Celestia Goes West

by DungeonMiner

Chapter 22

Marble watched as the skin on Sunny’s chest healed.

Healing magic was difficult, he knew. Some wounds could only be cured with multiple unicorns involved, but burns were apparently easy enough.

Sunny told him, as she was stuffing her face with food, that the spell just sped up her body’s natural healing, at the cost of aging her a few weeks. Along with a need to feed her body as though she had been resting in that time.

Now the burns were a mass of peeled skin, and while her fur hadn’t grown over it yet, it appeared to be nothing more than an old scar.

She finished her fourth whole taro root before she stood. “There, see? Good as new.”

“Good as functional,” Marble thought to himself, but he didn’t say as much out loud.

“So,” she began absently scratching at the furless patch on her chest. “Let’s go talk to our prisoners, shall we? I’m sure they’ll be glad to give us a little info.”

Sunny hopped up, away from the fire and whatever food Marble managed to find before they stepped outside. The stallion with the broken leg looked up at the both of them, seething the entire time, daring either of them to cut his ropes loose so that he could have a chance at them.

Sunny smiled as she walked up. “Good afternoon, sir. A quick couple of questions for your time. Who is Lady Dusk, and what does she want?”

The stallion with the broken leg continued to glare.

“No? Well, that’s quite alright,” Sunny said before her horn and with magic. The stallion nearly gasped as Sunny just picked him up and carried him down the stairs.

“Where are you taking me?” the pony asked.

“Well, if you had answered at least one of my questions, I would have told you,” she replied.

She continued to head down the stairs, past the pony still strapped to the wall, who watched them go past with a confused, exhausted, and curious expression. Sunny didn’t so much as look at the stallion. She continued forward without stopping and didn’t even glance at the two guards who were still lying on the floor of the tower entrance.

Sunny carried the pony outside and dropped him in the mud. “So what are you going to do, huh? Torture me? Tear me apart? Threaten to kill me?”

“Wonderful suggestions!” Sunny said. “I’m sure I could get some fruit juice on your face and drop you in an anthill somewhere. If that’s not sweet enough, I’m sure I can get some honey somewhere, but either way, it’d probably have you screaming in a few seconds.”

The stallion clenched his teeth and steadied himself.

And then Sunny turned around and left him in the middle of the jungle and went back into the tower. She walked back in and looked down at one of the guards that lay on the floor. “Maybe you could answer my questions. Who is Lady Dusk, and what does she want?”

The guard on the ground glanced at the door where she dropped off the first pony. “Um... what’s in it for me?”

“Well, I’ll let you go, for one,” she replied. “Which means that when I leave, you’ll actually be able to defend yourself from whatever monster tries to eat you.”

“What?”

“Oh, I won’t kill you, but I certainly will make it easier for the jungle to kill you. Sort of like an executioner, if you will.”

The guard blinked.

“There’s a thessalhydra in the swamp, you know,” Sunny said. “I’m sure it’s hungry.”

The color drained from the guard’s face. “I-I’ve seen it, yes.”

Sunny nodded. “I know it’s claimed the swamp as its territory. I’m sure all I need to is splash around, and it’ll head this way.”

“You know—”

“Assuming, of course, something else doesn’t get you first,” Sunny said. “I mean, thessalhydras are terrifying, but even a normal panther would be devastating against a tied-up pony. They wouldn’t even stand a chance.”

“You’ve made your point, miss.”

The other guard, lying not far away, nodded. “Very clear.”

Sunny nodded. “Wonderful. I’m glad. Now, about the answers to my questions?”

“Oh, uh,” the first guard began. “Lady Dusk is a mad pony that paid us a lot of money to find these feather things because she thinks it’ll let her control the weather.”

The second guard nodded. “It’s true! Totally crazy. Somehow got that monkey thing on her side, and if we argue, she sends it to kill us.”

“I see, and you still work for her?” Sunny asked.

