(Past Chapter 2): Hopeful Ultimatum
My second, and fondest memory of this place is warmth.
"Mmm." I murmur, when something pokes me in the side, a short while after this, the dull ache saturating my mortal shell starts to groggily wake up as well, giving me its own, all-encompassing greeting.
"Hey mommy, I think he's waking up!" I hear from what my ears tell me is a nearby dog-toy squeaking, but my memory of last night informs me is actually Priss.
She pokes me again, eliciting an "Mmmph" of abject pain from me. As I open my eyes slowly to avoid the sun's bitter morning assault, I notice that my white brick surroundings are actually comfortably and dimly lit from small windows.
"Glitter, leave the poor colt alone." Someone says, prompting me to drag my sight-lines around the modest room. I spot benches made of ice, squat cubic chairs made of snow, and even what looks like an empty doorway into more rooms on my eye's journey over to who spoke.
"Da-ugh" tumbles from my lips as I wrench myself further into the waking world and attempt language once more.
"Where are we?" I question, not recognizing my surroundings by the time I arrive to an orange pony with some sort of pink bun for a mane, and a hammer, chisel, and crystal for a cutie mark. The mare had been sitting nearby, a table next to her covered in chunks of ice in bowls.
Before the mare can speak up, Priss takes the liberty of going berserk "We're outside the empire!" she cheers, hopping around the room as though she had drank The Flash's coffee.
"Yes, we are." The larger mare nods, before answering my actual question. "We're still where you collapsed, Glitter Bomb, my husband, said that we shouldn't move you while you're unconscious, so we built a shelter around your fire."
My jaw loosens as I glance around the room again. It's around this point I realize that the walls themselves are made of some sort of polished ice brick.
"H-how long was I out?" I say, disbelieving how they somehow built an entire house while I was asleep.
"Oh, just a few hours." She answers, baffling me.
Before I can properly consider how fast they would have had to work to do that, she continues with a firmer tone of voice and begins to ask some questions of her own. "May I ask your name? Mine is Whittle. Whittle Miss Priss."
Well, at least the naming convention is consistent. Unfortunately for her, I have absolutely zero intention of giving anyone in Equestria my real name.
In the process of thinking up a suitable pseudonym to give her, I spot my distinctly white horn out of the upper corner of my vision, poking out of my distinguishing black mane.
"Weiss." I lie. "Weiss Noir."
She gives me a funny look and mangles it. "Ice No-Are?"
"No. Weiss, Weiss Noir.
"Wise Now-R?"
"Weiss..." A pause "Noir..." I slowly finish.
"It's uhh." My mind goes blank for a minute. The griffons all had German names, right?
"It's a griffon name." I explain, which seems to satisfy her.
"Well, Weiss, I have to admit, I'm... Concerned. Curious and grateful, but concerned nonetheless." She says, leaving the bowls of ice ignored to walk closer.
"A young unicorn stallion with a griffon name, living just outside the Crystal Empire. He breaks into our home and steals our food, only to escape the guards with some sort of dark spell. If Glitter hadn't run off and followed you, I'm not certain we would have-" She pauses, as if to pick the correct wording. "-taken a risk like we did."
She looks diplomatic as she continues with a graceful tone, like velvet-lined stone. "I hope you can satisfactorily explain this, young pony. It... It could be very important."
Her glittering ruby laser stare, coupled with my injuries, leaves me feeling cornered and trapped. I'm unable to come up with anything compelling to say, before she sighs lightly, and shakes her head, the bun atop it rustling lightly as a ruby clip sparkles buried inside it.
"Don't feel pressured if you don't have your story in order, deary. It's simply that there are still a lot of ponies in the Crystal Empire." She continues piteously.
"I didn't want to stalk after you into the snow, you know? You struck an intimidating figure when you lit up with that terrifying fire and green smoke like Sombra. But... Glitter Bomb made me understand that we had take that risk."
"Sombra's mine expands by the day, and he brings ponies under his thrall to work in it as he needs them. We couldn't choose that." She continually stares at Priss as she speaks, who by this point had calmed down and took a somber look at the floor.
I feel a sinking pit in my gut by the end of her short lament, a bitter thing that won't let me ignore her words.
She walks back to the table in the corner of the room and turns her attention to the bowls of ice chunks, prompting me to speak up.
"What are you doing?" I question as she dumps them onto the table and begins crushing them.
