Persuasion
The moment Lens left the confines of the inn, he slipped into the nearest alleyway and got to looking. He knew Prim long enough to figure that she had probably done the same, a theory that was proven correct when he found a pair of foal-sized hoofprints heading deeper into the labyrinth of alleys. He followed it with a grim frown, his mind periodically wandering back to Scarlet.
The question of what they were even supposed to do if—no, when—he brought Primrose back still hung over him, breathing down his neck like a hungry beast about to tear into his jugular. Regardless of the gravity of her mistake, Scarlet had not been mistaken in pointing out that they were boxed in. There weren’t any other ways out of the city, not that Lens knew of at least, that wouldn’t be heavily guarded or warded. Edge would be coming for them come sundown at the latest, which left them precious little time to formulate an effective plan and carry it out.
“This whole situation is fucked,” he growled within the privacy of his own thoughts.
He rounded a corner, coming to an intersection in the network of narrow alleyways. To his surprise, he actually found two ponies standing there, talking to one another in hushed voices. A mare and a stallion, both of whom looked a little on the uneasy side.
Lens paused mid-step, a pearl of hesitation making itself known. He didn’t know these ponies, and he had lived in this city long enough when he had studied here to know that, sometimes, there could be very undesirable ponies hidden in the less-explored cracks. Crime, while not abundant, was nevertheless a notable problem, and not one he had the time or patience to tangle with right now.
He took a few soft steps closer, careful to keep quiet as he studied the two. As he drew near, it occurred to him that they didn’t seem malicious or seedy. If anything, they appeared to be little more than a middle-aged married couple. A somewhat confused and perhaps even distressed married couple, but still…
The stallion looked up and caught sight of him a moment later. He frowned skeptically and pointed Lens out to the mare.
“Spotted,” Lens grimace before approaching at a more relaxed pace. “Might as well see if they saw her passing by…”
“Excuse me,” he called out once he was close enough. “Did either of you happen to spot a filly running by here a few minutes ago? Maybe ten years old, earth pony, long purple mane, and teal fur? No cutie mark?”
The mare and stallion both stared at one another with wide eyes, and Lens knew he hit the nail on the head. A few moments later, the stallion stepped forward to speak with him, his brow furrowed with caution. “Maybe we did… what’s it to you?” he asked slowly.
Lens stopped hid advance and slowly adjusted his glasses. “I’m supposed to be helping look after her with somepony, but, uh… well, she got in an argument with her other guardian and ran off. I’ve been trying to find her so we can head back and talk things through,” he explained vaguely.
“Are you from the castle?” The mare questioned curiously.
Lens frowned, an uneasy feeling swelling in his gut. “Er, no… why?”
The stallion glanced briefly back at the mare. “...Because that’s where she is. A Nightblade came by and escorted her off after we bumped into him. Said she was important to some ponies up there.”
Lens’ jaw dropped open. His heart stalled in his chest for a moment while the feeling left his legs. He stood there, stunned, for what felt like an eternity before finally clamping his jaw shut and pulling himself together. “A… a N-nightblade?” he asked. He needed confirmation. If they were telling him the truth…
“Yes. A pegasus. The filly called him Silent.”
Lens’ mind blanked, all sound fading away. He licked his lips before nodding his head. “A-alright… thank you,” he mumbled quietly. Then, without another word, he turned and broke into a sprint back the way he had come. He ignored the exasperated shouting from the mare and stallion he was leaving behind.
Things just got a lot more complicated.
Scarlet’s eyes didn’t leave the window after Lens took his leave. She sat there in total silence for what must have been an age, her body feeling all but numb to every sensation in the still room. All of the energy and enthusiasm had been drained from her body in the wake of Lens’ harsh scolding, and the thoughts left in her mind were numerous and too painful to contemplate. But contemplate them she did, for there was nothing else she could do.
Primrose, Protea… did the name ultimately matter? As her temper cooled, Scarlet thought back on the face of the filly she had come to love so deeply. She thought back on her voice, how she cried when she was scared, and how she laughed when she was happy. The way her eyes had shined when Scarlet had gifted her those new saddlebags, and the way her face lit up in a mischievous manner when she put it together that she and Lens had once been in love.
