The Hollow Pony

by Type_Writer

44 - Keep the Home Fires Burning

There were flashes of pain and fire.

My body burned, and my mouth was hot and wet. My legs were numb.

Then the rest of my body went numb, as all went dark.

* * *

Warmth.

Sweltering, uncomfortable warmth.

Something heavy lay across my back, and I couldn’t catch my breath. Just gathering my thoughts was a struggle. Moving, or even opening my eyes, was too much effort to ask of my broken body. I lay still, trapped, and tried to focus my fire until I could feel my limbs once more.

Somepony—a young mare—was shouting nearby. I was becoming worryingly adept at understanding a conversation while only half-conscious. “—so let me ch-check them at least!”

“We already checked! They’re Hollow! All of them!” An older mare. Her voice was exasperated.

“I d-don’t care! Keep p-pointing that rifle at me the entire time if you want, but I’m g-going to make sure!”

A calm monotone voice cut through the conversation. “Let her work. She knows what she’s doing.”

“Ugh, fine, fine! She wants to get pulled into the pile and sucked dry like them, it’s not my problem! Everypony pulled rank on me, go take it up with the Golden Guard! That’s what I’ll tell them!”

Someone approached me, but...it was hard to describe how I knew. I didn’t hear them, or see them—it was more that I could sense their approach. They had fire within them, bright but wavering. They drew close, and I pondered whether I should take it.

I was so hungry. Something within me felt empty, and I wanted to fill it with that fire. A seam had opened within my being, and I needed to seal it, or else the yawning dark within the aperture would swallow me instead.

The weight atop my body shifted, and then something was dragged away from me. Cold air rushed in to fill the gap, and my chest wasn’t being crushed as badly. My throat let out a quiet rasping noise as I tried to breathe, and my hooves trembled as I tried to make them work.

“Holly!” Warm, living hooves wrapped themselves around my head, and the bones of my neck ground together as the young mare pressed her breast against my forehead.

I recognized that voice. Only barely. But that was enough that I stifled that hunger, and forced it down. I couldn’t let it win.

Scattered memories flooded back, of who and where I was, and my eyes fluttered open as a shaky forehoof pressed against her side. “D-Dinky?”

“Movement!” There was the distinct sound of a gun being cocked, and then a clack of claws on steel.

Another voice spoke—I recognized Gilda, even though her voice was low, dangerous, and yet still as confident as ever. “Keep that gun lowered, dunce cap. We’ve got this.”

I smelled smoke—ash and cooked flesh. I felt hunger again, almost different but not quite, and revulsion followed only a step behind. “Where—?”

“Hang on, let me g-get you out of this pile. Hey, you! Y-yeah, you! Help me pull this st-stallion off her, he’s heavy. Ch-check that he’s not Hollow again, b-by the way—in fact, check all of them, b-before you burn even a single more sun-damned c-corpse!”

More weight lifted off my back, as the world came into focus. There was fire off to my left—bright, too bright to look at directly. Muddy ground under Dinky’s hooves, and my own a moment later as she pulled me out of the pile. But I was weak, and they couldn’t support my weight—they collapsed almost instantly, and I fell face-first into the mud.

It was disgusting, and something was wrong with it. The wet dirt had mixed with Hollow ichor, creating a dark rusty color. A top layer of white ash had settled atop that, forming a crust that I broke through as I fell, revealing the rusty mud kept wet underneath. It only lasted for a moment, before Dinky hauled me back to my hooves, but she was clearly struggling under my dead weight.

“Wha—M-Maud, help me hold her up. W-why can’t she walk?”

Another fire, even brighter than Dinky’s, punched heavy holes through the ashen crust and knocked piles of dust aside as she strode forward. Maud came into focus, still wearing her armor, but her helmet was casually slung at her side. She ducked her head under my barrel, and the rough stone surface of her back pressed up from below, as Maud bore my weight. “She may have been crushed under the weight of the others. Or she may have other injuries. I’m surprised she’s awake.”

