H A Z E

by Bandy

Chapter 41

Commander Fleet rapped his walking stick on the floor of the grand mausoleum. “You know what this means, right?”

Sparrowshot’s eyes didn’t move from the two caskets laid out in the center of the viewing hall. The left one was draped in a red shroud. The right was draped in purple. “Someone needs to take the reins,” he replied.

“Exactly.”

Sparrowshot gulped. He’d been dreading this moment ever since the rumor of their dual rulers’ deaths had been confirmed. Why was he of all ponies being tapped for leadership? Hadn’t there been enough scheming for one lifetime?

Still, he was no fool. A full quarter of the senate was dead. Hundreds of aides and who-knew how many skilled laborers were dead. The legions had been gutted. His unit alone had lost sixty percent of its ponypower in one day. One day.

He wondered what they’d call this day in the history books.

Fleet passed the walking stick from one hoof to the other. Sparrowshot was starting to get the impression it was some sort of nervous tick. “We all have our own private thoughts about what happened,” Fleet said. “But we have to move forward. It’s what they would have wanted. It’s also what Derecho needs.”

“I agree completely.”

“We’ve held off on sending word of yesterday’s developments to the vassal states. As far as they know, Giesu and Romulus are still firmly in control. For the foreseeable future, I think it should remain as such. Too many changes in leadership might give them the impression that no one’s in charge.”

“But no one is in charge.”

Fleet’s face darkened. “That’s what I was getting to.”

Sparrowshot shivered. Here it comes.

“Sparrowshot, you’ve stayed alive this long because you’re a smart pony. You know when to follow orders and when to go your own way. That sort of thinking is going to be crucial in the coming months.”

“My success stems from the training and dedication of my soldiers—”

“Enough of that. We have plenty of soldiers. What we need in this moment is a leader. Someone who can bridge the gap between what’s left of the old guard and whatever comes next.”

“And what do you think will come next, sir?”

“I don’t know. But there are certain ponies who are better suited to lead us into the unknown than others. Do you catch my drift?”

“Sir... I fear for Derecho. I fear for all of us.”

“Good. Keep that fear close. It’ll keep you safe. More blood will be spilled in the coming months. I need to know that you’re willing to do what it takes to lead Derecho into a new era.”

“Sir—”

“We need you, Sparrowshot. I need you.”

Sparrowshot steadied his nerve. It’s really come to this. Very well.

Both stallions looked at each other and said simultaneously, “If you support my claim—”

They froze.

For a long moment, only the smoke from the incense moved.

Then, slowly, in perfect synchronicity, they both reached for their swords.

---

After they finished beating him, Flannel was read formal charges of treason and dragged to the former senate chambers, now the dictatorial forum. Flannel’s trial would be the very first one to take place following the name change.

The masons and contractors were still working on converting the former senatorial forum into a suitable throne room. Until a more permanent pedestal could be constructed, they placed the throne on cloudstone cinder blocks.

Flannel strained to open his swollen eyelids and saw the remains of the horseshoe-shaped rows of senatorial benches being stripped and converted into rows of horizontal columns, tapering slightly as they stretched towards the empty spot where the throne would sit.

A thought slipped through his concussed mind. They taper like that to give the illusion of depth.

Then one of the guards kicked him again, and the thought vanished.

Flannel waited on his knees for nearly an hour before a cadre of generals finally strode in. Their red robes was gone, replaced by gold ones with brilliant pearl-white fringes. The bottom edges where the gold met the ground had an unsightly green gradient to them.

“It’s not dirt,” the ranking general muttered to his aide. “What is it? We live on clouds. How do things get dirty if there’s no dirt?”

“It’s oxidation,” Flannel croaked.

The sound of Flannel’s voice drew an exasperated look from the general. “Come again?”

“Oxidation, sir. The cloak must have been dyed with pigments that use—” He coughed up a mouthful of bloody phlegm and spat it onto the floor. “With pigments that use metal powder as an ingredient in the dye.”

“So what?”

“So, you said it yourself. We live on clouds. The moisture interacts with the dye and changes the color.”

The general raised an eyebrow. “Why are you here?”

“My name’s Flannel, sir. I did the cloudscaping for the late—” He paused to wheeze. “Late general Romulus’s complex. Senator Giesu, may he rest in peace, praised my work often.”

“He’s on trial for treason,” a guard announced. “Treason and attempted murder.”

“I tried to protect the senator!” Panic crept into Flannel’s voice. “I—”

“That’s enough.” The general and his cohort settled into their seats. An air of severity settled over his wrinkled features. “I am commander Fleet. This is a wartime court, so spare me the defense. I’m more interested in what you were doing in the late general’s complex on the day he died.”

