The Ones Who Returned From Stone

by Skijarama

Chapter 2 - Agreement

It had been a full twenty four hours now. Palmwood, sure enough, was once more making his approach to the isolated farmhouse, cloak on and hood pulled up to shield him from the biting cold. A wild storm was brewing in the distance by the looks of it, the mass of clouds appearing pitch black against the already dark crimson backdrop of the sky. Palmwood grimaced at the sight of it, especially when he saw lightning flickering inside the clouds. That’s gonna slow us down…

He turned his attention back to the farmhouse in time to catch a sign of movement beyond one of the windows. He heard the door unlock before Blackberry inched it open, looking at Palmwood cautiously. “You weren’t kidding about twenty four hours, were you?” he asked with a narrowing of his eyes.

Palmwood merely shrugged. “I wasn’t. So, have you made up your mind?”

Blackberry frowned at the immediate ‘down to business’ approach Palmwood was taking to the interaction. With a small sigh, he slipped out of the house entirely and closed the door behind him. He stood still for several moments before nodding slightly. “Yeah, we uh… We made up our minds.”

“And the verdict?”

Blackberry frowned and glanced uneasily over his shoulder at the house. “We’ll help you; or rather, I’ll help you. Grapes and our son will go to the Crystal Empire regardless of whether or not we find the princesses.”

Palmwood frowned at that, looking at Blackberry with an unsure expression crossing his face. “That would be extremely risky for them; we can’t spare anypony in our group to escort them to the Crystal Empire. They’d have to make the journey entirely on their own.”

“Grapes is tough, make no mistake about that,” Blackberry snorted as if offended. “She can take care of herself and she can keep Bramble with her. They’ll be fine.”

Palmwood nodded hesitantly, relenting. “I personally don’t like that idea, but beggars can’t be choosers. If you’re sure, then I guess we have a deal.”

Blackberry nodded solemnly, shifting uneasily on his hooves. “Alright. Wait here and, uh… I’ll let my family know it’s time.”

Palmwood gave a respectful bow of his head and stepped back to give him at least some sense of privacy and respect for space. With that, Blackberry turned and went back inside the farmhouse, leaving Palm to stand there and wait for him to come back out. Another flash of lightning caught his eye in the steadily approaching cloudfront.

One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three-

A deep, heavy rumble rolled over him and the surrounding landscape. Still a ways off, but it wouldn’t take long at all for it to fall over them and smother them in an even deeper darkness.

“You looking that thing over again?” Wonder asked from where she sat on the opposite side of the lantern from Drifter. The hybrid in question glanced up from the ancient, large sheet of parchment in her good-hoof’s claws to meet Wonder’s gaze.

She gave a small nod, tracing her other hoof over the heavily weathered and aged photo pinned to the sheet. A contemplative look appeared on her face. “Yeah. I’m kinda glad I found this, to be honest… you know, before they sent Canterlot tumbling to the base of the mountain.” she said quietly.

Wonder nodded slowly with a small, sad smile appearing on her face. “I can see why.”

Drifter’s gaze looked once more over the details of the certificate in her hooves, a small, forlorn smile slowly appearing on her face as well. It was her old birth certificate. She looked it over for what must have been the millionth time, pausing briefly on the name inscribed near the top of the document.

‘Sunlight Veil.’

“...Heh. Found this stupid thing fifteen years ago. You’d think I would have gotten rid of it by now.” Drifter sighed with a shake of her head. From where she sat, the smile on Wonder’s face faltered a bit.

“I’m also surprised you still have it, but... I understand why. In a way, it’s kind of the last thing Celestia left you. An heirloom, you know?”

Drifter looked back over at Wonder, her smile growing. “It's a bit more than just a family heirloom, you know,” she slowly looked back down to the parchment and, more specifically, the picture of herself, so tiny and innocent. In the picture she had her long white tail held in her mouth, with her forelegs wrapped around it as if she were hugging a teddy bear. She almost found it hard to believe that she looked like that, once. No scars, no cold, hardened expression. Her claws hadn’t even grown into anything more than tiny nubs under her hooves. Drifter closed her eyes and held the parchment up to her heart to take a deep breath. “Princess Celestia still cared. Even if she dropped me off in Hollow Shades, she was still my mother… she grieved when she gave me up. I can tell...”

