Ghost of the Everfree

by David Silver

54 - Fun Police

"What happened here?" demanded a stern male voice.

"Clerics." Another guard nodded to the newcomer. "They treated the sick, sang songs of Luminace, and went on their way. Snatched a few from death's door and didn't ask for a thing for it. Out of eight ill, we're only tending two, and they're improving."

"What clerics?" He raised a doubting brow. "We didn't bring any. And this godless land doesn't have any. Where does one find a cleric in that?"

The first shrugged. "Couldn't say, but they were speaking Luminace's words and wielding restorative magic. You can't argue what's in front of you."

"Suspicious..." Unwilling to accept a good thing as just a good thing, the other guard stormed away. "She must be informed."

He went directly to the headquarters, jogging past the guards in front, and headed inside to make his report. "Ma'am."

"Yes?" She was seated in her full plate, as intimidating and powerful as usual. "You have news?"

He pointed outside. "Luminace priests have tended the wounded and injured."

"We have no Luminace priests." She scowled, not that it could be seen, but felt. "If that is a poor attempt at humor..."

"I wasn't there, ma'am. That is the report they gave me. It didn't make sense to me either. That's why I hurried here, ma'am. They say they went from 8 in poor condition to 2 in recovery. Do you think the locals have their own gods, ma'am?"

She rose to her metal-clad hooves. "If they did, and those were them, why would they be helping their enemy instead of leading an attack? Is that logical? But... It's not logical that Luminace priests should appear out of nowhere. None of this makes much sense, and I don't favor it... Battling blind is a poor way to do it. Find more information." She stormed towards the soldier. "Are these clerics still here? I have questions for them."

"Ma'am!" He hurried off to see her will done.

She advanced on the door he had come in through. "Clerics don't just..." But then... "Planes walkers? Did they follow us?" She shook her head. "More questions..." She turned her eyes to a bust of the Night Mare. "In these dark times, I would rule evenly." The bust offered no words for her. For those who were not clerics, faith was the only reward for her pious motions. "Bah..."

---

Silver hopped up onto the couch. "Done and done! And I'm, like, beat."

Dry climbed up next to her. "I've never used so much magic all at once... It's tiring... but exciting. I feel... like Luminace is still all inside me. Like I'm half-made of her." He was, perhaps, a little overdramatic there. "It's odd..."

"You get used to that." She curled an arm around him and leaned against him. "Mostly, tired. That'll make a splash."

Diamond nodded at the two of them. "Good job. A splash is exactly what we wanted. That'll bring her out, or at least somepony she trusts. If we keep giving her guards something to talk about, she'll have to come out to shut them up." She stood up with a feral sneer. "And that's when we attack."

Apple Bloom rubbed at her cheek. "Do we gotta attack quite like that? Cookin' a pony 'livin' ain't exactly..."

Diamond glared at Apple Bloom. "You saw the dead ponies, Apple Bloom. She ordered that to happen. A little pain? Hardly amounts to breaking even... We climbed over a pile of reasons why she deserves every bit of discomfort we can toss at her."

Sweetie tapped her hooves, fidgeting in place. "We should at least try to talk to her before we do anything that extreme..."

"Is that before or after she cuts one of you in half?" Diamond marched towards the nearest window, huffing lightly. "They aren't playing around. We aren't killing her. We'll leave that on her hooves... But she can suffer a moment, alright?"

Dry flopped to his side on the couch, soon gaining a girlfriend to cuddle on the way. "I'm tapped... I'm going to relax and when her magic returns to me, I can try again?"

Scootaloo tapped the couch they were on. "You two earned it. Alright, I don't like it... but I don't hear better ideas coming... Diamond, you're leading this. What can we do?"

"You, I want to keep that heat spell ready." She turned to Sweetie Belle. "And you stay near her. We're not trying to kill her, and you can provide quick first aid, or help Scootaloo if they come after her." Her eyes went on to Apple Bloom. "Which goes for you. I know you can do both, and you three are practically a unit, so why split it up?"

Apple Bloom thumped her chest with a hoof. "We crusaders aren't splittin' up!" Her enthusiasm waned. "What're you doin'?"

"Watching, planning, organizing." She tapped her hooves with each count. "It's what my cutie mark is telling me, as the saying goes. Somepony has to be in charge, and I don't see any of you rushing to take the job?" None of them rushed at the chance she provided. "Right. Look, if it makes you feel better, some of them seem like nice ponies. I don't want to hurt them, especially the ones just stupidly doing what's ahead of them. If we show them a better way, they'll take it. They're the least of our problems."

The very next time Dry and Silver set out, some ponies found them easily. Word of the Filly Clerics had spread, and those who had hurts came to be tended.

It wasn't just guards, though only guards were officially permitted outside. "May I take you to a stallion in need of your help?" asked a mare soldier. "He's in his home. I will accompany you, if you agree."

Silver nodded quickly. "Of course. If he can't come to us, that means--"

"--He needs us extra hard," Dry finished. "Lead the way."

They followed her to a small house beside a field of corn. "Does he farm?" Silver looked on it as they walked past it. "Looks about ready to pick up..."

"You know how to farm?" Dry hurried to aside her. "They just look... I don't know."