That older mare spoke again, from a few body lengths away. She was far enough that she was out of focus, but I could see the brown blur of a unicorn, and patches of fuchsia that were probably her coat color. “That one? She was already moving when we pulled the wagon over, but she was snarling and biting at the Irregulars. How…?” Her voice trembled. “She...she was Hollow. I know she was! Davenport had to get a pony to put stitches in, because she bit him so bad!”

“What? You’re sure it was her?” Dinky asked, unbelieving. She looked back at me, and my ears flattened back against my head.

The flashes returned; nothing more than fragments of memory. I swallowed, and realized my mouth was full of Hollow ichor. Was it mine, or somepony else’s?

“I’m positive!” The mare yelped, scared and confused. “Look, right there, above her eye! I stabbed her right there with my bayonet!”

The mare was right. But she couldn’t be right, because that meant I’d gone Hollow. I’d gone Hollow, and yet now I had my mind. That wasn’t possible.

“Sh-she’s not!” Dinky was adamant, but she sounded scared. She moved back in front of my eyes, and her hoof moved the colorless strands of my mane aside so she could look at the scar, and directly into the embers of my eyes. “Holly, t-talk to me. St-start with Trixie. Where is she? The m-militia didn’t see her, or s-so they said.”

Trixie. My blood boiled at the name, and I couldn’t keep myself from letting out a snarl, which made Dinky step back in shock. But that hatred gave me breath. “Trrrrixie. Yesss.” Cold air escaped my snout, and I tasted hot ash on the wind as fresh air replaced it. “L-left me. S-second wave came, more sk-skeletons. No w-weapon. Trrrixie...called me b-back to the b-barricade, said we sh-should throw fire at them f-from a distance.”

Dinky stepped forward again, eager for me to continue.

“She w-was already gone. L-left me with an illusion, to m-make me think she hadn’t l-left me to die. Th-think I bumped past her as she l-left...she has s-some sort of...cloaking m-magic.”

Maud let out a long, frustrated exhale under me, and through her stone armor, it was like a mountain shifting in anger as tectonic plates ground together. “Gilda. Carry Holly.”

The gryphon hen entered my field of view, and I was limply shuffled off of Maud’s back and onto Gilda’s. As she took my weight, Gilda asked, “Okay? Where are you going?”

“After Trixie. I know where she went. We’ll meet you in Canterlot.” For once, Maud’s voice wasn’t monotone, and that was terrifying in its own way. There was just a slight tone of anger in her voice, but as far as she was concerned, that may as well have been a scream of frustration. For a moment, I wondered if Trixie would actually make it there, or if Maud wanted to take revenge on our behalf.

Dinky blinked, and raised her hoof as if to step in Maud’s way, but decided against it. “B-by yourself?”

Maud was already walking back through the ashen mud. “Yes. Holly, Gilda, go see Rockhoof. You need new equipment for the journey to Canterlot.” She passed by a pair of soldiers who had been watching us nervously, and they stepped out of her way—not that they could have stopped her, even if they wanted to do so. Maud disappeared into the smoking ruins of the town around us, and that was the last I saw of her for a very long time.

That left me on Gilda’s back, with Dinky standing beside us. She swallowed, then looked up at Gilda. “Um. W-we should get away from the fires, this sm-smoke isn’t healthy.”

“What, not a fan of the smell? ‘Cause it’s making me hungry.” Gilda cackled while Dinky looked sick, but they both started to walk away from the intense heat nearby.

As they did, I shifted slightly to look around, and immediately wished I hadn’t. All of this had been happening in a cleared space near the wall, where buildings had been smashed down to the foundations by an attack long ago. The rubble had been cleared so great funeral pyres could be lit, and in between those were piles of bones...and bodies. So many bodies.

At least fifty Hollow ponies had been haphazardly thrown into piles, waiting to be tossed into the fire. I had been in one of those piles, until Dinky had pulled me out. I would’ve been burned like they still would be, unless anypony else suddenly had their senses returned to them. But somehow, I doubted that was going to happen. The bones had to have been the remains of the skeletons; they were splintered and broken, and being used as kindling.

