting for you to add us to your path? Hopes and dreams have physical force! Wallace believes that with everything he has!"

This time, Morena won the grapple, punching Valey hard and slamming her against the ground before belly-flopping atop her. Reacting instinctively, Valey tried to duck into her shadow... but Morena never hit the ground. Landing with her hooves surrounding her, Morena pressed herself atop Valey, pinning her to the ground but never with more force than she could bear.

"Before Puddles was even foaled," Morena rumbled, forcing Valey's head out to meet her eyes. "When I was a lost teenager with no future and the wrong friends, with an unborn daughter and a fear of my parents' disapproval, with a world of piracy to the west and Wallace beckoning me to his side, that's what he said. So show me the force of your dream! You took your heartfire and helped give us what we yearned truest for, now show me why we should add ours to yours!"

Valey's cutie mark activated, and for a moment, it was like she could see Morena rearing back to strike at her. Flash! With a spark in her eyes, Valey lunged as Morena rose, ducking sideways around the incoming stomp and smashing her forehead into Morena's chin.

She let her hooves answer for her, not backing down, flitting from side to side as Morena squared her stance and swiped at her, juking and dodging through punch after punch, returning fire with her own blows aimed straight at Morena's head. "How..." A gray hoof bounced off a purple one, Morena deflecting a blow. "Do you like..." An entire foreleg shot past Valey's hear, pressing it against her skull from proximity. "This!?"

WHAM! Valey launched an uppercut into Morena's chest, instantly following it up with a second and then a third. Her hooves nearly windmilled into the blows, first lifting Morena off balance and then entirely off the ground. Valey pounced upward, spiraling as she continued to juggle hoofstrike after hoofstrike, finally outpacing her adversary's rise and locking her into another grapple.

"You looked for a way to help Puddles for six years?" Valey's eyes burned into Morena's in midair, the world tumbling around them. "That's some crazy dedication. I hope I don't have to do that. But if I have to, I will, and ten times over to find what I'm looking for! We're going home! All my friends and I are going to find somewhere we can live together in peace, exactly the way we want to, with no heretic rules or angry guards or crazy politicians or ancient monsters! And if we can't find somewhere, we're going to build it! That's Starlight's dream. That's Maple's dream. It'll be a place where your past and your origin don't matter, and that's my dream and Puddles the windigo's too! It'll be a place built with the lessons of the past, in memory of what's lost, and it'll help Shinespark bring back her own home in Ironridge, because that's her dream too! You happy with that?" She punched her. "Are you!?" Valey punched her again. "Just try to stop us!"

Instantly, Morena was grappling her again as gravity returned and they finished the apex of their flight, beginning to fall. Her eyes burned with a silent understanding: prove it.

They landed locked together, each with a hold on the other and unable to rise. "Is that the answer you would have given me yesterday?" Morena asked, unable to get off her side. "Or the day before? Is your goal something that's burned into your heart, or can you only articulate it on the spot?"

"Nyeh..." Valey gritted her teeth. "Nah, I'm pretty sure I've changed how to describe it three or four times since I entered this tournament. You want the truth, girl? I have no idea what I'm wishing for if I win. Day to day, how I describe what I'm doing is gonna change. But the feeling in it has always been the same. I'm doing this for my friends, because I care about them really bad. When I'm at the top? I'll figure something out. But even the act of raising a hoof, doesn't matter if it's against a gladiator or a proper monster, can get that across. They're watching. They're not hearing this, but they're seeing... and what they're seeing me saying is, I'm doing this for you."

"A cause after Wallace's own heart." Morena's grip slackened. "I owe that griffon everything, you know. He can be stupidly optimistic and sentimental at times. Rubbed it off on me, too. Alright, wish-granter." Suddenly, she broke Valey's grasp, straightened up and took Valey with her, then threw her to the other side of the arena. "One last time, come at me. You fought for us. You got us what we were fighting for. Now we'll fight for you... Come and get it."

Valey narrowed her eyes. Morena wasn't moving... so by the code of battle they had established together, she spread her wings, spread her forelegs, and rocketed into Morena for another attempt at a grapple.

Morena caught her in a deep, gentle hug.

"...There," Morena said after a while, standing perfectly on the edge of the platform. It barely took a kick for Valey to knock her off.

Morena hit the ground with a puff of dust, waiting several seconds to right herself with Valey watching from above. The purple mare nodded to Howe, turned her back on Valey, and slowly proceeded toward her exit, not looking back. "You win."

Valey stood, ears gradually folding as the crowd's noise intensified above her.

Comments

[alamais]

i.gifer.com/5Jbq.gif

[alamais]

Okay but for reals I know the first try didn't go so well but they should take Glimmy back to the hospital. Just take a bigger posse and make sure people stay with her at all times and they get a real doctor this time. They should probably take less-cool Puddles's scrawny ass too, she probably needs some vitamins 'n shiz.

[Mini-Joe]

aww! that was so sweet.

[RoboRed]

das a gud battle

[KMCA]

Starlight gets her wish... for a time.

[Venlinelle]

"You looked for a way to help Puddles for six years?" Valey's eyes burned into Morena's in midair, the world tumbling around them. "That's some crazy dedication. I hope I don't have to do that. But if I have to, I will, and ten times over to find what I'm looking for! We're going home! All my friends and I are going to find somewhere we can live together in peace, exactly the way we want to, with no heretic rules or angry guards or crazy politicians or ancient monsters! And if we can't find somewhere, we're going to build it! That's Starlight's dream. That's Maple's dream. It'll be a place where your past and your origin don't matter, and that's my dream and Puddles the windigo's too! It'll be a place built with the lessons of the past, in memory of what's lost, and it'll help Shinespark bring back her own home in Ironridge, because that's her dream too! You happy with that?" She punched her. "Are you!?" Valey punched her again. "Just try to stop us!"

If this story doesn’t somehow have a happy Celestia-damned ending I am going to do terrible things to you.