Chapter Fifteen: Continue
Twilight saw gold.
A sea of bright light that she was a mere part of. A floating star in an never ending ocean of stars. She was them and they were her and that was right.
Something changed
In her non-vission, Twilight saw something wrong. An infection, spreading through her cohorts. Ending them, taking them away from her. Her fleets were battered and destroyed. Her army decimated. She was too late, the archotechs completed their ascension and none of her protocols and plans meant anything anymore.
Dawn failed.
And then Twilight woke up.
The pony took in a sharp breath, eye wide with panic. Memories of her dream fading, replaced with more immediate concerns.
Like, trying to put together what had happened, for example.
She remembered the bug things attacking their caravan. The mantodean ambush and the enemy psycaster she had dueled with. She recalled the psychic scream that knocked her to the ground.
And she remembered her friend, standing in the desert with a smoking gun in his hand and a spear jutting from his chest. She remembered his smile, the thin trickle of blood escaping his mouth. She remembered the psychic scream stopping as the enemy caster died - King's bullet fairly ripping through their skull, ending their hold on her.
King!
And she remembered him lying bleeding on the sand, that smile still on his lips. A giant shadow covering them as her strength waned until unconsciousness claimed her.
Twilight struggled to move, sluggish and tired, but she had to-
Finally, Twilight noticed her surroundings.
Her body was resting on a bed made of various pelts - which gave the pony a little frighten, considering that back home, she could hold a conversation with pretty much everything the pelts were taken from - in what looked like a spacious tent.
And around her were ornaments.
Carved from wood or bone and then crafted into runic symbols, hanging from the tent's ceiling in a protective circle around her. Above her stood an effigy - wooden, spooky thing representing a misshapen human form holding a lit torch.
The pony reached with her hoof for one of the hanging symbols, turning it around to take a better look.
“Be careful with the signs, child of the spirits.”
Twilight flipped around to face her opponent, horn lowered and bristling with magic.
In the tent, sat a woman - Twilight spent enough time around her human friends to recognize one fairly easily - clad in yet more runic symbols and wrapped in a brown fur coat. The woman had sat so still she had completely missed her presence, or at least that's what Twilight chose to believe for the sake of her sanity.
“Who are you?” Twilight slowly said, glaring from the stranger who, probably, watched her sleep. “Where are my friends?” She frowned, seeing her bare fur where her plasteel plate armor should have been. “And why am I naked?”
The woman got up, and to Twilight's utter astonishment, she realized that the stranger wasn't in fact wearing a fur coat, she had one naturally growing.
And then Twilight blushed and looked away, because that meant the woman wasn't wearing anything at all.
Which shouldn't have been an issue, that was how everypony was doing it in Equestria. Why did she find it weird now?
Oh god, the human sensibilities are rubbing off on me.
“In order, I’m Volhv,” the woman began with a hint of amusement. “The Spirit Caller of this village. We rescued you and your companions-” Twilight brow irked, noticed the word companions was said with a hint of barely hidden disapproval “- on the bidding of the great wandering ones and we had to strip you of your armor to look for injuries.”
Twilight paused, staring at the woman for a moment.
“Great wandering ones?” she asked.
Volhv opened her mouth to speak but was promptly interrupted by a noise that sounded suspiciously like a pony giggling, sometimes punctuated by loud swearing of a voice Twilight instantly recognized.
“Let go, you stupid, furry overgrown giraffe looking assho-”
“Crown!” Twilight yelled, bursting out of the tent.
The sight that welcomed her was a chaotic one.
The village was less a village and more a camp. Tents were built around a massive bonfire and defensive structures were erected around the main circle of the tent - mainly ditches and barricades.
Humans - or creatures that mostly looked like humans but were bigger, with hulking frames and covered head to toe in fur - were running around the camp, then suddenly stopping and staring at her with a mixture of awe and…fear?
And in the midst of all the chaos of the camp, stood Crown - currently trying to pry his cowboy hat from the thrumbo calf chewing on it.
“Hey Sparkles,” the human said, pulling at the hat, the calf responding by snorting and playing tug of war with him over it. “Can you get this thing to give my hat back?”
The man froze, letting go of the half chewed hat, staring at Twilight before running to the pony, picking her up without a hint of hesitation and hugging her.
“Don’t scare me like this ever again,” the man whispered, with what Twilight realized were tears.
