The Life of Penumbra Heartbreak

by Unwhole Hole

Chapter 29: The Prop

The next day was completely and utterly ordinary. It was nearly an exact copy of every other day Penumbra had ever known, with every element of her life specifically planned and determined to such a level of detail that even the substitutions felt mundane and seamless.

She woke up and was dressed by ponies whose names she barely knew, her long black hair tied back behind an iron tiara as she stared into an expensive mirror and watched a thing, violet-eyed thing stared back at her. Afterward, there was no breakfast, as Penumbra did not eat.

The first part of the day was spent in the library. It was empty and quiet. Even Eternity refused to talk, only occasionally muttering about whether or not spheres were truly as round as they pretended to be. No one else was there, save for Thirteen, who was rapidly reading through several of Gxurab’s works. Penumbra did not know what they said; his language was that of his native race, so she could not read it herself. The books had pictures, though. Ones she found exceedingly disturbing.

There was no chance for conversation. One, because it was a library, but also because Thirteen never talked. Nor did she have a room in the castle, and nor did she ever remove her armor. Penumbra found herself absently wondering if she was the female version of whatever Gxurab was.

Penumbra would have trained after the library, but Scarlet Mist was busy, hard at work completing the last of her tasks. Penumbra was not even permitted to go to her; she was simply told that there was a new version of the thrall mask that needed her fullest attention.

In the late afternoon, it was time for tea. Penumbra’s tea meeting went off without the slightest error. Emeth and Buttonhooks were both in attendance, the latter bringing a gift of small red peppers that he continually munched on but that the former categorically forbade Penumbra from even touching. Otherwise, Buttonhooks was a remarkably amenable fellow, though not nearly as engaging as Emeth, who himself was uncharacteristically quiet. Gxurab’s seat remained empty.

And soon, the day came to an end. The servants undressed Penumbra, and Crozea arrived to give her her medicine. It had previously always been the light of Penumbra’s day, to have Crozea visit her, no matter how busy she was. And she had grown very busy as of recent. Something was wrong, but Penumbra only distantly sensed it.

Penumbra sat on her bed and Crozea prepared the final mixture of the growth-accelerant potion that kept Penumbra alive. She had removed her mask, something that had become normal for her. Because when her face was visible, she seemed like a real person. A pony, or in her case a zebra; perhaps it was the only time she ever could, as she wore the mask constantly otherwise.

“Someday I like to think that you will no longer need this drink.” Crozea gave Penumbra her potion, and Penumbra drank it. As always, it did not taste like tea, which was the only other thing she had ever eaten. She felt the familiar burning throughout her body as the potion went to work. Though her growth rate had slowed, she was not quite an adult pony yet. That would take another three weeks at least.

“Crozea,” she said, putting down the vial. “Can I ask you something?”

Crozea paused, looking somewhat surprised. “I am not sure I have the advice you seek, but I am more than willing to hear you speak.”

“What am I?”

Crozea paused, and sat down on the floor across from Penumbra. “I know not why you ask something so existential, but to me, you are a pony with limitless potential.”

“I don’t mean it in an ‘existential’ sense, and I don’t care about potential. I mean now. Crozea...I don’t know what I am, here and now. To you. To the king. To the kingdom.”

Crozea grew serious. “This question is indeed strange. Why should there have been any change?

“I just...” Penumbra gathered her thoughts, trying to produce a statement of her emotions that made sense. It was incredibly difficult. “Am I a machine, a weapon like Emeth says? Or am I just a symbol? Am I supposed to rule, or command, or just follow orders? I don’t understand any of it!”

Crozea tapped her chin with her hoof. “Such explains why as of late you’ve been so glum. This question is indeed quite a conundrum. You are a princess, young and refined, but as of now your role remains undefined.”

“It’s just...everypony says I’m one of the Dark Thirteen now.”

“From the truth, they’re not far. For all intents and purposes, you are.”

