Tapestry: A World Apart

by Star Scraper

Ch.32: Regrets and Reprieve

Governor Full Spectrum shivered. The scarf, wrapped in just the right way, might keep her snout and ears from frostbite, she could only hope, but she knew what she'd been given was inadequate to survive in.

Not for long, at least.

Her wings were clipped, stuffed under a coat not made for a pegasus and tied. She couldn't stop wondering how exactly the sergeant was going to kill her, leading her along by the slipknot as he was.

He always made sure the line wasn't too slack – always glancing back if she accidentally caught up to him too much, and often glancing back to make sure she wasn't up to anything, anyways.

She wasn't, and hardly even felt like trying.

She felt as though dying by some hostile sergeant's hoof, lost in The Abyss was better than some publicly humiliating show Icewind might've put on for the ponies of Delphi, at least.

And either was preferable to continuing her reign.

After all she'd done to citizens of the occupied Delphi dome, it felt right that her death would happen without a great fanfare, after she'd sent so many to deaths carried out with such nonchalance.

Since the train wreck, she felt she was living on borrowed time, anyways.

After several long minutes of walking along the bottom of the cliff, he finally led her to the base of what seemed to be a natural scaling point. Just a dozen yards to the right, the ledge leaned outwards, creating a slight natural overhang about a half dozen yards tall.

He loaded his rifle. “Run and I'll slit your guts on the ice,” he simply warned, taking her lead in his mouth as he climbed the short ledge. When he reached the top a few moments later, he started pulling her lead in.

Her heart raced as she started hurriedly climbing the same spot he'd just climbed. She didn't dare ask if he'd give her more slack if she slipped, or if he'd just hang her there.

She finally made it over the ledge, panting as she sat on the ice – it was painfully cold to the touch even through her nightgown, but her sore legs demanded she rest, even if only for a moment.

She looked over at him, her ears flat against her head and shivering. “W-what do you want? Is this where you'll kill me? Is that what we're h-here to do?”

“If this were about justice, you'd be tortured first. But no, this is about the safety of my soldiers. I don't believe they'll keep looking after they find your body. It'll be much easier for them to pull some innocent unicorn out and blame them.”

“And w-what if it only angers them to search h-harder?”

The sergeant let out a hearty laugh. “As if they actually care for you! The only reason they'll make any show of your death is to make you a martyr, and rally support against us. They want you dead,” he taunted.

She faced the ice, breathing deep and hard, trying to control her shivering. “I – I know that...” she looked back at him, an intense earnestness in her face as she stood back up on her hooves and warned him, “I-I won't bother your time with any begging or nonsense, b-but listen – th-the airbase just down the railroad f-from here has... key technology you'll n-need... to-to survive these next weeks.” Sergeant light's eyebrows twisted with surprise as she kept talking, stammering and struggling to talk through her shivers, “O-Our engineers have developed engines that c-can f-fly above anything you could h-hope to shoot down. There's a flight-ready bomber, eh-even. Usually they keep those... in... in the special operations hanger. It's being called project 'Blue Moon'. I-I hope your unicorns had the g-good sense to take the enchanted e-emerald necklace from my train. P-put it on my body, then on one of-of your soldiers, and put them in one of my nightgowns. If they say the bomber is needed, nopony will question them. You must take the bomber to Bastion... and let its engines be r-reverse engineered.”

Her shivering began to slow and give way to labored breathing.

“Why are you telling me this? You'll be dead. Do you think I'll spare you if you keep giving me information?”

She shook her head. “No. Because I... Because I'm not so sure anymore...” Her voice dropped and she faced down into the ice again. “Maybe my entire life was just a lie – maybe the unicorns aren't the cause of this winter. What does it matter? I'm dead now. And if I'm right?... Then bring down The Order anyways.” She looked back up at him, the ferocity of the cool determination in her voice matched only by the spark in her eyes. “Let the world fall. It doesn't deserve to continue in pain like this... Give it a mercy killing from this torment.”

He simply looked at her, surprise over his face for a long moment before he came to a reply. “I must admit...” he said slowly, with newfound heaviness. “I was expecting cowardice... But you still deserve more hell than this.”

She bit her blue lips and sat down, her strength failing her. “So... If you stake that end down... I'll walk off that ledge for you,” she nodded towards the shelf to her right.

