Story Shuffle 2: Double Masters

by FanOfMostEverything

None Escape His Eye

Quail Plume had thought himself an honorable soldier, a rightly proud son of Spurta, a pegasus born with lightning in his blood and thunder in his wings. He'd bit and stomped his way to notoriety in his foalhood storm herd, had been acclaimed by his combat tutors, and had even been trusted to lead a feather of five of his fellow Spurtans.

Then he saw his first griffon.

He could not say if it was the beady eyes devoid of pity or remorse, the savage claws tipped in bronze, or the hooked beak indelibly stained with pony blood that send him fleeing and squealing like a newborn, leaving a drizzle of yellow rain in his wake. All he knew for certain was that he returned to himself a few hours later, curled up and cowering on the surface, his eyes squeezed shut as though none of the monsters could see him if he couldn't see them.

Ashamed and tainted in both body and honor, he knew he had but two courses of action: live as a coward or die as a Spurtan.

And to his further shame, he found that he preferred living.

Oh, he thought about it. About flying back home, presenting himself before his officers, and at best accepting the role of an unarmored skirmisher until he either died or redeemed himself in the eyes of his fellows and himself. But even as he envisioned dragging himself back from the depths of disgrace, everypony he'd ever known looked back at him with those uncaring eagle eyes, clacking hungry beaks.

And so Quail left behind his armor and spear, and fled far from the lands and skies he knew. He crossed into the earth pony lands of Girthshire, with the ground-dwellers' strange customs and stranger seers. He was familiar with the pegasus oracles who would rise until ice rimed their wings, that they could approach the gods and return with divine visions and prophecies. The earth ponies, wingless as they were, seemed to have other methods.

Every time he tried to settle into a town and struggle with the surprising complexity of making food grow, he would cross the path of an innocuous mare who would spasm and twitch. She would scowl, jab a hoof at him, and in the voice of some god or demon of the deep places, proclaim him "OATHBREAKER!"

The rest of the village would scowl and murmur and reach for tools normally meant for crops or soil. And once again, Quail would flee. For he was swift if nothing else, and while he knew he could not outpace his fate forever, he was determined to keep trying.

In time, he reached the kingdom of Monoceros, home to the unicorns. They were strange creatures, so unlike pegasi in so many ways as to leave him feeling like little more than an animal, but nopony was struck by divine inspiration to decry him. In that, at least, he found some semblance of peace.

The unicorns eventually brought him to their king, a ruler who was not expected to fight. Just the opposite; when Quail told the Monocerites of the Commander's vaunted skill in battle, they were shocked by the idea of a leader who would so willingly risk himself on the front line, and not with awe but fear of the consequences of one lucky strike.

"Why follow a stallion who will not lead you?" he had asked.

"We have you pegasi for that sort of thing," the unicorn had said, to which his compatriots nodded.

Quail had said nothing, merely letting the guilt twist in his guts as it had for weeks.

King Palladium sat as he ruled, and in a special chair all his own with its own room, bedecked with more jewels and shining gold than he wore himself, which was indeed a great feat. "So," he rumbled through his thick beard, "this is our little runaway pegasus, then?"

A chill ran down Quail's spine. "H-how did you—"

"Well, it's not like any of you do anything else, is it? Soldiers, the lot of you. The only time we see one without a good twenty of his friends, much less one out of uniform, is when he's gone rogue."

Then Commander Hurricane himself stepped out from behind the throne, and Quail almost swallowed his own tongue. "The precise term," said the commander, tone flatter than the top of the sky, "is 'absent without leave.' Or desertion." He spat out that last word as the foul taste that it was. Even Quail hadn't wanted to so much as think it. Having it thrown in his face...

He looked from side to side, top to bottom. The unicorn guards hardly looked seasoned, but all of them had their eyes on him, and he knew those horns of theirs gave them a terrifyingly wide array of tactical options. And as he looked up into the rafters of the throne room, he saw a dozen of his former comrades looking down at him, each one as pitiless as the griffon who had sent him fleeing what felt like a lifetime ago.

"I... I..." Quail's wings spread, his head darting about ever faster. But the doors were sealed, the airspace was secure, and there wasn't a window to be found. There was nowhere left to run.

He could no longer live a coward. That left one option.

He settled himself as much as he could, saluted, and said, "Commander. I stand ready for my punishment detail."

The commander glared down at him until his saluting wing began to shake with strain. Finally, Hurricane said, "I don't think you do, Quail Plume."

"Sir?"

"Do you know what holds the Pegaponyssian League together?"

"I believe you mean the Alloy of Tribes," Palladium grumbled from his seat.

Hurricane continued without the slightest sign of acknowledgement. "Trust. We trust the earth ponies to provide food. We trust the unicorns to guide the heavens. And they trust us to both care for the weather and keep them safe. Those who physically cannot fulfill that duty can act to support those who can. But those who choose to save their own sorry hides rather than act for the herd..." He trailed off, waiting expectantly

Quail completed the one truth that had been part of every tutor's lessons. "They... we are beneath contempt."

Hurricane nodded. "If you had tried to flee yet again, I would have ended you here and now."