She just smiles. "Making crystals. Our food's not going to last forever, so growing more will be important. I'll plant these outside when they're ready." She finishes crushing them into small chunks, and walks out of the room.
I fail to comprehend what she means by "When they're ready", but the odd, blatantly magical glow around them is what leaves my incomprehension complete as they slowly turn into faceted frozen jewels.
Whittle Miss Priss walks into the sitting room, where her husband Glitter Bomb is shoveling snow into the umbral fireball trapped in the room's centerpiece, an icy carved pit surrounded by dug up dirt.
"So the colt woke up?" he says, and then continues. "Did he tell you what we need to know?"
As he kicks the last chunk of snow into the fire, it flares up hotter for reasons the family didn't understand, but whose properties they discovered while erecting shelter.
Whittle walks up to him and puts a hoof on his shoulder, rubbing it. Her hubby could be so tense sometimes.
"Not yet dear, he's understandably scared. I'm sure the lad will open up if we just give him some time."
Glitter Bomb frowns. "Whittle, you didn't see what I saw, then. After he lit up his horn, he started looking at those guards like a dragon looks at a pony. Hungry and unhappy. And his eyes started spewing that green smoke when he saw us following him. He could be as bad as Sombra, and you've got our daughter in there trying to make friends with him."
"We've just got to know what's going on in his head, whether he helped us or not."
Whittle just giggles, patting her husband on the back a few times before disengaging.
"Well if that's all you need to know, then we've got no problems." She says, lifting a hoof and shaking it as if to count on nonexistent fingers. "He's somepony who's scared, hungry, lost, alone, need I go on?"
Glitter looks a bit more bashful at that. "...Do you think he'll help sneak more ponies out?"
Whittle doesn't say anything as she hears her daughter giggling from the other room, and faint singing from Weiss, slowly rising up in volume.
♫"Love is the power
Love is the glory
Love is the beauty
And the joy of spring"♫
"I believe he'll be receptive to the idea, dear." She smiles.
♫"A smile, a laugh, and you in my heart, As well as my baseball bat."♫ Priss finishes.
I shake my head slightly to rid my thoughts of the impressed confusion that Priss applied to them when she followed up my rendition of Mother's Eight Melodies with Earthbound's, despite there being no way she could have known the lyrics.
At least there's no doubt in my mind now that this world does funky things to music.
"There, satisfied? Have you got your daily ration of entertainment at my expense?" I snark to the little annoying crotchspawn who demanded I "Do something interesting".
I hope she isn't expecting an encore, considering that I don't think I actually know any other child-friendly songs.
"Wow, way to make singing sound like a chore Mister Noir." Priss retorts, matches my tone.
"If it's really as tiresome as you make it out to be, then it clearly wasn't entertaining enough for me." she snoots, thrusting her nose into the air with faux dismissiveness.
I level a leer at the child. "Oh, I meant to say 'Singing is my favorite thing in the world, above all else'. Is that sufficient for you to spare me a most unfitting punishment, Stan?"
Priss immediately has an expression one might expect to find on a shuddering volcano instead of a filly, but that rapidly turns into a smile that leaves me believing a trip out into the snow will leave me warmer than having to endure it much longer.
"Oh your punishment won't be unfitting." She says, trotting out of the room happily.
I can't help but feel I've made a mistake as I work my way out of bed and over to those ice crystals that Whittle had... done something to. Looking at them carefully, I'm unable to learn a thing. They're glowing, they look like gemstones instead of frozen water, and apparently, they're going to solve our food problem. It's no wonder to me now how the Crystal Empire was so prosperous, if they can just turn ice into food. Perhaps this is what all the crystal foods are made of? I guess if dragons can subsist on gems, ponies can subsist on ice.
Deciding that I've got nothing left to learn observing those, I exit the room, looking around at the one after it, some sort of living-room, with a pit in the middle and a yellow pony with a rust-red mane, mustache and what looks like a Prince Rupert's Drop for a cutie mark. He tends to the bed of dark embers within. This must be the Glitter Bomb I was told about. I'm careful to not walk quietly, so he knows I'm approaching.
"You sure you want to be near that stuff?" I warn.
He just looks confused. "If it was going to do something, it would have done it by now, I figure."
"You can't feel the, uhh..." 'The smouldering resentment that the bed of coals and snow are practically singing out to me?' I don't finish.