He scoffed, “Hah, not going to ask me to break your neck or slit your throat?” he asked.

“No.” She shook her head, looking down yet again. “I... I think you'd agree that's how I should die. On the end of a noose.”

“Hah!” His voice raised with amusement. “You show your true colors! You have some kind of perverted enjoyment of that, don't you? I read our file on you before this mission – even to us it was obvious you liked to see ponies hang! No, I intend for you to die differently than that...” he pulled out a knife and started approaching her. “I'll enjoy this, you know, doing it to a monster like you...”

“No...” she mumbled, her voice turning into a cry as it picked up volume again, “I want you to do it that way, because it's the closest I can come to an apology!” And yet she didn't even flinch at his approach – she was making a demand, not begging for her life.

All humor fled his voice, and he stopped his menacing approach; “What?”

“Enjoyed it?... I relished it for awhile,” she muttered, her voice picking up speed and passion, “Then I started to realize what I was, and I wanted to die then! I can't forget them. I will never know peace until I die as they did! I have to die like they did, in apology that they died and I lived!...”

Her voice mellowed to a murmur. “It's only fitting that I die the same way they did. I owe it to them. A leader should never ask her subjects to do something she wouldn't do herself, Pa said. I had them executed. Frozen, stabbed, hanged... I'm freezing, here. I-I don't know if I'd even feel a stab I'm so numb...” Her breathing grew tense. “B-But my lungs will scream for air all the same...”

His eyes were wide, his voice pensive. “They died, and you lived?... And now you want to die alongside them?” Scarred memories of his lost team echoed in his mind.

“What are you waiting for?!” She cried, hunching over and putting her forelegs over her head. “Just end it already! I can't get them out of my head! Why did it have to be them, and not me!? Why did I have to kill them to save my comrades? What is this abomination of life!?” She stomped the ground furiously before falling down and breaking into sobs.

He sat looking at the frostbitten, crying mare in disbelief. She hadn't flinched at imminent death, but she collapsed at the mere thought of her executions. He thought over his next words carefully; “I had the option of killing some civilians once. My entire team died because I didn't kill them. At the time, I told myself; 'I'll never be able to live with the regret of killing these innocents,' so I took that chance. Now I can't live with the regret of letting them live, and my team die. But seeing you... maybe I picked the better regret to live with.”

She merely looked at him, disheveled, ice forming on her mane and tail, and her tears freezing on her face.

He continued, his voice level. “Like I said, this isn't about justice, this is about saving my team. Celestia show mercy on our souls.” Solemnity filled his voice. “Farewell, governor. Perhaps we were wrong about you. But maybe not. But it will all be revealed, some day, in a world apart from this one. Perhaps I will see you again under the Azure Sky, perhaps even soon...”

He walked behind her.

She couldn't control her panicked, broken breathing.

He bit the end of the rope tied around her throat, put his hoof on the back of her neck, and yanked with his might.

Her crying suddenly cut off.

She tensed, stretched, and as the agonizing seconds wore on, began trying in vain to writhe under his grip, hopelessly gasping for air, nothing but a few tiny, strained sputters breaking through. She finally gave in, going limp under his vice-like grip.

---

Rarity searched for agonizing minutes in the darkness. Her horn gave a gentle glow, not of visible light, but of arcane energy, giving off an otherworldly luminescence as a blacklight. Only unicorns could see the faint glow of magic, and it is with this glow and her ears that she searched the base of the glacial ledge.

It was only a dozen hours ago they'd hit a hornet's nest by attacking the Governor's Train. The lack of any patrols they'd come across since she saw the fireball fall from the sky was deeply unsettling.

But she still wasn't sure whether she was hiding more from them, or from the sergeant as she searched around the bottom of the small cliff. She didn't want him to find her before she found him.

It was eeriely silent, but her ears perked for a moment as she thought she heard some indiscernable noise far away. She rushed in that direction – only to realize her bootsteps on the ice were too loud. Thinking quickly, she simply magicked her boots off and continued in thick wool socks. She could feel the biting cold without the boots, and the glacial ice was challenging at times, but altogether she was thankful to now be able to run quietly.