"I don't know either," admitted Silver with a giggle. "Just guessing on that."

"I couldn't say." The soldier knocked gently on the door. "I've returned, with help." She pressed it open despite a lack of reply. "I'm coming in. Are you better?" She soon vanished into the house, with no answers.

Silver led the way, only to stop the moment the stepped inside. The room smelt of disease and decay. "This is bad..." She picked her way over discarded plates, thick with the crust of long abandoned meals. "Really, like, completely bad."

"This is why I led you here." The soldier knocked on a new door, much thinner than the front. "Are you awake? We're here to help."

Dry nervously avoided the signs of degradation around them, as if they may attack him somehow. "I don't like this..."

"Me neither." Silver hurried ahead to just behind the soldier. "Is anypony even here?"

"He had been last I checked." She pressed the door open with her mouth on the handle and hoof pressing. "We're coming in. Sir?" But there was no reply as she pressed into the darkness. That darkness vanished with a few magic words behind her. "Ah, clerics." She smiled at the light to see by. "Thank you. Sir?" She advanced on a bed with a blanket thrown over it. "Please wake up, sir."

Silver hurried in past the soldier, peering at the bed. "We're here to, like, make you feel better. But I need to see you." She reached for the blanket, just to be swatted.

The soldier frowned. "This is still his home..." She, carefully, peeled the blanket up just enough for a peek, just to yelp and fall back over herself in an ungainly display.

Silver took the chance to draw the blanket away, and her shrill cry joined the soldier's yelp.

Dry could see what they were responding to, but he didn't scream. Loud noises were how one got eaten, or worse. "Oh..." He dipped his head. "Friend we never knew, I trust your path to those you have made. May you rest peacefully. We are sorry we could not rescue you..."

Silver retreated in a scamper back to his side. "How long has he been here?!"

The soldier recomposed herself, drawing the blanket back over the deceased. "I last checked..." She frowned with the thought. "I don't remember... Things have been busy... He wasn't feeling well, but I didn't think it was that dire... I would have... I should have moved him to the infirmary. He insisted it was a little thing. A trifling, at his own words." She turned fully to the clerics. "I... am so sorry... You are too young to ask this of, but can you give him his final rites? I may have failed him alive, but at least I can see him handled properly now." She swallowed thickly. "If you can..."

Dry looked between the two females, both shaken. He was the only one seemingly whole. "I will take this task..." He felt, in that moment, like the oldest one in the room. A pity it wasn't a good feeling. To be a foal again, too young to think of such things... "But I am small. It will take a long time for me to bury him."

"Of course!" That seemed to rouse some vigor back in her steps. "I'll bring him out and prepare the hole. All you need to is perform final rites. Blessings on you, and Luminace. I know she isn't... specialized in this..."

Dry held up a hoof. "If one values friendship, one must know that, often, it has an ending. Sometimes mundane, sometimes violent. In all cases, the end of that friendship must be faced." He swallowed, facing those emotions he was holding back. "It is my job to help. Luminace watch over us... our new friendships, the old, and the passed..."

"Of course..." She ushered them from the room. "You don't need to see this." She closed the door on them to commence the task.

Silver and Dry emerged from the house of death. She flopped against him. "How are you not, like..." She trailed off, seeing another soldier approaching them swiftly. "Hello?"

"You two," he barked firmly. "You claim to be clerics of Princess Luminace, is that correct?"

Dry nodded at the newcomer. "We are those. Do you need help? I'm a little busy, but she's available." He tossed his head towards Silver Spoon.

"This should take a moment." He reached for them, patting them down for something. "No..." But he didn't find whatever it was. "A simple test." He drew his sword free in his mouth. "Undo this." He brought the sword down, not on them, but his own leg, leaving a jagged bleeding wound. "Prove your ability where you can't be ready for it."

Silver's eyes widened, taking a step back from the bleeding pony. "What are you doing?!"

Dry was already saying the words, beseeching Luminace to bring relief to the weak in physical form. The limb mended quickly under his care, and he could hear a faint crackling noise as it knit back together. "Please don't do that again. You could hurt yourself seriously. I cannot cure death, sir."

The guard raised a brow, but both came down as one. "I see." He turned in place and marched off, as if that had been an entirely normal way to conduct business.

Dry shook his head. "You look tired. Go home." He pointed the way towards their resting place. "I can handle this."

"I don't know how you can..." She looked away and back at him. "It's alright... to feel bad." She smooched his cheek. "And it's alright to be weak. It's like hiding."

"Hiding?" Dry inclined his head. "I'm hiding right now."

Author's Note:

How one approaches emotional stressors can be different, from pony to pony.

Dry is a perfect little pony. Surely nothing bad will happen to or around him. What author would ever do such a thing? Stop getting ideas!

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Comments

[Booster Spice]

Collect his final effort with gratitude,

Lay him to peaceful rest.

Allow him to give his last to that which he tended all his life with love.

[redmar]

That guard was a bit extreme in his methods but he got what he wanted. It's sad they couldn't rescue that stallion but that stallion downplayed his illness to his own detriment.

[badninja]

I get the feeling that this leader is going to find that although Celestia can be forgiving she will not take their actions lightly and show why she is the princess of the sun.