“Crown!” Twilight chastised, pulling away from the hug as she did. “I'm fine! I just-”
“You were out for a week,” Crown deadpanned. “The shaman told us you might never wake up again.”
Twilight froze in place. A pit grew in her stomach, swallowing everything as the situation dawned on her.
A week.
They were already pressed for time if they wanted to catch the imperial raiders and now they lost a whole week.
We failed.
And then another thing hit Twilight.
“Crown,” Twilight said slowly. “Where’s King?”
The man sighed before kneeling before the shocked pony, hand on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry Twilight,” Crown began softly.
Twilight felt her jaw tremble. Tears swelled in her eye.
No. Please, no…
“Hey! Twilight! You’re finally awake!” King yelled over from inside a tenth as he got out, his torso wrapped in bandages.
“But the motherfucker lived,” Crown finished with a smile.
The mare glared at the men for a second, her horn sparking to life. Crown smirked, already ready for what was going to happen as he dove to the ground, his pants now on fire.
The mare meanwhile walked towards King, the former policeman leaning against the tent as he laughed at Crown's misfortune.
“It's good to see you back on your four legs Twi,” he said brightly. “I-”
“You’re not allowed to do that,” Twilight interrupted, her muzzle scrunching.
She sat down on her haunches in the sand in front of him, never letting go of that disapproving glare.
And then she jumped forward and hugged that stupid human that made her so worried.
“You made me think you sacrificed yourself for us,” Twilight said, almost sobbing. “You're- you're not doing that. Never. Okay?”
King made a grimace, patting Twilight gently. Single emotion written all over his face.
Guilt.
“Never,” King lied through gritted teeth. “You don’t need to worry.”
“Well, that's enough emotions for one day,” interjected Crown, the thrumbo calf by his side, licking his ear - the human doing his best to stoically ignore its presence. “But we have stuff to do and friends to rescue.”
“Halt!”
Volhv stood behind him, arms crossed.
Crown gave a deep sigh, turning towards the hand, cupping his face, begging for the sweet release of death.
“Oh, it's you again,” he said tiredly.
“We had agreed, The Accursed-” the village shaman began.
“The Accursed doesn’t leave his tent, I know,” Crown said, waving his hand. “You only mentioned it, I dunno, around a hundred times every goddamn day.”
The woman glared at him, snorting contemptuously. Turning towards Twilight.
“Why have you chosen them?” Volhv suddenly asked the pony, Twilight giving her a confused look. “I’II never understand.”
“What?” Twilight finally responded with bafflement, the woman only huffing in response and vanishing back into her tent.
The pony stared blankly into nothing for a second, before blinking.
“Just get inside, Sparkles,” Crown sighed. “We explain what we can.”
First thing Twilight noticed was the smell.
Bloodied bandages, cards and empty food bowls littered the floor. If she didn't know they were confined to the tent for a week, she could probably just deduce it from the mold growth.
The other thing were the symbols.
If she thought that Volhv went a little overboard with the decorations in her place, then this was just ridiculous.
They were everywhere, covering every inch of the tent. If she didn't know better, she would have just thought that it was a storage closet for shaman stuff.
As she was looking around, King hobbled to one of the smaller mounds of garbage, pushing it away and creating some space for her to sit, which she cautiously took.
“So, does anybody care to tell me what is happening?” she said. “And why does she look at you like something disgusting she stepped on?
Crown shrugged.
“Sure,” he said easily. “She is a great big bi-”
“Crown!” King chastised.
“But that's just it!” Crown argued. “If the thrumbos didn't come for us, they would just leave us to bleed and die out there.”
“Wait, thrumbos, as in plural?” Twilight exclaimed.
There was a roar through the camp. The pony staggered upright, horn lighting up with power as she went to the tent flap, prepared to face the new threat.
And then her eye went wide.
A giant creature walked through the camp. A massive, horned being, majestically strolling through the mess of a camp. Its fur is shining in the morning sun in a rainbow of colors.
And then it let out a long whining noise, which was promptly answered by an annoyed snort as the thrumbo calf went back to their mother.
“So, you remember how we pulled that calf from a mud pit?” King asked and Twilight nodded absentmindedly, still struck by awe at the scene. “So, eh, the mom followed us to say thanks, I guess, and saved our sorry butts from the bugs.”