She galloped, the air rushing by her ears and her own harsh wheezing and pounding heart deafening her. Her heart never slowed, but she stopped every few minutes to listen for any more sound, and heard nothing. Finally, on her third stop, she heard distant voices – and even from so far away, even distraught and some otherworldly version of her – she recognized Rainbow's.

She cantered more carefully – the sound she hunted for was like a precious jewel in the darkness, and she didn't want losing control of her breathing to drown it out. It wasn't long until she heard it break into a cry – then be abruptly cut off.

Certain she'd heard it just around the corner, she galloped, only to find more empty cliff base.

She scanned the area as carefully as she could see it, thankful for the better dark vision her blue eyes gave her. A sloped area caught her eye as she noticed chips of ice missing. Scuffs on otherwise smooth protrusions with a discernible, clear pattern. Like a cross-stitch where a design had called for a blanket stitch, the minor detail stood out to her like a sore thumb, an unnatural break in nature's pattern.

Her blood now pounded in her ears deafeningly, her panic made her body light, and she could feel her magic coming to life. She had never climbed so quickly, skillfully, or quietly. Her injured hoof panged in fresh pain as she used it, but she entirely ignored it, knowing seconds could save her friend's life. Soon she clambered on top of the ledge, and with a few steps up a steep incline, she saw the sergeant cinching a rope tight around Rainbow Dash's neck with all his body's strength, while a hoof held the back of her neck to push her throat into the rope.

For the two seconds she froze as her mind realized what was happening, she noticed Dash wasn't even struggling, but was lying limp.

She felt an avalanche of fury crash over her as she shouted, a telekinetic wave of desperation blasting the sergeant off of her dear friend, at the same time a more finesse touch yanked the rope out of his mouth and loosened it.

The governor rolled on the ground, coughing and wheezing.

Rarity pinned the sergeant's limbs to the ice with her magic. He looked up at her from lying on his back. Her magic sparked with such ferocity it glowed to visible light, casting a blue glow over her face and tufts of blue hair visible from under her hood and face-scarf.

“Grandeur!?” He gasped. “What the buck do you think you're doing!?”

“It's RARITY!” she corrected with a shout.

“Keep it down, you idiot! Did you forget we're being hunted!?” there was an urgent panic in his voice.

She lowered her voice, but the ferocity still sizzled within it, “no, but you seem to have forgotten my name is Rarity! What were you doing?! She wasn't -”

“Keeping you alive! Don't you even realize -” he talked over her, but she didn't even stop for him.

“-even struggling anymore! It hardly makes sense to keep choking a pony after they've passed out unless you intend to kill them – so I don't think this was some 'mere' interrogation!”

“No, I was killing her! Like she's done to hundreds of thousands of innocent ponies!”

“As if making it a hundred thousand and one makes any difference – assuming she did! I'll hear it from her, thank you very much! Because I know her and I know she wouldn't just kill for fun – even if she did kill somepony, then it'd be for better reasons than you're killing her – and I don't believe she did!”

He kept struggling against her magic – she fought to hold him down. It began to be clear to her that she had taken a challenger stronger than her magic. The extra strength her passion had granted her wouldn't last forever.

She could feel her ears folding back under her hood – and he seemed to notice and react by fighting ever harder as he continued to protest, “Don't you get it!? She's a threat to all of us – the longer she lives the more danger we're all in! I'm protecting you – saving your life like we did when we found you!”

“But that doesn't mean you can just murder my friends!” she shouted back at him, panting as she had to constantly shift her magic to whichever limb fought the hardest at that moment.

“No, but her being alive – her putting us in danger does! I was going – I am going to kill her, then make an assault on East Shades without all of you, then they'll think I was a lone assassin, and they'll stop looking for all of us! Look – we don't have the rations to make it back to Bastion! You, your friend we rescued – Twilight – Snowglade – you're all dead! You're all dead unless at least two of us die, and the Governor deserves it, and I choose to make that sacrifice!” As he finished speaking, he managed to push past her magic entirely, jumping onto his hooves.

She recoiled back with a yalp of surprise as he raised his rifle at her.

She used what little strength she had left to push the barrel to the side.

He immediately pushed it back, now gripping tightly enough to resist her nudges. “Stop this at once! Stand down and submit and you and I both walk away from this alive!”

“Then stop pointing that at me!” she cried out.