"The heat? I'm a big pony, Weiss Noir. To be frank, we could do with a little more right now." He looks between me and the pit.
My head involuntarily tilts at that, but I ultimately submit to his request, and muster up an immense dislike for whatever's in that pit. My horn ignites, and I both intentionally, usefully, and successfully use my magic for the first time. As the black fire roars anew, I feel nothing but bitterness towards whatever had been left in it, before the feeling fades as my magic slips back into inactivity.
"What's with the scowl?" Glitter Bomb says, surprising me.
"I was scowling?" I respond, noticing my facial expression. I'll have to watch that.
He looks at me like I'm crazy, and I'm forced to come up with something to say to convince him I'm not.
"I really don't like the cold." I explain. This seems to satisfy him as he returns to staring at it instead of me.
I watch him visibly work up the nerve to say something, before he starts. "How do you feel about a repeat performance of last night?" He ventures vaguely.
I already know what he's getting at, but I need to know more. "Which part, exactly?"
Glitter Bomb responds without looking away from the firepit. "The part where Crystal Ponies walked out of the empire for the first time in years."
I feel that nasty pit in my gut again, and try to reason with him, words tumbling out rapidly. "I don't know enough. I might not be able to hold my spell as long, and the black fire on its own might not distract the guards if we tried torches. Even if I could hold it, there might be a radius of effect, so ponies might get caught out of it. It wouldn't be worth risking trying to evacuate the whole city in one night."
"Then we'll learn. If you're willing." He responds simply, before elaborating further. "Whittle has some friends from a club she used to go to. The Crystal Carving Cabaret. They'll trust us if we tell them there's a way out, and we can find out what you need to know while we're there."
The pit in my stomach from before turns into a lead weight, but I have nothing left to deny him with. Being scared isn't a good enough reason not to help these people.
"Alright deary, you've got your saddlebags, your trail food, water. Is there anything else?" Whittle questions, looking between me and Glitter.
"Wouldn't hurt if I had some rupture drops, but there's no fixing that right now." he complains, shouldering the heavier set of bags between the two of us.
"Ready boy?" he asks me, which I just nod in response to, my dry mouth denying me a more complex answer.
Priss prances up sleepily. "You're going to do great daddy! Mr. Noir, you better not mess this up, or you're really going to get it!" she shouts, stamping her hooves into the snow with a squeaky crunch.
"I'll do my best." I respond, which prompts her to give me a funny look. Shit, I should have said something snarky, shouldn't I?
Putting a hoof to my chest and my head in the air, I quickly continue "Maybe not, after all, my best would be overkill, with how amazing I am."
This seems to put her at ease, and returns her expression to that familiar state of amusement and visible hamster-wheel-turning as she devises a retort. She ultimately decides not to, and simply nods happily. A sad wave between all parties is our last contact with the pair as we walk into the setting sun, in the direction of the Crystal Empire.
"So, what does one normally do to pass time on a long walk like this?" I question, growing a bit restless at the slow plodding pace towards the distant empire.
Glitter Bomb just shrugs. "Small talk?" he says redundantly, judging from what we're doing right now.
I try to come up with something interesting to ask about. "So Whittle said something about planting ice. Is that what you guys do for food?"
He nods "It's really not that good though. Real crystal tastes better when it's prepared right."
I guess that explains rock soup. Maybe I could use my black fire for mining to get them some. If it can burn ice into nothing, surely it can do the same to rock.
"I'll keep that in mind." respond.
He gives me a sideways glance, taking that as impetus to continue.
"Of course, it also tastes better fresh. You can keep growing new crystals from old ones, but ones that first come out of the ground are best." he says conversationally.
The awkward air from before starts to fade, and I pose a theory to him. "You seem to know a lot about it." To which he huffs with a smile.
"I'm a Crystal Pony, from the Crystal Empire, with a Crystal Cutie Mark." He explains, prompting a small embarrassed flush from me.
"That makes sense." I respond, scraping up what little remains of my pride.
A few hours of aimless conversation later, and the sun gives way to night on the Crystal Empire, and Glitter Bomb stops me.
"This is close enough. Perform your magic, and warn me when you believe you've reached half of your limit."
'I really hope that magical stamina doesn't correlate to physical stamina.' I think to myself, summoning up a general, unfocused foul mood, which, to my surprise, doesn't grow unnaturally when I summon the pilot-dark that is as weak as I can make it. Maybe it only influences my emotions as needed?