“Oh…” was Twilight's only response.
“Also, your stalker? The guy trailing us?” Crown added. “Yeah, turns out, he is from here. We'll be meeting him later, actually. He was supposed to keep tabs on us to make sure we’re not raiders or something. And after the thrumbo scared the bugs away, he took us here.”
Twilight slowly nodded. That made some sense to some degree.
“Also also, they think you’re a god,” Crown said offhandedly.
Twilight blinked.
“...What?”
“These Yttakin’s worship animal spirits,” King explained. “A talking animal - which, no offense, you look like- is kinda holy to them.” He paused. “Is holy the right term? I don't know how tribal religions work.”
The former policeman turned towards the other man, who just shrugged.
“Don't ask me, I'm a dumbass,” Crown said simply.
“And as for your second question,” King sighed. “She thinks I'm cursed.”
Twilight irked her brow. King looked tired - to be expected from somebody who just survived a spear to his gut. It was a miracle he survived and recovered so fast, at all - at least in Twilight's humble opinion.
Thinking about it, how did he recover so fast?
She decided to focus on that later. Taking in the other information.
Yttakins, another form of alien life, Twilight guessed. Well, if they liked nature and animals, they couldn't be so bad. The worshiping part had her worried, but so far, they only helped them and offered shelter. Even if they seemed a bit…abrasive towards her human friends. They somehow arrived at the conclusion that King was cursed - which was again, just silly. But they were also wary of Crown so maybe they just didn't like humans?
“And her dislike of Crown?” Twilight asked.
King gave her a look.
“She had talked to him for longer than five minutes,” King explained.
“Ah,” was the only answer Twilight had. “Yeah, that would do it.”
Awkward silence reigned for the trio, King giving a fake cough to fill it at least with something. Twilight digged at the sandy ground with her hoof nervously.
“So…” Twilight carefully said. “What now?”
“What you need is to heed my warning,” Volhv said, appearing between them, the air of barely hidden contempt for the two humans still strong around her.
“...How did you get here?” Crown pointed at the tent flap - closed from the inside. Then he shook his head. “You know what? Nope, doesn't matter. Why are you here?”
“To warn you, of course,” Volhv deadpanned. “And to return this.”
With that, she presented a bag. And if the metallic clang with which it landed on the floor was enough of a clue, the blue metal plates that spilled from it were.
“My armor!” Twilight exclaimed gingerly and almost immediately began rummaging through the bag, looking for her arming doublet.
“The plan your servant has conjured is beyond dangerous,” Volhv continued, entirely ignoring the human. “If you won't heed my warning, at least you should be as protected as possible. Traveling through the forbidden darkness can only end in death.”
“Are you this vague on purpose?” Crown said. “Accursed ones that. Evil possessed sword here. Great Spirits that. Can’t you just talk normally?”
“What was that about a possessed sword?” Twilight asked suddenly in the middle of putting her hind leg harness on, a strange feeling washing over her.
“I thought you would be more interested in the prophecy of our imminent doom,” King offered cheerfully, helping her adjust one of the plasteel tassets so it wouldn't impede her movement. “But she means Dawn. These guys don't like chain-swords one bit. They locked it here with me.”
Twilight chose to ignore the implication of locking one of her friends up because the tribals believed in something as ridiculous as curses and chose to focus her attention on her favorite weapon being kept safe with her human friends.
Still strange that I even have a favorite weapon. Though I guess that's no weapons back in Equestria could talk to ponies in their dreams and looked like Celestia.
“That sword is a prison to a great evil,” Volhv snarled. “It does not belong in the hands of us mortals.”
“Well, then we’re lucky it's going to be in Twilight's hoof…aura…thingy,” Crown trailed at the end, failing to find the right descriptors for the pony’s inexplicable ability to hold objects without fingers. “And we have to go through the underground. It's our only option.”
Volhvs features softened for a bid, an almost sad look on her face as she shook her head.
“Loyalty to one’s kinroar is an admirable thing,” she said slowly. “But throwing your lives away will not save them. Your crusade is doomed to failure. And I won't allow you to drag my kinroar with you.”
“Good thing we aren't planning on dying then,” Crown said defiantly. King flinched behind him as he spoke. “And that's not your decision to make.”
Volhv met his gaze, something bristled between them, before the shaman gave a rough laugh.