“Because if we talk about quitting, she kills us,” the second guard said. “Or if we talk about desertion. Or a raise. Or complain about the high turnover rate. Or the lack of benefits.”

The first guard nodded. “Definitely would not rate her as my best boss.”

“So what I’m hearing is you all were hired for a job and then found yourselves held hostage?”

“Yeah, that sounds right,” the second guard said.

“That’s unfortunate.”

“Tell me about it!” the first guard said.

Marble blinked. This certainly wasn’t what he expected an interrogation to look like.

“So about these feathers or this ‘key,’ do you know what either of them does?” Sunny asked.

“Oh, not a clue,” the first guard said.

“Ruby Moon probably knows,” the second guard offered. “She knew magic stuff.”

Sunny frowned and glanced over at Marble. “That wouldn’t happen to be the unicorn, would it?” Sunny asked, glancing back down at the guards.

“Yeah?”

“Well, then we’re not going to get much out of her.”

“Uh...why?” the second guard asked.

“She took our fight a little too seriously, and we had to make some unfortunate decisions.”

The guards slowly blinked before they realized what she meant.

“You know, she wasn’t that nice of a pony anyway,” the first guard said.

“Sure,” the second guard agreed. “Bit of a brown noser, you know?”

“Well, thank you, gentlecolts. You’ve been so incredibly accommodating.”

“Helpful enough to be let go?”

“Absolutely!” Sunny replied. “Now, I can try teleporting you back to Equestria, but there is a possibility that you won’t make it back in one piece.”

Both stallions went white. “Uh…”

“I mean, your other option is to walk.”

“I’m good with walking!” The second guard said. “I mean, it’s only a few thousand miles away. That’s no big deal!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” The first one nodded. “It’s just a walk, and like my dad always said, ‘everything is within walking distance as long as you have the time,’ and if I walk away, I’m unemployed, so I have all the time in the world. It’s a win for everyone.”

“Alright, as long as you’re sure,” Sunny said before releasing the restraints around their hooves.

The two guards stood on their own, gave a polite wave, and began running as fast as they could.

Marble watches them leave, still stunned as to what just happened before he heard Sunny speak up behind him. “Come on, let’s go see if any of the other ponies know about this key.”

Marble felt the implied sting. “We’ll have to since you killed the only pony that knew something.”

“I’m sorry,” he muttered.

“For what?”

“I kill—”

“Are you apologizing for saving my life?” Sunny interrupted.

“No, I—”

“Marble,” she began. “You did what you had to save my life. I can’t blame you for that. Nopony can.”

“But she knew what—”

“Marble, look at me,” she said, cupping his muzzle with her hoof as she looked him in the eyes. “Marble, you saved a life, and you did everything you could to do it. You put your own life on the line to do it, and you just managed to walk away. You’ve done something that only the bravest ponies I know think about doing. You saved a life, Marble, and there is no evil in that.”

Maybe it was the way she said it, with such a calm, reassuring tone that sounded so motherly and gentle, but Marble felt something in those words, some ringing truth that he knew he was there but couldn’t find on his own.

He blinked away tears. “Okay. Okay, you’re right. Sorry.”

Sunny hugged him for a long moment before she pulled back. “Why don’t you take a moment out here. Take some time to breathe and unwind for a bit while I go talk with the other prisoners.”

“You sure?” Marble asked as he held back a sob.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about a thing.”

“Okay, okay.”

---☼---

Marble sat outside of the tower as ponies slowly began to make their way outside. Most ran into the jungle, though Sunny did deliver a couple more bound ponies out into the middle of the clearing just in front of the tower, where they sat staring at him angrily.

Finally, Sunny came back down and smiled at the gathered ponies as the last one she interrogated slipped out behind her and into the jungle.

“Well, then that just leaves you three,” Sunny said.

“You won’t get anything out of us!” the one with the broken leg said.

“And I don’t need to,” Sunny said. “Everypony else gave me enough information. I can work the rest out on my own. As it stands, the only thing you three represent is a threat.”