I feel some relief at that thought, which turns into shock when my spell suddenly fails at the same time.
"What's wrong?" Glitter says uncomfortably at my misfire.
"Nothing." I say sharply, summoning up another bad attitude and focusing on keeping it.
Glitter looks uneasy, but shakes his head. "Tell me before you grow tired. We can't afford to get caught." He says, annoying me.
"You said that already, foal. Let's do this thing and get the hell out of here." I say, stalking forward.
He trots up and ahead of me, leading the way at a brisk pace, our first stop is at a large building covered in glittering statues of ponies, go figure. A sign at the front is covered in script I don't bother reading. He opens the door slowly, and walks inside, at which point I follow. As we go deeper into the building, my vision is impaired by my spell running, while his night vision seems to be more than sufficient to piece out where he's going. I take the time to look around as best as I can while he searches for whatever it is he's looking for. The foyer itself seems to be something like a club, or bar. Judging from the bottles at the back behind the bar, and the stage to the side, I have no reason to doubt this assumption. It's at this point that I spot it.
A small, insignificant pebble made of some black glassy material, carved to look like an eyeball, rolling around aimlessly. No, not aimlessly, I realize. On a patrol. I walk closer to Glitter Bomb and poke him. "Do you see that thing?" I question, turning his vision to look where I point.
"See what?" He questions back, confused. I feel an odd glimmer of a feeling coming off of him, one whose source becomes apparent when I look back to the eye and learn the source of it. Something about the eye seems to be making his focus slide off of it, like some kind of notice-me-not spell.
"Nevermind, just stay close to me for a second." I command, walking closer to it. My hate for Sombra sockets into place as a worthy replacement for my previous feelings, and my black flame flares up when I sense it. I'm immediately reminded of Lord of the Rings when I sense what emotions are radiating off of the sentry-eye, and, therefore, what must have gone into creating it.
"And into this ring, he poured his cruelty, his malice, and his will to dominate all life." I whisper, shaking slightly.
Glitter quickly walks up next to me with worry in his expression. "Weiss, what are you talking about?" he implores.
I snarl, and rear up, stomping the glass eye into pieces with both hooves, before taking a step back. "Do you see it now?!" I shout. "These are how he was doing it. How he was preempting the escape attempts!" I say, unable to control my volume.
Glitter grabs my head and pulls me to look at him instead of the scum on the floor beneath me. "Calm down." He commands, and I release a shuddering breath, noticing my black flame recede from the base of my horn back to the tip. The lights in the room all turn on at once, and we wheel about to see a large mare with a head-full of curlers staring us down with a blank expression.
"This place is closed, boys." She says, cracking her neck.
Glitter rapidly takes point and starts the process of convincing the hulking mare to not make pretzels of us. "Drop Kick, it's me, we need your help tracking down Whittle's friends."
The mare immediately begins beaming when she recognizes him, galloping over and pulling him into a hydraulic-press hug. "Glitterface! You old workhorse, how the hay are you!?" she squeals.
"I'm not sure he can respond like that, M'am." I say as evenly as I can, still boiling inside from what I had learned not moments ago.
"Well whaddya mean he... Oh." She drops him with a blush, patting the coughing stallion on the back as he tries to recover from a powdered spine.
"Drop Kick, we've found a way to get past the guards. Him." Glitter points at me, after regaining his senses.
"What, this scruffy little candelabra?" she says skeptically, getting closer than makes me feel comfortable as I take a step back, out of her hugging range.
"The guards can't see him when he's lit up like that. They can't see anypony following him either. We're going to get as many ponies as we can, supplies, and walk right out of here. We've got a camp they can hole up at." He explains, to her growing delight.
"Oh finally! I should stay here though, keep up morale. Ponies have been needing the Cabaret a lot more lately, yaknow?"
I shake my head. "Not an option." They both look confused at this, so I explain further. "Unless you can guarantee that Sombra can't read minds, you already know too much. None of this will make even a bit of difference if he figures out our plans or our methods."
She looks heartbroken at that, but after a long moment, relents. "Fine. But you better work quick getting everypony out. Ponies will notice that I'm gone, and it's going to hurt when they don't know where. Sombra didn't come after me because he figured once the booze is gone, ponies will get mad enough to fight, even if they can't win."