“I—I’m a cloudscaper. I start work on the east side of the complex so I can watch the sunrise while I work. Then I—”

“Do you really expect me to believe that?” Commander Fleet whipped out a folder and waved it in Flannel’s face. “You’ve been off the payroll for quite some time. A general’s complex isn’t a public park. They don’t just let former employees in.”

Flannel averted his eyes. His manacled hooves trembled. “It was an off the books kinda thing, sir. General Romulus told me not to tell anyone, or he’d put my family in jail.”

“Convenient. Tell me something. You’re from the former griffon kingdoms, correct? A refugee. This would actually be the second change in leadership you’ve been caught up in, isn’t it?”

“Uh. Yes, sir.”

“That much unrest could change a pony. Turn even the mildest farmer into a revolutionary.”

Flannel shook his head. “I would never. What general Romulus did for me merits nothing short of absolute loyalty.”

“General Romulus is dead.” Commander Fleet leaned forward on his throne. “Or did you forget?”

Flannel flinched, unable to meet the commander’s inquisitorial eyes. “I—”

“What role did you play in the deaths of senator Giesu and general Romulus?”

“None, sir, I tried to protect them—”

“ Lying to a general’s face? Do you have no shame?”

“Please.” His voice cracked. “I didn’t do anything.”

Fleet shouted, “Do you even begin to understand the position you’re in? He was our best chance at holding the republic together. I’m going to have every one of general Romulus’s murderers tressed and suspended beneath the city in a steel cage. The birds will eat you before you can die of thirst.”

Icy dread froze Flannel to the spot. His head fell until he was looking directly into the blood he’d spat out a moment ago. He saw the red outline of his own silhouette. A shudder swept up his spine.

“I’ll say whatever you want,” Flannel whimpered. “Please don’t kill me.”

Commander Fleet leaned back in his throne and scratched his chin. “This is as clear-cut a case as it gets. I should have you thrown off the edge of the city. Do you know why you’re here, and not all the way down there?”

Flannel shuddered and shook his head.

“You’re here because of the mushrooms.”

For a long time, Flannel didn’t speak. He didn’t know what to say. He eventually whimpered, “The what?”

“Yes, the mushrooms. We found a few files the late general had so kindly left unguarded. Thank goodness he was never able to bring his plan to fruition. Can you imagine an army under the influence of those things trying to fight?” The other generals erupted into laughter.

“So... so you know about—”

“Yes, we’ve all been to Canary’s Cage. Horrible shame, what happened to Prairie Sky. He was a visionary. But he’s no longer important. We have you.”

Flannel leaned back, dumbfounded. He blinked back tears. “You’re not going to kill me?”

“Well, you’ve put yourself in a position where, legally speaking, I can’t not kill you. In these trying times, we need to set a precedent. But you can help yourself by agreeing to my terms.”

“Okay. I’ll say whatever you want.”

“Now you’re getting it. You’re going to plead guilty to this charge of treason and forfeit your life. I’m going to note in the ledger that you were executed. On paper, you’ll be dead. In reality, I’m going to bring you back to the estate, where you’ll begin the process of rebuilding the mushroom operation. Justice is served. You live to see another day. Everyone’s happy.”

He sucked in another breath. His last, probably. “I’m so sorry... It can’t be done.”

Fleet paused. Flannel could see the cogs turning behind his eyes. “What do you mean?”

He sucked in another breath. His last, probably. “I mean, it’s impossible.”

“Impossible? You had months to develop an effective operation. You grew mushrooms. It’s all in the files.”

“He did. I just did the heavy lifting. All the actual growing was him.”

Commander Fleet considered this for a moment. Then he leaned back in his chair and said, “No, that won’t do.”

One of the black-clad guards strolled over to Flannel, prodded his side until he found the lowest rib bone.

Flannel tried to curl up. “Please—”

The guard stomped on the rib. Flannel felt it crack. All the air left his lungs. He collapsed into the little puddle of his own blood and mucus. He felt it smear his face as he rolled on the floor.

“One more,” Fleet said, his voice cold.

Flannel didn’t have the air to beg for mercy as the guard approached a second time. He tried to crawl away, but the guard pinned him down with the butt end of his spear, then delivered another swift kick to the same spot. The next rib in the row broke.

“I don’t want to underplay how nice it would be to have my little slice of Canary’s Cage back,” commander Fleet said. “I want to help you. But if you want to remain in the new government's good graces, you’ll need to help me in return. You can do that by restarting your growing operation.”

Flannel tried to say yes, but the act of inhaling brought with it a new depth of pain. His eyes rolled up. He thought he was going to pass out. He clenched his jaw and nodded slowly as his vision filled with stars.

“Good. You can have free rein of the terrarium and whatever’s left in it. Make a list of whatever else you need and submit it to my aides. We’ll do the rest.”

“I...” Bit by bit, the air started returning to Flannel’s lungs. “I gotta... start from scratch. Could take months.”

“That’s fine.” Fleet’s wrinkled face softened into a smile. “We have all the time in the world.”

Fleet motioned to the guards. They looped their legs beneath Flannel’s armpits and hoisted him to his hooves.

As they dragged him out of the throne room, Flannel heard commander Fleet say, “I’m glad you made it out, Flannel. Really.”

---

A month passed. No matter how many resources and beatings Fleet and the cabal of generals poured onto Flannel, the unfortunate fact of the matter was plain to see. Flannel had no idea how to grow mother sky mushrooms.

His broken ribs mended, slowly. But soon a new issue arose in the form of food shortages.

After the parades had ended and the ash from the funeral pyres had drifted away, Derecho was left with a new government on the take and no real link to the ground. The remains of the mobile port, the traders and chariot fliers and manual laborers so crucial to supplying the cloud city with food, had seen the instability in the skies above and left for greener pastures.

Commander Fleet seemed unconcerned.

“It’s your... who, again?”

“My mother, emperor. She’s running out of food.”

“How do you know she’s actually running out of food?” One grey eyebrow rose. “Have you been in touch with her?”

“I haven’t spoken to her, sir. I can’t leave the complex. But I know where she lives, and I hear there’s been a rash of food shortages in certain neighborhoods—”

“Maybe she should find work, then. Please don’t bother me with these things.”

Flannel blurted, “If she can’t eat, then I won’t eat.” Flannel stood his ground, even as his internal voice screamed at him to bury his nose in the clouds and submit. “What good is your chief mushroom grower if he becomes mushroom food?”

Fleet put a hoof under his chin. His eyes moved, performing some kind of unseen calculation. Flannel couldn’t believe it. He had asked the emperor to do something, and he was listening. Perhaps he would leave a parcel of bread left on her doorstep. Or a wedge of cheese on the windowsill. Or—

“Maybe that’s what we’ve been missing from your equation,” Fleet said. “Decay.”

“Uh. Sir, I don’t—”

“At any rate, it’s worth a shot. I’ll supply you with a cadaver by the end of the week. Turn it into fertilizer and report back in a week with your findings.”

“We already got plenty of fertilizer, sir—”

Fleet’s voice rose. “Then why hasn’t anything grown?” He rose to leave. “And don’t bother me with your family affairs ever again.”

Flannel withered. A memory came back to him—Hypha’s face, lit by a fire of his own creation. Do you think they’ll accept that level of liability?

---

That evening, Flannel snuck into the terrarium. Even if he did know how to grow mother sky, the scars from the fire and the battle would have made growing anything in this room impossible. The hole where the sunroof had once been was sealed. The air was wet and cold. Oddly, no one from Fleet’s staff had bothered to replace the cloudstone floor. It must have been easier to simply leave it as natural clouds.

It was an oversight Flannel could exploit.

He spent all night rigging a goodbye present for whoever went looking for him, which he left in one of the supply cabinets. He penned a quick letter and affixed it to the cabinet handle. Finally, he ran a length of thin string from inside of the cabinet and looped the end through a hole in the paper.

With that out of the way, he set about his escape. He tied one end of a long rope around his midsection, then secured the other end to one of the heavy workbenches. The way the rope groaned terrified him, but he forced himself to focus.

“I’m comin’, ma,” he whispered. Then he leapt into the void.

---

Babska cracked open the door. “If you bust in, I’ll kill you.”

“Mom, it’s me.”

From the crack in the door came a hoof holding a blade. It slashed at Flannel once, then twice. “I’m old, but I’m quick. You better scram before someone gets hurt.”

“Hell’s bells—mom, it’s Flannel. Your son.”

There was a pause. Then the door flung open and Babska descended on him with a barrage of kisses and a hug that could pop lead balloons.

“I didn’t hear from you for so long,” she said, tears spilling down her cheeks. “They said your name was on the list of traitors that got—but I knew they were wrong. I knew—”

“Mom.” Flannel held his mother at arm’s length. “They were right. Technically speaking, I’m dead.”

“...Oh.” A confused look passed over Babska’s face. “Did I go crazy?”

He chuckled grimly. “No. But they’re gonna come looking for me soon. We have to leave the city.” Flannel hurried his mother into the house and pulled a beat-up pair of saddlebags from the closet. “Pack light. We’re gonna be walking a lot.”

She stared at him for a moment. “Excuse me?”

He went to work packing his own saddlebag. “It’s not safe for us anymore.”

“Not safe?” Her eyes narrowed. “You got into another fight at work, didn’t you.”

