Prometheus
Day Two Hundred and Sixty
Rose Wreath closed the little green book and jotted down a few more notes in her personal journal with a quill made from one of her own feathers. The nearby bonfire provided plenty of light for her to read and write and allowed her to keep pretty detailed notes. She had spent the last day or so translating the final page and was left thoroughly whelmed. It didn’t seem like anything important. That was annoying.
The rest of the journal was anything but annoying, though. It was enlightening to a rapturous degree. It had proven everything Rose had known to be true and steeled her resolved more than she thought possible. It also provided greater clarity for her mission and a new destination. There was now a vague roadmap to Equestria and ponykind’s liberation.
There was something that even Celestia and Luna were afraid of, something their parents had hidden them from. It was something that could kill alicorns and it was trapped. If it was trapped, then it could be freed. Rose was sure with the knowledge in this journal she could convince this ‘Upalas Rakinti’ character to join her cause. Especially if it wanted Celestia and Luna dead.
“You know, I’m glad you can understand this.” Gallus was, of course, sitting right by her. He had been pouring over her notes as fast as she could write them but she wasn’t sure he could comprehend them. “Seems like nonsense. Are you sure this Starswirl pony wasn’t insane?”
Rose wasn’t having an easy time with this language, but she still believed in Starswirl’s sanity. It had taken her days to grasp the language even on a simple level and the basic sentences she had written up as questions for her destined meeting with Upalas were most likely clumsy and wrong. They would suit her purposes, though. They would have to.
“Starswirl was a lot of things, but insane wasn’t one of them.” Rose muttered as she stacked the papers neatly and placed them in her personal satchel. “I hadn’t heard of him until I moved to Canterlot, but I learned pretty quickly that he’s a genius in pretty much every field. Ponies hold him in high regard for a reason.”
“Okay…” Gallus tapped his claws against the dirt. “...so we just take his word on this ‘Upalas’ thing and then what? Call the Storm King to get it out?”
“We can do this ourselves.”
The Storm King was nothing without his little staff and Rose didn’t need a big powerless ape. The only thing he had was numbers, and even those wouldn’t last long. He was the very definition of ‘any port in a storm’ and as soon as all of his new followers realized how shoddy that port was, they would leave in droves. His time as a power on the southern continent was dwindling, and that was why he had teams everywhere searching for a new weapon to bring to bear against Equestria.
“Yeah, of course we can.” Gallus puffed out his chest and displayed that rare yet appropriately cocky grin. “We’ll get this Upalas thing ourselves and be heroes!” That’s why she kept the young bird around, he understood their mission and what they were.
“Yes we are, and we will be.” Rose was certain of that. The ponies of Equestria would thank them for their actions when all was said and done. Judging by the news coming out of Equestria, they might be welcomed before they even dethroned the princesses. “So here’s what we’re going to do: we’re going to head east until we hit the coast and then look for where Celestia and Luna stayed as kids-”
“-but that was like a thousand years ago. Won’t everything be different?”
“Maybe.” Rose answered through clenched teeth. “But we can figure it out, I know it.” She tapped the journal with a wing and gave a smile to her subordinate. “There’s something more valuable than gold there: dead alicorns. Even better, Celestia and Luna’s parents.” Rose’s mind had lit on fire the first time she read that they were buried out there. “If we can see how they died, then maybe we can get some information on how to get rid of the princesses.”
“Yeah, plus imagine what seeing their parents' bodies would do to them?” Gallus’ voice dropped. “I remember after a week in the dark, others started digging up bodies to…y’know…uh…they needed food so…” Gallus clenched his fists and punched the ground. “Sorry. Anyway, a lot of fights happened over families. I don’t think anyone likes seeing the dead disturbed like that.”
Now that was an idea. Not one that Rose had even entertained. She had been interested in studying the bodies of the long dead alicorns, but she had never thought about using them as a psychological tool against Celestia and Luna. After all, who wouldn’t want to see the bodies of alicorns. Rose could already imagine that Equestria’s newspapers would love that and that Celestia and Luna would hate it.
“Now that is an idea.” Rose’s mind was racing. If there was one way to throw the leadership of Equestria into more disarray, then that was it. If they were going to bait the alicorns into doing something stupid, then that was a good idea how to do it. It would be one big sucker punch. “I like the way you think, Gallus. Good job.”
“Oh. Thank you.” He rubbed the back of his neck with a claw and that smile turned from cocky to nervous. “I mean, yeah. It would really mess them up.”
“It might make them do something stupid.” Rose added to help him catch on to her train of thought. “All we need to do is keep them on their back hooves, keep them distracted and make them irrational. They’ll slip up, and then we strike with whoever or whatever this Upalas is.”
“You know, you would’ve made a good griffon in another life.” Gallus said with a wry smile. “You have the brains for it, Sarge.”
Rose didn’t like that. Griffons were cutthroat creatures with poor manners and extremely self-centered. Ponies weren’t that and they weren’t supposed to be either, they weren’t wired like that. To be compared to one aspirationally was a slap in the face. She always thought that Gallus had the heart of a pony deep down and that the griffon-ness had been beaten out of him during The Event.
There was still hope for that.
“No, this isn’t for me.” Rose pushed Gallus away from her with a hoof on his chest. “This isn’t selfish, this isn’t a griffish plot. This is for the good of Equestria.” She made sure to level a stern, almost maternal, glare at the young bird. “This is for the good of Equestria and the wider world, got it?”
“I wasn’t calling you selfish.” Gallus looked genuinely hurt and he rested a claw on her leg. “I was just saying you’re clever, y’know? What you said, it’s smart and just cruel enough to work. I just said that you would’ve made a good griffon.”
There was a tense and awkward silence that hung in the air for a few minutes. Rose was still sure he meant it as an insult because that’s exactly how she interpreted it. It was hard to take it any other way. The birds across the sea had been completely self-destructive, but Rose wasn’t like that. She wasn’t so selfish or stupid, not like them. She thought about the greater good, about her fellow equines and their well being and she was focused on the future and not her own immediate needs. That’s what set her apart.
It was unthinkable that she should be compared to a creature like that.
“Are we almost all packed?” That’s all she wanted to hear from her subordinate now, a status report. They needed to have everything from this cave crated up and on the ship soon. She wanted to get moving towards her destiny and Equestria’s liberation.
“It should be done by morning, yeah.” Gallus nodded and grabbed a stick that had been sitting half in the fire and pulled it free. On one end was a field mouse or rat, she didn’t know the difference, that was now thoroughly charred. The rancid smell of cooked meat was heavy in the air, something she thought she had learned to ignore, but when it was brought so close to her she wanted to vomit. “Don’t worry, we should be ready to leave by midday at the latest. “ He added right as he took a bite out of the poor fried critter.
“I want you to do a double check in the morning when you wake up. I don’t want a single book left in there.” Rose turned her head away from the vulgar display of eating another living creature. “The only things that should be in there are those bodies and that creepy skull, understood?”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Gallus gave a half-hearted salute as he continued his grotesque meal. “You don’t want us to-”
“YOU WILL BE GONE FROM THIS PLACE, FOUL FIENDS!”
A booming voice ripped through the night and silenced even the roaring bonfire. Every head around the fire and those that were moving from the cave up to the anchored airship. Silhouetted by the full moon on the horizon, three ponies stood on top of a nearby hill. One of them had a horn that was surrounded in pale gray light.
Rose was on her hooves in an instant with her wing flared out and bright gold eyes focused on the hill. She could spot a pegasus and a colossal earth pony along with the unicorn, whom she now saw was wearing a hat of some kind. She was not keen on visitors, and especially from her own kind at the moment. The last thing she wanted or needed was news of her arrival getting back to civilization, so these intruding ponies were going to need to be dissuaded from coming any closer or detained entirely.
“You just go on and get out of here!” Rose shouted at the trio of creatures at the top of her lungs. “Gallus, go get my spear.” She whispered to the young one next to her, at which point he took to the skies towards the airship.
“YOU WILL RETURN WHATEVER YOU HAVE STOLEN FROM THIS PLACE AND LEAVE!” The unicorn roared once more and fired a beam of magic into the midst of the group, striking the dirt right in front of the bonfire. Chunks of earth were sent into the air and rained down on the congregation of creatures.
Rose was suddenly transported back to the sun soaked days of The Event. The sound of gnashing teeth and rabid howls filled her air and the old wounds across her body began to burn under the nonexistent sunlight. Her muscles tensed and her heart seized in her chest. It was a primal panic she thought she had left behind in the damned city on the mountain. Here it was once again, though.
“NO!” Rose screamed right back at the interlopers. The fire in her chest melted the ice in her veins and brought her blood to a rapid and ferocious boil. She was not going to be intimidated by three little ponies while she had a crew of dozens on her side. “YOU’LL LEAVE RIGHT NOW IF YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU!” She couldn’t quite reach the riotous volume of this unicorn stallion on the hill, but she could match the intensity.
The unicorn talked to the hulking pony next to him and said something that for once did not carry across the thawed tundra. Rose stayed on edge as she saw that pony pull a shovel from its back and stick it in the ground. In that moment Gallus rejoined her and put a custom spear in her wing. The shovel was stuck into the ground and a chunk of the earth twice as big as Rose herself was lifted free of the soil.
“What the…” Gallus whispered in shock.
Somehow the tiny shovel hefted the boulder in the air and heaved it like a catapult. It sailed into the air and became lost in the backdrop of the inky night sky. Rose shouted for everyone to scatter, and they did so. Her crew all dissipated from around the bonfire, which proved to be a good idea because the boulder landed right on top of it. Flaming pieces of wood rained down on the fleeing crowd.
If one of them could fling pieces of the earth itself, there was no telling what the other once could do. Rose didn’t want to stick around to find out. She would like to have all of the things from the cave onboard the ship, but that was no longer viable. She had the journal and that was the most important thing that she knew of. It was more important to get away and follow this lead than get crushed or left behind. Before they revealed they had a pony with apparent super powers on their side, she was happy to take them on. Now she wanted to get out of the way. Even if they told somepony about what they saw, there was no way they would know who or what they saw for certain.
“EVERYONE ON THE SHIP! WE’RE LEAVING!” Rose shouted to her crew. “LEAVE THE CRATES, GET ON THE SHIP NOW!” With discipline she had drilled into them, the crew listened. The various bipeds she had at her disposal and a few griffons surged by her and up the small mountain towards the airship. Gallus took off once again and began directing others up the hill while telling them to leave things behind. All the while Rose stayed right where she was with her eyes on the ponies.
How long had it been since she had seen her own kind? There were those she saw on her way down the river while leaving Equestria and the hollow faces in Las Pegasus as she sailed into the ocean. Before that the last pony she saw up close was…No, that wasn’t a pony. That was another monster. A thing overtaken by the corruption it had willingly let in. A creature whose heart had been closed off to the light and who had been ready to kill her. Perhaps the last true and untainted pony she had seen was Bulwark.
Either way, her own kind meant conflict for now. Their ignorance and willing blindness made them untrustworthy and prone to acts of violence. Until she had a carrot or a big enough stick, they would remain in conflict with her. Reason would come later when she could make them see the light, when she got what she was after.
“YOU WILL HALT!” The unicorn shouted again and fired a beam of magic right at the airship. It glanced off of the armor plating that covered the front of the balloon and shot into the night sky. That’s what got Rose to finally head up the hill. Putting herself in harm’s way was one thing, but the ship was not something they could go without.
Rose’s bad shoulder flared up and she could feel an all too familiar tingling sensation run down her legs as she tried to run up the hill. It seemed completely random. Sometimes if she stayed still for too long that static would fill her limbs, then sometimes it happened if she was too active. No matter when it happened, it was always annoying and it was debilitating. She lost feeling in her extremities and the muscles in her legs became loose and didn’t want to absorb her weight with each step. Her front left leg, that old troublemaker, was the first one to fully give out. At first she attempted to use the spear held in her wing as a walking stick but she stumbled and fell face first on the slope of the hill with a loud curse.
“C’mon Sarge, get up!” Gallus was practically on top of her in a few seconds after she hit the ground. His claws grabbed around her front two legs, his claws like needles to the tingling limbs that made her wince. Her subordinate picked her up and started to drag her up the incline of the small mountain towards their ship.
After a few seconds, her rear legs regained feeling again and her front legs came soon after. She shrugged Gallus off and resumed her fast trot up the hill while the young griffon hovered over her. She looked over her shoulder and saw that the three ponies were barreling towards their camp and would soon be on their way up the hill. She wasn’t fast enough to outrun them, not anymore.
“Gallus, can you carry me?” It was undignified, but she could not be captured or worse. She had a glorious purpose ahead of her that could not be denied. A little indignity would have to be suffered to ensure she could remain free and execute Equestria’s liberation from tyranny.
“What?” Gallus asked with wide and surprised eyes. “I mean, yeah. You’re a pegasus. You’re super light.” She nodded at him as a sign to do so. He reached down, wrapped his arms around her barrel and lifted her up. He grunted and strained for a minute, but he seemed to adjust and his powerful wings carried them both up and towards the deck of the ship. It was a much quicker flight than walk and they reached the top of the little mountain in a few minutes.
“Raise the boarding ramp!” She yelled down at the creatures that were stampeding into the interior of the ship. “Raise the anchor and prepare to make way!” She was let go with her hooves about six inches above the deck and she landed with a thud. Gallus landed beside her, covered in sweat and huffing. “Go below, make sure everything is secured.”
“Ramp is up! Everyone’s in!” One of the yetis, the pilot whose name she had not bothered to learn, yelled as he came from below deck. “Anchor is raising, Sergeant.”
“Good, get us underway as soon as you can.” She nodded at him, at least she assumed it was a male, and moved to the side of the ship while the pilot bolted towards the ship’s wheel. She looked over the side and saw the three ponies surging up the hill towards them. “Get us up, now! I don’t care if the anchor isn’t fully raised!”
“Taking off!” The call came from somewhere behind her and was soon echoed across several stations. Various machines and mechanisms roared to life under her hooves and the hulking metal vessel slowly began to lift into the air.
Rose smiled at the other ponies and gave them a little wave.
Then the airship stopped moving.
“What did I say?!” Rose spun around and saw that the balloon of the ship was completely encased in the pale gray aura of the unicorn’s horn. There was no way that a single unicorn was stopping all of this steel and fire from moving. That was impossible. “Full power!” The engines were just cold from being off for so long, that had to be it. They just needed to be pushed a little.
“Full power!” The order echoed around the deck.
The engines roared and the entire ship surged upwards but stopped again. The glow around the reinforced balloon got brighter and somehow the ship began to move back towards the earth instead of higher into the sky. There was no way…
Then, to make things worse, one of the ponies landed on her deck. It was a pegasus mare, her coat was a darker peach and her mane and tail were greenish-blue with green stripes through them. She wore a sheer white dress and a white headdress with golden ornaments. She struck Rose as vaguely familiar but she couldn’t place it.
“We told you to halt.” The pegasus spoke in accented Ponish, and it wasn’t an accent that Rose recognized. “Please, we do not wish to hurt you. We only request that you return what you have stolen from this place. That vault you found, It is dangerous and we-” She was talking down to Rose and they both knew it. Rose furrowed her brow and she felt one of her eyes twitch the more the mare spoke. Soon the words were drowned out by the sound of rushing blood in the former guard’s ears.
Rose rushed the other mare, lowering her good shoulder and putting it right into the interloper’s chest. Rose could hear the air leave her lungs in a rush. The intruder’s back hit the railing of the ship and she let out a sharp cry of pain. Rose made sure to put everything she had into pinning the other pony there.
A deep and bubbling rage pushed up from the depths and claimed Rose’s mind. It was not something she had indulged in a very long time, but there was something about being talked down to like that. It reminded her of all the times she had been disrespected in her life, of all the times she had been talked down to. It made her put a knee right into the other mare’s stomach.
Whoever this pony was, she wasn’t a fighter. Nor had she ever been. Rose could tell that much. If her plan had been to come up here and talk about this, to use diplomacy to get them to give up peacefully, then it had been a very stupid plan. This world wasn’t for the silver tongued, not anymore. Heroic speeches and heartfelt monologues had saved nopony during The Event. Only force had.
Force that Rose had a monopoly on in this situation. She tossed the other pegasus to the deck and pressed the tip of her spear right against the soft neck of the mare. There was an urge, a dark and nasty thing that told her to just push her spear forward and be done with her problem. She fought it, though. That was a darkness and it would not claim her heart. This mare had not attacked her and there was no reason to kill her.
The airship jolted and began to move back towards the ground a little faster. That made Rose realize the situation she was in. Once they were free of this mare’s friends, then she could think about what to do with this intruder.
“Someone come tie her up!” Rose shouted and in an instant two slavering yetis, their faces hidden behind featureless metal masks, were on top of the mare with a length of rope. The mare, of course, struggled and cursed at them all in a language Rose didn’t understand. That was one problem taken care of, now what about the other?
“Wait…” She looked over the side and saw that they were maybe fifty feet from the ground now. The other two ponies, the hulking earth pony and the unicorn with the hat, were right off the port side below the anchor. If this unicorn was as strong as he seemed to be, he could stop it. But it would keep him occupied. “RELEASE THE ANCHOR! CUT IT LOOSE!” There were confused murmurs from her crew. “DID I STUTTER? DO IT!” Several yetis disappeared below deck to comply with the order.
The anchor, a massive metal spike with serrated edges, shuddered as its chain gave a little slack. Then it came loose all at once. It plunged to the earth and was aimed right between the two ponies. Sure enough, the unicorn diverted all of his attention to the falling anchor and his grip on the ship faltered. The strained engines took over and the entire structure rocketed upwards once all of its halted momentum had been given back. Every creature on deck, and probably all of those below it, stumbled and fell as the ship surged into the night sky.
“NO!” The ponies on the ground screamed in unison.
“We’re heading east.” Rose got to her hooves and relayed to an older griffon with gray and black feathers. “Right to the coast, tell the pilot. We’re not stopping until we get there.” The bird nodded and gave a salute before walking towards the ship’s wheel. Rose then tapped the mare on the ground with her hoof and spoke to the two yetis who had tied her up. “Take her to my quarters for questioning.”
“I will tell you nothing!” The pegasus spat furiously as she was picked up. “You will let me go and let me return to my friends!”
“No I won’t.” Rose glared at her fellow equine. “Maybe next time you’ll think before you come on somepony’s ship without permission. Take her away.” The last thing she needed was another headache, but this also presented an opportunity. Whoever those ponies below were, they were exceptionally strong. That meant they posed a threat and Rose would like to know who these threats were and what they were doing here.
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Yeesh actually entertaining the thought of parading around the corpses of Celestia and Luna's parents. Rose really proves there are no depths she won't sink to.
Happy Birthday!
Also an excellent chapter showing just how low Rose is. With every sin and crime, the catharsis when she gets her comeuppance grows.
I hope that Somnambula manages to stay strong. Hope versus Blind Faith. Also I imagine Starswirl is regretting leaving that journal now.
Well, that probably isn't good. Makes me wonder why Starswirl didn't go for the kill, or teleport. Rockhoof could've also thrown more boulders at the ship too. Maybe they were afraid if catching Somnambula in the crossfire, but frankly she should've probably known better.
11814502
They had things he wanted and the fact that Somnambula was on the ship stopped them from trying to damage the ship.
11814519
And now they have neither the things, nor the ship, nor their friend. Welp. I still stand by my previous statement of "that probably isn't good."
Though that doesn't explain why he didn't teleport to the ship.
11814557
Was the Teleport spell even invented by the time Starswirl got sealed away?
11814502
Every mage knows you never, ever teleport inside an unfamiliar structure. You're as likely to save three hours of dungeon crawling as you are to teleport directly into a guard's sword.
Oh boy, Rose just has absolutely no idea how utterly stupid what she's getting up to right now is.
Also, going for what presumably managed to kill multiple alicorns? That is unfathomably stupid when you've no idea what it is, because if it's something you can't maintain complete, total control over, you are 1000% screwed the instant it turns on you.
It's taken me a minute to comment on this chapter, but there's a reason for that.
I was... putting something together about Rose Wreath. Also, happy birthday!
Starswirl somehow always manages to be the indirect reason behind like 90% of all canon and fanfic problems. It’s both impressive and concerning just how much ancient and powerful magic that he just casually leaves laying around.
11816238
Couldn’t have said it better myself. I don’t think I’ve ever loved to hate a character to this degree before.
Oh fuck this, this is going to be very bad and unleash somthing very disturbing.
11816238
My thought exactly
Wait you have a YouTube account?