Wonder nodded along, but didn’t say anything. Before the conversation could go any further, however, Drifter suddenly shot up to a ready position, her cloak billowing up from the sudden motion. Wonder stood, too, having also heard the sound of a twig snapping.

“Woah! It’s just us,” Palmwood announced as he and their guide stepped into the lantern light. Wonder relaxed, as did Drifter, albeit only slightly. “We’re ready to go if you two are.”

Drifter’s eyes looked Blackberry over before her claws sank back into her hoof. She carefully returned the certificate to it’s place in her saddlebags a moment later. It would be safe in the sleeve she had for it. When she turned back around to speak, Blackberry was glaring at her suspiciously.

“Who’s that?” he asked sharply, his eyes bouncing between her fangs, which poked out from her upper jaw, her thestral-like wings and the hoof that had just been sprouting claws a moment ago. “You sure that’s a pony?”

Drifter snorted and looked at Palmwood disapprovingly while lifting her gloved forehoof slightly in exasperation. “Seriously? It didn’t cross your mind to fill him in on me?”

Palmwood lifted his forehooves defensively. “Hey, I thought everypony knew about you! Cut me some slack.” he said, taking a step back.

“Maybe twenty years ago, Palmwood,” Drifter rolled her eyes before giving a slight bow of her head to Blackberry. “Sorry about that. My name is Moonrise Drifter and, to be fair, I’m not really a pony, technically speaking. I’m only half pony. The other half is fiend.”

Blackberry grimaced and glared at Palmwood, then to Wonderboom. “Half fiend? Sound like a horse-shit lie if ever I heard one. Dunno if you noticed, but these things don’t exactly take the time to mate with even themselves, let alone a pony. It’s just eat, eat, eat to them.”

“I know that,” Drifter said with a scowl swiftly twisting her face. “I’ve been hunting and fighting them since before even your great grandparents were conceived. As it is, how I came to be is not really important right now. What is important right now is finding the Princesses and getting them out of their stone prisons.”

Blackberry took a step back, a bit intimidated from the edge in Drifter’s voice. “A-alright, alright… okay, I know where they were, but considering you folks claim to have been looking for a long time, I’m assuming the fiends keep moving ‘em?”

“Exactly,” Wonder piped up, drawing everypony’s attention to her. “We typically have to do a lot of scouting to figure out where Horizon hid them. Usually, by the time we narrow it down, our snooping has been noticed and they get moved before we can make any sort of advancement. It’s why we decided to come to you.”

Palmwood nodded at his sister before turning once more to Blackberry, continuing where Wonder left off. “Exactly. We haven’t scouted this area out at all. We heard from a camp of ponies you help feed that you had found them, though. The fiends know that we’re after them, so they’ll move them away the second they think we know they’re there. Somepony on the side, though, isn’t going to be seen as a big enough threat to exert the effort required to move the ‘cargo’.”

“So, if you lead us there, then we should be able to get in and get the Princesses out before the fiends can relocate them.” Drifter finished with a firm nod.

Blackberry rubbed a hoof over his chin for a moment before grunting. “Tch. Fine. I already agreed to lead you there, so let’s get going, eh?”

“Right,” Drifter nodded and turned to the others. “Wonder, Palm, let’s pack it up and move out!”

The two ponies wordlessly complied, setting about turning off the lantern and getting their camping supplies put away neatly into their traveling packs and saddlebags. As soon as this was done, the three drew their hoods over their heads. Blackberry looked at the group with a raised eyebrow as they approached. “What’s with the hoods, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Drifter glanced at Blackberry from under her hood, her eyes glowing slightly in the dark. “The fiends know what we look like and as soon as we set out, we are going to be in the open. The closer we can get before they know it’s us, the better our chances of reaching the princesses will be.”

Blackberry nodded. “Makes sense, I suppose. Alright, come on. We’ve wasted enough time.”

“Yes…” Drifter nodded with a look of longing appearing on her face, hidden by her hood. “Yes we have.”

Author's Note:

Whew! Been a while since I updated this damn story, but now that Little Glimpses is complete, I can get back to working on this! Thank you for being patient.

Comments

[Destiny Chaser]

This is indeed a dark story. I'm just surprised Discord never helped them in these 20 years.