The colors of one body caught my eye, and my rattling breath seized in my throat. Raindrops lay atop one pile on her back, with her head lolled back on a broken neck, and her eyes empty. She had gone Hollow, just like I had, but she had stayed a Hollow. After all that she’d done, after she’d fought as she’d had, the skeletons had overcome her. She had barely made it to Ponyville before her journey came to a very permanent end.

A cold sense of dread overcame me, and I desperately hoped I wasn’t the one who took her fire. If she had been the pony to find me as a feral Hollow...it was terribly likely. But nopony had mentioned as such, and that gave me a faint glimmer of hope that I wasn’t her killer too.

Gilda noticed I’d shifted, and gave me a nod “You were on the money about those necromancers, by the way. The bones dropped when they did. I got six of them, but I think there were a couple more that I couldn’t find.” Her gaze fell. “Shame about Raindrops, though. Walked all that way, only for her to get snuffed out here.”

“J-just us, then...” I croaked.

Gilda nodded. “With Maud going after that magician, yeah. That’s why she was so intense about us going to Canterlot. Guess you’re the only pony she trusts left to make that delivery, now.”

“Delivery?” Dinky asked, suddenly curious. “Does that mean you got the Element?”

“Shush,” Gilda put a claw to her beak, and looked around. “Yeah, but don’t go blabbing that. Got enough problems now.”

Dinky looked between Gilda and me, suddenly nervous. “...What do you mean? What happened in Baltimare?”

The whole journey flashed through my mind’s eye. The tunnel, the changelings, the museum, the ghosts, Tor’inx and the hive, and every single pony we’d lost or killed along the way. Dinky didn’t know about any of that. She just knew that myself, Maud, and Raindrops had been the only ones from that group to return. An errant jostle from Gilda brought my hoof back into focus for a moment, still stained with dark blue changeling blood.

“Holly?”

It was better that she didn’t know what I’d done. And I didn’t want to remember what I’d done.

“Leave it, filly. Holly’s been through a lot.” Gilda understood; she’d been there for most of it. And she had her own secrets.

But that mostly just confused Dinky. “What? But...we’ve been through a lot together, too. Why can’t you tell me what happened, Holly?”

I just shook my head, even though she kept cajoling me as I walked. Gilda looked like she might shout at the filly because Dinky was so insistent, but she kept herself in check. Dinky led us to Rockhoof regardless, even though I spent most of the walk lost in my own thoughts, and the memories of what I’d done. What I’d lost. What I still had left to lose.

* * *

By the time we returned to the familiar town square, I’d regained some small measure of my own strength. Enough that Gilda gently let me slide off her back, and I was able to walk, albeit shakily. Dinky insisted on propping me up as I limped towards the junk-built forge, and the ancient stallion who worked endlessly on every sword and plate of armor that was placed in front of him.

Rockhoof hadn’t changed since I’d seen him last. He was still slightly Hollow, of course, but his embered eyes were bright as they fell upon me, and I limped towards him. They strayed to Dinky, who was still supporting me, but they stayed the longest on Gilda...and he paused in his hammering to subtly reach behind him.

Magnus—or at least his head, still independent of the rest of his body—was nearby, propped up on a crate. He was facing away from us, and couldn’t turn to see us approach. He could only see Rockhoof tense up, and that clearly made Magnus nervous. “What? What’s wrong?”

Rockhoof didn’t respond to his friend; his eyes never left Gilda, but for a second, to stray back to me and Dinky. “Fillies. You’re keepin’ strange company, these days.”

If anything, Gilda seemed amused by how much her presence made the old warrior nervous. “Strange, carnivorous company, that’s me. Careful, or I might go for your throat when I get hungry.”

Magnus was desperately trying to roll his jaw in order to turn around, but all he did was tilt over on the side of his head. Without looking, Rockhoof picked him up by his mane, and set him back down on his stump—facing us, now. As soon as he saw Gilda, his eyes went wide as well, then he clenched his teeth and exhaled. “Relax, Rocky. New era, remember? Equestria’s on good terms with the Gryphons.”

“When did that happen?” Rockhoof relaxed only very slightly; he’d moved a shovel behind his back for use like a war spear, but he let it rest against Magnus’ crate instead, still in plain view.