“But nothing’s different!” Penumbra suddenly stood up, pacing the room. She had suddenly become highly energetic; she was not sure if it was her emotions, or simply the effect of the potion dose she had just taken. “I’m still doing the same thing I always have been! I have magic now- -”

“Magic alone does not define the role. Nor, my dear, is your magic something you yet can control.”

“But shouldn’t there be more too it? Than just sitting around here, having my hair brushed and getting put in the same suit of armor every day? I’m supposed to have duties, responsibilities, things only I can do. Things that serve the king, and the kingdom. To make it better, like you do.”

Crozea smiled. “Those are things you already do. Noting has changed, and nothing is new.”

“But those are just SYMBOLS! My image, the IDEA of Penumbra Heartbreak...but not ME. Not something I did. Just things ponies use me for...”

“If you desire to have a use, then what role, mishaps, would you choose?”

Penumbra had given that a great deal of thought. “I want to go on missions. Like Zither, or Thirteen, or the Infiltrator. To see the world like Emeth did, and to bring freedom to all the ponies in it! Zebras too!”

Crozea frowned deeply, but her voice remained measured. “Most of our role is strictly academic, remaining behind for mathematics, spell development, and studies alchemist. Though a few among us serve on the outside, the majority remain here, at the king’s side. A dangerous lifestyle is not something wise to flaunt; is such a life truly what you want?”

“Yes!” Penumbra sat back down on her bed. “I don’t have the kind of skills that you or Emeth or Gxurab do, I can’t help if I stay here.”

“Your role is one of progressions; you can help most by staying here and finishing your lessons.”

“And how long did it take you to become an alchemist, or learn to talk to spirits?”

Crozea became evasive. “It took many a moon, but you learn quickly, and will be powerful soon.”

“I’m powerful now! Or can be, if somepony will let me!” Penumbra sighed in frustration and flopped back on her bed. “You just don’t understand.”

“The world out there is a dangerous place,” sighed Crozea. “And there are many dangers I hope you never need to face. Why would you want to leave this, when you do not know how the world truly is?” She lowered her eyes. “I cannot protect you from your dire fate. But there is no need to swim in a world of poverty and hate. Your course is in no need of correction; you must stay here, in the castle, where you can remain under its protection.”

Penumbra lifted her head. “So all I can ever be is what I am now? Then I don’t have any potential at all, do I?”

Crozea stood up. “You may not understand me, but this is the way it ought to be.” She moved toward the door, but paused. “Oh,” she said. “The steward informed me of your role in the diplomatic meeting. I thought that this might mean you are deserving of some treating.” She reached into her supplies and removed a small vial of a bright pink fluid. “This is a juice of several rare fruit, made so as not to interfere with the growth potion.” She set it on a small and otherwise empty end-table. “As a reward for doing your duty and controlling excessive emotion. You can have a sip as you wish, or on the morning; I will be here to meet you then, assigned to supervise your learning. So you really ought to prepare your head; lay down in those sheets and get to bed.”

Penumbra rolled over on the bed, facing the wall. “Yes, Lady Crozea. I understand.”

Crozea smiled, and closed the door as she left. Penumbra lay in her bed in the dark and the silence- -waiting.

Time passed. About an hour or so. Penumbra knew the routine well: that was about the amount of time for the breathing of her nurses and maids to slow. They were kept nearby, held in small rooms to be ready to prepare her as soon as necessary. In this case, Penumbra preferred that they stay asleep. In fact, it was critical.

She then promptly rolled out of bed and considered to silently roll all the way through the door and into the main room outside. When she reached it, she stopped rolling in the middle.

“Okay,” she said, taking a breath. “I can do this.”

She stood. The effect was immediate but barely perceptible: a flash dim flash of light that traced through a complicated but invisible symbol on the floor, as well as a strange tingling in her horn. In an instant- -and with disturbing silence- -Thirteen flashed into the room.

Penumbra held her hoof to her mouth to signal Thirteen to be silent- -a gesture that she immediately realized was ridiculous. Thirteen was always silent anyway.

“I’m just getting up to go for a walk. If you could just look the other way...” She produced a book and held it out to Thirteen. The title read “An Illustrated Guide to Rare and Ancient Crystal Empire Box Kites”. Stolen from the library, of course.

Thirteen stared at the book, and then slowly took it in her magic. She stared at Penumbra for a moment more, then flashed out of the room and back to wherever she had come from.

Penumbra let out a long sigh, but immediately and painfully stifled it when she heard one of her nurses shift in her sleep. For a moment, Penumbra was sure she would be caught- -but then the weeping started, and relief washed over her. That particular nurse always wept in her sleep, because she was the only one of her siblings who had not been sent to Al’Hrabnaz when they were children.

With Thirteen out of the way, Penumbra quickly moved to her mirror. It was dark, but with some effort she was able to light the tip of her horn bright enough that she was able to see herself clearly.

She was wearing no makeup, and without it she looked small and sickly. Her eyes were no longer as empty as they once had been, though, and they seemed to stare back at her with an inner light almost as strong as that in her horn.

“I am not a prop,” she said to herself as she summoned a cutting spell.

For a spell she had never done before- -or even known had existed until earlier that day- -Penumbra proved proficient with its use. Her mane had formerly been so long as to nearly reach her waist; when she was done, it was only a few inches at its longest and spiked forward. She had shaved the sides of her head, although the effect was different from what she had expected. It had been so long that she had forgotten that her mane and tail were not actually black; it had been some time since she had last been dyed, and the roots were still violet, pink, and a sort of yellowish-white. The effect of having colored fuzz was striking, though, and Penumbra decided she liked it.

She was also sure to cut off her tail almost to the dock.

This resulted in a substantial pile of sweet-scented black hair. While Penumbra re-applied her dark eye-makeup, she hid the hair in a container that probably served some function or another. She would figure out what to do with it later.

When she was done, she quickly moved to her closet and grabbed the armor that Emeth had made for her as well as a cloak. She put both on with only slight difficulty; after all, she rarely dressed herself.

After dressing, Penumbra returned to her room. She paused only a moment next to Crozea’s vial of juice; she leaned over and sniffed it. The scent nearly caused her to gag.

“UGH!” she gasped. “That is NOT like tea at ALL!”

She passed it by and tried to clear her nose. It reeked badly; to her, it smelled like poison. She had no idea how ponies could drink things like that.

When she reached the center of the room, Penumbra produced a small strip of paper. It had been hidden in her mane, a small piece of notes jotted down while she was in the library.

“Right. Eastern corner.” She walked toward where she thought east was, and stopped, looking down. She lit her horn and held it close to the floor, moving slowly across the surface and looking carefully. That was when she saw it- -a seem.

Penumbra smiled and grasped the crystal tile with her magic. She pulled it out of the ground and set it aside with extreme care. The resulting hole showed a number of complex channels. According to what little was documented about it, this had once been part of the supply for a now disused baseboard heater beneath the crystal.

What purpose beyond making the floor warm it had served, Penumbra did not know; she saw, however, that it led to several vents directly beneath the floor. Vents that somepony had once used to try to assassinate her.

They were too small for a pony to fit through. At least a normal pony. Penumbra was substantially thinner and more flexible than most, as was the armor that Emeth had built her. Her force-grown skeleton was uniquely cartilaginous, and Scarlet Mist’s acrobatic combat training had improved her flexibility. After some stretching, she found that she could force her head into one of the vents. With somewhat more effort, she was able to pull the remainder of her body into the vent and force herself through. As she did, she closed off the tile behind her, leaving no evidence that she had left.

Sombra had not built the Citadel. He had simply found it, a beacon of strange energy and warmth in the otherwise uninhabitable southernmost reaches of Hyperborea. Nopony knew who had constructed it, or what its purpose had been- -and as such, few if any knew the complete internal schematic.

There was not much time. There was a period at night where Eternity’s attention waned; with less ponies awake, she was able to increase her focus on finding Twilight Luciferian- -or looking into the bedrooms and larders of various ponies throughout the land to find who was doing the most aggressive cuddling or eating.

At only seventeen places did Penumbra nearly get stuck and trapped. Then the vent widened out, and Penumbra turned a corner- -to find herself facing a crystal pony.

The crystal pony stared back at her, then cried out in horror. “NO! You won’t take me back! Not now, NOT EVER!”

He then proceeded to scramble with unnatural speed through the ventilation duct, making a tremendous amount of noise and screaming all the way through. This was normal in the castle, as Penumbra heard several ponies swearing loudly and throwing heavy things against what part of the vent they could reach. One even shoved a spear through, nearly hitting Penumbra but missing her by the width of her nearly nonexistant tail.

The noise was the cover she needed, and she crawled quickly in pursuit of the vent-pony, using his noise to cover her own. She checked her map as she went. It was as detailed as she could have made it, but it was sorely incomplete. A significant amount of time and energy had been devoted to understanding how the magical circuits of the Citadel directed power from the Heart of Darkness, but nopony had ever bothered to map the air-handling system.

She knew where she was going, at least in a rough sense. There were vents that led outside, but those were not where Penumbra was headed. That would only get her to the courtyard, which was continually patrolled by both thralls and golems to prevent infiltration from Celestia or Nightmare Moon’s armies of tyranny.

There was no way to get out that way. Instead, Penumbra had calculated that her best chance was through Emeth’s utility tunnels. They were extensive and vast, feeding golems throughout the city as they were needed. Penumbra also knew golems, and that save for Emeth- -and potentially his children- -they were single-minded. Golems tasked with auto-distribution would not interfere with her. Probably.

Eventually the vents suddenly became wide, replaced with water canals and areas for rusted, corroding conduits that were no longer in service. It was in this place that Penumbra heard something.

She immediately backed against one of the walls into a small alcove, deactivating her horn-light in the process. The area was still filled with light, though dim, from the thick molds that grew on the walls. Something was splashing through the water.

Penumbra watched from her crevice as a pony came into view. She almost leapt out and grabbed him, thinking that she could finally catch the annoyance that kept moving through the vents at night. She barely stopped in time, though, when she saw that it was not a crystal pony at all.

Or, at least, not anymore. Maybe it once had been, but now its body was gaunt and deformed. It wore the dirty remnants of clothing, and Penumbra saw that it wore a mask. The mask had eyes like those of the thralls, but was much simpler, a previous design perhaps. The front of it contains a long black hose that extended out like a nose.

It might have been comical, had Penumbra not observed that the pony had pushed up the mask, exposing her mouth. It was wide and filled with numerous long, visible teeth.

The creature stopped, sniffing the air. It turned its head toward her hiding place and she ducked into the shadows. It made a sound as it moved closer, like desperate weeping. As it drew near, Penumbra began to plan her attack, though she was afraid. She had been trained to deal with ponies, not whatever this was. If it truly was a thrall, it was simply a matter of removing the mask- -but she did not want to see what the face beneath looked like.

Then it stopped suddenly as something even larger sloshed through the water. Penumbra looked just in time to see a massive, leprous tentacle pulling the creature quietly beneath the surface.

Penumbra stared out as the water stabilized. This was more dangerous than she had expected- -and already more exciting than she had planned. The day was indeed improving.

Penumbra emerged onto the streets with a pack of golems, and immediately separated from them, moving quickly to the shadows. One of them waved as she went.

It was the first time she had ever been in the city itself, and it was dizzying. Penumbra had seen the buildings from the deck of an artillery frigate during the military parade, but had never once- -nor expected to ever- -walk among them. They seemed so much taller from below, their enormous reflective facets stretching upward from the icy ground toward an endless sky. It made Penumbra extremely dizzy.

She had not gone far. The night was relatively clear, and the Citadel was still visible in the distance. No doubt she was still in the capital district; it would have taken her days to reach the outer portions of the Empire by walking alone, if there were even tunnels that went that far.

This was excellent. She could easily return before sunrise, assuming that whatever was in the tunnels did succeed in eating her. Since it was still barely six- -and completely dark- -that meant she had plenty of time to explore.

The hard part was not getting caught, and that was the part Penumbra was still concerned with. Even with a cloak that could hide her wings and horn, but it was still extremely obvious that she was not a crystal pony. She supposed all she needed to do was look as nondescript and normal as possible- -but she had no idea what a normal, nondescript pony looked like. She had never seen one.

She supposed the closest she knew was the way the maids walked, which was with their heads down so they would not accidentally meet the eye of their betters. Penumbra tried that, although she quickly found it was difficult to focus on the ground when there was so much city around her.

It was all far more sterile than she had expected. Everything was even, orderly, clean, dimly lit and quiet. Penumbra had expected peasants to be wandering around doing peasant things, but there was hardly anypony present. Just buildings made of crystal lit by dim greenish lights. If anything, it felt like just another extension of the castle. Just another room, but with a much higher ceiling.

The ponies, it seemed, were asleep. The lights in their buildings were out, save for the occasional flickery glow of an inferior-quality illumination crystal. It was remarkably quiet, which allowed Penumbra to move unhindered through the emptiness.

When she finally came to a place where there were ponies, she paused, wondering why there were so many in one place. At the same time, she moved closer, careful not to be spotted but driven by curiosity.

One of the ponies in the group cried out.

“Please stop!” The voice was that of a young colt, followed by a sudden stifled cry as he was punched in the gut.

“Shut it! Isn’t there supposed to be a curfew? You better get back to the dirty shack you live in or you’ll be up there too!”

“Yeah! If she didn’t want to be up there, she shouldn’t have defied the king!”

“It’s our DUTY as CITIZENS to punish dissidents!”

Another stifled cry as the colt was struck again. Penumbra loomed closer.

She found herself standing at the base of a crystalline tree. Below it were three non-crystal youths, two of them unicorns and one an exceedingly bulky Pegasus. The colt was a much smaller crystal pony, and he was not the only one. Others had gathered, peeking from the doors and windows of their houses, but not daring to approach.

It was what was hanging from the tree that drew Penumbra’s attention the most. It was a pony, hung there by her foot. She was bruised and slowly swinging.

“Stop hitting him,” she said. “Please, I beg you- -”

“Quiet, dissident!” One of the unicorn children hit her squarely in the face with a heavy stick. The dangling crystal pony only whimpered in response, and began to rotate. “If he’s going to interfere, we might as well string him up ourselves!”

“YEAH!” said the other unicorn, hitting the hanging mare repeatedly as she tried to shield herself. “Not let out your candy or SHUT YOUR MOUTH!”

“She doesn’t have any candy!” cried the colt, who was now beginning to tear up. “Please, just leave her alone!”

“Why are you beating this pony?”

All eyes turned suddenly toward Penumbra, and the overdeveloped Pegasus actually jumped. She had, as always, approached in complete silence. This had apparently surprised them.

“Because she’s a dissident!” said one of the unicorns, eyeing Penumbra closely. His expression softened- -but only by the slightest degree- -when he saw that she had a horn. “She defied the king’s orders. So she gets the pinata treatment!”

“It’s called ‘modum pinata’,” corrected the other unicorn. “You idiot.” He looked to Penumbra and grinned. He was thin and greasy, and probably similar to Penumbra’s apparent age. He approached her, trying to stand as tall as possible. “This was her punishment, as defined by my father, the subdistrict command officer. He’s a very important pony, you see.” He tried to peek under Penumbra’s hood, but she turned her head. “I don’t remember seeing you around here. Are you new to the district?”

“Can’t keep his horn in his hat,” muttered the Pegasus. Penumbra realized that she was probably female.

“What was her crime?”

The unicorn frowned. “Awfully interested in it, aren’t you?”

“I have never seen it before. Was she conspiring with the enemy, or plotting to overthrow the kingdom? Perhaps she is a heretic?”

The smaller unicorn laughed. “You really ARE new to the district!”

“Nothing like that happens here,” said the larger of the two. “The fear is stronger here. Keeps the worthless slaves in line. No.” He smacked the hanging mare in the flank, hard, causing her to squeal. “This one is a THIEF.”

“It’s not true!” cried the colt, who was promptly thrown on the ground.

“Toad, get the rope,” said the larger unicorn. “He’s interrupting his betters now.”

“Is the accusation untrue?”

The colt looked up. “Well...yes. But she had to do it! We- -we only get one potato every two days, but my little sister is sick! She’s just four, she can’t work if she doesn’t get better soon! My mom had to steal the extra potato! She just HAD to!”

“I have no idea what a potato is,” said Penumbra. “I am assuming it is valuable.”

“Not really.” The larger unicorn shrugged. “I had six for dinner. Berta had over twenty.”

“I did NOT!” cried the large Pegasus.

“But the rations are set by the KING. Slaves get one potato every two days, per family. That’s the king’s rule! Defying Sombra is the same as trying to overthrow the government!”

“King Sombra to you,” snapped Penumbra, causing the unicorn to recoil slightly. She looked up at him from beneath her hood- -or rather down; she was unusually tall- -and he became even more nervous when he saw the large amount of dark eye-makeup she wore.

“Yes. Of course. Hail the Witchking.”

“Hail the Witchking,” said the other unicorn and the Pegaus.

“Hail the Witchking,” said the colt, and the phrase passed as a murmur through the watching crystal ponies, who now were apparently listening as well as observing.

The unicorn held out his stick to Penumbra. “Do you want to take a wack at her? Berta was trying to knock her unconscious before, but she couldn’t manage it. Maybe you can? I mean, she is a Pegasus. Lesser race and all.”

“I have ears,” muttered Berta.

“Please,” whimpered the colt, looking up at Penumbra with watering and enormous eyes. “Don’t beat my mother, Lady unicorn. Please just let her be!”

Penumbra looked at the colt, and then at the stick. She pushed it away. This seemed to anger the unicorn holding it.

“What? Are you SOFT? You’re just going to let one of THEM defy the king?”

“I am not very soft. The force-growing process makes me bony. That said, I don’t like this.”

The three non-crystal ponies began to crowd Penumbra. “So you’re sympathizing with the shinies? You’re in dangerous water, filly. I’m the subdistrict commander’s son. Anything I do to you, I can get away with.”

Penumbra did not know if that was a joke or not, but took it seriously. As a pony of importance, he had likely experienced similar training to what she had endured. Though looking at the width of his legs, she wondered if that really was the case.

“Are you an academic?”

“Wh- -what?”

“I should not need to define it. Either way, it’s simple logic.” Penumbra pointed at the crystal mare. “You have one of our slaves tied to a tree. She can’t work from there, unless she wants to pick fruit. And her daughter is also unable to work until she heals. You are impeding the flow of progress and creating a detriment to the kingdom.”

“You’re just justifying. You don’t have the stomach for this, do you?” The unicorn shoved Penumbra, but seemed surprised when she did not move. He was amazingly weak.

“And if I AM?” Penumbra stepped forward, her composure deteriorating rapidly. This was her first- -and possibly only- -knight in the city, and she was wasting. “Perhaps I don’t like to see ponies getting hurt, even if they are slaves? Or maybe I don’t like to see a pony getting punished for HELPING somepony else? Why am I even bothering- -her sentence is commuted!”

She summoned a cutting spell and sliced the mare down, taking part of her tail along with the cord. The mare cried out and fell to the ground with a thud. The crystal ponies around gasped in surprise and terror.

The larger unicorn stared wide-eyed and in shock. Then he turned to Penumbra grinning.

“Oh, you have no idea what you’ve just done.”

“My aim was a bit off, I suppose. Still learning. I’ve only been able to use magic for a few days.”

The unicorns and the Pegasus brandished their sticks. “We’re going to have to make a citizen’s arrest, now. And once my father gets done with you- -pardoning one of HIS prisoners? How dare you- -”

“It was within my authority.”

“What- -WHAT?” this seemed to enrage the unicorn. “You’re going to say that to MY face? To the subdistrict comander’s SON?!”

“This pony is pardoned. Get out of my way, mortal.”

“That’s it,” said Berta. “This is boring! Time for a WHACK!”

She moved more slowly than Penumbra had even thought possible. Before she could even raise her stick, Penumbra had already reacted on instinct alone, performing an elegant upward flip and ramming one of her armored rear hooves directly into the Pegasus’s chin. She was hit so hard that she was knocked several yards backward, landing on the young crystal-colt. The blow had rendered her completely unconscious.

The smaller of the unicorns took a step back. “What- -what did she just do?! Berta, NO!”

“Shut it! SHUT IT! She’s just some pony, I’m the subdistrict commander’s- -”

“This pony is PARDONED,” said Penumbra, slowly.

“But you can’t- -”

Penumbra had become completely fed up with this whole pointless ordeal. She tore her cloak off and struck an angry-alicorn pose.

“This pony is pardoned because your princess DEMANDS IT!”

The street was immediately filled with screams of abject terror.

“MONSTER!” cried one of the crystal ponies.

“Run! RUN!” screamed another, tripping over his own children as he tried to flee.

“Get away, beast! GET AWAY!”

They were running, terrified, and Penumbra turned to see them- -and as she did, she was hit in the side of the face with a brick.

The force was substantial, and she took a step to one side. Then she slowly turned back to see the unicorn youth staring at her, hid whole body shaking. The brick was still suspended in his magic.

Penumbra reached up and clicked her jaw back into place, then spit several teeth. “You just hit me.”

“Sweet Epona, Del, you just hit the PRINCESS! The king’s DAUGHTER!” The smaller unicorn grabbed his friend. “We’re gonna be turned into thralls! THRALLS!”

“But- -but I’m the subdistrict commander’s- -”

“You idiot, he’s going to disown you for sure, just like your brothers! Now RUN, before it EATS US!”

The smaller unicorn pulled the larger along, and in a moment they were running and screaming just like the crystal ponies. The only ones that remained were the unconscious Pegasus, the colt, and the formerly dangling mare.

The mare, though woozy and dehydrated, looked up at Penumbra. Her eyes widened.

“NO!” she screamed, retreating until she struck the trunk of her tree. “Get back! GET BACK! Don’t hurt me, DON’T! I’m just a slave! Please, I have a family, don’t eat me!”

The colt wiggled his way out from beneath Berta and grabbed his mother. She immediately shielded him from Penumbra.

“You won’t take him! YOU WON’T!”

Penumbra only frowned. In the distance, she heard the sound of a group of thralls moving through the street. There were several flashes, and several crystal ponies cried out. Those who had not fled directly into their homes had been caught past curfew, and had been on the receiving end of electric blunt-spears.

The colt helped his mother up, and they fled. Before they vanished into the darkness, though, the colt gave one last look back at Penumbra. He said nothing, but the look in his eyes was not fear.

Penumbra saw the thralls emerging from down one of the streets. She picked up the unconscious Pegasus in her magic and chucked her into the crystal tree where hopefully she would not be found. Then Penumbra herself leapt onto the outer windowsill of a nearby building, then jumped from wall to wall until she was high on the roofs just as the thralls were passing.

The thralls had not seen her, but she had already wasted so much of her time on a pointless pursuit.