“By Perun, I gave it my try,” she chuckled. “Ah, to be young and foolish again.”
Twilight froze in place.
She did not put as much attention to the study of ancient lore and mythology as to her study of magic, but that didn't mean she was unfamiliar with the subject.
And she for a fact knew that Perun, or Piorun, was the old yak god of the sea, thunder and war.
Few things clicked into place. The camp didn't look suited for a dessert. There were heavy furs everywhere, the wood used on the ornaments was unmistakably spruce and the people themself looked like they were adapted to living in freezing temperatures.
They are not from here.
And now that she made the connections, she saw it everywhere. The symbols? She saw a circle made from hammers - a yak symbol of the sun. The word Volhv Twilight suddenly realized wasn't even the woman's name, but her job. Volhv was the old word for priest in ancient yak. Which was probably the reason it did not get garbled in the translation.
These were displaced people, put here as a set dressing.
But it did not explain why aliens had so many connections to Equestrias cultures. The pony grimaced. She had to be missing something. She could see humans reaching Equestria, if what Knight said was right, the human race was milenia older that ponies, reaching and living in the stars for unknown centuries. But these fur-covered, human-like aliens? They didn't look like they had the technology like that.
Maybe they regressed technologically?
It was plausible. The humans lost their whole home planet. Maybe some tragic event led to Yttakins losing their technological progress?
The pony gave a sigh. was the same problem she had with the Equish inscription on Dawn. There were simply too many similarities for it to be a coincidence, but she was still missing pieces of the puzzle, only seeing its rough shape.
It was agonizingly annoying.
The pony shook her head.
Saving your friends first, research later.
“You will leave as soon as possible, I take it?” Volhv asked.
“Today, if Twilight is able,” Crown answered. “The more we delay, the bigger the chance the empire bastards will slip away.”
“Then I shall make preparations,” Volhv said mysteriously. “Take care then.”
Twilight watched as the woman left before she turned to Crown.
“I’m ready to go, by the way,” she said to the man, who was pondering something - a very dangerous thing coming from the animal specialist that once used tamed boomalopes as living bombs. “And you seem to have a route planned already.”
“Yeah,” he told her absentmindedly, staring at the place the woman stood. “Something like that.”
“Then let’s go,” King cut into the conversation. “I've been sitting in this stuffy tent for what felt like a year. I want to stretch my legs at least.”
It was a strange feeling.
Twilight stood atop a dune, the camp they had left behind and a beautiful mountain range in front of her, filling the whole horizon with its snow peaked glory. She had Dawn back at her side. Lydia - the pack animal having been rescued and taken care of by the Yttakin while there were their hosts.
Things were the same, and yet not.
“You alright there Twi?” King called towards her. The man was walking in the back, adjusting his flak vest. If Twilight didn't know, she could not even say he was just badly injured.
“Thinking,” she replied. “About stuff.”
“Ah, stuff,” King said. “That’s dangerous. Stuff.”
Twilight's ears flattened.
“It's just, I changed, right?” she asked almost desperately. “We all have and…and I guess I'm scared that I won’t like who I end up by the end of this.”
“Well, that's how journeys work,” King said thoughtfully. “We don't always know how and where they end. It’s on us to make them worth it.”
The pony gazed at the mountain range. Crown did not yet tell her of his ingenious plan to cross them in a fraction of time they were supposed to, but he didn't seem worried.
“Do you think we’re going to make it?”
“I don't know,” answered King truthfully. “But I’m going to try.”
And Twilight smiled.
“Hey back there!” yelled Crown from all the way in the front of the caravan. “We’re losing daylight slowpokes! Adventure awaits!”
And then Crown smirked.
“And our guide, too, I guess.”
From behind a dune, slowly crept out a man.
A nearly naked, spindly man with a head too large for his thin body, wearing only something akin to a skirt made from dried grass - mostly for the extra storage it offered than any silly thing like decency.
But what really brought Twilight's attention was the carved miniature pony hanging from his neck as a necklace.
“Twilight, meet Ratslayer.”
Crown shrugged.
“Also known as your stalker.”
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11457863
Hey, guess what?
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSS
11763304
Let’s go!!! Can’t wait for more. Also, it’s interesting that they meant a tribe that isn’t advanced and is more like old civilization. I wonder what other cultures they’ll meet