He complied, lowering and deflecting his weapon to the side. “Okay, but not a step closer!” he warned.

She blinked in surprise through teary eyes. She was too far to charge him before he could shoot her, but close enough that he wouldn't miss. Shaking, defeated, she sighed and bowed her head.

His voice was now far more calm than either of theirs had been, “I know it's hard for a little jewel like you to take, but it's either her life, or all of ours, and -”

Both of them were distracted by the sudden sound of bitter, pained laughter.

They looked over to see the shivering governor, rope still around her neck, sitting hunched over just a few feet away. Her laughs broke into crying as she started shaking her head. “That's what I said – that's what ponies say, isn't it? It's one for all, it's one for all...”

“Piss off,” he said, turning to her, “I didn't give you permission to spea-”

He'd stopped looking at her. Rarity took advantage of the moment, galloping towards him in a mad dash, a final flare of telekinetic energy keeping his rifle from pointing at him with enough surprise and vigor to buy her the second she needed.

She yelled as she lept to tackle him.

Dropping his rifle, he parried to the side, shoving her onto the ice and pinning her as she fell in one smooth motion, using her own momentum against her.

She felt a hoof pressed against the back of her neck, another land next to her throat, and a menacing voice in her ear as she struggled with what little strength she had left.

“Listen here, buttercup, one good kick right here and you're dead, you understand? I could stab you with my knife, slit your throat, choke you out, or break your neck in three different ways, and I'd kill you right here and right now to protect Snowglade, Clockwork, and Gratitude, but I'm feeling merciful today. Now that's twice I should've killed you – I should've shot you a second ago, and I should break your little horned skull or neck right now – and give me one more reason to and my patience will run out and I'll do it. Got it?”

She went limp and started sobbing. “I – you – you can't kill her...”

“I don't know how badly your memory's been screwed with but that pony would torture you to death without a second thought. Now don't make me regret saving your life more than I already do. Your word means nothing to me anymore, so stay where I can see you, and remember this.”

She felt the hoof push harder on the back of her neck, her entire body straining, shaking and panicking as the pain grew sharper. She whimpered. “N-no, please! I'll – I'll stop, you've - ...” she paused, her desperate pleas suddenly growing weak. “You've won.”

She let herself go limp underneath him. Only then did he let the pressure off. “Good. Now you recognize it. In case you haven't noticed I've literally carried you to survive out here. But don't forget Snowglade, Gratitude and Clockwork come first to me. And Full Spectrum deserves nothing less than death.”

She started sobbing again as he stepped off of her to unpin her.

“This is exactly what Nightgale did to Twilight, isn't it?” the governor muttered as she shook her head.

“Can it!” He snapped at her, before turning back to Rarity, now helping her up. “Now tell me – did you sneak off? Where's Clockwork? I set him to look over you to make sure this didn't happen.”

She reluctantly accepted his hoof and sat up. Her voice was shaken and subdued. She didn't face him, and instead spoke down into the ice, “I – I got away. He... he almost shot me a-and...”

“And?” he pressed.

She looked up at him, “I guess he's chasing us now?” even beaten into submission, she was able to catch herself before she told him that Snowglade had pointed a rifle at Clockwork to protect her.

He put a hoof on her shoulder, pulled down his goggles and looked straight into her eyes. “Look, miss, it's ugly, but this is the real world. I'm doing what I can to make sure you and your sister get home alive. But whoever you think this pony is, she isn't her. Snowglade at least recognized you, but this pony doesn't, so she's someone else entirely. If you want to talk to survivors of her purges, you'll have plenty of opportunity to see Spectrum deserves this when you get back to Bastion. But you don't have to watch this, okay? Just stay somewhere I can see you, and stop trying to do things that will get us all killed.”

She just looked at him, nothing more than some pitiful look of sorrow on her face. She wanted to hate him – but for some reason she couldn't make herself. All her fury had melted into something else.

She looked over at the slouched figure sitting not far away. The prisoner wasn't even shivering anymore, and seemed to slouch ever further in her posture as the minutes wore on.

Rarity called to her, “Is – is it true? You – you didn't...” when we got her off the train, she didn't recognize her name.

But neither did Snowglade!