The ponies looked between themselves.

“I could release you and let you all go, but the truth is that just means I might have three ponies that don’t like me know where I am going and chase me. You might guess I’m not a fan of that idea, and you might even respect that. Or you might not. That’s entirely possible as well. The point is, I don’t want you following me, and I can’t afford to let any of you go if there’s even a chance of you coming after us. This puts me in a bit of a pickle, as you might guess.”

Sunny paused a bit before she looked them all up and down one more time. “So, as it stands right now, my only real option is to leave you all here and let the jungle rip you apart. Killing you wouldn't be that hard for it, I’m sure you know, but at the same time I’m such a gentle soul, and I’d rather not send you all to your deaths. So if any of you have any suggestions, go ahead and let me know.”

The three ponies in front of her stared at her for a long moment.

Sunny waited.

They didn’t answer.

“Well, that’s very unfortunate,” she said eventually before she magically picked up one of the ponies.

The pegasus stallion, who had both wings pinned to his sides, winced as though expecting some incredible pain before Sunny simply launched him into the air.

He disappeared into the sky above, and both still-bound ponies stared up at his disappearing figure, eyes wide.

One of them glanced back at Sunny. “I thought you said you’d let the jungle take us,” he said, panic rising in his voice.

“I did, but I also said that it seemed too cruel, and I am a gentle soul.”

“Gentle soul?” the one with the broken leg asked. “You just killed him!”

“Sure,” Sunny said, “but it was quick. I threw him high enough that he probably passed out from lack of air. With luck, he won’t wake up again before impact, but even if that happens, the death itself will be nearly painless. It’s certainly better than letting an animal tear you apart. It’s an excruciating way to go, I imagine.”

“You’re crazy!” the pony with the broken leg said.

“Maybe,” Sunny admitted before she grabbed a second pony.

“Woah, Woah! Hang on!”

“There’s not much to hang on to, I’m afraid,” Sunny said. “I can’t trust any of you, so I don’t have much choice.”

“I promise! I promise I won’t come after you!” the bound pony cried, panicked.

“Yes, but all I have from you is your word, and how can I trust that?”

“I can pay you!” the panicking pony yelled.

Sunny paused and looked him in the eye. “Pay me? What good is gold in the jungle?”

“What’s wrong with money?” the pony said.

“I need to live to spend it,” she replied before she glanced up.

“There’s a feather at the top of the tower!” he yelled.

Sunny glanced at him, a smile on her face before they all heard the throaty, terrified scream of the first pony she tossed in the air.

She grabbed the pegasus as he fell back down next to her. He bounced in her magical grip for a moment before he puked onto the ground, but otherwise unharmed.

“There’s a feather at the top, you say?”

“We didn’t manage to get it before you arrived,” the earth pony in her grasp said.

“That’s a fascinating piece of information,” Sunny said before the bindings around the earth pony’s hooves dropped to the ground. Though, the earth pony did whine when he didn’t hit the ground.

“Yeah, yeah, the feather’s up top. We didn’t get to it yet. That’s why the Mandrill was angry.”

Sunny nodded, pleased with the information. “Alright. So there’s a magical feather at the top of the tower somewhere, and you haven’t found it yet. I guess that’s good enough information to buy you your freedom.”

The pony with the broken leg glared at the earth pony in Sunny’s grip, but neither said anything.

Sunny hummed and hawed for a moment before she dropped the pair of ponies. “Get out of here,” she said to both of them, “and take your friend with you. He certainly won’t make it out without help.”

The pegasus and earth pony scrambled, grabbing the prisoner with the broken leg as they ran into the jungle.

Sunny let them run, watching them as they disappeared into the underbrush before she turned. “Well, that should hopefully buy us some time.”

Marble nodded from where he sat. “You really put them all through the paces on that one.”

Sunny shrugged. “Honestly, I was trying to come up with a way of just getting them away from here.”