"We'll only be doing this as slowly as we absolutely have to." I say carefully.
She doesn't look happy with my answer. "Let's just go. I know where Vittle's place is, she's got the most foals, so she'll take priority."
A bright blue stallion with a ponytail for a hairdo and a gem-encrusted fountain pen for a cutie mark shakes and shivers. This pony's name is "Writes Well", and he doesn't have a good answer for his master.
"Two." A sonorous and smooth tone states conversationally.
"Two seeing-eyes in as many days, broken entirely. On those same days, my precious future-slaves begin to disappear. None of my guards say anypony suspicious had been there, and none of my wards informed me of somepony breaking in. I want you to explain it to me, Writes Well. I'm asking you very politely, and calmly, to tell me where my slaves are." He says, walking forward and sitting next to the pony, as though they were old friends.
"I-I'm so sorry, m-master, nopony will t-t-tell me anything, I swear it, they haven't responded to the bribes, the threats, nothing!" He says, trying to keep from breaking down entirely.
"Tsk tsk tsk... You know, I don't blame you, Writes Well. I know my gift to you wasn't good enough. Just letting you keep your mind, in return for your loyalty. Letting you stay out of the mines in return for your service." He explains.
"Why, if somepony offered that to me, I'd be offended! Outraged, even. You don't have to worry about me not understanding that. I really do get it."
Writes shivers even harder at this "Pl-" He tries, before being interrupted.
"Shhhhhh... It's alright. You don't have to worry about betraying your fellow pony anymore. I shouldn't have put that burden on you."
They stand, and walk around to look Writes in the eyes. "That's why I'm going to be giving you a new job. It's simpler, it's not in the mine, and best of all, you'll get to work alongside ponies who understand what it's like to be in your shoes. It'll be wonderful for you, I'm certain, to get back to working alongside your peers, instead of against them."
Writes is confused, confused enough to stop his shaking.
"All you need to do is be afraid for me."
"Like those ponies in the ritual room."
Writes at this point is inconsolable as he realizes what's about to happen, backing up with tears in his eyes. "Please King Sombra, P-p-"
Sombra, who had been following him as he backed up, simply smiles, and with a touch of his horn, Writes Well's entire world became terror.
Looking at the thrashing, screaming pony on the ground with apathy, Sombra simply lifts them up in his telekinetic aura, and slides him into a hole in the floor where, directly below his throne room, circles upon circles of black crystal and white chalk draw the fear from similarly flailing ponies held safely in the air by magic, and funnel it directly into himself.
"Good night, Writes Well." Sombra says, the hole sealing off with crystals wrought from his cruelty, malice, and will to dominate life.
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ooo is that ritual room apart to how Sombra pulled off that spiteful vanishing curse? it interesting cause it means many things like maybe he got a death curse for if he dies or if he loses a big old buck you to the hero's, rebels and Sombra gets another chance it really ups the antics if it turns out Sombra can trigger it early if he thinks the empire needs some isolation.
Weiss is the little fish in the Sombra shark waters kind of thing out of his weight class but snarky colt gonna try his best out of spite!
do you think Weiss uses and lures the powerful hot-blooded alicorn sisters for some of the overpowered enemies and problem needing fixing or smiting?
I get the feeling Sombra and Weiss shall be archnemeses the more Weiss learn of Sombra work and actions I can see it getting dark
Oh my goodness.
Who is "Whisper" ?
Fear causing him to second-guess himself rather than shoving it off of a metaphorical cliff and throw caution to the wind? *Sigh* Am I, as a proud warrior, a dead breed or something? Being a warrior isn't barbaric, it's necessary to be the best as humanly possible.
10781406
Okay there, Mr 'Proud Warrior'.
I don't feel like i need to speak on how absolutely fucking insufferable you sound.
Really? Was that not your first? Because I have a hard time believing that you don’t know any others.
Or is it that all the other child appropriate songs contain elements that might raise questions? Like how a lot of Christmas songs mention Christmas or Christ.
10781406
Without fear, you will die. Have you truly never wanted to do something that you knew you couldn't? If not, then you're lying, either to us or yourself.
Excessive fear is a problem, but so is a lack of fear. It holds you back, but it can also save your life.
11172769
The strongest soldiers pick their fights well, and you picked a great one keep up the good work.
Good one!