But Snowglade recognized me... it dawned on her, her eyes widening as she realized the night they'd set up camp, just a few hours ago, when they'd finally been allowed to speak a little more, she'd been so pre-occupied with helping Twilight's poor health, and they'd been in such a rush to eat and get everyone to sleep she'd hardly spoken with Dash – but what little she had interacted with her, the Governor looked on her with something more like apprehension and disbelief than recognizing an old friend.

Snowglade was shot in a forelimb, and Twilight has a concussion and an infection in her injury. I was so distracted by my injured friends...

Rainbow just looked blankly at her for several long seconds before finally speaking, “I – I recognize you only as the unicorn who got away – who I refused to let Icewind fire a – a shot on, because... because there were innocent ponies there... But I don't know your name.” She shook her head.

The sergeant scoffed, “hah, what's a few civilians for the safety of your dome? You killed two hundred thousand, why not ten more?” he mocked as he approached her again.

“It – it's... It's not like that...”

It was clear from her voice that she wasn't fully awake.

Rarity's heart picked up pace and intensity again as he approached the prisoner, grabbing the lead to her noose, and standing on the far side of her so he could see them both from where he sat.

“I don't get it, but I'd rather leave it at that than lose another team.” He yanked the rope tight again.

The governor gagged.

Rarity cried.

His last two words sparked something in Rarity's mind. It all made sense now.

“Keep it down!” he snapped at Rarity's crying, then softened slightly, “You're the one who came out here, miss. I'm sorry you had to see this. I didn't want you to,” he explained while one hoof held the governor's neck, and the other pulled the rope tight, even as she writhed, but only weakly, under him.

She wept for her friend – maybe it was some alternate form of her that bleached her mane and did terrible things – that seemed forced and routine in this world – but her last words had made it clear she cared about innocent lives, and his words made it clear he was afraid of losing those he cared about.

And both were willing to kill ponies to get what mattered to them. To see the ones they cared about safe.

And so the world froze, and the windigos laughed.

Before she even heard the bootsteps, the sergeant had let go of the rope and had his rifle pointed in the direction they came from.

Full Spectrum cursed and cried as she coughed and wheezed again.

“Sergeant!?” a sweet, familiar voice popped up.

“Gratitude!? What are you doing out here?” he lowered his rifle.

“Me and Clockwork are looking for Rarity,” she explained before her voice took on a dark, fearful tone, “but what's this?” she asked, approaching the group in a brisk trot.

Rarity noticed Clockwork following Gratitude.

“Stay back – it doesn't concern you,” he warned.

“No, I think it does. This team is in a greater danger than Vanguard patrols,” she warned back, walking straight towards the coughing, crying, and shaking governor – only for him to stand in her way.

She stopped in front of him.

“Go back to camp, medic. This doesn't concern you. You have your jobs, I have mine.”

She stood her ground for several long moments, before her shaky voice started reciting something from memory. “But please, dear reader. No more than that blade on blade – never blade on neck, or blade on their begging hoof -”

“Don't you dare quote Clover's journal on me,” he growled.

She continued, “When the lines of the bloodthristy are broken, when they are defeated and bid for peace –”

“You are out of order, corporal!” he shouted.

“The army respects my oath as an Adherent, and by my oath – by my duty as a medic I must remind you!” she started quoting again, “When they are defeated and bid for peace, you are but a monster worse than they if you deny them mercy-”

“How dare you!” he snarled, pounding a hoof, “How dare you compare me to her! She's not some random civilian, she's the governor of Delphi – of an occupation! She killed more innocent ponies than you or I can count!”

She continued, her voice picking up passion and confidence, speaking with the assurance that generations of great ponies stood behind her, “Please, I beg of you! We, your ancestors, all beg this of you! Though the fire of friendship brings warmth against the cold, the fire of fury burns they and you alike, until there are none left but poisoned ashes.”

“This isn't the same damn thing, Gratitude! It's either her or us! You don't even know what's going on!”

Rarity, the governor, and Clockwork all just looked on wide-eyed at the ideological war in front of them, as she recited scripture and he cited necessity.

She was smaller than him, weaker, but she spoke with confidence, passion and urgency, “Fields of death, strewn with deranged beings have come of this hatred. Your corpses will all freeze together if you let hate consume you, even for the hateful.”