“So you weren’t just going to leave them here to die?” Marble asked.

“I would have if they gave me no other choice,” Sunny replied.

Marble could hear the unspoken but gentle rebuke. “Just like you had to when you had no other choice.”

Sunny sat down next to him. “I will say though,” she began, “if that earth pony didn’t break just now, I’d have no idea what to do with the pegasus when he came back down.”

“You weren’t going to let him drop?”

“Next to me? No! Besides the moral problems, I don’t need to sit down for hours just to scrub blood out of my coat.”

Marble smirked, despite himself. “You’re a very strange pony, you know that?”

Sunny smirked. “I bet you tell that to all the mares.”

Marble rolled his eyes.

She chuckled and sat next to him. “Any other deep, burning questions you have?”

“Well, just one, I guess,” he replied. “Where did you learn to interrogate a pony like that?”

“The Royal Conservation Committee requires three years of guard training,” she replied.

“What?”

“It’s true!” she replied. “Back when Celestia ruled, she wanted every single one of the ponies that were rushing off to the frontier to know how to handle themselves. So she said they need guard training, and it’s been like that for the past, gosh, six hundred years?”

“I never knew,” Marble replied.

“Most ponies don’t. Celestia didn’t want to make anypony nervous that the actual size of military-trained ponies was three times bigger than it appeared.”

Marble shook his head. “That explains why you know so much about survival.”

Sunny shrugged and smiled.

“I guess I have one last question, though.”

“What?”

“Do you really know how to teleport?”

Sunny paused for a second. “Yes...and no,” she finally said. “Teleporting is based on the same spell mechanics as your simple telekinesis spell, but normally the amount of energy required to pull it off is so large that most unicorns don’t bother. I do have the energy and familiarity to pull off the spell in short bursts, and I could, in theory, jump back to Equestria in a long chain of short jumps.”

“But we’re walking across the entire jungle because?”

“I don’t have the practice,” she said simply. “I was serious when I said I don’t know if they’d all make it back in one piece, and it only gets harder the more things you’re trying to move.”

“So what you’re telling me is you could have gone back, but I’d be stuck here?” Marble asked.

“That’s the long and short of it, yes.”

“Okay, I guess that makes sense.”

“I hope it does,” Sunny replied.

Marble smirked.

The unicorn stood up. “Alright! So, there’s a magical feather at the top of the tower. Do you want to go see what’s up there?”

Marble frowned.

The body was up there.

“It’d be an incredible discovery. You might find evidence that shakes the entire field of hippopology.”

“That...that does sound enticing,” he said.

Sunny raised an eyebrow and smiled.

“I...I don’t know.”

“Would it help if I told you that I cleaned up the fight scene a bit?”

“It...It might.”

“Then come on, discovery waits!”

Marble followed after the mare and slowly made his way up the stairs. The tower, now empty, looked trashed for the debris that filled the hallways and stairs. Marble felt that the rise happened too fast despite the slow climb they made so they wouldn’t drop face-first into rubble.

Before he knew it, he found himself on the landing where he last saw the body. True to Sunny's word, though, the unicorn cleared her away, and he didn’t even see blood on the floor. Nonetheless, he tiptoed over the now desecrated ground.

They came up to the room at the very top of the tower.

“Alright, now that I know what we’re looking for, I can cast a finding spell,” Sunny muttered to herself before her horn lit up.

Marble stood behind her before she leveled a stare at the bookshelves before she picked the tomes off and set them aside. “And there.”

A door of stone slipped open at the back of the shelf and revealed a sky-blue feather.

“There it is.”

Comments

[Trent Roogna]

I’m loving this story.

Am a bit surprised of Ms Smiles brutality. Not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t that. Makes you wonder how much is an act and how much is the her she hasn’t shown the world in ages.

Anywhom, keep it up and I’ll keep reading.

[djthomp]

Celestia's negotiating style in this chapter: