My Brave Pony: The Heart of the World

by Scipio Smith

The Future Course

The Future Course

Raven gasped for breath.

It was night now, with the moon shining its light down upon the world, and Raven skulked like a pitiable creature under the shade of some palm trees not far from a small and obscure watering hole. There was no one here, neither pony nor zebra, no one to see how tired and weak she was.

No one to take advantage.

Skulking like a pitiable creature… she was a pitiable creature. A pitiable creature who couldn’t afford to keep getting into fights like that. She didn’t have the power. There was a reason why she had woken up Shining Spear instead of simply engaging Lightning Dawn directly. There was a reason why she had plundered the archives for a dangerous parasite instead of confronting Lightning Dawn directly. There was a reason she had approached Mantle for his assistance. There was a reason beyond mere conscience why she hadn’t simply killed Twilight Sparkle by now.

And that reason was that using her Olympian powers – the only powers available to her now, since she had traded away everything else, was extraordinarily difficult and taxing. Her connection to the Celestial Armoury was incredibly tenuous, even if it was wide ranging; summoning so many weapons was… she had pretty much reached her limit in simply fighting Mantle and his guards to a stand still. She had been lucky to escape with her life. There was no way that she could have actually prevailed.

Even if she had used the fire that burned within her blood to destroy Mantle, she would have been left vulnerable and at the mercy of his vengeful guards, who would not thank her for setting them free.

Raven gasped for breath, falling onto her belly as she crawled like a worm out of the cover of the trees and down to the watering hole, pressing her snout into the cool water and lapping it up greedily. It was clear, and cool, and had a slightly sweet taste to it that Raven had no inclination to stop and savour. She needed quenching sustenance, not a tasty drink to please her tongue. She drank up as though it was her aim to drain the little watering hole that sheltered her, her body crying out for more water, always more. She was so exhausted that she couldn’t stop herself. Her limbs were so weak that she couldn’t get up or even crawl away from the water. Her stomach ached with yearning to be filled. She could not move, and so since she could not move she drank, and in between drinking she raised her head and gasped for breath.

I have become weak. In the… in the old days that were not yet old, in the old days that were yet to come, in the days that were passed for her when she had been in the bloom of her warrior’s strength, there were days passed now – for Raven at least – when she would have slain the dragon and all of the zebras with contemptuous ease, without any need for assistance from Lightning or any of their other comrades. There had been a time when she was strong, when she had lived up to her name of Raven and all it harbingered.

There had been a time when she had failed. A time when all of her strength had failed to protect those that were most dear to her.

She ought not sugarcoat the past, or the future. The reason she was here was because she had failed and fallen. Because she had realised that the power she had been promised was a trick, a deception. It had not made her strong as she had thought it would. It had only made her a powerful weapon.

There had been a time before that, a time before she had given away her destiny in a hopeless quest for power, when she had possessed… had it been strength? Had it been power? It was so hard to remember now. So hard to think clearly. Memory was covered by perception. Sometimes she looked back and thought that she had possessed real strength, real power… other times she saw only a foolish mare, who that that nonsense like friendship would save anyone.

She had been a fool, and she had failed. All the powers in which she had placed her hope had failed her, and they would fail her again if she relied on them here. She had managed to escape from Mantle’s clutches… but so had Twilight and her friends. Raven hoped – a fool’s hope, but her hope nonetheless – that they would see the error of their ways, give up on their search for the Heart of the World, and go home.

If not… she could not rely on strength to prevail against them. The artefact that she had used to disable the magic of unicorns and pegasi had been shattered during the battle, broken beyond repair – beyond her ability to repair, at least. If she confronted Twilight Sparkle now then she would be facing her magic at its full strength, a contest she might not win. A contest she would, speaking without vanity, probably lose.

No, if she wished to turn Twilight and the rest aside, if they would not turn aside of their own will, then she would have to rely once more on guile.

And hope that it was more successful this time around.

Raven gasped for breath. The Servants of Memory would be her next port of call. If Twilight and the others headed into the disputed territory, if they elected to continue their search for the Heart of the World, then she would seek out the Servants sworn to protect the Heart and prevent its discovery and give them warning of the impending danger. She would go to them and they would stop Twilight and the rest, hopefully without the complication of Mantle’s greed. She knew the locations of a few of their camps, though whether there would be any zebras there at present she was not so certain of. She would just have to keep looking until she found someone.

She had to stop Twilight, before it was too late.

---

“Girls, Spike,” Twilight began. She found that she was unable to continue without hanging her head in shame at what she had led her friends into by this quixotic quest. “I think… I think that maybe we ought to turn back.”