“A long, long time ago. We’re allies, although it’s kind of a weird situation.” Magnus spoke politically, not personally. He must have been caught up to speed once he’d joined Equestria’s modern military, or perhaps so he could advise Canterlot on diplomatic matters.

“Oh?” Rockhoof raised an eyebrow at Gilda directly. “And how is Griffonicus nowadays?”

“Pffffthahaha! What?” Gilda burst out in her cackling laugh as soon as she heard the name. “What did you call it?”

“Griffonicus…?” Rockhoof repeated, though he seemed unsure of himself now.

Gilda wiped her eyes with the back of a claw. “Oh Tartarus, I haven’t heard that name for the Republic before. What history book did you dredge that out of? You spell that with two Fs or a properly phlegmy Y-P-H?”

Magnus turned his eyes back to Rockhoof. “The Gryphon Republic—”

Gilda cut him off. “It’s called Gryphonstone, same as the capital, has been for around thirty years.”

Magnus squinted at her. “You just called it the Republic.”

“Sure, but I’m a gryphon.” Gilda fluffed up her breast with pride. “I can call it whatever the peck I want. And we’re calling it Gryphonstone now. You should too, pony.”

Magnus let out a long, frustrated sigh, which sounded strange, thanks to the magical modulation that simulated his voice. He didn’t have lungs, and so the spell only sort of knew how to make the right sound. “The country of Gryphonstone has been politically unstable since it was first founded, before our time, Rockhoof. They stopped calling it Griffonicus when the eponymous Emperor Griffonicus died about ten years after our abeyance, and his spymaster took the throne—and his name, but she spelled it ‘Gryphonicus’ instead. And then five years later there was a coup, and a tribal warlord burned down the capital, and declared that the new capital twelve miles away—and the country as a whole—was now named Gr’ta. That lasted for about twelve years, and so on…”

Gilda continued to hold her head high, and kept her chest fluffed with pride. “The Republic has a noble martial tradition of blade and claw. Old blades dull with time, and new, sharper blades replace it. The shape changes as new leaders take their place, but the metal from which all the blades are formed remains the same.”

“It’s a huge pain in the plot for diplomacy,” groused Magnus. “Celestia considered the Republic’s reunification to be one of her pet projects, and she was proud of this recent trend of stability, until the dragons and demons required her full attention instead.”

Rockhoof snorted, and finally relaxed a bit. “Gryphons or Griffons, it doesn’t matter that much to me. They were fierce warriors in my time, no matter what banner they flew, and they were always eager to raid our village. They considered ponies ‘easy prey’ in those days. It’s...good...to see things have changed a bit.”

“Well, only a little bit.” Gilda clicked her beak at him, and the soft edges curled into a smirk. “We still eat ponies after all—mares at least, though it’s a bit more intimate nowadays...”

Rockhoof let out a wary snort, but he relaxed a little bit more. His hoof found his hammer once more, and he returned to work rethreading a leather strap around the edges of an armor plate. “So, what brings ye both to me again? Holly busted up her armor again, I see. What about you, Dinky?”

Dinky shook her head. “You’ve already d-done an incredible job on D-Diamond’s sword—I should be f-fine. It’s just Holly.” She tilted her head up at Gilda. “Uh...unless you need any smithing done, m-miss?”

“The name’s Gilda, filly. Don’t call me miss.” The hen started to shake her head, then paused. “Actually, you got any arrows? Been losing a few lately.”

“Arrows, hm…” Rockhoof scratched his chin for a moment. “Can’t say I stock any, but I might be able to make some in bulk. We’ve got plenty of scrap. Could take a few hours, though.”

Gilda clicked her beak. “In that case, I’ll make ‘em myself. It’ll give me something to do while you’re fixing the scatshow Holly’s made of her gear.”

“Scatshow…?” Rockhoof repeated skeptically before he fixed his gaze on me, and I withered against Dinky’s side as he examined me in detail. “Holly, what’d you do to that armor? Let me see.”

I moved slowly and shamefully, as I stepped closer and allowed Rockhoof to look at it closely. His eyes scanned the scratched flank barding, the chainmail that hung in broken curtains, and finally the breastplate, or rather, the complete lack thereof. Without that armor, my most vital organs—if I was still alive and in need of them—were totally unprotected.

After a moment, he let out a tired sigh. "You've done worse; I might still be able to salvage most of this. It's a write-off for now though, especially since I'd imagine you'll be heading right back out on another errand. Better to give you a replacement than try to fix this now."

At that Magnus coughed, the sound echoing and magically unnatural. "Speaking of errands, where's Maud, Raindrops, the rest of the Baltimare expedition? You said you were going off to go find them, Dinky."

Dinky sighed. "As n-near as I can tell...only Holly, R-Raindrops, and Maud returned f-from Baltimare, but Holly won't say exactly what happened. They had Trixie, b-but she abandoned Holly. M-Maud went after her. Raindrops was ov-overwhelmed in the most recent attack, and t-turned Hollow by the skeletons."

"Damn...damn!" Magnus cursed. "Those are heavy losses. I should've gone with them."

Rockhoof chuckled tiredly, as he worked to undo the clasps holding my ruined armor in place. "And done what? Ye aren't exactly mobile, Magnus."

Gilda peered in curiosity at the talking decapitated head, but shrugged. "I joined that expedition early on. Another pony wouldn't have made a difference in Baltimare. Especially not...whatever you are."

"You were present?" Magnus raised an eyebrow. "Can you give the report, then?"

Gilda snorted. "Sure, a report. I can do that, Admiral."

"Commander."

"Whatever, head admiral. Baltimare was full of ghosts and changelings, both sides were insane and hated each other, and Holly here is a damned hero who rescued a real jerk of a mare that backstabbed us at pretty much the first opportunity that she could, while everypony else got sucked dry or torn apart. We killed the ghosts, but the changelings are a deep infestation that needs to be cleaned out with an army."

Dinky gave me a surprised look—she hadn't expected such a glowing retelling of my actions, after I'd refused to talk about them myself. Gilda didn't know the details—she didn't know what I'd done, deep within the hive.

"Damned hero" was more accurate than she could ever have known.

Magnus blinked, as he heard the story, and was silent for a few moments before he looked at me. "Did you find the Element?"

I nodded, and Rockhoof stepped back as I reached into my bottomless bag. A moment of memory passed, and I withdrew my hoof, with the golden clasp wrapped around my fetlock.

Magnus sighed in relief. "At least there's that. But with Raindrops Hollow and Maud off chasing that stage magician…"

I dropped the Element of Generosity back into the bottomless darkness of the bag. "M-Maud already told us to b-bring it to C-Canterlot."

"Good," Magnus replied, then repeated tiredly a moment later, "Good."

"In that case, I might have a replacement weapon for you, filly." Rockhoof grunted, as he started to remove my armor again. "One of the Princess' guards dropped it when they got attacked by the Apple militia. You should bring it back to Canterlot anyhow, not doing us any good here."

I nodded slowly. "Okay. W-what is it?"

"One of those fancy parade spears they have. Thought it was folded for compact storage at first, but the design's more complicated than that. I'll show you after I get this armor off."

Magnus was looking up past us, through the fog beyond the wall, and the blurry silhouette of the Canterhorn range beyond. "Dinky. You should go with them to Canterlot."

"What?" Dinky looked at Magnus like he'd gone mad. "I told you, I'm not interested in adventure anymore. Baton Verte was too much already. Ponyville's much more safe, and I can still help ponies—"

"But it's not," he interrupted. "The demons have never stopped coming. Applejack's mad deserters are raiding holes in our security that we don’t even know we have. And now the dead themselves are apparently rising to attack us from Cloudsdale…"

Magnus let out a long sigh. "Ponyville was already locked in a losing stalemate. Now we're fighting on three fronts, and we can't hold this town forever. We never really could."

Tears welled up in Dinky's Hollow eyes, though the filly tried to keep them in. "I don't want to give up on Ponyville. I don't want to lose my home."

"I know." Magnus closed his eyes. "But we already have. We don't have the ponypower to keep the town safe any more—we need to evacuate before the last attack comes. The one we can't fight off, the one that breaks our lines and can't be stopped."

