Marked

by Turtwig-Tales

Chapter 4

The screech of metal and wail of the train’s whistle woke Cherry from her sleep. She glanced around for a moment before remembering where she was and her goal.

Canterlot. A second chance.

One step closer to my new mark, she thought, growing more excited as she grabbed Roberto and her saddlebags.

She followed the flow of ponies exiting the car, keeping somewhat close to the couple she had followed on. Again, most ponies didn’t give her a second glance, assuming she was simple another filly travelling with her parents.

The filly and bear paused for a moment on the platform, taking in the skylight of the capitol. The city, the castle, and the mountain upon with it all sat. It was breathtaking.

Robearto nervously noted that the sun was much lower in the sky than it was when they’d left Manehatten.

“I gotta admit, it IS a lot darker than I thought would. Maybe the ride here was a bit longer than I’d thought…” she whispered, half to herself. “It must be long past dinnertime by now…Mom and Dad are gonna be worried…and mad…”

Robearto wondered when the next train back to Manehatten was. They looked at a nearby schedule board. There were a few new trains listed to leave for home that night, but not a lot. And there wasn’t a lot of time before the last one left for the night.

“We’ve got to hurry. If we don’t, we’ll be stuck here until tomorrow! Then we’ll really be in trouble!” Cherry exclaimed, dashing down the road she hoped would lead to the castle.

Robearto flatly stated they were already in deep trouble, and that a few extra hours wouldn’t make much difference. Cherry ignored him and kept running.

“Hey, you! Little Filly! Stop!” a voice shouted behind her. Cherry turned her head, and her eyes grew wide. Briskly marching towards her was a fully armored Royal Guard Pony. He was wearing a stern expression, which made her incredibly nervous. The Guard towered above her.

“Where are your parents?” he asked sternly.

“I…they…” she stammered, unable to come up with a response.

He’s so scary! She thought, beginning to panic.

“Come on, you’re coming with me.” He commanded, roughly grabbing her foreleg. Cherry struggled, but the stallion’s grip was like a vice. Panic began to consume her as she fought to free herself to no avail.

“Private! What are you doing?” a voice behind them barked. The guard’s face immediately shifted to a look of terror.

“S-Sargent Spear! Sir!“ he yelled, snapping into a salute with his free leg so forcefully his helmet rang like a bell for a moment. “I found this unattended filly and-“

“And you decided to pull her leg out of its socket?” the louder stallion cut in. “Let her go this instant!”

The stallion (though now that she got a better look at him, he looked more like an older colt) complied, albeit reluctantly. Cherry rubbed her throbbing leg, glaring at the Guard. The older stallion paced in front of them both, looking quite angry.

“Private Armor, I know you’re new to the Guards, and you’re inexperienced with public relations, but for Celestia’s sake! You have a little sister about her age don’t you? Would you grab her like that?”

The younger one tried to respond, but was cut off by the older one. It went on like that for a while with the Guard next to her weakly responding every so often, but mostly taking the brunt of his superior’s ranting.

Cherry looked between the two, generally stunned at this turn of events. Were all Guards like this? Eventually, she realized that neither of them were really paying attention to her that much. Slowly, she quietly inched her away from the scene. When she was a few feet away, the Guards noticed her. Panicking, she bolted down the street.

“Hey! STOP!” one of them yelled after her.

Cherry, being a filly, had much shorter legs than the Guards and she wasn’t nearly as good at running. Had the street been clear, they would have caught her easily. Fortunately, the street was fairly crowded, and Cherry was able to weave between the ponies ambling about their business. The Guards tried to keep up, yelling after her and pushing ponies to who wouldn’t move aside fast enough.

The thought occurred to her that running away from the Royal Guards wasn’t the best idea, but she was too scared to really act on it. Robearto yelled something, but she couldn’t hear what he said. She just kept running.

There was an alley up ahead, so she dashed into it. Luckily there was a trash can set out, so it made for as good a hiding spot as any. Pressing up against the building wall, and hidden the view from the street, Cherry held her breath and did her best to pretend she didn’t exist. Two sets of hooves ran past the alley, and she heard them calling for her. They sounded mad. After they ran past, Cherry waited a few minutes to catch her breath. She peeked out from behind the trash can. There were a few ponies trotting past, but no Guards. It was silent (as silent as a busy road could be), with no indication of pursuit.

“I…I think we did it Robearto…”she panted.

There was no response.

“Robearto?”

Cherry looked behind her to see, to her horror, only her bare back. She frantically dug through her saddle bags, hoping that he had hidden in them during the chase. No luck.

He must have fallen off! That’s what he was yelling about!

Dashing to the street, she desperately searching the ground from which she came, hoping to find her friend. There was no sign of him between the legs of the crowd. After a few heart wrenching minutes of searching, she gathered the courage to ask around.

Most passersby didn’t even acknowledge her, and the few that did couldn’t help her. Eventually, one of the nearby shopkeepers said that he believed he saw the guards were carrying a bear as they ran past.

Cherry didn’t know what to do. The Guards had kidnapped Robearto! How was she going to get him back? She wandered the streets for a while (keeping an eye out for more Guards), not knowing what else to do.

A glare in her eye caused her to blink out of her fugue state. The sun was even lower in the sky, just behind Canterlot Castle, the light shining directly into her eyes. Princess Celestia would be lowering it below the horizon soon.

“Wait...” Cherry whispered, “Princess Celestia runs the Guards. She could just tell them to give back Robearto, of course!”

With renewed vigor, she resumed her advance on the castle.

Don’t worry, Robearto. She thought, I’ll get you back soon.

---

Canterlot, it turned out, was a large city. Especially for a filly who had never been there. It wasn’t as big as Manehatten, but Cherry had never had to walk so far or for so long. That and there were a lot more hills here, and with the roads being mostly made with cobblestones instead of pavemnet, making it very slow going for the tired and hungry filly. Her snack reserves had long been depleted, and her energy not far behind.

The sun had set a long time ago. It had probably been an hour or two since Robearto had been captured. At first Cherry had kept to the shadows, trying to keep from being noticed. But after the streets cleared, and with everything that had happened, she stopped had caring. She just wanted to get to her destination.

Eventually, she reached the main gate to the castle. There were several Guards patrolling in front, and Cherry couldn’t see any way to get through without being noticed. An imposing metal fence made this gate the only viable entry point within view.

If only Robearto was here. He’d have a good idea to get us through.

Lacking a better option, she snuck along fence left of the gate. She didn’t have anything she particularly searching for, simply anything that would help.

She noticed an older bar in the fence that had rusted free of its welding. Cherry prodded it experimentally. After a few minutes of poking and fiddling, she discovered that she could move it up just enough to squeeze through. It couldn’t be moved side to side, but she didn’t think it would be a problem.

Not wanting her saddlebags to get damaged in the attempt she pushed them through the bars and into a bush on the other side, out of view of anypony that may be on the other side.

It took some effort, as well as some mental preparation, but she forced the bar up to give enough space to pass. She waited a few moments, and stepped back as the bar stuck in place. After a few more experimental pokes, she believed it would stay where it was, at least for now.

Am I really gonna do this? Running away is one thing, but THIS? I could get in really big trouble for this…

Cherry shook the doubts from her mind.

NO! I can’t give now! I’ve come too far! It’s not just about my cutie mark anymore, I need to get my friend back! I can’t just abandon him!

Her mind cleared, she made a dash for her makeshift entryway.

Unfortunately, she must have bumped the fence or something. Because as she passed through the hole the raised bar came down on her left leg, just above her cutie mark.

Hard.

Stilfling her yelp of pain and surprise, she squirmed into the brush to look at her injury. The bar hadn’t pierced the skin, thank goodness, but she could already see a nasty bruise beginning to form. She placed the leg back on the ground, and tentatively put some weight on it. She didn’t think anything was broken, so the thought she had gotten off lucky.

And then the pain hit her full force.

She collapsed in a heap, sobbing in agony, doing her best to stay quiet at the same time. Although she probably did need medical help, she still was not ready to give up on her mission.

It felt like an eternity before the pain finally starting ebbing away. At least enough to move again. With tears still rolling down her muzzle, she managed to sit up.

Alright, she though amidst her pain-fogged mind, Find Princess Celestia, get Robearto, get my new mark, then get help for my leg. Easy.

With a weary sigh, she placed her saddlebags back on her back and stood, careful not to put to much weight on her injured leg. Cautiously, she stuck her head out of the bush and checked around. She seemed to be in a fancy garden of some kind. The full moon provided the only light, as if the mare on its surface was guiding her. There was not a pony in sight.

Tentatively, she made her way through the garden, limping slightly on her bad leg. She shivered a bit in the cool night air. Ahead, she saw a few statues. A few figures she recognized from History class. There was one, however, that intrigued her. Near the hedge maze, there was a statue depicting a mis-matched patchwork of different animals striking a merry pose. She wasn’t quite sure if she liked the design or not, but it was definitely interesting.

Continuing onwards, she reached a clearing, with the castle looming just ahead of her. Without anything in the way, Cherry got a good view of the moon. She couldn’t help but stare at it for what seemed like an eternity. Its soft light calmed her nerves, and she felt the pain in her leg fade away a bit. It felt like the light was singing her a lullaby. For a brief moment, she felt totally at peace.

“The moon is quite beautiful tonight, isn’t it?” a calm voice beside her said, jolting Cherry from her reverie.

Whirling around, Cherry saw a large figure seating next to her. The figure was big, bigger than any pony she had ever seen before, with a mane flowing like water.

“Hello, Cherrywood.” Princess Celestia said with a smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Comments

[nothingtoseehere]

OH SHIT. SHE KNOWS.

[Venerable Ro]

Kid's got gumption, I'll certainly give her that.