“Could a monster truly look at me like that?” she thought to herself, her ears lowering in dismay.
Had she been wrong?
The more she thought about it, the more it dawned on her that Lens might very well have been right. There were far too many things about Primrose that cast doubt on the idea that she was at all a threat, the more Scarlet thought on it. Her intelligence, her bravery, her insight… her dedication to her cause.
Scarlet shuddered, and for a moment, she was back in the sopping wet streets of Swanrun. Thunder boomed overhead, and she saw Silent ahead of her, his eyes narrowed, and his lips curled up into an anticipatory smirk.
“You’ve run out of holes to hide in, tricks to pull, and ponies to cower behind. Now, be a good girl, make things easy on yourself, and pass me that lamp.”
“No! You can’t have it! I promised I’d protect it!”
“Ah, well, I never said you had a choice in the matter.”
He flared out his wings and tensed to lunge.
Primrose screamed.
The image shifted, but Primrose’s scream continued to ring in her ears.
Crunch.
Her sword had embedded itself into the wall less than an inch away from Protea’s head. The changeling’s eyes were glued to the sharp edge of the magically manifested sword, her chest rising and falling in heaving, frantic gasps. Sniffling and barely stifling a sob, she slowly, gingerly turned her eyes to look into Scarlet’s.
“...By the Five,” Scarlet choked out, her lip trembling and her body shaking. She lifted a hoof up to cover her mouth, the view of the world outside her window starting to blur and distort. “W-what have I done…?” she choked out.
Before she could act on the realization of what she had allowed herself to become, the door to the room suddenly slammed open. Alarmed, Scarlet spun around to face the new arrival. Her eyes widened when she saw Lens standing there, closing the door behind him in his magic and gasping for breath. He looked like he had just run a marathon, with sweat dripping down his forehead to accompany his breaths.
But something was missing.
“Where is she?” Scarlet asked, stepping forward anxiously.
Lens shook himself before pushing away from the door. “Silent has her… he snatched her up in an alleyway before I could get to them… she’s been taken to the castle.”
For what must have been the third time in the last twenty-four hours, Scarlet’s entire world shattered. Her legs wobbled beneath her, and it took all of her strength to stay on her hooves. She opened her mouth to speak, but all that came out was a strangled, broken whimper.
Finally, after what felt like forever, she forced herself to speak, pushing the words out of her constricting throat with great effort. “...That’s it, then. It’s over…”
“No.”
Scarlet blinked, dumbfounded by Lens’ response. He stared back at her with a resolve in his eyes she hadn’t seen in years. The same resolve that had been in his eyes when they had lowered themselves into the grass by that pond, oh so long ago.
The resolve to see this through to the very end.
“I am not letting it end like this. We have to rescue her,” he went on, stepping forward.
Scarlet blinked and took a step back. “Lens… I… W-we can’t,” she finally stammered out with a slow shake of her head. “We don’t have any way of getting into the castle. We can’t fight our way in, the Dragon Sentinels will rip us apart.”
“Then we sneak in,” Lens countered without hesitation.
“And how do you propose we do that?”
“I… I don’t know, yet,” Lens admitted with a shameful glance to one side. “But we can’t just sit here! We have to do something!”
Scarlet let out a tired sigh before stepping forward. “Listen to me, Lens… No matter how much you want me to find her and make amends for all of this, I will not risk your life to do it. I’ve lost enough… and I know Silent will keep her alive. Please…” she reached out and took his hoof in her own, staring pleadingly into his eyes. “Let’s just run… we can find a way out of this city and put all of this behind us…”
“I’m not leaving her,” Lens argued without hesitation. “And you won’t leave me.”
“No… but I can drag you.”
Lens tore his hoof out of hers. “Are you sure you want to do that, Scarlet?” he asked slowly, his tone making Scarlet go rigid. It was the voice of a stallion filled with nothing but disappointment in the pony in front of him. “Is this truly who you are? A coward who will run the other way with her tail tucked between her legs? One who would drag along the stallion she used to love, leaving behind the one who needs her far more than he does?”
Scarlet’s blood chilled to match her last name. She stood there for several seconds, her ears flat against her head and her eyes wide as saucers. It seemed that with every passing moment, she said or did something that added a whole new layer to her shame.
Lens stepped forward, his expression softening. “I don’t believe that the mare I love could ever be that cowardly or selfish, Scarlet… not you.”
Scarlet mouthed wordlessly for a long while, her brain trying and failing to find some retort, some counter-argument that would salvage her pride and get rid of all of this fives-damned shame. But nothing came… Lens was right. She was being a coward…
She took a deep breath and backed away. “...It’s not possible,” she said weakly. “The castle is too heavily guarded… If we go in there and get caught, we’re dead, both of us.”
“It is possible,” Lens insisted, reaching out to put a hoof on Scarlet’s shoulder. “If we work together, I know we can pull this off. And if not, then, well…” his smile faded, but the determination in his eyes did not waver in the slightest. “Then at least we can go out by failing to do the right thing, rather than succeeding in doing the wrong.”
Scarlet fell silent, her ears drooping.
“Please, Scarlet… I can’t do this without you…”
Scarlet looked down, her expression softening with resignation. Lens clearly wasn’t going to let this matter go. He was committed. She let out a heavy sigh and turned to stare out the window. “...If you’re so sure about this, then what choice do I have?” she finally asked with a huff.
“Then you’ll help me?” Lens pressed hopefully, leaning forward with his eyes shimmering in eager anticipation.
Scarlet sighed but nodded. “If I let you do this all on your own, and you get killed, I will have only my own inaction to blame… I lost my daughter that way already, and I will not lose her father,” she muttered before turning to stare directly into Lens’ eyes. “Yes, Lens… I will help you.”
Lens smiled, giving her shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “Thank you, Scarlet… We can do this.”
Scarlet brushed his hoof away with a snort of combined annoyance and amusement. “Ever the optimist, isn’t he?” She thought before facing him directly. “Maybe we can, but I’m still waiting for you to come up with a working plan. We cannot very well hurl ourselves at the castle swords-swinging, after all. We’ll be torn to shreds before we even get through the front gates.”
“We might be able to teleport inside,” Lens pointed out after a moment. He lifted a hoof to rub at his chin. “See, the castle has another one of those anti-teleport barriers around it, like the city walls themselves. But those wards don’t work whenever the castle gate is open, which it usually is for a certain window during the day.”
Scarlet nodded along slowly. It made sense. One who didn’t spend a lot of time there might not think so, but there was a lot of hoof traffic going in and out of a castle during the day. Between the dozens, if not hundreds, of ponies who conducted their work there, such as servants and maids, as well as ponies seeking to speak with the local lord—or in this case, the Solar Council—it was inadvisable to keep the gate closed.
But there was a drawback, one which she imagined Lens was already aware of. She turned to him with her frown deepening considerably. “I would imagine, then, that the sentries outside the gate are increased during that window to ensure nopony can sneak up on the castle without significant effort.”
“Right, so we’d need to make some kind of distraction for the guards to draw their attention away from us.”
Lens nodded to himself a few times, continuing to rub at his chin. “Hmmm… I might have an idea.”
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Doesn't seem like what Lens said exactly registered to Scarlet. He still loves her. And honestly, she probably still loves him but just can't figure it out.
And boy are they just throwing everything at the wall. Very curious what plan Lens is thinking of.
To quote a sarcastic yet insightful man: "And there it is…"
Looking forward to seeing Scarlet and Lens throw everything at getting Protea out.
Plan A: Throw everything they have at the Sentinels...including the rubber chicken (Yes Pinkie, even the rubber chicken)
Plan B: TBA
(reads description)
Reminds me of Josh Scorcher's thoughts on a game starring Soraka.
Put shortly, she's a healer, so she heals sick/otherwise hurt people she finds along the way; It's what she does. But the more people she helps, the more attention she draws to herself and the easier it is for the one hunting her to track her
Ya think?
Been a while since I read this, came back to it today. Forgot how much I love it....