Dinky let out a stifled sob. She couldn't find any words, and the tears were the closest that she could manage.

Magnus continued. "Go with Knight Holly to Canterlot. She'll deliver the Element, while you need to tell the Princess to evacuate Ponyville. She'll send others back, but you should stay safe there."

Rockhoof let out an indignant snort, as my barding fell away. "We're just letting the damn demons take Ponyville?"

"The demons, Applejack, and now the skeletons," Magnus confirmed. "If they all want the damned town so badly, they can all fight each other for it. But the ponies here can't be caught in the crossfire as well. Do you understand, Archmage?"

Dinky still had no words, but she nodded. Before, I'd been leaning on her for stability, but now she leaned on me instead. If I hadn't been there, she might have just collapsed outright.

To draw the conversation away, I inquired about something that had been on my mind during Magnus’s explanation. “D-deserters?” That faction was new to me.

Magnus grunted in response—it probably would have been a nod, if he could move his head. “Yeah. We’ve had militia ponies running off when nopony’s looking, sometimes small groups, and then attacking the cracks in our security when they come back. Not all of them, and we still have a lot of ponies loyal to the town—but more than I would’ve thought are apparently still loyal to Applejack, or maybe they’re trying to survive by themselves. Maybe a fifth, so far. The skeletons are new too; I thought you said they were keeping to themselves, Holly?”

They had been. They weren’t at all interested in attacking Ponyville, at least when I was there; they had seemed very content to stay in the ruins of Cloudsdale and practice their necromancy in secret.

But I had killed their goddess, and even now, I was holding her stolen heart. And that pony that Princess Celestia had freed from the jail—he’d been a necromancer as well, and if he’d returned to Cloudsdale and reported that he’d witnessed a change in leadership, they might have seen that as a weakness.

“It’s my f-fault,” I murmured, as my head fell. “It’s all m-my fault. I sc-crewed up, and n-now—”

“I doubt that.” Rockhoof shrugged. “Seems to me that if the fence is so poorly built that it’s ready to tip over, the pony that leans on it to catch their breath isn’t to blame.”

“B-but...it’s always me that t-tips over the fence posts,” I said quietly, and nopony seemed to have a response.

Rockhoof dumped the remains of my broken armor into a pile of scrap, and turned to the same crate that Gilda had been digging through for her arrowheads. As he did, he paused, and looked at her bow, still looped over her shoulder. “That’s hoof—well, claw-made. Your own work?”

Gilda fluffed her chest out again. “Of course—every Gryphon is trained how to make their own bow from scratch. I’ve broken plenty, but this one’s my best work so far. Had it for years.”

“It’s good work. High-quality,” Rockhoof said appreciatively, from one weaponsmith to another. “You use your own feathers for the fletchings of the arrows?”

“Wouldn’t trust any others. Are these the arrowheads?” Gilda held up a leather bag that clinked as she shook it.

“Broken dagger blades.” Rockhoof explained. “I don’t usually do daggers myself; too small and flimsy for these hooves. They’re all yours, but you’ll need to sharpen them a bit to make them work, and break the larger ones down into smaller fragments.”

“Eh, I’ve been using flint up until now. It’s good to have metal arrowheads again.” Gilda emptied out the bag onto another nearby crate, and started to sort through the sharpened metal within.

Meanwhile, Rockhoof turned back to me, holding a short, ornate spear in his hoof. “FIlly. Practice a bit with this, while I find you some more armor. There’s a mechanism inside, so be careful where you point the tip when it extends.”

Dinky heaved a quiet sob of a sigh and sat down next to Magnus while I stepped forward and took the shortspear with shaking hooves. The decapitated head glanced at it, and then began to explain, since he was obviously familiar with the weapon. “This design is Zebra-made, a gift from their people to the Princess a couple hundred years ago. It’s based off of their Ikwas, a type of short spear with a broad head, which they use for personal defense and close-quarters combat. But these have a twist—literally. Point the ends away from everypony, and then twist the shaft.”