“This isn't hate – this is survival!-”

“-The endless cycle of blood for blood will never be broken, and the world will go silent of life if you cannot forgive even the most heinous of crimes.”

He continued where she left off, his voice now more cool and controlled, “ – though not making yourself vulnerable to them. That is the next line you omitted. I'm not doing this for revenge, medic, I'm doing this because if I don't, we will all die.”

“That's what she said, too,” she nodded towards the governor behind him, then looked straight at his eyes, “you and I both know there are fates worse than death, Sergeant Courageous Fate. If we can't find any other way, so be it. I'll even let you kill her – but let us talk about it, first. And until then, I'm not going back without her, alive.”

Rarity spoke up, stammering in disbelief, “You-you would bargain your own life for her? Even – but don't you believe that she?...”

Gratitude nodded, turning to her and quoting again from Clover the Clever's Journal, “This world will be in need of light. The light of dawn is real and tangible, as is the warmth of summer –” she turned back to the sergeant, “-yet they will come only from the warmth of heart, and the light of your soul, which are known to spirit only. As the heart is the birthplace of action of the hoof, so will the heart be the birthplace of dawn before the hoof feels warm grass upon the Earth again.”

They could hear fury buried in his voice. “Medic, Lieutenant... The Victoria's been hit. They pulled out. We can still catch up to them if we go now – and if there's two less mouths to feed on our team. Rarity and the Alicorn may have magic to win this war. They're not worth this governor. And neither are either of you.”

Wait, Lieutenant?... Rarity thought. He called him that earlier, too, didn't he?

“Then let's talk about it in the tent,” Gratitude firmly stated.

“You'd never agree, it would make you all complicit, the alicorn-”

Then Rarity realized, “You outrank him, Clockwork! Why don't you-”

“Because he's in command of this unit! I'm under his command while I'm on this assignment -” he turned to the sergeant, “but I'm not afraid to say you're just stalling because you know she'll freeze to death while you argue with Gratitude about it. This isn't a mistake. But Gratitude has promised her life on the Governor's. Sir – I advise we talk about it in the tent, and not face whatever Gratitude will do if the governor dies now. You know why they sent a pilot, sir.”

“The Anvil contingency is a suicide mission meant to make us feel better if we're stranded, not a real exfiltration plan! This is why we can't talk about it in the tent – because you'll actually believe it's possible!”

“Sir...” She leaned forward, ears tight to the side of her head in an aggressive posture to the taller stallion. Her voice cooled, but remained strong as steel, “She's dying in this cold, so do to me what you will.” Gratitude began walking around sergeant Fate.

He turned and grabbed her, then leaned into her face, “Gratitude, I could pin you down, tie you up for disobeying orders and being a danger to the team, and drag you back to the tent, leaving the governor dead out here, do you understand? You will not, and you cannot counterman me.”

“And if I declare you medically unfit for Abyss madness?” she asked.

“And you, Clockwork?” he called out loud enough for him to hear over his shoulder, keeping his eyes on Gratitude. “Who would you side with?”

A gentle breeze billowed across the ice.

“...Protocol would dictate I stand with her, sir... At least, in this situation, where her claim would be... believable.”

Another long moment passed.

“Sir, if you don't let your hooves off of me...” Gratitude started.

“Then I've lost control of my team. Your fate is in your own hooves now. You two better not get yourselves killed, okay? You've got Snowglade and these civvies to look out for, too. Clockwork, assist Gratitude with the governor, and tell me if she dies, that's an order, understood?” He took his hooves off the medic.

She rushed over to the governor.

“Yes sir!” He ran to help her.

Rarity felt a weight lifted off of her. She stood up, and also rushed to the cyan pegasus lying still on the ice.

Comments

[Star Scraper]

I'm deeply curious to see who my readers are siding with, here - what y'all think of each side of this.

Also I did plan for an illustration or two on this one, but alas. Maybe I'll get to that later.

[KMCA]

Spectrum might need to hang, but our lovely medic has it right, Clover has it right.

Blood for blood is pointless. Revenge is hollow and tastes like ash. The only way forward for anyone at this point is in harmony and forgiveness. Even if the domes themselves will likely never embrace it the effort must be made.
Do better, be better. Victory at all costs is a victory not worth having.

Yada yada yada.