They had managed to escape from Cirta, and now they were sheltering for the night in a dry riverbed, having run as far away from Cirta to the east as they could go. They had all found their strength returning as they left the Grevyian town behind them, as they left the Watchers that had inhibited their magic behind them. Twilight and Rarity could use their magic again, while Rainbow, Fluttershy and Ace could fly unimpaired.

On the other hoof it was hard to argue that their escape was anything better than a mitigated disaster. Their saddlebags with all of their supplies, the map, Twilight’s research notes, Pinkie’s treats, Ace’s armour - it was all gone. All taken from them by their zebra captors, and they had been too concerned with escaping the zebras – and their dragon master; a dragon, an actual dragon; the Most Ancient Empire was ruled by dragons – to even think about trying to get any of it back and so jeopardise their escape. They had their liberty, but they had nothing else, and they were in an undeniably precarious position in consequence.

Nor did they know in exactly what state Cirta was in now; when Spike had left Mantle, the dragon lord of Cirta, he and his zebras had been locked in battle with Raven, their dogged opponent who seemed determined to trail them every step of the way. They didn’t know who had proven the victor of that contest, they didn’t know whether Raven would be coming after them again or whether Mantle would send his zebras after them, either for revenge or because he harboured hopes of gaining the Heart of the World. Or whether both would plague them now; it was certainly another possibility, and one they could not discount because they simply didn’t know what was going on.

The road ahead seemed far more uncertain now, and far more dangerous, than it had even when Twilight had asked her friends to join her on this desperate enterprise. She wanted to find the Heart of the World, she wanted to find out what had happened to Lighting Dawn and Krysta, but honestly… she couldn’t put her friends’ lives at risk for that goal. No matter how much she cared for Lightning, no matter how much she owed him, she couldn’t lose her friends in this endeavour for his sake. And she thought that he would understand that.

She didn’t like it, in fact she hated it, but at the same time she didn’t see any way around it. They had to turn back. How could she ask all these wonderful ponies to keep going after what had just happened?

She was prepared for enthusiastic agreement. She was prepared to be scolded for having put them all in this position in the first place. She was prepared for a lot of things but not for the silence that descended over the desert after she had spoken those words. Nopony – nobody – seemed to have anything to say.

Twilight looked up, a frown creasing her lavender features. She looked up at her friends, shivering on the sands without even so much as a fire to warm them – because they had had no time to gather wood – and found that instead of the censure of her folly that she had expected in their expressions she found their faces soft, and filled with understanding.

“Guys?” she murmured, slightly incredulously. “Why are you all looking at me like that?”

“First of all,” Rainbow said, as she fluttered a couple of feet off the ground, mainly so that she could hover with her forehooves folded. “Let’s be clear, this isn’t some kind of ‘you should go but I’ll press on by myself’ thing, is it? Because that would be the dumbest thing that you have ever-“

“No, it’s not like that,” Twilight said quickly. “I know that I can be… obsessive, sometimes, and I don’t always make the smartest decisions – case in point – but I’m not that stupid.”

“You’re not stupid at all, darling, please don’t undersell yourself,” Rarity said. She smiled. “You simply let your good heart overrule your better sense upon occasion.”

Twilight sighed, a touch of relief in her voice as she said, “That’s very generous of you to say so, Rarity, but it doesn’t change the fact that coming here was a mistake.”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” Applejack replied. “Sure, going into that there town wasn’t the smart call in hindsight, but come on, Sugarcube, how were you supposed to know that the town was run by a mean old dragon, or that Raven would have set a trap for us? Why, I don’t think even Princess Celestia would have seen that coming.”

“You’re all being far nicer to me than I deserve about this,” Twilight insisted. “And anyway it doesn’t change the fact that we-“

“It doesn’t change the fact that we’re stuck here in the middle of nowhere with no supplies, no map and nowhere to go,” Ace said.

“Exactly,” Twilight said. “That’s why-“

“No, Twily, you don’t understand,” Ace interrupted her again. “This is all why it would be disastrous to turn back now. Like… look at this,” she got up off the ground on which she had been sitting and began to draw in the sand with her hoof. “We’re here, and behind us – the way that we came – is Cirta, the town that we just left because they took us prisoner and which place is the reason we don’t have a map or supplies. I think it goes without saying that we can’t go back that way.”

“Of course not,” Twilight said.

“But where else are we supposed to go if we turn back now?” Ace demanded. “We have nothing to eat. Nothing to drink. No way to plan an alternative approach. Maybe hunted like fugitives across the Grevyian Empire, there’s no way that we’ll get back to Equestria like that.”

Twilight bit her lip. She didn’t like to hear it, but Ace’s words sounded uncomfortably like sense. “So, you’re saying…”

“I’m saying that turning back ceased to be an option the moment we left Cirta in such a great hurry and without permission,” Ace said. She looked Twilight in the eyes. “Twily, Princess Celestia ordered me to keep you alive, and while I didn’t expect it to be this hard… keeping you safe is not turning back. This is their country, not ours, and with us not having a map any more… we will be hunted down like dogs, assuming that we don’t die of thirst.”