“Sort of.” He noticed she hadn’t started packing yet. “Mom, we don’t have much time. There’s not a lot of chariot taxis left. No one’ll take us if we have heavy bags.”

Babska put a hoof on his shoulder. It stopped him cold. “What’s going on, Flannel?”

All the nervous tension holding him up vanished. He sank to his haunches. “The new government’s asking me to do something impossible.”

“Impossible? You’re a cloudscaper. What kinda impossible task are they asking you to do?”

“It’s a lot more complicated than that. When they get sick of me failing, I think they’re gonna replace me.”

A worn look passed across Babska’s face. Every ancient worry she thought she had left behind in her past life came bubbling right back up to the surface. The candlelight flickered, and for a moment the lines on her face vanished, and she was twenty three years old again, a young widowed mother in a dangerous land.

She sat down on the bed and took his hoof in hers. “I never thought I’d have to do this twice.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “I just wanted to protect you.”

“You did.”

“No, no, I did it all wrong. Look at us. We’re right back where we started.”

“That’s not true. If you didn’t do what you did, I wouldn’t be here. You got me outta the griffon lands. You raised me.”

She sighed. “When you live so long, you start to believe you’ve seen everything. But then things just keep changing.” She sighed. “You could live a thousand years and never see the end of it.”

Flannel put his arms around her. He was a full head taller than her, but in that moment he felt five years old and tiny again.

“Sorry, mom.”

A thin, raspy laugh escaped her lips. “You’re a good boy.”

“Trouble just follows me around, don’t it.”

“Or maybe you follow it around.”

They sat in silence for another moment. Then Flannel patted her on the shoulder and stood up, an unspoken signal to resume packing.

As they finished up, he asked her, “What did you say to me the night we got out of the griffon lands?”

Babska thought for a moment before replying, “There wasn’t time to make up a story. I just threw you on my back and started running.”

The air grew warmer. The candles kept on burning through the night. It was morning by the time their flames touched the metal wax catch and went out. Flannel and Babska were long gone by then, wisps of smoke disappearing into thin air.

---

It took two weeks before anyone realized something was wrong. Commander Fleet requested an update from Flannel in the morning. By the time court opened an hour later, he’d forgotten all about it.

That evening, he thought about how nice it would be to wind down with a hooffull of mother sky, and remembered his request from that morning.

“Where is my update from Flannel?” he asked an aide.

The aide turned a paltry shade of white. “We—uh. We couldn’t find him.”

“That seems unlikely. He’s not allowed to leave the complex.”

“Yes, sir. He’s here. We just don’t know where, exactly.”

Fleet frowned. “When were you going to inform me of this?”

“Never, sir, because we were going to find him. There’s a squad of guards and an orderly patrolling the halls as we speak—”

Commander Fleet stood up suddenly and pushed the aide out of the way. He would look for Flannel himself. This was a personal project, anyway. A personal touch was required to keep things on track. When he finally found the stallion, he could instill a proper amount of fear to keep him on track going forward.

Flannel’s personal quarters were empty, though his belongings were still there. That was a good sign. Earth ponies would sooner die than part with their trinkets. Flannel wasn’t in the mess hall, or the baths, or the small administrative library. Every passing moment made the senator’s annoyance tick higher.

By the time he got to the ruins of the terrarium, Fleet had worked himself up into a lather. He strode across the shoddy growstones, kicking at a wayward clod of dirt and watching it scatter everywhere.

A white scrap of paper stood out from the blasted-black cabinets in the corner. Upon closer inspection, Fleet noticed it was written in unmistakably shaky earth pony mouthwriting.

The note read:

You’d do well to remember the griffon kings and all their hopeless wars. Their armies are strong and their warriors are brave. But when it comes to farming? They're hopeless. Griffons revolt because they’re proud. But that pride is also their downfall, because they see farm labor as beneath them. They could have held this belief forever without any consequences—unless of course, they did something crazy like run all the earth ponies out.

All those proud warriors are starving in their fancy suits of armor.

Consider this my resignation.

—Flannel

As Fleet read the note, his aging face started to turn red. His hoof curled around the note, crumpling it. When he arrived at the final line, he let out a loud curse and tore the note off the cabinet handle, unknowingly pulling the string attached to the paper. The string activated a timed fuse that burned down to a homemade detonator fashioned from the guts of a crystal UV lamp, a primer charge, and fifty five pounds of nitrogen fertilizer.

Comments

[hehelover]

This, folks, is how Derecho would fall: not because of coups and infightings, not because of ceaseless wars, not because of stupid pegasi superiority; it’s because its leaders and more importantly, bureaucrats were all incompetent idiots who needed two weeks to realize the key people to their key project had vanished without a trace.

[SirCarrot]

Haha, take that bozo