"Really, that's a three hundred year old carpet he's standing on. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get blood out of..." Palladium trailed off as the eyes of every pegasus in the room glared at him with the same distaste they showed Quail. Even Quail himself joined in dismissing the old fool. In this, at least, he could act with his fellow pegasi.

The moment passed once the unicorn king fell silent, or at least shifted to quiet grumbling about barbaric, blunted spearpoints. Every eye fell back on Quail, and with them the weight of judgement. "However," Hurricane continued, "like Equunidas at Thermoponé, you stand like a Spurtan at the last. You will see home again, Quail Plume."

And Quail prostrated himself before his commander, for this was more mercy than he deserved, and both knew it.

---

They flew Quail home in chains, lying on a scrap of cloud with his wings trapped against his sides. The sun set behind Spurta as they made their way home, painting the entire polis in gold and shadow. He took in the training clouds, the fora, the half-wild herds of foals who lived an enviably simple life as they proved themselves worthy of the glory of their ancestors. He wished them better luck and courage than his own.

Quail shed no tears as he passed through the great gates of mounded cumulus. In this, he took what little pride he could.

His stoic expression stayed even as the commander marched him through the streets, where former comrades scowled and jeered. Even as they went deep into the heart of Spurta, where the clouds were as untamed as the foals, he did not break. As lightning flashed in the walls of the catacombs, Hurricane looked at Quail with something like respect. "You know what comes next."

"I do, Commander." Skirmisher duty was for those who sought redemption immediately after fleeing. He didn't deserve such a mercy.

"Do you fear it?"

Quail shook his head. "I left both my fear and my hope in Monoceros, Commander. All that remains is accepting the inevitable."

And Hurricane nodded and led Quail to the end of the tunnel, where the clouds went black and shook with restrained fury. The commander wrenched open the hatch there, sending lightning crackling across the gap. Within was darkness, with more bolts revealing a grand vortex of wind and fury in brief flashes.

"One night's stay in the Deserter's Quarters, Quail Plume," Hurricane commanded.

And Quail saluted and flew into the eye wall.

Author's Note:

Akros, for those unfamiliar with the Greek-inspired plane of Theros, is basically card game Sparta. Like the Boros Legion—an angel-assisted army of shonen anime protagonists on a good day and block-bustingly brutal police on a bad one—it's highly militaristic and red-white aligned. Add in aformentioned Greek influence, and I had to look to the pre-Pegasopolitan pegasi. And a cloud city alternative to the brazen bull, which did a heck of a lot more than just keep its victims from untapping.

Girthshire comes from bookplayer's fantastic Sun and Hearth. That story also uses Monoceros, but I was using that name for the pre-Unicornian unicorn kingdom before reading it, so nyeh.

Comments

[Daedalus Aegle]

The original Boros Legion deck was my very first Magic deck, back when I started playing around 2007 or 08. I always had a soft spot for those guys. And Theros was the last set I played with, around when it was getting to be a struggle to find people it was fun to play with (I couldn't very well pass up an all Greek Mythology-inspired set). And by coincidence right now I'm playing Assassins Creed Odyssey, so all in all this hits me from a lot of angles.

[Herald of Opera]

Note that the eye of a hurricane is almost completely still; much like a permanently tapped creature, he won't be doing much but his odds of dying are actually lower than they will be as a skirmisher.

[The Voice in the Water]

Ah, Sparta, the Polyergus lucidus of the ancient world. And, yea, the Brazen Bull was probably one of the most horrifying means of execution that has ever existed. That it was used as a form of entertainment only makes it worse.

I like the idea that the earth ponies are so close to the gods that they literally can become a channel to their voices at a moment's notice.

[Herald of Opera]

10272744

And, yea, the Brazen Bull was probably one of the most horrifying means of execution that has ever existed.

According to the linked page, there's scholarly doubt regarding whether it actually did exist, or was just in the same bucket as the Death Ray of Archimedes. I'd also submit crucifixion as a competitor, just because of the sheer quantity of mostly independent death vectors.

[The Voice in the Water]

10272798
I checked out the linked article cited by Wikipedia. That's the thing about history and archeology: you're always piecing things together from the disparate scraps of history. Still, if it did exist, it's up there as an example of the cruelty of humanity.

[Eroraf86]

I’d take a night in the eyewall of a hurricane over the brazen bull any day of the week.

[Bugsydor]

10272724
Yeah I figured. It's still fun to suggest spurious links, though.

[FanOfMostEverything]

10272731
We actually went back to Theros earlier this year, hitting such previously missed notes as Jason, Achilles, Odysseus, and Heliod getting an Atlas-style comeuppance for his actions in the original Theros Block.

10272738 10273199
Two things to bear in mind: it's pitch black save for the lightning, and it is not a very large eye. The end result is having to hover nearly in place for an entire day, lest the deserter get swept into the maelstrom.

It's definitely not as painful as the brazen bull, but it's its own special brand of horrible. (And arguably closer to the mechanics of the card.)

10272744
See here for a modern day example of an earth pony communing with the world-spirit to denounce an oathbreaker.

[FredMSloniker]

Spurta? Well, that's an oddly kinky alternate name for -

Oh. Spurta. Neeeeever mind.

[FanOfMostEverything]

10298789
Yeah, knew what I was getting into with that one.