Fluttershy squeaked in fright.

“Do you have to be so… that about this whole thing?” Rainbow Dash demanded.

Ace looked at her. “You won’t thank me for lying to you when the truth comes out,” she said.

Rainbow was silent for a moment. “No,” she admitted. “No, I guess we wouldn’t.”

“But…” Fluttershy murmured. “If we can’t go back, then what can we do?”

“We have to keep moving forward!” Pinkie declared. “If we can’t turn around then full speed ahead!”

“Pinkie, that’s…” Twilight trailed off. “That may sound as though it makes sense, but no. I can’t put you guys at risk that way.”

“You’re not putting us at risk if we choose it ourselves,” Spike said. “You’ve never led us, Twilight, you’ve only ever inspired us to follow you.”

“That… that’s very sweet, Spike, but I’m not sure it’s true even on its own terms and even if it was this would not be the time to be having this conversation.”

“We need to have a conversation,” Ace admitted. “I know what we can’t do, I’m a little less sure on what we can do.”

Zecora rose to her hooves. She had been sitting unobtrusively away from Twilight, behind Fluttershy, so still and so silent that she almost blended into the shadows cast by the sides of the dry riverbed that rose up on either side of them. But now she rose, and walked into the centre of the group, her hooves kicking up little bursts of sand as she walked.

“I may have a path to take, which would mean decision could wait; whether you wished to continue on, or else turn homeward and from this land be gone.”

“Wait?” Ace said. “You mean put off the decision?”

“I think that Zecora means that there is a place we can go and then decide what we want to do,” Twilight guessed.

Zecora nodded. “There is a place that I could guide you, where the folk might resupply you; there you could strike for the Heart, or ways with your quest could part.”

“That sounds promisin’,” Applejack said. “I mean, practically anythin’ would sound promisin’ at this point with the state we’re in, but this sounds especially promisin’.”

“What is this place?” Twilight said.

“And can we get there as we are now?” Ace asked.

“And if we can then why didn’t we just go there instead of stopping at Cirta?” Rainbow demanded.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight scolded.

“What, it’s a fair question,” Rainbow protested.

“Utica is it’s name,” Zecora replied. “It was my home, until my shame.”

“Your shame,” Twilight whispered. “Wait, Zecora, I thought you said that you couldn’t go home?”

“Although my welcome may not be warm,” Zecora admitted. “I cannot stay silent while you come to harm.”

“No,” Twilight replied. “No, Zecora, we can’t just put you in danger by-“

“Any danger is my choice,” Zecora declared. “I chose to speak with my own voice. You ponies embraced me with your hearts, now is my time to play my part. Your friendship and hospitality, I must repay to best ability. Twilight, speak not of force in this; all that I do, is because I wish.”

Twilight swallowed. “Thank you,” she said softly. “You’re very kind.”

Zecora nodded in gracious acceptance of the compliment, a fond smile playing across her face.

“Can you find the way to Utica from here?” Ace asked.

Zecora nodded.

“Then we should get some rest here tonight and start first thing in the morning,” Ace said. “Everypony – and you, Spike – get some sleep. We march at dawn.”

---

At Cirta, a company of zebras armed for war mustered outside the city walls. Some of them wore marks of plain undecorated white, others – the more numerous of the company, wore no masks but helms of bronze and cuirasses of hippopotamus hide. They all carried spears with sharp points, and some of them had clubs or axes slung across their backs besides.

And over them all swooped Mantle, his wings outstretched, blocking out the moonlight as he circled over his warriors in the night.

When he found Raven he would turn her to ashes! He would crush her bones beneath his teeth! When he found her she would regret the day that she had ever dared presume to contest with him, to harm his scales, to defy his power and wrath and majesty! But she was not the object of his search. If he came across her on the way then she would die but it was not for Raven that he had gathered his strength and stirred from his palace for the first time in many a year.

No, that was for the ponies who had escaped from his dungeon during the battle that had left him scarred and humiliated. By recovering the prisoners he would assuage his pride, lessen his shame… and he would force them to show him the way to the Heart of the World, and with its power take his place as mightiest of all the Mighty Ones in Grevyia.

His scales were cracked, his palace was in ruins, but none of that mattered now. None of that would matter once he obtained the Heart of the World.

Possession of the Heart would make all of this worthwhile.

Yes, these foolish ponies and their duplicitous dragon would rue the day they had crossed paths with him.

“March!” he bellowed, his voice echoing across the night-sky and making the town of Cirta tremble beneath him. “Find them! Find them all!”