I hesitantly did so, and there was a mechanical snapping sound, as the spear suddenly extended to the full length from both ends. The spear tip extended another leg-length, as did the capped, blunt end. I twisted the spear’s shaft again in the other direction, and it collapsed once more back into a shortspear.

“Nifty, huh?” Magnus chuckled, with a bit of pride. “They’re complicated, flashy weapons, which is why you don’t see them very often—plus the mechanism is partly magical, and a real pain to maintain when it’s been damaged, so the army prefers cheap and simple pistols, shortswords, and lances. The Princess keeps a small number for her personal guard, though mostly for appearance’s sake, plus they store easily inside her phaeton.”

“It mounts to armor, so it can be used as a lance as well,” Rockhoof grunted, as he hauled out a pile of leather and plating. “Assuming the armor has a mount, a’course. Speaking of, try this on for size.”

This armor was lighter than the armor I’d worn out to Baltimare, but not by much; the large metal plates on the breast and sides were replaced with layers of leather. There still seemed to be a thin layer of steel at the core, and the shoulder plates were apparently important enough to remain fully steel. But I could move a bit easier in the armor, and this time it already had slots for my wings cut in the back, along with a protective leather sheath that I could latch to my belly in case I needed to fly, otherwise keeping the wings protected.

Rockhoof nodded in satisfaction. “Right, now take it back off. I’ll do some custom fitting. Can’t have you going to the Princess wearing ill-fitting armor, I’d look like a sloppy smith.”

As I was doing so, he tilted his head back towards DInky. “You two should take a rest. Between this and the Gryphon’s arrows—”

“My name is Gilda.”

“—Gilda’s arrows, you’ll be waiting for a bit. Might well take the time to rest and catch your breath, before you head out again. Dinky, might be a good time to check in with your friends, tell ‘em where you’re going. Along with grabbing anything else you might need.”

Dinky nodded, and stood on shaky hooves, before she wandered off into the town. I considered going with her, but I didn’t have it in me, and she seemed like she wanted privacy to think. Instead, I pulled out my bottle of sunlight, and took a swig, just to try and heal any of the lingering damage from my Hollow stint. Then I relaxed against the crate, after storing the bottle safely back within my bag.

I couldn’t sleep. Hollows couldn’t sleep, for some reason. But I could rest my eyes, as I listened to Rockhoof hammering on his anvil and Gilda fletching and sharpening her arrows.

Author's Note:

I'm not late, who said anything about being late? I totally didn't forget what day it was because I had a bunch of things happening on the same day and I got confused, who would do that, that's crazy.

Anyway, big chapter! Lots of character moments, plot progression, and subtle lore implications, though also very definitely one of the darkest starts to a chapter so far. I'm happy with it overall, though.

The song for this chapter is: Nico Vega - Iron Man

Big thanks, as always, to my pre-readers Non Uberis, Prince-Nightfire93, and Citizen for all their hard work!

I've also got a tip jar, if you're enjoying the story and want to toss me a couple bucks!

Comments

[DOOMRIDER]

Word Wizards are neither late nor early they arrive exactly when they are meant to. Also Awesome chapter dude I feel so bad for Holly. If that was the intent consider it mission accomplished. I eagerly await the next chapter!

[Silverblade5]

Good to see this still going. Any plans for dealing with Elden Ring being out?

[Type_Writer]

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Not really, as much as I enjoy the game; if anything, certain design decisions in Elden Ring have completely validated design decisions I had already made for Hollow Pony, which reassures me that I'm in the right headspace with the worldbuilding.

Most notably, the sheer amount of food and animals and life across Elden Ring's world in comparison to any Souls game, which was translated into Hollow Pony as "the world is barren of life, down to the microbial level." Finding sacks of food in huge pantries in Stormveil was particularly striking, after the other games, at best, had empty jugs or withered trees to imply plant growth in the past.

There's other comparisons and connections to be made as well, but many of them would be spoilers to talk about in detail.I might make a blog post in a couple years when the story's actually done, where I go into the broader worldbuilding and talk about what came from where and how it all fits into this aesthetic of a grand, ruined world.

[Backlash91]

Yay!!! More gilda and holly!!!